Tell Me

Chapter Eight

Melanie was done. Done running interference. Done preventing catastrophe. Done picking up the pieces. Done.

She grabbed Nikki by the arm and without a word dragged her toward the exit. They were out of the dressing room and halfway down the hall before she stopped and turned to confront her friend. Friend? More like soul-sucking leech.

“You are going to the hotel right now,” Melanie said, providing no opportunity for argument. “I am going to the concert by myself and I am going to Gabe’s house in Austin tonight without you. Do you understand? You are not going to weasel your way into accompanying us.”

Nikki opened her mouth to protest, and Melanie lifted a finger of warning at her.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” she said, “but sometimes I have to think about myself. There is no reason for you to be here. You saw Shade. He doesn’t want to see you. You knew he wouldn’t, but you came anyway. And right now, I don’t want to see you either.”

Nikki released a pained gasp and Melanie had to force herself not to look away. She didn’t like to hurt people and she’d just shredded Nikki’s heart. Melanie could see the devastation in every tense line of Nikki’s face.

“If you’d rather go straight home, you do that. Figure out how to solve this problem you created, Nikki. I’m not giving up my shot at happiness because you need someone to take care of you. You need to take care of you. Got it?”

Nikki’s eyes pooled with tears and Melanie softened her tone—partly because she couldn’t stand the look of anguish on Nikki’s face and partially because her throat had tightened with emotion to the point of strangulation.

“I can be your friend,” Melanie said. “I want to be your friend. But I can’t be your knight in shining armor. I have my own ass to rescue.”

Tears began to flow freely down Nikki’s cheeks and yeah, Melanie’s vision blurred as her own tears threatened to overflow. She wasn’t good at doling out tough love. It wasn’t her thing. Tough love was so much harder than enabling, but she had to do this for Nikki’s good as well as for her own sanity. Nikki wouldn’t see it as beneficial. She’d see it as Melanie being mean to her. And yelling at Nikki made Melanie feel mean. She felt like a horrible person for hurting someone who had been hurt so many times already—broken, used, and abused by those she should have been able to trust—but Melanie couldn’t back down on this. Not even if it elevated her to megabitch status.

Heart thudding and eyes stinging with the threat of tears, Melanie pivoted and started back toward the dressing room. Don’t look back. Don’t let her see you’re about to crumble. Melanie hadn’t taken three steps when a body careened into her and a pair of arms tightened around her waist.

“You can’t leave me, Mel,” Nikki sobbed against the back of Melanie’s shoulder. “You just can’t. I have no one in this world but you. I have no one. No one.”

This was not another case of Nikki’s fabricated drama. Nikki actually believed it, because it happened to be true. Melanie closed her eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling, but a fat droplet crept out from beneath each eyelid and streaked down her face.

“I’m not leaving you, Nikki. I’m leaving this situation you created.” And the guilt was already robbing her of breath. She knew Nikki didn’t have anyone. Melanie wanted her to be surrounded by caring people. She wanted Nikki to find more friends and a boyfriend who cared about her. She wished Nikki had a family that wasn’t completely dysfunctional and abusive. But if Nikki’s neediness was trying on their strong friendship, it was devastating to new ones. Nikki tried too hard to make people love her and went about it all wrong. She slept around because for the few hours she was with a man, beneath a man, she could pretend that he loved her. But no one could really love her until she loved herself. And Melanie knew how Nikki struggled to see her true self-worth after everything she’d been through.

God, I’m such a selfish cow. How could she have yelled at Nikki when she knew how much her disapproval would hurt her?

She was also a spineless coward, it seemed, because she was totally going to cave again. She could feel her resolve crumbling already. Melanie turned in Nikki’s arms and held her while she cried. Tough love was one thing. Leaving your best friend sobbing in a corridor in an unfamiliar city was another.

“Pull yourself together,” Melanie said gently. “It’s going to be all right. You want me to be happy, don’t you?”

Nikki nodded.

“Then give me this weekend with Gabe. Can you do that?”

Nikki hesitated and then nodded slowly, her tears still falling. At least she wasn’t sobbing and wailing any longer.

“Do you want to go back to the hotel or do you want to fly home to Wichita tonight?” Melanie realized she was treating Nikki like a toddler again, giving her two solid options and not an open-ended what do you want to do?

“I’ll stay at the hotel.”

“Are you sure?”

Nikki nodded again. “And can we do something together when you get back on Sunday, Mel?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Just the two of us?”

“After Gabe leaves.” She wasn’t going to make promises she was unwilling to keep.

Nikki sniffed. “I’ll stay here.” She took a deep, gasping breath. “Alone.”

“I’ll get you as far as the hotel and then you’re on your own for the weekend. You can handle that, right?”

Enabler, enabler, enabler, a nasty little voice seemed to whisper in her ear.

“I think so,” Nikki said, sniffing again.

“I know you can.”

Melanie pulled away slightly and waited while Nikki wiped her wet face on the hem of her T-shirt. Several curious men watched them, obviously wanting to comfort poor beautiful Nikki. Poor fragile, broken sex kitten Nikki. But the comfort those men had in mind was the last thing Nikki needed.

“Let’s go call you a cab,” she said. “Or maybe Gabe will let you ride in the limo.”

“Do I have to ride up front with Parker the penguin?”

Melanie laughed. “No, hon.” She cupped Nikki’s streaked cheek in one palm. “You ride in the back and drink champagne.”

“But I don’t like champagne.”

Melanie smiled and kissed the tip of Nikki’s nose. “Drink it anyway. Wait here,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to Gabe about the limo. Okay?”

Nikki nodded and the instant that Melanie stepped away, two guys tripped over each other trying to get to Nikki’s side, as if the first to touch her could claim her as a prize.

Melanie found Gabe slumped forward in a chair, his elbows resting on his knees and a bottle of beer between his palms. He was staring at the spot between his impressively large feet with a scowl on his handsome face. The high forehead, square jaw, and long straight nose would have looked good on anyone. His lower lip was slightly larger than the upper and just begged to nibbled on. Every visible inch of the man was long, lean, and hard. Masculine. Lord, he was gorgeous. And he was even better looking when he smiled; his perfect grin lit up his mesmerizing grass-green eyes from the inside. Melanie intended to put that smile back on his tasty lips as soon as possible and keep it there. She hated the glum expression he was currently sporting, especially since she knew she was responsible for it. It didn’t suit him. Or her.

She squeezed onto his chair, resting on one hip until he scooted over to give her more room. He gaped at her as if stunned to see her. He didn’t really think she was going to give up her weekend with him to coddle Nikki, did he?

“I need your help,” she said.

“With?”

“Nikki.”

“I don’t know any hit men, but Adam might. He runs in some rough circles.”

“Not to kill her,” Melanie said. “To get her to the hotel. Can she ride in the limo?”

“The rest of the band should be coming here from the hotel now,” he said. “She can ride back after the show.”

Melanie crinkled her nose and shook her head. That was not what she had in mind at all. “She’s leaving now.”

“And you are…”

“Staying here with you. But that’s why I need your help. I can already feel myself slipping up with my intentions to stay strong, just to make her happy. I need you to do my dirty work for me and make sure she gets to the hotel because if I see her looking all depressed and crying, I’m going to cave in to her wishes again and she’s going to end up sleeping between us and hogging the covers all weekend.”

His brow furrowed with confusion. “You want me to ride with her?”

“No, baby,” she said. “I want you to play your rock star card and get someone to do it for you.”

“Oh.” He grinned, and she melted beneath the warmth of his smile. “Now that, I can do.”

“Well, hurry up about it. My lips are lonely.”

He gave her a sample of the company his lips could provide hers, climbed from the beige club chair, and handed her his beer. “I’ll be right back.”

She shifted into a more comfortable spot in the chair and took a swig off his beer. “Maybe there are still some knights in shining armor left in the world,” she said, and tipped the neck of the bottle toward him in a silent toast to his heroics.

While waiting for Gabe to return—she owed him big time for handling Nikki for her—Melanie scanned the room, feeling as out of place as she had the first time she’d been backstage with the band. She couldn’t help but notice people were staring at her with curiosity. Was it because she had just bossed Gabe around or because her attire was unlike anything else in the room? She really liked Gabe, but this scene was a rude reminder that they came from entirely different worlds. She didn’t fit in his reality and he didn’t fit in hers. So why did she feel that they fit together so well? Maybe she should try a little harder to blend in with his crowd. She lifted the beer bottle to her lips and took another swig. It was going to take a lot more than half a beer to help her with that.

As Shade gave his big-boobed companion a parting hug, his gaze landed on Melanie over the woman’s shoulder. He was wearing the sunglasses that had obviously been welded to his face at birth, but Melanie could feel his eyes on her, his gaze was that intense. It took an actual effort to turn her head and not stare at him. She couldn’t stand the guy. Or, more specifically, she couldn’t stand the way he treated women, Nikki in particular. But she also couldn’t deny that there was something mesmerizing about him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him crossing the room in her direction. The man didn’t walk, he prowled. And that pissed her off for some reason. Melanie’s body stiffened involuntarily and she reminded herself to be civil to him if he approached her. If she wanted to be with Gabe—and she very much wanted to be with Gabe—she was going to have to learn to tolerate this man. She didn’t have to like him though.

Shade perched himself on the arm of her chair, and she glanced up, as if surprised to see him.

“I get the feeling that you don’t like me much,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said, turning toward the door in hopes of spotting a tall, lean drummer with a red and black mohawk headed in her direction.

No such luck.

“Okay, then I get the feeling that you don’t like me at all,” he said.

She stared up at him thinking he was incredibly perceptive, and he did something that completely threw her off guard. He removed his sunglasses and hung them from the neckband of his T-shirt. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Not a pale blue but a startling cerulean, with dark rims around the irises that made the color appear even more astonishingly bright. Why in the world would anyone hide those gorgeous eyes behind sunglasses?

“I get why you’re defensive of your friend,” he said, “but I spent a lot of time in her company last weekend and I learned quite a bit about her. She’s a manipulator.”

Nikki wasn’t a manipulator. Melanie opened her mouth to defend her, but then snapped it closed. Okay, she was, but Shade had no right to talk bad about her. He had slept with her—um, had sex with her—several times and hadn’t even bothered to call her the next day. Assholes had no right to judge anyone. Especially not people Melanie cared about.

Shade lifted a hand to stop her from interrupting, and she could see the concern in his pretty blue eyes. What exactly did he have to be concerned about?

“It probably pisses you off to hear it from me.”

“Yeah,” she spat.

“But you know it’s true.”

“She’s just misunderstood.”

He grinned crookedly. “How did she manipulate you into believing that?”

Melanie glared at him. She didn’t care if he had beautiful expressive eyes or that she almost thought of him as a human being when he didn’t wear the sunglasses that hid them—she was not going to sit there and let him bad-mouth Nikki when Nikki wasn’t present to defend herself.

“I’ve known Nikki for a long time,” Melanie said. “I obviously know her better than you do.”

“I don’t deny that. That’s probably why you don’t see what she’s doing to you.”

“I know exactly what she’s doing to me,” Melanie admitted, but she sure didn’t want Shade to know that she was a slave to Nikki’s crazy whims. Unfortunately there was no way around it, because he’d find out as soon as Gabe returned. “That’s why I asked Gabe to kick her the fuck out of the stadium, because I knew she’d manipulate me into letting her stay.”

Shade’s eyes widened, and then he burst into raucous laughter.

“What are you laughing about?”

“You surprise the hell out of me, little woman,” he said.

She hadn’t thought that the man could possibly raise her ire any higher, but apparently she’d underestimated his talent for pissing her off. “Little woman?”

“Big woman?”

“Big woman!”

“I’ll just shut up now. I came to offer a truce, and it seems I set off a couple of loose cannons instead. Maybe one day we’ll get off on the right foot.”

“I doubt it.” She polished off the last swallow of Gabe’s beer.

“If you weren’t dating the man I respect more than any other, I’d kiss the sass right out of you.”

“And it would earn you a fat lip.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure it would be worth it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you really respected Gabe, you wouldn’t speak to me with such disrespect.”

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. Usually when a beautiful woman talks to me the way you do, it’s to get my attention so I’ll fuck her senseless. But I think you genuinely hate my guts. I’m not sure how to handle you.”

He was not helping his cause here. “You don’t need to handle me. You don’t even need to talk to me. What you need to do is apologize to Nikki, but I doubt you have the class.”

A commotion at the entrance announced the arrival of the rest of the band and a few women Melanie didn’t recognize. She did spot a familiar mohawk above the crowd that was headed in her direction, however. When Gabe appeared at Shade’s shoulder, the exasperating vocalist looked glad to see him.

“Does she bust your balls like this?” Shade asked.

“She’s more likely to lick them than bust them, but I’m not as stupid as you are.”

Melanie saw the flash of hurt cross Shade’s face before he snatched his sunglasses from his neckband and crammed them back onto his face. “Yeah, well, we can’t all be fucking geniuses.” He was gone before Gabe could catch his arm.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Gabe called after him.

Shade lifted his hand over his head and directed a pronounced middle finger in his direction.

Gabe sighed and took his beer bottle from Melanie’s hand, pressing it to his lips and tipping his head back and back until he realized it was empty. He shook the bottle at her, a brow arched in question.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was thirsty.” She rose from the chair. “I’ll get you another.”

“Are you tired of me playing my rock star card already?” he asked. “Jordan!”

He extended his arm, holding the empty bottle out and waited and waited and waited some more. Melanie drew her lips further and further into her mouth with each passing moment to prevent herself from laughing. Eventually Gabe turned toward the bar and sighed at the young man talking to a very pretty and very pregnant woman.

“Jordan!” Gabe called again.

The young man started and cringed when he looked in Gabe’s direction. He was soon on his way across the room with a fresh Corona and an apology.

“Sorry about that. Did you want anything?” he asked Melanie as he took Gabe’s empty and handed him a replacement.

“I’ll just drink Gabe’s,” she said.

“Not if I finish it before you get the chance,” Gabe said. He caught Jordan by the shirt when he started to hurry off again. “Bit of advice, Jordan.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t encourage the gold-digger.” He nodded slightly toward the pregnant woman who now had the band’s bassist by the arm. Owen looked like he was prepared to lop off the appendage just to escape her.

“She’s sweet,” Jordan assured him. “And pretty.”

“And pregnant.”

Jordan shrugged. “So?”

“And looking for someone to take care of her.”

“Not really. She’s just down on her luck. Sorta like me. I don’t have any gold for her to dig. So no worries, right?”

Gabe grunted and when the pregnant girl’s gaze landed on him, he released Jordan’s shirt and immediately grabbed Melanie out of her chair. He gave her an enthusiastic hug, his beer bottle pressing against her lower back. She could feel the cold wetness through her shirt.

The pregnant woman scowled at Gabe, but offered Jordan a bright smile as he returned to his station.

“Not that I mind you hugging me,” Melanie said, “but I have to think you have ulterior motives here. Who’s the pregnant woman?”

“Lindsey.”

“Oh, so that’s Owen’s girlfriend?”

“No. Owen’s gold-digger.”

“She doesn’t look like a gold-digger,” Melanie said.

Lindsey was wearing cheap clothing and no make-up. She did look a bit desperate as she clung to Owen’s arm. Jordan chatted with her exuberantly while he mixed her some beverage—presumably non-alcoholic in nature. His attempts to regain her attention were mostly unsuccessful as Lindsey tried to keep Owen from darting away.

“She showed up a couple of days ago and decided to stay,” Gabe said. “Even though no one wants her here.”

“Well, I think Jordan likes her,” Melanie said. “Is it his baby, then?”

Gabe shook his head. “He’s the only guy in the room who couldn’t be the father.”

Melanie puzzled over that statement for a full minute. “The only guy in the room?”

Gabe scanned the room, taking in the four members of his band and even stopping on a guy in a cowboy hat who Melanie thought was the bus driver she’d met briefly in Tulsa. Gabe nodded. “Yep.”

But Gabe was in the room. Surely he meant to exclude himself?

“Yourself included?” she asked.

He took a long swallow off his beer. “I should introduce you to Madison and uh, what’s her name? Kellen’s date, uh… Dawn.”

Melanie took note of the two very, very different women, puzzled by why Gabe had ignored her question. She hoped it was because she had nothing to worry about, not because he was avoiding a difficult subject.

The woman with Kellen was tall and elegant, with long and beautiful red hair. An authoritative air of greatness surrounded her as if she were a modern-day equivalent of a powerful queen. She looked more like an Elizabeth or a Victoria or a Cleopatra than a Dawn. Kellen was a couple of inches taller than her and as dark as Dawn was fair. But they fit somehow.

The other woman wore cowboy boots with her jean skirt and was, in a word, adorable. The kind of cute the made Melanie want to hug her for no apparent reason. Madison’s long, wavy hair was drawn away from her face in a ponytail, and her gaze darted around the room nervously until she settled on Adam. Then her light-colored eyes went dreamy. It was blatantly obvious that she was head over heels for the band’s lead guitarist.

Madison looked wholesome and completely out of place at Adam Taylor’s side. Their looks should have clashed, but the contrast between them actually worked. Adam’s spiky, jet black hair, all-black attire, tattoos, and copious chains declared him to be one-hundred-percent-genuine bad-boy-rock-star, while Madison looked like a sweet country girl, far out of her element. One had to wonder how the two of them had ever crossed paths.

Melanie supposed she and Gabe looked a bit mismatched as well. Gabe sported a foot-high red and black mohawk and had dragons tattooed on his frickin’ scalp. She’d always stayed far from men with tattoos, and Gabe wasn’t the kind of guy she’d normally hang out with in her insular little world. What a huge mistake it had been to limit herself to a certain type of acquaintance. Gabe had shown her how wrong she’d been to judge a person’s character according to their looks or lifestyle. He was human, just as she was. It wasn’t easy to let go of her old ways, but she was already leading a richer life now that she’d opened herself up to the big wide world outside her tidy little cubicle. She wished she’d have pulled her head of her ass years ago, but she’d been raised to fear a person’s differences rather than celebrate them. Thanks for all the unnecessary anxiety, Mom and Dad.

“Okay,” she said. “I’d love to meet them, but sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me what you meant about Lindsey.”

“I vote for later,” he said. “Or never. Never is good.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Melanie asked in a low hiss as he directed her across the room to where Madison and Adam were sitting together in contented silence.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“How can you not remember something like that?”

“I was drunk.” He then immediately leaned close and said, “So Adam and Madison have been seeing each other for a couple of years, but their relationship just recently turned into something serious. He kind of keeps her to himself, like he’s afraid she’ll wander off, so it will be good for her to have someone to talk to. She always looks a little lost to me.”

Madison did look a little lost. And obviously infatuated with the man who appeared equally smitten with her. They weren’t talking, but a current linked them, a bond that went deeper than what was visible on the surface. Melanie got the feeling that they’d been through a lot together. Not that she would pry. As for Gabe’s potential drunken sex with Lindsey? She would pry the hell out of that once she got him alone.

“Hey,” Adam said when they were close enough to gain his attention. “You’re the chick from breakfast,” he said to Melanie.

Melanie chuckled. “So good of you to remember.”

“You know her?” Madison asked, and there was no question that this news unsettled her.

“She’s with Gabe,” Adam said, flicking a hand in Gabe’s direction.

Madison nodded slightly and shifted closer to Adam, so that their arms touched. Insecurity was shining off the woman like a beacon. “What’s her name?” she asked.

“Hell if I remember,” Adam said. “I just remember sitting next to her at breakfast.”

“Adam was too busy thinking about you to even ask my name,” Melanie said. She had no idea if what she said was true, but felt the explanation was something the woman needed to hear. Melanie wasn’t insecure about Gabe’s affections, but she was definitely the jealous sort, so she understood how hard it was to trust one of these rock star sorts with your heart. Especially when they tried to play down the existence of an unclaimed, unborn child. She slanted a look at Gabe. He didn’t really think she was going to let that rest, did he?

“I’m Melanie,” she said, introducing herself rather than giving Gabe the third degree in front of the couple.

“Madison,” the other woman said and smiled warmly.

“So you’ve known these guys a lot longer than I have. Any deep dark secrets I should know about?” Melanie asked. Such as who that Lindsey woman was.

Madison chuckled. “I might have a few stories to tell.”

“Whoa!” Gabe said, covering Melanie’s ears with both hands. “Great to see you again, Madison. Be sure to keep Adam out of trouble.”

Melanie caught Gabe’s wink at Madison before he turned Melanie in the opposite direction and escorted her toward Dawn. Maybe the svelte redhead knew some secrets about the guys she could share.

It turned out that Dawn knew even less about the band than Melanie did. It was hard to believe that she’d been with Kellen a mere day. They shared a comfort level unusual for two people who’d had such a short acquaintance. Dawn might not have any juicy gossip to share about the guys, but she was fascinating. Melanie was honored to meet the Grammy-award-winning classical composer. She was a bit intimidated, to be honest, but it was cute the way that Kellen bragged about her and then Dawn tried to play down her talents.

“Will you stop?” Dawn said to him, though she was smiling broadly and stood plastered to his side.

“And you should hear the song she composed last night,” Kellen added.

“Maybe I’ll write another tonight,” she said. A look passed between the couple that nearly set Melanie’s eyebrows ablaze. Apparently Gabe wasn’t the only member of the band who knew his way around the female anatomy.

Gabe cleared his throat. “Would you two like to be alone?”

Kellen started. “Gabe!” he said, smiling widely, and pounded Gabe on the back as if he hadn’t seen him in years. “When did you get here?”

“I was here before you arrived.”

“Didn’t notice,” he said.

“With Dawn beside you, I doubt you’d notice if the room was on fire,” Gabe teased.

“She does demand attention.”

Dawn went pink.

“So you somehow talked Melanie into joining us for the evening,” Kellen said, leveling his deep, dark eyes on Melanie. When this man centered his attention on her, she definitely noticed. Her knees wobbled unsteadily. She wasn’t sure how Dawn was still standing after being subjected to Kellen’s attention all day.

“He didn’t have to twist my arm too hard,” Melanie said with a laugh.

“I was surprised your friend left in the limo without you,” Kellen said. “What was her name?”

“Nikki.”

“She didn’t seem too happy for someone getting a free ride in a limo.”

Melanie’s heart thudded unpleasantly. “Was she crying?”

When three pairs of eyes lowered to gaze at the floor, she wished she hadn’t asked.

“She’ll get it over it,” she said. She hoped sooner rather than later.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Mel,” Gabe said. “She didn’t start crying until I told her, rather bluntly, that I would not pressure you into having a threesome with her.”

Melanie blinked in disbelief. “She didn’t?”

Gabe and Kellen both nodded. So apparently Nikki had been causing a big enough scene that bystanders had caught on to her ploy.

“I honestly don’t know what to do about her,” Melanie said. She rubbed at her forehead, hoping that would ease the tension gathered there.

“Why do you think she’s your responsibility anyway?” Gabe asked.

“Because she doesn’t have anyone else.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

Melanie’s jaw dropped. Had that really just come out of Gabe’s mouth?