Page 99 of Kiss Marry Kill
“Calm down and talk to me, please,” she asked. Her voice was calm, sweet even, but the glint in her eye was anything but polite. “Obviously, you’re pissed off about something, but you need to explain. Because I need to explain it to two other women, a record label, my freaking manager, and fourteen thousand fans!” By the time the last word had come out, she was yelling.
He took her by the elbow and led her to her dressing room. “I want every person coming into this arena to come in through just one of the entrances. I don’t want this to be a free-for-all. That way I can have some of my men monitoring, as well as cameras. I need to be able to control this crowd.”
“Okay, sounds reasonable. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that the dickhead with a badge in charge of the arena is not allowing it. He says it’s not efficient and it’s a fire hazard, which is bull-fucking-shit because we’re not locking the doors. They can use any goddamn door to leave. I just want to control who gets in and how. I also want all bags checked, and the fucker said no to that too.”
Megan reached forward and plucked his cell phone from his pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a call,” she glared, her quirked eyebrow daring him to question her.
Megan dialed and then, “Larry, it’s Megan. . . . Yeah I’m here. Sound check. Hey, listen, there seems to be a problem with security here. Well, you know I don’t want to be a prima donna or anything, but you know what’s been going on, right? With the stalker . . . Okay, well, the dude’s still out there, Larry, or someone is. I don’t feel comfortable with the way they’re handling security here, or not handling it, for that matter. I want my people to take care of it. I’ll pay. Whatever it takes. It needs to get done. Yeah, well, it’s going to be more pricey if it gets cancelled and we have to return all those ticket sales, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Coordinate it with Glen. Thanks, Larry.” She swiped the screen and slapped the phone into Jax’s palm. “Give him twenty minutes, I’m sure it’ll get resolved. And for the record, I appreciate your concern for my safety, I really do, but you can’t just cancel a concert. It’s millions of dollars plus TNT’s reputation. You have to consult with us first.”
He snarled.
“I’m serious. This is my career.”
“And if you’re dead there’s no career to be had.”
“I get that. But you have to trust me to help you handle things that just might be out of your control, like a call to Larry, the president of the label, for example.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” she huffed, just as his phone rang.
“What?” he bellowed into his phone. There was a pause.
“I’ll be right down.” He swiped the phone off. “Matter resolved.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes and was turning to walk back when he hooked his finger through a loop of her jeans and pulled her toward him. “I love you,” he barked, almost mad, but he could feel the slight curve up on the corner of his lips giving him away.
“I love you too,” she said, with the same upset tone, before he gave her a hard kiss and let her go.
“Everything looks good, boss.” Jason said from the other side of the stage.
“All good in the back,” Ben confirmed.
Jax adjusted his earpiece, keeping watch on the stage. “Keep an eye out. We’ll be out of here within an hour.”
Jax scanned the crowd and behind the curtain. Backstage passes had been limited for the show, but even then there were more people than he was comfortable with in the wings. Techies, label people, costuming. Tamara and Lisa were nearby, as was usually the case. During breaks the girls would sometimes run backstage and change or touch up their hair and makeup, and Lisa and Tamara were usually nearby.
Taylor was in the middle of a guitar solo when Jax happened to glance at the stage. While everyone’s attention was on the light spectacle going on around the stage while Taylor strummed, Megan was wetting her bottom lip with her tongue and her eyebrows were furrowed. To anyone watching, it didn’t look like anything unusual, but to Jax, who knew her well, it was odd.
As Taylor slowed down, Megan grabbed the mic and began to sing. It was one of Jax’s favorite TNT songs, other than “Promise Me,” of course. He hadn’t even known it was Megan when he’d caught himself singing along to it months ago on the radio. It was called “Junebug” and it was one of their faster tempo songs.
“There’s something wrong,” Jackson said into his mic.
“Where? What?” came the replies from his men.
“Standby, not sure yet,” he responded.
“I don’t see anything,” Tamara said, looking around as if for impending danger.
“Neither do I,” Lisa added.
“She sounds weird,” Jax said, getting closer to the stage. Megan cleared her throat and shook her head mid-song before going back to singing. He could see Taylor and Nelly looking at each other, confused. There were three songs left on the show, and she cleared her throat again and held the microphone out to the crowd, smiling, so that the audience could sing the chorus. She did that often, but this felt off, her smile was off, and that cough . . . it was unusual. The song ended, the crowd cheered, and Megan said something to Taylor, who nodded and went into a solo. Megan stepped over by the drums and gulped some water. This was only the second TNT show he’d seen, but this wasn’t something she normally did. She jogged back to center stage, the fake smile still plastered on her face. “Come on, Baltimore! Let me hear you sing.” And she did that microphone thing again, where the crowd sang the song. Midway through the song, she turned to the girls and said something Jax couldn’t hear and Nelly and Taylor went into a solo.
