Siren's Song

by Alexi Raymond

  Chapter 8

  Ti’s obnoxious banging on the drum set had just about cut through Gabe’s skull when he simply couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop! Dear God, stop!” He shouted and waved his arms in Ti’s view.

  “So, you gonna stop pacing like a weirdo now?”

  Gabe pulled out his cell and called Burke and Troy. They’d be there in ten minutes. Gabe turned an anxious look to Ti. “What if the song sucks?”

  “It doesn’t. Why would you think that?”

  “I really want this one to be…We need this. We need a hit.” Gabe fidgeted with his hands, rubbed his face and stomach, tugged on his shirt. The realization that he actually cared if they had a hit or not sent a new wave of anxiety through him. The song started because Victoria meant something more to him than he’d felt in a long time, but rapidly he was noticing the two seemed to be linked. She was refreshing him, body and soul.

  Ti’s fingers slid over the drumsticks in his hands. He massaged them, caressing them like a lover, his gaze staring out past Gabe. “They’ve already heard the bare bones and liked it. What’s this really about?”

  Gabe hesitated for a moment. “It’s about a song. We need a hit for the Street Fest, there could be reps there.”

  “We could have had reps at any number of our shows. We’ve opened for guys that have been to the top, and you weren’t like this.” Ti’s gaze lifted to Gabe’s face, his lips upturned, revealing slightly crooked teeth. “It’s the girl, isn’t it?”

  Gabe glanced at the computer screen; it still missed her name.

  “Or not? What? Do you have a cyber-girlfriend or something?” Ti let out a low chuckle, but Gabe stayed quiet. “Dude, seriously. You stalk a chick to work, and now you’re cyber-sexing someone? I love you like a brother, but this is all sorts of messed up.”

  “It’s the same girl.” Gabe’s voice came out harsh. He looked around the room, afraid to see Ti’s face and the judgment on it.

  “Well, at least it’s the same girl. So, when are you going to bring her around?” Ti was too calm. Gabe didn’t know what to do with that kind of reaction. Chicks broke up bands, they cock-block guys from groupies, they don’t help, and they weren’t exactly welcome.

  “I’m not. Not yet, the band is still safe.”

  Ti let out a laugh. “Bro, we’re in our thirties. I’m not worried about the chicks or the record deals. I play for fun like you do.” Gabe shot him a look of skepticism. Ti back peddled. “Okay, I need this. But if you’ve got a girl, then go get her.”

  “I would, but she doesn’t exactly…know.”

  “What?” Ti lightly threw a drumstick at Gabe. “Come on. How does she not know she’s yours?”

  “She—uh…well, she knows me in person, but online when we met, I told her I was just the administrator, and I haven’t exactly told her I’m not yet.” Gabe sat down on his bed and rubbed his face. “She also broke up with her boyfriend, as in days ago.” What a mess.

  Ti crossed the room and crouched down, eye level with Gabe. “So, she’s not your girl. You just want her to be. Enough that you wrote a song about her. And she doesn’t know about your split personalities. And she just broke up with her boyfriend…unrelated to you?”

  Gabe nodded, his head still in his hands. Ti’s hand slapped down hard on his back, laughter coming from his gut. “Oh, this is rich. If you start writing country songs, I quit.”

  Burke and Troy walked through the door, disturbing their conversation. The urgent look Gabe shot Ti would have to be enough of a begging to keep his mouth shut. Picking up the printed lyrics and complicated notes Gabe had gotten ready earlier in the day, Ti started handing them out. Troy and Burke nodded and got to work like always. They were typically quiet and pretty easy going. But the fear was there for Gabe, fear that this was the one time they would speak up and hate the song. Siren’s Song.

  “I don’t like it,” Burke said solemnly, never looking away from the notes.

  “What?” Gabe jerked around to face him, the ping of a drumstick hitting the floor the only other sound in the room.

  Burke grabbed a pencil and started changing notes around. “The lyrics were good when we tried it the other day, but the music sucks. It tries too hard, man.”

  Gabe looked around, and his gaze flicked to the computer screen yet again. He had never been hurt by criticism from the band before, but this song wasn’t for him. Without thought, he started picking at his guitar. He worked through chords easily, letting out his frustration and allowing the guitar to take him away from everything. He hadn’t realized his eyes were closed until his fingers stopped and light seeped back through his eyelids. His heart wasn’t banging against his chest anymore, either.

  “Why would you write this crap when you can play like that?” Burke’s voice had lightened, but it proved a serious point. Simplicity. Victoria was simple, he was simple.

  Gabe grabbed the sheet music from Burke and looked over the scribbles. Damn it, his notes make sense. That someone else could know a song so close to him bothered him. “Guys, take a minute. I wanna work over some lyrical stuff.” Gabe moved over to the computer and brought it back to life. The guys mulled around, grabbed beers from the fridge, and hung out as usual. The presence over his shoulder when he plopped into his seat and refreshed the timed out Banshee Exodus website was completely expected.

  “Creepy stalker guy,” Ti whispered. Gabe grunted and nudged his shoulder into Ti’s ribs. Victoria’s name was on the screen when it finished loading.

  WriterGuy: How’s it hanging?

  SongSiren: Freely!

  WriterGuy: Whoa! Big night planned?

  “Gabe, let’s go, bro, we’re ready for another round.” Troy was reassembling the band, anxious to work with the new chords.

  WriterGuy: Ugh. Sorry, duty calls. Talk to you later?

  SongSiren: No big night here, sleeping, methinks. Have fun!

  And as quickly as that, she was gone. Gabe felt the corners of his mouth all the way in his hairline. She was free and safe and seemingly happy. Renewed, he rose from the desk ready to get back to work. It would be perfect, it had to be. It was for her.

  * * * *

  WriterGuy: Siren! What’s the word?

  Gabe had waited almost two days to see her come online, and frankly, he’d begun to worry. The relief he felt in seeing her name appear was as strong as the rush he got from seeing her in person. The time she’d been offline left him desperately waiting to talk to her or see her again.

  SongSiren: Haha I missed you too!

  His heart thudded in his chest; he couldn’t believe she missed him. With everything she was going through, it meant something to know he was on her mind as well. Now he needed to tell her about “both” of him so they could get off the path of lies and hopefully onto something much more comfortable. Gabe glanced over at his messy sheets. Those probably need to be cleaned before I have her over…

  WriterGuy: How’s life?

  SongSiren: Life is different, but it’s good! Just came by to see if you were on and say hi, picking up lots of hours at work! Talk to you later!

  For more than a moment, Gabe contemplated hitting up the restaurant for dinner. He resisted, barely, and logged off, satisfied with their progress. Startled by the sudden noise of his ringer, Gabe picked up his cell phone.

  “Rock Bottom, tomorrow night. We’re in.” Burke’s voice came across even deeper on the phone than it did in real life.

  “Awesome. Do we need to do a run-through or anything?”

  “Nah, we’ve been there enough times. Let’s get there early enough to set up.” Burke had always been the quietest one of the group. He stayed away from the few groupies they had and never spoke up in interviews. He also happened to be one hell of a guitar player. Not only was he a prodigy on the guitar but he also managed to hit the keyboard, and his deep voice was great vocal backup.

  “Good deal, good deal. So, anything new?”

  “Who is the song about?” Burke’s volume rose a
bit with the question.

  Gabe thought about lying, covering up that it wasn’t about anyone at all, but this song was different, and if he got a chance with Victoria, he would be different. Then the guys would call him out on it, and he’d never live it down. “A girl I met. She doesn’t know.” Burke had the kind of quiet understanding that seemed to fall on the minds of quiet men. He observed and listened rather than talked about himself. His insight was always invaluable.

  “She’s not gonna try and sleep with all of us and break up the band is she?” Burke kept his voice jovial, but there was a real concern. She wouldn’t have been the first to try it to their group, let alone bands throughout history.

  “I’ll be lucky if I can get her to sleep with me!” Gabe laughed. He thought again about running his fingers through her hair, to see her excited smile and know it was for him alone. He longed to see a storm in her gray eyes, filled with passion for him.

  He got off the phone, packed up the guitars he’d use for the show, and started surfing around the chat room again. Outdated pictures fans had posted of concerts they’d been to filled a side link on the site, and he scoured them, wondering if Tori would be in the backgrounds or focused in any of them. Not one. But he did gain a great perspective of their fans. To look through their lenses and at what they found interesting enough to capture on film. The way the light fell on faces around the photographers when they didn’t know they were being photographed. Some looked relatively bored, others threw their arms in the air, jumping with the sound of the drums.

  Music had always been his connection to the world. Gabe grew up listening to music and wanting to perform. In high school it defined him, and in college it made him the hit of the parties, but he wondered what it made him now. Who was he without music? He was a lonely thirty-two-year-old man living in an apartment with no real hobbies or friends outside of the band. If they could land a record deal, he would be propelled into the spotlight. His spare time would be made up flying to concerts around the world and signing autographs instead of paying for the meals he could more than afford. But what if there was no contract in their future? Gabe had been living off an insurance trust left to him when he was sixteen, a result of his parents working and being killed in an accident in a steel mill.

  Unlike other sixteen-year-old kids given access to a large sum of money, Gabe didn’t do anything stupid with it. He’d bought a couple of guitars, sure, but the rest was put into an account he couldn’t do anything with without the signature of his guardians. The hours his parents worked had always been long, so it wasn’t coming home to an empty house that had left him hurting. It was, instead, a quote his mother had in her room that stuck with him. Keep your heart open to dreams. For as long as there’s a dream, there is hope, and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living. Perhaps that was the “stupid” thing he’d done with all the money. He kept it saved, lived within his means, and focused on chasing his dreams. Never worked a regular job or stressed about getting into high-paying positions, he only wanted to make his dreams come true.

  But what were his dreams now?

  Chapter 9

  After getting home from a long double at work, she looked around at the stillness of her home. It wasn’t being alone that was unnerving, it was that she didn’t want to be on her own.

  She scrubbed the grime of the day off her skin and out from under her nails. Victoria dressed in a daze and found herself ready for her girls’ night a little early. The television completely entranced her. She stared at it, listening to the witty banter and hardly laughing at jokes that did little but occupy her mind. Opening her laptop, she logged into Banshee Exodus’ website only to find no WriterGuy. It was a little scary how much she’d come to lean on the friendship they’d created. The closest she’d allowed herself to come to needing someone since Todd. But she liked that he was always interested in her, and he listened to the smallest things she said, even when he was connected to people so much cooler than her. People much more deserving of his time.

  Her mind drifted to the day Gabe and Ti stopped in for lunch. Even though she knew she was living in the same city as the band, she’d never actually seen them come in before. Secretly, she’d always wondered what it would be like to know them on a friend basis rather than a fan who knew enough about Gabe to know his dietary restrictions. As quickly as her mind smiled at Gabe, her heart reached out for WriterGuy. Her lips curved up thinking of the lyrics he’d create if he knew she was going to have a night out.

  Sarah knocked once and entered the apartment before Victoria could get to the door.

  “You ready to do this, chica?” Sarah wore a tight, asymmetrical top the color of the sun. It did wonders to accentuate her light tan and the variation of blonde highlights in her dark brown, bobbed hair.

  “I was, but I feel a little underdressed now!” She plucked at the bottom of her vintage look V-neck. It was gray with tiny rhinestones and had a classic pinup girl perched on an anchor faded across the front. On its own it was just a cute shirt, but she hoped the skinny jeans and red pumps she paired with it helped to dress the look up. Victoria pulled her hair back into a low ponytail and secured it with long black ribbons.

  “Are you kidding me? You look great!” Sarah walked across the apartment and tugged on Victoria’s ribbons. “These are super cute accessories!”

  Victoria grabbed her keys and turned off the lights. “Let’s do this. Tonight starts the beginning of the new me. The single, fun, accessorized me.” She gave her head a shake, sending the ribbons’ ends flying at Sarah as she locked the door behind them.

  Rock Bottom was a city restaurant that also brewed a lot of its own beers. During the day it was a business meeting haven; cloth napkins folded in each place setting and aged wine flowing graciously into the crystal glasses of the city’s elite. At night the lights were turned down, fancy chairs moved aside, and a small space opened for live music. Victoria hesitated, holding her clutch tightly in one hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was still waiting for Todd to appear and tell her how foolish she was being. Coming face-to-face with him there would ruin her night.

  Sarah grabbed her free hand and pulled her into the restaurant. The presence of her friend reminded her of the confident person she used to be. She wasn’t even upset about the breakup, so why act like she was? Head back and chest out, Victoria strutted behind Sarah up to the bar where they took a seat, promptly waving the bartender over for their favorite drink—cosmo. The bittersweet taste of the alcohol contradicted the pretty pink color sparkling from the glass, salt lightly layering the rim, sweet enough to elicit a smile. She felt sexy in her outfit, underdressed maybe, but she was beginning to feel empowered in her newly found freedom. That or the cosmo was strong and kicking in quickly; she hoped it was more of the former than the latter.

  People moved out of the way as guys carried in guitars and microphones, heading to the stage. Victoria looked up long enough to make sure her ex wasn’t in the crowd and then turned back to the bar, smiling at the bartender, who had brought her another drink. Sarah was turned, chatting up the guy next to her and laughing loudly. Nearly choking on her drink, Victoria balked when the bartender informed her that the live band was Banshee Exodus. She had been so busy with work and getting used to being on her own, she’d only skimmed their chat rooms, and even then it was only in hopes of seeing WriterGuy’s name, not looking for tour dates. Victoria spun on her stool, eager to grab Sarah and squeal in excitement. She spun halfway and was grabbed by two strong hands, fingers wrapping around her bare arms.

  Electricity sang from the tips of those rough fingers, running the course of her arms, up her neck, and settling in her blushing cheeks. Eyes wide, the beating pump in her chest seemed to have decided to take the night off.

  “Easy there.” Gabe smiled, his gaze weighing into hers. His grip lessened, but he didn’t move his hands.

  Willing her heart to slam back into motion, she called on every bit of confidence she owned to jo
in with her excitement in seeing him. “Hi, Gabe!” She slid off the stool, staying close to him, letting his fingers drag down her arms as she braced her feet to hit the floor. Tucking her arms under his, she placed her head on his chest in a tight hug. One big inhale allowed her to breathe his cologne in deeply. His arms wrapped comfortably around her, squeezing before letting her go. Victoria sat back on the stool, clutched under the edge of it with her fingers, and leaned forward. The V of her shirt plunged a little lower, and she watched with enjoyment as he fought to keep his attention above her collarbone. They lingered on her lips, pulled up to her eyes.

  Blood pumped through her body, more alive than she’d felt in years. Biting down on her bottom lip instead of her nails for a change, she smiled and batted her eyelashes. The cosmo’s effects were kicking in, the room moving faster than it should have as she rocked on the stool. Her natural attraction to him was nothing if not heightened in her new single and buzzed status, enhanced by her recognition that he had come to her.

  Gabe smiled back, seemingly unsure what to do with his hands. Victoria watched him put them in his pockets, noticing too late that her gaze followed them intensely to where they settled near his groin. Her cheeks burned, and she forced her gaze away, twirling back to take another drink.

  “So, uh, we’re getting ready. I’d better get up there.” He nodded toward the stage.

  Victoria stood and wrapped her arms around his neck, cosmo-induced confidence surely radiating off her. His hands held onto her waist. “Break a leg!” She let him go and watched his broad shoulders move through the gathering crowd. He had to twist around people who refused to move, his navy blue shirt rising around his hips as he moved.

  Sarah cleared her throat, seeming suddenly interested in Victoria instead of the guy she had been talking to. In response, she ran her finger over the smooth glass holding her cosmo.

  “And that would be…” Sarah’s voice raised in question.