“I think this calls for one more round!” Quentin said, and there was more laughter and general agreement.
One more round was served.
***
Danny sat on the edge of his motel-room bed, staring across the dark room at his own shape in the mirror. Quentin was already asleep in the other bed, and Johnny was passed out on the floor, muttering ominous-sounding nonsense syllables.
Case, Danny knew, was two doors down—alone. Erin had stayed out with some of her friends, her energy barely dampened by the late hour and Christ knew how many drinks. “Oh, I couldn’t sleep anyway,” she’d said happily. “Too fired up!”
Danny wasn’t exactly fired up, but he knew all about the couldn’t-sleep part. He wasn’t exactly not fired up, he thought as he sat with his elbows on his knees, dry-washing his hands nervously. He was wound up all right, but his energy had a sour flavor to it.
Touring with Crashyard. Maybe it wouldn’t happen—maybe Buchanan had just been drunk and running his mouth, but Danny didn’t think so. He hadn’t been that drunk. It might just happen. God, how cool would that be? Crashyard wasn’t playing arenas, like Buchanan had said, but they still had a pretty good draw. Ragman would get to play in front of thousands of people. Thousands. It was the chance of a lifetime, and ten years of playing in shitty high-school bands and shitty college bands and shitty local bands had made Danny keenly aware of that fact. He ought to be thrilled. Hell, he was thrilled . . . except . . .
The tour would be what? Six weeks? Eight? He might be able to arrange for a leave of absence from work. More likely, his boss would tell him he was out of his mind, inform him that he got two weeks of vacation a year and he’d best use them wisely, and that would be that. What then?
Would he be willing to quit his job for this?
Yeah. It wasn’t hard to imagine finding another engineering job down the road, driving a CAD station in his cubicle until he was old enough to retire, but it was impossible to imagine that another opportunity like this tour would come along.
But what would Gina say? Try as he might, he couldn’t conceive of her being happy for him. Not for this. She would be pissed if he even seemed like he was taking it seriously, most likely skewering him with the same sort of condemnation she reserved for John. Tragic waste of potential. Socially irresponsible. Immature. He had no idea how severe her reaction would be if he actually quit his job and went through with it, but he suspected it could be terminal for their relationship.
Danny felt sick. He wanted to call Gina and tell her the good news, share the excitement with her, but he knew that could never happen.
He thought he could find somebody that would be happy to talk about the good news just two doors down, if she was still awake. Talk about the good news, and maybe . . .
And maybe what, Danny? What are you thinking?
The same things he’d been thinking when he’d touched her leg at the bar, the same things he’d thought when she’d touched him in return. Not really thoughts at all, just chaotic, unchanneled desire, desperate for some kind of release. Just remembering that quick, furtive pressure was enough to make him hard right now.
Danny stood up, shaking, his breath rough in his ears. Had he actually made a decision? Gina or Case, cube farm or rock-and-roll stage—they seemed like the same dilemma. Nice, stable, and predictable; or exhilarating and wild, something that might propel him to dizzying heights or explode spectacularly.
He slipped the plastic key card for the room in his pocket and went out into the hall.
He stopped at the door to her room. Light winked out at him through the peephole.
Danny took a long, shuddering breath, and then he knocked softly on the door.
It opened almost immediately, before he could draw another breath.
***
When the knock came, it was as though Case had been waiting for it. She had been pacing, catlike, for what felt like hours, tense and unable to sleep, and she was in fact already walking toward the door when she heard the soft rap.
She opened the door wide, and even though she had known what she was going to see, her stomach flipped over.
It was Danny, of course.
His eyes locked with hers with that same intense look he got onstage, the one that shot heat and lightning through her whole body, and he didn’t flinch. He waited just long enough for her to say something. When she didn’t, he stepped into the room, put his hands on her waist—feather-light, oddly gentle for such a big man—and kissed her.
Case wasn’t so gentle. She pulled him into the room by his shirtfront, slammed the door with one hand, and pushed him against the wall. She kissed him, hard, and ground her hips into his body. Then he was pulling at her shirt, and she at his, and there was nothing in the world but her body and his.
They never even made it to the bed.
Chapter 21
Danny sat up in the bright light of late morning and took in the disaster. They’d made love—if you could call it that—twice in the night. The first time, on the floor, had been frenzied but hadn’t ranged too far from the door. The second time had been fucking cataclysmic. They’d made it to the bed eventually, but on the way a lamp had gotten knocked over and an end table destroyed, and a stuffed chair had been hauled halfway across the room and tipped on its side. They’d pulled the headboard off the wall, too, and it was lying across the chair at an angle.
The destruction seemed appropriate, he thought soberly. He’d destroyed more than a hotel room last night. The guilt would come crashing down any minute, but for now he was oddly calm.
He studied Case’s sleeping form, its curves and planes so different from the ones he was used to.
From your wife’s, you mean.
Yeah.
She opened her eyes and stretched. “Oh, God,” she said, smiling. “Morning.”
“You don’t have enough tattoos,” he remarked.
“Uh, good morning to you, too,” she said, giving him a curious look. “Actually, I don’t have any tattoos.”
“I noticed. It’s weird.”
“You don’t have any, either.”
“Well, no, but I’m a good product of my society. You, on the other hand—with the fuck-you attitude, I’d have thought you’d have ink from head to toe. It’s almost standard issue for the rebel crowd.”
She rolled onto her side, pushing the sheet down to her hips. “Nope. No piercings, either. Not even my ears. One thing to be said for martial arts training is that it teaches you a lot of respect for your body.”
“Not much respect for mine, though,” he said, looking pointedly at the clusters of red half-moons she’d clawed into his chest.
She started to grin, but it faded fast. “Are you going to be okay with this?”
Danny sighed. He didn’t like the way her face had lapsed into its stock expression—an expressionless expression, with a slight hint of wariness. “Are you?”
She shrugged. “I’m fine. I’m always fine.”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Not unless this was just about fucking for you.”
Another searching look. No answer.
“Well, was it? About fucking, I mean.”
“What if it was?”
He thought about it. It wouldn’t have changed his decision, he realized, though he knew now that he was hoping for more—had been all along. He thought she wanted something, too, and it was only that wariness of hers that made her so evasive. “I made my choice. I’m ready to live with it either way,” he said, though he wondered if that was really true. “But I’ll be honest. This wasn’t only about sex for me, and I hope it wasn’t for you.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips, and then it was gone. “Took a lot of guts to say that,” she said.
“And?”
She smiled for real this time, though the cautious look didn’t leave her eyes. “We’ll see.”
There was sharp pounding on the door, followed by Johnny’s voice:
“God
dammit, Danny, are you in there?”
***
Johnny had woken up disoriented and confused, tangled in a blanket with Quentin’s feet hanging off the bed over his head. The curtains hadn’t been closed, and the light stabbed his eyes. He rubbed his temples with one hand to try to ease the pain in his head. What the hell had he done last night?
Then he remembered—Crashyard. The tour.
He sat up, a smile forming on his face despite his headache. This was going to be great! Danny would—
Danny. Where was Danny? The room’s second bed was empty. From the look of it, it had not even been slept in. That was enough to piss Johnny off all by itself, since he’d spent a lousy night on the floor, one that had probably tweaked his neck and his back pretty good and would doubtless make for an extra pleasant trip back to Dallas. But worse, where was Danny?
You know where Danny is, the voice told him. Down the hall, dick still wet from fucking our guitarist.
No. That couldn’t be it. He wouldn’t, and anyway Erin was with Case . . . wasn’t she? Johnny couldn’t remember. The last part of the night was hazy, and the only thing that stuck in his head was the tour invitation. He hoped he hadn’t made that up.
The two things sat uneasily together in his head—the tour invitation, and Danny fucking Case just down the hall.
He’s gonna fuck it all up for us, the voice told him. Maybe he already has.
Johnny got up. He staggered and almost fell as a spike of pain split his head, but he put a hand on the dresser and steadied himself. He collected himself and slowly walked to the door.
Moments later, he was beating on the door to Case’s room. Each thump hammered nails into his brain, but he kept pounding anyway.
“Goddammit, Danny, are you in there?”
There was no sound. Johnny started to wonder if maybe he’d been mistaken after all.
Then Danny’s voice, muffled: “Just a minute.”
Johnny’s heart sank at the same time the voice in his head went into a spasm of gibbering, inarticulate rage.
Oh, Danny. What did you do?
He fucked it up, he fucked it up, he fucked it up!
The pain in Johnny’s head redoubled. He ground his teeth together.
The door opened just wide enough to let Danny out into the hall. He closed it behind him.
“Hi, John.”
The name caught Johnny off guard and started the thing in his head howling. “Johnny.”
“I’ve got some things I need to deal with this morning. Johnny. Can we pick this up later?”
“What did you do, Danny? Danny, what did you do?” Johnny seemed incapable of thinking anything else. The hall had contracted to a tight bubble around him and Danny, and he felt off-balance and dizzy.
“I think you can figure that out without my help,” Danny said, trailing off toward the end and looking down at the floor.
That small gesture of deference helped Johnny regain his equilibrium. The thing in his head smelled blood and started up its ungodly howling again. “Why? Why did you have to do it now? Danny, if you fucked this up for me—if you fucked this up for us, I . . . I . . . Jesus Christ, Danny!”
“I didn’t fuck anything up for you, John.”
“Yeah? What about the tour?” Johnny knew as soon as he said it that he shouldn’t have. Danny gave him a solemn look.
“Oh, you’re worried about the tour. I thought you might have been here trying to look out for my well-being.”
Johnny squirmed, lost for a reply, but the voice whispered the words. He merely repeated them. “Your marriage is your business, but the band affects me, too. How could you be so selfish?” That sounded like as ripe a load of bullshit as Johnny had ever heard, even to his own ears—but it hit home. He could tell.
“The tour will be fine,” Danny said softly. “I want that as much as you do.”
I doubt that, Johnny thought, but this time he said nothing. Somewhere, he was wondering whether Danny might not really need him, might need a little support, but his headache and the whispering thing and his own terror at the possibility of losing the opportunity to tour with Crashyard buried it. Danny was the big brother—he’d be fine.
“Promise?” Johnny said, hating himself as the word escaped.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Johnny said. “I’m gonna go, uh, take a shower.”
“Okay.”
***
It was on the way back to Dallas that the guilt finally caught up with Danny.
Chapter 22
Gina’s car was in the driveway when Danny pulled in. He’d actually been in Dallas for a few hours, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to go home right away. He’d driven in circles on I-635 until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
By the time he got home, he had a pretty good idea of what he needed to say, and he was looking forward to it like a root canal sans anesthetic.
He had a tight feeling in his chest and throat as he opened the front door.
She was on the couch, a stack of paper on her lap as always. That made it a little easier.
Danny walked around to the other end of the couch and sat. “Gina, we need to talk.” He had it worked out. He would begin by talking about the tour and the things he wanted out of life—the things she didn’t approve of and wouldn’t understand. He didn’t see any reason to lay this at Case’s feet, and Gina deserved a complete explanation. It wasn’t nearly as simple as sex. Of course, he’d have to admit sleeping with Case eventually—his body was covered in evidence—but that would come later, after Gina understood the larger framework.
She looked up from her paperwork, an expression of grim knowledge on her face. “You fucked her.”
The air rushed out of Danny’s lungs. His whole orderly plan went out the window, and he stared stupidly at Gina. “What?”
“That’s what you were going to say, right? It’s all over your face, Daniel.” Her lips were thin, and he could see her jaw working, tears glistening in her eyes.
Tears came to his own eyes in response. You did this, Danny. Nice fucking work. “It’s not about that, Gina.”
“You didn’t?”
He made a pained expression. “Would you listen to me?”
One tear slipped free and rolled down her cheek. “Tell me you didn’t fuck her.”
Danny looked at his hands, then forced himself to look Gina in the eye. He owed her that much. “I can’t do that,” he said.
She laughed, a bitter, jagged laugh from deep in her throat. More tears slid down her face. “I knew I was being stupid. All that crap about not making you choose between me and your music—just stupid.” She laughed again, and the sound cut Danny’s heart like a fistful of broken glass. “You’re a child, Danny, always thinking you can have everything, always thinking you can make everyone happy. I should have known better than to trust you that far.”
“I can explain,” Danny said, though even he wasn’t sure what possible explanation he could provide.
“Get out.”
“Gina, I—”
“I don’t care. You don’t get to talk this out. I know you, Daniel—you’re just looking for some absolution. You’re not going to get it here. Just pack your things and get out.”
He swallowed, trying to dispel the lump in his throat. Of course it wouldn’t go. Gina’s face was a heartrending mask of pain and fury, and suddenly he wished he could take it all back, undo everything, make a different set of decisions. Like what? a cynical voice asked him. He shook his head, numb and unknowing.
“I love you,” he said. Maybe it was a plea, maybe it was what she said—one last attempt to get her to absolve him.
Scorn twisted her features. “You’re pathetic, Danny. Just go.”
He didn’t bother to pack anything. His socks and underwear seemed supremely unimportant just now.
He looked back one time before he closed the door. Gina’s face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders shook with heavy sobs.
The i
mage would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Chapter 23
“That’s it,” Case said as she put down her phone. “Erin says the tour’s confirmed.”
“It’s really gonna happen,” Danny said, wonder in his voice. He lay, propped up on his elbows, on Case’s bed—a mattress on the floor, actually, one of the few things she had in common with Johnny, he thought. It had been a futon until a few days ago, when they’d broken the frame during a particularly energetic session.
“Yeah.” She smiled. To Danny, she looked like a kid contemplating summer vacation and all the joys it would entail. It was an odd expression on her usually cynical face. He liked it.
“You ready for it?” he asked.
She took her time replying. “I think so.” Another surprise. He’d expected a “fuck yeah” or something of the kind. Something more definite.
“Me, too.” Danny turned, looking for his pants. He pulled them on quickly, then searched for his shirt for a futile moment before remembering that it had come off just inside the front door and was still there. “I’m gonna take off,” he said. “Dinner tonight?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. He finally looked back over his shoulder to see if she’d heard him.
“You don’t have to go,” she whispered, barely audible. “I mean, you can stay. If you want.”
He thought about it. She hadn’t made the invitation lightly, he knew—he could hear the strain in her voice. Turning back to her, he took her hand. He tried to choose his words very carefully. “This is not a great time. I mean, I spend a lot of time lately just trying to sort things out in my head—moping, basically—and I’m not going to be very good company much of the time.”
Her eyes hardened briefly, but then she nodded. “If you’re trying to say you need some time alone, I get that.”
“Is your offer still going to be good in a few days?”
“Unless you piss me off, yeah.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Thank you. Dinner tonight?”
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