Evolution (16 page)

R
OB
and I spent several hours practicing without talking or looking at each other. Without Joel to lighten the mood, the day dragged. And no one else seemed worried that Joel wasn’t back yet. In fact, he hadn’t returned a single call, and according to Rob, he hadn’t visited me in the hospital. And Rob’s gruffness just got worse each time I spoke. Finally I turned to him. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

He yanked his guitar strap off and banged the guitar into its stand. “You obviously don’t want my advice, so let’s just keep it professional.” He left the room, headed for the vending machines. “Stop following me, Gene.”

“Please talk to me. I’m sorry, Rob.”

“You’re always sorry. Do you really mean it? Do you know why you’re sorry?”

“Yes. I’m sorry that what I want isn’t the same as what you want.”

He stared at me, a frown forming on his face. I hugged him before he could run away again. We’d always been best buddies. I’d followed him, tried to be like him. But we weren’t kids anymore.

I let him go and bowed my head. “I’m sorry. We’ve always been together, you and me. Almost brothers, going the same way, same goals. I wanted so much to be like you.” But not anymore. Rob hadn’t changed—I had. I wanted to be me, more of who I was becoming than who I’d been. “I want this. It’s okay if you don’t agree or even understand. I just want you to be okay with me just being me.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“Kerstrande.” Love, really. “The music. People to like me for being me, whatever that may be.” I straightened the pages of the song Kerstrande had polished for me. This too, I wanted. My music to be what I sang.

“Kerstrande comes before your career, your friends? You barely know him.”

I bowed lower, from the waist, eyes closed, holding back a tide of oncoming rejection that would be a knife to my heart. “I’m sorry, Rob.” How could I explain to him what I didn’t understand myself?

Rob grunted and hugged me, forcing me to stand and return the hug. “You’re the weirdest guy I know.” Finally he let go. “I get that this is a big deal for you, but if he ever hurts you I’m going to skin him alive.”

I laughed. At least his reaction was normal today. “This is important. I want to play my music. Can we practice this?” I handed him the song. “I’d like to see if we can retake control of this thing called Evolution.”

His eyes grew wide when he began to read. “You wrote this? Petterson wrote this with you?”

“I started on it a while ago. He polished it, added the score.”

“Petterson hasn’t written a new song in years, and he just decided to rewrite one of yours? In fact, he wrote this to maximize your voice. It’s in your range, not Shuon’s.” Rob flipped from page to page, eyes growing wider with each turn. “All right, all right. Let’s work on it. Just you and me.” He shook his head. “We so need Joel back on the board.”

I’d already called Joel that morning but got no answer, so we’d have to get through it on our own. After an hour of practice, I’d nailed the melody and began playing with the style, even upping the range beyond what Kerstrande had written for my voice. The vocal trainer the label provided had been a big help of late. And so long as Kerstrande didn’t complain, I’d continue to sing scales when I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night.

The door to the Green room opened just before 8:00 p.m., and both Rob and I glanced up. Hane waved us to continue. Thankfully he was alone. Something about Shuon the other day gave me the creeps. When we finished the song, Hane clapped.

“Amazing. Like it was written for your voice, your personality. The writers here are good, but not that good. Where’d it come from?”

“Gene wrote it,” Rob said with all the pride of a lone rooster in a barnyard of chicks.

“Kerstrande rewrote the music and changed a few words,” I told Hane.

His eyes widened. “Really?” His smile was polite, but his words sounded a little bitter. “He once vowed to never write for anyone other than Michael Shuon. May I see?”

I handed him the music, somewhat apprehensive of letting it go. At least Rob had a copy too, so if Hane swiped it, I’d still have one.

“Definitely your range. You wrote the lyrics?”

“And the main melody.”

“Why aren’t all your songs original, then?”

My cheeks felt hot at the comment. “Mr. Tokie didn’t like my stuff.”

“This is better than what we had been playing. More emotion. Not so pop-ish. More angst. This hits you in the heart and drags you through the fire as it plays. That’s music.” Rob held his fist over his heart.

Hane set the music on the keyboard stand and flicked it on. “Let’s put it together.”

Rob and I shared a look, shrugged, and took our places. What could it hurt?

The song came together in my head. Keyboard poured notes like a cold, falling rain. Guitar sang a lonely tune followed only by my voice in deep baritone filled with emotion. Not even Michael Shuon walking through the door could stop me from giving all I had to the song.

The air tightened with his presence. Maybe I was still starstruck, I dunno, but he kept moving closer, until he was practically latched to my side. An unexpected bear hug stopped my singing altogether, and the instruments died behind me.

“Michael, leave him alone,” Hane commanded.

Michael’s expression said a lot of things I was sure not to like. He looked hungry. The only other time I’d seen that sort of perverted expression on someone’s face was the time an old man had offered to pay me for sex. I’d never ridden that train again.

“He sings pretty.”

“That he does. Let him go.”

“Can I have him?”

“Michael….” The warning in Hane’s voice was unmistakable. It came out more of an animalistic growl. Michael stroked my hair like I was some sort of pet. The darkness that covered him reminded me of what Devon had looked like the last time I’d seen him, a black-shrouded skeleton.

Rob’s eyes were wide, but probably not as wide as my own. Blood rushed through me, pounding in my ears, and I began to feel like I’d hyperventilate. “Please let me go,” I managed to whisper. Shadows swelled around him like noncorporal rats scurrying up his body. The cold began to seep through my clothes, leaching the strength and warmth from me. Even at his worst, Kerstrande never got this bad.

“Everything’s okay,” Hane soothed. Rob’s expression grew calmer, but I couldn’t feel anything other than panic. Michael’s grip bruised my arm. His lips hovered at my throat, making me want to throw my hands up to protect it.

“He smells different,” Michael mumbled, then licked me.

Yuck!

“Yeah, he smells like Kerstrande. Let him go, Michael.” This time there was so much force to Hane’s words my heart paused. Michael let go. I sagged into the music stand, vowing to stay the hell away from Michael Shuon.

Hane left the keyboard, grabbed Michael by the back of his shirt, and dragged him from the room, closing the door behind them. Rob stood quietly staring at his guitar, his expression peaceful.

“Rob?”

He looked up. “Huh?”

I shook my head. “Remind me to stay away from Michael Shuon.”

“Michael was here?”

How could he forget? I gripped the sheet music, stolen back from the keyboard Hane had left it on. Maybe Hane had some kind of power to make people forget. Too bad it didn’t work on me. “Never mind.”

Was it time to go home yet? I wanted to cuddle up with KC, even if he was in a mood, just to erase the last ten minutes of my life. Thankfully, Tokie released us shortly afterward, and I made my way home.

The soft flow of an acoustic guitar playing from inside the apartment made me pause just outside the door, key in the lock. Kerstrande had never played in the short time I knew him. I had never even seen a guitar among his things. Would he stop if I entered? The melody sounded familiar. One of his old songs, maybe?

Finally, I let curiosity get the better of me and opened the door as quietly as possible. Kerstrande sat on the floor of the living room, guitar in hand, strumming. His eyes didn’t open, nor did he look up, but he said, “Come here, Genesis.”

When I didn’t move from the doorway, he finally looked at me, raised the guitar from his lap, and gestured me to sit between him and the guitar. I sucked in a deep breath, both wanting and fearing the intimacy, while I made myself comfortable in his lap. My back pressed to his chest, butt snug against his groin. I could play casual too. No need to get all excited. Maybe.

He put the guitar back, arms around me somewhat awkwardly until we both settled into a relaxed embrace. Kerstrande positioned my fingers over the strings and pressed them into the hard metal. “That’s middle C.” He strummed once, then changed positions. “C chord.”

“Okay.”

“Sing.”

“Sing what?”

“Hum for all I care. Just match the notes as I play them. Remember the feel of the strings and the sound they make.”

I sang scales, following his lead. He kept his fingers pressed to mine. I messed up a few notes, but he didn’t seem deterred since he continued. An ache began at the tips of my fingers, warning of oncoming blisters, and in my groin, telling me that having KC this close made me horny despite trying to pretend otherwise.

By the time he’d begun to remix the scales on the guitar, I could follow the changes of his fingers with my voice in time to sing the note. His hands moved like magic, taking me into a new tune faster than I ever thought possible. When he gave me a sheet of words to sing with him, I barely realized I was the one playing and singing until a pause in the middle of the song tripped me up.

He quieted the strings with his palm. “You smell like Michael Shuon.”

What the hell? I sniffed my clothes but couldn’t smell anything. “He came into the studio while we were practicing. Got a little weird. He was dark like Devon.”

“Stay away from Saxon. Whatever these things are that you see, I’m sure you see them in Devon. Go with your instinct and stay away from that man.” Kerstrande closed up the orange notebook, shoved it to the side, and put his guitar on the couch. One arm still wrapped around me kept me locked against him. “I heard you sang ‘Red Rose’. That song wasn’t meant for you.”

The words stung. Did he think I fucked up his song? “I’m sorry.” I tried to get up and make my way out of the room to save myself the humiliation of showing him tears, but he wouldn’t let me go. “Please let me go.”

“Sing ‘Midnight Rain’.”

“Why?” Why wouldn’t he let me go so I could hide how he’d hurt me?

“You’re hurt, angry. Fine. Put it into the song.”

He wanted it—whatever. I relaxed into his arms, closed my eyes, and poured my frustration into the song. Didn’t he get how much I wanted,
needed
, to be accepted by him? Even if it was for something as simple as a song? Tears snuck free while I sang, but I wouldn’t look at him. He clung to me, face buried in my hair, arms like vises around my waist. I should have been happy to have him so close, listening to my voice, but I felt tired and heartbroken, lost.

The song faded, and he let me go, rising to disappear into the kitchen. “Eat something,” he commanded.

Chapter 17

Kerstrande

G
ENESIS
slept curled up in a fetal position on his side of the bed. His chest rose and fell in peaceful monotony that should have lulled me to sleep. The deep baritone of his voice haunted me with the echo of pain even though he’d stopped singing hours ago.

I’d messed up again, hurt him without intending to. Always with him the emotions; he threw into his music, his life, what others couldn’t replicate with skill. Like a child, he felt everything, saw everything, gave himself to everything without hesitation. I didn’t know how he had survived so long without being tainted by the brutal real world, but it just made me want him more.

Our pre-bedtime confrontation, if it could be called that, pushed my patience near the breaking point. He stared at me with those large violet eyes, teary and wanting. I could easily have soothed away my hurtful words with soft caresses and endless kisses. But it wouldn’t have stopped with sex.

Sitting close to him forced my hunger to rise. My resolve to keep him at a distance was for his safety as much as my own sanity. It’d been over a week since I fed. Damn him for giving me that kind of strength, and damn me for wanting more of it. I craved him constantly, not true hunger, but that nudging voice in the back of my head that said
Just a taste, only a little won’t hurt anything
. If I were smart, I’d find food elsewhere before the desire took over.

I’d gone out in the sunlight that day, braving the irritating drumming and heat on my skin to find him shoes. Dodging the brightest of the sun’s rays, I’d slogged through four stores. I hated to shop, but it’d taken that long to find a pair like the ones he wore in bright blue, and then when the sales clerk brought them out in three colors, it took nearly an hour to decide I was just going to buy them all. But when Genesis had stared at his toes that morning and picked lightly at the hole in the right shoe, frowning, it was all I could think of all day. And the rainbows—well, I had no idea how to fix that. Hopefully he could take care of that himself.