A Lush Rhapsody: A Rhapsody Novel (8 page)

“Thank you,” I finally say, the magnitude of my embarrassment catching up with me. What must he think about my family? I know they’re assholes, but I don’t want the rest of the world to know it. “He was having a bad day…” I gesture to where James walked off.

Blaze looks at me knowingly but just nods.

I lean on the railing and bite my lip to keep from letting my emotions get the better of me.

“It’s complicated,” I tell him.

“It always is,” he answers softly.

“Big Catholic family. All that. You know.” I wave my hand around randomly, having no idea if he does know, but I’m telling myself that surely he gets it. Even if a lot of times I don’t get my family.

“You deserve better, short stack. That’s what I know.”

I sigh, too tired to argue with him, especially when he’s right. I’m suddenly so exhausted from it all. My brothers, my parents, the drinking, the scorn, the constant battles. I’ve known for a while now that I can’t keep this up. I can’t keep fighting to make them love me. Can’t expect rational behavior from a father and three brothers who are all alcoholics. I won’t ever be what they want and they aren’t going to ever understand me.

But the alternative makes me so sad I can’t stand to imagine it. Because I still love them. I love my mother even though she doesn’t protect me like she should, and I love Savvy who accepts me no matter how different I am from her. I love my grandmother who gave me the gift of music even if she didn’t understand it herself. I love them. But I’m not sure I can continue fighting to fit in with them.

As if he knows I need something to snap me out of it, Blaze suddenly gets a grin on his face and runs his eyes up and down me slowly. The balcony only has thin wrought iron spindles, so he sees me from head to toe pretty easily.

“I can see up your skirt by the way,” he says, his voice rough.

I jump back from the railing and look down to see my denim-clad legs, because yeah, I’m wearing jeans.

“Jerk,” I say with no real heat.

He smiles, but there’s a sadness there, and it sobers me.

“See you around, short stack,” he tells me.

Before I can answer he’s disappeared back into the hotel and I’m left alone, the empty space inside of me smaller and so very much larger all at the same time.

G
arrett is late again
. And rumor has it that there is someone from the NFL here. Dez said he saw a guy wearing an NFL jacket talking to one of the concert promotion staff in the concession area before we went onstage for our rehearsal slot. Now we’re at the bottom of a concrete bowl onstage, visible to everyone in the whole facility with our proverbial pants down around our ankles. Fucking Garrett. And fucking Carson whose turn it was to babysit him.

“You promised me you had him under control when I called you this morning,” I remind him.

Carson puts his hands up in the air in surrender. “I talked to him at two and he was out of bed, ordering room service. He said he’d be ready to go in an hour. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

God, I need a hit of something. My skin is itching like it’s going to peel off of my bones. And the ache, it’s so bad today I feel like I’m a hundred years old.

“Hey,” Dez says softly beside me. “We’ll track him down. It’s okay. You know we’re ready for this, we don’t need the extra rehearsal time.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Take a breath, we got this.”

I know he’s worried about me, I can see it in his eyes. He just doesn’t understand how badly we need this. If we don’t get picked to play the Super Bowl we’re going to regret it for the next decade.

“We have to get this,” I say as I look at Dez, Carson, and Topher. “This is everything we’ve been working for since we started. We get this and we move to an entirely new level. We’re no longer a solid band with a nice career, we become legends, a band that never gets forgotten, a band that is set for life.”

I see Topher’s gaze dart to Carson’s, and Dez’s brow furrows. Fuck them if they don’t see it. Every day, every decision, every deal.

I’m desperate to make them understand. “It’s the difference between Fallout Boy and the Stones,” I say. “We deserve to be the Stones. And we sure as hell deserve to beat out fucking Lush. But we won’t get the chance if Garrett can’t get his ass to rehearsal and the NFL thinks we’re amateurs.”

I’m so worked up now that my hand is shaking. I squeeze it into a fist and try to breathe through this. In my head I hear my old man’s voice telling me that I’ll never make shit out of my life
. “You had a chance to be a star,”
he said the day he tossed me out
. “And you threw it away to live like a teenager forever. Music is for degenerates and children, and you don’t even have any goddamn talent at it. You’re a loser. Football was your shot, your only shot.”

There is a throbbing pain behind my eyes now, and I know I can’t stay here, up onstage, with everyone looking at me like I’m fucking crazy.

“Fuck this,” I snap, unstrapping my guitar and shoving it in the case. “Text me when he shows up.”

Dez’s voice follows me as I storm off the stage, but I’m moving too fast. I have to get away before I lose it in public. God, as if Garrett being absent isn’t bad enough, a meltdown by me would seal the deal for Lush.

I reach the back hallway of the building and go straight to the dressing room. I slam the door behind me and yell at the top of my lungs.

“Fuuuuck!”

The first thing I see are all of Dez’s dumbass candles and crystals and shit that he insists on keeping in our dressing rooms to create good chi or feng shui or whatever. I grab a glass candleholder and throw it against the wall. It shatters into a million tiny pieces and I turn and pick up another and do the same, then another, and do the same.

Glass is flying everywhere, and I’m yelling at the top of my lungs. Yelling at my old man, yelling at Garrett, yelling at cocaine, and booze, and the counselors at rehab. And mostly, I’m yelling at me, at how I can’t get a handle on the shit that goes on inside of me, at how I let my old man control me even from the width of a country and eight years away. I’m yelling at my failures, at my inability to make this band what I need it to be, at the way every time I think we’re getting there some
thing
or some
one
fucks it up.

Through my rage I don’t register that the door to the room has opened until I hurl a crystal the size of my fist at the wall and realize right as it leaves my hand that there’s a person there. A small, curvy person with lots of dark curls and big, blue eyes.

She ducks as the crystal shatters a couple feet above her head.

As she stands and uncovers her face, I’m frozen. Tied into a knot of humiliation and terror that I’ve hurt her.

“I can see why you were such a good quarterback,” she tells me looking around the wreckage of the room in dismay.

“Fuck,” I breathe out, still shaking from the onslaught of the rage. “Are you okay?”

She looks down at herself, lifts each of her feet, and examines her arms. “Yep. Not a scratch.”

I rub my hand over my face. Thank God.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand with the last bit of adrenaline I’ve got racing inside.

She walks toward me, stopping when she’s about three feet away, crossing her arms and appraising me slowly.

“You were making a lot of noise.”

“Yeah, way to state the obvious.”

“I was afraid someone was getting murdered.”

“So you came to see? Not too smart, short stack. What were you going to do if someone
was
getting murdered—beat them with your tiny fists?”

She glares at me, then takes a step closer. My heart rate picks up again, but from an entirely different feeling this time.

She tilts her head to one side, eyes narrowing. “You going to tell me what the hell that was all about? Someone take your favorite toy or something?”

I snort and stomp over to the mini-fridge where I yank out a bottle of water. I twist the cap off violently and flick it into the trashcan across the room. She doesn’t seem impressed.

“The show’s over, short stack, you can go on about your business.”

She walks around the perimeter of the room, slowly taking in everything, random pieces of clothing, guitar picks, gaming controllers, Rock Steady magazine open to the spread on Taylor Swift because Carson, our drummer, has the hots for her.

“Not that the place was exactly pristine before, but I think you’re going to need some help cleaning this up.”

I take another swig of water and lean against the wall. The girl’s got brass ones for sure. She came into a room where a guy a good foot or more taller than her and probably a hundred pounds heavier was in the middle of tearing the place apart and she didn’t balk, not for a second.

“Thanks for the offer, but if there’s one lesson from my childhood that stuck with me it’s to always clean up my own messes.”

She nods.

“I'm sorry,” she says suddenly.

I look at her, not sure what she’s talking about.

“I shouldn’t be here.” She presses her lips together in frustration.

Goddamn. Of all the women I could want, it has to be this one?

I set the water down on the makeup counter and point to the sofa. I sit down, my arm along the back, and she hesitates, but then joins me, tucking her feet up under her sweet ass, hands playing with the hem of her top.

“You know they can’t keep you from talking to me, right? I mean, last time I checked this is a free country and you’re an adult—you are, right? An adult? Shit, as tiny as you are I guess you could be a really foul-mouthed tween.”

She rolls her eyes and smacks me on the chest. Warmth spreads out in a circle from where she touched me, and I grin. It’s amazing, ten minutes ago I felt like I was going to explode and now, this beautiful pixie has me smiling.

“I’m of age,” she says, smirking. “And yes, I know all of that. But like I told you before, I don’t want to make trouble with my new band. They can pretty much kick me out any time they want.”

I nod. I’m sure Lush would never take on an unknown unless it was at their discretion. No job security for her, but I can’t blame them. The dynamics of a band are delicate, and unique. I honestly can’t believe they’re trying her out at all. I don’t think I’d take someone new into Rhapsody unless we had to.

“How’d you end up with them anyway?” I ask, realizing we’ve never actually talked about her job except as it relates to me. “I have to admit I was pretty surprised when I read about it.”

She gives a nervous laugh. “Yeah, you and me both. It’s a strange story—I was playing at a music fest in Portland last summer, and Lush’s manager, Dave, was there, scoping new talent. He approached me after the show and said he was interested in signing me. It took me about fifteen minutes of talking to him to realize he only wanted me, not the band I was playing with. Then he tells me that it’s because he wants to put me in an existing group.”

She leans further into the sofa, putting an elbow on the back, so close to my hand that I could reach out and touch her. I can’t help but inhale deeply, yearning to catch the briefest bit of the air she’s breathed.

“I told him I was game. I’d been playing with all sorts of different bands around town, so I wasn’t attached to one in particular. He spent the next few days working out details with this mystery band and telling me all about his vision, what he wanted me to bring to the mix. Then, the day before I’m supposed to meet them for the first time he springs it on me—it’s Lush.”

My jaw drops. “Holy shit, you’re kidding. He waited that long to let you in on it?”

“Yep.”

“Jesus. Did you freak? I’d have freaked if I’d been you.”

She nods. “Oh yeah. It was mayhem for close to twenty-four hours. Luckily my sister talked me down.” She gets a soft expression on her face. “My sister is the only person in the world who can talk me down. She’s a pro.”

I move closer to her, drawn in by the sweet smile on her lips. When I breathe again I finally smell her—apples. Fresh, tangy, crisp. Just like her. My cock shoves at the fly of my jeans and I have to clear my throat.

“And how did they take it?” I ask softly. “When you first started.”

Her cheeks get pinker and I curl my fingers around my knee to keep from reaching out and brushing them along that alabaster skin tinged with roses.

Her voice is lower when she answers, and her baby blues are pinned to mine, sparkling with secrets and heat.

“It was rough,” she tells me. “I can be a handful, and they were really used to doing things a certain way. We’ve had a few moments when I didn’t think it would smooth out, but it’s getting better. In fact, just this week I think we had a breakthrough.”

I’d like to have a breakthrough with her. One that involves my tongue in her mouth. I know I shouldn’t, but as always when I’m around her I can’t help myself, I reach out and stroke her arm, from her elbow to her shoulder. She gives a small shiver and drops her gaze from mine.

“You’re incredibly beautiful,” I say, my voice so low and rough that it’s barely more than a whisper.

“So are you,” she whispers, her eyes lifting and locking with mine.

I shake my head. “Even if a guy could be beautiful, I wouldn’t be, but thanks for saying so.”

She huffs out a small breath. “A man can be beautiful, and any man who would go to the trouble to make a woman he hardly knows feel better because her family is full of douchebags is beautiful.”

I shrug and touch one of her springy curls, watching it as it slides around my finger the way I’d like her sex to slide around my cock.

“Some families are like my buddy, Dez’s, they’ll support them no matter what. Others are like yours and mine—the love’s conditional, and if you don’t meet the conditions, you’ve gotta find your love somewhere else.”

She gives a tiny nod, then swallows uncomfortably, her eyes looking anywhere but at me.

“Are you going to tell me why you were tearing the room apart?” she asks then, shifting the topic and putting me on the hotseat.

I shake my head. I don’t want to think about that shit now. This moment, right now, feels so good I don’t even miss the cocaine. She gives me a rush that’s clean and pure, and I want to freeze us right here, right now.

“Maybe someday,” I say roughly, before finally giving in to the burning need that’s racing through my blood. I lean forward until my lips meet the soft skin of her neck, and press a kiss to the slim column. I won’t lie—in the back of my head a voice is screaming that I can’t do this, shouldn’t do this, that I’m going to destroy both of us. But I can’t stop, it’s like I’ve been possessed, and the only thing I can see or think about or focus on is touching her.

It’s pure heaven. She gasps, arching toward me. Her hands drift to my shoulders, and I slowly move my mouth up her neck, leaving whisper soft kisses along the way until I reach her tiny earlobe. I take it between my teeth like I wish I could her nipple, and scrape the delicate flesh. She moans and her hands squeeze my biceps.

I cup her cheek with one hand and rest the other at her waist, moving my lips up along her jaw, her apple scent permeating my awareness, turning everything sweet and tangy all at once. When I finally reach her lips, I stop, mere centimeters from the two juicy pillows of perfect red.

“Tell me to stop, short stack. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“I know,” she whispers.

Then she closes the breath between us and crushes her lips to mine.

Colors burst in my mind’s eye, and heat floods me. I grip the back of her neck and pull her closer, deepening the kiss as we both moan at the same time.

My breath comes in pants, and I have a painful hard-on almost immediately. I spear both of my hands into her dense curls, relishing the feel of that glorious hair wrapped around my fists.

“Goddamn,” I groan as she licks my bottom lip and her fingers skate under the edge of the neckline of my t-shirt. Fuck getting her into trouble, I’ll deal with that later. No one has to know, right?

I let one hand drift down to her breast and palm it. It’s full, and her nipple is a hard little nub of arousal. I pinch it between my thumb and forefinger and she gasps, “Oh.” A shiver runs through her, and I’m blinded by want. If she’ll let me, I fully intend to drive my dick as deep as it’ll go and fuck her senseless.

Her hands are roaming now, all over my chest, my shoulders, my back. It feels so incredible, I don’t care where she touches me as long as she keeps doing it.