Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  Have I done something of note? Something worth this time thing that is oh-so-important. But deadly and dangerous, too. For every minute that ticks by, we’re closer to our deaths. From the moment we take our first breath, we’re destined to take our last.

  This frightens me. I’m not sure why. Because I’m tired. So very, very tired.

  Now, on a bright, Sunday morning, as I stare at a cream colored, respectable dress for a woman my age, my shoulders sag. I’m trapped. Trapped in a forty-five-year-old’s body and having a twenty-five-year-old’s mentality.

  I’m scared. My life’s on the downslope. I haven’t reached menopause, but I’m headed there. The idea a woman my age should have—or want—another baby is crazy. Yet, the world barely takes note if a man becomes a father for the first or fifth time at a similar age.

  I pad to my oval-shaped mirror and glide my fingers through my white-blonde hair.

  I’m angry. My husband’s—the world’s—obsession with youth has turned me into an ageist. My routine is down pat. I condescend to younger women. They need me. They need to be seen with Cassandra McCall. And I use their hunger for status and power. I tell myself I hate them. But, no. I hate me. I hate they have something I can never regain. It doesn’t matter how wrinkle-free I am. How firm and toned by body is.

  The world knows. The facts of my life have been plastered in magazines and rags globally.

  I touch my neck. Parnell choked me again last night and his fingerprinted bruises are another perfect arc. I have to arrange my scarf artfully to cover them. Perhaps, this has made him happy and he’ll notice me without having anyone else in our bed.

  When I return, I’ll have another talk with him, longer than the one I attempted when he was so focused on Abby.

  I’m attending a brunch for a board that I am on that caters to the homeless.

  Don’t know why I accepted that position. I’ve never been homeless. I frown, think deeper, come to my answer. They want McCall money. I want a say so about where it goes.

  So they pander to me. My lack of knowledge doesn’t compare to Parnell’s generous checks.

  Slowly, I turn away from the mirror and glance around my sanctuary. Filled with millions of dollars of clothes, jewelry, handbags, and shoes. I think of Georgiana and her closet. It isn’t comparable to mine. Her decision, not mine.

  I walk to the dark wooden jewelry cabinet lining a small section of one wall. My jewels are locked in a safe, so this is mainly for my costume jewelry. In the bottom drawer, I get what I want. Georgiana’s photos from her first birthday. One’s framed and one isn’t. I have no idea what’s become of the other shots, but these have always been my favorites. The one where she is alone, in her pink, frilly dress that makes her look like a doll. Her black hair barely touches her ears and her eyes are a deep blue here.

  I clutch the photo to my heart. This one’s framed. This one I want in my casket to take to the grave with me. Her innocence and her beauty are everything. I knew her then. She was my baby. My little girl. My princess.

  I gaze at the other photo. The unframed one. She’s on my lap. I still look…happy. Maybe, I was. I can’t remember. But I was thirty there. Thirty. That’s when my age became more than just a number. It became an inescapable reality. I was no longer the hot thing. I was thirty. Thirty fools you. It catches you between being still wanted—still allowed the mistakes of youth—and being thrown aside and ridiculed for knowing better at her age.

  Georgiana’s sixteen now. Sixteen. I’m terrified. I see her as competition, and I hate myself a little more for it. She doesn’t deserve that. She deserves happiness. If she wants Sloane Mason, then she should have him.

  I laugh bitterly at the wisdom of my age speaking. That’s the ironic thing. I’m so damn glad to have the knowledge I gleaned through the years. I cringe at some memories, smile or cry at others. But now, for the most part, I know what and what not to do.

  But the cost of that knowledge is so steep.

  I graze my nipples, touch my hairless pussy.

  I can’t share Sloane. Not even with Georgiana. I’ve not had a twenty-five year old…well, ever. He has stamina, power in his thrusts. I want to fuck him every day, all day. I want to have him without my husband’s watchful eyes on us.

  I think of Georgiana again. I know my baby girl is lost. I know it. When I see her, I realize I don’t spend a lot of time with her. She’s a defiant teenager, searching for purpose.

  She’s lost. Because she has no guidance or direction.

  Sloane was once lost, too. I researched him on the Internet. He’s notorious. A womanizer. A brawler. A drug addict. A bad boy.

  Instinct tells me Georgiana’s sadness would appeal to him. It appealed to Crowell and that asshole might not be a world-famous rock star, but he’s as bad, or worse, than Sloane can ever be. But he wants Georgiana and he keeps her occupied, away from me. I don’t have to watch her change into my competition.

  I just know Crowell’s looking after her.

  A knock comes. Georgiana must be visiting me. I haven’t seen her since Friday. I should grab a robe. The child sees me naked more than dressed. Hmmm. I wonder how she feels about that, if she sees it as disturbing as I suddenly do.

  “Mrs. McCall?”

  Not my daughter. Just a maid. I curl my lip in disgust and stomp to the door, in full immature mode. Cracking it, I glare at the woman. She swallows and I lift my brow, noticing a newspaper in her hands.

  “Mr. McCall thought you might like to see this.”

  I register it’s the entertainment section of the Houston Chronicle, a moment before I see her. Georgiana. The speculative headline infuriates me. Georgiana McCall Allowed Out of her Gilded Cage? I glance at the three paragraph article, a review of the Phoenix Rising concert and horrible assumptions all rolled into one. Assumptions about why she is rarely seen out. Where I am as she’s being escorted backstage just before the start of the show. Where her father might be.

  Weight shifting. The maid’s still there. I slam the article against her chest and shut the door. My head’s pounding. I knew she was going to the concert, but who the fuck pulled strings to get her backstage? Near him. In Sloane’s vicinity.

  I’m going to summon her to me and get answers.

  Will I address her as her mother or my competition?

  Silly question. She is my competition. From his own mouth, Sloane told me he’d pursue her if she were eighteen. If she were out of the picture, I’d still get his cock. But, no…vomit churns in me.

  They’ve fucked. I know it. That’s the basis of his determination to stay around her.

  What should I do now?

  Have him arrested? Georgie will deny it and the scandal will be horrendous. If I could prove it, perhaps, I’d throw them into the fire as revenge.

  Georgiana is well aware of what giving up her pussy means. A problem child. A groupie.

  A goddamn idiot in school.

  She’s nothing but a disgrace…who has Sloane.

  My insides feel as if they’re unraveling and I draw in a deep breath. I can’t take this. My head is spinning and something in me snaps. I scream at the top of my lungs. I knock over a rack of clothes—dresses, I note—and scream again. I’m wailing, pitching whatever I get my hands on, knocking over my neat racks.

  Arms swoop around me and attempt to subdue me. But I’m in a rage and I struggle. I struggle to catch my breath. I struggle for fairness.

  And I struggle with me and my self-perception.

  Pinning my hands above my head, Parnell straddles me. He pants, his eyes torn between fury and fear. I buck against him, but, at fifty-five, he’s still in shape. Still strong.

  “Enough, Cass!” he roars. “What’s gotten into you?”

  I feel like a wild animal. “Get Georgiana in here,” I snarl, my face wet, my body flushed with heat and my nose dripping. “Now.”

  His brows draw together. “She’s not here.”

  I narrow my eyes, not quite believing my ears. Unless,
my gut feeling is wrong? “When did she leave?”

  He shrugs. “Last night.”

  He has her. I know he does. He’s taken her. I hate her. I hate her so much my stomach turns. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I bite out. “She’s sixteen years old and it sounds as if it’s no big deal that she spent the night out.” I don’t add with him. Then, he’d know why I’ve gone so crazy. I think of Abby, the younger woman Parnell has brought to our bed three times now and I scream again.

  He moves his body off of me and I realize we’re in our bed. “What do you want me to say to her? Since when are we giving her rules?”

  Since, now. When she’s stolen the youth away from me that I’d intended to recapture. I glare at him. “Since she’s attending Phoenix Rising concerts and ending up backstage.” My words tremble, I’m so angry.

  A lift of his brow and a shrug. “She’s a good girl with a good head on her shoulders. Just like you. A younger version of yourself.” He smiles as if this should soothe me.

  The younger version of me? I was fucking by the time I was fifteen. I hop off the bed and stalk toward my dressing room. “Get her back here,” I throw over my shoulder. “By the time I return from the brunch, I expect her in my office.”

  I intend to ground her—lock her in a room upstairs—for the next two weeks.

  Sloane

  I scrub my hands over my face. Georgie’s still asleep next to me, just as she was when I arrived last night. Just as she has been for most of the morning.

  She slept through my changing her out of her clothes and into another one of my tee-shirts.

  She hasn’t moved much. I should know. I’ve watched her most of the night, wrestled with my cock just as long. Her skin is like satin. I wish I’d never attempted to make her more comfortable. The feel of her coupled with my knowledge of her cocksucking skills are a dangerous combination.

  In sleep, her lovely face clear of the makeup, she looks so fucking peaceful and young. She also looks injured with the bruise on her cheek. I ask Kiln about it and he tells me it was Crowell.

  I stare at the ceiling, breathing through my nose to control my fury. I’m so fucking frustrated right now I can’t think straight. Tomorrow, I leave Houston. As much as Georgie keeps up with the band’s activities, she should know. Last night, though, she was drugged out of her head.

  Perhaps, her plea for me to keep her stems from a subconscious knowledge that I’ll soon walk away.

  But, fuck, if I want to. Once I go, what’ll happen to her?

  This same refrain has been pounding through my brain all fucking night, because I’m a stupid motherfucker. From the start of my personal quest to become Georgie’s protector, I knew it wouldn’t last. With so much shit going on, I didn’t dwell on it.

  Now, the time has arrived and I need to figure out my next move.

  She’s sixteen months from eighteen. At the rate she’s going, she might not be alive by then. We need to have a heart-to-heart. She’ll be sober once she awakens, so I’ll play it by ear, explain to her that we can keep in touch only if she stays clean. Unlike her fucked-up parents, I’ll know if she’s high and I’ll break all contact with her if that ever happens.

  I squeeze my temples to sooth my pounding head. I don’t know if that’ll be enough to keep her from Crowell. He supplies her with drugs and orgasms. My gaze flicks over the bruise…and slaps. Most important, he’s in the same city with her, so while I’m ordering her to adhere to my rules, I’ll be travelling from place-to-place while Georgie will be here with no one.

  But Crowell.

  Fuck.

  Georgie’s little purse shudders against the wooden dresser and my music peels through the air. I realize she has her phone in there, too. I never checked when I grabbed it from my dressing room last night. I just wanted to get to her and check on her.

  Discovering her asleep sent equal parts relief and disappointment through me.

  The phone stops, the awareness barely crossing my mind before it rings again. Georgie stirs and I scowl at the dresser. I want her to sleep another twenty minutes before I waken her and send her on her way. There’s nothing more I can do. I’m not meant to spend my life babysitting Georgiana McCall.

  I’m not meant to worry about her, and ache for her, and dream of ways to be with her.

  I have to get rid of her. I believe in love, but I don’t fucking believe in instant love, so what I feel for Georgie isn’t that. I’d like to say it is just protecting a girl who needs it from herself, and all the assholes in her life. I don’t believe it’s that either.

  I don’t understand what the fuck it is. Each time I try, the answer is more elusive. If I can’t understand it, I don’t deal with it, so she’s gone.

  Georgie’s phone rings again and, this time, she bolts up. Her hair is wild around her. She’s blinking, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child.

  She is, asshole.

  My nostrils flare at the thought. I hate myself a little for having her here with me. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have sucked my dick. I shouldn’t have come in her mouth.

  “Mom?” she answers in a voice hoarse from sleep.

  I go on high alert, knowing Cassandra is on the other end of the call.

  “No! Mom—"

  Georgie sucks in a breath and starts to cry. I remind myself she isn’t my problem. I want her gone from my life.

  “It isn’t like that,” she wails.

  She glances nervously in my direction and swipes at her tears.

  “I’m not here with Sloane,” she sobs. “I swear.”

  My gut clenches. I know where this is leading. Georgie starts to trip away and then halts, her shoulders trembling. Even knowing I’m on the verge of being accused of a crime, I want to comfort her.

  I’m fucking touched in the head when she spins around and the movement flutters the shirt she’s wearing, allowing me a sneak peek of her pussy.

  My dick jumps. Which head I’m touched in is debatable.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she sniffles. “Yes, ma’am.” She covers her mouth, looking and sounding as if her heart is breaking. “No, ma’am.”

  She hangs up and lowers her head. She stumbles toward the bathroom door, not looking at me. I don’t want her tears to affect me. She cries a lot. She’s young and sensitive and fucked up. Just the right recipe for a watering pot to constantly leak from her eyes.

  I wonder if she’s playing me so I can feel sorry for her. She was flying fucking high last night, but she sucked me off like a pro. I’ve been handed all kinds of bullshit from girls to get—and keep—my attention. Theatrics. Threats. Tantrums. Promises. Pleas. Pleasure. I’ve had schemers and dreamers, good girls looking for a wild night and bad girls looking for wild sex.

  When the shower starts, my dick gets even harder. Growling, I jump to my feet. I stomp to the door and throw it open.

  Arms folded, Kiln leans against a wall, looking bored. Pres is there, too. I frown. “Problems?” I ask, wondering why the head of the band’s security is here.

  Kiln grins and glances behind me, toward my bedroom.

  “We want to stare at the girl whose pussy will send you up the river, asshole,” Adam offers casually, sipping on bottled water.

  Cold sweat breaks out on my bare chest and makes my jeans cling to my legs.

  Kiln roams across the room to the table where silver servers of food sit. The hotel accommodates us every morning with a huge breakfast. He snags a sausage, then turns back to me, his expression unreadable.

  “For what it’s worth, I think she’s a loyal one. More so than sweet Dietrech.”

  My entire body freezes at the mention of Dietrech and my blood runs cold.

  “I offered Georgiana blow if she sucked my dick. She declined because of you,” Kiln continues.

  For one moment, I just stare at Kiln, not quite believing any of what the asshole just said. I’m not sure if I’m angrier because he was willing to overdose her, because he asked her to suck his dick, or because he spoke
of Dietrech. My feet are moving and my fists are flying, landing against Kiln’s jaw.

  “Motherfucker,” he growls.

  Before he can retaliate, we’re pulled apart. I’m like an angry bull, and I want blood. Much of my rage comes from wanting Georgie’s pussy and feeling lower than shit because of it.

  What the fuck can we do together but fuck? It isn’t like we have anything in common. I’m a grown ass man. Am I supposed to ask her when her next class project is due? Who she’s taking to the prom? Which of her teachers is the biggest asshole?

  I yank myself away from the tight grip and turn. I freeze. Georgie is there, her eyes rounded. She’s in her bare feet, shoes and purse clutched to her chest. She’s wearing her two-piece, sparkly, bubble gum colored outfit again. Her damp hair is styled in a long braid. The bruise seems more outstanding in the cold light of day.

  She looks at the floor. “I’ve called a cab,” she announces, shy, shifting her weight. Her entire demeanor is muted and toned down. She’s still groggy from the downer Kiln gave her.

  I’m breathing hard. I know I’m wild-eyed and red-faced. I know when I amp up to lunatic status.

  I advance to her but she sidesteps me before I can reach her. Her jaw clenches and she stares straight ahead. “Stay away from me,” she orders. “I don’t know why I’m in trouble, but I am.” She glances at me but then realizes it and looks away again. “I’ve seen Mom bulldoze other people. She’s never done it to me, though. Mostly, she ignores me. I’m in trouble because she says I’m with you.”

  “You are with me.”

  “No,” she whispers. “I’m with Crowell. He’s waiting for me. The cab will take me to him and he’ll vouch for me.”

  “No,” I order through clenched teeth. “Fuck no. Absolutely not.” I glare at Kiln, who’s pissed because of our altercation. I nod to him. Either he fixes it or I fucking will.

  “You can’t stop me,” Georgie says coolly. “You’ve been arrested for weapons. For drugs. For speeding.”