“Ladies and gents—mostly ladies. I see you girls. Hi.” He waves and winks, and receives a few half-hearted finger flutters in return. Some in the front jump up and down. “What you’ve been waiting for is about to begin. Normally the drummer to Nocturne Court”—screams and phones start flashing up out of the crowd—“He ain’t nocturnal tonight. Giving a rare evening show that he’s only present for because he owes me one, please welcome to the stage, Easton Mack!”
Carter covers her ears at the sudden thunderclap of screams, followed by a sustained pitch, only contained in its worldwide effect by this tiny, wooden, stuffy room.
Holy shit, I see her mouth.
I lean into her ear, loose, small strands tickling my lips, “Told you I’d show you a good time.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” she screams back. Our noses are almost touching, and I avoid the urge to dart forward and bite on a juicy berry.
“You wouldn’t’ve,” I shout. “But you will.”
East takes the stage, all ropey and casual in a leather jacket, tight ripped black jeans you wouldn’t catch me dead in, and long hair pulled back in a man-bun you also would never kill me in and style my corpse with.
His layers of silver necklaces clank through the speakers as he takes a seat on the stool Green Mile dragged over in front of the mic, and East’s fingers, covered in various skull and bone rings, lift up his acoustic guitar, shining black like an oil slick under the spotlight.
If Ash is the tattoo lord, East here is the demon lord.
“Hey all,” he says, and I feel Carter start against my chest. She’s inched closer to me due to the crowd pushing us forward, and I want to lay my palms on her shoulders and stroke down.
She’s affected by East’s voice, all smooth and slow. I try not to lose my eyeballs in the back of my head on their roll over. Part of me hoped Carter would be different, but of course, the allure of East is hard to avoid, unless you’re a heterosexual dude.
That’s all he says before strumming a few notes on his guitar. Typical. After five-ish years of friendship, I’m lucky if I squeeze a few sentences out of him, but I’m aware he suffers from anxiety. It’s an irony he hasn’t missed, considering he and his bandmates recently sold out their first venue in LA. Poor guy is about to be more famous than a boy band, and fuck knows how he’s going to cope with it.
I guess that’s why he’s got us.
Soon, he’s quieted the room. It’s an impossible gift, one that floors me each time. Just my former dorm neighbor, East, playing his guitar and singing a tune, yet he can lay silence across a crowd as quickly as an incoming storm. His lyrics are addicting, and half the time I don’t know it, but I’m bobbing my head along, Ash knocking out the beat with his fist on the bar top, and Ben strumming the tune with his fingers on his thigh.
Carter sways, her ass scraping across the front of my pants and I grit my teeth. That perfect peach of hers is molding to my dick, ripe for squeezing, and I search for the cool quench of a beer before I remember I can’t have that, so signal for another tonic instead.
I’m knocked in the back as I raise my arm, and I hook my other around Carter’s waist to stay balanced.
“Hey, man,” I say over my shoulder. “Watch it.”
He looks at me with wide eyes, and I turn so I can see him better. “Wasn’t me. It’s coming all the way from the back.”
I crane my neck. “What’s coming?”
Bouncers are against the wall, telling people to “move back, move back!” Yet the clusters of girls aren’t listening and screeching to get closer.
When I raised my arm for a drink, I didn’t notice how far away from the bar we’d come, how we’re being shifted closer to the stage. Crammed, more like.
“Locke?” I hear Carter say, and I bend my ear to her. “I don’t like this.”
“Me neither,” I mumble and keep her tight against me.
I scan the crowd for Ben, who’s been moved a few people away from us. He meets my stare and nods. “Fandamonium. We need to get out of here.”
“Come on,” I say to Carter, and try to spin her with me, but we’re getting crushed, hands palming my back, pushing.
“Back off,” I growl at nobody in particular.
Carter spins so she’s flush against my chest, holding on. I’m looking for Ash, and since we’re taller than most, I can spot him, still near the bar. Somehow, the fucker remained where he was, probably through intimidation alone. He crooks a finger for us to come to him.
“Yeah, how?” I mouth, but I’m navigating the crowd sideways, pulling Carter along with me, gaining closer traction to Ben.
East is still singing, but he flubs words. He never flubs words. I risk a glance at the stage and see him rising from the stool, pacing back, away from reaching hands and screams that get closer and closer.
Bouncers have arrived, but despite their girth, they’re doing nothing to quell the tide.
Green Mile fights onto the stage and roars into the mic, “Get the fuck back, people, or he’s leaving the stage! Hear me? The night’s over if you don’t behave your damn selves.”
No one’s listening. East has already hooked the guitar under one arm and is escaping the stage, three or four security types ushering him down.
As he’s stepping behind the stage, East looks up, finds me. Come this way, he mouths, and I shake my head over the masses of hair and bodies. There’s no way Carter and I can get to him, and he’s got to go, get out of sight. Maybe that’ll calm everyone down.
I shoo him away, giving him permission to leave. Ben and I have it covered. I think.
He’s at my side, using an arm to help shield Carter, and we’re on the move at a turtle’s pace. People are getting angry, demanding East return to the stage. Ash storms toward us, his expression the eye of a hurricane, and takes my other side.
“We got you,” I murmur to Carter when I hear her whimper. “Nothing’s gonna happen. We’re getting out.”
Her nails dig into my pecs, but she’s moving in time with us, though her face is buried in my shirt. She doesn’t want to look, see the anger cross everyone’s faces, the hysteria building.
Fuck. Green Mile got it wrong. He underestimated East’s fame in this tiny-ass bar in the middle of Nowhere, Brooklyn. We underestimated it.
Glass breaks. Screams and shouts build. Then, the worst thing happens.
A shot rings out.
“Fuck!” I roar, before every realm of hell breaks loose and lands in this bar.
25
Carter
I’m gonna die in Nowhere, Brooklyn.
Lily won’t remember me. I’ll only ever sell one piece of artwork, and no one, not one person in my life, will cry over the loss.
Well, maybe Sophie will.
I’m clinging to Locke with the force of a tick insect. His shirt’s getting damp, either by my panicked sweat, or his, or both. We’re tap-dancing toward the exit, but it’s going too slowly. Even with two heavy-hitters on either side, we’re moving through a thick swamp of people.
I haven’t been in a panicked crowd before, but I’ve seen enough on TV, learned enough in high school shooting drills, to know it is not where I want to be if this goes sideways.
I’m little. I’ll be trampled. Locke will be hurt.
“We need to get out,” I say, but don’t expect any answer.
Glass hitting concrete floor breaks out, shards scattering across my sandals. More screams ring out, flailing arms and crazy amounts of perfume mixing in the air, becoming cloying, suffocating.
I see it. I see the bright red EXIT like the North Star leading me home, and I pick up the pace as if I can carry Locke’s body with me, along with two other men who are acting as human shields.
Then.
Oh, then.
A shot cuts through the atmosphere.
The room explodes with humanity.
“Fuck!” Locke roars, then hangs on to me so tight I can’t breathe.
He’s losing his balance try
ing to hold and push me at the same time with all the bodies hitting him, smacking on all sides. Someone grabs my hair and yanks. I scream while Locke swears and punches the guy in the face. I watch with horror as the guy clutches his eye then sinks into the swarming crowd.
Locke trips, nearly bringing us both down, but rights himself just in time. I’m nothing but deadweight to him, and if he keeps up trying to protect me, he’ll be seriously injured. His knee can’t take it.
“You have to let me go,” I whisper, then say louder, “You have to let me go!”
“What? Hell, no!” Locke shouts, and he won’t break my stare.
“You have to!” I shout, then push him away.
He stumbles, reaches for me, and loses. Ash and Ben shout at the same time I disappear from their view.
“Police!” I hear over the cries. “Everybody calm down!”
That only heightens the stampede. I’m stumbling, looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time, trying to keep upright. If I fall, if I flatten, then it’s over.
I’m being pulled by the crowd, and some small recollection in the back of my mind tells me to let it happen. To go with the tide instead of fight against it.
I listen.
Each second is like a bomb’s timer ticking down to 0:00, but I’m moving toward the exit, I’m getting there. I risk a look back, but since it messes with my balance, I can’t maintain it and figure out where Locke and his friends are.
Locke. Please be okay.
Other people’s sweat is slick on my skin. The air is hot with all the expelled breath. I’m trying to breathe calmly but can’t help the swell of horror in my chest, shrinking my lungs.
“I’m…” I say. “I can’t…”
Cool air washes over my face. I’ve broken through the barrier, feet scraping across the sidewalk, then the road. Gulping, gasping, I follow the crowd into the street, but there’s more room here. People are scattering, giving much-needed space, and I spin in my small circle of emptiness, back to the bar.
“Locke,” I say. “Locke!”
Nothing but the wash of unintelligible shouts answer me.
“Locke!” I scream again.
The mass exodus from the bar has turned into a stream, then a trickle. I don’t see him. I can’t find Asher or Ben, either.
“LOCKE!”
My breaths go back to scattered. Other groups find their friends and embrace, tears streaming, fingers tangling in hair.
“LOCKE!” My voice is hoarse.
Hands to my temples, I turn all the way around, scanning, worrying, mouthing words I don’t ascribe any meaning to. He has to be okay. For so many reasons, he has to come out of this unharmed.
“No…” I cry and almost buckle to my knees. “Where are you? Where the fuck are you?”
“Hey…hey!”
Before I register who the voice belongs to, arms encircle me, and I smell him before I name him.
“Oh. Oh, God. Locke.”
My arms fly around his neck, and I bury my face in the scent of all his goodness, his aliveness, something I will never, ever, forget.
“Are you okay? Hurt?” He tries to untangle my arms to assess, but I won’t let him.
“Fine. I’m okay,” I say into the heat of his skin. “You are? You’re good?”
I feel his palms on my back, holding me steady. “I’m good.”
“Jesus,” I hear beside us, and it sounds like Asher.
“Fucking H. Christ,” Ben finishes for him.
“The fuck was that?” Asher says. “Everyone okay?”
“Think so,” Locke says.
I release him, but hold a hand to his jaw, his stubble tickling my palms. He says to me, “I was so goddamned scared for you. Don’t ever let me go again.”
“I had to,” I say. “Your knee—”
“Fuck my knee. I would’ve done anything—anything—to keep you safe,” he practically snaps.
“Well, the same goes to you, asshole,” I say, anger pooling over any remaining fear. “Which is why I pushed you away.”
“That kind of snap decision in a situation like that is the most idiotic—” he begins.
“Okay, you two. Simmer down,” Ben says, palm out. He’s using his other hand to thumb his phone. “Let’s see if Number Four is all right.”
Locke won’t look away from me, and that’s just as well because I can stare him down just fine.
“We got a yes!” Ben says. “East is A-OK.”
“You sure about that?” Asher asks. “‘Cause that kinda shit will have him holing up for a month.”
“We’ll talk to him, but not tonight,” Locke says. “He’s not going to want to see anyone, anyway.”
“In true tortured artist fashion, you could be right,” Ben agrees.
Our attention is drawn to swirling red and blue lights and the slamming of car doors.
“We gotta get out of here,” Ben says. “I can’t make the news on this.”
“No? This is my kinda shit.” Ash grins. “You guys go. I’ll be the face of this crisis.”
“Oh, yeah,” Locke says. “They’ll love to post your mug while assuring the public they’re safe.”
“Get lost, all of you,” Ash says. “Before your manly, athletic frames draw the media too close.”
Ben smacks Asher in the middle of his back. “Don’t be jealous.”
I’m both warmed and stunned by how easily they go into their camaraderie, despite almost experiencing if not serious injury, then death. But that’s bro code for you. Jokes instead of tears.
“Let’s go home,” Locke says, close to my ear, and I lean into his warmth. I’m shivering, and he notices. He undoes his button-down to scoop across my shoulders.
“Fuck, Locke, what’d I just say? No press!” Ben says.
Locke is wearing nothing underneath the button down. His sculpted chest is now in full view of everyone, and a few teary-eyed girls dry their cheeks as they notice.
The flare of jealousy in my belly is unexpected, but my curving my arm into his is fully planned. “Lead the way,” I say.
We say our good-byes to Asher and Ben and start walking. Instead of filling the silence, Locke allows it to stay, and I’m comforted by the ease in which we stroll together as if we don’t have devastation and panic as our backdrop.
And maybe we don’t, because Locke is alive and unhurt, so are his friends, and so am I. We’re lucky. I know that.
“So, Easton had no idea the kind of crowd he’d draw? The amount of people?” I finally ask.
“It’s hard to say,” Locke responds. “He’s no idiot. East knows he’s becoming successful. I guess the urge to go back to his roots was too strong. He figured playing in the bar he started out in would be harmless. Something must’ve leaked.”
“The scope of social media.” I nod sagely, repeating Pierce’s words. “It has more effect than we can fathom. Maybe Easton needs a QR code.”
“That must be it,” Locke says, then casually drapes an arm over my shoulders. “Though fuck if I know what a QR code is.”
Locke’s bare chest is so close that if I tip my chin mere millimeters, I can lick it. And I want to. Oh, how I want to.
“I’m proud of you tonight,” I say instead. And look straight ahead.
He snorts. “For what? I lost you, you fought your way out yourself.”
“No, before that. At the bar. When you only ordered seltzer.”
“Tonic, actually.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “And my promise to you is true. I’m not going to do anything to screw up my chances with my daughter.”
My daughter. Was this the first time he said it out loud? I glance up at him to be sure and find he’s already staring at me.
Our pace slows and then stops. He curves in front of me and cups my jaw, tipping my head up farther, and I don’t fight it.
“I want to kiss you,” he murmurs while staring at my mouth. His thumb comes across and catches on my lower lip. Then, pure blue locks onto my gaze. “Can I?�
�
“You shouldn’t,” I whisper. “We shouldn’t.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t.”
I swallow. But I can’t look away. Can’t withdraw. He leans in, and I don’t stop him. Locke is so close, I can count his lashes, but I don’t push him away.
A clap of thunder sounds, making me jump despite the steady hold of Locke’s arms.
“It’s just the weather,” he says. “Everything’s fine.”
Water mists down on us, and I blink; then falls in spaced-out splatters. In seconds, it comes down in an all-out downpour.
We don’t move.
Locke’s lashes clump with water, droplets fall down his chin and dampen his hair.
He doesn’t move.
Locke lays his lips on mine, and I draw them in.
The silk of his tongue versus the sharpness of his stubble—it tingles, scratches, sets me alight with fiery electricity slick with rain. I lift up on my toes to bring him deeper, to let his tongue dance.
His hands score down my back, then press me closer, his skin melting so deep into mine, I’m sure he can feel the hardened tips of my nipples.
When a rumble comes from deep within his throat, vibrating my lips and mirroring the thunder above, I know my power.
Of their own accord, my fingers explore, drawing on the ridges of his abs, painting the lines of his obliques with water. When I reach his belt, I fumble—remember where we are—and cup his hardness instead.
The rumble turns to a growl. He reaches for the back of my neck, his athletic fingers tangling in my wet hair, and yanks our mouths apart.
“You do that to me again,” he warns, rain water dropping from his nose and onto my face, his eyes burning as bright as a daylight sky, “I can’t promise what I’ll do in return.”
“I want this,” I breathe, and if it’s because of what we just went through, what I’ve been enduring for months, I know I’m right.
I want to feel again.
I want to be pleasured, bask in the glow of goodness, for once. Even if it’s brief. Even if it can only be one night.
Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection) Page 21
