by Cari Quinn
Donovan, the head of Ripper Records, had opened a bottle of champagne and was smiling as a perky blonde poured for him and a couple of the other execs. Lila watched the entire scene with a cool gleam in her eyes, waving off the bubbly in favor of bottled water. She gripped her ever-present tablet, but she’d ditched her usual business suit for slim trousers, a silky blouse and what looked like real pearls. Everything about her from her wardrobe to her bone structure gave her a haughty, sophisticated air. Even the purse of her lips looked regal.
Nick was around too, wandering from group to group, never landing anywhere for long. Since the show he’d been texting Jamie from Brooklyn Dawn, their opening act. He claimed he was scoping out the rest of Brooklyn Dawn’s winter touring schedule because they “brought a different dynamic” to the stage—AKA an excess of boobs—but Jazz hadn’t pursued the subject. She had other things on her mind.
Like where Gray was.
He’s probably showering with Busty Blonde Babe.
Jazz pried off her other cherry and chewed, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. The sensation had started in her chest, right where her racing heart was doing its best impression of a kick drum.
He wasn’t coming. Why had she pretended otherwise?
So what if it was New Year’s? He didn’t know she’d made a resolution to stop dancing around what she wanted and finally go for it. The it being Gray. She’d worn her version of something classy—a little black dress, patterned tights and chunky heels—and she intended to march up to him at midnight, grab that rock-cut jaw and kiss the holy hell out of him. Then she would strut away.
Lots of marching and strutting. The plan hinged on that. If he followed, well, they’d just see where things went. If he didn’t…
If he didn’t, she was going to throw up this disgusting drink and sob herself to sleep. Probably right on the bathroom floor.
She hiccupped and took another sip. Maybe if she kept drinking, she wouldn’t feel so miserable. Even nausea was better than this. All she kept picturing was Gray and that woman. Him smiling at her and her fingers stroking him for that instant before he tugged her away.
“Give me another one,” she said to the bartender as soon as she’d finished the first. It took everything she possessed not to look at her watch. It was getting closer to midnight. He wasn’t going to show.
Maybe it was just as well.
Every time one of her friends stopped by, she made small talk and giggled, fulfilling her role as group cheerleader/clown. But she didn’t try to get her pals to stick around. For once, she didn’t do anything possible to avoid being alone. She put on a good show of being Ms. Happy Go Lucky, and a lot of the time it was even true. But ever since the contract debacle that had almost leveled the band, a lot of her happy had gone missing. Considering Gray’s no-show, her lucky seemed to be on the lam too.
She swallowed more of her cocktail. All signs were pointing to one inevitable conclusion: she wasn’t going to have someone to kiss at midnight. At least the someone she wanted to kiss. And if she couldn’t kiss Gray, she’d just keep her lips attached to the rim of her glass.
“Whatcha drinking?”
She turned her head at the voice near her ear. Nick. More friend than foe, most of the time. “It’s called a Zombie. I looked it up online. They said after three of them you’ll need a stretcher,” she shouted over the music and laughter. “This is number two.”
He leaned in and sniffed. “Sounds promising.”
“Can’t say I’m a fan.”
“So why are you drinking it?” He looked around for an empty stool, which was basically a joke. The place was packed from wall to wall. Giving up, he edged an elbow on the bar and awkwardly eased himself between her stool and her neighbor’s. The position put him between her legs—a place he’d been before. On his own, and with Gray.
Swallowing hard, she peered at her fruity drink. Best not to look at him right then. She was certain her face had to be six shades of red. An experienced woman of the world, she was not. She could fake it with the best of them though. At least when her heart wasn’t breaking.
“Maybe I want to get drunk,” she said under her breath.
“Then be more decisive about it.” He ordered two more Zombies, making her smile in spite of herself. He set her spare drink aside and tipped back his own. Grimaced. “Well, that’s interesting. A bit girly for me, but I’ve had worse.”
“Yeah?”
“Back in the projects, hell yeah. Simon and I had our drugstore special. Every cheap bottle of shit we could buy, all mixed together. Guaranteed to make you puke.” Because he was grinning, she grinned too. The alcohol was starting to swim through her bloodstream, loosening the muscles in her shoulders and back that were tensed from their set.
And from picturing Gray in the arms of a sexy blonde with breasts that made up approximately four of hers. Which was saying something, because the boob fairy had made a stop at Jazz’s house too.
Wanting visual affirmation, Jazz studied the cleavage popping over the top of her dress and sighed. She’d never complained about her cup size before tonight, but perhaps an extra handful or two would snag Gray’s interest. Couldn’t hurt. He’d barely even looked at her chest when they’d had their threesome with Nick.
“Are you checking yourself out?” Nick sounded amused.
“Maybe. Are you done checking out the sexy brunette guitarist from Brooklyn Dawn?”
“Nah. It’s not like that. Brooklyn Dawn might be doing a few shows with us if we can make our schedules mesh.” He fingered her hair. “Though I do have a weakness for brunettes.”
Yeah, she wasn’t going to acknowledge that comment.
She brought her glass back to her mouth, sloshing some over the side. She licked the alcohol off the back of her hand and glanced up to see Nick eyeing her too closely.
“Need some help with that?” His voice matched his gaze. Warm heading toward hot.
She waited for her belly to flutter. God knows it had fluttered plenty around him last spring. She’d had a crush on Nick that had quickly turned into more and just as quickly flamed out. But now there was nothing. She started to reply, then realized there wasn’t a chance he’d be able to hear her over the din. How had the bar gotten so much noisier and more crowded in the last few minutes? She couldn’t even find Simon and his bright red wig anymore. All she could see was Nick looming a little too close, his golden eyes too intent.
Someone’s snorting giggle snapped them out of the moment. Thank God. She wouldn’t have kissed him, but she really didn’t want to get stuck in the position of having to turn him down. Her own feelings were entirely too bruised. If she could distract him from whatever madness had sent him pinging back her way, that would be much better.
“Um, Nick…” Her attention veered right and the words died on her lips. Gray stood at the end of the bar, arms crossed. He didn’t look happy.
That made two of them.
“Let me up.” She stumbled off the stool, barreling into Nick in the process.
“Hey.” Nick laughed as he caught her arms. He smelled of smoke and leather, the scents she most often associated with him. “Guess I shouldn’t have gotten you another one. You’re already locked and loaded.” He spoke close to her ear. “You tired of this yet? We could—”
Gray yanked hard on his shoulder. “Get the hell away from her, Crandall.”
Nick turned his head, but he didn’t look pissed as much as amused again. “Duffy. Back to this, are we?”
Jazz put a hand on each of their chests, ignoring the call of her fingers to curl into Gray’s shirt. He’d swapped his leather vest for a black T-shirt that clung to his pecs. “Guys, tonight’s not the night.”
She wasn’t even sure why Gray was in Nick’s face. He usually wasn’t so openly confrontational, especially since nothing was even going on. But Gray’s eyelid was twitching and he clenched his jaw so tightly it had to hurt.
Nick only aimed a mild look at her h
and. “I’m good, Jasmine. No need to restrain me.”
“No, that’s not what you wanted her to do to you, you stupid prick. She’s not just some receptacle.”
Heat flooded Jazz’s cheeks. Jesus. “Gray, stop it. What’s gotten into you?”
Nick’s nostrils flared as he tossed a look at Gray. “I have some idea,” he said almost too low for her to hear.
She frowned. What was that supposed to mean?
“You got something to say to me, Crandall?” Gray shoved Nick against the bar, upending Jazz’s third drink in the process. “Go right the fuck ahead.”
Nick slammed his hands against Gray’s shoulders. “Back off, you fucking moron.”
Gray grabbed his upper arms, pinning him to the bar for one humming moment before Nick sent him careening backward. Jazz’s stool went flying with her still on it. She landed hard, her glass miraculously still in one hand, the other attached to the sticky floor with what felt like superglue. Ick. She’d have to burn this dress.
A little dizzy, she looked around at the people that surrounded her—some still dancing, some standing still to show off their incredibly hot shoes, some taking the opportunity to get into shoving contests of their own. Her ass hurt. And damn, she really felt short way down here.
All of a sudden she was pulled upward, so quickly that her unsteady head threatened to spin right off her shoulders. Whoa. Her dizziness only got worse when she realized she was being carried through the laughing, jeering crowd by Gray. Her stomach wobbled and she tried to get her bearings.
Before she could, he planted her on a stool at the far end of the bar, then summoned a glass of water and pressed it into her trembling fingers. “Are you okay?”
Gray’s shoulder-length wavy dark hair brushed the round collar of his shirt as he leaned closer to peer into her eyes. His wet dark hair. Looked like he’d taken that shower. Alone?
Forget it. Not relevant.
“Just bruised my pride.” She drank the water because it gave her something to do other than try to bite that sexy-as-hell jaw of his. Not that she’d be able to manage it at this angle. But if she stood up on the rungs of the stool for a little boost—
“Jasmine, are you okay?”
She shut her eyes at Nick’s voice. He never knew when to let incensed dogs lie. “Fine,” she said weakly, praying he would just leave. “When I was on the floor, I saw some shoes I need to find. Strappy silver sandals with a wedge heel. Super cute.” When she opened her eyes and caught Gray’s narrow-eyed expression, she decided she’d used the heel to wedge her own mouth shut. “Just making a joke,” she muttered.
“Not the time.”
“Yeah, well, when is the time?” Anger and embarrassment welled up inside her and she pushed him out of her face. “How dare you? You show up late after promising you’d be here. I ask for one little thing and you can’t even give me that.” She pushed him harder. “Then you get in my face if some guy dares look at me, but you can’t even see me when I’m standing right in front of you.”
He moved in and grasped her throat before she could block the move. The wide plane of his thumb tipped up her chin until she had no choice but to meet his furious gray eyes for one frantic second before she fixated on the movement of his lips. “You think I don’t see you, Jazz?” His voice was quiet. Too quiet. She didn’t know how she could hear him over the crowd. Maybe because she couldn’t drag her gaze from his mouth.
God, that mouth. She wanted it so bad she couldn’t think. Couldn’t tell herself to calm down or save it for another time when there weren’t so many people watching. They weren’t just two anonymous kids anymore. They were in a semi-famous band. Together. How they behaved in public affected the others.
But none of that seemed to matter. All she could do was prod him harder.
“You were with her, weren’t you? While I was waiting, you were probably fuc—”
“Shut up.” He shook her lightly. So lightly she wondered why it felt like her bones were rattling under her skin. Those blunt, scarily strong guitarist’s fingers slipped around to the back of her neck, digging into flesh. “Just shut the hell up. For once, stop talking to me. I don’t want to hear your voice in my head anymore.”
Hurt slammed through her, slicking ice over the burning fury. “So go. No one’s forcing you to be near me if it’s so repulsive to you. I’m sure she’s waiting anyway, right? She has something you need.” His pupils flared and the truth cut her so deep that she went limp in his hold. She hadn’t wanted to believe it. But the reality burned in his eyes.
Those eyes had never lied to her. And they weren’t lying now.
Don’t cry. Not here.
She yanked at his hold, desperate to get away. Things had quieted considerably in their corner of the bar, probably due to all the spectators watching them, but she didn’t give a shit. Let them listen. Let them do what she always did and record it all for Twitter. She was tired of being the cute, spunky, easily dismissed Oblivion chick.
If that meant she had to have a meltdown in the center of a New Year’s Eve party, she was entitled.
“Let me go,” she whispered when Gray’s grip only tightened, taking her right up to the point of pain but never beyond. “You want me out of your head. I’m gone.”
“You don’t get it. You never did.” He brought their faces close, so close that his breath fluttered over her lips. He’d been drinking too, something dark and rich. “I could walk out of here and never see you again and it wouldn’t make one fucking bit of difference. I could screw every woman I see blind and I’d never shake that sound from my mind. You. Always you.”
Each word hit her heart like a blade. Any more of them and she’d be left quivering on the floor, impaled by his obvious disgust.
All this time, she’d believed they were a team. Sure, they’d had their rough patches. Joining Oblivion for one. That insane threesome for another. He’d pulled further and further away until she’d felt like she was losing her best friend, but she hadn’t panicked. Because she’d known way down deep that he would always come back to her. He was her constant. The center of her life. Without Gray, nothing made sense.
But now with Gray, nothing made sense anymore either.
“Let me go,” she breathed again, her throat as raw as her eyes. “Just let me go.”
He stared at her for so long that she started to shake. This was really it. He was going to release her and they would be over, without really ever having been anything. This had all been a long dream. She’d just imagined he’d ever loved her—
“Never.” He crushed his mouth down on hers.
CHAPTER FIVE
Then
“Okay, now do it again.”
Jazz sighed. She’d been playing guitar for years, but he took it to another level. He was crazy good. Almost Kirk Hammett-in-Metallica good. “My fingers are tired.”
“Aww, poor baby.” Gray grinned. “I thought you wanted to be in a band.”
She snorted. “Like that’s ever actually going to happen.”
They’d been practicing for hours in his parents’ basement rec room, which was fancier than the house she’d lived in with her sister and her mama in Glenview. Expensive artwork decorated the navy walls and leather furniture filled the space. The huge TV and high-end stereo were fascinating enough, but the row of antique pinball machines always drew the bulk of her attention. Ms. Pac-Man was starting to look really appealing.
She wasn’t a gamer and normally she loved playing her music more than anything, but Gray had been teaching her some complicated finger combinations on his spare Stratocaster since they’d gotten home from school. Between his endless instruction and the reverberation from the amp, she was starting to get a headache.
And she still had three hours of algebra homework to do. Three hours of pretending she didn’t hear the feminine laughter coming from Gray’s end of the hall as he “tutored” his latest student in French. Literally.
She’d almost walked in on him and t
he last one. They’d gotten so quiet in there that she’d thought Shelly or Sally or whatever her name was had gone home, so Jazz had stopped outside his door, prepared to knock. The moan had taken her by surprise. As had the red lace bra on the floor when she’d given in to curiosity and quietly nudged the cracked-open door.
Yeah, Gray knew his French, all right.
“You’re right, it won’t happen if you don’t start practicing more. You think Krystal Sword will take on just anyone? We have qualifications.”
“I’m sure you do.” Like tongue-testing all the female applicants. If they even had female applicants. Krystal Sword was a band of six loud, smelly boys.
He went on, oblivious to her sarcasm. “Jimmy’s already told me he’s not going to replace Stevie unless we can find exactly the right fit. You’re good, but not better than Stevie. He doesn’t just play, he writes music—”
“I write music.” She set aside the guitar and dug through her backpack, prying out two brightly colored notebooks. The first she tucked under her bent leg. Nope, he wasn’t getting to see that one. “Here.”
Eyebrow raised, he flipped open the peace sign-covered notebook she’d handed him. He read the pages of lyrics quietly, his face devoid of any reaction.
She toyed with the slouchy top of her DayGlo yellow socks then blew out a breath and folded her hands in her lap. So what if he didn’t like her lyrics? That wasn’t her best work. The best work was in her other notebook, the one with way too much personal information.
Like songs about a boy she’d once been in love with. Once because it was safer. Because she’d never tell anyone the truth.
He continued to flip pages with his agile fingers, reading silently, his expression blank. The other guys in the band all wore guyliner. He refused. The one time he’d put on makeup for a show at open mic night at a local club he’d looked almost too pretty. With that lush mouth, super-long eyelashes and thick, wavy hair, he’d been prime rocker material. The chicks had gone nuts for him, but he’d immediately gone back to his own personal style—jeans and concert tees mixed with the occasional leather vest. Hair gel was about as far as he went toward the whole musician look.
