Off the Rails Read Online Free Page A

Hair Guy. “Who’s this?”
    Good question. Madison looked in his dark eyes. “Who are you?”
    “Nikki.”
    Hmmm. Better than Jet Black Hair Guy. Easier to say.
    “Wanna get a beer, Nikki? After I, um, get some clothes on?”
    “Yeah.” He pointed to the end of the bar. “I’ll be down there. Under the tree.”
     
    * * * *
     
    By the time Madison and Tia were walking back to their low-budget room, their beer buzz was long gone. Most of it had worn off while they were taking turns dancing with Nikki, the rest evaporated while eating piles of fries at Denny’s. Tia had spent her non-eating time at Denny’s answering work emails. Madison, who’d turned off her phone in the hope of pretending the rest of the world—especially the part connected to the reunion—didn’t exist, had learned the names of all of Nikki’s sisters, what they all did for a living, which ones were married and which ones had kids. Then they’d started talking about books, movies and music. The music part was, no surprise, the longest part of conversation.
    Madison pulled a napkin from her pocket and looked at the writing. “You think he really has a recording studio?”
    “Yeah. I do. If he was lying about it, he’d still be with us, trying to get into your pants.”
    True. “You think I should take him up on his offer, do the demo at his place?” she asked, digging through her backpack for the key to their room.
    “He’s got the equipment, you’ve got the time. Of course you should. You need a demo.”
    Too true. Too tired to talk, let alone deal with her non-existent career and even more unsettling non-future, Madison swung herself into their room. After shoving the door closed behind Tia, Madison threw her backpack down and made a beeline for the bathroom. About the time she was squeezing toothpaste out of her tiny tube of Crest, Tia screamed.
    Not a super scared, a-snake-is-about-to bite-me scream, but an I’m-mad-because-I-saw-a-mouse scream. Madison ducked out of the bathroom, leaped over her backpack, and stopped at the end of the hall.
    Lying across their bed, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of Levi’s, was a bleary-eyed guy who looked as though he’d been sound asleep seconds before. Half of his sun-streaked hair hung in his eyes, the rest stuck out in odd angles. Simply put, he looked hot in a seriously trashy way. Like some use-me-and-toss guy in an Abercrombie ad.
    And that lazy grin, it was like he’d have all day and then some.
    But still.
    Madison stepped toward him. “Hello! This is our hotel room?”
    The wiry guy rolled onto his side, propping himself up on a pillow and looking them over with half-closed eyes. The lean muscles in his torso rippled, lithe and fluid. Delicious.
    But his attitude was a bit rude, considering he’d totally broken into their room and fallen asleep.
    Madison took advantage of the fact that he wasn’t flying off the bed, wielding a knife and demanding they pass over all their valuables, to check out the room. Rumpled towels that weren’t there when they left dotted the weary aqua carpet, but, because Tia was such a neat freak, there was nothing to show that the room was in use. The balcony door had somehow been pried open wide enough to accommodate his nicely muscled, lean self.
    Tia yanked the pillow he was hugging out from under his yummy arms. “You can’t just bust into people’s rooms and sleep on their beds.”
    “I didn’t know it was y’all’s room,” he replied, showing no signs of doing the appropriate thing—leaving.
    Madison sat on the rickety bamboo-style dresser and glared at the scruffy hillbilly stretched across the tacky floral bedcover. “You knew it was somebody’s room.”
    “I thought it was jest messed up. There’s no clothes or nothin’.” He sat up, giving them a clear view of his tan six-pack abs, and rubbed his riotous brown hair. Kind of a hillbilly Jason Statham. If he’d just stop talking, he’d be sexy as hell. “Don’t y’all