“Not really, just figured you’d want to get a shower in after being on the road for so long. Get yourself all refreshed feeling,” she said as she pulled her hair out of her towel. I grinned, just imagining her enjoying her bath. Sadly, she was already dressed. Otherwise, I might have offered to drag her into the shower with me.
“Yeah, probably a good idea,” I nodded, shutting my laptop and getting up off the bed. She tossed a clean towel at me.
“Let me know if you need anything.” She winked, then disappeared to finish getting ready.
Once everyone was showered, clean, and mostly awake, we headed downstairs to the lobby. Nalia had already arranged for our gear to be taken to the venue we were playing at and had a fully-stocked limo waiting for us. I climbed in last and sat next to her, feeling a lot more excited about the show that night and formally kicking off the tour. It was easier to be excited since Nalia had taken care of all the details.
Granted, the tour was just beginning, but things had never run so smoothly before. There had always been hiccups when I had tried to take care of everything myself. Sure, they made for good tour stories, but it was much better and so much less stressful having her by my side to catch anything that threatened to fall through the cracks.
Talon gave me a look when I settled in next to Nalia, but true to his word, he said nothing. We headed out to the venue, everyone buzzing with excitement and energy. We were so ready to kick off this tour. Nalia just sat silently, soaking in everyone’s excitement, but having a glass of wine to celebrate with everyone else.
When we arrived, we all piled out of the limo and headed in backstage to meet with the lighting and sound crew. There wasn’t too much to go over with the lighting crew since Nalia had sent the plans over ahead of time and had made sure the road team already had all our gear set up on stage for us. I could only imagine how amazing she’d been on the other tours she’d organized. If she kept this up, I’d definitely find a place for her with Young Records. We were only on day one of the tour, and she was already proving herself invaluable.
She disappeared backstage to follow up on a few last minute things with the crew while we headed to the dressing room to hang out and have lunch before sound check and rehearsal.
“Okay, I know you might hate me for saying it, but I think I’m in love with Nalia,” Talon announced as he set his eyes on the delectable spread of food the caterer had laid out in our dressing room.
I laughed, understanding why he’d said it. Somehow, she’d managed to find out all of our favorite foods to have before a show and had them laid out before us with all our favorite fixings, right down to Talon’s favorite brand of gummy bears.
“If she doesn’t watch out, she’s going to need to make up a workout regimen for us while we’re on tour, too, bringing out all our favorite foods like this.”
“Dude, she’s probably already penciled that into our schedules and packed our workout clothes,” Talon said as he patted me on the shoulder. Come to think of it, he was probably right, I thought with a laugh. Still, I wouldn’t mind working out with her. I could definitely get used to seeing her in those yoga pants she’d been wearing last night.
“Owen, you all right, dude?” Talon waved a hand in front of my face, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Hmm?” I looked over at him.
“I was asking you if you planned on eating anything?” I noticed then he was holding a paper plate out to me.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” I took the plate from him and moved over to the buffet laid out, piling some fried chicken and mac and cheese onto my plate.
“Might want to get your mind off of Nalia’s ass and into performance mode there, big bro.”
I looked at him a little dumbfounded, and he only laughed. “Dude, I know you. You’re an ass man, and, I'm not saying that I’ve been checking it out, but I won't lie—Nalia’s got a nice one. A real nice one.”
I gave him a punch in the shoulder, and he only laughed.
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“Hey, come on, dude. She was wearing yoga pants this morning. It was hard not to notice that booty on her. I'm only human, after all!”
I sighed. “My mind isn’t on Nalia’s ass. Just glad everything is going so smoothly thanks to her,” I said, which wasn’t a total lie.
“Right, sure,” Talon nodded, going for seconds.
A little later, Nalia popped her head into the room. “How’s everyone doing? Need anything?” she asked, looking around the room.
“We’re good. Why don’t you grab something to eat and take a load off? You’ve been running around since this morning,” I said as I nodded at the spread of food. It wasn’t like we were going to eat all of it ourselves, even if Talon was making a decent effort. She tried to object, but we all insisted she take a break.
“Everything is going good and working out ahead of schedule,” I told her, pushing a plate into her hands. “You need to relax a bit and not worry so much. You've done an awesome job as it is.” Finally, she agreed and grabbed some food before our sound check.
Once we headed to the stage, though, she was back at it again, running around to cover any last minute situations. We got through sound check with minimal issues before heading backstage to hang out until practice was scheduled to begin in another hour. The doors opened at seven, and the opening band, a local group, took the stage at eight. We were letting them rehearse on stage first, taking a break before we ran through our set list.
A few of us ventured out to hear them. They were a great opening act and a band I was looking at signing. I caught a glimpse of Nalia running around backstage, taking charge and directing people while they played. She looked sexy as hell when she was being bossy, and I couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, I’d definitely found the right girl for the job.
After the opening band had finished on stage, we invited them to chow down on the buffet in our dressing room and chatted for a bit before heading out to the stage to run through our set list. Things went perfectly, as they had been the whole day, and everyone was completely pumped.
“So, about the after party?” Talon twirled one of his drumsticks as we finished off our encore song. I grinned. Hell yeah, we were having an after-party tonight.