Free Backstage Pass: All Access by Elizabeth Nelson Page B

fingernail, still not looking at me. “This. This traveling and groupies and not being with you.”
    Now my heart was pounding and I was getting scared about what he was trying to say. I didn’t want to take advantage of his drunken state and pry more information out of him, but at the same time I wasn’t sure I could go on knowing there might be a secret between us.
    I so didn’t want there to be one.
    He stroked my hand, petting it with a guilty rhythm.
    I s tood and took a few steps away, my back to the bed. My lungs were so tight I could barely suck in air. I didn’t want to know. But I had to ask. The words were barely a whisper. “What happened, Jesse?”
    He didn’t answer for a really long time.
    Long enough that I th ought I was going to pass out from the lack of breath. I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t hear this while I was looking away, let alone while I was watching him. My fingers squeezed my arms until pain streaked up and down my muscles. My eyes burned with unshed tears and I didn’t even know why I thought I should be crying. I should be that super tough girl who didn’t take shit from anyone, let alone my rock god boyfriend who’d been on tour for weeks.
    But I couldn’t be tough.
    Not in this moment.
    His arms eased around my waist and his cheek nestled against mine. The tears blurred my vision and I blinked them away and drew a shaky breath.
    “I fucked up, Sasha.”
    I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears and race screaming down the hallway. Please don’t let me have traveled all this way to hear something horrible. And why didn’t he tell me before now, why not when it happened? How had he been talking to me on the phone all those nights and not let on that anything bad was going on?
    “You’ve been my stronghold Sasha. You’ve been my lighthouse through all of this.”
    “And?” He couldn’t say those things when I knew he was about to unleash something awful. I wanted to be mad and furious and mean, but I also just wanted to get it over with.
    He sigh ed and it ruffled my hair. “Someone brought ecstasy to a party. I’d been really good about not drinking anything other than a few beers after the concerts. Everyone is getting ripped every night—”
    “So that made it okay?”
    “No! No, that’s not what I was trying to say at all. You saw that upstairs. It was a freak show. I usually go to my room and no one bugs me. That’s when I call you and then I work on new songs.”
    “But someone forced ecstasy down your throat?”
    “I wish. No. We had a really great concert and I decided to have a drink—I think someone put some in there because the next thing I knew I was waking up naked in bed with four different girls.”
    I want ed to puke.
    ***
    This was not even remotely going as planned. I was not supposed to be the one to fuck this up. Neither of us were. We were finally doing everything right. But I was not going to be a typical rock star—drinking and whoring and cheating.
    Right now I want ed to curl up in Sasha’s arms and let her soothe away this pain. I was such an ass I could barely even stand to be in the same room.
    When I ’d woken up this morning naked, spent, and with someone else’s ass in my hands, I nearly called her and asked her not to come. I’d never known shame quite like that moment. It was all I could do right now to keep from falling to her feet and begging her forgiveness that I didn’t deserve.
    “None of that explains what I just saw upstairs.” Her voice was shaking with fury baked into every word.
    Heat bloom ed up my face. I’d done that on purpose so Sasha would see me and leave. So I could avoid this moment right here because I was too weak to come right out and tell her what had happened. I’d been running from Sasha all night and that miniskirt girl had been relentless. When I spotted Sasha coming into the room, I finally gave in to her pursuit so it could serve my own purpose. “That was one of the girls from last night.