Free Unplugged: A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance by Sienna Valentine Page A

scar, her
mouth a surprised open O. “You are not going to believe this,” she said,
staring at my arm. “Did you break this at El Corazon?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “That’s where they played on their
2003 tour. How did you know that?”
    “Noah, I was at that show!” She grinned. “That was the
tour I went on with the band!”
    This was unreal. Her smile beamed at me and there
wasn’t anything bragging or bullshit about the look in her eyes. “No fucking
way.”
    “Seriously! Their merch guy was one of my best friends
in junior high, and he convinced them to bring me on as the tour photographer.
That Seattle show, it wasn’t supposed to go down at El Corazon, I remember—the
show got moved there last minute from a bigger venue.”
    “Yes!” I said, sitting up to face her. “Fuck, Quinn
called me at seven in the goddamn morning and I had the biggest hangover, and
he was losing his shit because we had to go exchange our tickets before the
space at the smaller venue sold out.” I started laughing as the memory rose
fresh in my mind. “We waited in the rain for six goddamn hours that day just to
make sure we got in.”
    “That place smelled horrible ,” laughed Laurel.
“Remember that? You fuckers waiting in the rain in your cotton jackets, and
then getting all packed together in that tiny room like a bunch of mean, wet
dogs. Ugh, it was such a shit show!” She hunched over, giggling at the story.
    “Fuck, that is unbelievable,” I said, pushing her hair
out of her face. “What are the odds of that?”
    “Pretty fucking small,” said Laurel. “Though I don’t
remember seeing you break your arm in the pit—I just heard about it from the
band afterwards. Ugh, their drummer was such a puss about blood… he would not shut up about how gross it was.” She ran her hand down the scar on my arm
again. “I can’t believe that was you.”
    “And here you are, back again in my fair city to watch
me suffer a different kind of injury,” I said. I meant it as a joke, and it
even came out lightly with a laugh, but the words cut deep through the mood
like I had dropped a rock into a lake. Laurel looked uncomfortable.
    “Sorry,” I said. “Forget it; that was a bad joke.”
    “We can talk about it, if you want,” she offered.
    “I don’t,” I said. Part of me meant it.
    “Okay,” said Laurel. She paused for a moment, and then
asked with a big grin, “Can I tell you something weird?”
    I laughed. “Sure.”
    She ran a teasing fingertip over the inked muscles of
my chest. “Licking your tattoos reminds me of that scene in Willy Wonka where
they lick the wallpaper.” She licked my chest. “Is this what snozberries taste
like?”
    Maybe I was just way too stoned, but I couldn’t stop
laughing. “You are a fucking weirdo.” Laurel lost it with me and I
wrapped her in playful roughhouse hug until she squealed against my skin. She
threw a leg over me and sidled up against my side again.
    “Speaking of tats, I wanted to ask you about that,” I
said. My left arm was wrapped around her beautiful body, and I stretched the
hand out to rub softly on the delicate script tattoo on her upper thigh. It was
so close to her hipbone that unless she was near-naked, the ink would stay
hidden—so much different from my approach to body art, but I liked it. Finding
it, touching it, and even licking it felt like I had found a secret treasure.
“What does it say?”
    Laurel stretched her leg out and immediately I could
see why I couldn’t read the ink before—she had had it done in such a way that
only she could read it from her angle. “It’s lyrics. Tracy Chapman.”
    I smiled. “No shit?”
    “Yeah,” said Laurel. She seemed a little
self-conscious as she talked. “ We gotta make a decision: leave tonight, or
live and die this way. ”
    Chills ran down my body. I lay my face against Laurel’s
head. “Why did you get it?”
    Laurel paused. Her breathing slowed down a little,
like she was doing it on