Bedding the Wrong Brother(30)

And now he'd have the opportunity, but only because she'd gotten it into her head that she needed tutoring. Ridiculous, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not this time.

She cleared her throat. “So, where are we going?” she asked, as if he hadn't already refused to answer her the four other times she'd asked.

He turned to look at her with a carefree grin. “That wouldn't exactly keep the mystery going now, would it?”

She pouted so adorably that he barely stopped himself from grabbing her chin and pulling her over for a kiss. It didn't take a genius to figure out that his Ladybug instinctively resisted anything that she couldn't control. He obviously needed to steer her mind to safer ground.

“How're your parents, by the way?”

The question wiped the pout off her mouth, and she sat back. “They're good. They're in China now, checking out the Great Wall.”

“We were there a couple of years ago. It was an amazing trip. They've been traveling for the last couple of years, right? And things are still good between them?”

“Sure, why wouldn't they be?”

He thought of all the fights his parents had gotten into while on the road, just another thing he'd had to learn to adjust to. “It's a miracle that my parents' marriage survived their touring. Sometimes I think they brought us along with them as a buffer just to keep their marriage intact.”

She shifted slightly in her seat, turning closer toward him instead of continuing to hug the door. “But your parents seem so compatible. I don't think I've ever seen them fight.”

He couldn't help his smirk. “Yes, but you only saw them at home. They're completely different on the road. You ever see that show The Amazing Race?”

“Sure. I love it actually. You're not saying…”

“All those pairs trying to navigate around foreign countries under intense pressure—that doesn't exactly bring out the best in them, right? Well, let's just say my mom shows a whole different side of herself when she's tired or hungry. And my dad seems to lose his ability to read her when he's distracted and on the road.”

“Was that hard for you? That they fought a lot?”

It had been, at one time. Until he'd realized it was just part of his parents' process. They fought on the road, and probably made up just as fiercely. Once he'd realized their love was solid enough to withstand the fighting, he'd stopped stressing about it. He, on the other hand, wasn't willing to put up with that kind of strife in his personal relationships.

“Rhys?”

Melina reached out and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Affection washed over him. Melina was such a doll, with a generous heart and fierce loyalty. She would make some lucky guy a wonderful wife, some child a wonderful mother. For a moment, disappointment that he wouldn't be that husband, and that it wouldn't be their child, spiked through him. He squeezed her hand back and shot her a quick smile. “Sorry. I spaced there for a second. What did you ask?”

“How are they doing now?”

“They're learning to enjoy one another again, but they're still on the road with us about half the time. Dad's our manager, you know, and Mom's mentored each of our female stage assistants. They'll always be part of the act in that way.”

“Is that a drag for you and Max, when they're with you?”

He frowned when she pulled her hand away. When he glanced at her, she was looking out the window and blushing. His eyebrows shot up. Just what was his little Ladybug referring to? “Not at all. Why?”

“I can't imagine it's conducive to—” She waved her hand in a yada-yada circle. “You have a lot of women interested in you on the road. I'm not na?ve enough to think that you don't take advantage of it.”

Internally, he winced. The last thing he wanted to discuss with Melina was his sex life, but because she was brave enough to ask, he forced himself to be honest. “It's hard not to. There are a lot of willing women. But it got old for me pretty quickly. Believe it or not, I'm often relieved when my parents are on tour with us. Gives me a great excuse to bow out of the nightlife and just hang with them.”

“It's nice,” she said wistfully, turning to face him again. “The relationship that you have with them.”

“What about your parents?” He hesitated, then asked the question he never thought he would. “Would you ever want to join them on the road?”