(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5)

by Michelle Mankin

  “You guys alright?” Ash immediately came toward us and tagged Simone’s free hand pissing me off.

  “We’re good.” I pulled her closer into me. “What the hell’s going on? It’s pandemonium out there.”

  “That’s what is known as success.” Ramon was smiling as he joined us, Dominic, too. “Freakin’ unbelievable success,” he added unnecessarily. “It must be all those fliers I handed out.” His grin widened.

  “My transportation skills you mean,” Dominic teased playing along.

  “My logistics,” Ash announced folded his arms over his chest.

  “It’s all of us.” I smiled, too feeling the burden I had been shouldering since the accident easing somewhat. “It’s pretty incredible.” I kissed the top of Mona’s head. “Has anyone talked to the Morris rep yet?”

  “No.” Ash shook his head. “We were waiting for you. But we saw the cameras being set up all over the joint near the stage and in the audience.”

  “What’s up with all of that?” I asked brows pulling together. “I thought it was just going to be a one camera one angle low cash outlay kind of thing.”

  “I think Zenith must’ve decided since they’re already out here making sure the Dogs aren’t a fluke they might as well get some useful video they can use later if we’re not. Hard to fake the kind of energy that’s out there right now,” Ramon explained. “PR for the group is moving to the next level vatos. It’s above my pay grade now.”

  “Yeah free will only get you so far,” Dominic joked.

  I toned down my smile and turned to the woman with the hand held. “You with the club or Zenith?” I queried.

  “Zenith,” she confirmed what I suspected.

  “Good. I want to talk to Morris right away. Before the show,” I clarified.

  She moved a couple of steps away and before Ash and I had time to agree on the set list, she swept back and offered me her cell with Morris on the line.

  “You wanted to speak to me,” he cut straight to the point sounding intimidating as hell.

  “Yeah,” I pulled in a breath and my grip tightened on Simone’s hand. “It’s cool that you’re interested in the Dirt Dogs.” Zenith obviously had the resources to make us a big hit if we could impress them. “But I have a stipulation before we agree to be recorded.”

  “And that is?” he sounded irritated and my palms got sweaty, but I wasn’t going to back down. I had to do this for my girl.

  “My girl gets to go out first. She’s got a song of her own.” She glanced at me sharply. I guess she didn’t think I had noticed. I noticed everything about her. “I want her to get recorded same as us and then for you guys to take a look when you get around to watching the video of us. That’s all.” There was no way anyone hearing her sweet voice singing those words wouldn’t fall for her and her talent the way I had from the first.

  “Fine,” Morris agreed quickly, too quickly in my opinion, making me doubt my negotiation prowess. Though the guys beamed proudly I got the impression I probably should have asked for more.

  • • •

  Simone

  “I can’t do it.” I gulped down oxygen in slow shallow sips trying not to hurl at just the thought of going out there and singing in front of all those people. Important people, media and industry types.

  “You’ve got this, Mona. It’s nothing you haven’t done before.”

  “At school. In musicals. That one time at the Deck Bar. But never when it counted so much.”

  “Relax, babe.” He pulled me into his strong capable arms, his warm hands settling on the curve of my hips, his talented fingers rubbing tempting soothing circles into my skin. I drew in his familiar scent, the ocean and sunshine embedded in his skin from all of the hours he spent on his surfboard. Totally and uniquely him. “Listen to me. No one has a voice like you do. I get chills every time I hear it. There’s no way they aren’t going to fall in love with you the way I have.” He eased back his clear blue eyes traveling the length of me, his lip curling in appreciation at what he saw. There wasn’t much he couldn’t see with my borrowed slinky dress revealing too much thigh and cleavage.

  “I’m gonna be sick.” I tried to shrug out of his grasp but he held me tightly. “Please, Linc. Let me go.” I dropped my chin staring at the silver heart pendent that contained our initials. “I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  “You can.” He gently lifted my chin with his curled forefinger. The inexpensive silver skull ring I had bought for him from the vendor on the beach felt cold against my clammy skin. “I’ll walk with you right to the stage.”

  I stilled taking a couple of deep breaths wanting to make him proud. Always wanting to please him. Loving him so desperately with every fiber of my being. Never coming close to imagining how badly he would break me at the end.

  I acquiesced to him as easily as Morris apparently had. Who could withstand the power of Linc’s personality?

  I went out on the stage, Ash accompanying me on keyboard, sang my heart out in my borrowed dress and the audience politely applauded when I was done a scant few but terrifying minutes later.

  Linc kissed my head when I exited the stage then he, Ramon and Dominic joined Ash on the stage. I quickly discovered how much louder, rowdier and enthusiastic the crowd could get.

  The walls vibrated as soon as the spotlights hit them. Feet stomped. Fans yelled. Some even stood on their chairs. Camera lights clicked on and so did Lincoln. Brightly. He strode to the center of the stage moving without any noticeable limp. Confident. Compelling. Controlled. A cosmic force.

  He plucked the mic from the stand glared at the audience daring them to come along with him or get the hell out of the way, before he and the guys launched into a cover of ‘Satisfaction’ that kicked ass as righteously as the original.

  It went uphill from there. Ramon on guitar flashing his flirt. Ash slamming sexy on his drums. Patch firm and steady on bass. And Linc my gorgeous wounded warrior with depths of worth that he still failed to recognize eclipsing them all. The Dirt Dogs might still a bit rough around the edges but they were undeniably on the ascent. What had started out as something to occupy their time when the surf wasn’t up had transformed into a magical mélange of Pacific saltwater, California sun and hard rocking in your face attitude.

  Sweat plastered Linc’s hair to his skull by the time he ended their set with a rousing version of ‘Better When Bad’, a brand new original Dirt Dog’s tune. Confidently. Arrogantly like it didn’t matter to him what the audience thought, he carefully returned the mic back to the stand. But they loved him and I think he knew it. They went bonkers as he exited the stage. The noise they generated rang in my ears every bit as loudly as the band’s sound had.

  Beaming Linc came straight to me immediately hoisting me up in a triumphant hug.

  “You did it!” He told me as I smiled back into his sparkling clear blue eyes.

  “I did ok. You guys were off the charts. Phenomenal.” Before he could reply, Dominic called my name moving towards us with an ominous look on his face that made my stomach tighten immediately.

  “Your mom’s on the phone.” She must have gotten his number from Karen. I squeezed Linc’s hand and I took the cell Dominic stretched toward me. “It’s ok. I’m sure.” I gestured toward the rest of the group hovering nearby waiting on him. “Go on start the celebration. I’ll just talk to her and come find you in a minute.” The guys slapped each other on the back and were talking loudly to each other as they took off.

  I covered one ear and pressed the cell to the other so I could hear better. “Hello.”

  “Simone.” Hearing her voice after all this time, after all that had happened made conflicting emotions vie for position within my heart. Anger grappled with a lingering desperation for her approval that made me feel small again. “Baby, I want you to know that I’ve sobered up. I got a lawyer after your father hit you. I’ve left him. I moved out. And I’m asking for half of everything.”

  I felt dizzy. I looked for a
chair but not finding one I just sagged into the cold surface of the cinderblock wall. “I need you to come home, Honey. Right away.” No inquiry about how I was doing. No apology for anything. “The attorney needs to talk to you. He wants to get your statement about the way your father treated us.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  * * *

  Linc

  I sensed something was dreadfully wrong the moment she rejoined us and I saw her drawn features. I set aside the champagne, excused myself from the reporter from KABC and moved across the room taking her hand and pulling her out into the hall. It seemed pretty obvious to me that she was about to break down. Screams from a crowd of restrained fans erupted in the corridor as soon as we emerged.

  “Shit!” I cursed and took her directly into a janitor’s closet across the hall telling the bouncer guarding the backstage door to keep everyone away.

  “What’s going on?” I asked pulling a dangling string to illuminate the tiny space. Her grip tightened.

  “I’ve got to go home, Linc. Back to Ocean Beach.” She was leaving me? Now? The strong smell of bleach made my eyes burn. “My mom filed for divorce. The lawyer needs my testimony.”

  “No,” I stated, the denial emphatic instantly angry on her behalf. “Why should you go, Simone? When did she ever stick her neck out for you?”

  “But…” she sputtered blinking at me her expression revealing that she hadn’t expected those words or the vehement tone I had used when delivering them. “I…”

  “But nothing, babe. You’re my girlfriend. You don’t go traipsing off just ‘cause your mommy calls, who I’ll remind you did absolutely nothing when your father clocked you. You saw how it was out there tonight. We have to keep that kind of energy up all the way to San Fran to keep Morris interested. I don’t know if I can do that without you. I’m not out there for my ego. I’m out there for us. It’s our future I’m building. I thought you got that.”

  She was quiet for a long moment, emotions flickering within her gaze too fast and complex for me to read them. “But she’s my mom, Linc,” she whispered eventually. “She needs me.”

  “I need you, too.” I told her the honest truth while grasping her by the shoulders to emphasize my point. “And I love you.” My voice went raw. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “Yes of course it does.” Her eyes filled. “It means everything. But you have Ash and the guys. She has no one.” Her voice was steady but she looked uncertain. So I laid things out more to clarify.

  “You are mine, Simone. Dammit. You aren’t her little girl anymore. She needs to stand up for herself. Take care of herself.”

  The way she never took care of you, I thought. Fuck her.

  Simone dipped her head and an icy trickle of trepidation tiptoed its way down my spine. “She’s all I have, Linc. Please understand.”

  “Fuck that,” I said bitterly. I didn’t see the big picture in that moment only that she was thinking about leaving me in the here and now. In my mind that slumbering dragon of insecurity awoke and lifted up its fiery red head.

  “I’ll just be gone for a couple of days, maybe a week and then I’ll come right back.” Her voice got smaller and smaller. “Don’t be mad at me, please.”

  “No.” I released her and took a step back my ass rattling the cleaning supplies on the steel shelves behind me. “I’m not bending on this, Simone. If you go out that door it means you’re choosing her over me.”

  She looked at me with a wounded expression and gathered tears spilled from her pretty honey colored eyes. “You’re acting just like my father.” Her chin came up to a stubborn angle but I was too full of my own righteous indignation to back down much less admit that she was right.

  “And you’re acting just like your mother.” I lashed right back. “Running away back to what’s safe and familiar the moment there’s an opportunity to.” If she returned to OB I was afraid she would forget us and remember the things she had given up for me, things that I couldn’t offer her. A home. College. Her dream. How could I compete with that? All I had to offer her right now were nebulous hopes for an uncertain future.

  “You’re the one who shut me out,” she said bowing her head in defeat.

  “Maybe I did. Maybe I have. But maybe that was because I knew where you and I were headed all along.” Not true, but once the words were out I couldn’t take them back. Old habits of self-preservation had risen to the forefront because I knew she had the power to utterly destroy me. I knew if I let her walk out that door that she wasn’t coming back. Away from me she would come to her senses. She would realize what a poor choice I was.

  She froze as solid as the ice sculpture on the buffet table in the other room. She didn’t speak for several moments. I hated myself in those moments because I could see that I had hurt her, because I knew what was going to happen and because I was no hero after all, just a sorry bastard who couldn’t stop the inevitable conclusion to us.

  Fucking fake arrogance that was too ingrained to be exorcised.

  “The man who took a job at my dad’s restaurant just to look out for me. The man who sent his cousin in his place when he couldn’t be there. The man who sent me all those notes and pictures. The man who spent all that time on that set up on the boat. The man who pursued me with all of his passion and made love to me with all of his emotion like you have doesn’t believe that.” Her words sounded certain but she wasn’t I could tell. She was unsteady on her feet as she turned slowly away from me and put her hand on the door knob. “I’m going, but I’ll be back for that man. For that man I would do anything. For that man I’d risk it all.”

  Part Three

  Present

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  * * *

  Simone

  My eyes filled just like they had back then all those years ago when I had walked back to the motel by myself, grabbed what little money I had left, my backpack and the camera Ash had given me and had taken the Coaster back to OB.

  Alone.

  Losing a little bit of myself with each mile that I had traveled because I had left it with him.

  I traced the last picture in the photo album that had started my journey back into the past. My mind wary of reliving any more. Even now after all this time the pain of that loss still threatened to consume me.

  Seeming to sense my distress my little Havanese padded into the room and jumped onto the bed beside me pressing his warm body against my leg. I petted him absently while staring at the picture of Linc. So handsome and so young flashing the skull ring I had given him along with his killer smile.

  The pages were empty of mementos after that much the way my heart had become. Without its anchor now just like back then my mind slid right back into the past and the events of that fateful day…

  • • •

  “Hey you going in?”

  “Huh?” I blinked at the blonde with the heavy makeup. I had been stalled in front of the door to their hotel room too afraid to go in. I could hear the loud music and the laughter inside. Lots of feminine laughter. It sounded like the guys were having a party. It had been a little less than two weeks since I had left him. Two weeks since we had fought at Huntington Beach. Two weeks since he had spoken those harsh words. Two weeks of stress and doubt. It didn’t help that I was never able to get a hold of Linc when I called. I had been communicating with Ash instead and received only vague replies to the direct questions I asked about Linc.

  My heart thundered in my chest. The courage to come seemed to have abandoned me once I had deplaned in San Francisco.

  “The door’s open. They always leave it open.” The blonde gave me a funny look as she twisted the handle a six pack in her other hand. “As long as you have beer, and…well…you know.”

  Numbly I followed her flouncing form inside. Typical hotel suite. Definitely larger than the ones I had shared with them. The band had done well. Ash had been forthcoming about that at least, spouting club attendance, receipt tallies, and miles logged on the camper van
but never any news about Lincoln. Seems he hadn’t needed me all that much after all.

  I glanced around the room. At least thirty or forty people were crammed inside. Mostly women. Beautiful women. Some dancing. More than a few not fully dressed. Some talking in groups. Some moving toward the back where I guessed the bedrooms were. Booming bass slammed my chest and I waved a hand in front of my face to dispel a dense cloud of smoke that made my eyes water and that definitely was not cigarettes.

  I didn’t see any of the guys. I felt out of place and my stomach was so knotted I wished I hadn’t eaten the doughnut at the airport. That had been a big mistake. Then the group of girls beside me moved away and I was confronted with an even bigger one. Lincoln sprawled out on the couch, his shorts down around his ankles, his eyes closed, his head thrown back, one girl between his legs working him with her hand while two other ones played with the rest of him.

  The blood drained from my face. My heart broke. My soul ripped into two separate parts.

  Apparently he had never been expecting me to return.

  My breath abandoned me. A last tiny flutter of hope extinguished inside my chest and then the partially digested doughnut resurfaced in the back of my throat to gag me.

  “Simone. Shit!”

  I heard Ash call me but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I spun, dodged more incoming girls and reached the railing outside their room just in time to hurl over the side, scalding hot tears blurring my view of the mess I made in the monkey grass down below.

  Familiar hands landed on my shoulders and my stomach lurched again. “Why, Ash? Why?” I rasped before heaving once more. When I was certain there was nothing left, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and curled my fingers around the cold railing. Cold like my heart now, like my body, like my devastated soul.