Page 51 of Rescue

“Thanks for sharing, Dais,” Cash says.

“You try being seven months pregnant and running across Europe with a bunch of rock and roll buffoons.” She smiles at me and Layla. “Female company excluded, of course.”

Paige is pouting.

“I’ll dance with you,” Layla says, laughing at Paige’s forlorn expression.

“Really? Oh, thank you! Reed will never dance until he gets a few drinks in him.” She slides a bottle of tequila toward her boyfriend. “Get a move on, mister.” Then she grabs Layla’s hand and pulls her toward the dance floor.

“What about me?” Dylan asks, sliding off his bar stool. “I’m an excellent dancer!”

“He really is,” I tell the Ransome guys, who all laugh—except for Cash. He sighs and pours more tequila into his glass.

“Don’t mind him,” a voice says close to my ear. I look over to see Lennon has slid into the seat vacated by Dylan. “He just misses Sam.”

“Sam is his girlfriend?”

Cash must overhear us because he looks up, his expression a little hopeful. “Did someone say something about Sam?”

Lennon stifles a laugh, and I step on his foot under the table. “I haven’t heard too much about her,” I tell Cash, and his entire face lights up.

“She’s the best,” he says, not looking at all like the international womanizer his reputation paints him to be. “She’s working for this awesome charity in Seattle right now. They help wounded soldiers and their families.”

“That sounds like a pretty worthwhile job.”

“She’samazing. Here.” He pushes Lennon off the chair next to me and pulls out his wallet, opening it to a shot of a pretty woman with long brown hair. She’s laughing into the camera, looking both fed up and completely enamored with the photographer. “She’s beautiful,” I say honestly.

“And this is her son.” He flips to another picture, and a smiley, gap-toothed kid with spiked hair smiles up at me. “Wyatt. He’s hilarious.”

“Is he coming to Paris too?”

Cash sighs again. “No, he’ll have school, so he’s staying with his grandparents.”

“You must really miss them.”

“You have no idea.” I glance over at his wistful face. It couldn’t be more obvious that he does miss them, that’s he’s crazy about both of them. I try to reconcile the picture I have in my head of the leering, drunk guy hitting on me at that festival with the man who sits next to me now. Cash Ransome, a father figure. I guess people really do change.

“Karen is coming, though,” Daisy says from across the table. “She’s Levi’s girlfriend—and Paige’s best friend.”

“Oh, God,” Lance mutters. “There’s two of them?”

Daisy laughs as both Levi and Reed glare at Lance. “Karen is very different from Paige,” Levi says. Reed turns his glare to the tour manager, and Levi mutters, “Not that that’s inherently a good thing.”

“We all have fun together,” Daisy tells me, ignoring the boys. “You’ll like them both.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“What you might not like,” Lennon says, “is all of them turning into lovesick teenagers.”

I make a face. “Are they gross?”

“They’re super gross.”

“I resent that,” Levi says, taking a swig of his booze. “Karen and I are not gross.”

“They call themselvesKevi,” Lennon says, shuddering, and I laugh. “Consider yourself warned.”

“Reed!” Paige calls from the dance floor. “Are you sufficiently tipsy to dance with me yet?”