I shook my head. “I, uh … I didn’t have a ticket.”
That was the truth. I’d never had a ticket, it seemed. Natalie had.
“You just came to find us then? Smart. Most of the groupies are already inside. Why didn’t you join them earlier?”His gaze fell to my chest. “Deet would have let you in. He knows my type.”
I didn’t know who Deet was or what he was talking about, but Dean Finlay was looking at my boobs. My dress no longer felt like a bad choice.
“I was headed to the bus. I didn’t feel like company tonight, but you changed my mind,” he said, closing the distance between us. He cupped my face with his hand and studied me. “How old are you?”
I didn’t think. I didn’t weigh the consequences. Dean Finlay was flirting with me, and if I told him I was seventeen, he’d stop. He wouldn’t keep talking to me. This would end. I never expected much excitement in my life.So far, it had been full of disappointments and struggles. Just this once, I had a chance at something exceptional happening to me.
“Twenty-one,” I replied.
He grinned. “I always pick the young ones,” he said, then grabbed my left boob and squeezed it. “But, fuck, you’re sweet.”
I was sure I’d forgotten to breathe.
Dean moved then, placing a hand on my back and taking me with him. We walked past two large buses before he stopped at one and hit the door once with his open palm.
It opened, and Dean took my hand and pulled me inside.
“Go,” he said to a tall, slender man with a strange goatee.
The man nodded. “Yes, sir.” Then, he moved to the door we had just entered through.
“It’s been a long few months. I’m tired, sugar. Help me out and take that dress off for me. I want to see those big-ass tits,” Dean said as he sat down on a black leather sofa.
I froze. He wanted me to get naked. Did that mean he wanted to … have sex with me? Dean Finlay? I’d only had sex with Bradley. I wasn’t sure I wanted to ever have sex again. I hadn’t enjoyed it. But this was Dean Finlay. I was in his bus.
“Baby, you don’t have to play shy. I’m fucking turned on. Those big blue eyes and that rack on you have me ready to fuck. Now.”
In life, we weren’t always given time to make decisions carefully. We had to act or move on. I knew this was one of those moments. I could take off my dress for the world’s most famous drummer, or I could walk out of this bus.
His silver-gray eyes watched me as I reached for the hem of my dress. Swallowing hard, I took a deep breath, and I lifted it up, pulled it over my head, and dropped it to the floor of his bus.
“Jesus,” he muttered, standing up then and walking over to me.
His hands felt rough against my skin, but it excited me. I was doing this. Tonight, I’d lost my best friend and my boyfriend. I wasn’t sure if I’d have a place to live next month. When I turned eighteen I doubted that Gail would let me stay. But right now, I was going to have sex with a rock star. Not just any rock star, but the one I had been obsessed with since I’d heard their first song. Just this once, I was going to be Dean Finlay’s groupie.
When he rolled off me, then promptly passed out, I stood up, and I noticed the broken condom still on his penis. I reached down to touch between my legs and felt more wetness than should have been there. Holding out my hand, I saw the evidence on my fingers.
thirty-one
brielle
Cam’s father one day coming to lay claim on him or fight me in court for custody was never a fear I lived with. Telling a man who had slept with a different woman every night for most of his adult life that your kid was his seemed cliché.
I’d tried to contact Dean when I was younger. Back when I had nowhere to live and a baby on the way. I left a few messages on the band’s contact page on their website. I also used the mailing address that was for their fan mail to tell him about the pregnancy.
The last attempt I made was when Cam was one and I had no money to buy him milk. I was young and naive then. With time, I realized Dean, along with the rest of the band, must have gotten letters and accusations like that all the time. I doubted Dean would remember that night or the broken condom. I’d never imagined I’d see him again.
When I’d been told he was coming to the college to have lunch with the president after making some huge donation, I’d wanted to get Cam his autograph. The man whose DNA was the reason he loved the drums so much was going to be within my reach. Cam had wanted it because that same man had become his idol.
The turn it had all taken this summer wasn’t something I could have prepared myself for. Now, I had let it go on so long that I wasn’t sure how to begin to tell Dean. Or Cam. I didn’t know if it would be good for either of them. I’d been lying to them both. Withholding a truth from them. Something I knew with absolute certainty.
Cam was Dean Finlay’s son.
It had been over two months since I’d had sex with Bradley when I slept with Dean on his bus. Bradley had worn a condom, and it hadn’t broken.