CHAPTER 14
Delia
When we got to the hotel in Jacksonville, Florida, I discovered my first mistake. When booking hotels online, make sure to get a confirmation email. Even though I used their online site to purchase the hotel rooms for the band, myself, and Hank, my room didn’t take. So I was relegated to the bus the first night on the road.
Wonderful.
Now, we were on our way to Birmingham, Alabama. I was on the bus with all three of the guys, and it was crowded. I couldn’t work on any schoolwork without Stone poking his nose into my business, Landon kept making the crudest comments he could when he knew I was listening, and Drake kept asking me if I was okay.
It was getting annoying and I was ready for this trip to be over.
All I could hope was that all of the hotel room reservations went through in Birmingham. I couldn’t find any sort of confirmation email for the room I had booked myself, even though Hank had one for his and the band had gotten one for theirs. I was pissed off and ready to blow through the roof. How the hell could this have happened twice?
The guys were loud and smelly, and I couldn’t drown them out. Every time I cranked up my music, they got louder. Every time I took advantage of them sleeping to do some schoolwork, it wasn’t long before someone was asking me some sort of idiotic question.
When Drake got curious, I saw a way in to talking about his drinking.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” he asked.
“A final project for my degree,” I said.
“What’s the class?”
“Intro to Clinical Psychology.”
“You’re taking an introduction course your senior year?” he asked.
“It’s a jumpstart class into a Master’s degree. I won’t be platforming into it, but it is a class I’ll need eventually.”
“So you want your own practice or something?”
“With my particular degree and concentration, I want to work at a drug rehab center. You know, to help people with their addictions and stuff.”
There was silence on Drake’s end, and I tilted my head to see what he was doing. But the only thing I saw was him walking back to the guys.
So much for that starting a conversation.
Once we pulled into Birmingham, I had to go with him to his first of two major interviews while on the road. He was moody and pissed off, tired and slightly drunk. I had to babysit him and make sure he didn’t say anything stupid in his interview, which was a task in and of itself.
Because he was all about stupid.
“So, why a mini tour? Why not please your fans all over the nation?” the reporter asked.
“Who said I can’t do that?” Drake asked. “Maybe I’m just doing it in bits and pieces. You know, teasing my audience.”
“Well when is the teasing done?” the reporter asked. “The world wants to know if you’ll add more dates to this tour of yours.”
“There’s plenty of Drake Blackthorn to go around, I promise.”
“I’m sure your fans will be happy to hear that,” the reporter said.
“I hope you will be too, sweetheart.”
I wanted to smack him—for that and every single other fucking innuendo he spewed in that interview. I sat there like a bump on a log, holding up plausible answers to his questions so he didn’t look like an asshole. But instead, he read my answers, grinned at me, and then spewed his own womanizing bile all over the pretty little brunette reporter.
I wrangled him to the show, not speaking to him once between the interview and the set-up time. I had to talk with the venue guy to make sure the band members had everything they needed for their pre-show rituals. I saw a few giggling girls make their way backstage as Stone held out his arms to him and I rolled my eyes.
It fucking figured they would have girls right before the show.