Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2)(34)

I curled my lip at her. “I won’t be telling you, since you’re in a snarky mood.”

“I was kidding! Now tell me!”

“Let me go find him and make up first. It’s no fun to tell you about it while it’s still going on. Maybe after we make up.”

“Puh-lease! If you find that man, I won’t see you again tonight. You’ll be too busy ‘making up’ again.”

I could only hope she was right.

I didn’t find him for a long time, searching every room in the house. I paused outside of an ajar door as I heard familiar voices speaking on the other side. One of them was Dean, and just from his tone, I could tell he was up to no good. Dean stirring up trouble was something I would recognize from a mile away.

“I’m telling you,” he was saying emphatically, “Tristan didn’t used to be like this. There is just one thing that has turned him into a pain in our ass.”

“One person,” another deep male voice corrected. This voice I recognized as well, since I’d just been introduced to the man. It was the band’s record producer. He was a white man in his forties that wore his baseball cap sideways, overused words like swagger, and tried to freestyle rap. He called himself The Dutchman, and in my head, I’d already started thinking of him as The Doucheman.

I hadn’t been impressed with him, and where I saw this conversation leading just reaffirmed my opinion.

“Single Tristan wouldn’t be going back to Vegas every chance he got,” Dean continued. “Single Tristan wouldn’t be refusing to go on a debut tour with the band because he couldn’t leave his girl for that long of a stretch. There’d be no more fights, no more hissy fits. I’m telling you, we’d have a brand new lead singer on our hands, if that bitch was out of the picture.”

“Getting rid of girlfriends is not part of my job description.”

“It’s not that complicated. She’s a jealous mess. The right combination of circumstances and one visit from our girl Nat would do it.”

I was glued to the wall, openly eavesdropping.

“Nat? That blonde with the big fake titties? The chick I banged last week?”

“Yeah. That one. She’ll help, I guarantee it, and there’s no one that could make Danika more jealous than Nat.”

“Oh yeah? Why? That Nat chick is busted.”

“Hell yeah. You know Tristan used to be engaged to Nat, right?”

“Why the hell would he get engaged to Nat? That chick’s a whore.”

I felt myself nodding agreement, even though I was by myself.

“She didn’t used to be like that. It’s a long story. The Nat you got and the Nat Tristan got are in two different leagues, but that’s beside the point. What I’m saying is, no one can make Danika more jealous than Nat, since Nat used to have Tristan’s ring on her finger. And Nat is cooperative. She’d do anything to break those two up. All we have to do is set it up. Get Danika to catch those two naked together, however we make that happen, and no more Danika. Just that easy, we’d have our lead singer back, full-time.”

“That’s fine, man. Set it up. You guys need to go on tour, so do what you need to do to get Tristan on board.”

I moved quietly away, more disgusted than worried. I’d known Dean was a dirtball, but this was too low, even for him.

My first instinct was to tell Tristan about what I’d heard the second I saw him, but the longer I looked with no luck, and thought about Dean’s plan, the more I was inclined to keep it to myself.

Their entire sordid scheme was based on my reaction, and now, with me expecting it, and hearing first hand just what lengths they were willing to go to, I knew they’d be that easy to predict. I had it all settled in my mind before I found Tristan. I’d watch, and wait, and expect a setup. There was no way in hell I’d give them what they wanted. Now if I thought of Nat with Tristan, my gut didn’t twist up with anxious jealousy. Now I was just disgusted. And prepared.

I continued to search through the house, and the backyard, even combing some of the beach that attached to the property from one long wooden walkway.

Finally, I tracked Tristan down back in our room. He was laying on the bed, still fully clothed, one arm thrown across his eyes, the room dark.

I sighed and shut the door behind me. “Where’d you go?” I asked. I’d checked in here twice during my search.

“I took a walk on the beach. More of a run, actually.”

“You still mad?”

He didn’t answer, which was answer enough, if his toneless voice hadn’t been enough of a clue.

I switched on the lamp by the bed, then sat at his hip, my hand going to his stomach. “Do you want to talk?”

“No. Talking is exactly what I don’t want to do.”

“Then what can I do? You’re obviously upset, and I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“I know. I think that’s almost worse.” He stood up, and began to pace. “Here’s what I want; I want you to quit treating this, us, like less than it is. Quit analyzing us to death, and for the love of God, stop thinking that our sex life is not enough for me. I have a lot of f**king problems, and to say that isn’t one of them is the understatement of a lifetime.”

I kept my eyes on him as I reached for a pillow, tossing it on the ground, directly in his path. It made him stop, glancing down at the pillow, then at me, his annoyed expression working itself into a puzzled one.