“If you said that,” Ransom tells him, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back into the center seat of the front row, “then I'm sure I blocked it out.”
I smile, tucking my lower lip in my mouth and glancing down at the shopping bags near my feet.
“The guy at the auto body shop, he said it was worth ten in good shape. Do you think he'd be interested in taking it off my hands?” I look back up at Muse and manage to catch a surprised expression on his face.
“I can text him back and ask,” he says and I nod.
“Yes, please.” I take a deep breath, trying not to get too sentimental, to think about how that was my mom's car, how it's one of the last few things I have left from that time in my life. The car is in Arizona, and it's trashed, and even if Muse pays to fix it, how the hell am I going to get it if I'm flying right back to Seattle with the boys at the end of this tour? No, I think it's just easiest at this point to let it go. “And have him deduct whatever shipping costs he needs to mail me the rest of the stuff that was left inside.”
“I can do that,” Muse says, dark brows raised, looking slightly impressed at my decision. “You're positive about this though?” he confirms, lifting his green-blue-grey eyes to stare at me.
“I'm positive,” I repeat and watch as he types out a message with his thumbs.
In the background, the radio starts playing a Beauty in Lies song and I get the chills all over.
“It's still weird to hear us just come on like that,” Cope says as I turn to look at him, leaning forward, his hands pressed to the back of Michael's seat, his cheek against his knuckles. “I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to it.”
“Do you remember the first time you ever heard yourself on the radio?”
“I was in a Target buying tampons for my mom,” Cope says with a wrinkled nose and half-smile. He's trying to make a joke out of it, but I can already tell that anything having to do with his mom is dead serious. Oddly enough, I kind of want to meet her. I just want to see what she's like. She can't be all bad with a son like Cope, right? I think about his face when we started talking about Seattle. Unlike Michael, he didn't offer for me to come and live with him. I'm guessing his mom already does?
“I was at the dentist,” Ransom whispers with a small cringe, like even the thought of having his teeth looked at is abhorrent.
“A friend's wedding,” Michael says.
“An online ad for a streaming music service,” Derek says, sipping more bubble tea through his straw and pulling his gaze from his phone for a moment to look at me.
“What about you, Pax?” I ask, wondering if it's any weirder for him since it's his voice that's on display. A little bit of Ransom, too, in the background, but all those clear, sharp notes that take front and center, those are Paxton's.
“In a car with my parents,” he says, sounding frustrated. The edge in his voice gives me another small clue. Obviously, a lot of Paxton's issues stem from Chloe, Harper, Kortney, and Ransom. I get that. But Beauty in Lies was started before any of that happened. If he was already in pain then, already seeking out other lost souls then there was something else that gave him his initial scars, started him down the pathway of rock 'n' roll in the first place.
His parents.
There's definitely an issue there.
“You don't get along with them, I take it?” I ask, wondering how far he'll let me go before he shuts me down again. This week has been a lot for Pax, and he's already prone to running away and trying to hide his emotions with anger. I actually don't expect him to answer at all.
“My dad's a dodgy git, and my mum's an arse licking sycophant.”
I have to blink several times to process that one.
“Wow,” I say as Michael parks our borrowed truck on the street in front of a tall brick building. Bricks. The color of the stones, the imagined texture … I can't help the slight flush that crawls across my skin as I think about our raunchy alley sex. “That's heavy, Pax.”
“Yeah, well,” he starts, getting a cigarette out and shoving open the door, “you'll see what I mean when you meet 'em.”
He lights up and climbs out, leaving me with a pounding heart and butterflies in my tummy.
Meet Paxton's parents? Holy shit. I hadn't even really thought about that, about meeting the boys' families. I mean, I guess I already got to meet Michael's brother, Tim, but I wasn't dating him at the time.
It hits me then that I don't have any family left for the guys to meet.
“You okay?” Muse asks gently, drawing my attention back to him. He's looking at me like he did that day on the bus when he first invited me to stay, when he compared our souls to lonely travelers, when he bared his heart to me and admitted considering suicide once upon a time.
“I have no family left for you guys to meet,” I say and Muse's smile softens, saddens.
“Neither do I,” he says and then pauses, glancing away for a brief moment, tapping his cell on his knee. “To tell you the truth though, that's not such a bad thing in my case.”
His cell pings with a message and before I can ask about that cryptic statement, he's checking it and turning the screen around for my perusal.
“Guy says he'll give you four thousand for it.”
“That's fine,” I say, more concerned with the strange expression on Muse's face than I am with the money. Then again, at least I'll have a decent nest egg of my own to start a new life in Seattle. Maybe I can actually get my own place without having to take more money from my boys?
“I'll tell him five and it's a deal,” Muse says, leaving me with that little nugget from his past, no elaboration. “And I'll give him my address to ship your stuff to. You can make whatever other decisions you want about living arrangements later.”
“Thank you,” I say, watching him do what he does best, take care of all the practical shit. I want to see him be impractical for a moment, let passion take over logic, let himself get swept away in something great. Maybe we could do it together?
I climb out onto the street next to Cope as Muse sends off another text to the auto body shop, and then gets out on his own side.
The six of us gather on the sidewalk and head up a small cement ramp into the front doors of the brick building, a huge metal sign attached to the wall next to us that reads Brotherly Love Tattoo and Piercing.
“The City of Brotherly Love,” I whisper, a smile stealing across my mouth as I recite one of Philadelphia's nicknames, looking around at the five guys surrounding me. What an appropriate title. Well, except for maybe Paxton and Ransom. I'm not sure that it's brotherly love that they're feeling toward each other.
We head inside to polished concrete floors and exposed brick and ductwork, the air a lot warmer in here than it was outside.
Michael walks right up to the silver desk and taps on the bell, not at all shy or embarrassed or tentative. I stand next to him with Copeland and Muse next to me, Ransom and Pax behind us. Standing like this, I get that feeling of being protected, watched over. There's a sense of belonging in being with the boys that I'm not sure that I've ever felt before, like I'm part of a club or something … part of a band. My instrument is sex, my tool for making beautiful music with my boys.
I smile and glance up at the high ceilings, the artwork on the walls, the glass cases full of jewelry.
“I can't believe we're getting a group tattoo,” Paxton says with a cruel edge to his voice. “Now I'm sure everyone will think we're all poofs.”
“Who cares what everyone thinks?” Ransom whispers, and I glance back to find them staring at each other. Paxton shakes his head first, ruffling his blonde hair with fingers covered in a tattooed skyline, the trees black silhouettes, the sky a blue washed gradient, the stars negative spaces carved out of the color.
“Bloody hell,” he murmurs, pausing when the owner of the shop appears and introduces himself and his apprentice. There's a lot of gushing, praise, some serious fanboy moments happening as the man shows off his Beauty in Lies tat
too—based off that same artwork that plays during the animated short at the concerts. It occurs to me then that I have no idea where that comes from.
“What's with the art on the album, the stuff that plays on the curtain?” I ask, turning to Pax and Ran, breaking apart another charged stare between them. They both turn slowly to look at me, blinking like they're coming up for air. Wow. Intense. I have to really fight not to smile; I'm afraid if I do, I'll spook them both. “Does it mean anything?”
“It's all based on sketches, darling,” Ransom says, his voice black velvet and merlot. “From Harper's notebook.” He looks like he's about to start sweating buckets when he says this, slipping his hood up over his head.
Paxton goes still for a moment and then reaches up, tugging the hood back down from Ransom's mussy chocolate brown hair.
“We found it in her stuff after she died, in her purse. Even buried in there, it somehow had blood on it,” Pax says, his face stoic, grey eyes the same color as the polished cement beneath my black leather booties. “But she was an artist, too. Kind of like you, Miss Lily,” Pax says, moving away and walking around the edge of the shop in his sharp suit, tattoos peeking from the starched collar of his shirt.
“I'm sorry,” I say to Ransom, watching his eyes follow his … friend? Are they friends again? Or are they going to be lovers? Personally, I don't mind either way. “I shouldn't have brought that up.”
“There's no way to know unless you ask,” Ran says, eyes half-lidded when he turns them on me and smiles. He almost looks like a different person without his hood on. “Where are you thinking of putting your first tat, honey?”
“On my wrist,” I say, adjusting my mother's charm bracelet and turning my bare arms over. “But I can't decide left or right.”
“I'd say if you want to do your art,” Ransom starts, stepping forward and taking both my hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over the pulse points in my wrists, sending my heartbeat racing, my eyes taking in the dark lusty haze of his expression. “Then get it on your left wrist. Tattoos take time to heal. It'll be sore and swollen for a while; that might make it hard to use that fancy new tablet of yours.”
“Hey guys, you want to come take a look at this?” Cope asks, drawing my attention away from Ransom—it takes a lot of effort for me to extract my hands from his—and over to the sketch on the metal surface of the counter. Ran steps up behind me to look and my nose fills with the bright scent of violets, taking over the ink and iodine smell of the shop.
On the piece of paper in front of me, I see a circle made up of six bass clefs, connected together in the center, each sloped form peppered with a pair of dots on the outside curve. Also arranged in a circle are six treble clefs, each one situated in the little wedge of space between bass clefs. Just glancing at it, the whole design looks kind of like a flower or a fancy asterisk.
It's subtle, simple, but the meaning is there. Six parts. Six people. Music and connectivity.
“I fucking love it,” I say as I touch a pink painted fingernail to the center of the design. “This is perfect.”
“I'm glad you like it,” Cope says, his voice soft, his eyes the color of sea glass when the sun hits it just right. He taps his long fingers on the counter and grins at me. “So, you want to go first?”
“Absolutely,” I say, following the shop's owner over to a black leather chair and taking a seat, heart racing, a little nervous but fucking excited, too. “I can't believe I'm losing my ink virginity today,” I say and Cope chuckles, sitting in the chair next to mine in his perfectly fitting jeans, his t-shirt the color of mint ice cream.
“It's just the first prick that hurts,” Paxton drawls, taking a seat next to Cope and playing with his silver cuff links, these ones in the shape of tiny butterflies with intricate designs on their wings.
“Gee, thanks for that,” I say, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves as Michael, Muse, and Ransom gather on the other side of me, behind the tattoo artist.
“Where did you want the design?” the guy asks me, taking my hand in his. Unlike when Ransom touched me, I feel nothing. Sorry, Dad, I think as I point at my left wrist. He was never a fan of tattoos. But he's not here anymore, and I am. I have to make my own decisions.
“Right here,” I say, unhooking my charm bracelet for the first time since Mom passed away. The feel of it slipping from my skin sends cold chills down my spine. But maybe this, too, is a good thing? I'm not taking it off obviously, just moving it, but the fact that it's been in one place for so long makes me wonder if I've ever really moved on from mother's and sister's deaths.
This fresh start I'm trying to make … maybe it's not just about my father?
It's my entire past that's drenched in tragedy. I don't want to swim in those waters anymore.
Cope leans forward to help me clasp the bracelet onto my other wrist, the sensation of his fingers dancing across my skin takes my breath away, the gentleness of his touch soothing my nerves a little as I wait for the tattoo artist to transfer the sketch to a translucent sheet of paper.
He sizes it for my wrist and then cleans my skin off, slathering a clear gel across the surface and then pressing the design against it. When he peels the paper off, the bass and treble clefs are sitting in sharp black relief against the white paleness of my flesh.
“How does that look?” he asks, giving me a moment to study the position.
I let the boys check it out, get their approval, and then decide it's got mine, too.
“Let's do this,” I say, looking up and into the mirror, finding the deep forest green of my eyes staring back at me, long wavy tendrils of red curling past my cheeks, over my shoulders. The purple dress I'm wearing brings out the violet highlights in my hair, making the color look like something out of a box instead of what I was born with. Freckles dance across my nose, just above the full glossed pink of my lips.
All around me, my boys sit or stand, each one his own shade of unique, his own brand of beautiful. The way I'm sitting, it's like I'm perched on a throne, the five of them arranged around me like worshippers.
I smile.
At least until the needle is touching my skin for the first time. But Pax is mostly right—it's just the first few pricks that hurt, a couple minutes of pain until my body relaxes and I get used to it, closing my eyes for a moment and breathing deep.
Two concerts left, and then … Upstate New York. Gloversville. My childhood home.
Dad's ashes.
When I open my eyes finally, I glance down to find the design inked permanently into my skin. It's all done in crisp, black ink with a few random splotches of watercolor behind it, like drops of rain mid-splatter, the sun reflecting off the liquid and making a rainbow effect.
“That's some hot fucking ink,” Michael says, putting a hand on my head, leaning over to take a closer look. “It suits you,” he says, and I smile.
“So it does.”
I guess the number six just looks good on me—on us.
My hand slides up and over my shoulder, close to the aching discomfort of my new tattoo. But I'm an old fucking pro at this, and I don't touch it. I see Muse doing the same, teasing the red edges of skin around the black design at his right hip. His pants are so low-slung they don't touch the damn thing, and he's still wearing just an unzipped silver hoodie and nothing else on top.
My fellow guitarist is definitely an interesting person. To tell the truth, I'm a little shocked at how interesting, how nice he turned out, considering his background. Just thinking about it makes me feel lucky that all I had to deal with were two dead parents and a resentful asshole brother.
Fucking Tim.
I check my phone with one hand, smoke my cigarette with the other, and keep an eye out for Lilith in the backstage melee. She slipped away to the bathroom a few minutes ago, and I can't stop myself from getting these sharp little thrills of excitement as I wait for her to come back.
Jesus, I've never fallen this hard for a girl before—not even Vanessa. Just thinking about
Lilith turns my cock to granite, makes me sweat, speeds my heart rate up until I feel dizzy. I can't help but feel a little jealous when I see her with the other guys, her body gyrating them to orgasm, the necklaces I bought her swinging with the motion of her hips. At the same time though, I kind of like it, too. I like seeing Paxton fucking smile for once. I like seeing Ransom without his hood on. Cope needs to get over Cara and be a goddamn boyfriend again since that's what he's so damn good at. And Muse … Muse needs Lilith more than anyone.
Van broke up with me.
I put a pause on my Lilith obsession for a second to reread that text from Tim.
Huh.
How am I not fucking surprised?
What did you expect, Timmy? An HEA?
Mikey, call me, is what he sends back followed with: what's an HEA?
I sigh and pocket my phone. It's the first time I've texted him back since I left the hotel. I don't intend to make a habit of it. What the hell did he think would happen when I found out he was screwing the girl I'd been waiting for for an entire year? The girl I held while she cried for her lost baby, the one I thought was mine? I mean, come the fuck on. If Tim thinks we're going to get our HEA—happily ever after—he's dead wrong on that front, too.
I'm goddamn done with him.
“Mikey.”
I pull my cigarette from my lips and glance over, my cock thickening at the sight of Lilith standing next to me in a pair of tight jeans, pink and white Chucks, and a tank top with a big black heart on it, made out of an alto clef turned on its side and a 'V'.
“You know,” I tell her as I ash my cigarette against the wall and then flick it into a nearby trash can, “that nickname doesn't sound so god-awful when you say it.”
“Good,” she says, the tattoo on her wrist catching my attention. All of our designs are in black with a few random color splotches making up the background. Lilith's look like rainbows while mine are in the same jewel tones as the rest of my work. Cope's are as vibrant and neon as the tattoos on his forearms while Muse's are in varying shades of red, and Paxton's are all shades of grey.
Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2) Page 17
