Page 7 of The Encore Effect

“’s just a party. Can’t leave. Paps’ll see me.”

Right. So Jackson would be no help. Thank fuck for the app Beckett had installed on their phones at the start of the tour, the little blinking dot on the map highlighting a house south of the Strip.

“Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing as his injured knee took his weight.

But he didn’t have time to worry about the angry throbbing of the inflamed joint. If the paparazzi were already wherever Jackson was, it was only a matter of time before he was photographed. Only a matter of time before the papers ran another headline about his excessive partying, lobbing more accusations—accusations his celebrity status could no longer deflect. They had no idea the damage they caused in the name of making a buck off his brother’s back, the way those headlines slithered beneath Jackson’s skin and twisted him up, driving him to even riskier heights as he tried to outrun the mud they slung at him.

Or maybe they did and they didn’t care.

If Beckett could get them through the rest of this tour, just one more month, they’d be able to take a break and regroup. Jackson would settle down, like he always did once the stress of the constant, crazed attention was taken off his shoulders. They’d been through too much and come too far to lose it all now with the finish line in sight. Beckett had gotten them through harder times. He should be able to get them through something as simple as a tour, too.

“Bring some Doritos,” Jackson shouted on the other end of the phone, lingering on the s’s. “The purple bag.”

“I’m not bringing you any fucking Doritos,” Beckett said as he pulled on a hoodie.

“Fucking starving.”

“We’ll get something to eat after I get you out of there.”

“Don’t be mad, Becks. I think I drank too much.”

“No shit.” Beckett scraped his hand over his mouth, locking away the anger he wanted to throw back at his brother for getting himself into this situation in the first place. Now was not the time. Now his twin needed him to step in and clean up his mess—like he always did. “Stay where you are and stay away from any photographers.”

“No cameras in the party suite.” Beckett could practically hear the smile in his brother’s voice before the line disconnected.

At least someone was having a good time.

Nothing good ever came from someone pounding on Kat’s hotel room door after midnight.

She wasn’t sure who she expected to find on the other side of the door, but she wasn’t prepared for Beckett Hayes, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. The colorful owl at the base of his throat, wings spread across his pecs, was visible through the open fabric of his half-zipped gray hoodie. Goosebumps rose on the back of her neck as adrenaline poured into her veins. It had been years since Beckett had come to her hotel room in the middle of the night, but even that last time, when they both knew it was over, he’d never come to her looking like he was being hunted.

“It’s Jacks.” His eyes flicked to the side as if to confirm they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Let me get my shoes.”

He shook his head. “Don’t need you to come. Just get me a car. One of the usual guys, if you can.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”

“Kat,” he growled.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

She watched the little muscle in his jaw tense and flex, the minuscule movements raising unusual shapes in the floral ink climbing the column of his throat. Sometimes she wished he’d get angry. Yell. Tell her to fuck off. Anything but this cold wall of silence.

“Jackson snuck out,” he said at last. Her own frustration burst past her lips in a rush of air. “I have to go get him. The paparazzi are already there.”

She swore under her breath and stepped back into her hotel room, hunting for her sneakers. They were only one month away from the end of the tour—one more month and she’d get the payout the label had promised her for successfully shepherding Midnight Storm through a scandal-free comeback. A payout big enough to let her stop working for the label and focus on her writing for a year, maybe more. To finally finish the book she’d been struggling to write.

But none of that would happen if Jackson Hayes fucked it up in the final weeks.

“You don’t have to come,” he said again.

“Like hell I don’t. Where is he?”

Beckett raked his hand through his hair. “A party south of the Strip. The women at the restaurant tonight were talking about it. Some NFL player’s house.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her sneakers. Now was not the time to get hung up on the women from the restaurant, even if she had wanted to stand on the table and scream bloody murder until that brunette had stopped touching Beckett—until he had stopped touching her back. Now was the time to be the goddamn professional she was hired to be.