The soft rumble of the bus shakes Griff awake. Rolling over in bed, he gives a kill-me-now groan at the harsh sunlight assaulting his retinas. Blindly, he reaches over onto his nightstand for his sunglasses. He slips them on. For a long minute, he lies there taking inventory of his condition. His mouth’s ashtray-dry; his body feels as if he drank the entire state of Tennessee.
And his head ...
He searches his mind for memories of last night. All he gets are foggy images—cigarettes, seven and seven, bottles of Bud Light, some brunette whose name he’s already forgotten, and Alabama—
“Fuuuuuuck.”
Griff closes his eyes, his slow swear like his last dying gasp. And it should be.
He insulted her last night. Worse, he insulted her and then put the moves on her. Griff squeezes his eyes shut tighter, trying to block out the image of her face. Hurt. Walking away from him. Closing the door in his face.
He can’t deny the entire blow-up was his fault. He got blitzed last night after she called him on his bullshit backstage. Brought that girl back to the bus to fuck with her. He doesn’t know why in the hell he cared about what she said. Why her words affected him so fucking bad.
If she wasn’t so damn stubborn, she could have just let him help her without blowing everything up. Fucking woman. All she’s doing is stirring up old memories of Clover, of the way they used to be together, of the old Griff Greyson.
The one who actually gave a damn.
He doesn’t want that. It’s too hard and people get hurt.
All he wants to do is get through this tour with his head on straight and his dick in his pants. But last night ... tempers were high. He can’t deny he was horny as hell—and he didn’t want that brunette on the couch. He wanted Alabama. And she fucking knew it.
At the bright chirp of his cell phone, Griff buries his face in his hands. It’s like a knife tearing into his temple.
Not even bothering to answer, he stumbles out of bed. In the bathroom, he fumbles with the bottle of aspirin and dry-swallows three pills. He’s crawling back into bed, considering getting some more shut-eye, when the phone sounds again, its bleating chirp muffled. He glances at the clock. It’s only ten.
“Goddamn,” he groans, flipping the covers off the bed to find his phone sandwiched beneath a pillow.
He snatches it up without bothering to look at the caller ID. “What?” he growls.
“Your greeting needs work, Griff.” Freddie’s clipped voice lashes his eardrum.
A long pause, then, “What?” he says, a bit softer but no less gruff.
“Have you seen the papers?”
He flops back on the bed. He doesn’t need more bad news, more shitty press. “No, I haven’t. What’d I do now?”
“A good thing. And for once, it doesn’t involve fistfights or fornication.” The sound of a keyboard clacking fills the line. “I’m sending you the link. It’s you and Alabama onstage. You helped her out last night. Apparently, people like your music, your sound.”
Griff sighs. Their sound.
Christ, they hadn’t had a song together since Clover.
“Your set was a bit shorter than I would have liked, but barring any further setbacks, I’m willing to overlook that.”
Griff chuckles. He’s not sure how Freddie does it. She’s gotta have eyes in the back of her head or spies on the inside or some shit like that to constantly be aware of Griff’s mistake-making ass.
“These are good headlines,” Freddie goes on. “Even if fans are skeptical, the press is still reporting positively. Or in terms you’ll understand, they’re eating this shit up. I want more of that. More of the two of you together onstage. More of you playing the rugged, yet dashing, gentleman.”
Griff clenches a fist at Freddie’s insinuation that he was just using Alabama, that he’s playing a part. He wants to tell her it wasn’t planned, it just happened, that Alabama needed help and whatever she needs he’d give her without a second thought.
“Fred—”
“Do not disappoint me, Griff. This tour is off to a smashing start.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes.” He hears the smile in her voice. “You may go back to your hangover.”