We finished setting up and went to the bar for a quick refreshment. Our set didn’t start for another fifteen minutes. I looked around. It was a Tuesday night and the place was dead, as usual. This was going to be another stellar show, I could tell.
I sipped my Corona and looked around the dingy, smoky room and wondered how my dream had gotten so off track. I mean, I didn’t spend all those years fantasizing about playing shitholes like this for a dozen drunk rednecks and only slightly more pay than free drinks. Maybe it was time to give it up and find a real job. Just the thought of crawling back home to Indiana, a complete failure, made me shudder. Though one was usually my limit, I asked for a second Corona and drank that one, too.
The guys talked and joked with the cute bartender in cut off jeans and skimpy t-shirt rolled up and tucked under her prominent breasts. Sheesh. Bet she went home with a lot of tips. Maybe I should see if The Tap was hiring waitresses.
Road Kill went on stage at precisely 10 p.m., not that anyone really noticed anything but the drink specials and the bartender’s breasts.
I had to dig deep to find the passion, the exhilaration performing usually gave me. Some of our gigs had been much different than this, especially early on. Then, being up on stage, under the lights, singing, playing music I loved, the energy of the crowd, the noise, looking out over the people to see them mouthing my words back at me. It was the adrenaline rush, the fear, the expectation of the whole thing that had made me do this night after night, even when the reaction wasn’t as good.
Tonight, I had to fake it. I pasted a smile on my face and in my signature opening asked the crowd if they were ready to rock. There was no answer, just a couple semi-glazed looks towards the stage from the half-buzzed clientele.
I sang our opening number. The band sounded good tonight. Maybe it was the beer beginning to relax me and force a feeling of warmth and well-being through my veins, but by the end of the second song, one I’d written about a cheating boyfriend, I had perked up a little. By the fourth, I was having a good time and feeling the buzz from the music as much as the beer and the adrenaline.
The crowd had grown, too, and the place was filling up. I wondered if people were there to see us. Maybe our music was finally attracting a few followers. Then I looked out over the growing crowd and saw the one face I had been avoiding.
Dex was sitting in the back with his black cowboy hat pulled low over his face. His hands were wrapped around a longneck and he was sitting back in his chair just staring at me with a small smile on his face.
I skipped a verse of the cover we were doing of a Garth Brooks tune. The band stumbled a little, but thanks to Dillon’s quick reaction on guitar, no one noticed and the other two guys took his lead and got us back on track.
A rush of nerves and awareness washed over me and I forced myself to look somewhere else. I could feel his eyes on me, though, and wondered what the hell he was doing in this dive. He hated going out in public and surely he had better places to be. Other blondes to screw.
I managed to get through two more songs and the guitar solo without looking at Dex. By then, the bar was standing-room only. Dex was a magnet and when I did glance to his side of the bar, I noticed a bunch of people crowding around him, clamoring for autographs. More than a few were hot girls thrusting their chests out, trying to get his attention.
We finished the set with a good bit of applause and came down off the stage. I meant to head straight for the bar for my unheard-of third Corona, but when I saw Dex get up and head my way, I totally chickened out. I made a U-turn and went straight to the ladies’ room.
I splashed some cool water on my burning face and tried to catch my breath. My reaction to him was as strong as ever. His showing up here wasn’t helping my Forget Dex Wilder campaign. Not at all. And how the hell was I going to get through the second set with him sitting there, staring at me and looking totally hot?
A toilet flushed and the hot bartender came out and washed her hands at the sink next to me.
“Great set tonight, Sydney. You guys are rocking the place!”
I smiled weakly. “Thanks.” I dried my face and pulled out the eyeliner and powder I kept stashed in my back pocket to touch up my make-up.
“Did you see who was out there?” She asked drying her hands.
“Yeah. I saw.”
“I read that the two of you—”
“Don’t believe everything you read,” I snapped. I immediately felt bad and turned to smile at her sheepishly. “Sorry. Bad subject.”
She grinned back. “No worries. Men are a pain in the ass no matter how famous they are, aren’t they?”
A look into her blue eyes told me she was speaking from experience. “Yeah. They’re all assholes.”
“Amen to that,” she grinned and tucked her shirt a little tighter under her boobs. “See you out there.”
The door closed behind her. The jukebox blared a Big & Rich song, the bathroom door only slightly muffling the music and excited murmur of the crowd.
I closed my eyes and leaned on the counter trying to regain my composure. I had to go back on stage in fifteen minutes and freaking out over some guy in the audience wasn’t helping.
The door opened and closed and I packed up my make-up without looking at the woman who entered.
Until I discovered it wasn’t a woman.
“Sydney,” Dex said from behind me.
I spun around. “What are you doing in here? You can’t come in—”
But he’d crossed the distance between us and kissed me hard with exactly the passion and frustration and pent up desire I’d been carrying all week. I had a lot of will power but where Dex was concerned, I was a junkie, pure and simple. It had been hard to resist him on the phone. It was impossible to resist him in person.
I gave in and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He tasted like beer and desire and he was wearing a hint of the earthy, musky cologne that mixed with his own scent and drove me out of my mind.
I heard the door open and a small squeak of surprise before it slammed shut again.
Dex raised his head. He reached behind him to flip the lock on the door and set his hat on the counter before taking up where he’d left off.
Dex wrapped me in his arms and I made no complaint when he slid his tongue into my mouth and brought me hard up against his body, his hands on my ass.
Desire surged through me, stronger than it had ever been. I clutched at him, too, moaning into his mouth. My hands roamed over his shoulders, across his flexed biceps, down to his hips. To the fly that was straining with the effort to contain his hard-on.
This time it was he who groaned. He pulled away and stared into my eyes. I stared back and no words were necessary. In a flash, his pants were around his knees, my panties were a memory and my bare ass was on the countertop. Dex put on a condom and thrust into me before I could even think better of making out in a bar bathroom and all the people who were no doubt gathered outside listening. I just didn’t care.
The only thing that mattered was having Dex buried deep inside me, thrusting in and out. Kissing my throat. His hands on my breasts.
It was hot and hard and rough with no words, no lingering caresses, just an expression of the need that had built up over the last few weeks.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and went with it.
We were breathing too hard to even attempt kissing, so I buried my face in his warm neck and clutched at his damp hair as tension coiled tighter and tighter inside me. Blood surged through my veins until I felt lightheaded and I bit at his neck in a show of purely primal need.
He groaned my name and that was the last push I needed to send me soaring over the edge. My body clenched and released, sending my flying over waves of pleasure. I cried out, the sound echoing off the tiled walls of the ladies’ room.
His answering release was just as loud and he shuddered, his cock pulsing deep inside me with satisfying fullness.
We stayed there for a mome
nt, just breathing and clinging to each other. The sound of the packed bar drifted back to me and the horror of what just happened washed over me. Great. This would give the tabloids a new bit of gossip. I just hoped there weren’t any security cameras in the john. I really didn’t care to star in my own porno.
Dex must have felt my withdrawal and pulled back a little to look at me.
“Why didn’t you call me?” He looked genuinely upset about the fact I’d been ignoring his attempts to contact me.
I swallowed. “Dex, I don’t think—”
He swooped in for another mind-numbing kiss, then pulled back. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked again, softer this time.
I tried to pull back. I needed space. But his arms were clamped around me like a vice. “I don’t think—”
Another kiss cut off the words he didn’t want to hear.
He pulled back and arched a brow, waiting.
“Fine. I was scared. And angry.”
Dex kissed me lightly and stepped back.
He cleaned up and by the time he was re-buttoned, I was, too.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I’m sorry you got pulled into all this.” Dex ran a hand through his damp hair. “I know how it is, especially at first, dealing with the constant attention. Especially when not all of it is good.”
I rolled my eyes and washed my hands. “Oh, right. You show up in a photo with a bevy of blondes and you’re the stud-muffin hero of guys everywhere. I’m in one photo and suddenly I’m the Whore of Babylon. You have no idea.”
I shut off the water and dried my hands.
Dex touched my arm. “I know, Sydney. I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t help anything, though, does it? It doesn’t take all those rags off the stand. It doesn’t keep my mother from calling, wanting to know what the hell I’m doing. It doesn’t keep the leers, the side looks, the snide comments away.”
I glared at him, narrowing my eyes with all the humiliation and anger and hurt I’d felt the past week over the pictures, over the contest, over the frustration of not making it in Nashville. “Does it make me anything than just another groupie you fuck in the back of your party bus?” I turned away. “I guess I can at least be glad I’m not having your bastard. We can just walk away now and forget it ever happened.”
I turned towards the door, but Dex was standing there. He was angry now. Well and truly angry.
“No. You’re not going to end it. Not like this.” He ran his hands through his hair again and it made me feel marginally better seeing his usual composure so rattled.
“I know this isn’t easy. Being with me and all the crap I put up with on a daily basis won’t be any easier. But we have something here, Sydney. You are so much more than some woman in a tabloid photo.” He looked away, still frowning, then leveled his gaze on me again.
“I care about you. Don’t you get that? The other night at the house was great. I feel we connected in a way I haven’t ever connected with another person.”
Some of the anger had faded from his face.
“I think you feel it, too.”
I shook my head, my throat clenching at what I knew I had to say to end this. “You’re wrong. It was just sex, Dex. Good sex, sure. But that’s all.”
He stepped closer to me and held my upper arms loosely, forcing me to look into his eyes. “You’re lying, baby.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned my head at the last minute and his lips brushed my cheek. “But the question is, why?”
Dex let me go and stepped back.
Someone pounded on the bathroom door. “Hey! You can’t lock the door!”
“I have to go,” I said, my gaze focused on one of his shirt buttons.
“At least talk to me. After the show. We can go back to your place.”
I chewed my lip. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The pounding started up again.
“Please, Sydney, just talk. If you still decide you don’t want me in your life, I’m gone. I won’t bother you again.”
My heart squeezed painfully at the thought of never seeing him again, but it was for the best. I needed to close the door on this and try to figure out what the hell I was doing with my life. The only thing I knew for sure was that playing tabloid queen to a womanizing party boy was not what I wanted my life to be. But I could tell he wasn’t going to let this go without having his say.
“Ok,” I said, eyeing the door. “Ok. After the show.”
He smiled at me and flipped the lock.
“See you then.”
He shouldered out of the restroom past several shocked-looking women. I ran out before anyone could ask me any embarrassing questions and headed back to the stage. I was late for the set and the rest of the band was already waiting for me, warming up.
“You ok, Sydney?” Dillon asked frowning. He glared at Dex as he made his way through the horde that now packed the bar.
“I’m fine.” I forced a smile. “Now let’s do this thing.”
Chapter Eight
I really don’t remember the second set. I could have been singing Christmas carols for all I knew. All I could think about was Dex and the fact that he was going to be waiting for me at my apartment when I got home.
I was equal parts terrified, excited and dreading it all at once. I had to put an end to things once and for all. I knew it and he knew it, too, even if he didn’t want to admit it. I wasn’t the kind of woman he was used to and I wasn’t going to drop everything to chase him around like a fool. I also couldn’t see him as a one-woman kind of guy. Not with his busy lifestyle, constant travel and the temptation of women throwing themselves at him wherever he went. Like bar bathrooms.
There were still quite a few people in the bar by the time we finished. I had a beer with the band and let the bar clear out a little before I headed home, as if nothing was going on. If I’d hurried up and gotten out of there, someone would have teased me about having a hot date. All I needed was some photographer to suspect I was meeting Dex and follow me home. More pictures that would be difficult to explain to my mother.
I’d delayed as long as I could, though, and I grabbed my gear and headed towards the door.
“Miss Stratton.”
I turned at the sound of my voice. I thought it was probably another reporter, but when I turned, I found it was the head judge from the competition. My heart beat a little faster.
“Yes?”
He walked over to me with a smile on his face. Not a leering, have-sex-with-me-and-I’ll-give-you-a-contract smile. Just a smile.
He held out his hand and I shook it. “Geoff Nolan. From the contest.”
I nodded. “Nice to see you again.”
“You, too. Great set, by the way.
“Thanks. We had a nice crowd tonight.” I set my guitar case down.
“I just wanted to let you know that the judges really loved your song at the competition. If there had been eleven spots, you would have been in the finals.” He looked away, frowning slightly. “There was one judge who gave you low scores across the board. That’s what kept you out.”
I knew, of course, who he was talking about. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know what’s between you two and I know it doesn’t seem fair. But we had to go by the rules.”
I nodded. “I understand.” I gave him a small smile. Poor guy. Had he come all the way down here to tell me that? “No hard feelings.”
“I really was impressed by your work. I think you’ve got a real songwriting talent and I’d like to hear more.”
“You would?”
He nodded. “You’ve got a sort of honesty and plain-spoken style that’s appealing. I’m producing a project for a new artist and we need a couple more songs to complete the album. I’m thinking you might have just what we’ve been looking for.”
I was floored. The type of guy I’d been chasing for two years was now chasing me. I felt lightheaded and stepped back.
“Do you have anything else ready?�
��
I swallowed. “Yeah. I Have a couple things you might like.”
“Great. Maybe you could send the lead sheets and lyrics tomorrow?” He pulled out his wallet and handed me his business card.
“Uh, sure.” I looked at the card half expecting to wake up any minute from what was surely a dream.
“Great. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got for me.” Mr. Nolan put his wallet back in his back pocket. “And I’m sorry again about what happened this morning.”
I shrugged. “No big deal.” I put the card in my purse. “Thanks again, Mr. Nolan.”
“No. Thank you. I’ll be in touch. I’m sure of it.” He smiled and then left the bar.
“What was that?” Dillon asked, coming up behind me.
I turned and hugged him. He was surprised but wrapped his arms around my waist anyway. “Karma.”
* * * *
I was high on more than beer when I left The Tap a few minutes later. I practically floated home and even the lone photographer who had waited around for me outside my apartment couldn’t faze me. The rest of the band had already left and I couldn’t wait to tell somebody my big news. I couldn’t stop smiling as my mind raced ahead to projects I might want to send Mr. Nolan.
I completely forgot about Dex until I unlocked the door and found him sitting on my raggedy, second-hand couch, a glass of sweet tea in his hands.
“Oh. Hi.” I took off my coat and locked the door behind me.
“Your roommate let me in,” he said standing up. “She had to go, but said I could wait here for you. I hope that’s ok.”
“Sure,” I said and went to the kitchenette to pour myself a glass of tea.
“You must have had a good set,” Dex said bringing his empty cup to the sink.
“Yeah.” I smiled but was unwilling to share the news with him for some reason. “It was.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to know. It was just that it seemed like such a small thing to a guy that had platinum records, a big-time recording deal, and a house that made my apartment look like some flop house on the wrong side of the tracks. Compared to that, my big news was almost embarrassing.
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