Kat screeched and threw herself into Derek’s arms. “You did it!”
Derek chuckled. “Not me.We.I need you on this tour,Kat.”
“What?” She rocked back on her heels and shot a quick glance at the stage.
“No one is better with them than you. No one believes in them more than you.”
“You do.”
“Not like you. I worry about them and I try to control the chaos, but…” He shook his head. “Last time they tried to go on tour, I was distracted and look how that ended.”
“Derek, none of that was your fault. Please tell me you know that. Jackson made his decisions—Beckett too. And the consequences of those decisions are their own.”
“It’s not like when they were first touring. I have Annie now. I need to put her first. And I can’t do that if I’m fishing Jackson out of a bar at two in the morning and bribing hotel front desk agents to look the other way when Nico brings someone back to his room. They need someone who will make this tour their top priority, and I need to be able to step away when Annie has a parent-teacher conference. I know I shouldn’t ask—you have your books and I know NostalgiCon was supposed to be a one-time thing—but they need someone to be their number one person on this tour. And it can’t be me.”
Kat twisted a lock of hair around her finger, her gaze drifting back to the stage where Beckett held the crowd’s attention for the final chorus. “What did the guys say?”
“I haven’t told them yet.” She startled, surprised. “I’m not sending them on the road without a tour manager I trust, and there is no one better than you.”
She shot him an incredulous look. “So, what? Either I go on tour with them or you call the whole thing off?”
“No, of course not. But when I tell them, I want to show them the entire chessboard. We have to do it differently this time. All the cards on the table.”
“You’re mixing metaphors.”
“They deserve to be a part of the decisions that shape the next phase of their career, and they can’t do that if they don’t know who’s on their team. Before I ask them to sign on for something this big, they need to know—Ineed to know—who has their hand on the wheel. I want it to be you, Kat. But if it’s not, I want to tell them from the start. I don’t want phone calls from Beckett a week before they leave telling me to get you on board.”
She huffed a laugh. “Becks would never.”
“He already did.”
Her eyes snapped to his. “He what?” she breathed.
“I told you this.”
“No, you didn’t. Your assistant said the label asked for me. Not Beckett.”
Derek leveled her with a look. “The label did ask for you, because Beckett asked for you. Would you have come if we told you it was him?”
She opened her mouth but no words came out and she shut it again, her gaze drifting back to the stage. “I need to think about it.”
Derek gave a crisp nod. “Fine. But think quickly. I’ll tell the guys after the show tonight, and I want to give them an answerabout who’s managing this tour before we leave California tomorrow morning.”
“That’s not enough time,” she argued.
“It is. You already know what you’re going to do, Kat. So take the night to pretend you need to think about it, and then tomorrow give me your answer so I can promise the band they’ll be in good hands, even when I can’t be there.”
The private room at The Poison Place restaurant wasn’t all that private. The entire wall facing the poison gardens was glass, the walls accordioning open to create an indoor / outdoor dining space. Under normal circumstances, Derek would have had a conniption about the members of Midnight Storm choosing this venue to celebrate the news of their new tour, but since the restaurant sat in the heart of Forbidden Garden Neighborhood at the Hotel Bellwether, and all the cottages and villas were occupied by other NostalgiCon celebrities and their staff, he supposed it didn’t matter that their group was completely exposed. Still, Gideon faithfully held his post by the restaurant entrance, other members of the security team flanking the patio where the band had gathered.
Across the table, Annie was curled up on Jo’s lap, half asleep, her fork slipping from her hand every few bites as she fought to stay awake. His daughter should have been in bed hours ago, but she was so excited to celebrate with the band—and to have one more death by chocolate brownie before they leftthe hotel in the morning—that Derek hadn’t had the heart to send her back to the room.
Jo smoothed Annie’s hair and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, and Derek’s chest constricted, his heart thudding painfully when his daughter nuzzled deeper into Jo’s arms.
He was in love with Jo. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, or how, but looking at her sitting there with his daughter in her arms, watching her laugh with Kat and tease Beckett, it was glaringly obvious. He was in so deep he couldn’t even see the surface anymore.
More concerning than his own out of control emotions, however, was the clear adoration on his daughter’s face whenever she was with Jo. How comfortable she was with her, the possessive curl of her hand around Jo’s. Somehow, in only a few days, Jo’s presence had filled in the cracks he hadn’t even known were there, smoothing them out, gluing them together.
And we’re saying goodbye tomorrow.