Love Me Sweet (A Bell Harbor Novel)

by Brogan, Tracy

  Grant shook his head. “I’m more of an observer. Maybe I could just film the rest of you with my phone.”

  A tremor went through Delaney at the suggestion. No filming. Not her. She pulled her bangs down.

  “Shit, yeah. Film us,” Reggie said, bouncing a little on his seat. “A roadie documentary. We can post it to the band’s Facebook page. Like, look at us doing good. Think the chicks will dig that? Think these baby hats will score us some honeys?”

  “The chicks will totally dig it,” Humphrey said.

  “I’m in,” declared Finch.

  And thus began the Paradise Brothers Best Fucking Baby Hat Competition.

  Chapter 15

  GOD ALMIGHTY, GRANT WAS GLAD to be climbing off of that Paradise Brothers tour bus. He was grateful for their hospitality, but the only thing more boring than knitting was filming someone knitting. And one more hour of listening to Reggie’s inane stories, followed by another night of lying next to Elaine without closing the deal, was going to give him a stroke—and not the kind of stroke he was looking for. It was close to eight o’clock in the evening when they pulled into Memphis, but at last, they’d arrived.

  The lobby of the Heartbreak Hotel was like a 1960s movie set on psychedelic drugs. The walls were a purply blue. Red velvet curtains trimmed with gold fringe hung from fifteen-foot windows, and asymmetrical sofas of gold and silver filled up the area along with zebra-fur chairs. And perhaps not surprisingly, the lobby was chock-full of Elvis. Impersonators, that is, maybe thirty in all, wandering around, chatting in groups, or talking on cell phones. There was something inherently odd about seeing Elvis on a cell phone, but Grant’s brain was too tired to process the incongruity. All he wanted right now was a room with a view—a view of Elaine on the bed. He was making assumptions, of course. She might not share a room with him, but last night’s bout of restless dick syndrome made him hope against hope she’d be amenable to the idea.

  Reggie walked in through the double lobby doors with a big duffel bag over his shoulder and did a slow 360 turn, pointing with his index finger. His lips moved as he counted. Then he looked back at Finch.

  “Am I stoned right now? Did we get high on the bus and I just don’t remember, or does everybody else see a room full of Elvises?”

  “I don’t see any,” said Humphrey.

  “Me neither,” said Finch.

  But Sammy pointed to the poster near the door. “That might have something to do with it.”

  A bright red-and-pink sign with rhinestone letters sat on an easel by the front door.

  This week in the Jungle Room Lounge—

  Happy Birthday, Elvis Celebration!

  “May I help you?” called out a woman from behind the tall purple counter. She was petite, with a tubular bun on the top of her head that looked like a stem. Not a good look.

  Finch stepped around Reggie. “Yes, thanks. We’re the Paradise Brothers, here to check in.”

  “Welcome to the Heartbreak Hotel. We’re glad you made it. My apologies for the weather. We’ve never had it so cold here in Memphis. By the way, the other two guests in your party have already checked in.”

  “Other two guests?” Elaine asked, glancing at Humphrey.

  “Our manager and his wife,” he answered. “Sissy won’t travel on the bus with us no more, not ever since Reggie proved you really can light ass gas on fire.”

  Grant chuckled at Elaine’s expression, which was much like the one she’d had when staring at the DNA-encrusted boogie-woogie bed.

  “I’m not sure what my manager has reserved,” Finch said to the desk clerk, “but do you happen to have another room available? We picked up a few strays on the road.”

  Grant stepped up to the counter as the desk clerk shook her head.

  “Mm, I’m sorry. I don’t think so. It’s Elvis’s birthday weekend and we’ve been sold out for months, but we may have some cancellations due to the weather. Let me check.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard, clickity-clack. “No, I’m sorry. There’s nothing right now.”

  “Well, in that case, how many people can our rooms handle?”

  Her fingers clacked some more.

  “It looks like you have a couple of our themed rooms. Let me see. The Graceland Suite has a king bed in a private bedroom and there’s two sofas. The Burning Love Suite has a private king room, a sofa, and a chaise lounge. I’m afraid we’re out of roll-away beds, though. Several of our departing guests have added on another night’s stay because of the storm.”

  Finch frowned and looked at Grant.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Grant said. “We’ll figure something out.” Although he didn’t know what.

  “No, no, we’re good,” Finch said. “I’m not sure why Clark got us two suites, but you and Elaine take the Burning Love room and the rest of us will crash in the Graceland. A little whiskey down the hatch and that floor will feel like a feather bed.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, sir,” interrupted the desk clerk. “Fire safety regulations stipulate we can only allow a certain number of guests in each room. You’ll have to divide up four and four if you want to add guests to your party.” She glanced at Grant. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “No worries,” Finch assured her. He turned to Grant. “Sorry, bro. Looks like you’re stuck with me and Reg tonight, but you can have the bedroom and we’ll take the sofas. Humphrey and Sam can bunk with Clark and Sissy in the other suite.”

  This wasn’t the night Grant had planned, but then again, nothing had gone as he’d planned since the first moment Elaine had shown up in his bathroom back in Bell Harbor. “I guess that’ll have to work, but let me pay for the room.”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s a business expense. A tax write-off.”

  “I just don’t feel right about that, Finch. You guys have been so generous already. Let me pay for something.”

  “I know how you can pay us back, Cameraman,” Reggie said enthusiastically from over Grant’s shoulder. “How about you let me sleep with your woman in the big king bed?”

  Elaine chuckled, but it was all Grant could do not to pop him in the jaw. This guy was getting on his last fucking nerve. It must’ve showed in his glare, because Reggie chortled and held his hands up in self-defense. “No? OK, then. Just a suggestion.”

  Grant turned back to Finch. “Look, my aunt doesn’t live too far from here, and if I can get ahold of her, we can probably stay there tomorrow, but it’s too late to go over there tonight.”

  “Honestly, no worries, man. As long as I can get a hot shower and a cold brewski, I’m good to go.”

  They finished checking in, grabbed some luggage and guitars from the bus, and walked to the elevator. A vintage poster commemorating Elvis’s comeback tour hung on the wall. It was a red-and-blue image of the King with a banner across the top. Elvis ’69.

  Reggie pressed his cheek against it and pointed. “You see that, gents? Sixty-nine? I’m going to love it here.”

  Five minutes later Delaney stood with Finch, Reggie, and Grant outside their room. The door was painted a rich, deep red, and two overfed cherubs floated above a gold banner. Fancy gold letters declared this to be The Burning Love Suite. It even had little hearts dotting some of the letters.

  “Burning Love, yeah?” Reggie murmured, elbowing his brother. “Sounds like an STD to me. Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

  Delaney couldn’t help but marvel at the decor as she stepped inside. It matched the tacky charm of the door, with bold, rich colors and shiny gold accents. Grant flipped a switch and a crystal chandelier dangling over a glass-topped dining table scattered glimmers of light around the room. A purple velvet chaise and a red, heart-shaped velvet stool filled one corner. On the other side of that was a dining area, painted white with gold trim, and a pink-and-gold seating area came next, complete with a sky mural painted on the ceiling. />
  The men walked in and looked around, heads tilting this way and that as they soaked it all in.

  “Wow. Very understated,” said Reggie, nodding. “Even the cabinet handles are fat angels.”

  “Those are cherubs, you ignoramus,” Finch said.

  “What are cherubs?”

  “Fat angels.”

  Delaney stepped forward through a short hallway into what was a fairly tame-looking bedroom, considering the rest of the decor. Emerald-green velvet curtains and gold satin bedding. She’d be sleeping there next to Grant. With Reggie and Finch right outside the door. She couldn’t decide how she felt about that, or about any of this.

  All day she’d waited to hear something from Grant’s aunt, or his mother. She’d checked in with Melody once more but the phone finder app still showed hers as offline, and Melody asked so many questions, she didn’t dare call her again. Carl didn’t have any news either. But he did suggest a sloe gin fizz might be tasty.

  Grant walked in behind her. “You OK?”

  She nodded. “I’m OK. You?”

  He let out a big sigh and scratched a chin in desperate need of a shave. “I’m good, but if that Reggie doesn’t stop coming on to you, I’m going to punch his lights out and he’ll have to try singing with his jaw wired shut.”

  Grant didn’t have any jurisdiction over her. It wasn’t his right to make such a jealous declaration, and yet it warmed her through. They were on this adventure together, a team whether they’d intended it to be that way or not. Delaney smiled and stepped nearer, wrapping her arms around his waist. She rested her head against his chest and he pulled her in tight.

  “Reggie’s not my type.”

  “Good. What’s your type?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever you are. Maybe that’s my type.” It was a foolish thing to say. Far too sentimental. She should be stepping back instead of encouraging him. She had enough things to worry about without adding this man to the picture. But he was already in the picture. In fact, he was the only constant she’d had in days. At the moment, he was all she had.

  And at this moment, he was enough. She lifted her face up to his and he kissed her lightly.

  “Pay no attention to me, kids,” Finch said, coming through the door and stepping around them. “There’s just one slight problem with this room.”

  Delaney looked over at him as he walked around to a doorway on the other side of the bed. “Problem?” she asked.

  He opened that door and peeked inside. “Yup. Little problem. This here is the only shower in the joint. Looks like Reg and I will have to tiptoe past you lovebirds. No worries, though. We’ve seen a little bit of everything on that bus so nothing you two do could shock us.”

  Reggie strolled in next. “We could shower in pairs to speed things up. Elaine, you’re with me.”

  She felt Grant start to move in Reggie’s direction but she squeezed him around the middle and he stayed put.

  Finch pulled a phone from his pocket. “Hey, Sam just texted me. He says he and Humphrey are heading to the Jungle Room Lounge with Sissy and Clark to get some dinner. They want us to meet them. You guys in?” He glanced at Delaney and Grant. “Sissy is about your size, Elaine. She might have some clothes you could borrow.”

  The thought of food and fresh clothes was probably the only thing more appealing than a shower right about now. She and Grant were back in their own original clothes, but she had nothing to sleep in and nothing clean to put on after bathing. Still, food was the first order of business. She looked up at Grant. “Hungry?” she asked.

  She could see what he was thinking. He wanted her alone in that room more than he wanted food, but she wasn’t ready for that. As much as she was drawn to him, as much as the idea of a long, hot shower followed by long, hot sex with Grant appealed to her, she had to focus on basic survival first. She needed food and clothes. She needed her phone, her wallet, and her money. And she needed to tell him who she was. She needed to tell him about the sex tape. Then, if he even still wanted her, she could give in to the temptation of Grant.

  “I’m hungry,” she added, before he’d had a chance to come up with a reason to say no. “Will you buy me dinner? I seem to have lost my wallet.”

  Chapter 16

  THE JUNGLE ROOM LOUNGE WAS really just a hotel dining room with a ten-foot bar off to one side and a fifteen-foot-square dance floor in the center. There was a stage of sorts, a raised platform, maybe two feet off the ground, covered with royal-blue carpet. A piano sat to one side, and of course, there were the ubiquitous Elvis spottings. They were everywhere, bellied up to the salad bar, eating chicken wings, or posing for pictures with other hotel guests. Strains of “Blue Hawaii” could be heard over lulls in the conversations.

  “So, I got a speck of bad news and I got two heaps of good news, fellas,” said the Paradise Brothers’ band manager when they were all seated around a table with drinks in their hands. Clark was a barrel-chested cowboy from the pointed toes of his black snakeskin boots to the top of the brown ten-gallon hat perched on the back of his head. Sissy, his wife, was a giggly little thing with long cleavage and a short attention span. Her enormous white-blonde hair was sprayed so stiff it looked like a plaster cast, but Delaney liked her instantly. It was impossible not to with all her oh-sugar-this and God-bless-that. Something about her Southern accent made everything she said sound entirely gracious. Even when she said, “My ex-sister-in-law is a gap-toothed, hump-backed, mercenary whore, God bless her little heart.”

  “How about the bad news first,” Finch said to his manager, twin frown lines meeting up between his eyebrows.

  Clark adjusted that enormous hat. There must be a lot of head room in whatever car he and his wife drove. “Well, it seems the Blues City Café where I had you boys booked just had a frozen water pipe burst. Place is shut down while they make repairs.”

  Disappointment spread around the table.

  “Oh, but don’t you boys worry, ya hear?” Sissy chimed in, waggling her red-lacquered fingernails at the group. “Sugar bear here has everything all worked out. You tell ’em, honey. Go on.”

  “I do. I do indeed. That’s where the good news comes in. Seems that the band hired by this here hotel has been waylaid up north by the same storm that’s freezing pipes down here. I tell you, this weather is about as welcome as a two-dollar whore in church. Anyway, I figured, them being in need of a band, and y’all being in need of a venue, whah-lah! Goes together like country music and a pickup truck.”

  “You want us to play here?” Humphrey asked.

  “Right here in this very room.” Clark nodded and took a big chug of beer.

  Finch looked around, squinting, and Delaney understood his concern. The acoustics would be lousy in a room like this, and they’d have to play unplugged or all that framed Elvis artwork would rattle right off the walls.

  Clark tipped his hat back a little farther with the lip of his bottle. “It’s better than nothing at all. Just a couple of nights, anyway. Plus they pay almost as much as the other place, and they’re gonna comp us the rooms, and all our food’s included. So eat up, boys. You got a show to do tomorrow.”

  Finch looked around at his brother and bandmates.

  “We don’t have to dress like Elvis, do we?” Humphrey asked.

  “Do they cover booze?” Reggie asked at the same time.

  Clark shook his head. “No to dressing like the King, and no to the booze. If you want free drinks you’ll have to flirt with the waitresses. Knowing you horny devils, you’d have done that anyway. So, we all good here?”

  The Paradise Brothers exchanged another round of glances before Finch finally nodded. “We’re in. Let’s eat.”

  They ordered ribs, catfish, cornbread, and several more drinks, and passed the time swapping stories with Delaney managing to avoid giving anything but the vaguest of answers. Sissy here was exactly the type to
watch a show like Pop Rocks. One word about making soap or even the names of her sisters and this woman could be on to her.

  “So where did you say y’all are from?” Sissy asked, licking barbecue sauce off her thumb as she ate a french fry.

  “Grant and I have a house up in Michigan,” Delaney answered. That was true. They did. Sort of.

  “Really? ’Cause you look sort of familiar to me. You ever done any modeling?”

  Delaney’s dismissive chuckle ended in a hiccup. “Me? Oh, gosh no. I was a bank teller.” Shit. Maybe she should have said travel agent? She glanced at Grant from the corner of her eye, but fortunately he seemed to be engrossed in something Humphrey was telling him. Just to be safe, she added, “Um, a bank teller in college, I mean.”

  Sissy’s penciled-on eyebrows rose. “A bank teller? With a body like yours? What a waste.”

  “Hey, speaking of bodies,” Finch interrupted, “Elaine here could use some clothes. Did you bring anything extra she might borrow? Not that Humphrey doesn’t enjoy having her in his pants.”

  Clark chortled loudly and tapped his hand against the table. “Anything extra? What do you think, Fincher? My little missus here brought enough clothes to change her outfits six times a day.”

  Sissy tilted her shellacked head from side to side and smiled like Miss America. “Y’all didn’t marry me because I was so smart, Clark Doolittle. You married me because of how I fill out a sweater, so don’t you go giving me grief now about wanting to look pretty for you.”

  He leaned over and kissed her cheek with a big, juicy smack. “Damn straight, doll. First time I set my eyes on this lady I knew she was the one for me. Pretty as the day is long. And I knew she was smart too, on account of when I asked for a dance, she said yes.”

  All the band members smiled blandly and nodded at the insipid cuteness of a story they’d obviously heard before. Meanwhile, Delaney felt Grant’s hand slide down her thigh. The touch was light on her leg, but deliberate enough to set off firecrackers in the sensitive spot right between them. She bit her lip and moved a little in her chair to ease that unexpected tremor. A sharp inhale of breath came from his direction, then that naughty dog dared to move his fingertips closer to the source, moving his hand back up. Delaney let out a gasp of shocked laughter.