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  “And now, I can’t even find gainful employment either. That was my third phone interview this week. I can’t seem to get past that stage because of the stupid lawsuit that won’t go away unless I keep quiet about it. Then I’m back to square one.”

  Damn it. The issues she was having now were literally my fault. Okay, not the lack of babies or family, but the inability to find work. “I have an offer for you.” I pulled out the contract Deacon, our tour manager, had sent over to have Mel sign. When I handed them to her, she glanced up at me, puzzled, before tipping her head back down and reading.

  “What is this?”

  “Step one leading to better news?” I posed it as a question and then grinned at her. “We’re going on tour soon to support the new album. We would like you to tag along as our on-hand Nurse Practitioner. I’m sure that Chevy will be along for a good bit of the tour, and you could help him along with his physical therapy, besides taking care of anything that pops up on the road for the crew, bands, and whoever else is along.”

  Mel eyed me wearily. “Chevy won’t need much help,” she told me as she waved the contract back and forth.

  “Okay, but he could spike a fever, get a splinter, or other shit. Plus, as I said, you wouldn’t just be there for him. You’d be there for anyone who happens to be on tour with us. Besides, we need a person we can trust not to go running to the damn tabloids about what they see on tour.”

  “Are you serious?” She asked, voice wavering a bit. “This is a legitimate job offer and not just a pity ploy?”

  It was my turn to grin at her. “I could never pity you, Mel. You’re brilliant, beautiful, and an amazing, caring nurse. Anyone who wouldn’t want to snap you up for your skills is an idiot. We could seriously use someone with your skills and integrity. It’s the perfect combo for our world. Besides,” I tipped my head toward the contract, “that was created and printed out long before you told me about your pitiful day,” I explained with a wink.

  “Is it possible to add some stipulations from my point of view?”

  “Sure,” I agreed.

  “No drugs. I won’t help anyone gain access to illegal or abused prescription drugs.”

  “Is that it?” I asked, but her shoulders came up stiff as she shook her head.

  “I remain off-limits in a personal capacity to everyone. Band members, crew, whoever. They’re all friends at most and nothing more. I won’t be anyone’s convenient sex toy for the tour, and I won’t deal well with being harassed to put out either.”

  “I can promise you that if anyone is ever inappropriate, they will be dealt with immediately and tossed off the tour if need be.” I made the promise knowing damn well it was going to help keep all the interested bastards, like my own bandmate, Alex, away from her. As for me, I still didn’t know what I wanted when it came to Melanie. I just knew I couldn’t let her go yet.

  “Are you sure about this?” She asked one more time.

  “Never been surer of anything. You’re an asset and it never fails, at least once per tour, we wished we had someone along for the ride who had more medical training and experience than the rent-a-medics they have on standby for each concert.”

  Mel nodded. “Do you have a pen?”

  “Be right back with one. You can read over everything in the meantime.” For reasons I wasn’t ready to examine, relief flooded through my veins. She would be coming with us. That meant I still had time with her to figure out what I wanted. To find out if she was even interested in an old rock star with a shit reputation and an 18-year-old son I only recently found out about. She wanted children of her own. Were we too old for that? I was 37 and she admitted the other day that she’d be 35 soon. There would still need to be courtship time. Hell, I’d probably be knocking on 40’s door before a kid would be possible.

  I had to shake the thoughts out of my head. What the fuck was I even doing thinking of having kids with the woman? She was signing a contract for work, not a marriage. I grabbed a pen from the kitchen and ran into Chevy on my way back through to Mel. “What’s going on?”

  “Mel agreed to sign on for our up-coming tour.”

  Chevy grinned. “Well, that’s fortunate. Now, don’t screw it up,” he told me and moved to go around to head into the kitchen as I was leaving it.

  “No limp,” I commented.

  “That’s thanks to the extra work Mel puts in with me. My PT says I’m months ahead of where I should be.” I nodded and added new thoughts to my checklist. She already knew my son so well, worked with him, made him better. Could it be as easy as just asking her out and making it happen now? The clause she’d asked for with the contract loomed in the back of mind. Would that include me too?

  “Found a pen,” I called out when I entered the room Mel was in. She had just flipped to the last page of the contract. I sat beside her. “Any questions or changes needed?”

  “Is this pretty standard?” She asked, staring into my eyes as if they’d let her know if I was being honest or not.

  How did I tell her that having a Nurse Practitioner along for the ride wasn’t standard at all? “I’m fairly certain that it is for your level of expertise. If you want to have a lawyer check it over first, that’s okay. There’s time.”

  “At least I already have a passport,” she told me as she shook her head. Then I remembered that she had just explained her previous lawyer quit due to lack of funds. Now, she was talking about a passport.

  Shit. I hadn’t even thought about that for the overseas events. “Do you travel much?” I asked, wondering where she had been, and maybe even where we could go together.

  “Nope. I’ve never been outside of the country. I was supposed to go on a cruise with my friend Amber last year, but we ended up having to cancel when my days off were revoked because of the flu running rampant through the nursing staff.”

  “You’ve never even been to Canada?” I asked, shocked that she was in her thirties and hadn’t seen any of the world yet.

  “No. I have student loans that I will probably be paying off until I die, so I don’t normally have a travel budget. I was able to save more before my divorce, when there was another income helping to pay for the over-priced, 1-bedroom apartment we shared. I couldn’t exactly advertise for a roommate with just one bedroom though.”

  “Jesus, Mel. Why did you stay in New York?”

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t go home to my family or my town. That would have been humiliating. I don’t really know anyone else anywhere in the country.”

  “Well, you do now.”

  Mel smiled at me as she leaned over the document in front of her and started signing wherever she was required. “I’ve never been backstage at a concert before, this should be quite the experience.”

  I laughed at that admission. “You are definitely in for an education and maybe a bit of culture shock. Tour life can be as wild and chaotic as it can be monotonous. Most times, we don’t get a lot of time to explore each town we go to. Usually, we ask to see the venue list and request extra days in interesting places if we have the time to spare between event dates.”

  “It must be weird to say you’ve been places where you only saw the inside of a concert venue,” she surmised. Her cheeks had a little bit of pink to them as we spoke. There was a hint of a citrusy scent coming from her too. I’d noticed it before, but sitting so close as I was, felt more intimate for some reason, especially with the intoxicating scent of her making my mouth water.

  “You can feel free to ask any question you have. I’ll try to answer as best I can.”

  “Am I going to be stuck on a tour bus while a bunch of rock stars have a full-on orgy with groupies?”

  I laughed at her and winked. “Not gonna lie, if you’d joined us years ago, you may have been dead accurate. Everyone has calmed down a bit since though. Alex had a couple of almost accidents, Tim had a mess situation that cost him his woman, and Wen has his own craziness that is ongoing. In the aftermath of all that, no one really wanted to take chance
s anymore. We started to adopt the same rules The Infinite Everything has for their tour busses. Busses are a sort of sacred space. Anything goes at the venues, or your own hotel room, but the busses stay mostly off limits except for the people who live on board.

  “Is there a separate bus for medical staff or…”

  “I’m not sure what will happen. We’re touring with Dusty Rose. Deacon may ask if you can join them on their tour bus since the band is all female and there are only four of them.”

  “Oh, okay. As long as they won’t resent me being in their space.”

  “I think it will work out really well for everyone actually. If you ever have any issues, you can always join the guys and me on our bus. You’ll be safe.

  “I’m positive that shouldn’t happen,” she told me, though it wasn’t said in a panicky way. Mel smiled at me, as her cheeks reddened further, and I wondered exactly what she thought we might be getting up to on the tour bus with her. “I’ll keep it in mind as a last resort option though. Thank you, for thinking of me, and setting all of this up.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Mel. It’s my pleasure and don’t worry about your legal fees either. I wish you had said something sooner. That lawsuit was our fault. I will take care of all your expenses where that’s concerned. No arguments. You have enough to worry about already.” She nodded her head, either in agreement or acknowledgment that it was my fault, I wasn’t sure. Either way, I’d take it, so long as she allowed me to help take some of her burden away.

  10 – Rock and a Hard Place

  My first day as a nurse on a concert tour was something else. The only thing I could liken it to was my stint working in a busy emergency room in New York. Everything was organized chaos. The crew flitted from bus to bus and trailers or vehicles, making sure each piece of equipment was exactly where it was supposed to be.

  Deacon actually had his assistant, Everly Dawson, show me around and introduce me to some of the members of Dusty Rose. One woman in the band walked immediately when we joined them. “Don’t worry,” Everly told me. “That’s not about you. She dislikes me because she wanted my boyfriend and didn’t get her way.”

  “Okay then,” I mumbled as introductions were made. I also curiously wondered who Everly’s boyfriend was and how old because there was a definite age gap between the two women. It didn’t seem as though they should be fighting over the same man. Then again, to each their own.

  “I’m Calista, but everyone calls me Cal,” a petite, blond haired beauty sang out to me. I knew exactly who she was. The lead singer of Dusty Rose was an icon among women in rock. Fortunately, she seemed extremely friendly and approachable, rather than having an ego to fit her fame. Sky is the one that wandered off already,” she went on to tell me. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing against you, but you should know she can be very prickly. This is Roni and Macy.”

  “It’s very nice to meet all of you. I’m Melanie. Everyone calls me Mel, and I am a Nurse Practitioner, so if you have any issues come see me and I’ll get you squared away.”

  “You’re Gabe’s chick?” Roni asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ve just been working as a nurse for his son while he was recuperating.” The women of the band glanced between one another, but didn’t say anything about my clarification.

  “This must be exciting for you,” Cal finally said. “Is this the first time you worked for a concert event?”

  “It is. I’m looking forward to it. Everything seems so out of control, but also like each person knows exactly what’s happening at all times. It reminds me of working in the emergency room, actually.”

  Cal and Roni both laughed. “I imagine it does. Honestly, it’s been a long time since I paid attention to all the hoopla. It’s easy to forget what it all looks like to a newcomer. Just wait until you see the crew put the stage together for the first time.”

  “I honestly can’t wait to see all of it.”

  “I was told my favorite person is around here somewhere,” a familiar voice called out. I turned to see Chevy who had been escorted to me by Alex Lakeland.

  “Chevy!” We met somewhere in the middle and hugged. “I didn’t realize you were coming right away.”

  “Yeah, well, there was a slight change in my schedule.” His voice remained cheery, but it rang false in combination with the tension that pulled his eyes tight.

  “I’m sorry to hear about the change, but at least now I’ll have someone to show me the ropes.”

  “Hey Alex, Where are your bandmates?” Cal asked, her voice chipper and expectant.

  Alex responded with a knowing smirk. “Wen was running late as usual. The rest are over by our bus getting the run-down from Deacon.”

  “How did you manage to get out of that?” Roni asked, looking for all the world like she was about to take notes. It also appeared as if she had more of an interest in the slightly older rocker than might be healthy on a tour like this.

  “I was the first to see Chevy here, so I slipped off to bring him to Mel before anyone noticed,” Alex sounded rather proud of himself before turning to me and offering a quick wink, like we had a shared secret. We didn’t. Chevy noticed the wink too, and wasn’t too happy about it. His whole demeanor changed and I decided to help break the tension by ignoring Alex.

  “So, are you hanging out on your dad’s bus with him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s where he’ll have me stay for now. I’m just tagging along for a few weeks. Then, I have to go back for an appointment.”

  “Well, I guess we better make the most of the next few weeks then.” Chevy leaned in to hug me again. It was only then that I realized everyone was staring at us. “What?”

  “You seem close,” Cal stated, though there was no judgement in her tone as she did.

  “That’s because we are. I love me some Nurse Mel. She’s the best kind of people,” Chevy told her while smiling down at me.

  “Right back at ya, Chev.”

  “So, can I stay on this bus with you?” He teased as he wagged his brows up and down. “Seems like a far better option that the sausage fest mobile over there,” he joked as he hitched his thumb toward where Valhalla Rising’s bus was parked.

  We all laughed at that. “Welcome anytime, little Northman,” Roni called out, making Chevy beam with pride.

  It wasn’t until just before we boarded the busses that I saw Gabe. He hadn’t seen me yet, and I just watched and waited, trying to get a feel of who Gabe, the rock star, was rather than the man and new father I’d come to know. A woman, I wasn’t sure if she was part of the crew or an eager fan who slipped through the barriers, ran and launched herself at him. He caught her and smiled, while also quickly returning her gently to her feet. It was then that I stopped watching. Eventually, I would run into the guys and their groupies backstage. It was better to prepare myself for that eventuality, but not yet. I had grown fond of both Gabe and Chevy. Too fond. Too close. Too possessive. In all honesty, I should have never taken this job. I knew that distance was what I needed so that moving on could happen, but that didn’t stop the ache of seeing someone jump into Gabe’s arms right now. I don’t know when they became my people. My family, almost, but they had, and it hurt to share them with people who were strangers to me.

  “That was nothing,” Calista whispered into my ear. I turned to see her beautiful glacier blue eyes taking me in with a certain amount of concern.

  I smiled while explaining quickly, “Not my business.”

  “Sure,” she snarked back then slapped my ass with a loud pop as she ushered me onto the band’s tour bus, where I was promptly made to feel unwelcome.

  “Why do we get Gabe’s nurse reject? Why isn’t she riding with their band?” Sky asked. “Is it because the makeup girl is back again, and he’d rather be banging her?”

  “Sky!” Roni and Calista huffed out at the same time. “Behave,” Roni followed up. “You know what kind of talk there would be if she rode with them. He’s trying to keep Mel’s reputati
on intact.”

  Sky laughed. “Yeah, okay, sure. It has nothing to do with the makeup chick who is always so eager to see him.” Sky had already been on the bus when I saw the two of them together, so she must not have been totally wrong about that. Still, she was being a brat on purpose, and once again, I noted that she wasn’t all that young, and should have been beyond silly little dramas like this. Sky hadn’t even realized I was most of the way on the bus yet, until she turned and saw me standing there with Cal. When I expected to see some form of apology in her eyes, there was none. The woman just smirked at me. She had obviously been a very beautiful brunette, but her attitude made her seem less attractive immediately.

  “Whoever hurt you must have sucked pretty bad,” I told her as Calista moved us past the cramped space to show me the rest of the bus.

  “I’m going to ride with the crew for the first leg,” Sky spat out as she stormed off the bus.

  “Don’t mind her. You actually hit the nail on the head. When we first started, her boyfriend was our manager. She had dreams of them becoming a rock-n-roll power couple. By the time we signed our first contract, I knew that would never happen. During our first tour, he slept with more groupies than I could count. He would fuck them while she was on stage. One day, she got a guy from one of the other bands to fill in for her mid-set and she went to see if the road crew’s gossip was true. It was. Sky was devastated. It changed her so much.”

  “That is horrible.” While it explained a lot of her attitude, I knew the woman had been in the business for around a decade, so I didn’t think it should still be a driving force in her attitude.