Rim Shot Rebound

by Leigh Landry

  Contents

  Copyright

  Cajun Two-Step Novellas

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Cajun Two-Step Novellas

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  RIM SHOT REBOUND by Leigh Landry

  Published by Leigh Landry

  Lafayette, LA, USA

  © 2018 Leigh Landry

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Edited by Mackenzie Walton

  Cover photography from Depositphotos.com

  Cajun Two-Step Novellas

  Second Fiddle Flirt

  Six String Sass

  Rim Shot Rebound

  Novella #4

  (2018)

  Chapter One

  Don’t puke.

  Kelsey had been giving her body that one little command ever since she drove onto Robin’s property. Unfortunately, her stomach was completely ignoring her and currently staging a mutiny.

  She wasn’t usually sick this late in the day, especially if she’d eaten a decent dinner. Her little pep talk had been working all through the long drive down country roads to Robin’s adorable house out in the middle of Nowhere, Louisiana. Kelsey shouldn’t have had any problem keeping her stomach in check through their weekly rehearsal.

  But then she’d heard that familiar knock—their old college drum cadence—on Robin’s kitchen door.

  “Eric!” Robin, their accordion player and band ring leader, pulled his tall, lanky-but-solid frame in for a hug. She was a full head and a half shorter than him, but she made up for her lack of height in enthusiasm and heart.

  Kelsey kept her eyes glued to the floor in front of her. If she didn’t see him, maybe she could squash this nausea.

  “Sorry. Had to wait with a kid. Parent was running late after their lesson.” That smooth, baritone voice drew Kelsey’s eyes up to the apologetic smile stretching through the short boxed beard on his dark face, and she felt that familiar heat wash over her. He wore nearly black jeans with a light gray dress shirt unbuttoned at the top and a light gray newsboy cap, Kelsey’s favorite from his hat collection. He had this jazzy cool vibe, no matter what he wore, like he was the walking personification of an old blues bar. An incredibly sexy old blues bar.

  She dug inside her purse for her little bag of magic and poured a few yellow lifelines onto her hand. As soon as she popped one in her mouth, the tart zing instantly settled her stomach.

  “You all set?” Robin asked Eric.

  “Yup. Bass is in the studio.”

  “Good.” Robin sniffed and gave a double take at Kelsey. “What’s that?”

  “Lemon drops?” Kelsey held out the rest in her hand to show Robin. She willed her hand not to shake and mentally begged Robin not to ask any more questions about her snack choices. Kelsey didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and they all knew it. If there was an opportunity for dessert, she’d rather have more fries or chips and dip.

  Robin examined Kelsey for another moment. “Well, let’s get this thing rolling. I’ve got fun stuff to discuss before we break tonight.”

  “Fun stuff?” Eric’s dark eyes sparkled at the word and possibilities. He looked at Kelsey with a raised eyebrow, as if she might know what fun stuff Robin was referring to.

  Kelsey leaned against the counter beside her as her body began to sway under that curious stare of his. The one that made her want to tell him all her secrets and anything else he wanted to know.

  She gave a small shrug. Truthfully, she had no idea what Robin was hinting at, which meant it probably wasn’t going to be as fun as Robin was hyping it to be. But there was no point asking more questions at this point. Robin would tell them all when she was good and ready. No sooner.

  “I’m always down for fun.” Eric made an exaggerated flourish with his long, muscular arm to gesture for Kelsey to go ahead of him through the back door. Ever the gentleman. Except when he wasn’t.

  She started to walk through the door, but realized that would put her walking beside him across the yard to Robin’s rehearsal studio out back. The awkward silence and Eric’s strained small talk would make that walk of a few yards feel like five thousand miles. She used to feel so comfortable beside him, but now she spent most of her time avoiding him, resisting that constant, undeniable pull she felt towards him.

  “I’m gonna grab Nat and Lauren. Be there in a sec.”

  Eric tilted his head and gave the same concerned look Robin had given her earlier. “Everything okay, Kel?”

  “Great!” Her voice was an octave higher than normal and downright perky. For Christ’s sake. She was wearing a black T-shirt with a cymbal dripping blood. She wasn’t perky.

  Get it together.

  Eric frowned, clearly not buying her act, but he followed Robin outside anyway. A few months ago, he would have cracked a joke and called her on it. But things had been weird between them ever since the last time they were together—one of their many “this doesn’t mean anything” hookups—right before Bria, an old high school girlfriend Eric had recently gotten back together with.

  Maybe things were getting serious with Eric and Bria.

  Her breath and pulse sped up as her stomach did flips, and she fought not to think about Eric or his girlfriend or any of that. Not now. She had to keep it together now. At least through this rehearsal.

  Kelsey breathed a sigh of relief when the door shut behind Eric and Robin. She went to the living room to tell the other two band members that they were heading out back for rehearsal, but Natalie and Lauren were already walking together toward the kitchen. Kelsey still wasn’t used to seeing them getting along. Heck, she’d even heard they went on a double date together a couple weeks ago.

  Natalie, their guitar player and Kelsey’s closest friend in the group, narrowed her eyes when she saw Kelsey sucking on a candy and shaking a handful more in her fist. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose braid, and she put her hands on the plaid shirt tied at her waist. “Tell Robin we’ll be there in a minute.”

  Lauren, their fiddler and newest member, looked back and forth between Kelsey and Natalie. She tucked her long, reddish-brown hair behind her ears, then nodded and left them alone. Kelsey really liked her. Losing their friend and original fiddle player, Camille, during her stint in rehab had been quite a blow, but Lauren was fitting in pretty well with the group so far. Both on fiddle and as part of their little found family.

  “So what gives?” Natalie nodded at the candy in Kelsey’s hand.

  Kelsey shrugged. “Sweet tooth.”

  “Bullshit. Twice this past month you’ve mentioned not feeling well. And lately I haven’t seen you without a mint or a sucker or some sour candy in your mouth.” Natalie raised her eyebrows. “Got something you want to tell me?”

  Kelsey’s brain flashed back to the damn plastic stick with the pink line on it. She’d called Nat as soon as she saw the results, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Nat the truth. Instead, she’d made up some reason for calling, then hung up and cried on her bathroom floor.

  “Not
yet.”

  Natalie frowned. “Well, you know where to find me when you do, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  They left the rest unsaid. One of the many reasons Kelsey loved Natalie like the sister she’d never had.

  They left the house together and crossed Robin’s property to the little workshop that was several yards behind the main house. The mixture of warm-up notes from the bass, fiddle, and accordion danced on the spring breeze. Natalie opened the door and a cacophony of sounds flooded out from the studio.

  Kelsey squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked inside to the drum set in the back. Right beside Eric.

  His head was down, bobbing along with the rhythm as the long, dark fingers of one hand danced along the neck of his upright bass, and the other hand plucked furiously at the strings farther down. He cradled the wood so soulfully it made Kelsey jealous of the instrument every time she watched him lost in the music that way.

  She broke her gaze away from him and focused. Then she snatched her sticks from the resting spot on the snare and straddled the throne to test out the bass pedal, making sure it moved smoothly, but also banging out a few frustrated poundings. She gripped a stick in each hand and twisted her wrists furiously back and forth, warming up her forearms, and bent back her fingers to stretch out her muscles.

  The good news was that she didn’t feel sick anymore. Not with the sounds of her favorite people playing their favorite bits of melodies all around her. This…this was home for Kelsey. The home and family she’d never had before. The one she’d been looking for all her life.

  But while she didn’t feel like she was going to hurl on her snare, sitting next to Eric filled her with incredible emptiness and frustration. She had accepted months ago that they were never going to be together again. Not in any way that really mattered. Nothing would magically change the fact that she would never be enough for him. Not her by herself.

  She instinctively looked down at her stomach, but snapped her head back up.

  Fine. She’d accepted that. She just needed to figure out how to get through this next big performance. How to play beside him every week without wanting to throw her arms around him. Because that wasn’t part of her reality anymore. They weren’t a reality anymore.

  She just needed to hang on for another couple of months. She’d figure the rest out later.

  She dug into a long, loud roll on the snare and ended it with the crack of a rim shot to get their attention. “We ready or what?”

  Robin released a last long note on her accordion while Lauren and Natalie dropped their instruments. Kelsey didn’t look to see what Eric was doing.

  “So is everyone cool with the set list I sent out for the festival next month?” Robin asked. When everyone nodded in agreement, she said, “Lauren, you good?”

  “Yup,” Lauren said. “Still working through some originals, but I’ll have them down after a couple more weeks for sure.”

  Kelsey remembered back to that last email Robin sent out over the weekend, and how Robin had asked if they were all free one Saturday afternoon that month. “You said something about a new gig?”

  “Oh yeah. Private party. A company crawfish boil. Everyone still good for that next Saturday?”

  “Yeah,” Kelsey said. “Just wondering what it was.”

  “Real low-key,” Robin said. “I figure we can play mostly standards and a few originals Lauren’s solid on so far. I’ll send out a set list for that one this weekend, then we can run through all of that next Thursday before the gig. Should be fine.”

  “Sounds good,” Eric chimed in.

  Kelsey forced herself to look at Robin. Only at Robin.

  She could do this. One rehearsal at a time. A month and a half. Focus.

  Robin cleared her throat nervously. That couldn’t be good. Robin was their rock, the one who kept them all in check and kept the band running smoothly. She was never nervous. At least not visibly.

  “I was going to wait until after rehearsal to bring this up, but since we’re talking gigs and all now, might as well throw this out there.” Her eyes switched back and forth between Eric and Kelsey.

  Shit.

  Robin pulled absently at the ends of her dark, wavy bob that fell just below her jawline. “I was thinking we haven’t added any new songs in a while.”

  Natalie swung her guitar to the side and immediately lit up. “Ooh, I like it!”

  No surprise there. Natalie was up for anything. Well, anything except whatever she hated that day. But if she was excited about something, she was all the way into it. Foot on the gas pedal. And Robin wasn’t much different—she just got a slower start getting to that excitement cliff.

  “But wait,” said Natalie. “No Camille.”

  Camille had taken the lead on writing most of their songs, sometimes collaborating with someone else in the band. That someone else had usually been Kelsey, since she’d taken lots of composition classes for her music degree. But Kelsey wasn’t the only one Camille had collaborated with.

  Shit.

  “Kelsey and Eric?” Robin said. “Up for it?”

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Heck yeah.” Eric was firmly in the up-for-anything camp with Robin and Natalie. “Kel, you in?”

  She’d had a plan. Get through a few more rehearsals. A couple of gigs. Spend as little time alone with Eric as possible. Face everything in a month or two. By then she’d know if there was still anything to tell him this time.

  But this threw a wrench in everything.

  Kelsey looked up and saw a room of expectant, hope-filled faces staring back at her. Even Lauren—who had enough on her plate already as newest member and having to learn a ton of songs the last few weeks—had her wide, eager eyes trained on Kelsey, waiting for an answer. Waiting for the same answer they all wanted to hear.

  As the analytical, levelheaded member of the band, Kelsey’s designated job was to rein everyone else in with a hefty dose of reality when necessary. Dodging shitty situation after shitty situation most of her childhood, she’d developed a quick, keen eye for when things were headed south, and she felt an obligation to share those warning signs. She was never afraid to cut and run, as they’d all learned pretty quickly when she’d almost bailed on the band last year after her painful breakup with Eric. If it hadn’t been for Natalie begging her to stay, she would have been long gone. No looking back.

  Kelsey stared down at the sticks in her hands. She was making peace with the idea that the upcoming festival might be her last big gig with the band for a while, but peace didn’t erase the sting. She would miss playing. Especially playing with these people.

  But writing…

  She could still write tunes if she was a gazillion months pregnant. This could be her way of being part of things.

  Except writing a song meant work sessions. Just her and Eric. Long afternoons. Late nights. Listening to him noodling on the piano. Scribbling heartfelt lyrics. It would ruin her.

  And yet, she didn’t know how to say no to any of that.

  She looked up from her sticks to Robin and nodded. “I’m in.”

  * * * * *

  When they shut down for the night, Eric packed his bass into its gig bag in a hurry. He’d been trying to figure some reason to talk to Kelsey alone all week. Some reason to drop the news that he’d broken up with Bria. That no amount of hook-ups or old flames would ever help him forget what he had with Kelsey. That he wanted nothing more in this world than to be with Kelsey again. To earn her trust and love again. For good this time.

  Robin had dropped a gigantic gift in his lap with this songwriting thing. Although Robin wouldn’t think it was such a gift if she knew what he had in mind. Or maybe she did know what she was doing. Probably why she seemed so nervous to ask them in the first place, considering how their breakup had rocked the band.

  By the time he zipped the bag shut and turned back to the drum set beside him, Kelsey and her sticks were gone.

  “Kel, wait!” he
shouted at her back. She didn’t hear him, and the studio door shut behind her and Natalie. Eric lifted his bass and shuffled across the room to catch up with them, but he wasn’t making any ground navigating the gigantic instrument around chairs and stands.

  Finally, he cleared the now-empty room and squeezed through the door in time to see Kelsey and Natalie already at their cars. He trotted toward them, praying he didn’t trip in the grass, and shouted again. “Kel, wait up!”

  She froze at her car door, and for a second he though she either didn’t hear him or worse—she heard him and was leaving anyway.

  He could tell something had been bugging her all night. For weeks he’d gotten the sense that she was avoiding him, but for the life of him he didn’t know why. Sure, he’d given her a lifetime worth of reasons when they’d broken up, when they’d lost more than just each other. Losing her had nearly destroyed him, especially knowing she was hurting too. At the time he’d thought he was doing the right thing, but now…now he wasn’t so sure he hadn’t done more harm than good.

  Still, he thought they were moving past that. Things were easier between them again. Or at least they had been until recently.

  Kelsey turned and waited for him to reach her car. She was beautiful illuminated by the moonlight. He wanted to reach out and run his hand along the smooth skin of her face, to kiss her soft, glossy lips under those stars.

  Instead, he leaned his bass against the back of his van parked beside her. “Wild, right? You and me writing something. Just us. Without Camille.”

  Her pale skin looked paler than normal. Maybe even a little greenish. Her face was missing any trace of the spark he was used to seeing. That bright-eyed, determined spark of hers that he’d fallen in love with. Over and over.

  Her signature purple streak fell away from the rest of her straight, raven-black shoulder-length hair. He wanted so badly to reach out and brush it away, to tuck it behind her ear, but he kept his hand at his side.