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

does this poker game remind me of?”
    Sean rolled his eyes.
    “It reminds me of that time I was getting a blow job from a hot blonde and you were outside with Tony changing a tire. Because I am getting all the goods tonight!” He raked in a stack of chips, laughing.
    Sean was, without a doubt, his straight man. He grumped and harrumphed. “Hank, you are a pain the ass.”
    Mike was the every man. He sat in the middle of this comedy duo like a fellow audience member. He would grin at me or give me funny looks whenever Henry said something off-the-wall that elicited a grumpy response from Sean.
    By six a.m. the games had fallen to the wayside. Mike was sending e-mails on his laptop, sitting on the couch across the aisle. Henry was on the phone in the back, which left Sean and I sitting side-by-side in the booth.
    Over the last three hours I’d either grown accustomed to him or he had simply become less scary. I leaned back in the seat and put my feet on the booth across from me, where Henry had been sitting.
    “So, Sean, where are you from?”
    Sean crossed his arms over his chest and regarded me. At first I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. His pause dragged out. I considered recovering by asking to get out and go the bathroom.
    But he finally spoke. “Kalamazoo, you ever hear of it?”
    “Isn’t there an old song about Kalamazoo?”
    “Yes.” He paused again, looking at me in a way that made me feel like I was being examined. “It’s a little college town in western Michigan. Not exactly a cultural Mecca, but not a bad place to grow up.”
    I had this thing where I liked to guess where people were in birth order. “Oldest child I bet, or only child.”
    He nodded. “Oldest, I have a younger sister and a baby brother.”
    “What do they do?”
    “My sister is an actress. She’s in an off-Broadway show right now. My brother’s in law school.”
    “And you were the one who hung out in your room and played with the guitar,” I guessed.
    He smiled. “The basement. I loved that basement.”
    “Cool parents?”
    “Very cool. They come to my shows when I’m nearby. Hank says I can’t be a real rock n’ roller because I had a posh childhood.”
    I laughed at that.
    “Hank’s the real thing though. He had the alcoholic mother, didn’t know who his dad was, grew up in the bad part of L.A., the whole bit. He sure doesn’t mind staying at my parents’ house and eating my mom’s apple pie, though.”
    I had so many questions, and I had a famous musician sitting right in front me willing to answer them.
    “How did you get into… this?” I asked.
    He chuckled at me. “What are you a reporter?”
    “No just a Psychology major turned park ranger.”
    “I was in a garage band in high school. We played basic hard rock covers, and a few poorly written originals. Then I went off to Julliard.”
    “Julliard?” I asked, with probably too much shock.
    “Yeah, I studied classical guitar. In my free time I played in a few back-up bands for your people.”
    “My people?”
    “Yeah, your classic rock, the old guys, from Motown hangers-on to the Haight Asbury veterans.”
    “Okay, now I’m impressed,” I admitted.
    He laughed. “That’s all it took?”
    I nodded and looked at him expectantly, hoping he would get the hint to continue.
    “I got introduced to a few record execs. One asked me to play for him and I played some of the hard rock hits from my teenage years. He liked it and set me up with a band. We started recording. The music got heavier and heavier and then it started selling.”
    “Do you miss classic rock?”
    He shrugged. “Not on stage. I like what I do on stage. I play the classics at home and sometimes at the studio. I have a whole album of covers I made, but never released.”
    “You gotta play me something,” I begged. That voice singing a Rolling Stones song was all I could think about.
    “Maybe. But you’ve just made me say more words consecutively than I usually do over the