Time Out (Foolish Games Series) Page 7

  I noticed that Riley and Lizzie were also seated around the room as Hawkins and I took a seat on what looked like a sophisticated version of a flat chaise longue. Lizzie, who was sitting the closest to me, went to mess with my hair, but I waved her off when I realized on some level anyone could guess what Hawkins and I had been up to, that is if Gwyneth’s evil glare didn’t say it all.

  “What’s going on?” Hawkins finally asked as leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees to huddle in with the rest of the guys.

  “They found a bomb at the venue,” Warren filled him in causing me to drop my mouth open in astonishment.

  “A what—” Hawkins hissed.

  “They had to call in the bomb squad and everything.” Warren nodded in understanding.

  “How the hell did they manage to get a bomb inside the venue in the first place?” Hawkins looked like he was waiting for someone to bring in the cameras because he had just been Punk’d.

  “What we’re hearing from some of the guys back at the venue,” Harlow joined the conversation. He looked like the guy version of Gwyneth in the fact that they both dressed in the same understated hippie style of clothing, like wearing Birkenstocks. I would have sworn the two could be related, with his natural sandy blonde hair and the kind of good looks that came from living a healthy lifestyle. “It looks like someone made the pipe bomb while the concert was going on,” he continued to explain.

  “What?” Hawkins looked like he was having an even harder time believing this than if they had just waltzed in with a bomb and made it past security.

  “Yeah, you heard me,” Harlow looked he was having a hard time fathoming the idea too. “They created the bomb with what supplies they could find around the venue. The bomb squad found broken bits of plastic which look like they came from C.D. cases that we sell, shards of a broken up mirror which used to be in the guy’s restroom, and bits of gravel which they concealed in a tinted plastic beer bottle. The detonator looked like any other kind of iPod wrapped around the bottle in tape. That’s probably how it got past security.”

  “Did anyone get hurt?” Hawkins seemed to slowly register this was really happening.

  “No, that’s the crazy part,” Harlow explained. “The cleaning crew found it long after the fans had left. It was like they were just testing the waters to see if they could get away with it.”

  “Why do you think that?” Hawkins face pinched with the question.

  “They placed it below a seat in the central part of the pavilion where they could have killed a lot of people if they wanted to. It’s like…they were trying to send a message.”

  “Holy shit,” Hawkins covered his face with his hands as we all slowly looked from one person to the next in the eerie silence that followed.

  “Is this connected to Cyrus?” Hawkins finally asked. “Like a copycat looking to get attention?”

  “The bomb squad thinks this goes way beyond the skill set of just anyone, even Cyrus. The kind of technology it took to make that iPod contraption isn’t what your average copycat would be able to do either. National Security has already been alerted, and they’re flying someone in tomorrow.”

  “They think that it’s the work of a terrorist?” Hawkins was struck with the last blow.

  “After the bombing in London,” Harlow nodded gravely. “Yeah—they do.”

  “But why us?” Warren finally asked the question I think was on everyone else’s mind.

  “Probably because we don’t have our act together, after what happened with Cyrus,” Hawkins sighed heavily like that part of the problem he could believe. “It’s practically common knowledge by now that we got rid of almost seventy-five percent of our staff and crew because we didn’t know who to trust. And if you wanted a place to test the waters, it doesn’t get any better than with us. I mean obviously if you can create a bomb at our concert without anyone ever knowing about it.” Hawkins rolled his eyes in disbelief.

  “I’m pretty sure a lot of venue’s security would have been fooled by the iPod and the tools he used to create the bomb,” Harlow pointed out in the crew’s defense. “This wasn’t the work of an amateur.”

  “What seat?” Gwyneth finally broke her silence. “Did they put the bottle under?”

  “It was left in Row L in Section 103. Why?”

  “I just can’t imagine being that person, that’s all,” she said looking truly horrified for whoever was sitting there.

  “Well it’s getting late,” Harlow sighed down at his wrist watch. “I’m sure we’ll all reconvene tomorrow when the person from National Security gets here.”

  “Riley, are you coming with me?” Harlow asked on his way out. I think everyone’s mouth dropped at the direct question, including Riley, since Rob hadn’t officially come out to anyone or at least that’s what I had thought. “You wanted to show me that thing you were talking about earlier?”

  “I’m sure that he does,” Lizzie said in no louder than a whisper.

  For a second, I thought maybe Riley was frozen, like how he used to act around Hawkins and the rest of the band because he was star struck. But the new and improved Riley raised his eyebrows and quickly got up to leave with Harlow.

  “Joie, are you coming with me?” Hawkins’ eyes lit up wickedly as he got up from the leather chaise longue. “You wanted to show me that thing we were talking about earlier?”

  Chapter Four

  I was laughing with Hawkins in bed the next morning. Somehow the whole world felt right, like I would never come down from the high of being with him; the sound of my laugh seemed light an airy as he nuzzled his chin into my neck causing me to laugh again.

  “Stop, it tickles,” I gasped with laughter. “I’m serious this time Hawkins. You’re being very indecent.”

  He grinned shamelessly as his hands worked their way down the small of my back. He got up and leaned back on his knees; pulling me up until I was thrown against his chest in an upright position, causing my arms to fling around his shoulders and my hair to fall around his face. I gasped from the sudden change, causing him to chuckle from somewhere deep down inside. I took in the smell of his spicy aftershave mixed with my sweet scent of my perfume.

  “Do you think something’s funny, Hawkins?” I murmured as we pressed our foreheads together.

  “Not at all,” he said without missing a beat.

  “Good,” I said with tone like I was reprimanding a small child, but when he repositioned me with another forceful thrust over top of him like he was the one really running the show, the dominate stance left me breathless.

  With one warm hand wrapped around my lacy boy shorts keeping me in place, he whispered in a moment of honesty, “I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to you last night, Joie.” The confession tugged at my heart, making me feel even more in love with him then I already was.

  “You would have drank away your pain,” Warren answered for him as he abruptly entered the room, causing me to quickly yank a sheet up around us. “And then you would have slept with everything in sight.”

  “Does anyone know how to knock on the door?” Hawkins snapped in utter frustration.

  “You’re going to want to see this,” Warren explained as he turned his back to us and turned on the flat screen across from our king size bed. Hawkins briefly closed his eyes like the distraction was literally torching him. Releasing his tight grip, his hand quickly moved up my back to act as a buffer as I fell back onto the bed again. In the background the television set boomed as Hawkins flung himself down next to me with frustration.

  “The Islamic extremist group taking credit for the 02 Arena bombing in London this past Thursday claims to have bombed the historic venue in retaliation for the recent suspicious death of terrorist leader Aarif Kumar, who was found dead in his home in Khartoum, Sudan last Sunday.

  “The autopsy revealed a toxic level of barbiturates in Kumar’s bloodstream which is typically used to kill death row prisoners via lethal injection. Kumar believed to be t
he mastermind behind extracting weapons of mass destruction from Sudan territory before they could be discovered by UN inspectors last spring. He died at the age of 61.”

  “And?” Hawkins grumbled when Warren finally turned around again.

  “Dude—how does that have anything to do with us and the bomb last night? And who the hell is this Kumar person?”

  “That’s what you couldn’t wait to tell me?” Hawkins eyebrows pinched together with a wrathful expression.

  “Well yeah—

  A sudden ambush of pillows rained down on Warren before he literally knew what hit him. “And we’re all leaving to head to the venue!” Warren shouted as he retreated out the door. “The guy from National Security, remember?”

  “Next time send a text!” Hawkins grabbed up another pillow and flung it hard against the back of the door as it slammed shut.

  “Rain check?” I sighed.

  “Yeah, right after I install a deadbolt,” Hawkins grumbled, and then leaned in to give me a kiss.

  It started off like a sweet little kiss goodbye for now, but I couldn’t shake the memory of his warm body pressed up against mine, and judging by the increasing passion of his lips locking with mine, I knew that neither could he.

  It wasn’t long until my fingers were intertwined in the back of his thick hair; pulling him toward me as he hoisted me back up again like I weighed nothing at all.

  “I love you, Hawkins,” I murmured in his ear when we finally came back up for air.

  By the tenth ring back tone of “Springsteen” by Eric Church on Hawkins’ cell, we fell back onto the bed, laughing partly at the obviousness of the situation and partly from the exhilaration.

  “I think we’ve kept them waiting long enough,” Hawkins lovingly tapped my nose.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I smirked. “I’m high maintenance; it takes me forever to get ready.”

  Though there was some truth in the statement today as I got ready in the ‘new and improved me’. I made sure to brush my hair today, which after a little bit of work looked just as good as it had yesterday. I picked out on a new outfit from one of a dozen or so bags that had been brought up from last night. I got dressed in an emerald green sleeveless tank top that had a scoop neck embellished with multi-colors of different complementing green and silver sequins, and matched it with a pair of shorts that were created out of a dark material made to look like denim, but less casual. I secured the silver gladiator sandals to my feet and added a couple silver bangles around my wrist to complete the look. I may have even used a little of the glitter brush along my tan arms and legs.

  It was funny how a little bit of money and a few minutes of preparation made it hard for Hawkins to keep his hands off of me. When we finally joined the rest of the group, he had his one arm hooked around my shoulder and our fingers were interlaced where his hand fell. There was nothing like the feel of such a simple touch like the way Hawkins ran his finger along mine that made me feel like I was the only one really in the room.

  Nevertheless, Gwyneth stood out among the crowd, probably because it looked like she was shooting daggers at me with her eyes, so imagine my surprise when she suddenly gushed, “You look really nice.”

  I turned to look at Hawkins dressed in his Red Sox’s baseball cap, dark polo top, and loose fitted dark washed jeans; mistakenly thinking Gwyneth had to be talking to him.

  “Well I would hope they do,” Warren groaned. “It’s only forty-five minutes later.”

  “I couldn’t help but notice a change in the way you’ve been dressing lately,” Gwyneth continued to gush, when I realized she was talking to me, damn it. “Are those Marc Jacobs’ sandals?”

  I nodded, not knowing what to say or who the hell Marc Jacobs was anyway, but as we all headed out of the hotel suite to leave, I overheard Lizzie mutter to Gwyneth when Hawkins was out of earshot, “Save it for someone who cares.”

  The band, and both the band’s and the venue’s crew, were all directed to sit in the pavilion seats close to the stage. I noticed that - as a group - we practically took up the entire front section in front of the stage. The tight space required Lizzie to do a little shimmying to get down our row where Hawkins was seated next to me with his arm around the back of my seat.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” she flashed a sexy smile at someone from the crew, but when she reached Gwyneth’s chair, a few seats down from ours, I noticed she added with annoyance, “Excuse you.”

  The gesture made me snicker because it reminded me of how she always had my back when we were at Preston High. I had almost forgotten about this fierce and protective side of Lizzie, probably because she thought I had what she wanted earlier on in the tour, but that was water under the bridge now.

  “Just a little reading material,” Lizzie slapped a magazine down in my lap. “Am I great PR person or what?” she boasted as she continued her way down the rest of the aisle.

  There on the front cover of the magazine was a picture of Hawkins and me together hand in hand. Overtop the picture, the headline read, “They Go Public.”

  I couldn’t remember a time when I had looked so beautiful before. It could have been because of the makeover, or honestly it could have been because this was the first picture I had seen of us together and I looked like nothing could make me happier. I was smiling at the ground, but I noticed that Hawkins looked right into the camera and gave his sexy come hither smile like ‘yep, she’s with me’.

  “Who’s that chump she’s with?” Hawkins smiled down at the picture.

  “Shut up.” I was about to whack him with it when a man in a suit crossed the stage to the microphone. He looked like Matthew McConaughey in ‘Lincoln Lawyer’. He was an attractive guy with short wavy sun kissed hair and was today dressed in an Armani or some other expensive designer grey suit that fit his tall, but lean body to a tee.

  “Check one, two,” he tapped the microphone. “Is this thing on?” His voice suddenly boomed overtop of us.

  “Good…hello, how are we all doing today?” he suddenly smiled revealing what I assumed where veneers because his teeth were perfectly white and straight. I would have thought he was Hawkins by the way he began to work the stage by popping the microphone off the stand and then moving it out of the way.

  “Hello, I’m Robert Vance. I was sent here by the National Security to contain ‘the situation’ we now find ourselves in. Let me tell you how this is going to go,” he said a bit arrogantly. “As of right now the conversation I am having with you never happened. Last night’s events probably won’t even make the first page of Chicago Tribune.

  “As far as they know, it was just a couple of kids who thought it would be a good time to make something explode. But…” he held up a finger. “It never happened because the ‘bottle full of gravel’ was faulty, or at least that’s the story they’ll be running in the back of the local paper if it even makes the edition at all.”

  “How does that protect our fans?” Swank, the saxophonist for the band, spoke up.

  “Because when people hear the word ‘bomb’ they get scared.” He began to casually pace the stage. “And when people get scared they avoid sports arenas or amphitheaters like this one. When people stop attending sports arena and amphitheaters, those establishments lose money. When establishments lose money, people lose jobs. When people lose jobs, our economy suffers. When our economy suffers, then we do have a real problem on our hands, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Warren sighed in Swank’s direction, “Forget about the fans man. It’s our economy that really matters.”

  “I was sent here to contain the situation, but make no doubt about it - we have a real creditable threat to our nation’s security today,” Vance stressed; too far away to hear any of our grumbling. “So let me tell you what is going to happen. You are going to form a perimeter around the entire back half circle of the pavilion,” he began to list. “You are going to position someone at the front and back of every restroom. You are going to have
unmarked crew scattered throughout the entire back lawn. You are going to have security women patting down women fans and security men patting down men fans when they come through those gates. None of this lifting up your t-shirt and doing a twirl type crap.”

  A guy behind me from the venue crew added, “So in other words, we’re going to be doing everything we normally do?”

  “But with a little more enthusiasm and a little less half-assed…okay?” Warren said with a glance over his shoulder.

  “Here are some things that won’t be happening,” Vance said, bringing my focus back to the stage. “Just like at any other concerts, no one comes through those gates with a backpack, a purse, a blanket, a camera, any kind of iPod, or any other technological devices besides their cell phones. Unfortunately, you do not have the right to turn a cell phone away - for emergency purposes,” Vance continued to pace the stage again. “But you do have the right to look at it, and you better make sure that it is anything but a detonator for a handmade bomb.”

  The same guy behind me added dryly, “I’m glad he thought to mention that, otherwise I might have let them pass through.”

  “Fans are here to enjoy a good show, period.”

  “Did you catch that Hawkins?” Warren pretended to be serious. “Or do you need me to start taking notes?”

  “They certainly don’t need all their belongings to do so either.” Vance continued his rant. “Unless it’s medically necessary, everything else gets checked at the front gate. Now do you have any questions?”

  “Yes,” Hawkins mumbled under his breath, “What is the highest level of education you’ve received? Is it less than four years of high school? Because you sound like an idiot.”

  Another crew member a few rows back leaned forward in his seat and asked more seriously, “Do you know if this is related to the bombing in London?”