by KC Enders
Ian slides in behind his kit and taps a slow beat.
“Are. You. Ready?”
Nate hops up and thumps his bass.
“Can I get a little love for Dreams of the UnBroken?”
The crowd is fired up, their roar deafening. Kane downs his beer and bounds onto the stage, grabbing the mic from me, and then the madness truly commences. Thankful for the distraction, I shove Gracyn out of my mind, close my eyes, and get lost in the set. The music cleansing my soul.
At the end of our show, as the guys leave the stage, I step up to the edge and scan the crowd. I know she’s not here. I know she’s gone, but I look anyway. Back in the far corner of the deck, I see one of her friends, one of the ones I met during an awkward blow-job interruptus at Gracyn’s condo.
“Kane?” I shout. “Take care of this for me.”
I just barely register his acknowledgment as I toss him my guitar and bolt through the throng of people. Tonight, we played the best show of the entire week, and fucking everyone wants to shake my damn hand. It takes far too long to make it to the corner where my hope lies. My only real chance to impress upon her friends that I need—need—to talk to Gracyn.
Finally, I break free and see the chick.
Lisa? Liza?
No, her best friend who’s in New York is Lis …
“Hey. Hey, wait,” I call, still struggling to find a name.
The chick turns and stills. I have nothing, no idea what her name is.
“Have you heard from Gracyn? Has she called yet?”
Christ, what is this girl’s name?
“Um … yeah … no. No, I haven’t.” She can’t seem to meet my eye as she pulls her lip between her teeth, gnawing on it. It’s obvious she’s full of shit.
“Listen, I don’t know …” I push the hair back out of my eyes and blow a breath out through pursed lips. “Just give her my number, please? Please …”
I lean over the bar and ask for a pen, scribbling my number on a cocktail napkin. The girl throws a pitying look at me, one that speaks volumes. She smiles tightly before walking away and depositing my digits in the trash can by the door.
I turn and hit up the bar. Fully intent on drinking this shit away, I slam a handful of tequila shots before switching back to beer. I’m committed to easing the sting of rejection. The burn of being cast off. Drowning the feelings that have crept their way into my heart over the five days I spent with her.
My current plan is to drink my way to numbness and sleep through the drive to wherever the fuck we play next.
Part II
The Gig
Chapter 13
Gavin
Eighteen Months Later
I hand my guitar off to the waiting roadie. Our last show is done.
This leg of the tour is finally finished. It felt like it would never end.
I suck in a huge cleansing breath and thread my fingers through my hair, pushing it back from my face. This has become my ritual at the end of every show—every single show since that last one in Destin. I close my eyes and offer up a silent prayer that, when I turn and look out across the crowd, she’ll be there.
The venue is big, one of the largest we’ve played on this leg, with almost ten thousand people, and deep down, I know I’ll never be able to find her, even on the outside chance that she is here. The roar of the crowd is deafening as it reaches a fevered pitch, the fans waiting for what they’ve come to expect from me.
I turn and stalk to the front of the stage and start my search.
Every entertainment site has pitched this as my sublime attempt at an existential connection to the fans, fostering a personal relationship on a higher level. Bullshit. It’s all bullshit.
I stand at the edge, my toes hanging off the stage, my hand up, shielding my eyes from the glare of the lights. I search every face that I can see. Every face that is turned hopefully to mine.
I’m not going to lie; I have some gorgeous fans. Fucking gorgeous. And I appreciate the shit out of them, but none of them is her.
Exhausted, deflated, I turn to leave the stage with a final wave, followed by screams and cheers. Offers to bear my children—or at least practice making them—chase at my back. And, without fail, a lacy purple bra lands at my feet. Thanks to Kane’s bullshit comment to a reporter about our logo, it’s always fucking purple, and that shit just adds insult to injury. I scoop the scrap of lace up off the floor and give one last cursory glance over my shoulder.
She’s not here.
She’s not going to be.
“Great fucking show, man. That was unreal.” Rand hands me a bottle of water and a towel, taking the bra from my hand and tucking it into the back pocket of his baggy jeans.
“Thanks. Anything we need to do tonight?” I hope like hell that my manager says the magic words to dismiss me, so I can just go back to my hotel room and crash.
“Gavin, I gave you the schedule before the show. Y’all have the VIP room now and then the label’s after-party. I swear, I told you this.”
He did. He totally did. I just want to find my way out of it and be done for a while. This concert is one of the few we’ve had close to where she told me she lived.
I thought maybe we played at her college last summer on our practice tour after we were discovered. Shortly after that, our name changed, and we got the full dose of rebranding including that fucking logo. The bar band Dreams of the Unbroken became The UnBroken, somehow playing on a US tour. I searched for her in the audience, on the street. Everywhere in the eighteen hours we spent at Beekman College. Since then, I’ve been looking for Gracyn at every show, every venue, every appearance.
And she’s never fucking there.
A slap on my back is followed up by sweaty, tatted arms wrapping around me from behind. “You trying to run off tonight, Gav? More pussy for me, amIright?” Kane drawls as he grinds his dick against my ass to get his point across or some shit.
Feeling him stacked up against me like this is nothing new. He’s been pulling this shit on me since he discovered his dick and started exploring all the ways to make it perform. I’ve been blowing him off for years though, and not in the way he likes to hint at.
“Dude, get off me.” I try to shrug him off, but Kane makes an exaggerated display of nuzzling his nose into the tangled, sweaty mess of my hair.
“You know you love it when I wrap your luscious curls around my fist, and—”
My elbow connects solidly with his ribs, and the bastard finally lets go with an oomph.
“Not my type, man,” I tell him as I turn to face Rand, ready to beg for my freedom.
“Don’t start, Gavin. It’s in your contract. You do these two events tonight, and then you get almost two weeks to yourself. Do what you want then. Hide out all day in your hotel room. I don’t give a shit, but tonight? Tonight, you’ve gotta show up and act like a fucking rock god.” Rand is just shy of sticking his finger in my chest to make his point. To his credit, he figures out his mistake and fixes that shit before I have to. I’m so done with these dudes getting all touchy-feely with me tonight.
Resigned, I push past him and make my way to my dressing room. I’ll perform like the fucking monkey he wants me to, and then I’m out.
The door closes behind me, shutting out the backstage chaos and granting me a few precious moments of muffled silence. I strip off my sweat-drenched tee and pop the button on my jeans. I take a hard pull off the bottle of whiskey sitting next to a bucket of ice before pouring a couple of shots into a tumbler.
The denim settles low on my hips as I grab a towel and start the shower. Steam curls into the corners of the room as I shuck the rest of my clothes. Hot water washes over me, its pounding pressure working out the tension in my neck and shoulders. That, and the shower-whiskey I’ve got going on finally have me starting to relax.
I dip my head under the spray, drenching my hair, letting it fall in a curtain around my face. This is my escape. It’s evidently all I’m gonna get tonight, so I take my ti
me in soaking in the heat, letting my thoughts drift off.
Still, after all this time, Gracyn’s the one my mind goes to. The one who occupies my thoughts, who makes me smile like an idiot. And kick myself in the ass.
It was one week—not even. Technically, five days.
Five fucking days, more than a year and a half ago, and I can’t let her go.
The door to my dressing room closes softly as music floods the room. I want nothing more than to be left alone, but the techno lead-in of “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer fills the small space, bouncing off the tiled walls. Not everyone appreciates this song, but I let myself get lost in the repetition of the synthesizer. The lyrics. My after-show playlist is ridiculous. Doesn’t remotely tie in with my music, but whoever is in here clicked the right tunes.
The steam, the whiskey, and the music work like magic to relax me until I feel a hand glide up the slick, wet skin of my back. Fingers slide into my hair. I turn my head, and while the blonde standing behind me is stunning, she sure as shit is not the one I was thinking of.
“Who are you?” I’m astonished at what some women—girls—are willing to do. They will fuck anything and suck the rest just to say they were with a member of the band.
“Grace. Kane said you wouldn’t mind some company.” She rakes her eyes down my body, licking her overfilled lips.
I drop my head back and stare at the ceiling. Of course he did. There is so much wrong with this, all of this.
Did Kane go out of his way to find a chick named Grace just to torment me?
More likely, he told her that was what would get me off.
She brazenly reaches past me to grab the shower gel, her fake tits pressing against my back, and she starts slicking the suds across my torso, her hands slipping lower and lower with each pass. There’s no hiding the fact that my cock is far more interested in what’s going on than my brain is.
I wrap my hand around her wrist, the battle between my brain and my cock in full swing. This girl has no shame. None. And, when she drops to her knees in front of me and wraps her bright red lips around my cock, all thoughts fly out of my brain. My palm slaps loudly against the tiled wall, and I close my eyes and throw my head back, lost in the moment.
But only for the moment.
Chapter 14
Gracyn
The crisp, clean air is something that I rarely experience in Manhattan, but fall is different. The yellow and orange leaves riot with each other, fighting for attention while blending into the most beautiful wash of color. The scent of the dry leaves tickles my nose as it whirls through the pure air.
And the sounds. Leaves crunching, children’s voices squealing and laughing, the honks and shouts of the morning in the city. And the music skipping and dancing through the air, weaving its way across the park.
I close my eyes just for a moment, letting it wash through me. I picked this spot for my morning coffee. This specific spot because it comes with a private concert.
The buskers don’t come out until later in the day, but each of the last two mornings, I’ve sat here and listened to the acoustic versions of some of my favorite songs. Today though, there is something new, something raw and beautiful. It soothes me while torturing a part of my soul.
The moment is broken by my phone vibrating with a call from Lis. I slide my thumb across the screen and am greeted with the hushed voice of my best friend.
“Hey, are you in the park? Getting your own private concert again?”
“I am. Well, I was until you intruded on my moment. What are you doing awake? Didn’t you work all night?” I pull the phone away from my face to check the time.
“Yeah, I did. I’m just getting home, but I miss you. I wanted to check and see how things are going with your first solo client.” Lis yawns loudly in my ear, unable to suppress it.
“I’m doing well. Their records are a wreck, but it’s fine. Mr. Langston’s son needs to stop hitting on me though. I’m about over that.”
“Put him in his place, G. You know you don’t have to take his shit.”
She’s home, moving quietly through the townhouse that she and her fiancé, Aidan, share. My heart pangs a little when I hear their conversation on her end. I want what they have, the love, the support—all of it. I just don’t see it happening for me.
“Sorry, love. I didn’t know you were on the phone. Is that Gracyn?” Aidan’s brogue is rough with sleep. That man loves her with a fairy-tale kind of love. She met him days before my fated spring break mess, and though the fall was bumpy at times, they fell and fell hard.
I drift off, listening to the guy behind me singing. This song is so hauntingly familiar, but I can’t place it.
“Gracyn, is that … is that your guy? Is that him singing?” Lis pulls me out of my rumination.
“Yeah.”
“Girlfriend, you need to follow that voice. You need to find your balls and see if that’s the man of your dreams.”
I laugh off her ridiculousness. “Right. Anyway, go on and give Aidan a kiss for me. Get some sleep. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
Instead of pocketing my phone, I consider recording him. Just a little bit to listen to later in the day when I need an escape from the monotonous task of entering years’ worth of receipts into my laptop.
Lis doesn’t ask anymore, but she probably doesn’t need to. She knows all about the regrets I have with walking away from Gavin. But spring break is like Vegas; what happens on spring break stays on spring break.
I didn’t have a choice but to let things go, leaving him in Florida and running home. I finished out my accounting degree and then dealt with the CPA exam before getting acclimated to working with my dad and real clients. It’s been a year and a half, and I still feel like I hear his voice in every lyric. His husky growl in every song.
Lost in my thoughts, I grab my bag and stand, leaving what I’ve come to think of as my park bench. I debate on peeking around the shrubs and trees to where I imagine my own personal musician sits, hunched over the gleaming black guitar resting on his knee. The image in my mind is very specific. Broad but lean shoulders, strong forearms, and long, curled fingers wrapped around the neck of an instrument that has seen time in the sun but has been loved and cared for like you couldn’t imagine. And his golden curls streaked through with pale blond, almost white strands, from the summer sun. Because his is the image I will always see in my mind.
Reluctantly, I take the path out of the park and hustle back to the apartment my dad keeps in the city for business use. This is my first extended stay in the city for work, but my dad has spent more nights down here than I care to think about.
My client meeting is in an hour, and I have to haul ass to get changed and to their office on time. Knowing I’m on such a tight time crunch is really the only thing that keeps me from taking the walkway around my little concert venue and catching a glimpse of the man who goes with that voice. The one I will never get out of my head. It amazes me that my desire alone for the owner of that voice to be Gavin tricks my brain into hearing the rasp and groan that will only ever belong to him.
This day will never end.
I skipped lunch, lost in the hot mess of the books for Langston & Langston. The lethal combination of an old-school accountant and an elderly president of the company makes for hours upon hours of me sifting through sketchy records and building a ledger from bubble gum wrappers and cocktail napkins. How the company has avoided a full audit this long is beyond me.
The air in the conference room they assigned me shifts as the overwhelming scent of cologne fills the space. It’s probably expensive, and it most likely smells fine when not applied by the bucketload, but it takes everything I have not to wrinkle my nose at the intrusion.
“How’s it going?” Brooks Langston, grandson of the sweet old man who left this mess, leans over my shoulder and places a hand on either side of me. “You have a firm grasp on this, or is there something I can help you wrap your hands around?” He’s not su
btle. Not at all.
I shift in my chair, accidentally ramming it into Brooks’ knee, causing him to straighten up and take a step back, granting me some much-needed space.
“Thanks, but I think this is just going to be a labor of love. I’ll get through it.” I mentally slap myself for the word choice and prepare for the innuendo I know is coming.
Instead, Brooks leans across me again to straighten a pencil on the table and hums low in the back of his throat. I’m sure he thinks it’s sexy as hell and perfectly welcome, but he couldn’t be more wrong.
At almost seven in the evening, I’m not sure my brain is capable of much more today. “I think I’ll finish this entry and then quit for the night, come back to it fresh tomorrow.”
“Perfect timing then. Father wanted me to let you know we have reservations at seven thirty.”
Damn it. I’m starving, but the last thing I want to do is spend more time with these people who really should have done a better job of tracking their finances. I smile as Mr. Langston joins us in the rapidly shrinking room.
“Are we about ready to go?” he asks.
He’s sweet though a little clueless, but his son … not so much.
I save the file and shut down my computer. “Absolutely. You’re certainly not responsible for entertaining me this evening though. I’m sure you’d rather head home and spend the evening with your lovely wife.”
I hope he takes the offer, but that hope is dashed when he slaps his son on the back and responds, “Nonsense. We wouldn’t dream of abandoning you in the city, would we, Brooks?”
Shit.
“Shall we?”
Dinner is pleasant enough and undeniably professional. The food is fantastic and so welcome. I almost forget that I didn’t want to go. The conversation with Mr. Langston is entertaining, and Brooks has kept his hands to himself, so all in all, the evening could have been a whole lot worse.
