Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (82 page)

His steps ate up the distance between them. Before she could agree or disagree with this roulette game he’d obviously played a few times, he shook the contents of the bag out. She gnawed her lip raw when he meticulously and with a practiced hand went through the motions until he was drawing the golden liquid through the needle into the syringe. Next came the tourniquet, and here, she looked away. “Don’t!” She couldn’t stand to see this. Even though she knew he wasn’t going through with it, this shit was too real for her.

Trapped in a fog beyond the reach of her voice, he dragged the needle across his skin, tracing the bulge of a vein, and then with a flick of his wrist, depressed the pump, shooting the contents into the toilet.

With a whoosh, her breath blew out, and dizzily, she sucked in another, realizing she’d been holding it.

“And that’s that. Me. In control of my shit.”

“Did you bring that on tour?” She tucked her icy hands between her arms and sides.

The pride in his eyes fizzled, and he huffed out an offended breath. “I’m not stupid, Scar.” He dropped the syringe into a plastic case, similar to the ones in examining rooms, but his wasn’t adorned with an orange hazardous label. “It may be ‘very rock ‘n roll’ to be arrested at customs, but that’s not me. Not anymore.”

“Get rid of it, Gage.” She hugged her arms closer to her chest and skirted around him to exit. “Seriously. You have to have proved your point to yourself by now. Get it out of the house.”

W
ell. Fuck
. He’d been an idiot to think she’d understand. He’d been an idiot to subject himself to the disgust in her beautiful blues.

Pivoting, he made haste to the door and shoved it closed. Reaching into the shower, he twisted it on and set the temperature a couple of degrees higher than he was normally comfortable with. He threw off the pants he’d just put on and stepped in. The heat calmed him quickly. His eyes dropped to her handwriting on the bench. He eyed the numbered progression, the chords automatically converting and bouncing around his brain. He uncapped one of the markers and began to write, slowly at first and then faster as words became verses and twisted into more verses.

It was later that evening when Scar saw. After a day of dropping by the police precinct so she could sign her statement and they could take more pictures of her bruising. After a drop by her apartment for a few necessities she’d forgotten. After dinner with his father. After sex on the giant chaise between the pool and patio heater. After she’d raced him up the stairs for the shower. After he’d caught her and they’d fooled around on the warmed tiles of the bathroom floor.

“What’s this?”

He was too busy lathering her long hair to answer, and she was quiet while she continued to read. His fingers massaged and played for a while before he turned her to tip her head and rinse.

“Something completely new or something you’ve been working on?” Her eyes narrowed, and when she glanced at her scrawlings on the bench, he realized his eyes had strayed that way with her question. “It better not be for my song.”

“Why’s that?”

“It has lyrics already.”

“They just changed.”

“Nuh, uh. Nope.”

“Let me hear ’em. Your lyrics. If they’re so fuckin’ stellar.”

“Oh, they’re way stellar.”

He shoved the marker into her hand, and let his brows drift up in a clear challenge. Truthfully, he antagonized her out of curiosity. Scar had yet to write lyrics as far as he knew. At her house earlier, he’d faked a piss just to get a look of the whiteboard she’d mentioned. It had been filled with tabs only. If she had verses floating around in that pretty head, he longed to see them.

 “The lyrics to that song?” She waggled the marker and her lips pursed. He could almost see the hamster wheel in her mind as she tried to wiggle her way out.

“Pick a spot.” He hitched his chin to the plenty of white space.

She tipped her head back. Soap suds ran from the long length of her hair, disappearing down the drain. When she was done rinsing—or stalling as he called it—she wiped a hand down her face. And then to his surprise, she bit the cap off the pen and began to write fast and furious, her body shielding her masterpiece in progress from his view.

Seriously? She had lyrics? Now he felt bad for goading her.

Capping the marker, she turned, still shielding what she’d written, and tossed the pen to him with a smug smile. A draft hissed into the cubicle when she exited. He voyuered through the beads of water on the glass as she dried, before turning curiously to her words.

A smile tugged his lips when he saw she’d rewritten his lyrics and after every few lines had penned, ‘Btw, you’re an asshole.’ At the end, she’d added, ‘but I love these lyrics. And I love you.’

He emerged, finding her wrapped in the towel, sitting on the flipped down lid of the toilet, rubbing the polish off her toenails with one of those magic-disposable wipes for everything that women always seemed to have. He enjoyed the way her eyes followed his every move as he dried, just as he couldn’t help himself when it came to her.

Moving to the mirror, he peered into it, testing the scruffiness of his facial hair. Too rough for Scar’s silky skin, or not? Deciding it could wait another day on his razor, he picked up his toothbrush. Scar was still attending to her toes and returning his looks. The domesticity of the moment had him hooked as hard as any drug he’d ever put in his system.

“So…” She threw the last cloth away and let her foot drop from the toilet edge. “I guess we just wrote a song.”

He spit toothpaste into the sink and took care to rinse it all down the drain. “Yeah. If you want. I was just messin’ with you. You don’t have to―”

“I want them. The lyrics. If you want me to have them.”

“Oh, wait a minute. Wait, wait,
wait
a minute. It’s
your
song now?”

She giggled, and he loved being the one to cause that secret laugh that no one else ever heard—unless she was silly drunk.

“To be decided.” He pointed the toothbrush at her with mock sternness.

Opening the door, he stepped into the bedroom, moved to the bed, and pulled back the sheets. Housekeeping had removed the champagne sheets and replaced them with the usual Egyptian cotton but in a deep red hue. Rose.

“Coming to bed?” He turned, contorting his face into a silly leer and knowing after they’d banged from the pool to the shower they’d likely just fall asleep.

The bathroom door was closed.

He hopped into bed, gave Rascal the okay to come aboard, and picked up his tablet to scan his social sites. His fingers froze in the middle of typing a reply to Colt when he heard a distinct squeak. With his ears tuned to the bathroom door, he listened as cabinets were opened then a few seconds later, closed. As drawers slid out on their tracks and then back.

The tablet skidded from his lap as he swung his legs from the bed. Stomping to the door, he wrenched it open and watched when she jumped up guiltily from her crouch next to the trashcan.

“I have maids. I’m not going to throw fuckin’ junky shit into the bathroom trash.” Hadn’t he though? Sometimes? Wrapped everything except the needle in t.p. and dropped it into the wastebasket. Fuck. He hated that version of himself. And he hated that Scar still had Gage 1.0 lurking in the crypts of her mind.

Grabbing her arm, he dragged her from the room, through the bedroom, down the hall, down the stairs. She struggled. Demanded to be released. Demanded an explanation. He gentled his grip, but he didn’t stop until they were barefoot in the grass next to the trash bin.

He swung the lid up, and it fell back on its hinges, banging to the side of the plastic can. By the moonlight, he scanned the clear plastic bags until he found the one that looked familiar. In the corner of his eye, he saw Scar move away. Assuming she was going back inside, he turned angrily, but she still stood a foot or so away, fiddling with the pendant on her necklace.

The late Tyler Conterra’s silver cross.

Anger ebbed away and remorse eddied in.

There was no clearer casualty of the damage a needle could do than icons like Tyler Conterra. And left in their wastelands were roses budding among the ashes. Their children. Their loved ones.

Little girls like Scarlette Rose Conterra.

Bringing his attention back to the bag, he used a finger to tear a hole. The Ziploc bag was settled some, but still near the top. He tugged it through the opening, turned, and held it up for her inspection.

She only looked for a second before dropping her eyes to Rascal who had followed them out and was sniffing at her feet. “Thanks.” Her gratitude was quiet but so sincere he felt an ache in his eyes. She dropped the cross and bent, petting Rascal. A movement of her mouth drew his attention, and he knew her well enough to know she was gnawing on the inside of her lower lip. “Part of me feels like I’m stupid for going off. You know, if having that is helping you in some way.”

“It’s fine, Scar. You’re right. It’s a stupid thing to have in the house.” Nudging Rascal aside with his ankle, he moved in close, splaying his fingers to the side of her head. Bending enough to touch his lips to her hairline, he repeated the promise he’d made to her ages ago. “I won’t ever make you worry again. Not about that.”
And not knowingly about anything
, he promised to himself. “You coming to bed?”

When she nodded, he swung her up into his arms and she shrieked. There was no happier man than him at this moment. With her in his arms, he took the stairs, slower than he wanted to since his crazy dog was getting caught up in the excitement and running back every few steps, tail waggling.

“

T
he buzz of activity and the hundred conversations floating around were distracting, and for the fiftieth time, Scarlette reigned in her attention. Her PA was patient, even observant enough to repeat anything of importance whenever Scarlette’s attention strayed.

“Pay special attention here. There’s one journo’ you don’t want to talk to. No matter if it sounds like a friendly ‘how do you do.’ They’ve been putting a negative spin on everything to do with your backstory. Don’t give them anything to quote.”

This news had Scarlette’s undivided attention, and she made a mental note of the name.

“Just stay tuned in to me. I’ll give you a heads up.”

Nodding, Scarlette fingered the tiny earpiece she would have in one ear for the red carpet portion of the upcoming drop party for her debut album.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun. Don’t be worried.”

Was she looking worried? She didn’t feel that way. Her eyes strayed to Gage who was deep in conversation with Jax. Gage had done a lot of session work on her album as well as a couple of other bands. On the very date his non-compete clause with Fire Flight had expired, he’d received the call from Jax he’d been hoping for and within the week had become the newest artist on the Jewelstone label. Until she’d actually seen the change in him—the permanent and prideful straightening of his shoulders she hadn’t realized were hunched much of the time—she hadn’t realized how deeply drifting along as an unsigned artist had been affecting him. Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up and sent a smile across the room, which she returned. Nope. Not worried at all.

The red carpet was painless. She touched the earpiece in her ear one last time as she and Gage took their positions. What was to come in the days afterward was unpredictable.

With his career off to a fresh start, she’d wondered if Gage might regret his vow of not caring if they went public, but just last night, he’d made goofy jokes about how to announce it tonight.

They began the walk. Gage hung back each time she stopped for a press pose. Eyeing the printed cards along the carpet that identified each agency, she watched for the one she’d been warned about. Sure enough, a little voice in her ear reminded her just as she saw it, and she only smiled for the chic woman. That however didn’t stop the inevitable associative question from one of the next journalists.

“Did your brother Gage work with you on the album, Scarlette?”

No time like the present
. Laughing, she grabbed Gage’s hand. “Gage
isn’t
my brother.” She read Gage’s thoughts as clear as if he’d said them, even though his features were impassive.
You sure about this?
Hell, she was so sure, she leaned into him, and in that smooth, silent commutative way only lovers had, he sweetly snaked an arm around her waist.