Stuck With The Four Hotties

“Miranda!” I shout, putting my hands over my ears. “Please stop.”

Having Miranda walk in on me and her twin for a second time was not pleasant. Guess it serves us right for not checking to see if the door was locked.

“Okay, fine, but it still looked wrinkly to me …”

Zack makes a frustrated sounding growl while Lizzie giggles and puts her hand over her mouth. I’m just done with the conversation, so I ignore them all, gaping at the massive, heaving crowd gathering around the stage.

We follow the other golf cart around to the back where several burly security guards check and recheck our badges before letting us backstage.

“What a circus,” Tristan drawls, like he’s bored out of his mind.

“Better than a wrinkly butt,” Lizzie says, and I swear, she does it on purpose. I stop dead in my tracks and turn to look at her, but she’s already breezing past and giggling. Tristan looks at her and then back over at me. If the rumors are true, he hasn’t had sex in … years, right?

“Miranda walked in on me and Creed,” I tell him, locking eyes with that shimmering silver gaze of his. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say a word, waiting for the others to pass before Windsor pauses beside me.

“I wasn’t jealous before,” Wind muses, pushing his red hair off his forehead. As per usual, it sticks straight up. “I’m starting to get jealous now. What do you think, Mr. Vanderbilt?”

“Creed’s no threat to me,” he says, standing up straight and storming past us while Creed flips him off from behind.

“Fucking asshole,” he drawls, glancing over to gauge my reaction. I’m standing there, taking in the tension and wondering: how much longer can I do this? How much longer can I keep them all before they start to fight with one another?

“Hey.” Zayd appears, grabbing me by the hand and interrupting my train of thought. He’s got sweatbands on his wrists now, and this fierce look to his face that completely transforms him. He goes from gorgeous, slightly unattainable, mildly dangerous … to transcendent. Zayd Kaiser looks like a rock god. He’s in his element, and he’s feeling the vibes of the crowd.

His energy is infectious.

Zayd drags me to the edge of the stage where his band members are waiting, and the first group of the night starts to tune their instruments. The

crowd goes wild in anticipation of the show as Zayd drapes himself over my shoulders, his breath warm against my ear.

“After the show, I need you to help me fend off groupies, okay?” he says, and before I get a chance to open my mouth to ask him about that, the music’s starting, and I can’t hear a damn thing.

For years, I’ve wanted to go to one of Zayd’s concerts and see him perform.

Tonight, I’m finally getting that chance.

The three bands before Zayd’s are good, but their lead singers don’t have that same wild energy that I can feel coursing through him as he touches me, his fingers on every part of my body. I’m wearing an Afterglow tank dress and heels, and it’s like Zayd can’t get enough of me. He basically holds me through all three sets before finally giving me a scorching kiss for luck, and striding out across the stage.

He tears the microphone from its stand, sweeps his fingers through his green hair, and then flashes this ardent look at the crowd that has them screaming.

“Whoa. If I weren’t gay, I might be switching teams to #TeamZayd.”

Miranda whistles under her breath as Zayd moves up to the front of the stage and plants one of his boots on a speaker.

“Good evening, California!” he shouts, and a ripple of power seems to surge through the crowd. My heart stutters, and I make a small gasping sound that only Zack seems to notice. He glances from me and over to Zayd, watching him with dark, narrowed eyes, taking him in. “Are you ready to get your fucking faces rocked off tonight?!”

The responding shouts are deafening.

Zayd puts the microphone back on the stand, grabs a lime green guitar shaped like an axe, and strums it. Bern starts up the drums while Aiden plays the bass, and Benji takes up another guitar. I don’t know a lot about rock music per se, but there’s this unforgettable essence in music, something that you learn once and never forget. I might play the harp, but my body resonates with the notes Zayd strums with his fingers.

He opens with a song that’s a hell of a lot heavier than anything I’m used to listening to, but I like it. Sure, I’ll probably be deaf for a few days after, but … it’s so worth it.

“Altered by fire, destroyed by the flame, broken by violence, restored in the rain.” Zayd screams the lyrics into the mic, dropping his voice low as he strums the guitar with a frantic dance of inked fingers. I shiver, goose bumps springing up across my body as I listen to the words and try to decide if I’ve heard this song from him before. But no … this is a new one. A smile curves my lips. No ghostwriter penned this tune. “The fall of your tears was the catalyst I craved, the heat of your mouth was the balm that could save. You opened your eyes, and you saw through my pain.” Zayd pauses his strumming of the guitar, and then growls into the mic in such a way that I feel every single part of me come to life with a violent surge of want.

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Fend off groupies, he said? I can see why.

“Now dance.” Zayd snaps this part off his tongue and twists his finger in a sharp circle, getting the crowd so riled up that a mosh pit forms near the front of the stage. Miranda and I are both screaming now and jumping up and down.

The energy carries through that song and into the next, when Zayd puts his

guitar down and takes his performance up to a whole new level, using the entire stage as the canvas for his art. This next tune is much softer than the first, but still wild. He even climbs into the crowd and sings

as they hold him up like a god.