Coming Undone (11 page)

“Yeah.”

“Good interview today. I meant to tell you earlier that I’d tuned in to listen. I was impressed Lonesome Jack didn’t once bring up the business with your mother.” She smiled in the darkness. “But then he had an entirely different surprise in mind, didn’t he?”

They’d celebrated when P.J. had returned from the radio station, but then it’d been time for sound check, after which she’d had a hundred details to see to. And when those had been done P.J.’d had to get her stage makeup done and get dressed for the concert. The next thing Nell knew it had been showtime. This was the first opportunity she’d had to discuss anything in private with her friend.

She heard a return smile in P.J.’s voice when she said, “Wasn’t that something? I called Ben back as soon as we quit partying and of course he’d staged the whole thing. But he also said the positive press is starting to outweigh the negative—and that the bad stuff probably fueled sales, anyway.” She blew out a noisy sigh. “What a business.”

“Yeah, it’s lunatic.” Nell hesitated, then said casually, “This is changing the subject, but have you ever seen Hank without a shirt on before today?”

“Sure, once or twice. It’s a rare thing, though.” P.J. laughed. “Too bad, too. The boy’s got a six-pack on him, doesn’t he?”

“I’ll say.” It had blown her away. She didn’t know why, exactly—he generally wore his shirts neatly tucked in and it wasn’t as if she’d ever seen them stretched over a beer belly or anything. It was just…

She’d never once considered him in a sexual way. “He’s no Eddie,” she said, thinking out loud. “But—” Seeing him half-naked and disheveled as she had this morning had made her look at him in a brand-new way.

“He might not flaunt it like Eddie does, but his build leaves Mr. I’ve-got-the-attention-span-of-a-gnat’s in the shade.” P.J.’s bedding rustled once again and her voice sounded closer, as if she’d rolled to face her. “He’s more man than Eddie will ever be, if you ask me.”

“Oh, I know. I like him a lot. He’s easy to talk to and he’s professional and really talented. But Eddie is so gorgeous.” She shook her head. “And my God, that makes me sound shallow.”

“Ya think?”

“I know, I know. But the thing is, I’ve had a crush on that man for what seems like forever.”

“Yeah.” P.J.’s voice was soft in the darkness.

“And I realize he’s never going to look at me the way he does his parade of sweet young things. Still…” She drew in a deep breath, then eased it out again. “I want to fix myself up a bit. Trouble is, I was born without the girly gene, which means I don’t have the first idea where to start. You always look pulled together, though, with all your dresses and skirts and funky jewelry.”

“A woman named Gert, who took me in after my homeless spell, bought me the first dress I ever owned that wasn’t a hand-me-down,” P.J. said. “I’d pretty much lived in jeans and T-shirts up until then, and that little sundress made me feel so feminine that I started buying more whenever I could get the moons to align.”

“And how does one accomplish that?”

P.J. laughed. “Well, in my case it was when I’d scratched together a few bucks and Wal-Mart had a sale. Those skirts and dresses made me feel good about myself during a period when that wasn’t often the case.”

Nell turned on her side to face her friend who, now that Nell’s eyes had adjusted, was a dim outline in the other bed. Tucking her bent arm beneath her head, she said, “Would you go shopping with me, Peej? Help me find a few pieces that are flattering and get a haircut and some makeup and stuff? Just a little makeup,” she quickly qualified. “I know myself well enough to realize I’ll never use anything too complicated.”

“Are you kidding me?” P.J. pushed up in the next bed. “That would be a wonderful break. And this is L.A., baby. There’s gotta be all kinds of great shopping in this town.”

An edge of panic niggled her stomach. “I’m not talking about Rodeo Drive or anything.”

“No foolin’. I may have graduated from Wal-Mart, but I still can’t bring myself to pay three hundred dollars for a little T-shirt or six hundred dollars for a pair of shoes. Maybe next year.”

“That’s the attitude we like to hear.” She grinned in the lessening dark. “Now that you’re a big hotshot Digital Gold performer and all.”

P.J. made a rude noise. Then she suddenly went very still. “Oh, man,” she whispered. “This is too good.”

“What is?”

“Well, it just occurred to me. You heard Jared this morning. He insists on attaching himself to me as my own personal bodyguard.” She flopped onto her back, kicking her legs in the air and laughing like a loon. Even after she had finally settled down, her teeth were a light beacon in the dim room. “How you think he’s gonna like spending the day shopping and hitting the salons with the girls?”

I
T WAS GOING TO BE A
long day.

Jared sprawled on the trendy pink love seat that dominated the waiting area of the Mane Event salon. Stretching across the small couch at an angle, he extended one foot out onto the floor, his opposite knee drawn up and deliberately positioned spread-eagle across the seat to discourage any of the black-kimono-wearing clientele surrounding him from getting the wrong idea. Sharing his space was not an option.

Rock music pounded out of the overhead speakers, which P.J. insisted was a good thing. She claimed that anyone who tuned in heavy metal as their normal listening preference was unlikely to be familiar with the country music world—let alone its gossip. And that, she asserted, made her anonymous—which in turn gave her a heaven-sent opportunity to be just like any other woman in the place.

God knew the salon was packed to the rafters with the species. There were tall women, short women, skinny women, fat women and every size and shape in between. There were women who had hip down pat, women who looked as if they spent every spare minute taking lessons from country club pros and matronly women—although there were a damn sight fewer of those.

The joint was awash in estrogen, and female voices wove over and under the thumping music as they chatted about stuff both more mundane and way more intimate than any snippet of conversation he’d ever overheard Esme or his sister have with their friends. It was like being in a foreign country—one where the air was ripe with the scents of shampoo, hairspray and a witch’s brew of chemicals.

He was tempted to hook a finger beneath the collar of his shirt and tug it away from his throat. He resisted because one, with its two top buttons unfastened, his collar wasn’t the least bit constrictive and two, the gesture would be too revealing. But man, did he feel out of his element.

Two women, one seated to his right and the other three chairs down, talked on their cell phones. Everyone else either flipped with varying degrees of interest through magazines dedicated to hairstyles, movie stars or fashion-and-beauty tip stuff or visited with each other. In many cases they did both.

He was coming in for his share of curious looks, as well, probably because he was the only appreciably straight guy in Girlyville. For the most part it was nothing more than a quick peek over the top of a magazine or a new client faltering briefly when she turned from the reception desk and saw him sitting there. One of the cell phone talkers, however, and a brunette facing him on an Eames-style chair down against the other wall, subjected him to slow, bold, up-and-down inspections. The phone chatterer was checking out his package and the brunette, catching him glance her way, opened her lips, gave them a lascivious circle with her tongue and pantomimed a kiss.

Now, Jared wasn’t a shy guy and ordinarily he’d welcome a little female attention. But not only was he badly outnumbered by the gentler sex, he was on the job. Plus the tenor of some of the attention focused on him was a helluva lot more predatory than that of an admiring woman catching his eye in a bar. For the first time he fully appreciated how women walking the gauntlet of whistling construction workers must feel. Sexual aggression wasn’t appealing in either gender.

Coolly he returned Phone Chick and Miss Kissy-face’s comprehensive appraisals, letting his own gaze conduct a leisurely assessment from head to toe before pointedly turning his attention elsewhere. And if he started to suffer a persistent little get-me-out-of-here itch, well, he’d just keep that to himself.

He hoped.

No. His face went stony. There was no “hope” about it—he would.
You’re a trained professional,
he reminded himself grimly.
There hasn’t been a sissified beauty palace built that has the chops to take that away from you.

But it was sure as hell a different world in here.

He looked past the reception desk into the heart of the pink and black salon. The rituals practiced back there were a mystery to him. He could see Nell seated at a station down near the end of the room. A girl with black and fuchsia hair had whacked the tour manager’s braid off at the nape, secured its cut end with a pink ribbon and set it like a trophy on the counter in front of her. Miss Two-tone had then snipped up a storm until he’d swear more hair lay on the floor around Nell’s chair than was still attached to her head. He didn’t know squat about this stuff, of course, so he had to assume she’d look great when the stylist was finished. Right now, however, what hair was left bristled with layers of aluminum foil. He saw at least two other patrons sporting a similar look, making the lot of them appear for all the world like alien invaders from a fifties-era B movie.

A stylist had already trimmed P.J.’s hair and tamed her usual tumble of curls into a sleek, straight waterfall that cascaded over her shoulders. Currently seated on an elevated chair over in the alcove, the long skirt of her red dress rucked up between her thighs, she sipped something from a delicate china cup and carried on a rapid-fire conversation with the technician painting her toes. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but if her frequent laughter was any indication she was having the time of her life. A slight smile curved his lips. It was good to see her enjoying herself. It had been a tense couple of days.

She shuffled his way a short while later. Glancing down, he took note of disposable green and yellow Hawaiian-print flip-flops on her feet and rainbow-colored separators that spread her red-tipped toes. With a bemused shake of his head, he shifted to make room for her on the love seat.

“Shades, J?” she demanded, dropping down next to him, only to immediately hitch up one bun. “Ow. What’s this thing made of, bricks?”

“I was thinking poured concrete, myself.”

Her lips quirked up, but almost in the same instant she went all stern on him. “Don’t change the subject. What’s with the Ray-Bans? Could you
be
any more conspicuous? Everyone probably thinks you’re FBI.”

He slid the sunglasses in question down his nose and peered over their black rims at her. “Hey, it’s blinding in here.” And that was true as far as it went; sunshine did pour through the window onto the left side of his face.

It just wasn’t the real reason he’d donned them.

She apparently knew it, too. “Uh-huh.” She gave him a swift elbow to the ribs. “More like you’re hiding out from all the babes wanting to jump your bones.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. Nodding his head toward two particularly aggressive blondes who’d replaced Phone Chick and Kissy-face, he said, “I was thinking of asking those two to join me in a little ménage à trois.” God knows they’d been staring holes through him for the past several minutes and hadn’t bothered to keep their voices down when they’d exchanged the increasingly raunchy methods they’d like to use to wear him out.

Then he broke like a cheap china plate. “Jesus, Peej,” he said in a low voice. “Is there a sign over my head that says Fresh Meat, Come and Get It or something? You should
hear
some of the trash they’ve been talking. If a guy said half the shit they’ve suggested he’d be sued for sexual harassment.”

She laughed. But leaning into him, she also butted her head against his chest like a kitten seeking attention. “Poor baby.”

With no conscious decision on his part he found himself threading his fingers into her shiny chestnut hair to hold her in place.

Peering around him at the two women under discussion, she finger-walked her way down his row of shirt buttons until she reached his stomach, which she proceeded to pet. “Back off, ladies,” she told them in a low but firm voice. “He’s mine.”

The blonde with the more impressive implants made a rude sound. “There’s nothing to you,” she said, subjecting P.J. to an insolent up-and-down appraisal. “Maybe the big guy’s ready for something a little more exciting.”

“There
is
nothing more exciting than what she gives me,” Jared said flatly. Then awareness burned through him at the feel of P.J.’s delicately curved breast pressed against his side and he turned his head to look down at her. “Is there, baby?” he demanded softly. And he lowered his head to kiss her.

He’d been telling himself ever since she’d laid that wet one on him the other day that it hadn’t truly fried every circuit in his brain. But he’d been fooling himself. Because her lips were soft—God, so soft and sweet—and the interior of her mouth was sweeter still, tasting like green tea and hot, willing woman.

It was that last thing, her willingness, that nearly pushed him over the edge and made him want to lay her back on this uncomfortable little love seat and punch that compliance into overdrive until both of them were revving full throttle.

Instead he geared himself down. Deliberately he kept his kiss brief and restrained. And when he came up for air he told himself that the entire performance had merely been for show.

But he knew better. And he could have kicked his own butt around the block. So much for his big claim of professionalism anytime, anyplace.

“Well, that did the trick,” P.J. murmured cheerfully. “It appears the Porn Twins have finally taken the hint.”

He looked over to see that the blondes had indeed moved their attention elsewhere. Then he turned wary eyes back on P.J.

And little by little the tension in his shoulders eased. Thank God she at least seemed to believe he’d kissed her with the sole purpose of getting the blondes off his back.

The Twins had been called back for their appointments by the time Nell came out. Whistling when he got a look at her, Jared rose to his feet. “Wow. You look…fabulous.”

She did. Her dark hair had been cut short to feather around her temples, forehead and nape, and it stuck up on the crown in soft, modish spikes. She had beautiful skin and the highlights around her face not only accentuated it but made her eyes look bluer.

“
Muy
fabulous,” P.J. agreed. “You look so hip.”

Nell laughed. “Oh my God, I do, don’t I?” In an age-old feminine gesture, she touched her fingers to her hair. “I thought I was going to wet my pants when Rachel chopped off my braid, but I really like it.” She gave her head a shake. “It feels so light.”

“Did you remember it, by the way?” he asked her, noticing that her hands were empty.

“Hmm?”

“Your braid. I saw your beautician—Rachel, is it?—set it on the counter in front of you. Did you forget to grab it?”

“Oh. No.” She smiled up at him. “They’re keeping it for the Locks for Love program.”

He must have looked as blank as he felt, because P.J. said, “Nell donated it to a charity that makes wigs for cancer victims.”

“Whoa.” Leaning down, he kissed the tour manager on the cheek. “You are one classy lady.”

Their next stop was a department store makeup counter and while it was hardly the activity he would have chosen to while away an hour he discovered he didn’t really mind the time spent there. Nell’s quiet delight in her haircut and the changes wrought by some lipstick, blush and mascara were endearing, and he liked the way P.J. was equally delighted for her friend. In fact, the entire day, from what he could tell, seemed to have been designed with Nell in mind.

Not that P.J. didn’t throw herself wholeheartedly into a shopping spree of her own. She, too, bought lipstick, two cosmetic brushes and some eye stuff. Given their hand-to-mouth existence back in the day, he had to admit he got a kick out of seeing her with money to burn and clearly enjoying the hell out of spending it.

He was still in a pretty mellow mood when the women moved their shopping bender up to the second floor. Nell stopped in the misses section but after a quick low-voiced consultation, P.J. kept going.

He followed her to the junior department where he stood out of the way with his hands in his pockets and watched as she shuffled hangers on the round stands boasting markdown signs of fifty to seventy-five percent off. “Country music must not pay as well as I thought if you’re reduced to shopping the clearance rack,” he said wryly.

P.J. barely spared him a glance. “You try finding summer stuff in the summer,” she said and selected a skirt that started out denim but then exploded at the hipline into three short flounces of frothy, lightweight material with bits of lace and lines of ribbon appliquéd all over them. “Their fall lines are already out.”

“Yeah, I’ve never understood that not being able to buy the clothes you need in the season you need it.”

“Me, either.” She gathered an amazing number of separates off the sale racks, shoved them into his arms, then led him to the lingerie department where she selected slinky little camisoles and tank tops in a rainbow of colors. Carrying those herself, she led him back to the misses section in search of Nell.

“Looks like you found a few things,” she said to her friend when they met up, indicating the armload Nell clutched to her breast.

“There’s an advantage to being a size fourteen.”

“Aside from being a nice, warm armful, you mean?” Jared asked and the elated smile she flashed him tugged up the corner of his own mouth.

“Yes, aside from that, you honey-tongued devil.” Cheeks flushed, Nell turned back to P.J. “He makes me feel desirable and totes your stuff. This shopping with a man riff ain’t half bad.” Then her brows furrowed slightly as she indicated the jumble of clothing in her arms. “What do you think of my selections?” she demanded. “Am I headed in the right direction?”

P.J. inspected Nell’s choices one by one. “This one looks too baggy,” she decided of a dark, shapeless dress, and Nell put it back on the rack. “Ooh. I like this jacket and these three tops. And I see you hit the lingerie department, too.”

“Damn few tank tops to be found otherwise,” Nell agreed.

“Tell me about it.” P.J. vetoed one other selection and applauded the rest.

“I’ll give these a try then.” Nell reclaimed the hangers containing the clothes that had survived the cut and nodded at the fragile tops in P.J.’s hands. “What about you? You ready to try some stuff on?”

“Yep.” P.J. headed down the aisle, crooking her finger at Jared over her shoulder. “Come, boy.”