“Oh, man.” Lucas’ voice bellowed when he saw that Tessa lifted the top to the cake plate. “I need a piece of that. Is the inside chocolate, too?”
“It’s triple chocolate.” Tessa pointed to the cake with her serving spatula. “Dark chocolate fudge frosting with hand grated coconut. Chocolate rum cake. And a chocolate-raspberry ganache filling. I made it just for you, big brother.”
Lucas practically drooled while he rubbed his stomach. “Cut me a nice big piece, will ya, Tess?”
“Of course.”
Mason couldn’t believe that they were home for two days, after being on the road for months, and Tessa cooked and baked a banquet and made the cool top she was wearing. “I’ll take a piece of that cake, too. It’s my favorite.”
“No it’s not,” Mason’s mom interrupted. “Red velvet is your favorite.”
Mason felt his cheeks flush. He was trying to be nice. Way to go, Mom. “You’re right.” He laughed it off. “That cake looks so good I forgot.”
“It’s OK.” Tessa held up the large slice of cake which dwarfed the small plate. “Next time I’ll make a red velvet. Here. You can have the first piece, since you’re a guest.”
Mason pointed his fork in a stabbing motion at Lucas and mocked his best friend with a laugh. “Wait your turn. You’re just her brother. I’m a guest.”
“Hey, Tessa,” Mason’s dad got her attention. “Guess what Mason did as soon as he got home from the tour?”
She looked at Mason, a smile in her eyes. “He played the drums.”
“Well, yeah, we had a little drum off in my music room, but, before that, before he even came to the penthouse, he stopped and picked up two suitcases of White Castle.”
Tessa’s mouth dropped open and her hand went to her forehead. “Oh my God, you didn’t?”
“They were almost as good as your vaca frita,” Mason teased.
Tessa snatched the cake away from him, pulling the plate across the table linen before he had a chance to snag a piece of the rich chocolate dessert with his fork. “You take that back.” Her dark eyes were ablaze, but her mouth bore a playful smile.
“I take it back,” he was quick to answer, eager for the return of his cake.
She inched the plate forward, but when he reached for it, she pulled it away again. His eyes shot up to hers. She had a full blown ear-to-ear grin on her face, and her dark eyes smoldered at him. He honestly didn’t know what to say. Everyone else was going about their own conversations. Even Lucas had cut his own slice of cake and was happily shoving forkfuls into his mouth, while Mason was engaged in a playful game of cat and mouse with Tessa. It wasn’t like her to fish for compliments, so he didn’t think that was her intention. He returned her grin, but with a questioning quirk to his brow. She leaned over the table and slowly pushed the plate in his direction.
“Enjoy it,” she said in a husky voice.
As he lowered his eyes to the plate, his gaze caught a peek down the neckline of her top. It was only a quick glimpse, which no one else probably noticed since she straightened up right away, but Mason got an up close and personal view of her cleavage, the gully between her breasts and the curve of each one. His mouth fell open and his gaze darted up to hers, but she was cutting another slice of cake. As she transferred the cake from the serving dish to the plate, her mouth curled into a sly smile and she flashed a set of twinkling brown eyes at him, then raised her brows for a quick second. Shock stole his voice. The coy smile remained on Tessa’s lips as she handed the plate to Sindy and she shot him another quick glance.
Oh my God. She was flirting with him.
Even after five days Mason couldn’t stop rehashing the confrontation he had with Tessa after the show in Cincinnati. He was a guy who had always protected her as fiercely as her brother, and he had hurt her with the blunt truth. That was the biggest problem. He could have let her down easier or been more empathetic. It took an infinite amount of courage to confess that you loved someone who wasn’t expecting it and to put your heart on the line like that. Damn, he had so much respect for her.
Even though she had been crushed, when she saw him next, at dinner, she pretended nothing was wrong. And he still didn’t know what to make of the incident with the cake. He ran his fingers through his hair and blew out a breath. This was one complicated situation.
He didn’t know what would happen once they saw one another now that almost a week had past, but he was about to find out. He pulled into the driveway of the Blade-Garcia mansion, ready to rehearse the new song in the studio, and hoped that music would be the surefire way to ensure normalcy in their lives.
Angel answered the door with a surprised smile. “You have your own key. You don’t have to ring the doorbell.”
“I didn’t want to barge in since Lucas doesn’t live here anymore.” Truth being, he erred on the side of caution when it came to Angel, Tommy and Jessi. With everything that was going on, he couldn’t deal with walking in on a ménage à trois. He followed Angel to the kitchen where he found Jessi sitting on Tommy’s knee at the huge center island. She didn’t bother to move into the next seat, comfortable with their open display of affection.
“Hi, Mase.” Her eyes took on a welcoming hue. “Are you here to use the studio?”
“Yeah. We’re gonna work on the new song Tessa wrote on the way home from the tour.”
“My kids are coming over?” Tommy asked. “Geeze. The parents are always the last to know.”
Jessi smiled and elbowed him. “They don’t need to call before they come over.”
Tommy rubbed his chest, as if Jessi’s tiny elbow could make a dent in his broad chest. “You don’t have to heart punch me.”
“You poor baby.” She coddled him by cupping his face with one hand and rubbing his chest with the other, which garnered a warm loving smile from Tommy, and probably the reason for his overly dramatic reaction.
Angel stood behind their chair. “Pardon the lack of manners from my spouses. Would you like breakfast, Mason? I could whip up an omelet or some huevos rancheros.”
“Nah, man. Thanks. I’m cool. I’ll help myself to some coffee though.” He took a mug from the cabinet and filled his cup. “I’m gonna head downstairs and get a jump on it. Let Lucas and Tessa know I’m ready when they get here.”
As he descended the stairs to the studio, he paused to take in the familiar surroundings and warmth filled his chest. He sat behind his Tama kit, and it felt like home. He couldn’t count the number of hours or the amount of time he’d spent sitting in this exact spot. After taking a gulp of coffee, he placed his cup on the floor behind him and took a pair of sticks from the stick bag. He fingered the dents, remembering the last time he’d played before the tour started. The chrome hardware of his toms picked up the light and winked at him. The cymbals danced with a gentle sway as he touched them lightly. “I may disappear for months at a time,” he said aloud, “but, I’ll never leave you.”
He played a quick 2/4 beat and a smile bloomed on his face. Nothing fulfilled him more than hitting the drums, and this kit in particular was his baby. They were reunited after a long hiatus and he lovingly placed his hand on the snare. “Daddy’s home,” he whispered. As he continued to play, a feeling of unification filled him. He suddenly stilled, one stick in the air, one touching his side tom, as a memory passed behind his eyes. He had a vision of himself sitting in this exact spot when he was about 22. He had just come home from a long stint on the road with an internationally-acclaimed rock band. The tour had been eight months, the longest he’d been away from home. He had missed his family. It had been hard to be away from Lucas and Tessa, and from Prodigy, for such a long period of time. He had come to the studio to play on his favorite kit and got lost in the connection he shared with the instrument. He had looked up and Tessa was standing at the bottom of the steps, leaning against the newel post. She had been quietly watching him with a smile and a faraway look in her eyes. She must have been 15 or 16 back then. He remembered the way her gaze
made him feel, as if he was her hero. At the time, he had thought it was because they’d never been apart for so long before and because of the close friendship they shared. Now he realized it was because she was in love with him.
He blinked, sure he was hallucinating. Tessa was standing in the same spot right now, arms folded across her chest leaning against the newel post. She wore a dreamy smile on her face, almost exactly as she had done back then.
“I could watch you play for hours.” She slowly strolled toward him. “There’s something about watching you play that always hypnotizes me.”
Except, he wasn’t playing. He had been drifting off, thinking about a moment they shared almost seven years ago. Could she have been recalling a similar memory?
“I tweaked the lyrics a little on the song and came up with a title. Dirty Little Secrets.”
He knew the song was about her hidden feelings for him, and he forced himself not to react or look down at the floor. He nodded. “It’s a great song. You really outdid yourself with this one, Tessa.”
She tilted her head to the side with modesty. “I just write what comes to me. You know how it is. We have no control over the music that fills our soul. It just pours out.”
Voices from the staircase grew louder, pulling their attention to Lucas and Sindy who stepped into the studio. Lucas already had his Les Paul on his shoulder. Sometimes Mason thought that thing was glued to Lucas’ chest. There were over a dozen guitars housed in the guitar room at the back of the studio that Lucas could choose from, but he chose to rehearse with the beloved instrument in his hands that had been passed down from his father.
Sindy picked a Gibson from the rack and handed Tessa her Quantum Modulus bass. “I can’t wait to hear how this song sounds through the house amps. I haven’t been this excited about a song in a long time.”
Tessa’s gaze never left Mason as she tightened a key on the head of her bass. “Me either. I’m gonna rock this shit. Hard.”
A small chill ran down Mason’s back at the inflection in her voice. Or maybe he was over-analyzing it. He honestly didn’t know what the hell to think at this point. There was a tornado whirling around in his head, and it was constantly picking up speed. He wasn’t in the habit of analyzing people’s words and actions. He was too chill to try to decipher hidden meanings and decode innuendo. He decided to let go of the crazy thoughts needling at his brain and concentrate on the song.
They had only played it on the bus a few times on the way home from Cincinnati, and, at that time, he had only used his electronic drum pad. He’d perfected the beat on the Pearl drum kit in his apartment only yesterday. With everyone in position, Mason counted off four beats on his sticks and slammed them down on the drums. Tessa followed his rhythm perfectly, even with the slight variations she hadn’t heard before. Her thick bassline beefed up the beat. Lucas and Sindy had obviously rehearsed together as well and added a few extra chords that elevated the melody to a higher level. They had all worked on the song individually, and it still came together harmoniously.
By the time the second chorus rolled around, Mason was lost in his head. Nothing mattered except the boom that kept his heart beating. He dazed out, in a fog of hard beats and shattered splashes from his cymbals. The room felt like it was spinning, but he was stuck in one spot. The music became a cyclone around him, and he felt as if he was at the center of it, fueling its momentum. Bands of muscle pulled across his biceps and shoulders with each heavy strike, and his calves burned from hitting the double bass.
Tessa stood in front of him, breaking his trance and demanding attention. Instead of singing into the mirror that covered the wall facing them as she usually did, she was in front of the small drum riser. Then she surprised him by leaping onto it, as quick as a cat. She crouched down, mic to her lips, and growled out lyrics with a soul shaking hiss. Passion infused every word. It was seductive, loud and abrasive. It was rock and roll. When he hit his left cymbal, Tessa took the eight-thousand-dollar mic and smashed it repeatedly into the right cymbal with rebellion and attitude. Then she jumped down and returned to the front of the room.
He was shocked into a wide eyed incredulous smile that was cemented onto his lips. He’d never seen her so in your face. He rolled his sticks across his toms and kicked his bass with a surge of adrenaline. As he twirled his drumstick between his fingers, Tessa spun around and pointed at him as she delivered a lyric, and he did something he hadn’t done since he was six years old. He dropped a drumstick.
“Man, that was an incredible rehearsal,” Mason told Lucas as they stood by the enormous guitar-shaped pool behind the Blade-Garcia mansion.
“It was.” Lucas took a swig of his beer. “I love the way this song turned out. Sindy and I worked on it a little last night, but I never expected both you and Tessa to change it up, too. It all just came together. That’s what happens when you have four people who work together the way we do. We can easily transition into subtle changes. It’s like we know exactly what each other are thinking.”
If only. That’s what Mason thought, until Tessa blindsided him with the truth. “Did you hear that spin Tessa put on the vocals?” It was another shocker from this girl he thought he knew so well.
“Yeah.” Lucas raised his brows. “She really jumped into it. But that’s my sister. What’d you think of the way we twisted the riff? Sindy loved how intricate some of the patterns were. She actually listened to me when I explained how I came up with them.”
As Mason tipped the bottle to his lips and took a sip of beer, movement from the other side of the pool caught his attention. It was Tessa, padding across the stamped concrete with her bare feet wearing a short beach robe.
“Don’t worry, big brother,” she called to Lucas. “I’m only taking a quick swim. I’m not gonna barge in on your guy time.”
“OK by me.” Lucas shrugged indifferently, and continued to explain the reasoning behind changing the riff.
But Mason wasn’t listening. Not because he wasn’t interested, because he was watching Tessa. She was acting remarkably unaffected. The contrast from her initial reaction to his rejection was too contradictory. She was overcompensating. He was worried about her, and he wanted to make sure she was all right.
He glanced at Lucas, worried his best friend noticed that he’d been focusing on Tessa. But Lucas was engrossed in explaining the intricate details of chord progression and the balance of notes in the melody of the new song. When Lucas was discussing music theory, a meteor could fall from the sky and land right next to him and the guy wouldn’t have blinked.
Mason returned his gaze to Tessa. She walked around the long end of the pool, the sprawling neck of the guitar that ran a good 25 feet in length. Her short silky robe flapped in the breeze, exposing her upper thighs. She skipped over something on the concrete, causing a gust to raise the hem of her robe and reveal the curve of one butt cheek. Mason quickly averted his eyes. He pretended to pay attention to his best friend for a few seconds, and then his eyes drifted back to Tessa. She had rounded the neck of the guitar-shaped pool and was headed toward where Mason and Lucas stood. With a bounce in her step, she smiled at them as she past. “Hi, Mason,” she said cheerfully. Way too cheerfully. And it was odd that she greeted him when they’d just spent several hours together in the studio.
“Hey.” His eyes followed her as she rounded the other end of the pool – the round body of the guitar – where the water was deepest. She climbed onto the diving board and walked to the end. Eyes straight ahead, she untied the belt to her short silky robe. He noticed that it was the same fabric as the top she had displayed the other night at dinner. Had she made the robe, too? She let the robe fall off her shoulders and tossed it behind her where it floated down to the concrete. The gold foil bikini she wore made his eyes pop. There were jeweled accents along the cleavage that accentuated her small perky breasts and sparkled in the light of the sun, making a prism. There were more jewels on the high leg openings of the skimpy bottom that made her legs look t
wice as long. Her skin was tanned a deep bronze. She must have spent a day in the sun yesterday, and the hue of her complexion contrasted beautifully with the metallic color of her swimsuit, which glimmered in the sunlight along with the jewels. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen, as if she belonged on a magazine cover or in an ad for suntan lotion.
She positioned her toes at the end of the board and took a few deep breaths. She pulled at the sides of her bikini bottom, lifting them higher and elongating her legs. She adjusted the strings at the back of her neck, straightened her arms at her sides and rolled her shoulders. Meanwhile, Lucas kept on talking, not even noticing that Mason’s eyes hadn’t left his sister. Tessa knew he was watching her, though, and the little show at the end of the board was clearly for his benefit. She raised her arms over her head in a delicate arc, bounced off the end of the board and slipped into the water with grace.
Lucas tapped Mason on the arm with his beer bottle. “I guess I’m boring you with music theory again.”
Mason’s eyes snapped back to his best friend.
“I wish someone got it like I did. I was hoping that person would be Sindy, but she turned out to be another lost soul.” Lucas drained his beer. “I’m getting a refill. Want one?”
“Yeah. Sure.” As Lucas headed into the house, Mason watched Tessa through the blur of the water. Her hair fanned out like black feathers while she moved underneath the surface. Her arms and legs created ripples on top of the water. She swam halfway down the length of the pool before she popped up for air, then swam back toward him. She shot up from the water and lifted herself onto the cement in front of him in one quick motion.
Squeezing the water from her hair, she smiled at him. “The water is beautiful.”
The tiny bikini, adorned with gems, sparkled brightly now that they were wet, and Mason’s eyes washed over her. Droplets of water cascaded down her taut body. Running on the beach and swimming left her arms and legs well-toned, without an ounce of fat. He’d never noticed how attractive she was before.
MASON WILDER: Radical Rock Stars Next Generation Duet Book 2 Page 7
