Page 3 of Dirty Like Zane
This would be my home for the next four months while we toured North America, before we headed overseas to continue Dirty’sHell & Backworld tour. We rarely traveled by bus on other continents but here at home we had so many tour dates, especially in the U.S., that it made the most sense, both economically and comfort-wise, to travel bybus.
These days, every member of Dirty had their own luxury bus—except for Elle and Seth, since they were a couple. Our road crew traveled on other buses with a bunch of bunks in them. Once we rolled into a city, the band and management would stay in a hotel, but for the most part everyone preferred traveling this way—for each of us to have our own space, with our own stuff, set up the way we liked it; a home-away-from-home that rolled right along wherever wewent.
For my part, I was already in love with mybus.
The LadyBus.
It was the bus for the female crew, and there really weren’t many ofus.
There wasme.
There was my assistant, Talia, whom I’d begged to come on the tour at the very last minute. Since my boss, Brody Mason—Dirty’s manager—had a new baby and wasn’t coming on this tour full-time, he’d offered me both a promotion and an assistant. I was pretty sure he did it out of guilt when he saw how stressed I was leading up to the tour, but he really didn’t need to feel guilty. My stress had little to do with myworkload.
I’d turned down the promotion, as usual, but jumped at the chance to take on an assistant, and Talia was my first choice. I was actually afraid she might say no since she was in school, but as it turned out, the opportunity to go on tour with Dirty—one of the biggest touring rock bands in the world—was too much to passup.
Lucky forme.
I adored Talia. She reminded me of a younger, blonde—and very possibly hotter—version of me. She had a work ethic to rival my own and, in my opinion, the fact that she was a babe with impeccable fashion sense was just a point in herfavor.
It had always irked me when certain men in this business—and there were a lot of them—took one glance at me and assumed I didn’t belong here, or worse, that I was just some fangirl. If you asked me, women could be pretty, sexy, fashionable—or anything else they damned well wanted to be—and kickass.
I’d spent the last eight years of my life proving that was true. In high heels and amanicure.
Talia and I would be joined on the Lady Bus by Elle’s assistant, Joanie. I liked Joanie, too. No bullshit, great work ethic, and she’d been working closely with Elle for years. She knew the lay of theland.
Bonus: I’d never seen Joanie or Talia so much as bat an eyelash in Zane’s direction. When Zane Traynor walked by, women tended to get starry-eyed, stupid, andslutty.
Myself included,unfortunately.
But not thesewomen.
And then there was Sophie, our newish merch girl; girlfriend of our longtime merch guy, Pete. On the last Dirty tour, Sophie had proven herself an asset; tons of fun, zero drama. She had an easy, hearty laugh, and though I was pretty sure she was devoted to Pete in every way, she tended to laugh heartily at pretty much everything that came out of Zane’smouth.
Nobody’s perfect,right?
Pete was riding on one of the crew buses, and while Sophie really could’ve stayed on there with her man, I’d definitely upsold her on the perks of riding on the LadyBus.
Perks that included pretty decor, cleanliness and a fresh, unoffensivescent.
So, along with our female driver, Bobbi, we had five ladies traveling on a luxury six-bunk bus—just enough for me to convince Brody that we needed our ownbus.
ThankGod.
No way was I ending up on a crew bus crowded with farting, snoring men. Been there before, repeatedly, and paid my dues infull.
And no fucking way was I ending up on a rock star’sbus.
Elle and Seth had Flynn and Bane, their bodyguards, on their bus. Jesse and Katie had Jude, our head of security and Jesse’s best friend and bodyguard on their bus. Dylan had his girlfriend and our tour photographer, Amber, with him, as well as his bodyguard,Con.
And Matt, the bassist we’d hired on for this tour, had his ownpeople.
Which left Zane, who had nobody on his bus with him except his bodyguard, Shady. Our ADHD-afflicted lead singer was the one rock star on this tour who probably needed some kind of assistant-slash-life-manager-slash-therapist on his bus. For a biker, Shady was a lovely man, but I’d literally had to teach him how to open an email so he could access the tour schedule; no way he was gonna assist Zane with anything other than watching his back and maybe rolling him ajoint.
I was organized as hell, and while I certainlycould’vehelped Zane sort out his clusterfuck of a life,fuckthat.
Brody knew nothing about my fucked-up secret marriage to Zane, but he did know, possibly better than anyone, what a lunatic Zane Traynor could be. And he respected me, deeply. I really didn’tthinkhe’d suggest that I bus with Zane, but there was no way in hell I was willing to risk thatconversation.
The Lady Bus was my insurance policy and mysanctuary.
