by Bec Linder
Contents
Wild Open
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
Other Books by Bec Linder
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Wild Open
by Bec Linder
CHAPTER ONE
The club was loud, crowded, and hot. Summertime in L.A.: the club’s air conditioning couldn’t keep up with the sweating bodies packed into close quarters, or the powerful lights shining down on the band on stage. Leah’s T-shirt stuck to her lower back, and a slow trickle of sweat worked its way downward between her breasts.
She was starting to regret her decision to come.
Mateo had sworn up and down that he would go with her, and then ditched her—of course—at the last possible second. Something about his girlfriend’s nephew’s birthday party. She had seriously considered bailing. But it was her very favorite band, the best one, the one she always went to see whenever they were in town, and that was why she had gone anyway, and that was why she was standing wedged in the crowd, wearing combat boots that stuck to the floor and a mini-skirt that kept riding up her thighs. The man behind her kept elbowing her in the back. The man in front of her was so tall that she had to crane her neck to the side to see the stage. A woman to her left periodically flailed around and jostled Leah’s beer. And there was still another opening act to go before the main event.
“Fuck yeah! Yeah!” the flailing woman screamed, and slammed her body into the man in front of her, sparking a chain reaction that ended with Leah’s beer finally giving up the ghost and spilling all over her boots and the sticky floor.
“Okay,” Leah said to nobody in particular, holding her empty cup. The flailing woman moshed her way to the front. The man she had slammed into gave Leah a sympathetic look.
It was time for another drink.
She fought her way through the crowd toward the slightly-less-packed area at the back of the club near the bar. The man on stage was singing about heartbreak and a beautiful woman who had left him behind. The bass pounded through the floor. The crowd sang along, voices raised to join in the chorus. Leah sang along softly. She liked this song.
The relative peace and quiet at the bar was a relief after the intense heat and closeness of the crowd near the stage. Leah leaned against the bar and waited for the bartender to notice her.
The guy beside her was looking at her. She felt his eyes on her face, that subtle prickle of attention and awareness. “Hey,” he said, leaning in. “You look really familiar.”
Oldest line in the book. Leah managed not to roll her eyes.
“I know what it is,” he said. “You were in Rung, weren’t you?”
She drew in a breath. This was even worse than getting chatted up. “Yeah.”
“I saw you guys play at Largo last year,” he said. “I was sorry to hear that you broke up.”
“Yeah,” Leah said. This was what she got for coming to an indie show. She had forgotten how small and incestuous the L.A. music scene was. “Me too.” She looked away from him and started rummaging through her purse, pretending to look for her phone.
The guy took the hint and went back to talking with his friends. Leah’s shoulders relaxed.
The bartender came over and said, “What can I get for you?”
She ordered a beer and drank it, perched on a stool with her elbows on the bar. The band finished playing, and the second opener took the stage. She wasn’t familiar with their music, but it was good. Catchy. The music caught her up the way it always did, a thick sonic blanket dampening the background noise of her restless mind, and she lost track of time.
A man sidled up to the bar beside her and leaned forward, searching for the bartender.
“He just went into the back,” Leah said, raising her voice to be heard over the music.
The man glanced at her and flashed a quick smile. “Thanks.”
He was cute: scruffy, dark-haired, good shoulders. Worn jeans that rode low on his hips. Leah looked him up and down while he waited for the bartender, drumming his fingers against the dented surface of the bar.
Very cute.
The beer warmed Leah’s belly, making her bold. It had been a long time. Too many months of mourning and regrets. Maybe a little light flirtation was exactly what she needed. She leaned toward him. “Do you know anything about these guys?”
The man glanced at her again. “Not really. I’m here to see the headliners.”
“Me too,” Leah said. “I like these guys, though. Their drummer is doing some interesting things.”
He turned toward her then, supporting himself with one elbow propped on the bar. He was even better-looking from the front. His broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist, and his jeans strained across his muscular thighs. He looked like he worked out. “You know about music?”
“A little bit,” she said. She shouldn’t have opened with that. Now he was going to grill her about music theory. She took another sip of her beer.
His eyes shifted from her face to the bar behind her. “You’re here by yourself?”
She shrugged. “My friend ditched me.”
“That sucks,” he said. “I can’t say I’m too sorry about it, though. You probably wouldn’t be talking to me otherwise.”
“Maybe you can be my friend,” Leah said, greatly daring. Was she flirting? Was this what flirting felt like?
He raised an eyebrow and gave her a slow and very obvious once-over. Leah’s face heated. “I would love to be your friend.”
God. He was definitely flirting with her. A flush of warmth spread through Leah’s body, and this time it wasn’t just the alcohol.
The bartender re-emerged, carrying a plastic tub filled with lemons. The guy—Leah’s guy, her mystery man—caught the bartender’s attention, and he came over, grinning. Leah watched as they slapped hands.
“Hey, man,” the bartender said. “Good to see you.”
“Yeah, likewise,” Leah’s guy said. “It’s been a while.”
“What can I get for you?” the bartender asked.
Leah’s guy glanced at her and grinned. “Three shots of Jack.”
“No,” Leah said. “Oh, no. Nope.” Terrible idea. She was already working on her third beer of the night—cheap, watered-down beer, but still. If they started doing shots, she would end up on the floor.
“Oh, yes,” the guy said, and the bartender had already turned away to pour the shots, and Leah accepted her fate.
Why did it matter? The music was playing loud enough that she could feel it shake her bones, and the guy kept looking at her with gray eyes like the ocean in winter, and she wanted it. She wanted him. She was going to have him.
They did their shots—two for him, and one for her—and then he ordered another round, and they did those, and then Leah said, “If I drink any more I’m going to die,” and ordered a glass of water. She felt a little spinny, a little blurry around the edges. She felt good.
“You’re not too drunk, are you?” he asked, looking concerned.
She laughed. She spun on her stool to face him, and she placed one hand on his chest. His heart beat beneath her palm. She was a brave person now. The alcohol gave her just enough courage to do wha
t she would ordinarily be far too embarrassed to do. Leah didn’t hit on strangers at bars. She wasn’t that person. Except after three beers and two shots of whiskey.
He was gorgeous, even by L.A. standards, and way out of her league. She didn’t care about any of that now. He was smiling at her, talking to her, touching her knee. He was interested. He wanted more.
He had asked her a question. “I’m not too drunk at all,” she said. “I’m exactly drunk enough.”
He grinned. “For what?”
“For this,” Leah said, and leaned in and kissed him in the one quiet moment between songs.
Then the next song came, an avalanche of joyous sound.
He slid his hands into her hair and kissed her back.
The first touch of his lips set a new song humming through Leah’s body, and she vibrated in counterpoint to the music playing from the stage. He kissed her like he meant business. His mouth was soft but firm, and his short beard prickled at Leah’s skin. His hands slid down her body to her hips. One big palm moved to her lower back and drew her closer toward him, and she went, letting him ease her forward until she was perched on the edge of the bar stool, her thighs splayed around his hips. He slid his tongue along her lower lip, asking permission, and she opened her mouth and let him in.
He felt so incredibly good that there was a good chance she would fall off her bar stool right then and there, dead from pleasure.
The song ended. It was Leah’s favorite band on stage, playing all of her favorite songs, and she didn’t care. She wasn’t even listening. All she wanted to do was keep kissing this man.
“Hey,” he said, murmuring the words against her mouth. “Let’s go outside.”
She grinned. “Really? What do you think is going to happen out there?”
“A little making out, a little hanky panky,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to screw you in an alleyway behind a bar. I do have some class.”
“Good to know,” Leah said, delighted by him and his big hands. Hanky panky. Nobody talked like that.
They went out back, past the disinterested bouncer and the smokers and the row of dumpsters. Leah’s boot caught in a hole in the pavement, and she stumbled, but he was right behind her, one arm around her waist, holding her steady. “Careful,” he said, laughter in his voice, and his other hand came around to slide beneath the hem of her T-shirt, splaying warm across her belly.
It was a hot, sticky night. They kissed, leaning against the brick wall. Leah couldn’t remember the last time she felt this happy. The guy’s hands wandered up her thighs. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He pulled back and looked at her intently. “Are we really going to do this?”
She was smiling; she couldn’t help it. “Why not?”
His answering smile built slowly and kindled a fire inside her belly.
He said, “Let’s do it.”
* * *
O’Connor woke up and couldn’t remember where he was.
Every hotel room was a minor variation on a theme: bed, television, bathroom. They all blurred together after a while. He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. White. Stucco. Not informative.
Los Angeles. That was where they were.
Because Kerrigan had quit. Because fucking Andrew couldn’t rein it in.
He rubbed his hands over his face. His fingers smelled like perfume.
Right. There had been that girl. Sharp, eager. He hadn’t fucked her, he was pretty sure. No. They had made out in the alley for a while, and then she had told him she needed to go home.
Good. He wasn’t a one-night-stand sort of guy.
Also, having sex with groupies was a universally terrible idea.
Unfair. She hadn’t been a groupie. He didn’t think she had recognized him, which honestly wasn’t too surprising. The kind of girl who went to indie shows at dive bars probably didn’t spend too much time listening to the top 40.
His head ached. Not badly. He hadn’t drunk all that much beer. He needed a hot shower, a few glasses of water, and some coffee. And then more coffee. Maybe something stronger. Shit, they were holding auditions that afternoon. Definitely something stronger.
He rolled out of bed and headed for the shower.
Fifteen minutes later, he was on his way downstairs to the lobby. Rushani had told them they had a band meeting at 10:00, and the last thing he wanted to do was piss her off. She was a worrier under the best of circumstances, and with everything that was going on with Andrew, she had become a coiled knot of tension, ready to crack down on anyone who broke the rules. O’Connor didn’t think she had been sleeping very much.
The hotel’s restaurant was mostly empty. People had checked out already, or gone off for their day of sightseeing. An elderly couple sat near the door, reading the newspaper over their empty breakfast dishes. A woman in a suit ate an omelet in quick, neat bites. O’Connor moved toward the table in the back corner where Rushani was sitting with James and, surprisingly, Andrew. She must have dragged him out of bed. He looked at least halfway sober.
O’Connor sat down and tossed his sunglasses on the table. “I’m not late, am I?”
“No,” Rushani said, giving him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Right on time. I ordered coffee and a bagel for you.”
“Bless your heart,” O’Connor said.
“This is a goddamn farce,” Andrew said, bitter, his voice raw and ragged. He smoked too much. He didn’t care about anything except getting wasted and having sex with women he picked up at shows. He didn’t even seem to care about the band anymore. Or even about the music. His long hair was greasy and falling into his face in lank strings. The circles beneath his eyes had progressed from blue to a dark purple, like a two-day-old bruise. He looked like shit. He was wearing the same T-shirt he’d had on for the past three days. O’Connor was glad he was sitting on the other side of the table. Andrew probably smelled about as good as he looked.
“It’s not a farce,” Rushani said, with an edge to her voice that had grown all too familiar lately. She was clean, dressed, and perfectly made up, but her eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. “We have two days to find another bassist. You’re playing in San Francisco on Monday night. Jeff can fill in if we’re desperate, but you know he doesn’t want to be on stage. You should be thanking your lucky stars that Kerrigan is a good person and waited to leave until we had a few days off.”
“Kerrigan’s a fucking traitor,” Andrew rasped. “Fuck him. We’re better off without him.”
Rushani’s mouth thinned into a grim line, and she looked away.
“Just shut up, Andrew,” James said, sounding tired. O’Connor knew the feeling. “Kerrigan left because you’re an insufferable piece of shit. Keep your mouth shut and don’t make it any worse than it already is.”
Andrew scowled. “Who died and made you the king of the universe?”
O’Connor took a long sip of coffee. This was an old argument, worn thin in its predictability. The specifics changed, but the underlying truth held steady: Andrew was self-destructing, and he was hell-bent on taking all the rest of them with him. The band wouldn’t survive. Andrew didn’t care. O’Connor had only recently realized how bad things had gotten, but he was beginning to think that Andrew didn’t care if he lived or died.
“Stop it,” Rushani said. The words were flat and expressionless. She was worn out. They all were. She leaned to one side and took a folder from her bag on the floor. “I called some people. Word should get around. We’re holding auditions today at 3:00. I want all of you there and sober. This isn’t a game. If you don’t have a bassist, you don’t have a tour, and nobody gets paid.”
Andrew still cared about money, at least for the time being. “I don’t see why Jeff can’t do it,” he said.
“Jeff has no stage presence,” James said. He unzipped his hoodie and then zipped it up again. It was a nervous habit that got worse when he was stressed.
“He doesn’t like the spotli
ght,” Rushani said, diplomatic, smoothing things over. O’Connor wasn’t sure what would have happened to them in the past few months without her. Utter destruction. The apocalypse. “He’s a great tech. He’s happier backstage.”
“I don’t want some stranger coming in and fucking everything up,” Andrew said. He finally noticed the cup of coffee on the table in front of him, and began scooping sugar into it, one heaping spoonful at a time. O’Connor watched in mute horror. It would be completely undrinkable. A diabetic sludge. What a waste of good coffee. “We don’t need a bassist. O’Connor can loop some shit in the studio and we’ll play it—”
“No,” O’Connor said.
“What do you mean, no?” Andrew asked. “You don’t call the shots here, asshole. If I say that you’re going to do it—”
“You don’t call the shots, either,” Rushani said, calm, very quiet, implacable. “This isn’t your decision, Andrew. You hired me to make these decisions. I’ve decided. We’re holding auditions.”
Andrew sneered at her. “Yeah, I hired you, and I can fire you again.”
“You absolutely can’t,” James said. The past months had changed him. As Andrew deteriorated, James had stepped up and become the band’s de facto leader. O’Connor was happy to cede that responsibility. He didn’t want to worry about paperwork or keeping the fans happy. He just wanted to play his guitar. “You’re outnumbered. O’Connor and I both want her here.” He shot a quick glance in O’Connor’s direction, checking for agreement, and O’Connor nodded slightly. He was Team Rushani all the way. “This isn’t your band. We walk away, and you’ve got nothing.”
“I’m everything,” Andrew said. “You’re nothing without me. I write all of the lyrics. I sing all of the songs that keep teenage girls up at night, staring at my face plastered on their wall, and probably crying because they won’t ever have me.”
“I write all of the fucking music,” O’Connor snapped, goaded into arguing with Andrew, which everyone knew was a fool’s game. He inhaled deeply and took another sip of coffee. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what Andrew said or did. The only thing that mattered was the band. He was going to keep the band together or die trying.
