Easy Little Lick (Copperline #3) (4 page)

BOOK: Easy Little Lick (Copperline #3)
3.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“What?”

“Homeless!” Drew replied, and he and Justin howled with laughter.

“You know, though,” Justin dryly stated after their chuckles died down, “he’d have to have a girlfriend first.” Both of them started up laughing again even harder, eyeing me like there was a snowball’s chance in hell that something like that would happen. Justin kept chuckling as he tuned his bass, razzing me like the motherfucker he tended to be when a wry, quiet voice came from the stage stairs.

“Some girls aren’t looking for a walking STD, you know.”

Every one of us froze solid. She’d spoken to us… well, she’d spoken to Justin.

And she’d done it to defend
me
.

Holy motherfucking shit.

Seeing the shock on our faces, she snapped her mouth shut. A totally mortified
did-I-say-that-out-loud
look crossed over her face, and she cleared her throat.

“Do you guys need something to drink before you get started?”

The guys barely moved, still astounded by her comment.

“I’ll take a bottle of Bud,” I finally said, breaking the silence. She gave me a sidelong nod.

“Me too,” Drew offered. “Maybe just bring four of them up.”

She nodded, turned on her heel, and shot back down the stairs.

“Jaysus,” Denny gasped, “who knew that little bird could talk?”

Drew laughed. “Leave it to Justin to get her to open her mouth.”

“Yeah, I’ll get her to open something alright,” Justin nodded, raising his eyebrows. “Who knew she had spirit? I might just have to check her out.”

I instantly bristled. “Leave her alone,” I said as I glared at Justin with a sudden ferocity that took even me by surprise.

I was not a fighter by nature. I was mellow and easygoing. I had
never
responded like that to Justin—to anyone—and it threw him for one hell of a loop.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at me in speculation.

“You can pick on me as much as you damn well please,” I growled, “but leave her alone.”

Justin gave a screwed up look at Denny and Drew, then turned back to me, feigning a look of unbelievable shock. “Cody, do you have a little crush on the new barmaid?”

My skin felt flushed, not so much from his teasing, but rather the protective anger on Ilsa’s behalf. “Just because you’re a slut doesn’t mean you have to be a fuckin’ dick to every girl you meet. Believe it or not, not every chick is madly in love with your ass.”

“Oh my God,” he laughed. “You really like her, don’t you?”

“Fuck off,” I growled as I clenched my jaw and turned away, trying to channel some sort of inner peace or some shit. Anything to tone this down before I flew off the handle completely.

“Really?” he continued. “
Her?
You like
her?
That little waifish tomboy? We've got a smorgasbord of hot, slutty chicks around us practically twenty-four-seven, and you want this plain little waitress with no personality?”

Drew started to laugh, but caught himself as he glanced at the back stairs. He quickly cleared his throat and turned to scowl at Justin, slugging him in the arm.

“What the fuck—” Justin snarled.

“Uh, hey there, Ilsa,” Drew murmured over my shoulder.

I looked back to the side of me to see her standing at the stairs to the stage, just out of my sight until I turned my head. There was no way she hadn’t heard what we’d said. The only question was how much.

Justin’s insults.

My wanting.

Fuck.

Yet, she appeared relatively unaffected. She didn’t really look at any of us, just sort of at the floor.

“Here’s your drinks,” she said quietly.

But I saw it.

Just for a split second, there was a slight quiver of her lip. She covered it with a bracing breath, raising her eyes to sweep around those of us on the stage. Not defensive, but an uncaring affect. Unfazed. Completely flat after that tiniest fragment of emotion.

She quickly handed out the bottles, not making eye contact. “I’ll come check on you guys again in a bit.”

Her soft voice was almost swallowed up by the awkward silence, then she was down the stairs and gone.

“God, you’re an asshole sometimes,” I groused at Justin.

“Awe, look at our little Cody getting all protective,” he shot back. “About time you turned into a man.”

I threw down my sticks and stood from behind the drums. “Justin, I’m not shitting you. I’ll kick your fucking ass.”

Justin was almost as tall as me, but I probably outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. Still, the guy often didn’t know when to shut up… like now.

“Dude, seriously, pussy isn’t worth shit like this.”

I started around my set, but Denny stepped in front of me, placing a restraining hand on my chest. Drew gaped at me as though I’d grown two heads right before his eyes. I’m not sure anyone had
ever
seen me raging like this before.

“Relax your cacks, Cody,” Denny said before glancing over his shoulder to Justin. “And you, ya feckin’ eejit,” he scowled. “That was pretty harsh, even for you. Play nice.”

“Whatever…” Justin mumbled, seeming a little dazed in his own right by our tiff. “And speak English, you fucker.”

Denny ignored the last bit and stepped over to me, speaking in a low tone to keep things semi private.

“What the hell are ya throwing a feckin’ moody for?” he asked.

I didn’t know, really. I wasn’t quite as crass as Justin, but I usually found him somewhat amusing. He tended to be pretty spot-on with his observations, and I generally laughed along, even when he was aiming his ribbing at me.

For some reason, though, just the mention of Ilsa—just the faintest jibe in her direction—and I was spitting mad. The annoyance roiled inside me, leaving a simmering anger that was so foreign to my calm, mellow nature.

So it was no surprise that my band mates were a bit taken aback. I was a bit taken aback as well.

How to explain it, though?

“I’m not sure. Short fuse tonight, I guess.” I tried to brush it off. Denny was still concerned, that was clear, but left it alone. We weren’t chicks, so he didn’t go with the ‘
Are you okay?

type thing. We had balls. Y-chromosomes. They sorta kept things like that from getting spouted out between us.

He shot me one last puzzled look. “Well, go park your arse behind your drums. Justin won’t be slaggin’ ya anymore tonight.”

Drew just continued to stare back and forth at the lot of us, still mystified by my uncharacteristic outburst, while Justin focused on tuning his bass.

“He fucking better not,” I muttered, earning another peculiar glance from Denny as I sat back down.

Her vulnerability stuck with me as we played that night. My eyes kept looking for her in the crowd, scanning the faces until I saw her, then losing her again in the low light.

Nothing seemed amiss on the outside as she wound through the tables taking orders and delivering drinks. After a while, I started thinking Justin’s fuckhead comments hadn’t gotten to her that much after all. Maybe I really had just overreacted.

Then I caught sight of her standing towards the rear of the room. We were playing a slow song, some ballad Denny had written for Brannon and Sophie, and a number of couples had congregated out on the dance floor, swaying to the mellow beat. I watched her as she watched them. Loneliness radiated from her, almost visible in the dim neon beer-sign lighting.

Was she missing someone? Was her forlorn expression the result of a lost love? Maybe an unrequited one?
Or maybe she was just yearning for the closeness of another human being, the desire to let someone in rather than to hold everyone around her at bay.

Regardless of what made her look and feel that way, it triggered an ache deep inside my chest, something that made me want to shelter her in my arms, to hold her up against the steady beat of my heart so I could ease the sadness from her eyes.

She turned her head away just a bit, taking a deep breath and looking out over the crowd again. Scanning the room, looking for someone in need of service. When her eyes came my way, she noticed me watching her.

I was caught, but so was she, and she knew it. She had let her shield slip, had let me witness the vulnerability buried deep inside. I hadn’t the faintest clue what was even wrong, but I wanted so badly to make everything okay.

She broke free from my gaze and lowered her eyes for a second before she looked back up at me. Once again, wary and cautious. Steeled up to get through the rest of the night… maybe through life in general.

But that raw, naked expression stayed with me long after she left her spot along the back wall and headed into the crowd.

 

 

 

 

 

A few Saturday nights later, the bar was closing, and we were packing up some of our shit to put away until next weekend. Doug had ushered the last few stragglers out the door before he went into the office to do the books for the night. Ilsa had been wiping down tables, picking up empties, and was now washing glasses behind the bar.

She looked exhausted.

“I think that’s about it,” Drew murmured, coming up the stage stairs after carrying a box outside to Denny’s truck. “I guess a bunch of people are headed out to the lake for an after party. You going?”

It took a minute to realize he was talking to me, even though we were the only two people standing there. But my mind had wandered a bit as I watched Ilsa out of the corner of my eye. The weary sloop to her shoulders as she washed one glass after another. One of the other barmaids had called in sick, and the other had skipped out right after the bar had closed, leaving Ilsa with the bulk of the work. I was a little pissed on her behalf. A cleaning crew would show up for the floors and bathrooms, but all the little things still needed to be done.

“Uh, Cody?” Drew said, waving his hand in front of my face. “You, um… you wanna ride out to the lake with me?”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. Mentally chastising her coworkers for leaving her high and dry wasn’t going to do anyone any good. It just seemed to get me worked up. “What were you saying?”

“The lake… the party…?” Drew chuckled. “Earth to Cody. Dude, you’re even more spacey than usual tonight.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty wiped. I think I’m gonna head home.”

“All the chicks will be heartbroken. Big ol’ sweet teddy bear Cody isn’t coming out to play. You know, Maggie’s got a friend in town who’s just dying to—”

“Drew,” I interrupted, “the last thing I want to do is to hook up with one of Maggie’s friends. It’s bad enough seeing you get led around by your dick.”

“Fine, then,” Drew laughed. “More for me, then. This is one of
those
friends.”

Drew’s tumultuous relationship had its perks, for him anyway.

“Doesn’t that kinda weird you out, man?”

He looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Two chicks? Fuck no. That’s hot.”

BOOK: Easy Little Lick (Copperline #3)
3.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

El arte del asesino by Mari Jungstedt
The Pastor's Wife by Jennifer Allee
Stay With Me by Sharla Lovelace
My Guru & His Disciple by Christopher Isherwood
Double Helix by Nancy Werlin
La torre de la golondrina by Andrzej Sapkowski
De la Tierra a la Luna by Julio Verne
Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer
Crimson by Jeremy Laszlo
The One That Got Away by Kerrianne Coombes