by Tara Leigh
Meanwhile, life in L.A. had been unusually calm. Shane was still glued to Delaney’s side in New York, and Landon was now in rehab. I hung out with Jett occasionally, but I was too old and too rich to be anyone’s babysitter, which was often what he needed by the end of the night.
I’d never needed to chase the high in my downtime the way my bandmates did. Shane was well past that now, and Landon was apparently trying.
Jett, not so much.
A few years ago, I bought a board and took up surfing. Not every day, but a few times a week. Incorporating it into my workout schedule. And it was a damn good workout.
These days I was on my board every fucking morning. Why? Because it was the only sport that not only got me out of the house, but out of my own head. On the open water, I couldn’t fuck around on my phone or reach for my guitar. It was me, my board, and the ocean—and the second my thoughts drifted beyond whatever wave I was riding or chasing, the Pacific smacked me down.
At the asscrack of dawn, I dragged my board to the beach and gave myself over to the power of the tides. And in the afternoon I sat at my piano, or with my guitar, playing until my knuckles swelled and my fingers bled. Pouring my soul onto the page in the language I knew best—notes and symbols, harmonies and rhythms and lyrics.
I’d been writing songs for years, although not under my own name. Yeah, I lived a public life—it was hard not to when you were one-fourth of Nothing but Trouble. But what I put down on paper, that was all me. My thoughts, my hopes, my fears, my past.
Shane was good at putting it all out there and then singing about it, night after night.
Not me.
I kept my shit bottled up nice and tight until it exploded out of me in a fury of writing and riffing. Fugue states I eventually came out of to find my soul exposed on sheets of paper.
Today the song that ripped through me wasn’t about me, not exactly. It was about Verity. About how I treated her. About her reaction to how I treated her. I was an ass. Worse, I was a predictable ass. The kind she’d dealt with before.
Long time ago,
Someone picked me
Painted me
Dressed me up and shamed me
Turned me into a bombshell
But they didn’t know
Didn’t wanna know
I’m the bomb, baby
I’m the bomb, just me
Primed to explode
Broken bits,
But all you see is ass and tits
My mind’s intact
No, you can’t have that
Long time ago,
Someone picked me
Painted me
Dressed me up and shamed me
Turned me into a bombshell
But they didn’t know
Didn’t wanna know
My mind’s intact
No, you can’t have that
I’m a shell
Cracked and broken
The truth has spoken
My heart is beating, needing
I’m no bombshell
Look and listen
Watch me rebel
Oh yeah, that’s what I’ll be
Look and listen
Watch me, watch me
I’m a rebel
Not a single lyric was about me, and yet I knew that this was the most intensely personal song I’d ever written. I’d painted a picture of Verity Moore—how I saw her. Her rebellious spirit and soulful voice. A face so vibrant, so beautiful—but someone had convinced her it was flawed. And a fire that grew stronger with every beat of her heart, a flame not even cruelty could extinguish.
A powerful portrait made entirely of words and notes and chords.
Like I always did, I snapped an image of it, automatically adding it to the Google Drive where I kept all my songs.
And then I shoved the piece of paper in my piano bench and slammed the lid closed with a fierce growl.
I’d be damned if this one ever saw the light of day.
Chapter Ten
Verity
I finally slowed my pace when I was a block from J.J.’s, my favorite juice place. It was basically a hole in the wall tucked between a crystal meditation studio and a cell phone store. They made the best juices, coffees, and fresh muffins in L.A. Breathing heavily, I resisted the urge to stop completely and retch on the sidewalk. I’d really pushed myself this morning, going faster and farther than my usual easy three to five miles through Runyon Canyon Park. But after my visit with Dax, I needed it. I couldn’t get him out of my head.
When I first came back to L.A. I had sworn off sex forever. Frankly, I didn’t know what the fuss was all about. Sex was an expectation. An obligation. A transaction. It had never, not even once, been a pleasure.
But something told me sex with Dax would be different.
And something about Dax made me want to find out just how different it would be.
Thinking about Dax while still overheated from my run was sending my body into overdrive, and the air-conditioning was a welcome change from the heat outside. I got in line behind a woman with blue hair, self-consciously adjusting my baseball cap and sunglasses even though the odds of being recognized while my skin was the color of a peeled tomato were slim to none. It wasn’t sunburn, just a side effect of being so pale that when I exercised, the combination of sweat and an all-over flush made me look like I’d been lying out in the sun, slathered in baby oil.
What I needed was to get out of here and take a cold shower.
And focus on something else, like my career. I should call up Piper and talk through the upcoming press events she’d put on my schedule. Tell her to add a few more.
And then call Travis, ask how soon I could get in a studio to start recording my new album.
I was lying low, just like Travis wanted. But I needed to keep busy, because spending my days—and nights—thinking about Dax’s voice in my ear, his hands on my skin…
By the time it was my turn to order, I was so flustered I couldn’t even decide between an iced coffee and a green goddess juice. So I bought both.
Still distracted, I didn’t notice the gray-suited man taking up too much room in the small space until his elbow came out of nowhere. One minute I was double-fisting my morning beverages, and the next I was holding only one.
I saw my coffee fall from my hand in slow motion. It hit the ground once, bouncing up as the top came off and spewing coffee and ice cubes, splattering everyone in a five-foot radius, especially the man in the pale-gray suit.
“Goddamn it!” His outraged yell flipped a switch in my mind, cutting off my apology as we reached for the napkin dispenser at the same time. There was a flash of gold on his right hand. A man’s signet ring. Flat top, initials carved into it. J.L.
His arm brushed my bare shoulder and the ground beneath my feet trembled, my composure dropping to the floor like my drink, exploding at my feet.
I knew that voice.
I knew that ring.
I knew that hand.
I knew that man.
I never again wanted to know his touch.
Breathe, Verity. Just breathe. Don’t you dare pass out at his feet.
Staggering backward, I hid my head beneath the brim of my Lakers hat, unable to speak. Unable to do anything but flee.
Once I bumped into the door, I pivoted and pushed at it with both hands, forgetting that I was still holding my other drink. The plastic crumpled against the glass, the top popping off as a volcano of green goddess mulch erupted all over me. But I didn’t stop moving. I sprinted toward the parking lot where I’d left my car, throwing myself behind the wheel like I was being pursued by the devil himself.
But the devil wasn’t chasing me. He hadn’t even come out of the shop.
Bile rose up my throat as I locked the doors and started the ignition, leaving green smudges on everything I touched. Throwing the car in reverse, I backed out of my spot with barely a glance. That was what motion sensors were for. A safety feature.
I could have
used a safety feature in my interactions with Jack Lester. Instead I had my mother—a woman who had been only too eager to push me into the arms of anyone who could get me in front of a camera.
Lester had put me in front of a camera, that was for sure. How many private “auditions” did I have with him? My mother would drop me off with his assistant, Millie—never asking why those auditions were taking place in hotels and not on studio lots. Drinking a martini and flirting with the bartender while she waited for me in the lobby lounge.
Afterward, Millie would bring me back downstairs. Your daughter is such a natural performer. Jack just loves her. This role might not be quite right for her, but we’ll bring her in for another audition in a week or two.
And my mother would bow and scrape, acting like Millie was doing us all a big favor.
Until we got in the car and she laid into me for not getting the part. Whatever Jack wants, you have to do. That’s what acting is, Verity. Playing a role. Why can’t you do that? Why can’t you please him?
I never answered. There was no point. Because I had pleased Jack Lester. I knew I had. His great big satisfied groan was all the proof I needed.
How many auditions had there been before I finally landed The Show? I couldn’t remember.
Enough.
More than enough.
When I got home, I stripped off my clothes in the garage and threw them in the trash before walking inside the house. I was in the shower within minutes, scrubbing sweat and coffee and sticky green juice from my skin. It took three washings before I couldn’t feel any pulp in my hair.
The tears didn’t come until I was out though. Until I was wrapped in a fluffy white towel, my skin pink and glistening. Until I wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at my reflection. Until I realized I wasn’t clean. I would never be clean.
The residue from Jack Lester’s touch wasn’t on my skin. It couldn’t be seen in a mirror or examined with a microscope. It had collected in my mind. Tainted the lens through which I viewed everything and everyone, especially myself. Created a film of suspicion and self-recrimination no amount of soap or shampoo would ever wash away.
You asked whether joining our tour would be a problem for us. It won’t. Because there won’t be an us.
It wasn’t my Verity Moore alter ego that Dax was put off by. It was me. The parts and pieces of me that had been corrupted. Corroded from the inside out.
Jack Lester’s shameful smudges had turned me into the kind of woman who fell for a man like Marko. The kind of woman who didn’t deserve a man like Dax.
I was dirty. So damn dirty.
Chapter Eleven
Dax
I noticed Travis’s text when I got back from surfing. Well, trying to surf. The waves had been almost nonexistent. After a frustrating hour, I’d taken my board and gone home.
It was just as well. One of my songs was being recorded at a studio downtown. I took a quick shower and headed over.
There was a code among musicians, based on the language we all shared. No one batted an eye when I sat in on a session. The L.A. music scene was a small one, and there wasn’t a studio in fifty miles I hadn’t jammed in, whether for Nothing but Trouble, filling in for a friend, or working on my own stuff. It helped that I could play any instrument I’d ever picked up, too.
Slipping in through the back, I quietly entered the third door on my left. The sound engineer was talking, and a few people were crowded near the glass, preventing me from seeing the artist. Catching Travis’s eye, I made my way to his side. “What’s going on?”
“Thought you’d want to hear this.” He lowered his voice further. “Also, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Landon. I think we should visit him.”
“In rehab? Not sure it’s a place we can just show up at.”
“We wouldn’t just show up,” he scoffed, frowning at me. “You guys are a family. He needs you.”
I frowned right back. “Trav, if he wants us there, we’re there. You know that.”
He cleared his throat, lifting a hand to rub his shaved head. “Just checking.”
The sound engineer called for quiet, and I reached into my pocket to make sure my phone was on silent. Then I nearly dropped the damn thing.
I knew that voice.
I knew that song.
What the fuck?
It only took a second to realize what had happened and less than a minute to confirm it. I’d put “Bombshell Rebel” into the iCloud folder I shared with Travis, not my work-in-progress folder that was set to private. Of course he’d found it and shopped it around. That was his job.
My gut twisted as I swung my head toward the tinted glass separating the sound room from the recording studio.
Verity Moore was singing my song. A song I’d written for her.
My instinct was to get up and leave, immediately. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
From the sweetness of her teen hits, I already knew Verity had the voice of an angel.
From the old-school Stefani hit she’d killed at Travis’s place a few months ago, I knew Verity had the voice of a devil.
Today Verity Moore had the voice of a siren. The mythical kind that could lure a man to his death, not realizing what was happening until his boat slammed into the jagged cliffs that would mark his grave.
One hour passed, then two. Verity must have sung each lyric a hundred times. Each take slightly different. Besides a couple of water breaks, she was the consummate professional. A sound engineer’s dream.
Travis leaned toward me. “I want you to get in there with her.”
I shook my head at the request, not bothering to look at him. No fucking way.
He dug an elbow into my side. “I’m serious. I think Verity should do an acoustic version of the song. Something to throw on the album to prove she’s not an Auto-Tuned hack. An ‘It Girl’ who doesn’t deserve to be in a sound booth.”
Verity Moore was an It Girl, all right. And she sure as hell deserved to be here. Her vocals stole the show, and it would be a shame not to showcase them. I just didn’t know if I could be in the same room with her and not want to be with her.
“Why don’t you pair her with some boy bander looking to break out?”
Travis grunted. “Because I can barely name the ones with genuine talent on one hand—and I wouldn’t trust any of them with Verity for five minutes.”
I hated it when Travis was right. The man loved to gloat, and his arrogant smirk irritated the fuck out of me.
As if this had all been decided beforehand, the engineer waved me over. “I put your Les Paul in there. Need anything else?”
Most musicians were picky when it came to their instruments, and I was, too. But I’d given one of my favorite guitars to the producer of our last album as a gift. He happened to own this studio and must have kept it in his office.
I shook my head, stepping into the sound room. Verity’s eyes lit into me, all bright bits of surprise glinting at me from a deep green sea. “What are you doing here?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the intercom beeped. “Dax can play acoustic better than anyone I’ve ever heard. You good?”
Verity snapped back into professional mode, pasting an overbright smile on her glossed lips that had me wanting to reach out and wipe it off. I hadn’t spent all that much time with Verity, but I’d seen a number of expressions on her face. Flirty, surly, happy, wistful, scared, angry.
But fake was the only one that made me want to look away.
Reaching for her wrist, I gritted my teeth through the jolt of electricity that bombed down my arm, pulling her just enough that she swiveled away from the two-way glass. “I don’t have to do this. If you don’t want me here, I’m gone. No hard feelings.”
Verity stared at me for a beat, then at all the people assembled in the other room watching us. “Who am I to turn down Dax Hughes?” Tugging her hand free, she resumed her place in front of the mic. “Ready when you are, rock star.”
Verity
> Thank god. It was over.
When Travis sent me “Bombshell Rebel,” I practically hyperventilated reading the lyrics. It was as if the person who wrote those lines lived inside me. Knew the pieces I shielded even from myself, or at least tried to. The shame and ambition. The frustration and disgust. And the yearning. The yearning to be heard, to be seen. To be something, someone. To just be.
I spent the past twenty-four hours preparing. No one needed to know that each word felt like a razor blade shredding wounds I so desperately wished would heal. Convincing myself that the song could have been written for anyone who had been chewed up and spit out by the Hollywood Star Factory.
And then Dax showed up.
Shattering my composure with one slow sweep of his onyx stare. If you don’t want me here, I’m gone. No hard feelings.
I had a lot of feelings where Dax was concerned. But what I definitely didn’t have was enough clout to turn away Dax Hughes.
Thankfully, the producer and sound engineer, and even Travis, appeared pleased behind the glass. My job was done. I breathed an exhausted sigh of relief. Somehow I’d managed to get through this morning and now all I wanted to do was collapse on my couch—
“I’m making a doughnut run. Wanna come?”
I’d been gulping from a bottle of water, and Dax’s question nearly made me spit it out at his feet. Having spent the past couple of hours in the same small room with him, I should’ve felt more relaxed around Dax.
I wasn’t.
Impressed, awed, starstruck, unworthy. All of the above.
It was one thing to listen to Dax Hughes playing guitar.
It was another to witness his mastery of the creative process.
And it was a whole other galaxy to be confronted by both simultaneously.
I was completely blown away. The man was a musical genius.
But did he have to come wrapped in a sinfully sexy package? It was like staring at the sun. My skin was flushed, my corneas burned, and there was a haze around my vision.
