by Ally Blake
Her face working with a clear desire to give it a go, and near panic at how she might ruin it, she eventually gave him a short nod and set to work.
He turned his back on her, unveiled the computer, unspooled some guitar string and set to working out what he needed for the next step.
…
A half an hour later she’d opened a couple of buttons in her shirt to let in some cool air, her skirt was halfway up her thighs, and her shoes were lying haphazardly under the stool so that her toes tucked over the footrest.
“I think I’ve reached the upper limit of my fear factor,” she huffed, leaning back so he could check out her efforts.
He didn’t. He only looked at her. At the curls of hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. The smudge of wood dust on her cheek. The way her whole face glowed. “I can honestly say that’s one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.”
“What? A woman doing manual labor?”
“No,” he said, “just you.” His chest constricted as her mouth kicked into a sudden smile.
He leaned over and kissed her. Just lips on lips. She slipped off the stool into her shoes like they were some kind of homing beacon, then she wrapped her hot arms around his neck and melted into him.
She tasted of dust and sweat and her very particular sweetness.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his mouth before tracing the seam of his lips with her tongue. “That was…amazing.” Then, “Crap!” she shot out suddenly. “I forgot. Mack drove. I planned to do a walkthrough of a couple of the bigger department stores in Union Square this evening to schmooze the merchandisers.”
She disentangled herself from between his legs and tidied herself up till she appeared sexy and decisive and unstoppable. As if remembering her career she remembered herself. Dash chose not to tell her about the damp curl of hair falling down across one pink cheek.
“So, no lesson?” he asked, putting the guitar back in her glass case, careful not to check what Lori had done. She’d put her mark on the thing now, and that was that.
She swore a hell of a lot more.
He laughed out loud. “We’ve got what? Two weeks? A little over?”
“I know, I know,” she said, as she headed out the roller door. Dash pushed himself from the warm stool and followed her out into the weak afternoon light.
“We might have to ramp up the lessons,” he said, catching up so he could place a hand at her back.
Her next step faltered even as she leaned in to him, using the excuse of checking her watch. “Things are at a point where I could squeeze in a couple extra a week, if I had to.”
Dash grinned and slipped his hand further around her waist. “I’ll have to check my calendar of course, but I’m sure it can be arranged.”
Via the kitchen, they went to get Barbarella and her bag, tacitly ignoring the complicated conversation that had gone down in there a mere hour or so before.
And as they made their way to the front door, Lori slowed in her haste to get back to the real world. Then she turned to him and said, “If you’ve spent the last couple of years learning to make a guitar, have you truly not played one in all that time?”
Dash ran his thumb up the center of his palm as that might erase the sensation of having held the thing at all. “Nope.”
“Because you don’t enjoy it anymore?”
“For a long while there it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel like I should.”
She nodded. Then shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
So much for letting others make their own choices, he thought wryly.
Until she added, “The shed, the woodwork, working with your uncle’s partner; it’s like an ode. Like the notes at the back of an album: without these people I wouldn’t be here.”
She shrugged lightly, as if surprised by her own romanticism.
While Dash had stopped breathing.
Through the tangle of years since his uncle had died, he’d thought of the shed as a kind of limbo—a place to bounce about, his quiet enjoyment therein as much and as little as he deserved.
He’d never once thought of it as a dedication. A continuance, even, of the work his uncle had done. The opportunities he’d been given. The talents he’d been allowed to pursue. The fulfillment of the sacrifices made by those who’d helped him get there.
“I’d like to see you play one day,” Lori went on as if Dash wasn’t in the middle of some great epiphany. “If you ever decide to try it again. On stage, in some smoky blues dive where you can hide out and jam.”
As if some part of him had been unlocked to possibilities, her words rushed over him. He pictured the dark crowd, tables mostly empty. Red carpet singed with old cigarette burns. Smoke machine obscuring everything, as, secreted behind the brim of one of his vintage hats—perhaps even the Sinatra one he bought at a Christie’s auction early on in that same fateful tour—he could close his eyes and sink into the music, living it, loving it as he once had.
Like a junkie remembering a fix, he felt the pluck of a string against his short thumbnail, the twang sliding up his arm, and the sound; sweet, melodious, and deep, vibrating through his body.
Then Lori laughed, the husky sound filling the foyer. “Do you really even call it a jam? I honestly have no idea. I need to buy one of your old albums and have a listen.”
He snapped back to reality. To the fact that since he hadn’t played a guitar in over four years, he couldn’t be sure he’d remember how.
“You haven’t yet?” he asked, leaning against the wall.
“Egotistical much?”
He grinned. “We sold ten million copies of the last album we recorded before I left. It went number one in fifteen countries and was the most played album on American radio that year.”
“I find the radio distracting when I’m working in the car. I use my phone for traffic updates, or weather if I’m flying somewhere. Though on long trips, Mack, my driver, plays music his daughters like; Lily Allen, Alanis Morissette, Kelly Clarkson.”
Dash winced. “Ball busters. Poor Mack.”
Lori smiled. That soft curl still wandering down her cheek. And he found himself glad he’d welcomed her into the shed. Into his bed. Into his home.
If this thing turned out to bite him on the backside, so be it. To see that look in her eyes, to feel her warmth return, to let her forget about the burdens she was shouldering for everyone else in her life, it was worth it.
She was worth it.
Dash pushed away from the wall and leaned past her to open the door.
She glanced up at him, her hand on the doorjamb mere inches from his mouth. “I won’t be able to come the next couple of days. Girls’ weekend. Callie’s last hurrah.” She said it with a slight furrowing of her brow, but none of the flat out panic with which she’d arrived. The shed may have worked its magic on her after all.
“Cocktails? Gossip? Strippers?” he asked, peeling the edge of his T-shirt away from his neck.
Her eyes darkened as they locked onto his chest. “I hadn’t thought of that, but brilliant. Thanks for the idea.”
Dash hooked a finger into the neckline of her top, tugged so that she fell against him. “If that’s your bag, I’ve got moves.” He proved it with a swirl of his hips against hers.
She swallowed. “I don’t doubt it.” She swallowed again, but her voice was still gorgeously husky as she said, “When do you want me, then?” A beat then, “For my next lesson.”
“Whenever you like,” he said slowly letting her go. “I’ll be here.”
“Hmmm,” she said, “That’s one of the things I like most about you.” Then lifted onto her toes, planted a kiss on his lips and walked away.
Barbarella swinging from one hand, blonde hair bouncing, those killer shoes making her walk just so, Lori Hanover was one hell of a package. One who left a mark on the world bigger than any mark she might have left on that guitar, that was for damn sure.
Dash was beginning to accept that some people did that—made
bigger impacts. On a person, on a place, on a time. And that hiding in the sticks wouldn’t keep him safe from feeling such impacts. Or making them.
Humming…something, he wasn’t sure what, his left thumb plucking at the seam of his jeans, Dash shut the door and headed inside.
He called, “Grub’s up!” and smiled pretty damned contentedly when he heard doggy claws scrambling against his wood floors.
Chapter Nine
A couple of days later, the girls’ weekend was well and truly underway.
Lita, Sydney, and Callie huddled around the shiny red buffet against the wall in Lori’s office clinking glasses of champagne, chattering about Jake, wedding dresses and, of course, wedding shoes.
When Callie started listing the people from school she couldn’t wait to catch up with, Lori took the chance to tick something off her to do list. Not content owing anyone anything, she’d been trying to think of something to give Dash for Barbarella.
She’d settled on a cell phone, paying out the first year of the contract. She’d made sure the service provider would get reception at Dash’s place and that it had plenty of space for music.
She opened up the Etsy website looking for a case. And being a girl who liked a good quote, picked a little JM Barrie, which had“if you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing” etched across the back.
“Now, we’re totally going to the gig after dinner tonight, right?” Callie asked, as Lori plucked the plan confirmation from the printer and folded it into an envelope.
“What gig?” Lori asked, finalizing the buy.
“Dash’s gig.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Like a deer in the headlights, Callie went still. “Jake told me about it. It’s nothing really. A jam with some piano player who used to session with the band years ago. It’s last minute, totally hush-hush. In a dive on the edge of Chinatown. I thought…”
It was clear what Callie had thought, that since Lori and Dash had been spending time together of late that he might have told her that he was intending to play in public for the first time in years. Especially since two days earlier they’d had a conversation about exactly that.
“When is it?” Lori asked, hoping her voice wasn’t as tight as it sounded in her ears.
“About eleven. Jake and the guys aren’t going or it would be a total fiasco. But we thought we might sneak in. Incognito.”
“We?”
“Us. Tracey, too. She took Jake’s call.”
Oh good God. The thought of how Dash would react to Tracey knowing— And Lita and now Sydney had been added to the ‘inner circle.’ Too many thoughts knocked about inside her head, but none had a hope of getting any traction. Not when all she could think about was their talk. And how after he’d taken her by the hand and given her that guitar to shine, she’d thought…
Callie promised, “The girls know not to say a word. Right girls?”
“Off the record,” Lita said with a grin, one hand on her champagne the other to God.
“If it was Keith Urban, then that’d be a whole other story. As is, I don’t have anybody to tell,” said Sydney.
“So we’re going?” Callie asked.
Lori lowered the envelope to the desk with exaggerated slowness. It was either that or throw it across the room. “Oh, we’ll be there.”
…
The Dive—actual name—turned out to be down a flight of stairs in a basement in a less than classy part of town. It was dark and small, the rickety tables crammed in close together, the acoustics making even the softest conversation sound like a din.
The girls chatted happily over their Black Russians, complete with bendy straws, the closest thing the bartender could approximate to a cocktail. And, to Lori, they were about as incognito as a pack of poodles in a Rottweiler cage.
Callie wore a black Betty Boop do, lanky Lita with her caramel skin had fake long blond curls that turned heads. Tracey’s choice of camouflage was a chocolate-brown beehive hairpiece, and Sydney—who’d never met Dash anyway—had her dark hair stowed away beneath a vibrant red pixie wig.
Meanwhile, Lori, in a fit of contrariness, had foregone a disguise altogether. Her hair fell down her back in shiny waves, her lips were a slick red, her eyes smoky as hell, her black dress dipped low at the front and cinched tight at the waist. Her shoes were so high if she didn’t walk with a sway she could put out a hip. If Dash didn’t notice her, then she might as well hang up her boots then and there.
She sipped her drink and perused the stage. No guitar that she could see amongst the speakers, drum kit, double bass leaning against a cracked vinyl chair, and piano, which was the only thing keeping her from screaming out her tension.
“You sure the band won’t be here tonight?” Lita asked, leaning in toward Lori.
“I’m not even meant to be here and I’m sleeping with the guy!” Several pairs of eyes turned her way. Okay, so that was a tad loud.
“No Rift,” Callie called back, bouncing on the chair in time to the cocktail-infused music in her head. “Only reason Dash told Jake was because he didn’t want him to find out another way and come.”
Lita seemed happy with that and Lori remembered Dash’s accusation that her lovely friend had bad blood with the band.
Lori leaned in, close enough Callie wouldn’t hear. “Have you had some kind of run in with Jake in the past?”
“What?” Lita asked, rearing back. “No. Why?”
“Dash said something once,” she said, rolling her eyes before downing another gulp of her drink. “You can tell me, you know; if you have dirt on him. Better we know now than when it’s too late…”
Lita gave her a soft knowing smile. “Jake’s a prince. Ego the size of Texas, but a sweetheart underneath. The drummer, on the other hand…” Lita let that hang before grabbing a skinny waiter by the elbow and making motions to get another jug for the table.
So it wasn’t Jake who’d put out the hard word. Lori felt an unfamiliar flicker of guilt for thinking so, before washing it away with another sip. If the drummer had a problem with gorgeous Lita, then the whole damn band was nothing but trouble.
So then why was she here?
Straw between her teeth, Lita called across the table, “So you’re really going to drag us all to the sticks to get married, Miss Calliope?”
Sydney’s grimace wasn’t subtle. “It’s set in stone, then? We can’t convince you to get married in, I don’t know, Paris?”
“Yes it’s set in stone,” said the bride-to-be, slapping her old friend on the arm. “So I’d like you all to suck it up and be happy for me. Just imagine the look on Mom’s face as she walks me down the aisle. What a moment on which to hinge the rest of her life; one not where she’s the cuckold, where she’s the queen.”
Sydney gave Callie a quick hug. While Lori swore beneath her breath and, grinning, Lita patted her on the hand.
“I guess we can all only hope that Fairbanks has changed,” said Syd. “That age has mellowed. Babies have exhausted. And if not, screw ’em. Your wedding will be the best thing that ever happened in that town.”
Lori kept her opinions to herself. Slapping fresh paint on a wall wouldn’t make a lick of difference if the wall was riddled with termites.
Telling a loner you liked him didn’t mean he’d suddenly become less of an island unto himself and include you in anything important in his life.
She just…if she knew why he hadn’t told her about the gig then she’d be okay with it. Because she’d told him she was busy that weekend and he didn’t want to disturb her fun? Or was that why he’d picked this weekend? Maybe he could trust her with the story of his uncle, with struggles that had shaped him in his past, but as for trusting her with things in the here and now…?
Lori wriggled on her chair, realizing belatedly that turning up with four be-wigged beauties who were already three sheets to the wind didn’t help her cause there.
She’d nibbled away half her thumbnail before she even realized it was in h
er mouth.
And then the lights cranked up, a smoke machine pumped white mist into the crowd, and the band filed out; skinny guys in baggy zoot suits, big guys in braces and spats. And one man in a black suit, black dress shoes, white shirt, loosely knotted tie, a fedora covering his face and a glass of amber liquid dangling from his hand. A hand with fingers she knew even from that distance would be calloused, nicked, and strong.
Lori’s heart beat so hard she could feel it in her throat. Her glass suddenly felt so slippery she dropped it to the table. And she wondered if it was too late to make a subtle exit.
But then he looked up and smiled at the drummer, a wiry man in a brown three piece suit over skin like chocolate and hair the color of smoke, and Lori might as well have been glued to the seat.
He shook hands with the double bass guy who lifted his backside off the chair in respect. Did some fancy knuckle-bump with the piano player. Then, pulling out a stool and settling himself up, Dashiel Mills drew an unfamiliar guitar, bigger than Barbarella, into his lap where it sat as if it had been there his whole life.
She wondered if she was the only one who noticed the crease above his nose. The way he shook as he gulped at the drink. The curls at his temple where his shaggy hair had stuck there with sweat.
As the blood rushed behind her ears, all she could think was that she knew how to caress his neck to ease out that crease. Just what to say to bring on that smile. As for the sweat—that was fine with her. But while she’d admitted to Dash that she liked him, it was more than that. She was smitten. Watching him do no more than sit and breathe, she ached.
She ached for a man whose instinct to walk away was so strong that he’d tattooed it to his skin.
Dash dropped his drink under the leg of the chair, then glanced over the semi-full house. And it occurred to Lori that if he kept up the same trajectory he’d soon spot her.
She’d come with a head full of steam, ready to make him aware that she would not be denied, but she was overcome with a sudden urge to grab Lita’s wig and shove it onto her head. But two women wrestling over Dolly Parton curls would probably cause more of a scene than not.
