Nobody Falls for the Opening Act (Break the Rules Book 2)

Chapter 3

“Do you really think Logan Shock tried to kill us?” Katrina asks me.

I chortle before glancing at her over my tablet. She looks back with those big doe-like Benton eyes, all curled up in a blanket in our corner of the bus fort. The others are scattered around, their voices audible through the sheer walls made of sheets and pillows.

“What?” I ask. “When did we jump from dick move to attempted murder?”

“A flat like that in this storm?” Katrina shivers. “We could have died!”

I smile. “Kat, you are far too precious for this world, you know that?”

“I’m being serious, Addy.”

“You think Logan Shock controls the weather?”

“No. Obviously not. I just...” She hugs her pillow tighter, pressing it against her chin. “It’s just hard to believe people are capable of stuff like that. You know?”

“Well, he ruined Harmony’s career on live TV,” I say as I look back at my tablet. “I think he’s capable of just about anything.”

“Maybe,” she murmurs.

I smile at her worried eyes. “Anybody could have stuck that pin in our tire. Our feud with them isn’t exactly a well-kept secret.”

“You think it was Prissy? Chrissy’s twin?”

”I don’t know who it was,” I say. “Hell, we could have just coincidentally ran over the thing. But we survived. We have our bunk bus. I say we call it a win.”

Katrina smiles at my tablet. “What are you reading?” she asks, knowing damn well exactly what I’m reading. “Isn’t it great?”

I try to think of the nicest way to phrase it, but end up just saying, “Eh.”

“You don’t like it?” she asks, surprised.

“It’s... fine,” I say. “A little unrealistic, but fine.”

“It’s not supposed to be realistic! It’s a romance. It’s supposed to fill you with ooey-gooey, happy goodness!”

“Well, so far it’s just filling me with scoffs and eye rolls.”

“You really feel nothing at all?”

“Not nothing. Just not the same things you do.”

“Well, what do you feel when you read romance?”

“... Nothing.”

Katrina props her hand under her chin and stares with curiosity. “Have you always been this dead inside?” she muses.

I nearly choke on my spit. “Katrina.”

“I’m just saying…”

“No.I am not dead inside.” I smile to show I’m not mad. “I’m just a seeing is believing kind of gal and I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence that things like that exist.”

“Things like what? Like love?”

“Yeah. Things like that.”

Katrina blinks twice, then laughs. “Yes. Totally normal behavior at ninety-eight-point-six degrees.”

“Where’s the proof?” I ask her as we laugh.

“Jonah and Marla?” she suggests.

“Exception to the rule.”

“Knox and Harmony?”

“I give ‘em six more weeks.”

She laughs. “Okay. Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Please don’t give any toasts at Jo’s wedding,” she jokes.

“I make no promises.”

Katrina sighs into her pillow again. “Well, I think one of these days, love is going to pop out and surprise you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

The sheet wall beside us opens and I lurch as a head thrusts through the opening.

“Gotcha—! Oh.” Harvey eases back, his eyes sheepishly bouncing between us. “Hello, ladies.”

“Hey, Harvey,” Katrina greets.

“Have you guys seen Bronson?” he asks.

We shake our heads. “Not over here, no,” I say.

“Damn,” he says. “We’re playing hide and seek and I cannot find him anywhere.”

“We’re on a bus,” I say.

“Right.”

“You lost him... on a bus?”

“He’s really good.”

Katrina abandons her pillows.

“Where are you going?” I ask her.

“I wanna play!” she says, grinning as she parts the sheet wall and disappears into the pillow tunnel.

“Atta girl, Kat!” Harvey says, grinning as she passes him. “You in, Addison?”

“No, thanks,” I say, eager to finish this book so I don’t have to read it ever again.

I skim a single line, then glance up into his lingering, expectant eyes.

He smiles.

“What’s up, Harvey?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says. “I just, uh...”

“What?”

He pushes forward through the sheets, nudging my pillows. “Sorry,” he says as he awkwardly swings his body around to face me. “I just, um... I wanted to clear up what we talked about before.”

“Harvey, you don’t have to?—”

“Just, hold on.” He raises a hand. “Please, let me say this.”

I nod, going quiet.

“I just wanted to say,” he says, “that I think you got the wrong idea. About me.”

“Did I?” I ask.

“Yeah, I don’t know exactly what Knox told you before, but it’s not like that.”

“It’s not?”

“No, not at all. I just wanted to be friends.”

“We’re already friends, Harvey,” I say.

He nods, but says, “Are we? Because you’ve been kinda giving me an icy shoulder since the start of the tour.”

“Sorry,” I say sincerely. “I guess I do that sometimes.”

“Knox mentioned you were kind of... cold to people.”

“I don’t mean to be. And you should really take it as a compliment. I’m far worse to people I actively dislike.”

Harvey smirks. “So you do like me?”

I straighten the smile forming on my mouth. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t not say it, though.”

“Not that it matters,” I say. “I don’t date musicians, especially not ones I share a bus with.”

“Wait,” Harvey says, confused. “You don’t date musicians?”

I nod.

“That’s a little contradictory, isn’t it?” he asks.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You’re a musician.”

“I am.”

“But you refuse to date other musicians?”

“Correct.”

“You don’t think that’s a little weird?”

“I don’t, no,” I say. “I know better than most what musicians are really like, therefore I want nothing to do with them romantically.”

Harvey tilts his head questionably. “What are we really like?” he asks.

I sigh. “Harvey.”

“I’m just curious. I mean, you obviously have this all figured out. I’m just asking that you enlighten me with your findings. That’s all.”

“You told me you want to have nine kids from seven different groupies.”

“Those were your words. Not mine.”

“But you agreed with them. That’s the dream was your exact response.”

“Okay, fine. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” I say. “But you have to understand that hearing that isn’t exactly a turn-on.”

“It’s not?”

“No woman wants to be groupie number four, Harvey. Especially not me. I’d much rather be with someone a little more attentive. Someone who isn’t going to love bomb me with affection only to cut and run the morning after he finally nails me.”

“And you think that’s me?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, Addison,” Harvey says. “I must say, I’m offended.”

“Are you, frat boy?”

He scoffs. “Now I’m doubly so.”

“You’re not my type, Harvey,” I say. “I don’t know how I can make it clearer than that.”

“Oh, because of your girl-on-girl phase?”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

“Knox told me you play for both sides. And that’s fine! Totally cool with me.”

“Thanks for your approval,” I spit.

“I don’t mean that. I just meant?—”

“I’m going to read my book now.”

I raise my tablet, purposefully using it to block his face.

“I...” Harvey stops and sighs. “Sorry.”

The wall of sheets shifts a little, but I keep my head down, knowing eye contact will just make him stay. After a moment, I peek over my tablet to confirm he’s gone. And he is. Lost somewhere in the fort.

Good.

Now maybe I can get some peace and?—

The sheet shifts again. This time, it’s Bronson squeezing through. He places a finger over his mouth, signaling for me to be quiet as he continues through with a devious smile.

I go back to my book.