“Can’t. Trying not to be sick,” she murmured.

“Ah, come on. We’ll be in the bathroom, so if you do upchuck, you’ll be right there…and remember that one time when you were drunk and you thought you were gonna throw up, but we fucked and you felt so much better afterwards. I might just be the cure you need, babe.”

Her eyes flashed open; they were a fiery shade of deep green that seemed to glow with heat, and not the good kind. Before she could pierce me with the laser beams she was charging, I held my hands up. “How about I go, and you stay here and sleep.”

The heat dissipated and her eyes fluttered closed. “M’kay.” Whew. That was close.

I ended up pacing the bus for an hour. By the look on Kiera’s face, she wasn’t thrilled about my constant movement. Needing something to do, I grabbed Ryder from her and told her I’d keep him occupied so she could have some alone time with Kellan. She seemed uncertain about letting me babysit until Kellan convinced her that I wouldn’t break their baby. As if. I rocked with kids.

While his parents presumably got freaky, I bounced the little bundle of energy up and down the aisle, all the while telling him stories that Gibson often requested from me—stories of knights and dragons, and princesses who kicked ass. Ryder yawned, and his bright blue eyes eventually drooped closed; he was asleep five seconds later. See, Kiera, nothing to worry about. Mini-Bag loves me.

When we got to the venue, Kellan disappeared to go chat with the other guys about tonight, I assumed. I wanted to go with him, to plead my case and maybe throw around some ideas, but Gibson was being all needy and clingy, probably because I’d spent so much time with Ryder and she hated me paying attention to another kid. She was in for quite a shock when her baby brother or sister was born. But it was clear she needed me, so I stayed on the bus with her and Anna.

“So, what do you think you’ll do tonight?” Anna asked me. She looked a lot better now that the bus had stopped moving.

“I don’t know…what do you think I should do?” I’d been running over ideas in my head, but all I could come up with was penis puppetry, and I had a feeling the guys wouldn’t be cool with that.

Anna shrugged. “Show off your talent.” Thinking about what I’d been debating doing onstage made me snort. With an amused smile, Anna amended with “Your nonsexual talent.”

Nodding, I thought about what my talents were. Besides being devilishly handsome and a stallion in the bedroom, I was, in my humble opinion, a master rapper. In fact, I knew every lyric to every Vanilla Ice song. And not just his megahits, the B-side stuff too. Nobody could do Mr. Ice better than me. “That’s it. That’s what I’ll do!”

Anna blinked. “What’s it?”

Kissing her forehead, I handed Gibson to her. “I gotta find the guys before the show starts. I’m gonna need background music.”

“For what? What’s your plan?” she asked again.

“You’ll see,” I said, crooking a smile.

Anna rose to her feet. Gibson reached for me, but I couldn’t take her again. There was too much to do! “Wait,” Anna said, placing her hand on my arm. “Let’s take a moment and talk about your idea. You know, make sure you’ve got something really great so the guys will be blown away. While I was napping, I was thinking of some things that might—”

Grinning ear to ear, I cut her off with a kiss to her cheek. “I’m sure your ideas are cool, but what I’ve got planned will blow their skulls into a thousand freakin’ pieces!” Anna said my name again, but I was too excited to stop and explain it all to her now. I’d tell her when it was a done deal.

There were people everywhere when I hopped off the bus—security, people who worked for the venue, and members of the other bands. I didn’t see any D-Bags though. Fans behind a chain-link fence cheered when they spotted me. A few of them screamed, “I love you, Kellan!” I almost stopped and told them I wasn’t Kellan, but I didn’t have time. The show was starting in a couple hours.

Justin was the first person I spotted when I stepped inside the building. He was talking to the lead singer of Holeshot, Deacon. They were talking about Kate, from what I could tell. They were midconversation, but I smoothly interjected with “Hey, you seen Kellan?”

Justin turned my way, his lips in a frown. He had a tattoo across his collarbone that I thought was cool, but the script was so elaborate, I could never read it. Knowing Justin, it was something lyrical and poetic. If it were me, it would say something like Sit Here, with arrows pointing up. Oh man…I should totally do that.

“Nah, I haven’t see him, but the meet and greet is starting soon, so he’s probably talking to the radio people.”

That made sense. The local radio stations always had contests that allowed people backstage access, where they were free to talk to us and take pictures. It used to be all formal and shit when Sienna Sexton was running the show, but now people just kind of meandered backstage like they were checking out some weird zoo for rock stars. And over there on your left is the mythical one-eyed beast of Cockistan. Legend has it, the creature only comes out when properly aroused. Let’s see if we can awaken it, shall we?

“Oh, okay.” I patted Justin on the shoulder and started to leave, but he stopped me with a question.

“Hey, you’re friends with Kate, right?”

I shrugged. “Kind of. Why?”

Like a red stage light was being directed toward him, Justin’s face started shifting colors. “Uh, well, we’ve been together awhile now, and I was thinking of stepping things up. Maybe asking her to move in with me.”

Raising an eyebrow, I told him, “You want to ask her to move to L.A.? Don’t bother, she won’t. Her life is in Seattle, dude.” Giving him a sympathetic smile, I told him the hard news that as a friend I had no choice but to deliver. “You’re better off dumping her and scoring someone who lives in your town.” I snapped my fingers as an idea came to me. “Brooklyn Pierce, that chick with big knockers from that futuristic space show. She’s gotta live somewhere around there and she’s fucking hot. Dump Kate and date her. Problem solved.”

Justin looked dumbfounded as I smacked his arm and walked away. It might take him a minute, but eventually he’d see that I was right. Him and Kate weren’t meant to be, but him and Brooklyn…damn, she was smokin’. I couldn’t wait to double date with them. Lucky bastard.

When I found Kellan, he was waist-deep in contest winners. They were all around him, and Kellan was smiling as he shook hands, signed autographs, and answered questions. The fans were squealing, giggling, and in some cases, crying. Girls. Such a strange species.

Knowing they wouldn’t mind me manhandling them, I started elbowing my way through the crowd. Surprisingly though, they gave me dirty looks, like they didn’t know who I was or why I was intruding on their place in line. Weird. I’d expected to get groped along the way. Oh well.

“Let me through, I need to talk to Kellan,” I said, pushing past a trio of girls.

“Wait your turn, dude,” one of them replied. She was wearing a KELLAN KYLE IS MY ROCK GOD T-shirt, so I figured she was blind to the rest of us “rock gods.”

Narrowing my eyes, I told her, “I’m in the band, and I need to speak to Kellan…my bandmate.” Just saying it irritated me. Kellan fan or not, this chick should know me on sight.

She scoffed, like she thought I was blowing smoke out my ass. I was about to set her straight, about several things, when someone in front of her said, “No, no, he is in the band. Drummer, right?” she asked. The pigtails in her hair made her look four. Maybe that was why she didn’t know my instrument. She was still learning what all the different pieces were.

“Bass,” I muttered, shoving my way around them.

Kellan finally noticed the commotion and swung his head my way. It took some jostling, but I finally worked my way through the obsessed K. K. crew to get to him. He didn’t seem happy to see me. “Oh, hey, Griff. Here for the meet and greet? I thought I saw a couple girls wearing Griffin shirts heading down the hall. I bet you can catch up to them if you hurry.”