Ace (Playtime Series Book 1) by Gemma Arlington (distant reading TXT) 📕

order to move on they also had to apologize to those they had hurt and it seemed I was at the top of their list.

“You’re not wearing that babe,” Eric repeated, making me snap out of my trip down memory lane, aka the last four months of my life.

I smiled and shrugged, he could yell and bark orders but he knew I would never listen to him. It was something he had always admired about me.

“Eric get over it, you know you can’t control me and you know you can’t persuade me to change my outfit. Yes it’s short but I love you, no one else, just you. Seriously though if you have problems with other men seeing me dressed like this then you should come,” I sighed as I sprayed myself with perfume.

“It’s a girl’s night out, sexy woman, I don’t wish to be a third wheel,” he replied with a smirk, “But you know I hate seeing others ogle at what’s mine.”

I turned around and placed my arms on his chest running my hands up to link behind his neck.

He was wearing low hanging ripped

jeans that clung to his hips and showed me a glorious view, not to mention, since he was minus his shirt, the sight of him was even greater.

“I’ll miss you tonight but please, please promise me you will be lying gloriously naked waiting for me to come home and ride the stick?” I grinned mischievously, thinking of the many times we had played games in the bedroom, how I had, according to him, rocked his world.

It surprised me but I had finally come to see why Elle loved her leather clad rockers, the way it clung to their bodies and left you wishing you could remove such items with your teeth or…

“Get going, sexy lady and I promise you can come home and ride the stick anytime you want,” Eric replied, with a cocky smile.

I left the house and jumped into the back of the limo with Elle and about ten other screaming girls who seemed to bombard me with questions on Eric. How he was in bed, had he ever played a private show for me? I couldn’t answer because, in all honesty, it was our private business. I wanted to throw Elle under the bus, but I suspect she had also been drilled with questions on the way to picking me up.

I smiled and turned my focus back to Elle,

who was yet again on the phone with none other than Damon Lewis, the lead guitarist of JED.

Those two just needed to declare their love for each other and bite the bullet since they had spent all summer enjoying the pros and cons of a long distance fling, as she put it.

We danced, drank one too many shots and gossiped the majority of the night away. It surprised me that Kia was the one who had finally bit the bullet first. Out of all the Dash employees it seemed she had found her leading man, who just so happened to be Nix her childhood sweetheart who she adored.

I was happy for her and somewhat jealous. I loved Eric, don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t see a future for us, or at least not a future I would want. JED was a rock band and a popular one at that, but spending a couple months on tour with those boys had turned me off enough to never want to go again.

I couldn’t handle the screaming fans or the groupies trying to sneak their way into the boy’s lives. The bras and panties was another deal breaker and I knew, with the guys set for their European tour, that eventually Eric would drift from me.

I headed to the bar in need of some hard liquor. Tonight wasn’t meant to be a downer, it was meant to be fun; a celebration of Kia’s trip down the aisle.

“Excuse me are you Lacey… miss Lacey Rivers?” a sweet southern drawl called out from behind me.

I turned around to see two big, brown, innocent eyes staring back at me. She looked like she was going to cry and she was also holding her stomach like she was about to vomit.

“Are you ok?” I asked, a little concerned for this woman.

“Can we talk?” She mumbled.

I looked around, this wasn’t the place to discuss anything, let alone come to if you were sick. I sighed and asked her to stay put as I tracked down Elle in the crowd and informed her I was heading home. The truth was I was actually going to take this girl back to the Dash office where we could talk and she could tell me what she needed to say, because I felt like she needed someone to look after her.

I couldn’t remember her name but I did remember her face. She had been the Alabama girl I had shown back stage, she was a fan and seemed genuinely sweet and nice. What she was doing in L.A I would never know, but the poor girl looked frail and sick.

I pushed open the doors to my office and ushered her in.

“Can I get you something to drink, water, juice maybe?” I asked, as I turned to close the office door behind me.

“Water if you have it please,” she quietly replied.

I placed my bag down on the desk and went to the tiny, mini bar fridge in the corner of

my office grabbing two bottles of water before returning and handing her one, as I took a seat opposite her.

“What did you want to discuss?” I asked, more than curious as to why she would go to the effort of tracking me down, of all people. Yes I was the manager of JED, but if fans really wanted to find the boys it wouldn’t be