Caught in the Glow (The Glower Chronicles Book 1) (7 page)

I woke up the next night to a pair of stiletto heels clattering down the length of the penthouse’s hall. A woman’s voice was shouting something—muffled by the walls, but I made out a few choice words: “prick,” “loser,” and “waste of my time.” I sat up, wondering if I needed to intervene.

Ryder had seemed cozy enough with the thankfully not at all shimmery young woman he’d picked up after another impromptu performance at another grimy nightclub. I’d ridden in the front of the Mercedes with the driver so I didn’t have to watch them making out on the other side of the privacy screen. She’d been hanging off him, cooing over his biceps while he mixed drinks, when I’d retired for the night. Obviously something had gone wrong. And abruptly. A glance at the clock showed me I’d been asleep less than an hour.

The shouting got more muffled as the stilettos reached the living room. I pushed aside my sheet and tiptoed to the door. I couldn’t see Ryder or his lady friend when I peeked out, but I could hear them just fine now.

“I think you’d better go,” Ryder was saying, in a tired voice that suggested he’d said the same thing several times already.

“You think I’m not good enough for you, Mr. Hotshot Rock Star,” the woman hollered back. “Well the real fact is you’re not good enough for
me
. There are all sorts of guys in this city who’ll give a girl what she asks for.”

“And I’m sure you know that from experience,” Ryder said mildly.

“Oh, screw you.”

There was a clang, as if she’d thrown something that’d hit one of the steel window frames. Then Ryder’s voice, as cool as before: “I guess I will, because I’m definitely not screwing
you
.”

The woman made an inarticulate sound of rage, and then the door slammed. After a moment of silence, Ryder spoke again, calling down to the front desk as far as I could tell. “Sam, there’s a girl coming down who’s not in the, ah, best of spirits, and has a few drinks in her. Can you make sure she gets safely into a cab? …Thanks.”

The phone clicked as he set it down on the counter. If he’d gone back to bed then, I would have gone back to mine.

But he didn’t. He sighed, and his bare feet padded across the floor, farther away from me. I stepped into the hall in time to see him slump onto the sofa. He tipped his head back against the cushions, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple. I hesitated, and in that moment he turned and saw me.

There was no point in pretending I hadn’t heard the argument. I walked over to the sofa. “What was that about?” I asked.

“She—” he started, and laughed hoarsely, as if he couldn’t believe what he was going to say. “She wanted to do it without a condom. Said it was more ‘personal’ that way or some crap. And then she pitched a fit when I said I wasn’t interested in getting that kind of personal with someone I’d known less than three hours.”

“Oh,” I said, glancing at the door as if it’d reveal anything about the woman who’d stomped out past it. “Does that... happen a lot?”

“No,” Ryder said. “Not really. Not in my experience so far, anyway.” He paused. “Because it’s the guy who’s supposed to want that, right? And now I’m thinking it must be ten times more miserable trying to get laid without complications if you’re famous and a woman.”

“Well, thankfully neither of us will have to find that out firsthand,” I said, and he cracked a sliver of a smile.

“By choice, in your case,” he said.

“Yeah, because there are
so
many celebrity drummers.”

“Is that why you gave it up? Too little promise of stardom?”

I rolled my eyes, but the offhand comment gave me a twinge. It’d been the exact opposite reason. The thrill of performing for an audience, of being welcomed into the spotlight, had felt too close, too much. Too dangerous.

Everyone always said I had a lot of Dad in me. I didn’t want to find out just how much I took after him.

“Sorry we woke you up,” Ryder added. He paused, his eyes narrowing at my outfit: loose T-shirt dress over nylon leggings. “Is that what you normally wear to bed?”

My turn to offer a flicker of a smile. “I’ve got to be ready in case I need to chase you on another sudden excursion out of the building.” Whip a belt or a sash around my waist and the outfit would be outright presentable.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that tonight,” he said. “I’m done.” He turned back toward the windows, edging further down on the sofa as he stretched out his legs beside the ottoman.

I could have left him then, returned to my bed. But there was something almost mournful in his gaze as he contemplated the dim glow of the city lights catching in the haze of smog beyond the windows. If he needed to talk, if he was willing to talk, I wanted to let him. Maybe he’d give me a better clue of what else he needed.

That was what I was here for, after all. To tether him, to give him something solid to hold on to, to ward off the temptations the Glowers could offer of heights that came with too far a fall.

I sat at the other end of the sofa, leaning against the arm and crossing my legs, leaving a careful space between us. I didn’t speak, just contemplated the view with him. He rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t even like them,” he said after a minute, so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.

“What?” I said. “Who?”

“Those girls. The ones at the clubs. The ones I bring back here. I don’t even really like them.”

That sounded like an awfully simple problem to solve. “Then why do you hook up with them? Why not, you know, hook up with girls you
do
like?”

He seemed to consider the question, sucking his lower lip under his teeth with a suppleness that sent the wrong sort of shiver though me. I fixed my gaze on his eyes.

“It’s easy,” he said. “They’re easy. They’re right there. They come to me. I know exactly what they want. I don’t even have to think about it. I mean, it’s fair. They don’t really like
me
either, just the idea of hooking up with a ‘hotshot rock star.’”

Somehow that answer surprised me. Because, I realized as I said it, “I didn’t take you for the type to prefer easy.”

He rolled his head over against the back of the sofa so he could look at me. Those amber eyes were far more penetrating than I liked. “No?” he said. “What type do you take me for?”

I thought of the guy I’d seen fingerstyling an improvised solo on a cafeteria table five years ago. “The type who figures out what he wants and then goes for it, no matter how far away it seems.”

He made a faint sound that might have been a laugh. “And you figure you know me pretty well after hanging around here for all of a week?”

“I knew you from a distance for four months, at Rushfield,” I pointed out. “I know you’re the only person from our year there who’s pulled together an indie album that got radio play, and not only that, was good enough that the record labels came knocking with big checks. You’re not going to tell me
that
was easy, are you?”

“No,” he said, still holding my gaze. He sounded almost puzzled, as if he’d forgotten how he’d ended up here. “I guess it wasn’t.”

Something had shifted in the way he was looking at me. It wasn’t the suggestive eyeballing he’d given me the other day in my bathing suit, but the intensity of it sent a pleasant prickle over my skin all the same. He eased himself more upright on the sofa, sliding half a foot closer to me with the same movement, and my breath stuck in my throat. I scrambled to my feet.

Ryder raised his eyebrows at me. Maybe I’d misinterpreted the gesture. But one thing I knew for sure was I had no intention of acting as a stand-in for the woman whose attentions he’d just dismissed. That wasn’t going to help either of us.

“I’m beat,” I said. “I’d better crash.”

His look followed me as I sidled around the sofa. Guilt gnawed at me. I wasn’t sure if he’d recognized my rejection for what it was. I wasn’t even sure what exactly I’d rejected.

It didn’t matter. He was still my client. I was still his Tether. And even if I hadn’t been, I didn’t want to see him hurting.

Fee was right. I liked him.

So I offered him as much as I felt I safely could. I reached over the back of the sofa and gave his shoulder a light squeeze. “If you miss easy, there’ll be plenty more of that tomorrow, right?”

His lips quirked up. “I guess so.”

I didn’t look back, but I felt his eyes on me the entire time it took me to walk to my room.

7.

“Y
ou really don’t have to stick around if you’ve got other things to do,” Ryder said as he parked his Audi beside the studio building the next day. If last night’s odd conversation had affected his opinion of me at all, he hadn’t shown it so far. “You shouldn’t have to put your whole life on hold to follow me 24-7.”

“That’s sort of what the job is,” I said. “Anyway, after last time...” I shot him a pointed look.

He set a hand on his chest over his heart and raised the other palm forward. “I solemnly swear I’ll behave myself for at least the next three hours. I’m in a much better mood today. See?” He dropped his hands with a grin that was broad and authentic enough to set off a fluttering in my chest.

I clamped down on the feeling, but I couldn’t help smiling back. “Maybe I want to see the brilliant Colin Ryder at work,” I said as I got out of the car. The truth was, I wouldn’t have left regardless of whether I believed him. Even though I hadn’t seen his Glower groupie since the day his parents had visited, I couldn’t believe she’d given up. I wasn’t leaving him unguarded until I was sure she was no longer a problem.

“It’s really not all that exciting,” he said as we strolled up to the building’s entrance. “A lot of recording the same bits over and over with just a little tweak each—”

“Colin,” I interrupted gently, “I was hanging out in recording studios practically from birth. I know how it goes.”

“Oh. Right.” His eyes made a little twitch toward me, and I knew he was remembering my dad—and the official story of how he’d died. Of Mom and I finding him ODed in
his
studio.

After a moment’s hesitation, Colin recovered his grin. “Well, you can’t say you didn’t ask for it then.”

Two members of his backing band were waiting in the primary live room. “Marcy,” Ryder said, prompting me to offer my hand to the chubby brunette in a faded Nine Inch Nails tee. “Our excellent bassist. And Joel, drummer extraordinaire.” A guy who looked to be in his early twenties tipped his newsboy cap to me. The angular face behind his pale scruffy beard struck a chord of recognition in me.

“Kevin’s on his way,” Joel said, and added for my benefit, “He’s our keyboardist and second guitar.”

“Joel,” I said. “You look familiar. Have we met?”

Ryder knuckled the other guy’s shoulder. “Rushfield grad, couple of years ahead of us. He helped with some of the orientation our year.”

Joel’s eyebrows leapt up. “You’re a Rushfieldian?”

“Well, I— sort of. I wasn’t there very long.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Joel said to Ryder, and then to me, “Don’t ask me how I got roped into backing this young upstart.”

“He broke my favorite guitar ten minutes before I went on during the sophomore showcase,” Ryder said,
sotto voce
, leaning toward me. “He’s felt so guilty about it ever since, it seemed only fair to let him make it up.”

Joel guffawed. “I broke a
string
,” he retorted, elbowing Ryder with the ease of a long established friendship. Then he turned back to me. “What Colin did tell me is you’re ace with a kit.”

I glanced at Ryder, who gave me an innocent shrug. “I only spoke the truth.”

“I haven’t actually played in a while,” I admitted.

“Hey, you know, Joel’s got a nice set-up,” Ryder said. “I bet he’d let you kick around with it while we’re waiting for Kev. Just for old time’s sake.”

My gaze slid to one of the isolation rooms. I knew instinctively which one would house the drum kit. The door was half open; from what I could see, and there was no reason for him to lie, Ryder was right. It was a nice kit. But he was eyeing me so eagerly it made my skin go tight.

“Sure,” Joel said. “It’d be cool. We don’t see a lot of girl drummers.” At Marcy’s snort, he reddened. “Not meaning I’d be surprised if you
are
good. Just sometimes there’s a different approach—it’s interesting to hear.”

He took a few steps toward the room as if he expected me to follow, and my heart did with a flying leap. I swallowed thickly, curling my fingers into my palms.

“That’s okay, really,” I said. “I’ll only embarrass myself.”

Joel stopped. “Well, if you’re sure. The kit’ll still be here later if you change your mind.”

I was spared further debate by a stocky Indian guy bursting past the door. “I am here! Kevin has arrived!” he announced, and a portly man whose dome of a shaved head shone white in the overhead lights stepped out of the control room—the producer, I guessed.

“All right, let’s get ‘Far Out’ down so we can finally move on to the next track, people,” the bald guy said, his focus mostly pointed at Ryder. I took that as my cue to fade out of the room.

I lingered in the back of the control room for the first hour, watching the band through the window as the producer called out instructions and suggestions to them and to the sound engineer at the mixing console. He mostly ignored me. Ryder hadn’t lied—it wasn’t the most exciting process to watch. Even with the best music, hearing a riff or a strip of melody adjusted and re-adjusted became less than thrilling after the first dozen times.

Ryder, at least, seemed into it, closing his eyes as he crooned into the mic, dancing his fingers over the fret board of his guitar with the same boyish smile I’d seen that first night when he’d crashed the performance in the Catacomber. Seeing that enthusiasm again sent the same tickle of affection through me. And then a flash of heat, when he stepped closer to the window, his eyes seeking out mine.

I gave him a little wave, and the producer looked at me for the first time since I’d come in. Frowning.

I didn’t want to be responsible for distracting the star performer. And apparently I could use a little cool down. I slipped out to stretch my legs and wandered down the narrow hall that led to the two smaller studio areas. One of the studios was in use, the other vacant. I peeked inside the latter and was about to turn back when a glimmer of movement drew my gaze.