by Brandy Ayers
He even managed to get a can of spray paint in my hand, and together, we refurbished an old desk he found in the warehouse basement. The huge wooden thing is now bright pink with a slight gold sheen to it. I didn’t even mind getting my hands a little dirty. Bonus, it is the perfect height for him to bend me over and flip up whatever minuscule dress I’m wearing at the time to spank the sass out of me.
These past few weeks have shown me that I never really had a home. Just holding places until I was shuffled to the next holding place. In less than a month, Scott has managed to give me the things I’ve craved and missed out on my entire life.
Affection.
Stability.
Honesty.
“So where were you today anyway?” His fingers trace up and down my arm, across my collarbone, and back down. Never before has someone wanted to touch me in the intimate ways that have nothing to do with sex. He got his rocks off. He should be racing for the door. But he loves the after stuff as much as I do.
Excitement surges in my veins, and I spin around to land on my knees on the cushion beside him. “Oh my Gosh, have you ever explored this neighborhood? It is like a wealth of untapped talent!” I bounce a little since there is nowhere else for my enthusiasm to go, and Scott gets a little distracted by my jiggling boobs. But soon enough, he shakes his head and focuses back in on what I’m saying.
“I went to that cute boutique four buildings down, and this girl is a-mazing. She does all her own fabric printing, designs the clothes, and sews them all by hand. She’s way underpricing her stuff, so I’ve been helping her with marketing and business stuff in exchange for free clothes.”
“I wondered where all these dresses have been coming from.” Scott picks up the pink and gold patterned column dress from the arm of the couch where it landed earlier.
“Yup, they’ve all been coming from Syn Sations. That’s both her name and the boutique. Today, she brought some of her designer friends in to meet me. They were all so cool. Never once mentioned my fall from grace. Loved hearing about my ideas for getting their names out there. Some are even interested in a partnership with me. Obviously, I can’t do anything like that until the mess with my accounts gets straightened out. But how awesome is that? I haven’t been this excited about something since, maybe ever.”
I’ve found a niche market more exhilarating than anything I’ve done before, but my circumstances are holding me back from helping as much as I want to. After weeks of no return calls despite leaving dozens upon dozens of messages for Agent Rose, I had kinda just given up. Life with Scott is good, and I don’t need as much stuff as I once thought I did. But, I might need to revisit trying to get my money back, so I can do more with my new project. Scott makes enough to support us, but not enough to launch several fashion careers from scratch.
I pause, sucking in a deep breath to replenish the oxygen I spent rambling on. Scott’s grin is wide, and his eyes sparkle. This whole talking about something you love and having someone actually listen is weird.
And cool.
“You know, I could do the same things for you. Get your music career off the ground. I know you make enough in studio work to have this place, but you could do so much more. Your voice and music are beautiful. More people should hear them.”
Just like every other time I bring something up about his music, Scott stands up and turns his back to me. This time he walks, butt naked I might add, which is very distracting, over to the kitchen and grabs two bottles of water from the fridge.
The sigh slips through my lips before I can stop it. But I refuse to pout. He thinks my pout is sexy, and it always ends with us screwing our brains out again.
“Seriously, why won’t you let me help?” I stand after him, stomping my foot and slapping my hands down onto my bare thighs.
“Drop it, Lacy. My career is mine, and I’ll take care of it.”
Tears sting behind my eyes. He’s done so much for me. Rescued me from being raped in an alley. Took me in when I was homeless, penniless, and friendless. He puts up with all my shit and even says he likes me just as I am. That I don’t need to change for him. I want to give him something back. One fifteen second video of him singing on my Instagram would have him world famous in hours. Even now when I’m keeping a fairly low profile because of everything with my dad.
But I do as he asks and drop it. I don’t want to fight again. Not a real fight anyway. I like our fake I’m a spoiled brat and he needs to spank me for being bad fights. Those are awesome. Real fights make my stomach knot and my head ache.
Not wanting him to see how much his words sting, I grab my dress and walk, not stomp, toward the stairs. “Fine, let your talent wither away with the only people hearing being me and the walls. It’s not like you’re hot enough for world fame anyway.”
That’s a lie.
Once you strip all the black t-shirts and too stiff jeans from him, Scott is hot as fuck. His brown hair has gained some blonde streaks from working on the balcony addition the past week. The muscles lining his frame are big without being ridiculous, and his hazel eyes show every emotion that flits through his head. I’m even starting to like the stupid beard.
Once upstairs, I hang the dress in the bathroom, where I will hand wash it later since I can’t send my stuff out for dry cleaning anymore. I’m sure Scott would volunteer to pay for it, but no way I’m asking for anything else from him.
I pull on a T-shirt of Scott’s, another silly band shirt, just as I hear his feet on the stairs. Probably coming to apologize and fuck me again. I swear the two go hand-in-hand. Whenever we get into a little tiff, one of us always comes crawling back to apologize to the other. Then we somehow end up rolling around on the nearest surface. That probably isn’t healthy. Not that I would know. I’ve never been in a relationship with actual feelings before. If this even is a relationship.
This is the very definition of the it’s complicated relationship status on Facebook. They certainly don’t have a box to check for I’m fucking the guy who rescued me and took me in like a lost kitten, and all I want to do is rub against him and have him pet me.
“Beauty.” The regret is unmistakable in his voice. Also, in the way he can’t quite meet my eyes.
I’ve tried to scratch below the surface with Scott the past few weeks. He knows so much about me already, and I know next to nothing about him. Not how he can afford this place. Not where he grew up. Not how he got into music.
My only solace that he continues to shut the door between us is the occasional personal concert I get while he plays on the balcony and forgets to close the sliding door the whole way. Well that and pulling on the cloak of bitchiness that doesn’t quite fit anymore.
“Look, I think we should talk—”
Before he can finish whatever lame attempt at groveling he is working on, my cell phone rings on the bed stand. I’d almost forgotten I had the thing to be honest. I lost my real phone the night of the attack in the alley. This was a cheap prepaid one Scott got me. It is, in fact, the only thing I specifically asked him to buy me, since I didn’t want to be using his to try and sort out the mess that is my life. But I gave up on getting a hold of Agent Rose almost a week ago. And no one else in the world besides Scott cares about me.
We both stare at it, and it dumps into voicemail as a result. The following silence jars me from the shocked stare down I’d been holding with the stupid thing. Striding over to the nightstand, I take a deep breath before picking it up. For some reason, a dark foreboding takes up residence in my chest. As if even without seeing who called, I know it won’t be good.
I don’t get the chance to check the call history, because as soon as it settles into my palm, the phone starts ringing again. It’s a number I had memorized nearly a month ago.
Agent Rose.
With wide, shocked eyes staring at Scott, I accept the call. “Hello?”
“Lacy Falluci?”
“Yes.”
“This is Agent Ted Rose. I understand you’ve been
trying to reach me.” Nothing about the phone call is what I expect. Agent Rose has a nasally voice, not the deep, rough one I had expected of an FBI agent. Also, he sounds bored. As if this phone call means nothing to him or his investigation.
“Actually, I had been under the impression you wanted to speak with me.” I adopt my most hoity toity, boss bitch tone. “That is why you put my apartment and finances on lock down despite no wrong doing on my part, correct?”
“It is standard procedure to freeze the financial assets of a suspect at risk of fleeing the country.” The words are flat. Agent Rose gives no inflection, no importance to any bit of what he says.
“So, I’m a suspect? Should I be getting a lawyer? Because you are going to have unfreeze my accounts for that to happen.” Numbness starts at the tips of my fingers and filters up my veins and into my limbs. I’m a suspect. How the fuck has this happened? I just post pretty pictures on Instagram and make appearances in clubs I hate.
“I don't think a lawyer will be necessary.” I might be imagining it, but the agent’s voice seems to grow slightly more tense at my request for a lawyer. “I believe we can bring this matter to a conclusion and return you to the lifestyle to which you are accustomed. That is if you agree to answer our questions.”
I should be frantic with happiness at the idea of getting my life back. But the prospect sits like a boulder in my stomach. Life before the alley, before the investigation, before Scott isn’t something I want to return to.
The fake friends. The constant worry over my image. The endless time spent alone when Marci was working and no one else felt like going out. It had been a lonely existence. How one man could make my supposedly former life of glamour seem pale and dry in comparison to his quiet one dumbfounded me.
Across the room, he stands still as a statue, his arms crossed, glaring at me with a mixture of concern and annoyance.
A riot of bees swarm in my belly. People always say love feels like butterflies, but they are wrong. I know without a doubt, looking at Scott, that this is love. But it isn’t the gentle brush of delicate wings. It is stinging and buzzing, and I can’t control it.
It is terrifying.
“Okay, where should I meet you?”
Chapter Eight
Scott
I shouldn’t have let her go alone.
The churning in my gut confirms the thought. Damn Lacy, most stubborn woman on the planet. Stubborn, beautiful, smart, and generous in her own twisted way.
For some reason, the idea of her alone with this FBI agent puts me on the edge of punching a wall. Which I can’t do since my hands are insured for several million dollars, and my agent would shit a brick. Or at least, more than he already has considering the band and I decided to not renew our contract with the label we’d been with from the beginning.
Those conversations have been fun over the past few weeks. Especially since I had to find new ways to get out of the apartment to avoid Lacy overhearing the plans we’d been making for our next album.
Guilt gnawed in my stomach, the churning from before morphing into a nausea which quite literally steals the breath from my lungs. I’d been so close to coming clean before she received that call. But then, I’d been close a million times in the last month. Funny how fear of losing a little spitfire brat can make you freeze in your tracks. I can’t lose her. I can’t have her treating me differently.
No matter how I spin the justifications, the fact remains, I’ve long since passed the point of plausibility for why I’ve continued this charade about being a studio musician. She’s heard me play. Not the songs I’ve played with Malfeesance for the past two decades. New stuff. It’s stripped down, bare bones. Still rough and dark, but more in tone than theme. Lacy’s brought something out in me and my music I can’t explain.
Shaking myself from the thoughts, I refocus on the newest project. Lacy’s office. It’s the room next to the in-house studio I built. The walls are soundproof, so she won’t get disturbed while we’re playing. The huge desk along on the other side of the wall where I fucked her just a few days ago mocks me. So, does her favorite feature in the room: the gold wall. A whole wall sparkling gold, with the perfect lighting to do her videos and product images for her influencer posts. She tried to get me to do a photo with her to show it, and me, off on her Instagram. I had to say no. I would have been recognized.
The finishing touches will go in tomorrow, mostly furniture and some knickknacks I picked up along the way. My favorite is a metal cut out sign which says brat. I had it custom made by the guy who does our tour stage designs. It’s rustic and badass, but he used some chemical treatment on it to give it this shiny almost red gold hue. I have it hanging over her desk.
Just as I’m getting back to hanging more artwork, my cell rings from the kitchen where I left it. I spring to my feet and damn near break a land speed record trying to get the call before it drops to voicemail.
The name which flashes across the screen sends my stomach plummeting. Not Lacy. Geoff, my drummer. I punch the accept button, a little surprised the screen doesn’t crack from the force.
“What up fuck face?” Geoff’s bass voice damn near rattles the phone. Dude’s got enough testosterone coursing through his body to make the biggest, baddest, looking drummer on the planet. But really, he’s a twelve-year-old boy stuck in the body of a giant. “I know we said we were going to lay low for the time being, but there’s low, and then there’s falling off the face of the planet.”
“Well, we can’t all be frequenting strip clubs on a nightly basis, asshole.” I set down the hammer I was using to hang some pictures and pick up my guitar, making my way down the hall to the studio.
“Yes, we fucking can. And we should. It is our god given right as rock stars to look at naked tits as often is humanly possible.” Cymbals crash loudly in the background, signaling Geoff threw something at his drum set. Guy has no respect for his instruments. Half our tour budget went to replacing his kit every few weeks. “Man, you are a disgrace to metal. No tats. No more drinking and drugs. No strippers under your belt. Now, I hear you fucking cut your hair. I swear to god, if you start singing some Ed Sheeran shit, I’m going to cut your nuts off.”
It feels weird to laugh while also being on the edge of panic not knowing where Lacy is. But Geoff makes it damn near impossible to keep a straight face. I can’t look at him during shows, because I start cracking up right away.
“Actually, I’ve been working on something I’d like you to hear.” I prop my phone up on the console and switch over to Facetime. As soon as Geoff accepts the video call, I settle in with my guitar.
“Should I tell Vance you’re itching to take his spot as lead singer?” A shirtless Geoff appears, sprawled out on his couch, empty beer bottles everywhere.
“Nah, I’ll stick to being the musical genius of the group.” I can sing, but don’t have the right chords for metal. Can’t get the deep guttural thing going like Vance. Guy never speaks outside of a packed arena or bar. I think I’ve heard him say all of a dozen sentences the entire time we’ve played together. “I’m not sure where this song is going yet. So, don’t give me a hard time about it.”
The chords start out slow, less chaotic than I normally played. Then I start in on the lyrics. It’s a love song, but a dark one.
A siren calls my name.
Her skin, her smile, call me home.
Wrap me in her barbed-wire arms.
Cut me quick with a lick of her tongue.
Damn the fate, I’ll drown for just a taste.
Beauty is her weapon.
I keep singing through the half-formed verses. They all center on Lacy and how everything about her, good and bad, pull me closer. It might have been the most honest thing I’ve ever written.
When I finish, Geoff lets out a huge belch and throws his empty bottle onto a pile off screen. “Did you really write a fucking power ballad?”
“I know it isn’t our usual burn the world to the ground stuff, but it isn’t e
xactly Bed of Roses either.”
“Nah, man. It’s not bad. I can hear the whole arrangement in my head. Driving beats, shredding guitar, but all taken down a notch. It’ll get the panties wet, that’s for sure.” A naked pair of legs walk into the frame behind him, and I look away before I could see anymore. “Hey man, my guest for the weekend just woke up from the orgasm coma I put her in. Gotta go. Next week, let's get together and start arranging this. Maybe get the guys together and put out a teaser clip online.”
I don’t bother responding. Once a pair of legs are in front of him, Geoff forgets everything else exists.
After hanging up, I keep plucking at the guitar strings, trying to refine the words and notes tumbling around inside my head. It isn’t working. My eyes keep drifting up the clock on the wall. Lacy’s been gone four hours. What in the hell could be taking so long?
Normally, I get lost in the music. I’ve been known to sit in my place and write for days without a break. When I’d been using and drinking, it could be weeks. But now, I want to have Lacy here with me. Write with her face and body and spitfire spirit in close proximity. She’s become my muse over the past month. I have a notebook full of lyrics that can all be traced back to her. Not all of them are love songs. There were some harsh words in there too. But I wouldn’t trade any of it for another woman.
The front door opens, quietly enough that it might just be my ears playing tricks on me. Wishful thinking and all that. Lacy doesn’t do anything quietly. She stomps, slams, and struts her way through life.
Still hoping it will be her, I leave behind my guitar and make my way to the kitchen, where she almost always heads first. She’s there. In front of the open fridge, staring inside like she’s not actually seeing anything. “Hey, Beauty. How’d it go?”
Lacy jumps a little at my voice. Her normally bright, fire-filled eyes look dull. Distracted. “Um, it was okay. They aren’t sure when my accounts will be freed up. It could take a couple days. Maybe a couple weeks. I hope you’re okay with me staying a while longer.”
