After telling my parents goodbye, reassuring them that I’d call when we arrived at our next stop, and that I’d stay in touch more than Blaire does, I squared my shoulders, gripped the handle of my suitcase, and walked confidently toward my destiny.
Until I entered the land of chaos. People in black scurrying here and there, cables, cables everywhere that I had to wrestle my suitcase over. It took me almost ten minutes to flag someone down to find out where I should go and what I should be doing. I wore all black like Blaire told me to, so I looked the part. But my preparedness stopped there.
The harried woman I managed to stop, pointed somewhere to my left and said, “Chad’s over there. Ask him.”
I walked over to the cluster of men conferring in a doorway and asked, “Chad?”
A lanky, sandy-haired man in dark jeans and a black T-shirt looked me up and down. “You’re the new assistant?”
At my nod, he took my suitcase to a room full of equipment, assuring me it would be waiting for me after the show. “You’re late. They need water and snacks,” he said, and pointed me to Marcus’s dressing room.
Thus began my miserable failure of a first night. I found water and snacks in the greenroom, so I grabbed one of each for each dressing room and put them inside, only to find out after a strange man tried to devour me that I hadn’t provided enough hydration or nourishment.
Maybe that’s why he looked like he wanted to eat me instead.
I force back the deranged cackle that wants to escape at the thought. At least I have today to talk to Blaire and figure out what I need to do. With no tablet to help me keep on schedule, I was flying blind, relying on Chad—who I found out last night is the tour manager—and Marcus to keep me from ruining everything.
Mostly, though, it seems like my job is to be their babysitter.
Who knew four grown men would need a babysitter?
Although … my boss at my last job needed a babysitter too. Officially I was an administrative assistant, but I had to update his calendar and keep him on schedule. Pick up his dry cleaning. Water his plants. Tidy his office.
Okay, more maid than babysitter.
Am I going to be responsible for these guys’ dry cleaning too?
I hadn’t thought to ask that.
All they’d said during the interview was that I’m responsible for keeping track of their schedule and their meal plan while we’re traveling.
I was assured I’d have a tablet with all the information I needed at my fingertips.
But there was some kind of glitch—no assistant to order the tablet for the new assistant, actually—so I didn’t have any of that information yet.
Marcus had supplied me with printed copies of everything to last me until my tablet arrives tonight. The tablet that I had to order for myself, because apparently my job includes ordering devices for everyone as well.
Good to know.
Chapter Five
Mason
I arrive at the arena outside of Boston earlier than normal considering this is our second day here and we did our sound check yesterday. The first day in a new city is always the busiest, but day two has the lightest schedule when we’re in a city for several days. Our first show was last night to the first of five sold-out crowds.
We don’t have a sound check today, and as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who’s been summoned five hours before our usual call time.
I’m dragging ass, though, because I didn’t go to sleep till around five AM, and I woke up to banging on my door at eleven, followed by the cold fury of our new assistant letting herself in and ordering me to get up, get dressed, and get to the arena.
Marcus greets me, his jaw clenched, arms crossed, the greenroom in disarray around him, though it looks like someone’s started cleaning up the worst of the leftover trash from last night.
Scrubbing a hand over my face and shoving my hair off my forehead, I greet him with a lift of my chin. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
His jaw flexes again, and he throws his hands wide. “What the fuck, Mason?”
I blink at him dully, still feeling the effects of last night’s partying. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Marcus.”
“You had a party in the greenroom last night.” He says it like this is news to me.
“Uh-huh.”
Bending, he scoops a newspaper off the coffee table, then crosses to me and slams it into my chest. I react on instinct, catching it against me with one hand before I pull it away so I can see what it says, already knowing it’s not going to be good if this is Marcus’s reaction. It’s not a newspaper. It’s a garden-variety tabloid, complete with grainy pictures of me on the cover. Looking closer, I see they’ve blurred out the face of the woman on her knees in front of me—how kind of them—but my flexing torso and O-face are there in all their digitally enhanced glory.
Is that really what I look like when I’m coming?
Huh.
“Look, Mase, I know you’re not happy that Blaire’s gone.” My jaw clenches at the conciliatory tone he’s forcing into his voice, but he continues before I can say anything. “I know you’re not happy we replaced her with someone new. But she left, man. She’s in love with someone else. We need an assistant,
