Kiss & Makeup

by Alison Kent

  The pain of uncertainty and separation. The connection that even distance couldn’t break. He wasn’t one to grow maudlin over relationships; he’d never had a broken heart, though he’d been accused of breaking many.

  He didn’t wax poetic over the existence of soul mates; he had always supposed he’d enjoy the company of many women but live alone as demanded by the mistress that was his career.

  As envious as he was of the wedded bliss shared by his old friends, the Tannens, in Austin, he’d never thought he’d ache to experience the same—until now.

  Until Shandi.

  Shandi, who stood in the corner of the bar, swaying side to side as Connie sang the ballad, a towel twisted around her fingers, which she then used to swipe at the tears in her eyes. When Quentin finally captured her gaze, the punch to his gut nearly knocked him breathless.

  She was sad for him, for herself, for the two of them together. Sad because their situation meant one of them would always suffer the other not being around. Because she didn’t know if they could come up with a solution that would work with their career demands.

  Because she hadn’t been any more prepared for him to come into her life than he’d been for her. And now here they were, this beautiful thing between them, yet neither of them knowing where to take it from here.

  He found his own throat aching, his eyes burning as he turned his gaze back to Connie once Shandi stepped away to pour a drink for a customer who’d bellied up to the bar.

  Connie’s eyes were closed, his focus on the music, feeling it in his fingers that worked the guitar, feeling it in his soul.

  “Should I ever fear why you know

  Why you hurt

  Why you need

  Why you cry when I’m not around

  Would you ever find where I know

  Where I fit

  Where I wait

  Where I hide when you’re not around

  Please don’t cry

  Please don’t ache

  Please don’t fear

  Only imagine that I’m always around

  I’ll believe that you’re always around”

  The words ended, the music faded. Connie smiled to himself, letting what he felt settle before opening his eyes and returning from the soul of the song to the present.

  Quentin gave him a solid nod of appreciation, and a second later applause rang out in the room.

  Connie’s expression was one of surprise, as if he’d been too deep in his head to remember he’d been singing in public, then he looked back and raised a hand to acknowledge their regard.

  A moment later, his grin sheepish, he returned his guitar to its case and sat forward like a little boy seeking approval from a parent rather than a musical genius who’d turned the world of metal upside down. Clearly he had entered everyone in the bar just with the aching beauty of his singing accompanied only by a simple acoustic guitar.

  Quentin reached for the glass he’d set on the table earlier. “Nice. You have more like that?”

  Nodding, Connie slouched back, his hands on the thighs he spread wide. “Three or four I’m finishing up. The band’s on sabbatical for the rest of the year. The last tour nearly killed us.”

  Not surprising to hear considering their touring schedule. “Killed the group?”

  “Nah. The group can weather anything. But we voted to a man to take the break. We’re all putting things together, getting back to the basics, finding ourselves,” he added with a laugh. “Crap like that.”

  “I hear you,” Quentin said. It was like having his own thoughts looped back in stereo.

  Connie pushed his hair from his eyes that didn’t look old enough to know the truth of burnout. “Sergey and I hang every couple of weeks and jam on what we’ve written. We should be back in the studio after the first of the year.”

  “Are you tossing all of it into the mix?” Quentin asked, a buzz of excitement humming over his skin.

  The knee Connie’d been shaking stilled. “You mean, have I thought about a solo shot?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “I have,” he admitted hesitantly. “I’m just not sure what kind of reception The Constantine would get without the Angels backing him up.”

  Inclining his head, Quentin indicated the room. “I think you just saw it.”

  “They just enjoyed not having to pay for a show,” Connie said, then winked.

  The insecurity of artists never ceased to amaze. “They enjoyed you.”

  “Maybe.” Connie shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “Keep me in mind.”

  “Truly? I’d dig working with you again.”

  “Then let’s do it.” Grinning hugely, Quentin reached out to shake the other man’s hand. “I’m building a studio. In Austin. When you’re ready, we’ll make it happen.”

  They spent the rest of the night talking over old times, a life spent on the road and in the studio, how much living they’d missed out on while pursuing their passion, whether or not the end result was worth what they’d given up to get to where they were, both coming to the conclusion that they did what they did because there was nothing else they could do.

  Finally Connie got up to leave. “I’ve got to get back before Sergey’s girl locks me out. Though I think it’s more about locking her big man in. I ought to stay here next time I’m in the city. I like the look.”

  “You want to use my room? I’ve got other plans for the night.” Quentin glanced at his watch, looked over to see Shandi cleaning up at the bar.

  Connie followed the direction of Quentin’s gaze. “Hey. Nice.”

  Quentin didn’t respond except to fish his key card from his wallet. “Leave this in the room. I’ll get another from the desk tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, man. And seriously,” Connie said, grabbing up his guitar case, “it’s great to see you again. We will stay in touch.”

  “I’m counting on it.” Quentin watched him walk off before moving to the now-empty bar to wait for Shandi. She wasn’t expecting him. They hadn’t made plans to get together tonight.

  In fact, they hadn’t talked much at all since leaving the roof of her building. After he’d taken her like a rutting beast in the stairwell. After she’d told him she wouldn’t spend her life waiting for moments they could steal.

  They’d slept together last night, held each other close, but they hadn’t gotten back to the part about the flash fire and how to deal with it.

  Right now, however, none of that mattered because the light in the bar’s back room had gone out.

  He moved to the employees’ door and waited. And when Shandi walked out, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Let’s go home.”

  QUENTIN LAY ON HIS SIDE beneath Shandi’s sheets, one of her pillows punched up beneath his head.

  She faced him, lying in the same position, and he watched her struggle to stay awake, to keep her eyes open and exhaustion at bay.

  Once they’d finally made it to her apartment and taken care of that thing between them that couldn’t wait, she’d told him she had a busy day on Saturday and if he wanted to take her out after work, he needed to let her sleep.

  He had no problem with that, he’d replied seconds before she’d climbed up on top of his body for the second time.

  Hard to tell the woman no when he enjoyed the way she contradicted herself as much as he enjoyed the way she took him into her body and loved him.

  That had been an hour ago. She’d been drifting in and out ever since, while he’d been content to watch her.

  He was feeling things that he was going to have big problems with, things that were going to make it hard to leave the city in three days when he was scheduled to fly out.

  Shandi felt as vital to him as did his plans for his studio, his return to Texas, his need to extinguish the dissatisfaction that reared an ugly head of cynicism more often than he cared to admit.

  And then, while he was thinking of the best way to swallow his medicine and face the fact that in a matter of
days their time would be gone, her lashes fluttered up.

  She pretended to glare. “I can’t believe you know Constantine Hale and didn’t introduce me. Or at least get me an autograph.”

  He lifted a brow. “You don’t seem the starstruck, autograph-seeking type.”

  She stretched her legs, her toes seeking out and tapping against his. “I’m sleeping with you, and you don’t think I’m the type to be starstruck?”

  “Saucy wench, I thought you were sleeping with me because you wanted me to help you ace your class project.”

  She shifted on the pillow, settled deeper under the covers, smiling as she said, “I sleep with you for many reasons relating to what you can do for me.”

  “I see.” He loved that she felt comfortable enough to tease, loved that he didn’t believe anything she said.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice slurred with sleep. “Us starstruck groupie types are shameless about doing what we gotta do to get what we want.”

  “Huh. Well, it’s my turn now.” He slid his hand across the mattress, stroked her bare belly with his fingers. “I want something from you.”

  Her eyes were closed when, smiling, she lifted a brow. “Haven’t I been doing something for you all night?”

  She made flirting so easy, yet his time was growing short and he needed more than playful banter. He needed more than sex. Still… “I believe the doing has been mutual, cowgirl.”

  “Look, mister.” One eye opened. “Just because I’m from outta town—”

  “I was referring to the way you ride me.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She sighed. Moved closer. Worked his hand up to her hip. “Then what do you want?”

  “A simple barter. In exchange for the class project, I want something from you.”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure I like that. But shoot.” Both eyes opened. “Oh, speaking of shoot…”

  She hopped onto one elbow, the sheet sliding from her shoulders to bare her breasts. “Did I tell you we’re going to use the sofa bar at the hotel? For the project shoot?”

  He stayed where he was, enjoying her shift in mood, her sudden animation, the excitement that sparkled in her eyes. He had a hard time finding his voice, what with the way his chest had tightened.

  And with the way he fought not to drop his gaze to her chest. “No. You didn’t.”

  “Well, now I did,” she said, smiling, her enthusiasm pouring out like warm honey onto his skin. “So what do you want?”

  He levered up onto his elbow so that he faced her, so that she couldn’t get away. “I want to know what you miss about Oklahoma.”

  That caught her off guard. He’d expected it would. She hadn’t made him privy to the details, but it hadn’t taken him long to learn that her family history was off-limits.

  Her future was one thing; she could talk about her plans forever. But sharing where she’d come from shut her down every time.

  So it didn’t surprise him when she shrugged off the question with a blasé response. “Nothing, really. My family at times, I guess. Though that’s more nostalgia over what could have been than what actually was.”

  “Then let’s leave them out of it,” he said. “What else do you miss? Friends? Room to breathe? Open roads?”

  This time it only took her a second after she’d fallen back to the pillow and yanked the sheet to her chin to answer. “The sky.”

  That didn’t surprise him either. “Why the sky?”

  “Because the sky’s the limit, of course. Whenever I’d get frustrated at work, that’s what I’d tell myself. That I could do anything I wanted to do. That life wasn’t all about sticking around to pour shots, because that’s what’s expected from the Fosseys of Round-Up.”

  He wondered if that was her family’s way to keep members close. He asked, “All of you?”

  She gave a small shrug. “Except my mother. She keeps the books, the inventory. Basically everything that doesn’t require physical labor. Or throwing drunks out on their ear.”

  “That’s your father’s job?”

  “And my brothers. Well, not Matt. Always the diplomat, chatting up the crowd.”

  She fell silent for a moment, her thoughts drawing a smile on her mouth. “Matt settled down a lot after marrying Shelly. Gave up that bad-boy Fossey image for a woman and never lived it down. Not that he cared.”

  “He was happy?”

  “Delirious. He still is.” She turned onto her side, slid her legs over to tangle with his. “He and Shelly couldn’t be any cuter together. She’s half his size, and he’s like a big ol’ puppy panting after her, stumbling over himself. They’re so much in love it’s intimidating.”

  “Intimidating?” Her skin was so smooth, so warm. He wanted so much to touch her, to love her, but she was talking and he didn’t want to do anything that might shut her up. “How so?”

  “Thinking if that’s what love is supposed to be, that I’ll never know it.” Dropping her gaze, she reached over and combed her fingers through the hair on his chest. “It’s so rare, what they have. And I don’t want to settle.”

  Settle. Hmm. Things weren’t looking as if they were going to go his way. “Would a long-distance relationship fall into settling?”

  Her fingers stilled. “Any long-distance relationship or one in particular?”

  “This one in particular,” he said, wrapping his fingers around hers.

  She didn’t look up. “Is this a relationship?”

  Here’s where he had to be careful. He didn’t want to scare her away or run her off or turn into the demanding, possessive caveman it would be so easy to become. “I think it could be. It’s heading that way.”

  “Then isn’t it better that we’ve accepted that the end is coming?” she asked, rolling away and balling up her pillow beneath her.

  He hadn’t accepted anything. That was the problem here. She was seeing an end when he saw only the possibilities of a beginning. “So you don’t want to explore what we can do from a distance?”

  “How long do you think that would last?” She closed her eyes, snorted. “We can’t even make it from the roof to the sixth floor without ripping our clothes off. We’d never survive the mileage between Texas and New York.”

  He flopped onto his back, folded his wrists under his head. “That’s it then. Is that what you’re saying? We’ve had this week and that’s all?”

  She didn’t respond immediately, and the room became a box of tension and unsteady breathing.

  He stared at the ceiling because the Mae West dressing screen and the popcorn machine, the stage hooks and the marquee headboard all reminded him too much of the life she wanted.

  The life that didn’t include him.

  When she did finally speak, her voice was softly resigned and a little bit sad. “How badly do you want to build your studio in Austin?”

  “Badly?” What kind of question was that?

  “Would you give that up to be here with me?”

  He couldn’t answer.

  “Exactly,” she said, reading his mind. “And what I want means I need to be here. At least for now. Later I might need to be in L.A.”

  “Austin isn’t exactly stuck off in a far corner of the globe.” He hated sounding defensive. Making his case. Begging. “I can name you twenty production companies. Hell, Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios is there.”

  “So you want me to come with you.”

  “I didn’t say that.” If he’d thought for a moment she’d agree, he’d say anything. But he wasn’t a big fan of being shot down. “Listen, Shandi. I don’t want what we have to be written off because of distance.”

  This time she at least looked over. He felt her gaze taking him in before she asked, “You don’t think your business is still going to require trips to both coasts?”

  He shrugged, certain he wasn’t going to like where this was going. “I’m hoping no more than once or twice a year.”

  “So come see me when you’re here.”

  Rolling to his side
, he faced her, challenged her. “You said you didn’t want to live your life waiting for me to come back to town.”

  “I won’t be waiting,” she said without smiling. “I’ll be busy.”

  He was right. He didn’t like it at all. “I may not get back for six months.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be around.”

  “Around and unavailable.”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t have time to sleep much less time to devote to a relationship.”

  God, she made him want to laugh. How could he hurt this badly and still want to laugh? “Even if the relationship was with me?”

  “With you…how can I answer that? I can’t even consider it when I know it’s not going to happen. It can’t happen.”

  “Because of where we both live.”

  “It’s more than where we live. You know that.” She turned her head, only her head, meeting his gaze, her eyes dewy and looking as miserable as he felt. “It’s that we both have plans and dreams and things we want to do with our lives.”

  He knew that. She wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t thought about countless times.

  She blew out a long, shaky breath, flexed her fingers, then slid them up to twine with his. “I would never ask you to give up your studio to be here with me. And I wouldn’t like you very much if you wanted me to give up my dreams.”

  “Would you like me if I asked you to think about coming with me while we figure a way to make this happen?” he asked, holding her hand as if his whole future depended on her reply. “Not to give me an answer now but just think on it?”

  “Oh, Quentin.” She caught back a sob. “Don’t do this to me.”

  He leaned over, pulled her close to his body, knowing it was time to let the subject go. “Would you like me better if I held you while you slept?”

  “Yes,” she said with a shiver. “I’d like that a lot.”

  11

  ON SATURDAY, SHANDI DIDN’T manage to roll out of bed until noon. She would’ve stayed longer, would’ve slept until it was time for her shift at Erotique.