NicenEasy Read Online Free PDF Page B

room and given Nancy a sheepish smile. Lucky Nancy had turned
over and grabbed a bit more shut-eye, but Allie couldn’t afford to do that.
    Carl looked like a man holidaying from his day job, but he
should start to look on this as employment, take it a bit more seriously. She’d
have plenty of time to tell him, since he was her primary concern here. He
couldn’t take this first appearance too lightly. This was a big convention and
they’d chosen it deliberately. The company had actually allocated a publicity
budget to Carl, and she wanted him to make the most of it.
    On the other hand, the readers might love a middle-aged
lecher who had a laugh that could rip fabric.
    With relief, she left Carl to settle in after exchanging
telephone numbers. Only then did it occur to her that she hadn’t done that with
Donovan. He probably wouldn’t have let her. Security concerns.
    On her way out, she’d noted his wing had access through one
hallway only and the fire exits were all alarmed. She’d had to go up a couple
of floors using a service stairway before she could get the elevator, since
this wing was served by card-operated elevators and her room card didn’t work.
It also meant she couldn’t drop by.
    Despite her decision to make it a one-night stand, she
wanted to see him again. But the way she felt this morning was far distant from
the night before. She’d spent a night with a man, not a fantasy, and she’d
never feel the same way again about her B.O.B.
    She couldn’t have him. Murder City Ravens was on the final
part of the American leg of the tour and they’d go to Europe next. She had a
job that was just taking off, and if she took time out now, she’d lose it.
    Laughable. After one night? Who was she kidding?
    She wouldn’t have the decision to make, that was for sure.
But she did have one perfect night to remember.
    Back in her room, she found Nancy busy on the phone. She
raised a brow and Nancy nodded and held up a finger for her to wait. She hung
up and beamed at Allie with a knowing expression in her eyes. “So how did it
go? Are you a full-fledged groupie now?”
    Allie couldn’t laugh, didn’t want to. “I wouldn’t say that.”
    Nancy held something out to her and Allie took the small
black object. “It’s a portable speaker,” Nancy informed her. “Put on some of
this band’s music. I’m curious.”
    “You’ve never heard it?” As far as Allie was concerned,
Nancy must have been living in a vacuum not to have heard Murder City Ravens.
Until recently, they’d had a large but specific audience—the kind who liked
rock bands. Then they had a hit, one single, shoot into every chart they
qualified for, number one over the world.
    She opened her laptop and navigated to her music file,
finding the famous single and a few other tracks, the ones that usually made a
good initial impact, rather than the ones that benefitted from close, repeated
listening. Both of which she’d done. That was one of the things she loved about
the music. Murder City Ravens had a song for every mood.
    The music began to play and Nancy chose that moment to start
talking. Allie consoled herself with recalling Nancy’s famed ability to
multitask. Not many people could manage three simultaneous phone calls and make
sense to each person she was talking to, but Nancy could. Allie’s mind tended
to snap to a current project like an elastic band around a bunch of pencils,
but Nancy wove her way around several at the same time. Probably why Nancy was
the boss here.
    “I’ve put some postcards on your bed. During the signing
tomorrow, we have to get around to the authors from our house and distribute
these. Have a word or two with each author and ask them if they want anything.
Then concentrate on the big names.” Of course, Allie’s collection was larger
than Nancy’s.
    A particularly poignant lyric came out of the speakers.
“Listen to that, Nancy. Listen to the way he backs up that last word, ‘loss’.”
    “Sure,