by Tasha Black
It wasn’t like he could just tell them Johnny Lazarus would never be harmed by fire. How could he possibly explain that?
After much bumbling, they sent him on his way, shaking their heads in disbelief and congratulating him on a miraculous escape from injury.
The car pulled into the hotel garage, snapping Johnny back to the present.
Ethan, the driver, slipped out, somehow managing to close the driver’s side door quietly.
Ethan was about the quietest guy Johnny had ever met. The dude was immensely, recklessly, profoundly silent.
After the thunder of the concert, the squeal of the fans and the squeaking and pinging of voice mails and text messages, the sound of Ethan’s silence was a balm to Johnny’s ears.
Soundlessly as a ship on a calm sea, Ethan walked him to the elevator. They rode up to the penthouse. Even Ethan’s face was a study in peace, adding to Johnny’s brief sense of reverie.
The ding of the doors opening rang out like a school bell in the still of the elevator.
Ethan inclined his head with a gentle smile.
“Thanks,” Johnny said, as always unable to maintain the silence until the end.
By the time the doors closed behind him, with Ethan still aboard, Johnny’s ears were filled again with the sound of his guests.
For once he wasn’t glad to hear it. He was still freaked out about what had happened on stage. The last thing he wanted was to party all night. Or answer questions.
But he was Johnny Lazarus, and certain things were expected of him. Especially the last night of the tour.
“Hey, kids,” he yelled out, his deep baritone undercutting the higher sounds of the music and laughter.
“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” they all seemed to yell at once.
Seth strode over and threw an arm around him, raising his bottle of IPA.
“To the most metal fucking thing I’ve ever seen!” Seth shouted.
The place exploded in cheers and the clinking of bottles.
Johnny gave them a smile and looked around distractedly for his bottle.
Some kid handed him a bottle of scotch.
“What the fuck is this?” he asked.
Suddenly the room was quiet.
The kid stared at him, round eyed.
“I said what the fuck is this? Johnny repeated. ‘Where is my drink?”
The anger simmered inside him like lava. After what just happened on stage, he knew he needed to keep himself under control.
But no one was supposed to mess with his drink. His drink was special, and this wasn’t it.
He closed his eyes and took a slow breath.
When he opened them, one of the roadies was standing there with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.
“Sorry, Mr. Lazarus,” the roadie said. “When you weren’t here right away, I put it away for you.”
“What’s your name?” Johnny asked him carefully.
Someone had turned the music off.
Though no one dared take a single step closer, Johnny could feel them leaning in, dying to see what he would do.
“Ken, sir,” the kid answered bravely.
“Sir Ken,” Johnny said thoughtfully, taking the bottle from him and lifting it in his left hand.
He lifted his right hand over his head, the bottle of shitty scotch still in it. It was full, heavy. It could do some damage.
“Are you in charge of protecting my drink?” he asked the kid.
“No, sir,” the kid replied. He was beginning to squirm now. “I just thought…”
“You thought right,” Johnny told him.
“H-Huh?” the kid managed.
“Look around you,” Johnny instructed him, gesturing with the bottle at the crowd. “These people cannot be trusted. I hereby appoint you Sir Ken, knight protector of my booze. Seth?”
“Yeah?” Seth asked.
“Double Sir Ken’s salary,” Johnny said.
Ken stood in front of him, blinking.
“In fact, triple it, if he can make sure I never touch another bottle of this shit,” Johnny said calmly.
Then with a vicious swing, he hurled the crap scotch across the room.
It didn’t shatter, but it did punch a hole in the drywall.
They all stared at it, as it hung there like a fucking work of art.
“To Sir Ken!” Johnny said.
He opened his bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and took a long pull.
There was a pause, but eventually they caught on. By the time he brought the bottle back down, they were all cheering.
The liquid soothed him as it went down with a honeyed sweetness. This was his bottle - the familiar weight of it in his hand said that all would be right with the world.
Well, almost all.
He looked at his arm.
There was a dark spot there, like a bruise coming to the surface just under the tattoos. And the tattoos seemed slightly faded somehow.
It was probably just the shitty lighting of the hotel room.
Whatever.
He was just glad the craziness on stage was over.
He could feel the energy in the room even out. He wouldn’t be standing here alone for long.
It was time to get his mind straight and play rock star for a little while.
Before the wrong person could approach him and start asking about the fire, he scanned the room.
In the sea of punk and goth, his eye was drawn to the light brown hair of a sweet young thing perching on the edge of a couch, clutching the neck of a hard lemonade. On closer inspection, he could see that she had a ton of eye make-up and even a tiny nose ring. But she was about as close to normal as he was going to find in here, and normal was what he was after on a night like this one.
He pointed at her and nodded toward the bedroom.
In this moment, he often wished his intended fuck would give him a little trouble. Shake her head no, or pretend not to understand.
But they always understood. And they always said yes.
This one was no different. Just like that, she practically leaped up, spilling her friend’s drink in the process.
The friend yelped a perfect C and Johnny eyed her up. Not bad - dyed black hair like the chick from every nineties movie, long legs.
Should he indulge himself with both?
A voice in his head instantly said, no. Not tonight. He didn’t feel like sharing.
Minutes later they were alone in his room.
The room itself was simple: beige carpet, beige walls, beige ceiling. But the view was spectacular.
Panoramic windows laid the stars at the girl’s feet.
He watched as she scanned the room.
She didn’t even notice the view.
The movement of her head stopped to take in the location of the bed, and paused again before the floor length mirror.
She turned to him, but at the last moment couldn’t look up into his eyes.
The same. They were all the same.
He could tell her he loved fishing and she would proclaim to love it too.
He could tell her he hated dolphins and she would promise to dedicate her life to polluting the oceans.
She would reflect back whatever he tossed to her like it was a goddamned acting exercise.
And it was because she wasn’t here, not really.
She was already deep in her own head, taking notes, crafting the narrative, for her diary and her best friend. And when he reminded her to come back to him in the present, she would only be sucking in her stomach and trying to catch a glimpse of the two of them in the mirror. Exerting herself to provide a sexual encounter that might make him remember her, and worrying about how to ask him for a selfie when it was done so she’d have proof.
For her, the good part wouldn’t be until it was over, until it had really happened and she hadn’t fucked it up. She didn’t know that, but Johnny did.
It was this type of knowledge that sometimes made him miss picking up chicks after a gig as the lead singer of
a nobody cover band. At least it was a challenge. At least they had to actually find him appealing. At least they demanded satisfaction for themselves.
What the hell was wrong with him tonight?
He had been silent too long now, and the girl found the courage to look up.
Her eyes were a light hazel.
Was it him, or was there a sweetness to her that he hadn’t noticed before?
She studied him as if trying to determine what he might want.
“You, baby, I want what you have,” he murmured to her, answering the question she hadn’t voiced.
“It’s yours, whatever you want,” she whispered immediately, flowing into his arms.
She felt good, if a little slim for his taste. And if she looked innocent it was only happenstance. Her hands were already sliding down to his belt buckle.
He spun her against a wall and pinned those sneaky hands up, caging her head between his arms so he could look into her eyes again.
She gazed up at him, it was meant to be a sexy look but he found it adorable.
Instead of releasing her hands and letting her go back to the pursuit of his ever ready cock, he leaned down to nuzzle at her breasts.
She froze under the unexpected attention.
God, he could smell that hot female scent on her through the perfume.
Suddenly his hands were on her hips.
And instead of her at his knees, he was at hers.
She trembled in his hold.
They were off-script and she knew it.
Suddenly she was there, really present, waiting to see what he would do next.
The authenticity excited him and he had to remind himself to be gentle as he worked her jeans down to reveal the tiny silken scrap of her underwear.
Her scent was thick in the air now.
He lowered his nose to her and inhaled.
Her intake of breath echoed in his ears.
The sound unhinged him and he wrenched her jeans down to her ankles, his desire too similar to rage.
He pressed his tongue against her, lapping at her sex through the triangle of satin.
She cried out and her hands were in his hair.
Something awoke inside him.
Suddenly, he was lifting her up, carrying her to the bed.
She kicked off her jeans and lay before him, her legs spread slightly. Enough for him to see she wanted to spread them wide for him. Her hair was tousled, her eyes wide.
She reached her arms out to him.
The room clicked into focus for him.
She was beautiful, not just pretty. How had he not noticed this before?
The softness of her hair echoed through the perfect roundness of her breasts, and he forgave her the concave belly because soon he would swell it with his child.
He saw her pregnant, nursing a dark haired baby, her face softened by the candlelight of anniversary dinners, wrinkled by happy years.
He had only to claim her.
Scales slid sinuously in his head, drawn to her heat.
No.
Fuck, no, no, no.
But the instant he fought it, his arm started burning again.
The angel in his bed asked what was the matter and he heard every hidden harmonic in her voice as if the sound were a rainbow.
“Get out!” he bellowed, his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to upset you,” she whispered, approaching him timidly.
“Get. Out.”
He held his breath and averted his eyes until he heard the door click shut behind her.
He opened his eyes.
The room was the same.
He glanced in the mirror.
He was still Johnny Lazarus.
But just below the surface, something that wasn’t Johnny seethed and coiled.
4
Neve was back at work. It felt like she had never left.
In truth, she’d only been gone a few hours. Between coming back for the store room key dilemma and the early morning shift, she’d barely been left with any time to fret and feel sorry for herself about the break-up with Michael.
Neve was an only child, and she hadn’t spoken to her dad since her mom died - the year she’d really gone all in with her work. She’d burned through the friends she had, and didn’t have time to make new ones. So it wasn’t like she had any shoulders to cry on.
Which was probably for the best. She was going to need all her compassion for other people today.
“God bless her heart, but that little girl will be the death of me. If I said it once, I said it a thousand times…” Jeannie muttered to herself as she exited the suite of rooms reserved for Jocelyn Wylde. Jeannie was one of the older nurses on duty. She had been with the place since before the renovations turned a straightforward drug and alcohol rehab facility into a grown-up summer camp for the rich and shameless.
“Hey, Jeannie, how’s it going?” Neve asked her politely, though she really would have preferred to slip into the break room and get herself a Coke between calamities since she hadn’t eaten dinner last night or breakfast that morning.
“It’s Miss Wylde, she’s awful. She’s screaming about that dinosaur she has. Refusing to put it in the cage.”
Oh Christ.
Jocelyn Wylde had had checked in with the condition of being allowed to keep her pet iguana. His name was Tacos. They all knew this, not only because he was in the magazine shots with her, but also because his name was written in rhinestones on his bright pink leash.
At least she hoped those were rhinestones, but the more Neve thought about it, the more she had to admit to herself that they were most likely diamonds.
At any rate, Jeannie was certainly not going to remember his name. In her day there was no way animals would be admitted at all. Let alone exotic pets.
“Let me go check it out,” she told Jeannie, patting the older woman firmly on the shoulder as she passed.
“You are a good woman, Neve Whittaker. God bless you, but that kid’s too far gone even for you…” Jeannie muttered agreeably as she trudged away, shaking her gray head and continuing her diatribe.
Neve took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
There was no reply.
She knocked again.
“Um, yeah?” a female voice said on the other side.
“May I come in?” Neve asked.
“Sure,” the voice replied uncertainly.
Neve opened the door.
Sunlight filled the large room, which overlooked the reflecting pool and garden in the center of the sanctuary through privacy glass. The dark stained hardwood floors anchored the light walls and spare, modern furnishings.
It was one of the nicest suites in the facility.
Unfortunately, by default its residents were seldom happy. Those who could afford this suite tended to have the kind of career that seduced them into leaving immediately after they made any progress.
Such was the inevitable contrast of a place like Malibu Sanctuaries - the brighter and more cheerful the room, the stormier its occupant.
Jocelyn Wylde sat on the bed, leaning on the wall behind it.
She didn’t look like Jocelyn Wylde today. Her dirty blonde hair hung limp, dark circles gathered under her eyes and a few stray blemishes stood out on her skin. She would have been pretty by normal standards. But not the kind of person you’d think was destined to become a star.
Yet here she was. Nineteen years old, and already famous for the string of epic break-ups that had led to her savant-like ability to write heartbreakingly apt bad relationship songs.
Unfortunately, it had also led to her becoming dependent on alcohol before she could legally take her first sip. Which led to using pills to prop herself up on stage, and then to the proverbial train-wreck that had landed her here.
She didn’t look famous today. She looked like every screwed up nineteen year old.
Therein lay both the danger and the cure.
“How are you feel
ing today?” Neve asked lightly.
“Fine,” Jocelyn snapped.
“I see,” Neve answered, sitting down on the chair beside the bed.
She looked out the window, forcing herself to really take in the view.
Jocelyn was silent behind her. The hostility in the air was disappearing as the girl became less defensive and more curious.
This was the hard part. Whether it took a minute or an hour, Neve had to keep her mouth shut.
Jocelyn shifted in the bed, and Neve fought the instinct to turn. Instead, she mentally counted the marble columns surrounding the reflecting pool.
“So who are you?” the girl finally asked.
“Neve,” she replied, without turning around.
“Are you another fucking psychiatrist?” Jocelyn spat.
“No,” Neve replied. “I’m just a nurse.”
Just a nurse. As if. But Neve needed to appear as non-threatening as possible, even if it meant swallowing her pride and purposely undervaluing herself. This wasn’t about her.
“Oh,” the girl sounded surprised.
No one ever asked a follow-up question when you said you were a nurse. As a matter of fact just a nurse, in addition to being the greatest understatement ever spoken, would be a great cover for a spy.
“Well what are you doing here?”
“I thought you might need some company,” Neve replied.
“Uh, no,” Jocelyn said. “I came here to get away from all that. I don’t want company.”
But her voice was plaintive.
“You came here to get away from the company of people who want something from you,” Neve agreed.
“You want something from me,” Jocelyn said, determined to be disagreeable.
“Yes, that’s true,” Neve agreed again. “I want to borrow your view. I had a really shitty night. And since you just yelled at the nicest old lady in the whole world and I had to calm her down instead of taking my break, you’re going to shut up and let me sit here with you and look out the window for a little while.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then the bed groaned as Jocelyn Wylde crawled up to sit on the edge, where she could see Neve better.
“You do look like shit,” the girl said plainly. “What happened last night?”
“You don’t want to know,” Neve hid her smile.
“Let me guess,” the girl offered, warming up.
