Groupie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 1)

by C. M. Stunich

  “We're Beauty in Lies”—the kick drum pummels the air and then the curtain's up and I get a flash of the boy with turquoise eyes sitting on his throne—“and we're here to welcome you to the first night of the Broken Hearts and Twisted Souls Tour.” Paxton holds the mic in one tattooed hand and lifts the other up to loosen his black tie. His grey eyes twinkle as he takes in the crowd. “This song's called 'How I Say Hello'.”

  He gives one last jerk to his tie and then swings his free arm around, setting his bandmates on fire. Guitars rip from the speakers, played by a guy with razored blue-black hair and one with a tall silver and black mohawk. Confetti explodes from several machines set around the circular stage, and then it begins to move.

  I hold up my left hand and wait for a piece to land on the sweaty surface of my palm, bringing it in close to examine it. It's one half of a broken heart. I slap the sticky confetti piece off on my jeans and glance back at the stage as it turns away from me.

  The bassist and both guitarists are rocking out, tossing their hair as they rev up for a bouncy rock song and Paxton lets out this pained scream into the mic, riding a wave of drumming from the boy in the back. Suddenly, I just feel like I have to know his name.

  I tear my phone from my pocket; I'm not the only one. All around me, people lift phones and tablets up, recording the show as it spins in an easy circle around the stadium. I don't even have to type in the band's whole name before information starts popping up.

  Lead Vocals, Keyboards, Pianos—Paxton Blackwell

  Lead Guitar—Michael Luxe

  Rhythm Guitar—Derek “Muse” Muser

  Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals—Ransom Riggs

  Drums, Percussion—Copeland Park

  Copeland, the boy with eyes as bright as a tropical sea. And Ransom, the boy in the hoodie. Somehow, I've managed to literally run into three separate members of Beauty in Lies before the show even started. Must be some kind of record.

  My breath catches as the stage comes back around and Paxton appears at the edge, reaching out, his arms directly above my head, fingertips just barely brushing the wild straining digits of the crowd.

  “You aren't above it all, just say hello, descend into the darkness of this hellhole. So now I'm feeling like you came just to say I told you so, but down here, deep below, you're the kind of girl I'd rather told me no. You're the kind of girl that drowns hearts and leaves them in a deep blue sea, a siren, a songstress, always calling back to me.”

  “BACK TO ME!” That sensual velvet voice from earlier explodes through the speakers and wraps me up in dripping decadence, Ransom's scream the perfect complement to Paxton's smooth, careful notes. My eyes flick between them and then over to the boy with dark hair, the one that's just covered in tattoos, his eyes this sharp piercing violet, like Elizabeth Taylor or something.

  Holy shit.

  Why are they all so beautiful? I think frantically as my gaze swings to the second guitarist, his mouth quirked in an inviting little smirk, like he's used to smiling at people and getting his way. His tongue sticks out to the side in concentration as he taps his black boots against the floor and rides the wave of Paxton's voice all the way down into this growling scream that drops the lead singer to his knees at the front of the stage.

  If I'd known then that their beauty hid so much darkness, would I have run? If I'd known that they were as broken—maybe more so—than me, would I have climbed the steps to that bus?

  I have no way of answering that.

  Now, covered in the blood of their wounds, hindsight's twenty-twenty vision doesn't seem quite so clear.

  We're almost at the end of our set list when I glance surreptitiously down at the floor between songs, the lights flashing dark as roadies switch out my boys' guitars. VIP ANNOUNCEMENT. That's what's listed next on the piece of paper taped to the ground by my feet. Instead of starting our next song, I have to play along with this bullshit contest.

  Parade for Paxton, please. What a stupid idea. I could've been killed trying to hand out that damn VIP badge. And now I have to serenade the damn winner?

  Bleeding hell.

  I curse under my breath and toss back a water bottle, finishing it off in few quick swallows and passing it off to a roadie to whisk away. By the time the lights come back up, I'm smiling, my suit sticking to my skin with sweat.

  That VIP contest was not my idea, sending all the fangirls on a bloody race around the stadium to see who could spot me first. The record label came up with it, but they never specified I had to be inside the venue. So I sat outside and some girl with purple-red hair and eyes like emeralds had the audacity to stop in and act like she didn't have a damn clue about who I am.

  I stare down at her now, as the stage comes to a brief stop, and then I flick my eyes back to the crowd. They're hungry for me tonight; I can feel it. The first night of our new tour, leaving all the bullshit of my past behind me in the dust, grinding it to soot beneath the soles of my Barker Blacks, the world feels like it belongs to fucking me.

  “Alright, now,” I say as I tuck the microphone back in the stand and play with my tie. They like it when I do that, run my inked fingers up the slick black silk like it's the inside of their thigh, when I curl my fingertips under my collar like I'm dipping inside their hot, wet core. “Would you like another song, then?”

  The cacophony is fucking deafening, but it drowns the quiet, whispering voices inside my head, stills and silences them. I'm not bloody mad, but I do have a past as dark as pitch. Its gaping mouth yawns so wide that I can see all the way down its goddamn throat.

  “Good. Because we have three more for you,” I say and the people keep cheering. I almost wish they'd shut it for a moment, so I could fucking talk, get this little publicity stunt over with. “But first, we need to congratulate the winner of our Parade for Paxton contest, break down these barriers between us.” I gesture at the gap between the stage and the general admission area with a flicker of my tattooed fingers. There's the silhouette of a dark forest there on my skin, the skyline and the trees, stretched across all ten of my fucking digits. “Come on up here, love,” I say as I kneel down and reach out a hand to the girl with the purple-red hair. She's got a red plastic cup in one hand, her feet bare as she looks up at me from down below.

  And goddamn. Goddamn, she's fucking stunning.

  My jaw locks tight as I wait for her to take my hand. So much time passes before she does, that the crowd starts to murmur excitedly, hoping for a little drama. But I don't do drama; I left it far behind me. Yeah, sure, right. Repeat that until it's true, Pax. I'm a goddamn liar, even to myself.

  I hop down off the edge of the stage and take the girl's beer away, passing it to a roadie as she blinks surprised eyes in my direction. Her mouth … it's like this swollen bud, begging to be parted by my lips. I'd like to tear it apart with teeth and tongue, kiss her until those bright green eyes shutter closed and she melts into me.

  “The hell are you doing?” I snap, and I don't even bother to whisper because nobody can hear me down here. “It's time to get onstage.”

  When the girl still doesn't move, this strange glimmering shine to her eyes, I reach down and hoist her over my shoulder. She gasps, but that's it, the only sound I get out of her. She's curvy as hell, her body soft and enticing as it rubs against mine. I carry her straight up the steps and deposit her onstage quick as I can. Holy hell.

  I snatch the mic back up and pass it over to her as one of the roadies puts a stool onstage and encourages her to sit on it.

  “What's your name?” I ask as she stares at me and then lets her eyes trail across my bandmates; not once does she look at the crowd.

  “Lilith,” she says, her voice breathy but with this hint of steel, like she doesn't much care to be messed with. Shame, that. “Lilith Goode.”

  “Well, Lilith,” I say as I kneel down next to her and get ready to sing, “tonight, this song is dedicated to you.”

  Her cheeks bloom with color and I grit my teeth. What the fuck,
Pax? You took two or three of these blushing virgins to bed every night during the last tour. Lost your nerve now, have you? Just because this girl has eyes the same color as Chloe's?

  But I really don't see that many girls with green eyes like this.

  My band plays the opening notes to the song as I push back my dark thoughts. I won't let my fucking dead girlfriend ruin another concert, another day, another second of my life.

  The audience shouts their approval as they wait for me to serenade this sad looking woman in her too-small tank top and tight jeans. There's a ribbon of pale skin between her shirt and waistband, and her breasts are practically spilling out the top. It's distracting, to be sure.

  “I knew from the first moment I met you, held your hand and saw you through, behind the locked door of your bedroom, felt your heartbeat flutter and bloom,” I sing the words as gentle as I can, resting my tattooed fingers on the girl's holey knee, feeling her warm skin beneath me. I rest my chin on my hand and hold the mic close to my lips. “Forever in my arms, I'll hold you close to my heart, protect your smile and keep it from harm, give our love an honest fresh new start.”

  What a load of bullshit.

  The girl I wrote this song for, well, let's just say that didn't exactly work out.

  I stand up suddenly and put the sole of my black loafer on the bottom rung of the stool, right between Miss Lilith Goode's legs. Surprisingly enough, she leans back and spreads her thighs, making the crowd ooh and aah behind me.

  My mouth twitches into a smirk.

  “Tell me how you feel when I smile against your lips, when I wrap my fingers around your hips.”

  I lean down into Lilith's space, but she just stares back at me like she's not sure how she got here. And that's when the lights shift and I notice the tracks of tears on her face. Hmm. What the hell am I supposed to do about that? I wonder as I stand up straight and back away for the next part of the song.

  “Don't just speak the words; I want to hear you SCREAM!”

  I let out the last word in a violent sound of my own, tearing my tie off and tossing it into the crowd as I open my shirt, letting my tattoos show as I back up and let my boys front and center for their guitar solos. I can't just sit still, and I can't look back at that girl, so I spin and twirl and swing my mic until sweat plasters my dirty blonde hair to my forehead.

  When the song ends and I finally glance over at the stool, I see that the girl's already gone.

  Good riddance.

  She looked like trouble to me anyway.

  I squeeze backstage, pushing through the gathered staff as the crowd shouts from all around me.

  “One more song, one more song, one more song!”

  At this point, all I can think about is getting the hell out of there.

  “Excuse me,” the woman from earlier says, her headset still perched atop her mousy brown hair. “Lilith Goode? If you want to wait here, we'll gather up the boys in the lounge for the VIP experience.”

  “VIP experience?” I echo as my heart thunders and sweat pours down the back of my neck. I don't know why, but I just want to get out of there. Now. Get on the road and start heading towards my dad. “What VIP experience?”

  She smiles tightly and puts a hand on my arm, gesturing at my badge with her tablet.

  “Nobody's bothered to explain what you've won, have they?”

  I just stare at her and I feel awful, but …

  I pull the badge from over my head and try to hand it to her.

  “Here. I'm sorry. I have to go. I don't even know what I was thinking coming in here.” The woman blinks plain brown eyes at me as I shake the badge in her direction. “Give it to somebody else.”

  “I'm sorry, what?” she asks snippily, like who could ever possibly turn down such a privilege. “You don't want to attend the meet and greet? That's the grand prize.”

  “Is there cash?” I ask, hating myself for even asking, but God, I'm desperate. I have two hundred bucks, but will that really get me and the Matador all the way to New York? Somehow, I don't think so.

  “No cash—” she starts but then I'm turning and running … right into the chest of the bassist. What was his name? Something weird and edgy. Ransom? His hands take hold of my shoulders and hold me in place as I blink up at him, rubbing my face with the heel of my hand. His chest is … muscular as fuck and that hurt.

  “Whoa there, baby doll,” he says in that thick syrupy voice of his. He bends down and retrieves my badge, passing it back to me, dark eyes shimmering as he stares at me. He's quite a bit taller than me, six inches or more. I have to crane my neck back to meet his gaze. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  “So you're the lucky winner,” another guy says, this the one with the silver mohawk, his dark roots shaved close to his head on either side, giving this ombre sort of effect that draws my eyes up and then snaps them back down to his face. His eyes are facets of color, rich and piercing as he stares at me and smiles. It's a smile that says I always get what I want. Only … as he looks me up and down, I'm not quite sure what that is. “Come up and have a drink with us,” he says, eyes sparkling as he meets my gaze and holds my stare unashamedly.

  “I … I'm sorry,” I say as I weave around the two of them and make a run for the door. Since I'm coming from the opposite direction, none of the security staff tries to stop me as I sprint outside … and into a torrential downpour. “FUCK!” I curse as I pound through puddles in bare feet. Like an idiot, I left my red heels behind. Now, I have no shoes.

  No shoes, no dad, no mom, no sister.

  Nothing at fucking all.

  I sprint through the parking lot as fast as I can, but it's huge, bigger than I remember it being. By the halfway point, my shirt is plastered to my skin and completely see-through, advertising the red bra underneath. In the rain, in the dark, I find myself turned around for a moment and panic when I think I've lost my car. But then I pause and spin in a slow circle, catching sight of it and finding it parked only a few spaces away.

  When I do, I almost wish that it had stayed lost forever.

  Since such a large crowd showed up so early, I ended up having to park in the back corner of the lot, under a broken streetlamp. Well, I'm certainly paying for that now. All of my windows are broken, and across the wet pavement, most of what I own is broken and trashed and sopping wet. All the good stuff is probably gone—the flatscreen I hid in the trunk that Kev bought me for our anniversary, my iPod that was stuffed in the dash, my small box of vintage records that belonged to my mom.

  I stumble over and touch the scratched and dented surface of the trunk with a shaking hand.

  Looks like whoever did this popped it with a crowbar. The assholes also took the time to slit all four tires, smash my headlights, my taillights. And here I am, with a dead dad and two hundred dollars to my name, no car insurance, no apartment, no job.

  I sit down numbly on the pavement, just sit cross-legged in the pouring rain and let it drag my red hair into my face. If there's a difference between my tears and the rain, I'm not sure anybody could tell.

  A couple of people stop and ask if I want them to call the police, but what are the cops going to be able to do? Write up a report? Give me a ride to … nowhere. The crap apartment I signed up for when Kevin and I broke up is gone, the keys handed in, the security deposit lost to my a-hole landlord for 'carpet cleaning'.

  As I sit there, I think about how it hasn't rained in weeks. Weeks of dry desert air and dust. And now … this.

  I drop my face into my hands and wish I could just let go and sob. But I'm too stubborn and I've tried too hard for too long. If I give up now …

  “I was coming out here to give you your shoes, but holy shit.”

  The silver-haired guy leans down next to me, his eyes on the chaos of my car, all my stuff tossed in tempest waves across the rapidly flooding parking lot. I think I'm sitting in about half an inch of water already, like a flash flood.

  I glance over and find the red heels clutche
d in his fingers. He shouldn't have bothered, really. Why didn't he just have a roadie bring them out here?

  “Thanks,” I say, but it's hard to hear my voice through the raging downpour. The word gets lost in the rain as I blink gobs of water from my lashes, only to see them collect again almost immediately. I take the heels and drop them into my wet lap.

  “This is your car?” he asks, but I can tell he already knows. He almost has to shout to be heard above the storm. “Come on, let's get you out of the rain.”

  He reaches out to help me stand, but I wave him away.

  “I need to pick up my stuff,” I say, but even as the words tumble out past my lips, I know it's useless. Even if I gather all my wet soggy clothes, my now dirty pillows and blankets, where will I put them? Back in the car with no windows?

  That's when it finally hits me.

  Dad is dead.

  He's dead.

  My daddy is dead.

  The sobs tear through me, and I double over.

  “Come on and we'll get you dry,” the silver-haired boy … Derek? … says as he puts an arm around me. “Is there anything special you want to grab real quick?”

  I nod and dash my arm across my face.

  “My mother's ashes,” I say and the guy's face flickers with some emotion I can't read.

  “Where are they?” he asks, but all I can do is point toward the trunk. I'd stuffed them inside a pillow and wrapped that in yet another comforter. For all I know, Mom could be scattered in the running waters beneath my feet, carried away toward the storm sewer.

  Derek digs through what's left in the trunk and pauses, picking up a small plastic bag and checking the seal.

  My heart soars for a moment, but only until it realizes how pathetic that is, to be excited that my dead mother's ashes are still in the remains of my ransacked car.

  “Here you go, Lilith,” he says, like maybe he remembers my name from onstage. “Let's go inside.”

  He drapes an arm around my shoulders and escorts me back to the venue.