Loving Dallas(26)

“Thanks.” Taking a deep breath while we smile for the photo, I rack my brain trying to remember playing San Antonio last year. Nothing memorable comes to mind, but judging from the knowing look in her eyes and how forward she’s being with my body right now, she might have carnal knowledge of me.

Damn. This is not good.

I make a mental note to ask Mandy what I should do in these situations. I haven’t exactly been a saint and the last thing I want to do at this point in my career is get a reputation as a player or an *.

She bats her eyelashes at me. “Will I see you after the show tonight? Some of us are going to a bar called Kelly’s. You should come.”

Her eyes meet mine on the last word and I’m pretty sure I don’t imagine the innuendo.

“Um, I don’t know.”

After an awkward pause, she says, “I’ll text you.” Then she gives me a lingering look full of dirty promises and moves aside so the next person in line can get their picture made.

My phone buzzes a few times in my pocket and I check it once the line has subsided.

Someone with the number 555-213-9857 has sent me several messages. One of them is a picture of me and Chandra, the overzealous fan, at a bar. My arms are around her and she’s kissing me on the cheek. I’m holding up a beer and from the looks of it, I’m blitzed.

There’s no telling what happened after that picture was taken.

Well . . . f*ck.

My set went well, amazing actually, and Wade pulled me back out onstage to sing with him at the end of his, which was new.

“We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna have to get to know each other,” he says to me after we finish the encore. “Come grab a drink with me.”

“All right.”

“Relax, man,” he says, thumping me hard on the back. “We’ll have a few beers. Talk a little. Think of it as an icebreaker.”

I’m too amped up to go pass out on the bus anyway. But I wasn’t prepared for male bonding, either. I like to let my music do the talking for me. If Jase Wade wants to stay up and paint each other’s nails, he’s on tour with the wrong guy.

“I could go for a beer,” I say, because what the hell. One beer won’t hurt. And I’m not an idiot. Jase Wade didn’t get voted last year’s Entertainer of the Year for nothing. There’s probably a lot I could learn from him.

Arick, the drummer in Wade’s band, high-fives us as he passes. “Hey, man, great show,” he says to me. “Y’all heading to Kelly’s?”

“Yeah,” Wade answers him.

Aw, hell.

“You know, I just remembered I have to—”

“Shave your legs? Call your mama? Come on, Walker. It’s a few beers at a bar. We promise not to slip you anything.” Jase Wade eyes me warily.

I’m coming off like a prick. I hardly talk to anyone and I’m being a * about grabbing a beer.

I swallow hard and nod. “Right. See y’all there.”

“Don’t be crazy,” Wade tells me. “Ride with us.”

I follow him onto his bus and take a seat on one of the black leather couches. Wade grabs two beers from his built-in fridge, uses the counter to pop the tops off both of them, and hands one to me.

“Thanks,” I say, taking a nice long drink. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until the crisp fizzy liquid hit my tongue.

“So, tell me about yourself, Walker.”

I set my beer down as the bus rumbles to life. “What do you want to know, Wade?”

He grins and tips his own beer back. “Oh, I don’t know. Where you from?”

“Amarillo. You?”

“Lake Park, Georgia. It’s tiny. You haven’t heard of it. How long you been playing guitar?”

“Since I was twelve or so.”

“Sorry, I haven’t been keeping up with your birthdays. How old are you?”

He’s f*cking with me. But I’m not that easy to rattle. “Twenty-four. You?”

“Thirty-two.”

I thought he was younger than that for some reason. I tell him so.

“I’m young at heart,” he says with a grin. “You like football?”

“College football mostly. But I catch a Cowboys game now and then.”

He nods like he’s really interested in my answers. “I’m a Bulldogs fan myself. You hunt? Fish?”

“My grandpa took me a few times when I was a kid. I didn’t have a hell of a lot of patience for it.”

He laughs. “Yeah, me, either. Mostly I drink beer and shoot at trees when we go. Not that I have much time for that these days.”

“I bet.”

We take an almost simultaneous drink to fill the silence that follows. Fuck this is awkward. This is why I don’t socialize with people.

“Well, hell. I’m out of questions.” Wade shrugs then his eyes light up. “Nope. Just thought of another one.”

“By all means,” I say drily.

“You got a girl back home?”

Robyn’s face flickers in my mind. Mandy’s words about Wade requesting her on this tour accompany the image my head. “Nah. I got a sister and that’s the only woman I answer to.”

“She hot?”

“She’s a lesbian.”