The Rocker's Muse

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Atticus is probably the wildest of the crew. And his eyes tell me he’s troubled about something.”

“What about Ronan?” I asked.

“Ronan is the funniest. His eyes are mischievous.”

Both Atticus and Ronan were just as good-looking as Tristan. The three of them were like a rock-god trifecta.

“How come you’re never taking photos at night?” I asked.

“The guys have a rule: no photos after the show. Probably because they don’t want the world to know what they’re up to. My job is to mainly document the musical aspects of the tour, not necessarily the other shenanigans.”

“The women, you mean?”

She nodded.

My phone rang, and I held a finger up to pause our conversation. “Hello?” I answered.

“We have a request for condoms,” Stephen, the tour manager, said. “I need you to take the car and get some. Bring them to Atticus’s room.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “Uh…okay.”

“You okay?” Layla asked as I hung up.

“Yeah.” I slipped on my shoes and chuckled. “I have to get condoms.”

“Oh shit.” She laughed. “Well, at least they’re being safe.”

“No idea what happened to the box I bought the other night.”

“I have some ideas.” She rolled her eyes. “I think you need to get, like, ten boxes.”

“No shit. I think I’ll do that.” I stopped at the door. “Do you need anything while I’m out?”

“I don’t want to trouble you.”

“I’ll definitely need to buy something else to distract from the condoms, so what do you want?”

“Bring me back a Diet Coke?”

“You got it.” I winked.

I took the rental car and drove down the main road to the nearest Walmart.

After grabbing some snacks for the hotel room, Layla’s Diet Coke, and five boxes of condoms to keep stashed away so I didn’t have to keep going out to buy them, I went to the self-checkout register.

When I returned to the hotel, I dropped most of the stuff in my room first, then went to the other side of our floor to deliver a box of condoms to Atticus. I knocked on his door, and when it opened, I handed him the box as fast as I could. He took it without uttering a word. It felt like a covert operation, almost the way I imagined a drug deal to be. I’d barely noticed the shadow of a woman behind him.

On the way back down the hall, I heard a struggle as I passed a little alcove off of the hallway that contained a vending machine. I realized it was a girl being practically mauled by a man whose advances she clearly didn’t want. He’d cornered her, and her arms flailed as she tried to push him off.

“Get off her!” I shouted as I leaped in and used all of my might to shove him away.

“What the fuck?” he spewed.

“Can’t you see she’s telling you to stop?” I panted.

“Oh my God, thank you,” the girl whispered to me.

“What the hell is going on?” A voice came from behind me.