Surrounded By Knight Read online

  I wonder what gave that away…

  The bus being on the side of the road maybe?

  The smoke rolling from the engine perhaps?

  Or was it the man walking up and down the road on his cell phone in despair?

  Yep, like had I told her earlier, she was a genius.

  “I’m going to go see if I can help.” Opening the door, she went to get out.

  I reached for her hand, but ended up snagging her skinny arm instead and yanked her back through the door. “Are you mad? You don’t know him! He could be a psychotic murderer for all you know, and that bus could be full of other Hannibal Lecter’s. Plus, how are you going to help him? You just said you were no mechanic!”

  Chewing on the gum from her blow pop, she said in exasperation, “We are on the side of a road in the middle of the day, and if you’re going to say he’s probably a rapist too,” she snickered, “you can’t rape the willing, Izzy. Because with that fine man I am way more than willing. I may not know how to fix his bus, but I can definitely help fix other problems he may need help with.” She winked. With that said, she pulled away and slammed the door.

  “Slut!” I shouted, knowing she wouldn’t hear me, but needing to say it anyways. I had half a mind to yell it out the window.

  If that smoking hot man doesn’t kill her, then I just might. Mom and Dad could thank me later.

  Stupid wasn’t even the right word for how her mind worked sometimes. Addie could be really book smart, but when it came to common sense and logics she seemed to be fully lacking in those departments. She was what I called an ‘in the closet blonde’. I have heard so many dumb blonde jokes that sounded like they were written just for her. I couldn’t hate on her too much though, I loved her too much. And when she saw something she wanted, she went for it.

  And apparently what she wanted was covered in tattoos.

  Huffing, I opened my door and stepped out into the midday sun. It was an unseasonably warm day for November. I had worn one of my favorite dresses, and the weather today was perfect for it, other than the occasional cool breeze. As bad as I hated to watch over Addie, if I let her get herself abducted or killed, I would hate myself for the rest of my life.

  Why did she have to be so obstinate?

  I maneuvered to the back of the SUV where I could see Addie face to face with the smoking hot, possible murderer. She had her game face on. There was no telling what she was saying to him. I witnessed him smile brightly at something she said, showing a full mouth of white teeth. It was the most breathtaking smile on a human being I’d ever seen. Addie seemed safe, so I stayed back to absorb the smiling man’s good looks.

  My eyes perked at how attractive he was. Now that I was closer, but still unnoticed, I could see his ears were adorned with sparkling black diamond earrings and his amazing jawline that looked as if he had skipped a day of shaving had me mesmerized.

  The wind blew, playing with his dirty blond hair that was somewhat shorter on the sides and a disheveled swoopy mess on top. Almost like he had attempted to style it, but gave up halfway through the process, leaving it a floppy disaster that shockingly added to his rising sexy factor. He was dressed in dark tattered jeans with a red faded shirt—the material was so thin, that if I were close enough I was positive that it would be translucent—and it hugged so tightly to his body that I became momentarily jealous of the dainty fabric.

  From a distance, I admired his tattoo covered arms that were decorated in leather cuff bracelets and a few other shiny chains. The side of his neck also had a tattoo. From where I stood I believed it to be a saying or quote. It definitely didn’t look like a picture of any kind.

  My mind instantly wondered if there was any more art beneath that poorly thin fabric that was considered a shirt. From what I could tell, the man had an amazing body to go with his deliciously dark eyebrows, and the way his broad chest pulled at the thin fabric of his shirt had me wishing the whipping wind would rip it straight from his body.

  Wow, listen to me! I’m sounding like Addie.

  The tatted pizzazz of him had my mind stooping to dirty standards. He was devastatingly gorgeous and proudly sporting a bad boy edge that I found alluring. It definitely wasn’t hard to look at him, that was for sure.

  Taking a deep breath, I brushed out any imperfections in my dress and prayed that the wind wouldn’t try and give this sinfully attractive man an unneeded peep show of my undergarments.

  How humiliating would that be?

  Chapter Two

  Trevelin

  This shit was so stupid. Shooting a fake gun toward the flat-screen was what I described as boring. I would rather be writing music, or better yet, playing it. But at this particular moment I was seated on one of the couches in our tour bus playing Xbox with Reed. He was seriously better at these stupid games than I was, and he seemed to be deeply entranced with the screen. Every turn I made, I started shooting. I didn’t have a fuckin’ clue as to what I was supposed to be doing.

  “Would you stop fuckin’ killing me?” He paused the game, and then punched the pillow beside him in frustration before he turned to glare at me. “Dammit, Trev, learn how to play the damn game. Shit...” Reed tossed the controller in anger to the other couch, hitting his brother, Jace, in the leg.

  “Watch where the hell you throw shit, fuck-face.” Jace slung it back, smacking Reed in the stomach.

  “I wouldn’t get so pissed if this pansy-ass knew how to play the game right. We’ve only been on this bus for what, three years now? You’d think he could summon his inner kid and kick ass at a few video games.”

  “Four. It’s been four years since our first album. But we’ve only been on this particular bus for five months,” Bryson was happy to inform.

  “Whatever,” Reed grumbled.

  “Sorry we aren’t all as capable at being a ten-year-old for the rest of our lives like you are, douchebag. Someone give this dick an award. He can play Xbox. No one has ever accomplished that before,” I said into my hands as if holding a microphone while I waved my hands in the air for extra measure.

  “You’re just jealous ‘cause you aren’t the master of Halo like this motherfucker.”

  “You got the motherfucker part right,” I rebutted, laughing. Jace and Bryson joined.

  “Bitch had some big tits, what can I say? I couldn’t tell she’d had a kid.”

  “Yeah, the big tits was because she was breastfeeding, you idiot. Did the baby in the stroller not give that away?” Bryson looked slightly amused.

  “Hey, she was fine as hell and was all over me. I didn’t give two shits what she was feeding with those big-bitties as long as it didn’t attack me while I was attacking them. You know what I mean.” Reed waggled his brows, elbowing me.

  “You’re fuckin’ sick, dude,” Jace said disgustedly.

  “No shit. I wouldn’t have even stooped that low,” I frowned, looking at Reed who then scowled at me.

  “The fuck you wouldn’t...” He stopped and a huge smile took over his face. “Oh wait, is my baby sad that he didn’t get some titty? Oh, come here, schnookums,” Reed cooed in a voice that made me want to hurl. Grabbing me around the neck, he pulled me to him as he raised his shirt. “Here, you jealous baby, get ya some titty,” he cooed more, trying to push my mouth to his nipple. I fought him, laughing the whole time, which didn’t help my defense at all. Jace and Bryson weren’t much help either by shouting words of encouragement at him. I finally managed to shove him away, panting from our scuffle.

  “Fuck off, Reed. I don’t want your tit or any other lactating boob near my face.”

  “Ah, bromance, dude. We share bromance.”

  I laughed as I got up to make myself a sandwich, bopping Reed in the head with one of the throw pillows from the couch as I passed by.

  “Hey,” he whined. “Would you dumb-tards stop hitting me with shit?”

  I chuckled loudly as I opened the refrigerator to gather the condiments for my sandwich.

  “Sorry, Reed. Shit
attracts shit,” I apologized. Jace and Bryson both laughed, then started talking about ideas they had discussed with Randy for our new music video to our new hit single, Love Potion. As I went to set the mayo on the counter, the bus jerked hard and made a weird noise. I almost fell with the sudden movement, but caught the handle of the fridge, keeping myself steady.

  “What the...” we all said together, but ended it in our own different choice of words.

  “Um...guys?” Jim, our driver, yelled from the front of the bus. “We got a problem.”

  All four of us run to the front. It was plainly evident that something major was tore up. Smoke rolled out from the front of the bus like it was on fire.

  “Son of a bitch,” I grumbled, hitting the back of the bucket seat in front of me.

  Fucking great.

  This was just awesome. Breaking down on the side of the road, in the middle of who knows where, the day before Thanksgiving, had to be one of the most fabulous moments in my life. The holidays didn’t mean jack-shit to me. I had no one special to see, nowhere meaningful to go, but Jim did, and I somewhat felt remorseful for him. He was looking forward to seeing his daughters that he hadn’t seen in months.

  Bryson walked down the steps and stood beside Jim. “What do we do?”

  Jim removed his baseball cap and rubbed his balding head. I swear that shit was retreating and popping out in other places. “Shit, Bryce, if you dunderheads hadn’t wanted to stop by that damn titty shack last night we could’ve almost been to Illinois by now. We would have been in a helluva lot better shape than blowing smoke here. I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my girls.”

  “Aw, I call bullshit. Loosen up, Jimster, you know you enjoyed it. You got a face full of a few banging jugs, so you can’t say the pit stop wasn’t well worth it,” Reed told him, leaning over the back of his chair and patting Jim loudly on the chest.

  Jim made a comical huffing noise then grabbed his cap that he had set on the dash and reached behind him, whacking Reed in the face with it.

  Startled, Reed jumped back with a grimace. “Goddammit, stop hitting me!”

  “No, I won’t, and no, it wasn’t worth it. Get your damn head out of the stripper’s boobs, boy, and think clearly for once.”

  “He can’t do that, Jim. Mom always said Reed was a butthole baby. She said to look at him as a forever growing turd.” Jace laughed, and the whole bus erupted into belly-clenching laughter –all but Reed, who scowled heavily at his brother. “So the remaining shit in his brain interferes with his rational thinking,” Jace added, pointing his thumb towards Reed.

  “Fuck off, ass-wipes,” Reed countered, storming to the back of the bus.

  I couldn’t help it.

  I had to piss him off further. It was something Jace, Bryson and I did any chance we were given since Reed was usually the one making the smart-ass comments to us. “That’s what your mom should’ve done...butt baby!” I shouted.

  He cursed something inaudible that none of us could make out.

  With Reed gone to pout, we turned our concentration back to the situation at hand—the broken bus. “I guess I’ll try to get in touch with Randy or Tucker. Maybe they haven’t left for their family crap yet and can send someone to get us.”

  “If you can’t reach either of them then we’re screwed. All the other roadies have done gone home for the holiday. I knew Big Mac and Double D should’ve followed us until we made it back.” Bryson looked distressed. He was going back to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his fiancée while Reed, Jace and I crashed at their mom’s home. It’s not the one we grew up in thankfully, because we bought her a new one once we started raking in the dough, but I still hated being in Chicago. It just reminded me of the crappy life I had once lived.

  Pushing the button for the contact list on my phone, I strolled down the list to Randy’s name. When I hit send the phone beeped, indicating it lost signal. “Shit. Open the door, Jim. I can’t get any service.”

  “That might be because we’re out in the boondocks. Where are we anyways? The only thing I see is fucking fields. Oh wait – and a cow,” Jace muttered, looking out the windshield and pointing at the lone cow.

  “Hell if I know. I was just going the way the bitch on the navigation told me to go. Reed and his fucked up excursions,” Jim grumbled. “You guys really need to lay off those energy drinks. You needing a Red Bull every few hundred miles just got our asses stuck in the middle of nowhere. I do know we’re in Oklahoma, but the exact whereabouts is unknown. So do me a favor. No more sidetracking for stupid BS.”

  I gave a half-hearted laugh, not promising anything. Energy drinks were what got us through a lot of late night performances, and after a while you kinda just craved the damn things, though I could see what he was getting at. Reed was on a diehard caffeine bender and had Jim stop at the nearest convenient location so we could restock our nonexistent fruity energy beverages. Reed even drank the shit in the mornings instead of coffee. Says it didn’t give him the shits like coffee does.

  That I was fine with, seeing as how Reed could majorly stink up the bus to the point of being in major competition with a rancid sewer. One that had been backed up for a few days.

  I pushed redial on the screen of my phone after stepping off the bus as I walked along the side of the road waiting for an answer. Luck wasn’t on my side today.

  Beep, beep. Still no signal. Needing something to relax my nerves, I lit a cigarette, redialing him three more times and still getting nowhere. I also tried Tucker, only to hear those annoying beeps for lack of reception. We were fucked! Our security had caught a flight home in Texas, so they wouldn’t be able to help either.

  I looked up at the clear sky, wondering what else to do. I pulled up navigation on my phone to see where we were exactly. The map showed us being in Durant, Oklahoma on US-75. I held down the round button on my phone to ask the genie inside—also known as Siri, bitch knew everything but my dick size—the number for a local garage, hoping someone would be able to repair the bus and Jim could get to his daughters before tomorrow.

  When Siri’s returned reply was, “Sorry, I can’t take any requests right now. Check back in a little while,” I inhaled a long pull from my cigarette while I unknowingly held the phone up with a grip so tight in anger I heard it creak.

  I seriously debated smashing it into the pavement I was so fucking mad, like that would somehow rectify my situation, but something told me that this town probably didn’t have stores that sold replacement phones. For fuck sakes, the damn barren land didn’t even have cell phone service, so I spared the electronic its life and shoved it into my back pocket.

  Looking behind me at my surroundings, I tossed the cig butt to the ground and realized there was nothing out here. I mean absolutely nothing. Blank flat fields were on either sides of the road that looked as if they stretched on for miles. Frustrated, I bended over, placed my hands on my knees and took deep calming breaths, willing my nerves to settle. I needed a hotel room. No, I wanted my fucking bed!

  “Hey...you okay? Can I help with something?” The sound of a female voice brought my head up real quick. Standing before me was a dark haired girl in tight leggings with a sparkly yellow tunic and knee high boots that would look great wrapped tightly around my waist. She was beyond pretty. I had an undying feeling that she could indeed help me with many things.

  “Yeah,” I breathed, straightening up so I could get a better look at her and she could do the same with me. It wouldn’t take long once she got closer to realize who I was, landing me a score for tonight. “Our bus just decided to die on us, and seeing as how we’re in bum-fuck-Egypt, cell phone reception is nonexistent,” I laughed, faking amusement at the situation, and waved toward the black smoking hunk of metal.

  “I see that, and cell service sucks in the country,” she giggled, stepping closer to me. “Do you need a—oh my fucking god! You’re...you’re Trevelin Knight,” she shrilled as she started bouncing up and down, giving me a pleasant performance of her
bountiful rack that kept jumping to the top of her low cut tunic, beckoning my name with every bounce.

  Yep, she could help me alright.

  “That’s me.” I removed my eyes from her breasts and smiled at her proudly, making sure to show all of my teeth. That smile seemed to stir the ladies into a frenzied mess.

  Landed that score real quick.

  If I was going to be stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, I might as well bring in some entertainment.

  “This is the best damn Thanksgiving EVER,” she said, looking up toward the sky. Don’t think she was particularly talking to me, more like thanking the Man upstairs. Feeling the swift, chilled wind bite through my shirt, I pushed my hands into my pockets for some warmth when out of my periphery I caught a glimpse of another girl heading my way.

  Damn, talk about stepping in shit and smelling the fucking roses. Where the hell am I at again? Was I hit by a car when I got off the bus and now in babe heaven?

  I fuckin’ swear that’s where I was right now. I’d seen my share of hot, bangable chicks, but as I looked at these two, I would say none could compare. These girls were hot!

  The slight, cool breeze caught the ends of her teal green dress and loose brown curls, blowing them about. She had on cowgirl boots that had a colored design that matched her dress. She looked pure country, making it sexy as hell.

  With each step that she took, the purest blue eyes winded me, and in that instant I felt like I had been hit by a car. I was deprived of oxygen and wanted them to be refilled by this country angel walking in my direction. Everything this other chick was rambling about faded into silence. All I could hear was the swishing of the wind and the clanking of the sexy country girl’s hot as hell boots.

  When she stopped in front of me, blue eyes wide, I thought I had her like her little friend. But when she offered a plain and simple smile that was poorly executed as she turned to her still rambling accomplice, my rising hard-on twitched in evident disappointment. The smile told me she was clueless or unaffected unlike the chatty chick, or any other woman that I came in contact with, and that in itself was a huge turn on for a reason I couldn’t begin to understand.