I didn’t hear Murphy come down the stairs, had no idea she was behind me, until she wrapped her arms around my waist. “We’re out from under Woody. I feel like I can finally breathe again for the first time in years.” I felt her chest expand against my back. “It’s like the sky’s the limit now.”
She dropped her chin to my shoulder, completely relaxed against me.
My hands sought hers as I looked up. The stars were fading against the dawn. “The sky huh, Skylar?”
She let go of me. “Yeah, don’t call me that.”
I had her in my arms, backing her up against the side of the bus, before she could make her escape. “I like it.”
She sighed and tried to step out of my arms.
“Fine… fine, I’ll stick with Murphy for now, but it won’t always be that way.”
When she stopped pushing against my hold, I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “One day, Murphy, you’ll melt when I call you by your real name. I’m gonna love it when you do.”
I felt her knees give and pulled her closer to me, molding her to me as I captured her mouth. Her hands fisted the back of my shirt, pulling me harder against her. I groaned into her mouth, needing so much more from her than a stolen kiss in the dark. The way her body trembled against mine made my heart hammer painfully against my chest. The sound of a car backfiring close by made us both jump, breaking the kiss. It did nothing to help the way my body craved to be inside of hers.
Murphy deserved more than me shoving her up against the side of a bus, taking her like she was no more than a body to use to fulfill my needs. I took a step back. Bringing my hand up to push her hair off her face, I tucked it behind her ear. “Murphy, I want you so bad I ache, but this isn’t the right time or place.”
Her uneven breaths matched mine as a look of raw passion blushed across her face. Her eyes were so bright that they looked fevered. “You’re not helping the situation by talking like that.”
I blew out a long breath and pulled her close. Holding her against my pounding heart, I let the night air cool us.
MURPHY WALKED WITH HER ARM around me, tucking herself against me, and she fit naturally, like she was meant to be there. I felt like the king of the world, as if I didn’t need to walk anymore, when I could simply float.
Murphy stopped short when we made it around the bus. “This isn’t the hotel I booked. Where the hell are we?”
Both of us craned our necks to look up at the building in front of us. It was tall, stretching so far up into the sky that it made me dizzy looking that high. Dawn had given way to early morning sunlight. The sound of cars passing by could be heard. I turned around to get an idea of where we were. It was obviously a parking lot, but what I hadn’t noticed was the chain-link fence with razor-wire embellishments around the perimeter. Whatever the building was, it damn sure wasn’t a hotel, at least I didn’t think so, since there was no sign. Whatever it was, we were on the backside of it.
We continued forward a few steps until a security guard spotted us and waved us over to where he stood. “I was told to keep an eye out for you. If you’d follow me, please.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Murphy blush. I squeezed her against me, hoping like hell we weren’t going to get questioned on why it took us so long to make our way inside.
My worries were snuffed out when the security guard led us to an elevator and pressed a button that required a key for the floor he selected. He left us inside, telling us to have a good day.
Murphy sagged against me and chuckled. “I thought for sure we’d be walking into a room full of people all wanting to know what the hell we’d been up to,” she said, tipping her head to look up at me.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. We stepped out onto a sea of white carpet that stretched over the entire top floor of the building. In front of us, the city skyline could be seen over the tops of the surrounding buildings.
We took two steps down into the living room with furniture placed to face the windows. The open layout kitchen was to our right. Oliver was standing in front of a stainless-steel stove big enough to cook a feast on. He turned when he heard us. A grin spread over his face, but he kept whatever smart-assed comment that fluttered through his thoughts to himself, asking us if we were hungry instead.
“Mmm, that smells really good. I’m hungry enough to eat a horse,” Murphy said.
“Good, ’cause I just finished cooking. Not a horse, mind you, but food just the same.” Oliver turned and handed her a plate piled with food.
Murphy chuckled at his joke, and my stomach growled.
“Hungry?” he asked me with brows raised.
Walking over to the counter, I grabbing a plate and held it out for him to fill. “Make mine a double.”
Oliver snorted and added another rounded scoop of eggs.
While we ate our mountain of scrambled eggs and toast, Oliver cleaned up the pan he’d used and wiped down the stove. “Your bags were put in the room furthest down the hall to the left.”
“Whose bags? Murphy’s?” I asked, not sure who he spoke to.
Oliver dropped the rag in the sink and collected our plates. “Both of you. I had them put in there when everyone took a room and that was the last one. There’s a couch in there, so I figured you two could figure out who sleeps where.”
With a full stomach and heavy eyes, I slid out of my seat, helped Murphy from hers, and went in search of our room.
I staggered to the queen-sized bed, kicked my shoes off, and dropped on the mattress. Murphy moved around the room, opening and closing drawers, bags, and I thought I even heard the hiss of a zipper. It was hard to say since I couldn’t pry my eyes open to see. Sleep all but devoured me, and I let it.
ONE OF THE WORST FEELINGS in the world when you were sleeping was that helpless feeling that you were free falling to your death. That was how I woke up, covered in a cold sweat. Only it hadn’t been a dream. I’d actually landed on the floor and came to with a jolt.
“I haven’t had to haul you out of bed like that since you were little,” my mother said as she knelt down and put her hand out to help me up.
Quickly, I darted a glance around the room, looking for Murphy. There was no sign of her, making me wonder if she’d taken her leave before my mom came in to wake me up.
Nadia Jackson, my mother, spoke with a touch of a Russian accent. Even the heavy southern drawl of Alabama couldn’t take it completely away. At the age of eight, my mom came to the United States with my grandmother, after my grandfather had passed away, leaving them on their own. Four years prior, my grandmother’s brother had come to the United States. When he learned of my grandfather’s passing, he arranged for my grandmother and mother to leave Russia to live with him.
Mom claimed the hardest thing about coming to a foreign country was learning a new language. It didn’t stop her though. If anything, I thought it pushed her to adapt faster. “Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” she’d always told me.
I could always tell when she’d spoken a lot of Russian. Usually, it was when she called my grandmother. Mom also had another saying, ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it,’ so she used it as often as she could. When she did, it made her accent thicker when she switched back to English.
Hugging her once I was on my feet, I asked, “Been talking to Babushka today?”
She pulled back with a shake of her head. “Net… no, sorry. I’ve been on the phone all morning with one of our contacts in Russia, going over a prototype contract.”
It was then that I noticed my mom wore cargo pants, black boots, and a white T-shirt tucked neatly into her waistband. I’d never seen her wear anything but designer-label clothes my entire life. There were so many thoughts trying to take over that I stood gaping at her until she guided me to the en suite bathroom. “Get cleaned up. I told Oliver I’d take you down to where the band is set up to practice before the concert.”
My toothbrush was beside the sink. I found th
e toothpaste in the top drawer of the cabinet. I had a mouth full of toothpaste bubbles when my mom appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, holding up two shirts on hangers. One was Murphy’s, the other mine. “Should we talk about you sharing a room with Skylar Murphy?”
Was she serious? How could that even be an issue considering all the stuff her and my father had kept from me? I pulled my toothbrush out of my mouth and jabbed it in her direction, talking around a mouthful of foam. “I’ll explain that when you explain where I am and how it is you and Dad are here as well.”
My mother huffed, tucking both hangers under one arm, and reached past me to turn on the sink. “Don’t talk to me with your mouth full.”
I washed my mouth out and returned my toothbrush to its holder, staring at her in the mirror the entire time.
She took my shirt off the hanger and held it out to me. I slipped the one I’d slept in off, handed it to her, and pulled the clean one on. “Well, are you going to answer me?”
She shook Murphy’s shirt at me, wanting my explanation first.
I plucked it out of her hands and walked around her, returning it to the closet. “Murphy and I… this is all new, Mom. I know you want me to explain, but right now, there’s nothing to tell you. Murphy and I are figuring it out too.”
“By sharing a room?” Her eyes sparkled when she asked me that, and I couldn’t tell if she was angry or trying to keep herself from laughing.
“If you’re angry, blame Oliver. He put us in this room together. If you’re not angry, can you just tell me you’re happy for me and let it go?”
She walked over and brushed my hair off my forehead. “When did you get so grown up, huh?”
“So, you’re not mad?”
“No, but your band mates will be if I don’t get you down to practice,” she said, tugging on my arm to walk with her.
WE STEPPED INTO THE ELEVATOR and my mom reached out, pressing an unmarked button. Beside it, an infrared square lit up. She touched it with her finger until it turned green, and the elevator descended. Clearly, we weren’t in a hotel, and my mother had some explaining to do.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the far wall of the elevator, staring at her. “You must have pretty high security clearance here if your fingerprint is the only way to select certain floors. Where exactly are we… and don’t say Chicago.”
She clasped her hands loosely in front of her. “Cole Industries World Headquarters.”
I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice. “This… this is where you work? But we live in Alabama. How can you work in Chicago and live in Alabama?”
“Your dad and I don’t work out of this office all the time. There are several more locations stateside and a handful elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? What the hell is it y’all do?” The elevator doors opened, and I thought for sure she’d use it as an excuse not to answer me.
“Cole Industries is a private sector—prototype facility for the government, only it’s not government run.”
I kept pace with her, trying to wrap my head around what she said. “So you’re not in the military, you’re just affiliated with it?”
“Here, at Cole Industries, we do cutting-edge technology to advanced prototype weaponry. When a project is complete, the government gets the first look. If they like it, they buy it.”
“So why have other facilities in different countries?”
She gave me a funny look. “Why wouldn’t we? There are several very intelligent scientist and engineers all over the world. We bring the location to them when we find them. It would be very ignorant to handpick people who qualify for the job and expect them to leave everything they know behind to come work out of a facility hundreds of thousands of miles from their homes.”
“You do it.”
“I’ve been doing it for a long time, too. Who do you think came up with the idea of having different locations?” she asked, quirking her brow at me.
“So the company did it for them, but not you? How is that fair?”
She sighed and came to a stop beside a set of thick steel, double doors. “Life’s not fair, Jared. You should know that by now. Besides, we were able to work from home off and on. That was enough for your dad and me. We made it enough.”
Her tone made it sound so harsh. So cut and dry. “And what about me? What if it wasn’t enough for me?”
She snatched a hold of the door handle in front of her and pulled it toward her. “Everything we did, we did for you. There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t give you… and haven’t given you. Are you saying that wasn’t enough?”
The way she said it made me feel like a spoiled brat. “That’s not what I meant.”
The sound of our shoes squeaking along the glossy-looking concrete floor filled the awkward silence. The fluorescent lighting bounced off the white walls, reflecting off the floors. We passed by a few doors with no handles. Key card scanners were nestled beside them with the same infrared panels my mom had used in the elevator. I started making up my own theories of who or what was behind the locked doors. By the time we made it to the hallway, I’d come up with some off-the-wall things and, by my own imagination, Cole Industries had some sort of mutant super-hero program in their basement.
The hallway angled off to the left and ended at another set of thick steel doors. I brushed my mom’s hand out of the way. When I opened the door, music flooded the air.
“This is where I leave you,” Mom said. She pulled a phone from her back pocket and handed it over. “Here, I had our communications department load all your information into it.”
I took the phone from her and swept her into a quick hug. “I’m sorry, Momma. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“We weren’t fighting,” she said, pulling back to look at me. Her hand went to my cheek. “I hated leaving you, Jared. I want you to know that. It tore at me every time we did. But you were happy… You had your friends. I saw how important they were to you—how you gravitated to one another—and that’s what made leaving you home the best choice. Taking you from them… that would have been selfish of me. You would have ended up resenting us, or worse, hating us if I brought you into a life of solidarity. Because that’s what it would have been for you and I loved you, still love you, too much for that.”
“Yo, Jared! Let’s do this, bro!” Licks yelled from across the room.
Mom chuckled and dropped her hand. “You better get in there.”
I called out as she turned to leave. “Hey, Mom? Thanks for replacing my phone and for…” I tipped my head towards where the guys waited for me.
She smiled as she walked backwards down the hall. “You’re welcome. Oliver will be down in a little bit to take you back upstairs. See ya tonight!”
I stepped inside the room, taking note of the layout. Lars sat behind his drums against the far wall. Three amps and two microphones were set up in front of him. Licks jacked his guitar in and filled the room with a static hiss. He got too close to the amp and the speaker screeched with feedback, making everyone cringe.
Against the opposite wall, Murphy was curled up in the corner of a small, floral-print couch with a notebook resting on her knees. She looked up and gave me a warm smile.
I grabbed the Les Paul from its stand. Pulling the strap over my head to rest on my shoulder, I walked over to where she sat, leaned in, and brushed a kiss against her lips. The look of surprise on her face as she peered over my shoulder at the guys made me chuckle. She darted a worried look between them and me as if saying ‘what are you doing? They’ll see.’ I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. Who cared if they saw us? I wasn’t going to hide my feelings for Murphy. Besides, it would piss them off worse if they thought we’d snuck around behind their backs like we had something to hide.
“Hey, Hot Lips, you think you two can canoodle later? We have a shit ton of practicing to do before tonight,” Licks said into the microphone.
Murphy’s cheeks turned a deep crimson and she sunk further into the couch, w
aving her hand at me to go away.
I turned around and bumped into Retro. He slipped the tuner on my guitar and spoke over my shoulder. “Murph, let’s go over the list again so Jared knows what songs we’ve come up with so far.”
I ran through the notes, making minor adjustment as I listened to Murphy rattle off a list of songs. “We’re only going to have enough time for about five songs, so you guys need to make your decision now in order to practice them enough for tonight.”
Lars stood from his drums and stuck his drumsticks in his back pocket. “I think we should do “Beautiful Oblivion,” only the way that Jared did it on the bus that time.”
Retro and Licks nodded along with what he said.
Retro rested his arm on the neck of his bass. “Yeah, and I think we should do some from the list we made on the bus.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to do covers? I mean, I know we talked about it as a way to get back at Woody, but now it’s not really necessary. Is it?” Lars asked.
Licks walked over to the couch, sat on the arm, put his foot on the cushion, and propped his guitar up on his leg. “It really isn’t even about putting the screws to him anymore. This should be about us, right? Going out our way.”
“True,” Lars replied as he pinched his bottom lip between his fingers.
“So, maybe each of you should pick your favorites from this list and then do “Beautiful Oblivion” for the fifth song,” Murphy suggested.
Each of us rattled off our picks, and Murphy made note as we kicked off the first song.
OLIVER HAD COME IN AS we wrapped up and sat down beside Murphy on the couch. They talked quietly as we ran through the intro to “Beautiful Oblivion” one last time. After playing it only on Stella, I had a hard time getting the soft tone just right.
“I don’t know, man. It seems to lose the impact on an electric. Here, let’s try this,” Lars said as he moved from behind his drums and walked over to where the guitar cases were to take Stella out of her case.
End Note Page 16
