“I’m not joking. Do you think I am?” he asked, his husky voice lowering in what I could assume was an attempt to be serious.

I smiled at him. “No. Why would you think that? I like the way we play around,” I told him because it was the truth. Sure, I played around with Eli and Mason but that was different. Even my ex didn’t like to joke around with me a quarter of as much as Sacha did.

“Are you sure? Carter is still mad at me for the whole penalty kick incident.” His thumb grazed over the knuckles of my hand gently once and only once. His gaze strayed to my still-bruised jaw.

“Yes. I mean, you’re an asshole for kicking the ball at my face but it’s fine,” I told him, watching his pale eyes drift to my chest quickly. “But you bruise my money-maker again, and I’ll kick you in the nuts.”

We both laughed at the same time that the lights in the theater began dimming. Isaiah appeared at the bottom of the stairs, walking up with his hands full of treats. I pulled my hand out of Sacha’s grasp to grab some popcorn from the bag that at some point had ended up on his lap.

He raised an eyebrow at me when I stuffed my mouth just like he had, but before he could pipe in, I hissed, “If you call me fat, I’ll make sure Eli farts on you.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Sacha shrugged before leaning toward me. “If it goes to your ass, I won’t say a thing.”

I couldn’t…

I was…

Pleased. A little too pleased.

Chapter Ten

Once upon a time, I had nothing against San Francisco.

I’d been there before a handful of times with Ghost Orchid, and I liked it as much as anyone could possibly like a city that they didn’t spend a lot of time in. After the day I’d had, exactly six shows after jabbing my ex in the throat, the city would forever be tarnished by the memory of all the shitty things that happened. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it was the worst day of my life, but it sure as hell wasn’t the best.

When I woke up to cramps that rivaled giving birth—at least I imagined so—I hopped out of my bunk as fast as I could.

Only it wasn’t fast enough.

My brother of all people had just been getting out of bed at the same time and happened to see the huge red stain I’d been worried about.

“Holy shit! Flabby! What the fuck?!” he barked, pointing and laughing. Literally, he was pointing and laughing at me.

I flicked him off before grabbing my bag from the floor, where we all left our stuff, and darting into the tiny bathroom to take care of business.

Needless to say, he told his two bandmates. It was bad enough to deal with the cramps and back pain, but all that while getting made fun of too? It was like being twelve years old during my first period all over again.

When the jokes just kept coming and coming and coming from my brother, Mason and that twerp named Gordo, and I was this close to losing my marbles, I finally went to hide in my bunk.

Hours later, when I slipped on the last step exiting the bus and scraped the hell out of the skin covering my Achilles tendon, I threw a rock at Eliza when he laughed. Only Isaiah and Carter asked if I was fine because they were decent human beings. My brother and friends were damn dipshits.

To top it off, my phone fell out of my pocket and the corner of the screen cracked. I literally raised it up to the sky as if it were some kind of ancient sacrifice to a sun god and scream-grunted like a total psychopath.

I went right to setting up the table for the night after unloading, thankful that Carter was a solid, nice guy who didn’t relish terrorizing me.

In a brief moment of guilt, Eli had texted and asked if I wanted to grab something to eat with him since there wasn’t any catering available. To be honest, the only reason I agreed to go was because The Cloud Collision’s tour manager had given him my buy-out money. Otherwise I would have told him to go suck his nuts and leave me alone. But when I went out to meet him by the bus, I immediately zoned in on my twin.