Chapter Eight

~ Mike ~

I needed to get her the hell out of here, and I needed to get her out now. Dicknose photographers would be invading in twenty minutes. We needed to be on the road before they pulled up to the hotel.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out as I walked into my bedroom.

“Tell me you’re on the road,” Lee demanded before I could greet her.

“Give me ten and we will be.”

“This is a fucking nightmare.”

I nodded as I grabbed my crap and shoved it into my bag.

“How bad is it?”

“Lee,” I growled, “I’m not a PR manager, or even a fucking manager, but I’d say if we’re sneaking our girl out in the middle of the night to avoid the fucktard press, then it’s pretty fucking bad. Wouldn’t you?”

“Mikey”—her tone scolding—“I know how bad the business side of it is. I’m asking about Molly. How bad are her injuries?”

“She’ll be fine.” Tipping my head, I braced the phone between my ear and shoulder as I rounded the bed and stepped into the small bathroom, sweeping everything off the counter into my open arms. “Well,” I corrected, “she’s got some bad scratches and will have some bruises in a few hours. Hopefully most of it will be healed by the next concert.” I dropped my toiletries on top of my clothes and zipped my bag.

Lee swore under her breath. “You’ll text me when you get wherever you’re staying?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t bother to say goodbye, shoving my phone back into my jeans and shouldering my duffle.

When I stepped out of the room, I was surprised to see Mols waiting. “Wow, you were quick.”

She grinned. “What took you so long? I even had time to change.” She motioned to her outfit with one hand. “So not only are you grumpy and bossy, you’re slow, too.”

I ignored her, taking one last look around the room. “Grab that”—I pointed to her flimsy gold top that she’d worn for the concert—“and let’s blow this joint.”

I took her bag and led her out of the room, down the hall away from the elevators, and to the stairs. Seeing her confusion, I shrugged. “The trucks are parked out back, and this way leads right to ‘em.”

A few minutes later, we were buckled in, driving through the parking lot. When we made it to the main road without seeing another vehicle, I sighed, releasing some of the tension I’d been holding in.

Molly kicked off her flip-flops, tucking her feet under her as she settled in the passenger seat. “So, where are we headed?”

“New York.”

“New York City?”

“Upstate.”

“Really?” She slapped a hand against her thigh, making me turn to look at her. “You do realize that New York is a big state, right? Upstate can mean anywhere north of Orange County.”

“There’s an Orange County in New York?”

Molly snorted at me. “Uh, yeah.” She shook her head. “Like the show, Orange Country Choppers?”

“Weren’t they from California?”

She laughed. “No.” I couldn’t see her eyes, but I had no doubt she was rolling them at me. “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

“It’s in the GPS,” I said and shrugged. Sam had entered all the information for me while I took Mols upstairs to get her ready.

“Okay.” I could hear the frustration in her voice. “How about a venue?”

“Saratoga Performing Arts Center.” She inhaled sharply, as if it was something she hadn’t wanted to hear. “Have you performed there before?”

She shook her head quickly. “No.” There was a long pause, both of us lost in our own thoughts. “Do we have reservations somewhere?”

“No. The concert isn’t until Tuesday, so we just need to find somewhere to lay low for a few days.”

Silence filled the vehicle again. “We could go to my place.”

“Your place?” I scoffed. “Mols, I’m not driving down to Tennessee just to drive back up here again in a few days.”

“I meant my place in New York.” Her voice was low, almost as if she didn’t want me to hear her.

I turned my eyes from the road to stare at her. In all the time I’d known her, I’d never known she had a place other than the run-down townhouse just outside of Nashville. “You have a place in New York City?” Even I could hear the surprise in my question. Molly hated big cities and always seemed to get lost.

“No,” she snapped, obviously annoyed. “I have a place in Keene, a little over an hour north of Saratoga. We can crash there for a few days.”

I thought about our lack of other options. It would be better to get her completely away from the public eye. I wasn’t sure how Lee planned to twist the bar fight story, but if the paps managed to snag a picture of Molly without makeup, it would be hard to deny anything happened.

Maybe being back at her house, surrounded by her things, was exactly what she needed. I reached out, turning the TomTom screen toward her. “Will you change the route?”

Before she could alter the path of the GPS, she reached over and tapped me on the arm in quick pats. “Hey, hey, hey. Stop at the gas station.”

“Need a potty break already?”

“We need road trip food, you ass. We won’t get there until the morning. And I don’t trust you enough to sleep while you’re driving. Food will keep me awake.”

“Good point.”

Almost a half hour and three stupid arguments later, we were back on the highway, junk food filling the backseat, Molly safe beside me. I don’t think I’d ever been happier to leave a store in my life, and I’d spent hours shopping with Courtney and Lee.

Even though it was almost one in the morning, the store had plenty of patrons in it. Most of whom stopped and stared at Mols, not because they recognized her, but because her face was beat to hell. From the looks I’d gotten, most of them believed I’d hurt her.

The very thought was laughable. I’d been raised right; I’d never lay a hand on a woman in anger. My gram would kill me if I even thought about it. Death by Gram’s hand would be in the most unpleasant way possible. I had no doubt.

But that’s not what I found so humorous about their assumptions. I can’t imagine a man trying to strike the woman next to me in anger. Hell yeah she liked to push buttons, and she never did what she was told, and some white-trash-taint-clown would probably take offense to that. I’d like to have a front row seat the night he decided to raise a hand to her, though. Molly would fucking wreck him.

“What are you chuckling about?” she asked around a mouthful of Pringles.

“Nothing.” I turned on the radio, surfing through the channels until I found “The Hand That Feeds.” This was music I could drive to.

The song wasn’t over when Molly reached out and hit the seek button.

“Hey!”

“You’re actually listening to this?” She sounded appalled.

“It’s Nine Inch Nails,” I explained. That was reason enough to listen. “That’s one of my favorite songs.”

“Hmmm. I’m surprised you listen to this kind of music.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“That I just assumed noise like that was beneath you.”

“Noise?” I was appalled. “Did you just call NIN noise?”

“I did. Because it is. How can you even understand what they’re saying?”

I turned the radio off so she could focus on the extremely important words I was about to say. “Trent Reznor is one of the greatest, if not the greatest composers of our time.”

“I don’t know who that is,” she admitted.

“I…” I was speechless. How did someone in her profession not know who in the hell the musical genius was? I shook my head. “Lead singer, songwriter, instrumentalist.”

“Well, maybe he should focus on writing the music and not singing it.”

“What?” I shook my head again, sure she was fucking with me. A glance her way proved that she didn’t have a smirk on her face, and instead, looked annoyed. “Nine Inch Nails,” I repeated.