FG 3 - The Wedding Blitz

  The Wedding Blitz

  The Wedding Blitz

  (A Foolish Games Series)

  LEAH SPIEGEL

  And

  MEGAN SUMMERS

  Also by Leah Spiegel

  FOOLISH GAMES

  NIGHT CROSSERS

  Also by Leah Spiegel

  and Megan Summers

  FOOLISH GAMES SERIES: TIME OUT

  SOUTH HILLS SIDEKICKS: UNINVITED

  SOUTH HILLS SIDEKICKS: CONFISCATED

  SOUTH HILLS SIDEKICKS: COMPROMISED

  FAE NOT

  Cover © 2012 Dmitry Fisher at Shutterstock images

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited

  For information about the authors go to

  http://www.leahspiegel.com

  Copyright © 2012 Leah Spiegel & Megan Summers

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to Stacy Costner; we can’t thank you enough.

  “Just know you’re not alone

  Cause I am going to make this place your home”

  ~ Home by Phillip Phillips

  Chapter One

  I never thought I’d see the day when Lizzie would be the one to fill Hawkins’ tour bus up with gas at the Exxon station in San Francisco. She never seemed that interested in helping me take care of my father’s old vintage Volkswagen Van when we first started following the Grimm Brothers Band on their summer tour but then again a lot had changed since then.

  From inside the convenience store, I watched Lizzie wink at a passing customer who looked stunned by her dazzling smile as she chomped down on a piece of gum. She seemed to have this same affect on most of the guys she met. Hell it’s why Warren, the bass player of the band, fell for her the very first night he set eyes on her backstage. She had the kind of supermodel looks that made guys swoon and made other girls jealous of how her long blonde messy hair cascaded down around her tight white tank top that shamelessly hugged her assets (or at least that’s what she called them) in her bright red bra. She bent her long tan gams as she turned around to remove the gas nozzle from the bus and hooked it back into place on the fuel dispenser. She flashed a wicked grin at another guy customer as he made his way back to his Harley motorcycle. Little did he know that she would chew him up and spit him back out like the gum in her mouth.

  “Someone’s hungry,” the woman cashier, with a sleeve of tattoos down her arm, boasted behind the register. I looked down at the heap of junk food: one bag of M&Ms, two Hershey bars, one Twix, and three bags of skittles.

  “I’m not the only one eating all of this,” I lied since I was actually eating it all now that I was eating for two. I quickly paid the cashier and as if this wasn’t humiliating enough began dropping some of the snacks on the floor as I tried to make a hasty escape hindered further when the cashier hadn’t offer to give me a bag for the snacks. Not that I cared that was until, Lizzie shouted across the parking lot. “It’s going to go straight to your hips and thighs! Hawkins isn’t going to want you when you’re the size of a whale.”

  “Lizzie, it’s Hawkins,” I sighed as she made her way down the side to the front of the bus.

  “Well that is if he were normal,” she said under her breath as we climbed inside. I was about to tell her that I had heard her when she then did the unthinkable (or at least I was still trying to wrap my mind around it) as she got behind the wheel of the bus and started it up.

  Lizzie had offered to drive the tour bus ever since the recent death of Hawkins’ bus driver, Ted. She claimed that she used to drive her grandparent’s RV around whenever they went camping because she was not and never was going to be a camper and unfortunately for the rest of us, she had the C driver’s license to prove it.

  “Places everyone!” I shouted back at Riley, Warren, and Hawkins as I hurried up with my goodies to one of the leather lounge couches on either side of the front of the bus. I knew there weren’t any seatbelts on the bus but that didn’t stop me from looking for them every time Lizzie volunteered to drive. Riley, my best friend, quietly held up a mug of coffee as if to say ‘thank you’ before proceeding to sit down in the nearby kitchen booth.

  I secretly dubbed Riley ‘Abercrombie and Fitch’ because he looked like the models in the large black and white photographs displayed in the stores and partly because if Riley weren’t gay I would have snatched him up years ago.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Lizzie huffed. “I’m not that bad.”

  “You’re not that good either,” I sighed when she suddenly gunned the bus forward causing my stash of goodies to scatter to the floor again as I held on for dear life to the top edge of lounge booth. She then took a wide turn, probably trying to miss hitting the convenience store altogether, sending my butt sliding across the slick lounge couch once I finally lost my grip.

  Warren, the bass player for the band, stumbled forward from where he was sleeping on one of the bottom bunk beds in the back. He looked amazingly untroubled by Lizzie’s driving partially because he was so clearly hung over. He held out a shaky hand to grab onto kitchen table as he continued to stagger forward before...

  Bam!

  He whacked into the kitchen cabinets on the opposite side when Lizzie took another quick turn. Riley’s eyes quickly narrowed as he grimaced, “Ouch…you okay there?”

  “I’m solid.”

  Warren looked like he hadn’t shaven in days and I noticed his sandy blonde hair was shooting up like someone had shellacked the side of his head with grease. It had only been a few weeks since his sister, Gwyneth’s death and we all knew that he was still grieving. Gwyneth had joined the tour under the false assumption that she was there to try to get Hawkins back since they were engaged to get married once. It was all really a cover for the fact that she had obtained crucial information that both our country and a group of terrorists from the Middle East thought was worth killing for. At the time she admitted to thinking, what could be a more secure place for her to hide than behind the band’s security? I myself had been tortured by a group of men, who I thought were terrorists when they were really our own National Security Agents, because Gwyneth had told them that I had taken her locket where the microchip of information was concealed in.

  That was now secondary in my mind as I watched Warren on his relentless pursuit to pour himself a drink while Lizzie tossed us around like the contents of a piñata. He pulled down a tumbler glass from a cabinet up above and placed it down on the kitchen counter. As Lizzie continued to turn and turn until it felt like we were going around in circles, I watched his glass slide down the counter. I was surprised that it didn’t fall off of the edge and shatter onto the floor but then again I think I underestimated Warren’s need to self-medicate himself because he caught the glass and then dragged it back again and again until he finally managed to unscrew the top of a bottle of whiskey to pour himself a drink.

  “Babe, I’m having a drink, you want one?”

  “What are you having?” Lizzie asked causing Riley and me to bug our eyes out in utter astonishment.

  “Lizzie,” Riley and I groaned in unison.

  “It was a joke! Sorry babe, I guess I can’t because I’m driving.”

  “That’s cool, it just leaves more for me,” Warren mumbled under his breath before he downed the drink like a shot which I noticed wasn’t mixed with anything, just straight from the bottle.

  Bam!

  We all looked in the direction of Hawkins’ closed bedroom door where we had heard a loud thud when Lizzie took another wild turn. Warren just snickered as he poured himself another drink because
there was no mistaking the fact that Hawkins had literally just rolled out of bed.

  “Lizzie,” Hawkins grumbled minutes later, dressed in only a pair of dark washed jeans. The sight of his half naked body made my heart suddenly come alive. I think Riley even enjoyed the view as Hawkins pulled a t-shirt over his exposed and very well defined chest. “I thought you said you knew how to drive this thing.”

  “What do you call this? ...Parking?”

  Hawkins rubbed a hand over his five o’clock shadow in disbelief as he approached the front of the bus. Sometimes I wasn’t sure how I managed to get my hooks into Hawkins because he was uncommonly handsome with his dark hair, chiseled cheek bones, and smoldering blue eyes.

  “Good, you’ve got an appetite,” he stopped midway to pick up a bag of M&Ms that had been tossed to the floor.

  “I had an appetite,” I stressed with a nod at the back of Lizzie as he sat down beside me and wrapped an arm around my back until we were nestled together. Hawkins ripped open the bag of M&Ms and motioned for my hand but I just shook my head since all the moving around had made me feel queasy.

  “Don’t make me force feed you like a little kid,” he playfully scolded me but when I didn’t hold out an open hand, he sifted through the open bag of M&Ms. He picked out a green colored one and began to move it back and forth in front of my face like an airplane, complete with the sound effects and all, stopping when it touched my lips causing me to laugh. “Open up,” he cooed until I finally dropped open my mouth so he could place the piece of chocolate in my mouth. “You see, that wasn’t so bad.”

  Phew!

  I spit the M&M back out onto the floor. When Hawkins looked at me with a mixture of shock and laughter, I quickly explained, “I don’t think the baby likes green M&Ms.”

  Hawkins laughed from somewhere deep down inside and it seemed to echo off the bus’s walls long after he was done. “Well then what is it that the baby does like, huh?”

  “Not much of anything right now,” I sighed as I laid my head back down on his shoulder and we snuggled in together again.

  “Umm…Riley?” Lizzie called over her shoulder. “Do you think you could read me the directions to the Shoreline Amphitheater from the MapQuest directions on your laptop?”

  “What happened to ‘Greta’ the Garmin?”

  “I ripped that bitch down an hour ago.”

  “Oh hell,” Riley groaned. “I’m on it.”

  “I thought that was a lot of turning,” I mumbled to Hawkins as Riley carefully got up from the safety of the kitchen booth to retrieve his laptop.

  “You think?” Hawkins rolled his eyes. “That was one hell of a wakeup call I’ll never forget, that’s for sure.”

  “Hey I haven’t killed anyone…yet,” Lizzie must have overheard us because she huffed, “Can we all just focus on that?”

  “It’s good to know that you’re expectations are high, Lizzie,” I joked as Riley zigzagged his way to the front of the bus with his arm securely wrapped around his laptop like some kind of running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

  “Hey, I don’t see anyone else volunteering to drive!”

  “Yet,” Hawkins muttered under his breath as Riley got situated on one of the steps leading down to driver’s platform.

  “So where are we now?” Riley asked.

  “If I had a freaking clue, I wouldn’t have asked for your help in the first place!” I could tell that Lizzie was quickly losing her patience.

  “You want that drink now babe?” Warren snickered as he took Riley’s seat at the kitchen booth.

  “Sure do!”

  We all laughed when Hawkins’ cell suddenly went off from within his jean pocket. “Who could that be?” his eyebrows knitted together as he pulled out his Blackberry to check. “Sorry, but I have to take this,” he then got up and went to answer it. “Hey mom, how are you?”

  Riley stopped looking at the overhead highway signs at the mention of Hawkins’ mom long enough to flash me a wicked grin.

  “What?” I mouthed with a smile on my face.

  “Nothing,” he shrugged though it didn’t look like nothing.

  “Riley focus,” Lizzie hissed causing him to turn back around.

  “So how was the flight back from Johannesburg?” I overheard Hawkins ask his mom as he slowly paced the aisle of the bus. “That good, ay?” he snickered then after a minute of listening to her, he added, “Umm…mom?” Hawkins glanced over his shoulder at me before lowering his voice as he continued to walk down the aisle away from me. Though I still managed to overhear him say, “I’d like for you to finally meet Joie.”

  What? Hawkins wanted me to meet his mom? I knew that this day would come eventually; I just didn’t know it would be this soon. I think most girls would normally be thrilled to be in my position, but I wasn’t good with parents. Period. In fact the only parent I had still living was just starting to speak to me again I lied to her about working for a presidential campaign when in fact I had been following the band around on their summer tour.

  “No mom, it can’t wait. We’re going to be in the Seattle area anyway,” he sighed as he entered his bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him.

  “That can’t be good,” I mumbled under my breath.

  When Riley stole another look in my direction, I knew he had overhead as much as I had but he quickly turned back around to help navigate. “You want to merge right.”

  With Riley’s help we finally arrived at the Shoreline Amphitheater, though a few hours behind schedule. It must have been long enough to concern the band’s staff and crew because Rob Harlow, head of the lighting crew, came out to meet us halfway across the parking lot after Lizzie managed to park the bus without taking out any other vehicles.

  I always thought Harlow was more attractive than the other crew members. Maybe it was because most of the other crew looked like the type of men who could actually carry the heavy equipment and rig it up above the stage—the kind of guys I wouldn’t want to meet in an empty alleyway. But Rob Harlow on the other hand practically looked like a hippie in comparison. His sandy blonde hair hung down over his blue eyes which he was constantly tucking behind his ear. He was dressed in a hunter green North Face sweatshirt, tan khakis, and had leather Birkenstock clogs on his feet. It wasn’t hard for me to see why Riley was attracted to Harlow in the first place; though he claimed it had nothing to do with his looks as much as it did with his talent. The two guys had been secretly dating because Harlow, who was older than Riley, hadn’t officially come out of the closet yet.

  “What took you guys so long?” Harlow asked as we unloaded from the bus. Rob had never had a problem treating the other band members as equals since he had been with them from the beginning.

  “I blame the Garmin.” Lizzie nominated the only thing that couldn’t speak for itself as she helped keep Warren up right. “It’s the devil himself disguised as ‘helpful technology’ when it really just wants to lead you down the wrong path.”

  “Do you think this is funny? The opening act is already on the stage. We didn’t know if we were going to have to cancel the show or not,” he explained the severity of the situation.

  “Cool it dude,” Warren came to Lizzie’s defense. “We’re here now, isn’t that what matters?”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “What if I am?” he challenged.

  “How are we supposed to have a show if he can’t even stand on his own?” Rob turned to Hawkins for an explanation but Warren was in rare form and beat him to it. “Why don’t you let me worry about my job and you and your little boyfriend over there,” he jerked his thumb in Riley’s direction causing everyone who was sober to become deathly silent. “Worry about your job.”

  “Warren,” Lizzie whispered clearly shocked by what he had just said.

  “What?” Warren scoffed. “Really how many times does it take two people to go over the ‘lighting arrangements’ when it’s forty shows later and the tour’s almost over?”

  “Yo
u wouldn’t have said that if you weren’t drunk,” Lizzie looked embarrassed for Riley. “It’s just the alcohol talking.”

  “No it isn’t,” he hissed. “Everyone knows about them.”

  “Warren stop—

  “No it’s okay,” Harlow stopped Lizzie by holding up a hand. “He’s lost someone close to him and now he feels entitled to destroy everyone else’s happiness including his own…but he’s right about one thing, I still have a job to do.” Harlow took the high road before turning back around and headed for the backstage door.

  “Take him inside,” Hawkins muttered to Lizzie clearly pissed with his best friend.

  “Dude—

  “I’m not you’re dude right now, Warren,” Hawkins snipped.

  “Whatever man,” Warren waved him off and with Lizzie’s help he too turned to head for the backstage door.

  “You okay, Riley?” I finally turned to my best friend who still looked shell shocked by the turn of events.

  “He’s not going be okay with this,” Riley whispered almost to himself.

  “It’s Harlow, Riley, I’m sure it’s going to be okay.”

  “No, you don’t understand, being professional means everything to him. If he senses for a second that the other guys on his crew think we’ve been inappropriate…,” he drifted off. “And he’s not even told his family yet, so no Joie, he’s not going to be okay with this,” Riley sighed and with a drop of his shoulders, he headed inside next.

  I turned to Hawkins who could only shake his head as he wrapped a comforting arm around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why? You didn’t do anything wrong,” I mumbled under my breath wondering how this would impact Riley’s night.

  After a raving lunatic stalker had abducted me and the recent bomb scare, Hawkins had insisted that I watch the rest of the shows from the safety of the lightening booth which depending on the venue was usually located on a platform under the amphitheater roof, up above the audience or out in the center of the seats blocked off from the rest of the concert goers. I discovered as I moved through the crowd that Shoreline Amphitheater’s lighting booth was located at the latter, in the restricted center of the seating blocked off from the rest of the crowd.