Desired (36 page)

NO MONEY. WILL JUST DRIVE.

Shit
. Up onstage, Emme was making magic with the piano. Drink orders had slowed a little and the crowd had thinned as the night grew later, but there were still all the closing duties to complete.

WAIT FOR ME, he texted back. WHERE ARE YOU?

He motioned for the barback to take over. There was nothing else he could do. He shrugged on his jacket and slipped out the back, the music cut off abruptly as the door shut behind him.

Emily Hayes was nothing like Emme.

That was Tom’s first thought when he walked into the audition. He wasn’t sure what he had expected when he walked into the living room of the unassuming ranch house in one of Louisville’s older subdivisions. Mirrors, gilt, marble, and velvet fainting couches, maybe, or fluffy white cats and champagne fountains everywhere, Emme lounging in a silk-and-maribou dressing gown. Instead, he walked in the open front door and found amps, guitars, a couple of
keyboards, a tangle of wires spread out over the carpet, a case of microphones open in one corner, contents spilling over the floor, and a giant, incredibly ugly green couch that looked like it had been picked up off the curb.

The diva was sitting on the floor wearing yoga pants and a hoodie and untangling a cord of some kind. She stood up when she saw him, brushed dust off her butt, and held out her hand. “Tom! Nice to meet you,” she said with a smile.

Onstage, she’d been all teased hair and false eyelashes and voluptuous curves. She definitely had those; even the baggy hoodie couldn’t hide her shape, and those yoga pants were downright obscene on her, but her brown eyes were friendly and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. As he took her much-smaller hand in his, she said, “Call me Emily.” The girl-next-door name didn’t match her, somehow. He couldn’t shake the image of her onstage, hair haloed by the lighting, holding the crowd, mesmerized, in the palm of her hand. And even here, sitting on the floor, when she looked at him, she radiated authority. Like when he’d had a pretty, smart teacher he wanted to impress, he nearly called her “ma’am.”

She introduced him to the drummer, Guillermo, a big guy with an even bigger beard, and Dave, the lead guitarist, who barely looked up from tuning his guitar when Tom greeted him. “How familiar are you with our music?” she asked.

I’ve been listening to your album over and over again every night since you played in my bar. Wait. That sounds creepy
. “Pretty familiar. I’ve worked out most of the bass lines, and there are a few that I might want to try tweaking just a bit.”

Emme nodded. “Good to hear. Any particular musical influences?”

Tom thought for a moment. “I’d say I’m mostly a fan of blues and soul,” he said finally. “More modern stuff I like—I’m pretty into that dirty southern sound in alt country. My dad owned McKinney’s, and I grew up there, hearing blues bands play. J.R. Wilbur used to play on Wednesday nights, and he felt sorry for this kid who was always in, you know, a bar. So he’s the guy who taught me how to play.”

Emme whistled. “Learned to play guitar from J.R. Wilbur? Those are some credentials. Let’s hear it.”

Tom got out his bass. They worked through the tune-up as a group, Dave fiddling with knobs on the soundboard, Emme alternating between keyboards, checking microphones. The level of professionalism and comfort both of them seemed to have around what had to be tens of
thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment made Tom’s heart beat a little faster. This was serious. He’d known when he heard them play, had known from the quality of the album, that this wouldn’t be like hopping onstage at the bar after the musician had had too many free beers. If they let him join, going on this tour wasn’t the only thing that would change for him. Doors would open.

He’d sat in with so many bands, had played on so many friends’ albums, but touring had never, ever been an option. His dad had been too sick. Katie had needed him too much. The bar had to be rescued from the brink of bankruptcy. But he’d gotten the bar under control, his dad had been gone for over a year, and Katie was doing so much better, and if this audition went well, maybe his life could look the way he’d always wanted it to. Tom’s hands shook, palms sweaty. He felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket, but he ignored it.
Please wait. Just give me an hour
.

“We’ll start with ‘Walking Away,’ since that’s our biggest download,” Emme said.

Tom nodded and swallowed hard.
You’ve got this. You listened to it a thousand times before now
.

The song was one part mournful break-up croon and one part ditch-the-bastard anthem, a little bit Diana Ross, a little bit Stevie Wonder in the instrumentation, and a whole lot of retro Motown bass. It wasn’t easy to play, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Tom’s nerves coalesced into adrenaline as he played, the sheer joy of making music with a talented group of people. He could hear them including himself through the monitors, and god
damn
, they sounded good. Emme’s voice soared over the bass groove, while Guillermo kept the beat without overwhelming the tune. Dave was seriously talented at guitar, adding blues licks that Tom hadn’t heard in the studio version and improvising without needlessly showing off. By the time the song ended, the notes had wound around them all, the tiny communications coming as second nature; slowing the tempo when Emme nodded, holding a note a little longer with a look from Dave.

They played together for two hours, long enough for Tom’s phone to buzz at least five times, but his high of belonging glowed warmly around him as he packed up his instrument. The way the three of them interacted, the seamlessness of their partnership, felt like family. He hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for that until he’d had a taste of it, and now he had. Everyone in the living room was smiling by the time he checked his phone to see the list of missed texts from
Katie. Thank god none of them had been emergencies in any real sense of the word.

Dave offered Tom his hand. “Nice work, man.”

Guillermo nodded, and Emme looked up from the notebook she’d been scribbling in. “I’ll see you out.”

Tom thought he saw Dave narrow his eyes at Guillermo when she spoke, but Tom shouldered his case and turned toward the front door, Emme at his side. As she opened the door into the fading evening light, she smiled at him.

“So? How’d you think it went?”

Tom cleared his throat.
Please let me in
. “Pretty well.”

“Pretty well?” Emme scoffed and aimed a light punch at his arm. “Dude. It was awesome.” She looked back over her shoulder, as if checking to see if Dave or Guillermo had followed them into the hallway, and lowered her voice before she spoke again. “If you want in, you’re so in. I’ve got to talk to those two about it so they feel like I’ve consulted them, but seriously? Give me two hours and we’ll make it official.” She winked at him as he stepped outside.

That wink, combined with her low-voiced whisper, overpowered his nerves long enough to wake up something else inside him, something needy and more than a little feral. He winked back. “I look forward to it,” he said, before he took the front steps two at a time.

Emme knew before she opened her mouth that Dave was going to argue.

He always got that stubborn set to his eyebrows when he disagreed with her. It usually happened when she wanted to make changes to a song he’d written, or when she really dug in about cutting a guitar solo. And she nearly always won the argument anyway, but having it in the first place was beginning to get exhausting.

“So? What do y’all think?” She slid onto the piano bench and turned around to face Dave and Mo.

“He’s better than Alyssa,” Guillermo said. “She was pretty good. And I liked her. But she’s more of a rock girl, and you can hear it in her playing. Tom, you can tell he’s a blues and soul kind of guy, and it sounds better with our songs.”

“I agree. And he improvs well. He’d be a good songwriting partner.” Emme watched Dave’s face. His eyebrows were still doing that thing. She wanted to get up and push them back into their usual shape with her fingers, as if that would make him less obstinate.

He’d been digging in his heels more and more lately, questioning every decision that she made. After being so supportive for so long, his new opposition felt like betrayal.

“I don’t like him,” Dave said, finally. “It’s not that I don’t
like
him. He seems cool. I’ve heard him play with a couple of bands at McKinney’s. Andy says he’s reliable, and god knows that’s a plus. But I don’t think he’s a good fit for us.”

“Why not?” Emme tried to listen to him. She really did. She wasn’t just going to shut him down before he’d spoken his piece.

Even if she’d already made up her mind, practically the minute Tom walked in.

“You’re not going to like what I have to say.” Dave rubbed his hand over his forehead. He actually looked torn up about whatever it was. For a moment, Emme felt bad for him.

Then he spoke. “I don’t like the way he looks at you, or you look at him.”

“Not this again.” Guillermo stood up. “Really, man?”

“I just think it would be safer not to risk it. Remember what happened sophomore year, when we were in that jazz quartet? And then Indelible Lines …”

The words punched Emme right in the sternum. “You still haven’t forgiven me. For a mistake I made that didn’t even affect you at all.”

“It’s not that I haven’t forgiven you. Emily, come on. I think Jared was the one who really screwed up Indelible Lines. But you do this, like, a lot.” Dave stood up and started pacing. “You’re kind of a drama magnet. And on top of that, have you met his sister? That girl is seriously fucked up. Can he really promise not to let his personal life get in the way of the tour?”

Emme turned around on the bench and started playing scales, mostly so she wouldn’t have to look at Dave’s face while she tried to fight the sting of tears. No one believed her. No one had ever believed her. Even Dave had assumed the worst about her, and she’d never bothered to defend herself, because if she even had to, because of the assumptions that he’d made, then what was the point? She might as well have been guilty.

But she’d learned her lesson, hadn’t she?

Even if she looked at Tom and immediately started thinking about ways to get him alone.

She shook her head. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d changed
plenty
, and she could prove it.
And there was something inherently awful about denying him a chance just because his sibling sucked.

“Man, give him a shot,” Guillermo was saying when she turned around again. “We all screw up. And how shitty is it to judge him based on his sister? Uncool, Dave.”

“I know it sounds bad.” Dave sounded tortured. “I don’t want to be that guy. I’m just trying to be practical. I swear I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

“How are either of us supposed to prove anything to you if you don’t give us a chance?” Emme breathed in like she did before a song, channeling her frustration out on the exhale, imagining it spinning off into the distance like a sustained note. “I promise I won’t seduce the new bass player. I’ll make him promise his sister won’t cause problems for us. If we fuck it up …”

“I’ll leave the tour.” Dave looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m serious, Emily. I’m willing to give y’all the chance, but if you fuck it up, I’m done.”

Emme nodded. “That’s your choice. So we’re decided?”