Finding Orion (16 page)

"Who,
me?"
Jace
asked, doing his best to
look offended.
"Never."

"Don’t
listen to him. I’m as shy as he is, but you don’t see him complaining."

"So what
happened in there?" I pointed at the club.

"Best
not to ask," Kyle warned, his eyes softening when he looked in
Jace’s
direction. "It’s cool, though. This just means
he has to share you with the rest of us tonight."

"
Aww
, come on, guys,"
Jace
whined. "You promised I could have the loft for the night."

"Yeah?"
Derek stood
beside Kyle. "That was before we met her."

"You
were right," Amy added. "She’s cute. She’d fit in perfectly with the
band."

"What?"
I looked from
Jace
to Amy and back again.

"She
doesn’t mean it like that,"
Jace
offered. "Did
you, Amy?"

"Oh,
no.
Not at all."
Amy took a step forward and lowered
her voice. "But she is cute. I was just saying, you know
,
if we ever needed another voice." She shrugged and went to finish loading
the van.

"Okay."
Jace
heaved a sigh and rubbed at his forehead. "I
don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to have one hell of a headache
if we don’t get out of here soon."

The others
agreed and turned to me.

"Where
would you like to go?"
Jace
asked, looking right
at me.

"Well,
you did promise her a performance," Derek laughed. "We could always
just do a private session back at the loft."

Jace’s
face twisted
with some emotion I couldn’t place. And when his eyes settled on me, his face
was pale.
"
Bree
?"

I chewed at
my bottom lip as my eyes swept over the others. "Well, seeing as privacy
is kind of off limits, why don’t we try the bar under my place?"

"What
about that bartender of yours? He won’t mind?"

I smiled. "He
might, but there isn’t a damned thing he can do about it. Besides, how else am
I going to show you off?"

"Damn,
Jace
," Amy called from the van. "You got a fiery
one on your hands. Watch out!"

"Don’t
listen to a word they say,"
Jace
warned as we
walked toward the car.
"Liars.
Every
single one of them."

"Oh,
girl, the things we could tell you." Derek said, drawing out his last word.
He shook his head and called shotgun before disappearing into the van.

"You
sure you’re cool with this?"
Jace
asked,
referring to the rest of the band. "They can get a little
rammy
when they’ve been out too late. Kind of like
Gremlins, only these ones shouldn’t have any kind of alcohol.
Ever."

I coughed. "We
should be okay. Simon might complain later, but he’ll be fine. He’s allowed to
look. The touching though…that’s all me."

"Good
thing, too."
Jace
leaned in to
kiss me on the lips. "Because I especially liked what you did last night."

"What
part?"

"
Mmm
, the fantasies I could tell you wouldn’t even compare.
But I guess you’ll just have to wait until later, won’t you?"

I caught on to
his game before he finished. "I guess I will."

"Damn."

"You
thought I was going to beg, didn’t you?"

"More
like hoped. Then we could ditch the rest, maybe get something to eat, and then…"

"And
then go to sleep," I finished for him. "I almost got hell this
morning for being two hours late. I slept in and for the life of me, I can’t
figure out how it happened."

"Just
like that half an hour you lost?" He smirked.
"Short
term memory loss as a result of an orgasm.
Look it up. I’m not kidding."

"Well,
it was
something.
I’ll give you that."

"So…"
Jace
eyed the van.
"Last
chance.
Send them home or bring them with?"

"With."
I snickered
when
Jace
pouted in front of me. "
Aww
, it can’t be that bad, can it?"

"You do
realize that once you invite them, they never leave. They’re parasites."

"There’s
a cream for that."

Now it was
Jace’s
turn to laugh, and as we made our way to the van, I
started to dread the long hours of the evening when all I wanted to do was to
take him back to bed with me.
There will
be plenty of time for that later.
His band was his family. I couldn’t take
him away from that, even if he was doing everything he could to make me do just
that.

****

Simon grinned
at me from behind the bar. After some negotiating, he agreed to let
Jace
and the others set up in one corner of the room. He
limited their performance to just five songs, which soon turned to six.
Then ten.
After that, we kind of lost
count.

As the band
played from their older days, I leaned with my back against the bar, perfectly
happy with just watching
Jace
as he played the
keyboard and sung at the top of his lungs. Simon had made a point to turn up
the lights so everyone could see, which also meant
Jace’s
brow was covered in sweat about ninety percent of the time.

They were
good. Really good actually, which confused me as to why they were shoved to the
side for another, lesser group. I shuddered at the memory of bad music and
recovered before
Jace
could notice. He looked in my
direction from time to time, but one of us always averted our gaze just as
quickly as it had happened.

The music
stopped, and I turned back to Simon. "That’s my cue."

He smiled and
stepped away as I took an armful of water bottles from behind the bar. We’d
gotten quite the crowd since the band first started playing. I think Simon only
ever let a live band in the bar once, and it didn’t end well. The band members
were drunk off their ass, disrespectful, and refused to leave well after
closing.

Luckily for
us,
Jace
and the others were nothing like that. But
that didn’t mean they hadn’t caused a fuss. In fact, I could still see Karie’s
bright face as she continued to gush over Derek. She’d asked me about him and
begged me to introduce them, but that wasn’t a line I was ready to cross.
Besides, she was the bolder one out of the two of us. I knew she’d get around
to introducing herself eventually.

And
poor David.
He’d come down to see what all the noise was about and
almost had a heart attack. He disappeared up the steps before either Simon or
myself
could tie him down.

Jace
smiled when
I handed him a water bottle and drained the entire thing by the time I’d given
one to everyone else.

"More?"
I asked, taking the empty container from him.

"No, I’m
good thanks,"
Jace
said, wiping his forehead on
the sleeve of his shirt. "So, how are we doing?"

I glanced
around the room, and as the patrons returned to the bar for their refills, I
spoke. "Well, no one disapproves, that’s for sure. If you don’t mind my
asking, why did that club shove you to the side?"

Amy forced a
smile and spoke before
Jace
did. "That
band
has ties in with the owner. They
show up—we go home.
Simple as that."

"Can
they do that?" I looked to
Jace
. "Didn’t
you say this was a paying gig? Can they seriously cancel on you without paying?"

Jace
stared down
at his keyboard and turned it off. "They can, but that doesn’t mean it’s
allowed."

"We’re
kind of used to this," Kyle said after he’d finished his water. "It
happens a lot, actually."

"Well,
not for long," Derek added, rolling his shoulders back when
Jace
gave him a warning glance. "One day they’ll take
us seriously and not mistake us for a band of misfits. Soon too, if things work
the way we’re hoping they will."

"How do
you mean?" I asked, noting the scowl on
Jace’s
face.

"You
didn’t tell her?" Amy stared at
Jace
, and when
he didn’t respond, she looked back at me. "We have a recording coming up.
Nothing too big, but it’s a start."

Derek cleared
his throat. "We’ll be using the copies as a taste of what we can do.
They’ll be mailed off to agents who are familiar with the market."

Kyle was the
next one to chime in. "And if they like us, it could be the break we need."

 
My stomach twisted, and I smiled for them. The
others seemed just as enthusiastic about a possible break as Kyle was.
Everyone but
Jace
.
His face was
just as blank as it had been the night before when we talked about a gig he had
coming up.
Jaded.
And now I could see it was with good
reason.

Just seeing
how the club kicked them to the curb tonight was enough to put a sour taste in
my mouth. I didn’t doubt the fact that it had happened before.
Something like that is bound to have a
negative effect on him.
Not to mention he was the head of the band, so in
the end, it all came down to him.

"If you
all are done talking about faraway dreams, can we get back to playing?"
Jace
grumbled, grinning at me when we exchanged glances
with one another.

The others
got in to position, and as Amy strummed her guitar, she leaned over to me and
said, "He likes to lose himself in those keys." She nodded to his
keyboard. "Supposedly when he’s playing, nothing else exists. And that’s
when he’s at his best. He might seem down tonight, but losing a gig like that
is a kick in everyone’s gut. Don’t just think it’s him. It just wears down on
him faster than the rest of us."

I offered her
a reassuring smile and backed away when Derek started a quick beat on the
drums. The song that followed was nothing like the upbeat songs of excitement
from earlier in the evening. As the band winded down, so did their music.

I got back to
the bar just as
Jace
started on the keyboard. "This
sounds like it’s going to be good," I said to Simon. "Maybe you
should check on David. Make sure he’s okay."

Simon nodded.
"Can you watch the bar for me?"

"Sure.
It’s not like anyone’s interested in a drink right now anyway." I gestured
to Simon’s customers, but all eyes were on the band. "I’ll be fine. Just don’t
leave me down here too long unless you want me to give the drinks away for
free."

Laughing,
Simon gave me a quick hug and headed toward the back of the bar. I went back to
looking in
Jace's
direction, and just as Amy had
promised, the sour mood he’d worn during our short conversation was gone. Twin
parallel lines creased between his brows as he concentrated on the song.
The keys.
The complex cords.

And as he
started to sing, I just about fell back in to a wall of mugs, glasses, and half
emptied bottles. The song wasn't anything like the ones they'd played before.
It was slower, quieter, and the words
Jace
sang were
so heart-wrenching, I almost mistook him for someone else entirely.

Lost in the
song, I almost didn't see Simon and David enter the bar.

"Told
you I wouldn't be long," Simon murmured, setting his elbows on the counter
as he gazed at the band.

David did the
same. He was still as pale as he'd been when he left the bar nearly an hour
ago. "They're sirens..." he said in a thin whisper, looking to Simon
who seemed to be just as taken aback by the music as the rest of us.

"Male
sirens?"
I laughed. "Well, mostly male."

Amy sang in
the background, echoing the lyrics
Jace
had already
thrown in to the air. It was an easy melody, one I could pick up on and follow
after listening to the song a handful of times.

Lost in the
lyrics, I found myself zoning out even as the music began to taper off. Before
I could fall in to applause with everyone else, the song changed tempo,
blending right in to the next one.

I swore right
then that I wouldn't let
Jace
give this up. He might
not have been as excited about getting a recording done or nabbing an agent as
the others, but that voice!
Those eyes.
And the way
they all just seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

They had to
try.