Insider (Exodus End #1)(71)
Author: Olivia Cunning

“I could try to put a different slant on it in the book,” she said. “Maybe we could include nice memories of Bianca with the band before your relationship got rocky.” She’d seen photos of Bianca with the band when they’d first started out. If Steve was okay with it, Toni would love to include her as part of the band’s beginnings.

“That relationship was always rocky, but we did have some good times in the beginning.”

“Can I include her in the history of the band?”

“Depends on what you include,” he said with a laugh.

“I’ll run it by you and you can give me some insider information on her part.”

“Maybe,” he said, still looking unconvinced. She knew he’d need time to digest the possibility of portraying Bianca in a good light. They’d been battling each other so long, he probably had a hard time remembering the good times. And that was what Toni was after for the book. The good times.

Shifting gears, Toni asked, “So what about your second wife?”

Steve’s face fell. “Where did you hear—” He shot to his feet and raced to the door. “I’m going to kill him. Dead.”

Toni reacted on instinct, hurrying after him and catching his hand just before he grabbed the handle to slide the door open.

“I’m sorry I asked,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was a touchy subject.”

“Not touchy,” Steve said. “Secret. Logan swore on his life that he’d never tell anyone, so that means I get to kill him.”

“Wait.” It hadn’t been Logan who’d told her.

Steve ignored her plea and slid the door open so hard it crashed into the frame with a loud bang. Like a freed beast, Steve sprang from the room with murder in his eyes.

Toni caught the astonished expression on Logan’s face just before Steve jumped on him. She could add interviewer to her list of things she sucked at. Not only had she asked only one legitimate question during their short interview, she’d managed to send her interviewee into an uncontrollable rage in mere minutes.

As no one else on the bus seemed intent on saving Logan’s life, Toni dashed down the aisle and tried to get a hand on the flailing drummer before he did permanent damage to her squirming boyfriend or justfriend or whatever he wanted to call himself.

Twenty

Logan wasn’t sure why he was suddenly caught up in a brawl, but he wasn’t about to sit there and take a punishing without retaliation. He took several punches to the ribs before he got in a single well-placed blow to Steve’s shoulder.

“You’re a dead man, Schmidt,” Steve yelled.

Logan was sure he’d done something to deserve getting his ass kicked, but hell if he could think of anything.

“What did I do?”

All the air rushed from Logan’s lungs as a body landed on Steve’s back and flattened them both to the floor. He was astonished to see a mass of long brown hair writhing about over Steve’s shoulder. Steve easily tossed Toni off his back by flipping to one side. While Logan took advantage of his opening and tried to scramble from beneath Steve, the drummer caught Logan’s neck in the crook of his elbow and squeezed him into a headlock. Already winded, Logan latched onto Steve’s forearm with both hands and tried to pry his arm loose so he could take a decent breath.

“Please don’t hurt him,” Toni cried, her hands next to his on Steve’s arm.

Technically, he was already hurt, but he didn’t feel that he was truly in danger. It wasn’t as though he and Steve didn’t regularly get into fights. True, they were usually both drunk, so the blows hurt less, but unlike Max and Dare, who preferred to talk through problems like a couple of wimps, he and Steve preferred to let off steam through their fists. Which was why everyone on the bus with the exception of Toni didn’t intervene in Logan’s impending murder.

“Why can’t you ever keep your big mouth shut?” Steve growled.

Logan’s grip loosened as his surroundings began to swim around him.

“I don’t care if you’re screwing her, she’s a goddamned journalist. You have to watch what you say to her.”

Logan racked his brain for something he’d told Toni that Steve wouldn’t want her to know about. Everything in Steve’s past was pretty much an open book to reporters already. Steve had one deep, dark secret, but Logan hadn’t mentioned the guy’s eighteen-hour marriage to Meredith.

“I didn’t tell her—” Logan gasped through his crushed windpipe.

“I don’t care if she doesn’t know the details. She knew enough to ask about it, and that’s too much.”

“Let him go,” Toni said, jerking wildly on one of Steve’s wrists. They guy had impressive upper body strength, so Toni’s attempts to save Logan’s life were completely ineffectual.

Toni switched tactics to slapping the crap out of Steve’s back.

“Ow!” he protested.

“I said let him go. He isn’t the one who told me.”

Logan’s vision tunneled. He knew he was in danger of passing out, yet he was more worried about Toni’s distress than his own.

“Knock it off,” Steve said. He released his hold on Logan’s neck so he could grab Toni’s wrists.

Gasping for air, Logan climbed to his hands and knees, hoping Toni could hold her own, because he wasn’t sure if he was much use to her in his current semi-conscious state. He tried to rise to his feet, but stumbled sideways against the sofa and ended up sitting in the middle of the floor, staring up at the ceiling because he was too exhausted to hold his head upright. Toni’s concerned face was suddenly in his line of vision.

“Are you okay?” she asked, leaning close to peer into his eyes.

He lifted a finger—a signal that he needed a minute to respond—as he sucked air into his lungs and huffed it back out painfully.

He watched in astonishment as she sprang to her feet and began jabbing an angry finger repeatedly into Steve’s chest as she told him off.

“You can’t just jump on people like that! What are you, eight? Learn to control your temper! Fighting is never the answer. If you have a problem with something I’ve done, then you need to take it up with me like a mature adult. Not attack Logan when he least expects it.”

“But—”

“You could have seriously injured him, choking him like that. I understand that you’re mad, but how would you feel if you’d actually killed him?”