Georgie suspected that his exasperation was for her amusement, as when Xan ambled over to check on her a few times, Adrien had adopted his professional, blank demeanor as soon as His Grace had appeared.
But Xan was down on the main floor, meeting and greeting, so Adrien had scrunched his mouth over to the side in mock displeasure.
Georgie peeked over the railing at Xan, just to see him, not to check up on him.
Down below, in the roped off area behind the rickety stage, underneath the floating wisps of cigarette smoke, Xan slouched with his arms draped over the shoulders of four skinny guys. Their shaved heads glinted in the swirling lights, and their scraggly beards trickled down their neon pink shirts. They all grinned as a camera flashed white light.
Georgie turned back and sipped her wine. Xan had left explicit instructions that she was to be as buzzed as he was by the time he got back, which she had laughed at. The sweet white wine that he had ordered for them was very tasty, though. It left a lingering taste of peaches on her tongue.
The crowd parted.
Rade and Grayson staggered past, their arms looped over each other’s shoulders to hold each other up. They noticed Georgie on the couch and wandered over to collapse on either side of her on the couch.
A waitress was trailing them, and they ordered bottles of vodka from her, laying their arms on the back of the couch and encroaching on Georgie’s shoulders.
“Hi, guys,” she said, cringing at the thick whiskey riding their breath.
Adrien made no comment, but as he stared across the table at Georgie and The Terror Twins, his sarcasm lines deepened.
Rade leaned over, snuggling Georgie closer to him and away from Grayson. She stiffened, but Rade curled his hand around her shoulder.
It did feel companionable.
Rade gestured at Grayson. “You’ve met this bastard, right?”
“Formally,” Georgie said. “Not really.”
“Well, we’re going to have a rockin’ time tonight!” Grayson roared above the beeping, thumping music and jostled her, even though Rade buffered most of the shake. Grayson flipped his teal and blue hair around his broad shoulders, yelling, “You want some pot?”
“No, thanks,” Georgie yelled back.
“Blow? Hash? Smack?”
“I’m trying to cut down,” she told him. Finding stuff in unfamiliar cities all across the country must be a full-time job. She hoped he wasn’t scouting off Craigslist.
“Suit yourself.” Grayson laid a line of white powder on the table.
“Whoa!” Georgie jumped back and swiveled, looking at the crowd around them for anyone with too much interest. “You have a concert tomorrow, bud. Are you sure—”
Grayson ripped the paper off a soda straw on the table, bit the end off, and snorted the line. He wiped the white smudge off his nostril and lip with his thumb, asking her, “What?”
Georgie sat back on the couch. “Nevermind.”
Across the coffee table, Adrien neither moved nor flinched, but his silent displeasure deepened. He had probably seen it all before.
Grayson laid out another line and handed the straw to Rade.
Rade took the straw from his fingers, a delicate move that brushed Grayson’s fingertips. He inhaled the powder into his nose, staring over the line at Grayson the whole time, his bright blue eyes intent on the bass player.
Grayson didn’t look away, either.
When Rade settled back, white rimmed his left nostril, and Georgie handed him a cocktail napkin, touching her own nose.
As he took the paper from her fingers, his eyes glassed over, and he sucked in a breath as the high hit him. His arm, still looped around her, clenched and shook.
She touched his chest, feeling his pounding heart under her fingers. “You okay, Rade?”
“Hell, yeah,” he said, panting. “Never better.”
“Okay.” Georgie took his arm off her shoulders, and under her fingers, his pulse jittered in his wrist.
Grayson announced, “I’ve gotta take a whizz,” and stumbled off to the bathroom.
When Grayson was gone, Rade sighed.
“Are you okay?” Georgie asked him.
“Sure.” He leaned his head on the back of the couch, trying to catch his breath.
“If you didn’t want to do the line, you didn’t have to,” she told him. “Just tell him to fuck off.”
Rade jumped to his feet, and his arms and legs twitched, infused with the drug’s energy. He paced around the coffee table and pointed at the silver-framed door to the VIP bathrooms. “He’s beautiful, right?”
“Grayson?” she asked.
“Of course, Grayson. Who else?”
“He just announced he was going to piss.”
“It was the truth. Why should he hide normal, biological urges?”
Maybe Georgie had been hanging out with hereditary dukes and princesses too much and now found the announcement of imminent bodily functions to be coarse, or whatevs. “Yeah, I suppose. He has nice eyes.”
“His eyes are like gold,” Rade insisted. “He’s fucking beautiful.”
“Yeah, Rade. He is.”
Georgie stole a glance at Adrien, who shifted and rubbed his abdomen, the move of a musclebound man sore from weight lifting. He settled himself again, to watch and wait for His Grace at the nightclub until all hours of the morning.
Rade paced until Grayson came back from the bathroom, and then Rade sat on the couch on the other side of him.
They talked for a while longer, mostly Grayson jabbering in coke-induced mania.
Rade kept stealing touches, his fingertips grazing Grayson’s biceps and shoulders, and Grayson didn’t seem to notice, or mind, or was used to it. Rade’s bright blue eyes rarely left Grayson, listening raptly to his babbling nonsense.
Grayson, however, was watching Georgie, talking to her, asking her questions, and—until she scooted the hell back—touching her arm and knee.
Georgie peered at Xan over the railing three times while Grayson blathered on about drugs he had taken and women he had fucked and how loudly they screamed his name. Down on the first floor, Xan was absorbed in talking to people, his hands folded among the liquor glasses scattered on the circular table.
Finally, Grayson said to Rade, “I’m coming down. Let’s do another line.”
Rade shrugged, running the back of his knuckles down Grayson’s arm. “I’ve had enough coke, Grays. Let’s do some X.”
“Man, that stuff is whack.” Grayson turned to Georgie. “Last time we did X, he started feeling me up, and I was too wasted to punch him. I only do X when I’ve got a girl in the sack now.”
Rade sprawled on the couch behind Grayson, so Georgie just barely saw his chest rise and fall in a sigh.
Grayson reached for her fingertips again, but Georgie leaned over and grabbed her wine glass, chugging the wine.
Grayson watched her, measuring how drunk she was getting, and smiled. He turned back, though he still watched her. “Come on, Rade. Don’t let me get high alone. That might alert people that I might have a problem.”
Georgie worked hard to not roll her eyes at the thought that Grayson might have a problem.
He poured two anthills of white powder on the table, scraping the lines into neat rows with a credit card. “Besides,” he said, “maybe she’ll do a line with us. Or maybe Georgie would like some X.”
Or maybe Georgie would keep her wine glass way on the other side of the coffee table from him, and she scooted it back. Georgie had seen a friend get rufied and nearly raped, and she didn’t have girlfriends around to save her ass.
When she looked up at Adrien, though, he smiled, shaking his head with a bend in his lips. He had been watching her glass.
Rade leaned forward to suck up the line, holding Grayson for support, clutching his wrist and pressing his thigh against Grayson’s leg.
Georgie examined Grayson for the next few minutes while he got high and they talked, sounding him with her super-advanced gayda
r, but Grayson was pure, straight heterosexual and entirely clueless.
It had to take a tremendous effort to be that clueless.
Xan bounded up the back stairs and hurried over to them.
Paul, his other security guy, trudged after Xan, moving more slowly than he had earlier in the evening. Yvonne followed them both through the crowd with her tablet dangling from her hand. Several strands of platinum hair had escaped her knotted bun.
Xan stood over the couch, surveying that Grayson was leaning toward Georgie, and his hand was too close to her thigh. He said, “I see you’re being accosted by The Terror Twins.”
Adrien looked up at Xan. His quick glance was calculating, but he settled himself down on the couch, rubbing his ribs.
Georgie told Xan, “Yeah. We’re just talking.”
Xan slid onto the couch behind her, laying his arm along the back cushions like he was fencing her in.
Where was this guy when Rade was practically spooning her an hour ago? Not that Rade had meant anything predatory by it.
Down the couch, Rade struggled to sit up, his long legs kicking the coffee table. His bright blue eyes were just visible behind Grayson’s shaggy teal and blue hair, and his arm was also resting on the back of the couch, but around Grayson. Inches separated his fingertips from Xan’s.
Georgie leaned back against Xan, and his strong arm curled around her waist. His firm body wrapped her, his boot inching forward on the floor and his arms holding her.
Rade glared at Xan. He leaned forward, resting his chin on Grayson’s shoulder.
Okay, alpha males. No one has to snarl here.
Xan’s body flinched against hers, but forward, like he was repressing himself from jumping.
He talked with The Terror Twins for a few minutes about the next concert before motioning to Adrien. “We’re done here. Five minutes?”
Georgie sighed, holding Xan’s thick arm against her ribs. Their gym time after lunch seemed like days ago instead of only fifteen hours.
“Excellent, sir.” Adrien stood and looked down his nose at The Terror Twins. “I’ll call for the car.”
“D’accord,” Xan said.
Adrien spun, looking hard at Xan, but after a moment, he called the car and slipped into the crowd, leaving Paul standing over Xan, Georgie, and Grayson and Rade.
TIME
Georgie
Over the next few weeks, Georgie dodged Flicka’s increasingly frantic calls, instead sending emails apologizing for her hectic schedule and detailing the progress toward establishing a new identity for herself.
Call me, Flicka wrote back. We have to talk. You have to know.
No, she didn’t.
Georgie awoke alone every morning, her demon lover having flown with the sun to do interviews. She plugged headphones into her keyboard and played for hours, working on the sheet music of Killer Valentine’s repertoire that Alex had left for her and the new songs that he was working on. On the new ones, she made notes, improving and smoothing the melody lines, and they went over those in the afternoons and whenever they could catch a spare minute.
She listened to Killer Valentine’s previous albums, studying the range and timbre of Xan’s voice to make sure he could sing what she was writing.
And then she listened some more because his voice comforted her, whispering in her ears when he wasn’t there.
She began, slowly, hesitantly, to find much to admire in his music, even if it was popular and contemporary and written for electrical instruments. The emotions he evoked were immense, reminiscent of Mozart’s and Bach’s best work. He had an innate knack for finding heartstrings and nightmares.
Alex carved time for her during the day until the performance at night, when Xan emerged to mesmerize the audience and Georgie. At night, Boris changed her appearance as if he cast a glamour over her, and she accompanied Xan to clubs and glitterati events.
Usually after performances, the violent energy of Xan Valentine dissipated, and Alex moved in her body tenderly until she cried out under his strong body.
Sometimes Xan closed the door behind them, dark light shining in his eyes. Georgie awoke those next mornings sore, with love bites on her shoulders and thighs, and memories of ecstatic passion.
She knew their time had to end.
She couldn’t find anything about Alex to be afraid of, and out there, somewhere, people were hunting for her. She was definitely afraid of them.
At every performance, Georgie watched Xan through the curtains, and she watched the raving crowd for a glimpse of the man with the ice-blue eyes and wide, Slavic cheekbones. Every night at the clubs, she watched for people too old to be in a dance club, and she analyzed the headlights on the dark roads, looking for cars following them back to their hotel.
At the concerts, Georgie watched the wild energy of Xan Valentine overtake the crowd, but he also bound the band together. Five creative, talented, wildly successful musicians shared one stage, an unstable condition ripe for an explosion.
Lead guitarist Cadell had to be coddled because something was going on with him, and Xan coaxed him like he was a reluctant musical genius.
Tryp, the drummer, was distracted and far too young for such success, having recently turned twenty-one. Xan was constantly prodding him to make sure he showed up on time, had secured his drum kit, and his head was in the show.
Finally, in Maryland, even the overwhelming force of Xan’s will couldn’t force the band to hold together any longer.
WHEN XAN’S WILL ISN’T ENOUGH
Georgie
Before the show in Maryland, the Terror Twins must have found or bought heroin again. Georgie stood aside while Xan and Jonas worked on them for an hour before the sound check, trying to get them coherent enough to play.
Grayson lay on the concrete floor, spread-eagle, his head flopping from side to side in the harsh neon house lights. His hair, clumped with sweat, lay on the ground around him in a blue halo, a pale teal nimbus near his head that darkened to almost black at the tips. His foot twitched, and he worked hard to focus his eyes on Jonas, who sat on the concrete beside his head, asking him what he took, how much, and how long ago.
Grayson rolled to the side, his foot scraping on the ground as he tried to stand. “I can go on,” he slurred. “I can play the shit out of that set.”
Georgie knew better than to try to butt in, so she leaned against the wall, horrified.
Rade lay curled on his side, his long arms and legs drawn inward to his chest. One of his hands tapped the air, his long fingers playing a delusional piano. As his fingers moved, Georgie recognized the pattern of the melody from “By the Numbers,” a song that Xan usually scheduled in the middle of the first set.
“I’m okay,” Rade whispered, trying to reassure Xan, who crouched beside him. “I’ll be fine. Coffee. Gimme coffee. Be fine.”
Xan encouraged Rade to sit up, his expression calm and kind. “Are you able to stand?”
When Xan tried to help him up, Rade’s legs collapsed out from under him. Xan caught him under his arm, and his demeanor slipped for a moment, his eyes narrowing and his jaw clenched in cold anger.
Rade managed to get his feet under him and yanked his arm away from Xan. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
He stumbled toward the glaring stage lights, walking sideways.
Xan stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched him go.
Georgie touched his arm. “Xan, are you—”
“Fine.” He strode toward the stage, stalking Rade and Grayson as they staggered and blinked in the rows of suns above.
Early in the first set, during “Flirting with Disaster,” a wry, upbeat song about meeting the wrong woman, Rade came in two beats too late like he was playing it in a round. His platinum hair hung around his face as he jammed one hand over his ear, trying to listen to his in-ear monitor while he pounded on the keyboards.
Backstage, behind a black velvet curtain blocking her from the audience’ view, Georgie gasped.
The wrong notes threw Grayson, and he stumbled on the bass line, staring back and forth between Tryp pounding on the drum set and Rade, trying to figure out which one to follow.
Upstage, Rhiannon’s eyes were shocked-huge as she looked between them.
Beside Georgie, Jonas started frantically talking on his headphones to the sound booth, telling them to feed Tryp’s drums and Cadell’s guitar into everyone’s monitors no matter what they wanted and to fade Grayson’s and Rade’s parts in the overhead speakers.
Xan spun upstage, his arms raised, and brought them down on the downbeat. He kept doing that, conducting, until Rade and Grayson finally found the beat and caught up.
During the intermission, Xan paced in his tent, singing softly just like usual, while Georgie curled up in one of the armchairs.
She asked, “You okay?”
“We have to get through the second set.” He practiced the runs and arpeggios from some of the songs still to come.
The second set began on an encouraging note. Rade and Grayson managed to return to their instruments in the darkness, and the first downbeat ignited the blazing light battens overhead and the fountains of fireworks on the edge of the stage.
Georgie breathed, willing her energy out to the stage, trying to force everything to go correctly from the tightness of her fists knotted around the black velvet curtain. She was succumbing to stage superstition: if she concentrated perfectly, Rade and Grayson would be okay.
Three songs in, during “Rock like Rome Is Falling,” Grayson dropped his hands away from his bass guitar and stared at one of the bright lamps far above the stage. The thick strap around his neck saved the guitar from crashing to the floorboards, but it dangled off his shoulder, swaying as he stood mesmerized by the light. The music thinned without the deep bass notes underlying the stomping melody.
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