Which brought up a new predicament within myself. Before Dallas, before this tour, I was almost high on the thought of taking the stage and rocking out to tens of thousands of fans singing along with me and the band. They would chant our name, my name, and by the end of the night I was raging for more. Now? I had to fight with myself to leave Dallas. The thought of going on stage brought more dread than anticipation, because I knew that it would mean giving up more time that I could have been spending with my girl.

Thankfully, Dallas always came to the show, and stood backstage with Harris, Marissa, and Natalie. After the shows we would go back to our room instead of a nightclub like I normally would have done. But I would rather have her alone in our room than sharing her in a crowd of strangers. To me, our time was precious and I wasn’t going to waste it on any-fucking-body.

Those nights seemed rare, because we normally only stayed at each stop for a day or two. I missed her when she wasn’t beside me. Her insistence to stay on the other bus, even when Liam was on mine, felt like she was putting up walls—walls that I tried my damnedest to break down in our alone time and mostly I succeeded, but by the next day they were up again. It was slowly driving me insane, and making the leather bracelet I never took off itch with the secret I hid underneath. I wanted to show Dallas what was under the leather just as badly as I wanted to confess how in love I was with her. But I couldn’t seem to find the right words. Which was really fucked up because I was king of finding the perfect thing to say to get what I wanted.

“That’s the second remote you’ve destroyed in the last two weeks,” Wroth grumbled as he sniped some kid from Washington who had been running his mouth for the last twenty minutes about how good he was. It pissed the boy off every time Wroth sniped him or I used a rocket launcher on him. It was amusing to hear the fifteen-year-old screaming obscenities in our headsets each time he was killed off. “That’s why we had to play with the Xbox One and not the PS4. If you tear up the Wii controller I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Liam chuckled from his position on the couch across from my recliner. He was lying with his leg propped up on the arm of the couch, his head on a pillow as he played along with the rest of us. On the floor, Linc was playing on the other team with Devlin and Natalie. This was our normal afternoon ride. Everyone normally slept until noon and then when the buses stopped to fuel up, Harris switched buses to do his homeschooling with Marissa while Wroth, Liam and Linc jumped on with us to either rehearse or play video games.

It had been working for us for the last seven weeks, but the tension between Devlin and Zander was getting out of hand. The two were barely speaking to each other now, and when they did happen to share words they were nasty and quickly followed by fists flying. Natalie was trying to keep the peace, but it was obviously wearing on her. She’d already told Emmie that she wasn’t sure how much more she could take, and Emmie had threatened everyone that the next fight would result in her having to join the tour.

While I was all for that because I was a selfish dick who missed my best friend, I knew that having a very pregnant Emmie would not be necessarily enjoyable. Not to mention how pissed off the Demons were gonna be if that happened, especially Nik. It took a lot to get my buddy to the point of pissed, but once that happened he was worse than Jesse Thornton in a rage. I so didn’t want that kind of anger brought to the tour.

“Bring it,” Zander snapped at Wroth, which got him a hard look from the ex-marine. “Just because Marissa only plays Wii with you-”

Whatever Zander was going to say was cut off by Liam throwing his bottle of water at Zander’s head. The lid was off the bottle and water went flying across Zander’s bare chest. “Motherfucker, what was that for?”

“You can talk trash about me or Devlin or anybody else, I don’t really give a shit, but you start saying something about my sister, and I will cut your fucking throat.”

“I wasn’t gonna talk trash about Rissa,” Zander exclaimed, as if shocked Liam would even think that. But it was what we all had thought. Zander was quick to fly off at the mouth any more, and it didn’t seem to matter who he was talking about. Not even Marissa was safe from his nastiness.

Just the day before, Zander had made some raunchy comment about me and Dallas and before I could even fully comprehend what he had said, Dallas had kneed him in the balls. “I don’t know what your deal is, but my name doesn’t ever leave your mouth like that again. Comprehend, asshat?” Dallas had snarled as she backed away from a downed Zander. Since it had brought Z to his knees I hadn’t felt like more punishment was due, but that didn’t mean I was forgiving. He knew he was on my shit list.

“Just shut the hell up, Z. You’re only digging yourself deeper,” Wroth told him in his growly voice that was scary on a good day, but was completely full of menace right then. It made me very thankful I wasn’t on the receiving end of Wroth’s wrath.

Cursing under his breath, Zander jumped up from his seat and stormed toward the back of the bus. No one said another word as we forced our attention back on the game we were playing.

Fun times.

Axton

I wasn’t a fan of April Fool’s day. This year was no different.

Forcing a smile for the chick in front of me, bouncing up and down in a mixture of excitement and seduction as it made her boobs practically pop out of her tight top, I asked her name and signed the poster she had set down on the table for me to autograph. “Thanks, darlin’,” I hugged her with one arm and smiled for the pictures her friend took before stepping back, ready to greet the next fan in line. Bouncy Boobs continued down the line to meet the other members of the band and perhaps entice one of them with her assets.

I glanced toward the corner of the room where Dallas was sitting with Marissa drinking fruit juice and snacking on a fruit tray that had been provided for our after concert signing. OtherWorld didn’t do too many fan meet and greets like this these days for which I was thankful. As much as I loved and appreciated our fan base, the ones that came to our meet and greets were mostly chicks looking to hook up with one of us for the night. I was over that shit.

As if sensing my eyes on her, Dallas turned her head and caught my gaze. When she noticed the expression on my face—a mixture of dread, depression, and desperation—she raised a brow and I just shrugged. I wanted this to be over so that we could get back to our hotel and maybe take a bath together before ordering something from room service and falling asleep. That was all I fucking wanted, so why wasn’t this line moving along faster?