Read Girl on Tour (Kylie Ryans) for Free Online Page A

this?”
    Mia looked up from the pile of clothes she was digging through. Relief smoothed her features as she crossed the room and took the boot. “Yup.”
    You’re welcome. Two weeks together and Mia was still an ice queen set on freezing Kylie out. She’d even started being friendlier to Lily. But every time Kylie walked into a room, Mia’s posture stiffened and her eyes went hard. Like I ran over her favorite dog. And laughed about it.
    The Pistol Annies were blaring from Mia’s iPod. “They’re my favorite,” Kylie told her, nodding at the dock.
    Mia raised her eyebrows as if to ask why the hell she thought she gave a damn. Then she stepped over to the vanity and began rifling through her makeup as if Kylie weren’t even there.
    “Hey, can we talk for a sec?” When Mia ignored her, she tried again. Louder this time. “Mia! Can you turn that down for just a minute? Please?”
    Mia glanced over at her. “What?”
    Kylie sighed and made a series of hand motions as if she knew sign language or baseball signals. Mia gave her a weird look and silenced the iPod. “What the hell?”
    Kylie leaned her head out of the room. “Lil, can you come in Mia’s room, please?”
    Mia glared as if she thought Kylie was staging an intervention. Kylie forced a small smile. It wasn’t anything like that. The only person who needed an intervention was Lily the clothes whore, but that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about either.
    Once Lily stepped inside the room, Kylie backed up so she could look at both of them while she spoke. “Um, I wanted to talk to you both. About how we close the show each night.”
    “Oh no, Oklahoma. You are not going to strong-arm us into letting you close every night. I don’t give a shit who your boyfriend is.” Mia crossed her arms over her chest and took a step closer to Lily.
    Whoa. What the hell? Kylie backed up a step, nearly backing into Mia’s dresser. “Wow. Thanks, Mia. You can cross being a bitch to me off your list for today. For the record, I would never do something like that. And technically we’ve closed the last few shows together—singing that song the Vitamin Water people told us to. And that’s what I wanted to talk about.”
    “What about it?” Lily asked, plopping on the bed.
    “Do you know who wrote it?” Kylie asked. She knew because Chaz had told her.
    “No, why?” Lily glanced over at her reflection in Mia’s mirror. Girl had some serious attention deficit issues.
    “Lauryn McCray wrote it,” Mia offered. “So what?”
    Kylie bit her lip. If it didn’t bother Mia, maybe it shouldn’t bother her. Except…it did. A lot. “It’s kind of strange, don’t you think? She wrote it when she thought she was going to be on this tour. Now she’s not and we’re still singing her song.” In the past week, the rumors had been confirmed. Lauryn was, in fact, pregnant. By her agent, Scotty Brasher, who no one knew much about except that he wasn’t commenting publicly about Lauryn or the baby.
    What made Kylie even more uncomfortable was the fact that the song was called All My Life and was about working hard to realize your dreams. Every time she sang the line I gave it all up, gave it all away, dreamin’ of the day when it would be worth it, knowin’ I deserved it, she felt sick. Like her heart was plummeting to her gut. Lauryn had worked hard and had overcome a pretty rough past, according to her CMT Backstory, to get where she was. Then she got pregnant and her career was pretty much over. Or on hold indefinitely at least. And now Kylie, Mia, and Lily sang her song every night. It was weird. And depressing.
    “I don’t get it,” Lily said, pulling her hair into a high ponytail and glancing back in the mirror as she did so.
    “Suddenly Oklahoma here has a conscience.” Mia snorted. “Boo hoo. Lauryn got knocked up. Not our fault, and I bet she made enough money selling that song to decorate one hell of a baby nursery. So I don’t see what the big deal