Love on the Rocks (Love on Tour #1) Read Free Page A

sides, above the furniture, were large, heavily tinted windows.
    Henry pointed out the bathroom in the back of the bus. It sat opposite what appeared to be a closet. Behind that, the very back of the bus was completely windowless and was shrouded in a privacy curtain.
    We sat down at the booth, and as we did, a man emerged from behind the curtain in the back. That’s when it became clear to me that there was a bed back there.
    The man looked very much like he’d just been sleeping. Younger and better dressed than the others, he was boyishly handsome with short, well-kept hair. His eyes were an amazing shade of bright blue. He was shorter than Henry and Sean, like most people, and his muscles, while present, were not nearly the behemoths they sported.
    “Mike, we have a guest,” Henry announced jovially.
    “Coffee first,” Mike groaned.
    “Get us some while you’re up,” Henry said.
    Mike groaned again in response and walked to the kitchenette. He prepared four cups of coffee and brought them, two at time, to the table along with a bottle of creamer and a handful of sugar packets. Then he dropped down into the seat beside Henry.
    The bus moved fluidly onto the highway. I realized that this choice I had made was suddenly real. I was hitching a ride in a tour bus with rock stars.
    I was still contemplating how the hell this had happened when Mike finally spoke to me. “Hi. I’m Mike,” He held his hand out to me over the table.
    “Dani,” I said, shaking it.
    “Nice to meet you, Dani.”
    Mike studied me. I was sure that he was trying to figure out exactly how a skinny, grubby-looking girl with not a stitch of make-up on made it onto bus one.
    “She’s a park ranger,” Henry announced, “headed to Phoenix with us.”
    “Good. It’ll be nice to have some company other than these two for a change.”
    “What about me?” Tony chimed in from his seat.
    “Yeah, you’re great company, Tony. First time you’ve spoken since we left L.A.,” Mike grumbled.
    “He likes the ladies,” Henry said, grinning. “What are we playing?” He produced a deck of cards from absolutely nowhere.
    They all looked at me.
    “I don’t know many card games,” I admitted. “Poker?”
    “Perfect.” Henry started to shuffle. “What should we play for, Dani? Clothes?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
    “No way. I am not playing strip poker with you, Henry.”
    “She calls you Henry?” Mike asked.
    “Apparently,” Henry shrugged.
    I couldn’t possibly explain that it had all started because I needed to create a fantasy in my head in order to make myself comfortable in the presence of rock stars. But since Henry didn’t seem to mind, I decided to just go with the flow.
    “We have chips,” Sean announced. He riffled through a cupboard that opened at the side of the bench he and I were sitting on and produced a round-about full of multi-colored poker chips.
    “Are you sure you don’t want to play for clothes?” Henry asked me again, leaning over the table.
    “Knock it off, Henry,” I said, pointing my finger at him. “You are not getting in my pants.”
    Mike laughed.
    “See, she’s great, right?” Henry leaned back in the booth and eyed me.
    We played a hand, which I won, then Henry tossed me the deck. “Your turn to deal, Baby.”
    “Baby?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
    “Sure. If you get to call me Henry, then I get to call you by a nickname.”
    “Baby?”
    “Yeah, you know like in that 80’s movie.”
    “It’s a good nickname for you,” Mike noted.
    I gaped at them.
    “I agree.” Sean said.
    “Damn right,” Henry said, as if the entire discussion was over and settled.
    I dealt the cards, feeling like I was about to be punked.
    We played for hours. I laughed my ass off, mostly at Henry, who was like a wind-up toy. It might have been the five cups of coffee he drank, or the six packets of sugar he put in each one, but he was a ball of energy, never missing a chance to make a joke.
    “Sean, what