NicenEasy

by Lynne Connolly

  “Not just luck.”

  “Some of it is. Being in the right place at the right time, developing what people want when they want it.” He grinned. “I’m not saying there wasn’t some fucking hard work involved. You get to be good and make a career by working hard and keeping at it. But that last hit, the one that takes the ball out of the field? Very often it’s just good fortune. When I think I’m getting too arrogant, I always remind myself of that. It could have been someone else in that pub when Hunter walked in. I might never have talked to Jace that night when he invited me into the band. I could be playing with another rock band, one barely scraping a living.”

  “Are you glad you’re with this band?”

  He grinned and dropped a kiss on her lips. “Infinitely, especially this second lineup. We just—work.”

  “So Riku and Zazz have made the big difference.”

  “They’re both risk takers. Before they arrived, we were good, not spectacular, and on our way. Until Matt zoned out.” He paused. “When he left, we knew we wanted to go on, so they came in and they pushed us, made us think about what we could do, what we could be. And as a producer, Matt’s adding so much more, although he was a great vocalist.” He paused. “I could kiss you all day.” He bent his head and gently opened her lips with his tongue, giving her one of the thorough kisses she loved.

  There was that word again. “Right back at you,” she murmured when she could.

  “What?” The corner of his mouth quirked in a smile.

  “For today, I love you.”

  “That sounds good to me.” This time his kiss was deeper and longer. “I won’t expect anything and I don’t want you to.”

  “Except fidelity.”

  “Except that.”

  Another step toward a closeness she’d never fully known before. Honesty. “I’ve never gone this far before.”

  He undulated his body against hers. “I know you weren’t a virgin.”

  “No, not that. I mean the honesty thing.”

  “Ah, that.” He paused. “I always want that. If I’m not getting it, I walk away.”

  That sounded ominous. “A threat?”

  “No, just how I work.”

  “You wouldn’t work through the problem?”

  He shrugged. “Not usually.” He shook his head. “It’s just something I can’t do. I watched it happen for years and I swore it would never happen to me.”

  She said nothing, just continued to meet his gaze. He rolled over onto his back, drawing her with him, and she went, resting her head on his shoulder and tucking one leg between his. “Yeah, well.” He puffed out another breath. “My parents are pretty ordinary on the surface, but like all ordinary people, concerns seethe underneath. My dad’s a bank manager. He works in a small town in England and he’s content. Or he would be, if not for my mother. Sure, they’re still together, which most people consider good, but he’d have left her years ago if she hadn’t stopped him. She’s a teacher though she doesn’t work these days. It’s not a vocational thing. It’s what she found easiest. The path of least resistance, with not too many risks involved.”

  This didn’t sound good. She’d never heard that bitter tone in his voice before.

  “She worked a few years, enough to secure maternity leave and then she had us. Three of us, a year between each of us. I’m the eldest.” So plain, matter-of-fact that he could be talking about someone else, not about himself. “She got ill when she was expecting Maeve and had to spend the last two months of her pregnancy in hospital. I think that’s where she must have got the taste for it.”

  She cupped his cheek. “For what, Donovan?”

  His mouth twisted in a grimace. “For being ill, for getting attention that way. Not hypochondria as such, because I don’t think she believes she’s ill, but using the illness to get attention. When I got chicken pox, she said she was too ill to take care of me properly and she left me in bed most of the time. Dad brought me something to eat every night. He got to be a good cook.” He sighed.

  “Deception, Allie. She deceived us all. Paul and Maeve and I got wise eventually. She stopped me going to university, said she couldn’t cope on her own, and I believed her until I discovered her eating a hearty meal, all things she claimed she was allergic to. Fish and chips when she was sensitive to fish and allergic to gluten and starch. That was it for me and I left home and found a place at an art college. She did me a favor in a way, because I worked behind bars and in pubs to get some cash. That’s when I started playing with bands.”

  “I never read any of this.” She said it without thinking but his hand stilled on her body where he’d been stroking her before. “You know I like the band’s music. I love it, and the latest album blew me away. I play it all the time.”

  “So you’re a proper groupie,” he said with a smile.

  “I guess I am.” Yes, honesty. “I read about you too. Everything I can find.”

  “Did you fantasize about us?”

  What was this, truth or dare? But he’d just told her an important part of his life, one she hadn’t read anywhere online or off. “Yes, yes I did. I told you. Some of the things you said, when we—” She couldn’t say any more, but she could tell he knew what she meant. That he’d hit her fantasies on the nail.

  “If you tell me more, we’ll make it better. Every time.”

  When he looked at her like that, eyes blazing with passion, she wanted to tell him everything. And when he held her, she felt ridiculously safe. She’d always sworn she’d make her own way in the road but she needed him like she’d needed nobody else. “It was you,” she said. “Always you at the center.”

  “Since we’re in the right place…”

  As his lips touched hers, someone rapped on the outer door and then walked in without waiting for an answer.

  Donovan rolled off Allie and she dragged up the sheet to cover her breasts. Hello, rock star lifestyle.

  Donovan sat up and ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his face. “Fuck, don’t you know to wait after you knock?”

  Chick Fontaine in the flesh. Allie had seen pictures of him but the man sometimes known as “the bear” was even more ursine in person. Thick black hair and a beard enhanced the burly figure, and although the beard was carefully clipped and shaped, it still gave the startling blue eyes a wild emphasis. “Shit, man, don’t you know how to lock doors?” He indicated the outer door with a wave of his hand. He glanced at Allie. “Hi.”

  “Chick, this is Allie. Get used to seeing her.”

  Chick shrugged, an impressive movement of massive shoulders. “Yeah. I’ve seen you online. So hi, Allie. Where are you from?”

  “Wisconsin via Essex and Germany.” Chick raised a brow. “My dad was in the army,” she explained.

  “Oh, right.”

  “She’s an editor with Casterbridge,” Donovan said. Allie stayed frozen, the sheet firmly tucked under her armpits. Considering that a few seconds before she was about to do the dirty with her new lover, she felt too vulnerable to take part in a rational conversation.

  Chick turned his attention to her and she felt the power of his intelligence. “Casterbridge, eh? That’s one way of poaching an author.”

  Donovan growled low in his throat. “That doesn’t come into the equation.”

  Chick brightened. “Really? Okay, Donovan, am I planning for her on the tour?”

  “Until I tell you otherwise.” Donovan’s words clashed with Allie’s “Until Los Angeles”, which made them turn and glare at each other. But only briefly. When Donovan reached for her, Allie moved away, which proved surprisingly tricky in a bed this large. Probably because she had most of the top sheet wrapped around her.

  “You have another visitor in the main area,” Chick said. “Your mother.” He beamed.

  Donovan and Allie gasped and Donovan supplemented that comment with an “Oh, crap.”

  “Something wrong? She wrote me last week and said she’d love to come visit. She and your father had
a few days and I suggested they come and see the concert.”

  Donovan sighed. “You suggested or she hinted?”

  Chick shrugged. “I thought you’d like it. Anyhow, your entourage is growing daily.” He glanced at Allie. “The agent guy wants a word too, but he says he’s cool to hang for a while.”

  “He’s just getting over the flu. I don’t know whether to tell you to avoid him or talk. The idea of you two together scares me.”

  Chick beamed, an expression that gave him the appearance of a large teddy bear. “Thanks for that. I’ll take him a coffee.”

  Donovan slapped a hand over his face and groaned. “Fuck, I’ve created a monster.”

  Allie was laughing as Chick left the room. Donovan wasn’t. “I’ll take a quick shower and get out there,” he said. He glanced at her. “She’s seen the pictures on the internet, that’s why she’s come. You can stay here if you like.”

  She made a quick decision. “No, I’ll come with you.”

  They got out of bed and began to dress. “I forget who you are,” she said, rummaging in her case for clean underwear. “After two days, I’m thinking of you as Donovan.” He turned around as she did and smiled. “Not Don,” she added as she pulled on her panties.

  He took her hands. “Thanks. My mother calls me Don. She wanted to call me Donald, but my father liked the singer. So do I.”

  “I like the bassist.”

  He bent and kissed her. “Thanks.” He straightened. “Let’s get this over with.”

  They dressed in five minutes flat. Allie dressed to melt into the background, in jeans and a fresh T-shirt, her last, she reflected gloomily. She’d have to send something to laundry or start washing by hand. She’d only brought enough for a few days.

  Rummaging through her jewelry bag, she found a pair of silver earrings and a hair clip. She didn’t want hair still damp from her shower straggling around her face and if she stopped to dry it, she was afraid he’d go without her. He needed support and right now, she was it.

  The large living room contained a lot more people than when they’d arrived. Walking into a room containing all her musical heroes minus two—Jace wasn’t there, neither was V—should have been daunting for Allie, but she had only one thing on her mind right now. Giving her lover all the support she could.

  The members of Murder City Ravens had casually distributed themselves around the large area, surrounding the two people sitting on one of the huge couches with their backs to the large floor-to-ceiling window behind them.

  “Mum, Dad, what a surprise!” Like a good English gentleman, Donovan embraced his mother and shook hands with his father. “When did you get in?”

  “An hour ago,” his mother said. Clipped, precise and even to Allie’s ears she sounded too British, like an actor who hadn’t quite managed to master the language.

  “Good journey?”

  Mrs. Harvey shrugged. “The stewardesses, or whatever they call them these days, weren’t too concerned with your father’s angina.”

  Mr. Harvey visibly winced. “I didn’t have a problem. And it was nice to travel club class. I even got some sleep.”

  Allie liked him. Donovan’s father stood tall, though not as tall as his son. He had salt-and-pepper hair, neatly cut short, and a pair of silver eyes that told her which side of the family Donovan got his looks from.

  Not his mother, with her dull eyes and fuller figure, although the fussy dress she wore did her no favors, nor did beige suit her pale skin. Allie wondered if Mrs. Harvey had traveled in the dress for what must have been an eleven-hour-plus flight with at least one change of planes. To do it in a beige dress and pearls would show more stoicism than the average woman would even consider these days. Even coach class.

  “Why not first class?” Donovan demanded. Shit, she wished he wouldn’t do that, voice what she was thinking. As if discerning her spark of irritation, he turned, smiling, and held out his hand to her.

  Without hesitation, she took it and he drew her closer. “This is Allie.” He sat on a sofa set at right angles to the one his parents occupied and she sat with him. Clever move, because it avoided sitting on the one opposite, right in the glare of the sun.

  Immediately Riku came to sprawl on the sofa opposite them and Zazz took the other side—the two most spectacular members of the group. Today, Zazz sported bright-blue hair and an unrelieved black outfit, apart from one earful of silver. He grinned at Allie and then turned his attention to his bandmate’s parents. Riku, in contrast, wore a pink-and-orange tie-dye jacket, indigo jeans and no T-shirt, so his chest was on mouthwatering display. He’d dyed his hair to match his jacket, but it lay flat and smooth, not the spiky style he used onstage. He watched the whole scene as if he were an observer, through half-closed eyes, a disconcerting smile playing over his beautiful mouth.

  Hunter folded his arms and leaned back against the wet bar, the perfect image of a pissed-off Viking.

  The room throbbed with testosterone and confidence, a heady combination that would have had Allie either fainting in a puddle of desire or leaving in a hurry, not wanting the confrontation such a gathering threatened.

  Through it all, Chick wandered, seemingly oblivious to the undercurrent simmering through the room. Chick stopped behind the wet bar. “Drink? I know how much you Brits like your tea.”

  Mrs. Harvey shuddered. “No tea, thank you. Water would be nice.”

  Her son’s chest moved in a barely visible sigh. “You’ll want to sleep off the jetlag,” he suggested.

  “In a while.” Mrs. Harvey gave Chick a pleasant but condescending smile when he handed her water. “Thank you. Do you work for my son?”

  Chick gave her an amused grin. “I work for myself. I’m the band’s manager.”

  She sniffed. “So you’re responsible for what goes out to the papers and online?”

  “Some of it, though they do their own thing a lot of the time.”

  “They say he’s back on drugs. That’s the reason for that scene at the convention.”

  “He is sitting right here, Mum,” Donovan said. He gripped Allie’s hand hard, although she wasn’t sure he knew he was doing it. She was learning to interpret his moods despite his mostly deadpan expression. Except when they were alone. Then he hid nothing. “You could never tell when I was high, could you?”

  “I never cared to,” Mrs. Harvey said.

  Mr. Harvey had remained quiet so far, but now he joined the conversation. “We’ve come to see the performance,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing my son onstage.” Conciliatory, deliberately ignoring his wife’s pointed remarks.

  “I won’t have much time to spend with you after Wednesday,” Donovan told them. “We have to go for sound checks and rehearsals, and Zazz wants to work on the new song.”

  Zazz glanced at Donovan and grinned. “That’s right. I thought I might call it Clicktrack.”

  Allie wondered if the song existed.

  “Yes, it does,” Donovan murmured.

  Oh fuck, had she said that aloud? The way the Harveys were glaring at her, she realized she had. “Sorry.”

  A frozen silence ensued as Mrs. Harvey delicately sipped at the glass of water Chick had given her.

  Riku broke it. “So Clicktrack. What are we saying here?”

  “Someone is trying to play an old vinyl record, but it’s clicking,” Zazz said. “Like the way their life threatens to break. In the end, the clicking gets too much and the record shatters.” Allie thrilled to know she was hearing about a song very few people had even heard of yet.

  “All violent and screaming at the end,” Zazz added. “Exploding.”

  “So where does Don come in?” Mrs. Harvey asked.

  Her son spoke to cover the silence when she used the forbidden name. “It has a heavy backbeat and then we’re putting something irregular into the song.”

  “It’ll screw with the listeners’ heartbeats,” Hunter said with a grin. “They’ll love it.”

  His deep voice resonated
around the room and they all had time to hear it, but that was the last pause as the band members began to discuss the song.

  Allie listened, enthralled, but kept an eye on Donovan’s parents, wondering what they’d do. They did nothing, just sat and watched, his mother with a sense of vague bewilderment, his father with a look of something like satisfaction. Satisfaction, happiness? Something like that. Contentment, that was it.

  Chick moved behind the sofa. “Let me show you to your suite. I’ve got you a suite to yourself on the floor below this one. You don’t want to be here at 2:00 a.m.” He laughed. “You really don’t. And since that noise includes rock music, you’d never get any sleep. When you want to come up, give me a call and I’ll come get you.”

  Thus preventing them from wandering around when the band was working or playing. This floor didn’t belong to the Harveys and presumably creativity couldn’t be allowed to stop.

  Mrs. Harvey pouted, lipstick bleeding into the creases around her mouth. “We did want to spend some time with you.”

  “When you’ve slept off the jetlag, we’ll go for dinner,” Donovan said. “But Chick is right, I have to work. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s fine, son. You’re just doing your job.” Mr. Harvey smiled, totally without guile but with an understanding missing in his wife’s demeanor.

  “You could have come to the London concerts, or even the Manchester ones,” Donovan said. He sounded more relaxed talking to his father. Not surprising.

  “I am. I have tickets for the O2. But I wanted to see San Francisco too.” He grinned. “Don’t worry about entertaining us. I want to see Alcatraz. Always have.”

  “Oh yes,” Donovan murmured. “The film and that book. You were always interested in the stories.”

  “I was, and I intend to go.”

  Chick clapped his hands together. “That’s great. I’ll get you tickets and arrange for transport. How about you, Allie?”