Say It Strong (Say You Love Me Book 2) Read online

  I posed on my good side, and in the screen, an image reflected back at me—Abby.

  She strolled by with that other girl from the party, the tall, gangly one, and for one brief second, our eyes met in the phone’s back camera view. I spun around. “There you are!”

  She paused, caught off guard. “You were looking for me?”

  “Yeah, man! Way to kill it on those two songs. Awesome job, thanks.” I gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder.

  Ugh, a punch, Liam, really?

  “Oh, thank you.” She smiled. A polite smile, when I so desperately wanted to see her grin big because she simply liked me. “By kill it, you mean…”

  “You rocked it. You were awesome. Fantastic!” I ran a hand through my hair, something I did when I was nervous, which I could tell surprised Robbie almost as much as it surprised me.

  He gave me one last lingering stare, and when he realized I was too wrapped up in a conversation to finish taking the selfie with him, he winked at me and walked off.

  “So…” I turned back to Abby.

  She wore a classic long, black skirt and a white ruffly top. Not exactly a wicked outfit, but then again, she was under no obligation to follow any rules of rock. She played by her own. Still, maybe by the end of the tour, we could have all our orchestra dressing in leather jackets and miniskirts. The girls anyway. That would be sick!

  “Thanks for the flowers, by the way,” she said, wringing her hands. “And the wine. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

  “Oh…hey…I know that. Just felt bad about what happened. Tucker was being a real dick.” I folded my arms over my chest, trying to look relaxed and cool when I was probably coming across as an idiot. What was it about her that had me reverting to a high school geek once again? I thought I’d shed that skin already.

  “I just wanted to say…” She fumbled with her fingers. “I mean…you don’t have to do that again. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but…” She took a deep breath then let it out. “I’m not one of your…groupies.” She stressed the word like it was poisonous. “So, before you go thinking anything…you won’t be getting into my pants.”

  Her tall friend tried to discreetly elbow her in the back, but I caught it.

  I wiggled my eyebrows at Abby.

  “Whoa. Meow!” My fingers curled into cat claws. Her concrete outer shell should’ve, for all intents and purposes, turned me off, but there was something sad about it, and it spoke volumes about what she must’ve thought of me. I guess rumors have their downside. “Hey, listen, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just wanted to say sorry and thanks. That was it, I swear. Can’t a guy do that anymore?”

  “With a hundred-dollar bottle of wine?” She raised an eyebrow.

  Recoiling, I scoffed. “Uh, Abby, listen, I swear I’m not trying to get into your pants.” Okay, given my determined thoughts earlier, that was a bit of a lie, but it was also a bit of the truth. I wasn’t trying to get into her pants right now, at least. I mean, I did want to get to know her better, not just fuck her. “But might I point out the obvious that, tonight, you’re wearing a skirt?” I chuckled at my own little joke. Shit, she was going to unload on me. I just knew it.

  Abby Chan, cellist, was not having it.

  At that moment, her friend held up her camera, trying to dispel the tension. “Can I get a pic of the two of you? That cello-vocals duet onstage was brilliant, eh?”

  We turned toward her and smiled, just as two people photobombed us from behind with rabbit ears and bottles of beer clinging to their hands. Tucker and Helen. “Wassuuuup, dawg!” Tucker slammed me with his chest and put my head into a choke hold. “We killed it, bro!”

  “Yes, yes, we did. Now let go of me, you idiot.”

  “I guess I’ll see you later,” Abby said quickly, darting off before I could get two more words in.

  “Hey!” I called out, but she’d already bailed. “Damn it.”

  I’m sure she split because of Tucker, and luckily, he didn’t see Abby, being too drunk to notice, but Helen hung back, watching us a moment then slipping past me, leaning into my ear. Her words would haunt me the rest of the night, even as the party plowed on, and the booze flowed until the bottles were empty, and the groupies lay asleep all over the couches. “Don’t bother, Liam,” she said with an all-knowing smirk. “She’s not your type.”

  And there it was. Even Helen could see that Abby was someone I shouldn’t mess with. That might be the case, but she was wrong about Abby not being my type. Maybe someone like her had never been my type before, but right now, she was the only type of woman I was interested in. Sexy but classy. Talented and fierce. A ball-breaker, yet someone who provided glimpses of vulnerability in a way that made me want to howl, beat my chest, toss her over my shoulder, and carry her off to the nearest cave.

  God, I definitely had a thing for Abby Chan. The only question was what I was going to do about it.

  Later that night, away from prying ears and eyes, after losing the paparazzi down a dead-end hallway, I slipped into a dark room, flicked on a dim light, and sat on the floor to call the one person I could when my life was going fucking haywire and I didn’t know what to think.

  “Hey, buddy, how’s the tour going?” Garrick asked, laughter in the background. “Hold on, let me get away a second. We wrapped up filming a little while ago.”

  “How’s that going?” I asked.

  “It’s going great, man. Things are really starting to happen with Gwen. I can’t quite understand it myself, but I’m not going to question it. What’s up? You sound tense.”

  “That’s great, man. I’m okay. I guess I’m starting down the same path as you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This girl on our tour. I think I like her,” I said, the words sounding foreign, but to my heart they were familiar. “I don’t know. It’s weird. We haven’t talked much, and one of two times, she blew me off, but I feel like I could get past her exterior if she just gave me a chance.”

  “Which is weird for girls around you, my friend.”

  I chuckled. It was true. Maybe that was why I felt attracted to her—just the fact that she was the opposite of the usual girls I went for. Well, that and her cello-playing onstage blew me away. “I don’t know. Am I making any sense?” I asked.

  “Of course, Lee. Trust me, I get the whole opposites thing. Gwen and me? We shouldn’t work. But I’m crazy about her.”

  “Yeah.” Maybe I was just tired, delirious after the show. I didn’t even know why I’d hidden in this room to begin with. “I’ve known you so long, I just…I don’t know…what the fuck should I do? I don’t want a repeat of what happened with Vanessa.”

  On the other end, Garrick sighed. “If you like her, talk to her. And if she likes you, too, then just be fair, like you were to Vanessa. Nothing wrong with being up-front and honest. But I’m not there to see it, man. Has Tuck met her?”

  Tucker was the only other band member who’d known me almost as long as Garrick and Helen had, and I just didn’t feel like I could talk with Helen about Abby. Maybe Garrick was right. Maybe Tucker had a better vantage point. “He’s met her, but you know how he is…”

  “Making a dick of himself?” Garrick laughed.

  “You know it.” I shook my head. In his background, laughter rang out again, and I realized it was probably a bad time to call. “Listen, man, thanks. I can tell you shit I tell no one.”

  “Anytime, my brother.” Garrick called out to someone nearby, telling them he’d be right there—Gwen, most likely—and though I didn’t want to tie up any more of his time, and we didn’t get to talk long, I felt better already. Though I often forgot it, I had tried to do right by Vanessa. I’d been honest with her, and as long as I remained honest with Abby, things would be okay, whether we ended up starting something or not.

  I was really hoping we would.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Abby

  “Abby, he is so your type.” Rosemary handed her violi
n case to the guy stowing luggage and crates on our bus in the wee hours of the morning. “He’s perfect for you. Opposite of Samuel. Wild, crazy, loves music…hotter than sin!”

  I didn’t see how a man who was hotter than sin could be my type, but I was willing to give it extended consideration. I handed the roadie my cello case. “Please be careful with that,” I said, cringing the moment I said it. The older guy with graying hair and hazel eyes paused to glare at me. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”

  “I’ve been putting up and tearing down road shows for thirty years. Trust me, I got it.” He smiled. Thank goodness!

  Rosemary and I headed for the bus doors and climbed up the metal steps. “He’s not my type,” I whispered, making a beeline for my bunk. “Stop saying that. We don’t know anything about him.” All I wanted was to crash until the morning light hit my face. It’d be thirteen hours until Seattle, one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world. Not that I’d ever been outside of the US before, other than to Hong Kong when I was five to visit my dying grandmother, but staring at travel pics all my life, Seattle was definitely in my Top 5 of Cities for Abby to See.

  “He. Likes. You.” Rosemary flopped onto her bunk. “Ohhh, man, this feels nice. Oh, my God, I need a foot massage. Somebody, give me a foot massage.” She kicked off her flats.

  I gave her big toe a squeeze then lay down next to her. “That’s as much of a massage as you’ll get from me.”

  “Wow. Cheap, you are. Driver, can I get a foot massage?” She laughed. Of course, she did. Because the driver was outside smoking a cigarette, totally not hearing her lame attempt to be brazen.

  “Okay,” I said, taking her foot and pressing on the ball with the palm of my hand. “Let’s assume he does like me. But for how long?” I stared at the underside of the bunk above us. “Until he conquers the black sheep, the weird one, the geek girl? Until he gets bored? Rose, I only intrigue him—if I intrigue him—because I’m different from his usual women. However, it’s inevitable…at some point, I won’t be lively enough for him, hot enough, wild enough, whatever. That is the day he’ll toss me away and take up some hotter girl with a bigger cup size.”

  Sigh.

  Yes, Punk Cowboy was sexy and provocative and even persistent, and I would love to discover what his body really feels like under my hands. Plus, he actually surprised me with a great set of pipes tonight, but the fact was, we were too different, and I wasn’t dynamic enough for his personality. I didn’t own a bikini, never colored my hair, and I wouldn’t know how to tame a cowboy if I was handed a whip and some corn cakes. In summary, he was barking up the wrong tree.

  A few others from our string section entered the bus—Roger, Loren, and Peta, who played the upright bass, despite being all of five-foot-two. “Good show, everyone!” she cheered in a terrible British accent. “Good show!”

  “Thanks, you, too,” I called, making an effort to be friendly. I hadn’t gotten to know much of anyone outside my Juilliard circle in the last few years, so I needed to meet new faces. I lowered my voice so the others wouldn’t overhear us. “That’s another reason Liam Collier scares me.” I was delirious now, talking with my eyes closed, swirls of color and light behind my lids. “He’s new to me, and he’s friends with a million more people than I am. And he’s probably slept with half of them, I’m sure.”

  “Um, first of all, you have more boobs than me,” Rosemary whispered, being a pal so our bus mates wouldn’t overhear her erroneous theory that Liam Collier, the ringmaster of this carnival, was contemplating a relationship with me, of all people. “Second of all, did you hear what you just said? You said you’re scared of Liam Collier. That says it all.”

  “All I meant was that it’s not going to happen between us,” I argued.

  Rosemary scoffed, pissily twisting and flinging the corner of her blanket. “Abby, we are going in circles, and you need to give yourself more credit. I need some sleep. It’s been a long day. We’ll talk in the morning. Love you, girl, even though you’re more stubborn than a dead elephant. Good night.” She rolled over, pulled the covers over her shoulders, and faced the bus wall.

  A dead elephant? I lay there a few minutes before climbing to my own bunk. Thank goodness we got to use the venue dressing rooms to change into our regular clothes, or we’d have to change in front of strangers. Lying in the low lights of a bus getting ready for the road again, I popped in earbuds and hit play on my Bach playlist.

  Dead elephant. Yeah, so I was a little stubborn.

  But scared?

  She’d be, too, if Point Break’s front man, a guy who was front and center on the world entertainment stage, had his eyes on her. Maybe I was being presumptuous, but if Liam Collier really was interested in me, he would hurt me. I knew he would. I witnessed the party at Robbie’s house. I saw the women hanging off of him. I saw the sizes of their breasts. Mine were only 32B. I read the online articles about his bad-boy reputation and the pics of him with that Italian model Rosemary showed me this morning after the flowers arrived. In fact, right now he was probably still at the arena doing God-knows-what with God-knows-who following our successful first night. Could I ever fit into that scene?

  Absolutely not.

  I looked over at the little curtain separating my bed from my junk bunk, the area containing all my stuff. Sweeping it aside, I beamed quietly at the collection of yellow roses and sunflowers. I should have left them behind, but I didn’t have the heart. It was the only bouquet I’d ever received in my life. And it came from Liam Collier. Liam Collier of Point Break. Along with a bottle of hundred-dollar wine. Addressed to me, Abby “Small and Meek” Chan.

  Ugh, shake it off!

  I was responsible, a planner, ambitious, and, yes, cautious. But being that way had served me well. I wouldn’t be where I was right now if I hadn’t taken extra care with my life decisions. Some might call being careful a good thing. So why was I feeling guilty over it? Why was I allowing Rosemary’s pressure to irk me?

  She couldn’t possibly be asleep so quickly, so I texted her a postscript to our conversation, just to drive the point home: He’s a showman. Showmen know how to act/perform to get what they want.

  My message was immediately delivered and read, and a second later, she formulated her reply: He’s a musician like you…don’t forget that.

  “Pfft,” I scoffed. But then I sighed. Below me, Rosemary giggled.

  He was a musician. Maybe not one I’d listen to on a regular basis, but he was undeniably talented. Half the time, he screamed to music, and the rest of the time, he sounded like he was aching, as though someone were cutting him with a warm, beautiful knife. During Save Me Tonight, I’d caught glimpses of real vocals training. He wouldn’t have been able to hit that falsetto note without it. So maybe I was right, and most of it was indeed an act. Maybe underneath the façade was someone who really did adore music as much as I did. Was it right to judge him without knowing for sure?

  I sighed and closed my eyes, giving in to the lulling rhythm of the road below us.

  Would it hurt me to find out?

  Most definitely, I thought. He could hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before, Abby. So be careful. Be on guard. Enjoy your fantasies of him. But don’t think it can ever be more.

  *

  Driving into Seattle the next morning was the proverbial dream come true. Even though we took I-5 instead of the more scenic route through the mountains, the sights as we drove into the city were simply amazing. Spending two whole days here would be worth the entire trip. Once downtown’s Space Needle came into view with Mount Rainier in the distance, my heart raced. I took pics to show my mom.

  As we approached our next venue, I was in a great mood, ready to start the day. An awesome catered breakfast was set up, most likely just for us “lesser” crew members since I never caught sight of any Point Break band boys, and after breakfast, it was rehearsal time with the rest of the orchestra. Our conductor, Richard Littlebrook, was a classy, older m
an with carefully coiffed silver hair, a slender shape, handsome features, and a penchant for younger women.

  “Excellent, Miss Chan,” he said, not for the first time. “Though we might want to work on the last few measures a bit. Stick around during the break. I’ll help you.” He winked then scanned me up and down. I was wearing a long, gray skirt and yellow tank top. Nothing risqué or out of this world, but apparently, it was enough to fuel his fantasies.

  Rosemary swiveled in her chair and gave me a sly, pouty look. “Yes, Miss Chan. Stay during the break, so you can love me for a long time,” she whispered. She bit her bottom lip and faked an intense orgasm.

  I jabbed her in the shoulder with my bow.

  “You too, Miss Bourré.” Richard eyed Rosemary in the most horndog of ways. “You may want to stay as well. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  I lowered my face and snarfed a laugh down the back of my cello. “Yeah, Miss Bourré, it’ll only take a few minutes. ’Cause you’re too hot for me.” I laughed so hard my eyes leaked. Oh, man, I needed to laugh more often.

  Rosemary’s shoulders shook. It was only a matter of time before we got into a full-blown giggling fit, the kind that had been commonplace in our early freshman days. While we waited for Richard to finish figuring out why Peta’s bass sounded sharp, then walking over and tuning it for her, I thought about how packed to the gills this stadium would be tonight.

  Last night had been the most humbling experience. I’d played for large indoor audiences before, but nothing like the collective wailing, chanting sea of people that overtook the arena last night. Normally, I didn’t get too nervous about performing, but then again, I’d never come face-to-face with thirty thousand people before.

  What must Liam feel like, I wondered, standing center stage, soaking in that kind of adoring attention? I remembered him standing there, absorbing the energy. He’d stood straight, feet together and arms splayed wide, a huge white light shrouding him in silhouette, making him look like the Messiah of Rock. It was no wonder he must feel invincible. It was no wonder women flocked to him and the other guys.