Take Me with You (Take Me #2)(63)

I laughed. “Sounds about f*cking right.”

Aaron wasn’t hearing a f*cking word we were saying.

What did I have to do to get it through his head?

It had f*cking surprised everyone that I wasn’t banging every girl who threw herself at me. Hell, it still surprised me.

But I loved Ari. In the end, she was worth more to me than some cheap * ever would be.

“Look, Ari, either he believes me or not. I’m not going to stand here and try to get him to f*cking listen.”

“I know. I know,” she mumbled. “Give me a minute.”

She grabbed Aaron’s arm and yanked him away from me. She sounded as if she was bitching him out. From being on the receiving end of that, I knew it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

I ran a hand back through my messy hair in frustration. This was not how I’d wanted to start my Boston trip. I’d thought it would be more of Ari and I being alone in my hotel, f*cking all night until she couldn’t walk in the morning—not dealing with her f*cking moronic brother who didn’t know shit about our relationship.

I heard the stage crew calling for The Drift to get ready to go onstage, and I stepped out of the way. Trevor and I fist-bumped as he passed with Donovan, Nic, and Joey in tow.

Ridley ambled out a second later. He clapped me on the back. “Hey, man. Everything all right with your girl? Tried to save you from Donovan’s stupidity.”

“Thanks for that. Meeting her brother for the first time, and he thinks I’m f*cking every chick on this tour.” I shrugged.

Ridley laughed. “Dude, let me talk to him. I’ll be the first to tell him you’re a one-woman show. I was f*cking shocked that you didn’t even touch that chick in Atlanta. Tall, blonde, and throwing money at you?”

“Bad taste. That chick had crazy written all over her.”

“She also wanted to be f*cked pretty desperately.”

“Someone else took care of her,” I said.

“Ridley!” Trevor shouted from the front. “Get the f*ck over here, man. We’re about to go on.”

“Good luck with her brother!” he said as he jogged backward toward the stage. “I want to meet your girl though. Heard too much about her.”

“Yeah, all right. Maybe after she’s better rested.”

Ridley cracked up. “You’re going to run her into the ground.”

“That’s the idea.”

Aribel returned a few minutes later, looking defeated and frustrated. I wanted to kiss the worry off of her face. In fact, I wanted to kiss every inch of her body. Taste, lick, and touch a road map of her lush figure. Mostly, I wanted to f*ck her senseless, and seeing her standing before me—even in jeans, a blue-and-white striped shirt, and my leather jacket—was making me ache for her.

Who was I f*cking kidding? I’d been aching for her every day since I’d left.

She threw her hands up. “He’s an idiot.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. We argued. He thinks I’m young and naive. I know he’s trying to protect me, but I don’t need to be protected from you. I’m old enough to make my own choices.”

“So, what? Did he just split?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She sounded totally dejected.

I wasn’t used to that from Ari. She was usually so confident about all her choices. Then, she pushed her shoulders back, and a look of defiance crossed her face. There was my girl.

“We’ll see him tomorrow at dinner with my family. He’d better be on good behavior.”

“He’ll come around,” I said. Though I wasn’t sure. Her family seemed to be a tough egg to crack. And I didn’t have experience dealing with family—period.

She looked doubtful. “I hope so.”

I reached for her hand and pulled her to me. “There is a positive to his absence though, Princess.”

Her blue eyes found mine, and she gave me a coy smile. “What would that be?”

“I get my girl all to myself.”

Hours later, after we were spent, exhausted, and had thoroughly made up for lost time, we slipped back into our clothes and joined the guys at a local bar. Ari flashed her fake ID to the bouncer who barely looked at it, and then we pushed through the crowd to get to the back corner. The two bands sat in a circle, drinking heavily. There were at least two or three girls for every guy.

Ari stiffened next to me, and I followed her gaze. McAvoy had his arm around a brunette groupie. I thought her name was Amanda or Mandy or something like that. She’d followed us to the last couple of shows and had attached herself to McAvoy, who seemed to like having a constant to f*ck on tour.

Ari averted her eyes. I could tell she wished she hadn’t seen that. From what I’d gathered, the girls were pretty beat up about us being gone, and Gabi was the worst of them all. Ari didn’t want to have to report back that McAvoy had replaced her already.

Miller saved me from saying something stupid by standing and giving Ari a hug.

“Good to see you, Aribel.”

She looked relieved and sat down next to him. “Hey.”

I crashed down into the seat next to Ari and introduced her to the rest of The Drift. I knew she had seen them before, but no introductions had been made.

Ridley vigorously shook her hand. “Good to finally meet you. McDermott won’t shut the f*ck up about you.”