Insider (Exodus End #1) (12 page)

Logan had always wondered why Trey and Dare were in different bands. They both played guitar, but Dare had always played lead and Trey played rhythm, so it would make sense for them to be in the same band.

“Because Trey sucked,” Dare said.

That earned him a smack in the back of the head from Reagan. As Logan was sitting between them, he got caught in the crossfire. “Hey, now. Watch it.”

“Trey does
not
suck.” Reagan chuckled and rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Okay, he does—in the best possible way—but the way he plays guitar doesn’t.” She blew out a flustered breath. “What I’m trying to say is he’s amazing at both sucking and playing.”

“Now who’s getting inappropriate at the breakfast table?” Logan said.

“I said he ‘sucked.’ Past tense,” Dare said. “Trey didn’t figure out how to produce a unique sound until he was sixteen and then he really only sounded good with Sinclair. Trey and I never had a complementary sound, not even when my mom first taught us to play folksongs on acoustic guitars. Our sounds competed rather than complemented each other. It sounded like shit when we played together.”

“So no chance you’ll ever play in a band with your brother?” Toni asked.

“I wouldn’t say no chance, but fairly slim. We both love where we are now. Why would we change bands?”

“So Steve joined the band next?” Toni asked. “He answered your ad in the LA Times for ‘a drummer who isn’t afraid to break sticks and heads.’ ”

Dare chuckled. “He wasn’t the only one who answered that ad.”

She sat up straighter and gazed at Dare in rapt attention. Logan had a million stories that weren’t public knowledge. If that was the best way to get her attention, he was happy to supply her with enough insider information to fill a semi-trailer full of napkins.

“How many answered it?”

“Just three,” Dare said. “The first guy, who is now the drummer for Waylaid, thought I meant he had to know how to fight. He was more interested in breaking human heads than drum heads.”

Steve laughed. “Are you serious? You never told me that. Is that the only reason you picked me?”

Dare shook his head. “I picked you because your wife was hot.”

Steve’s smile faded. “Well, that’s the only thing she had going for her.”

Damn it, Dare. Really?
They all knew how maudlin Steve got when his thoughts turned to his ex-wife. There was no reason to bring up Bianca at breakfast.

“I thought maybe she had some hot friends she could introduce to me,” Dare said.

“You fuckin’ liar,” Max said, shaking his head at Dare.

Dare turned his attention to Max, who sat at the opposite corner of the table. “Why do you say that?”

“You told me that when Steve auditioned, every hair on your body stood on end and you knew you were in the company of greatness.”

Dare chuckled. “How drunk was I when I said that?”

“That’s the story I heard too,” Logan said.

“Yeah, well maybe.” Dare shrugged. “It was fifteen years ago. I tend to forget the details.”

Toni was scribbling furiously on her napkin, drawing little boxes with words and linking them to other boxes with arrows. Logan tried to read it upside down, but couldn’t figure out what all the boxes were about.

“So a drummer and guitarist does not a band make,” Reagan said. “Who was next?”

Steve kicked Logan under the table. Logan tore his gaze from Toni and found Steve grinning at him as if he were dumber than a rock. “Uh, Steve asked me if I was available to start a new band,” Logan said. “I wasn’t actually—I was playing with Last Cannibal—but the lead guitarist was a tool, so I decided to give Exodus End a try. Steve and I had both been playing the Southern Californian club scene in different bands for a couple of years, so we partied together a bit. We never played together until Exodus End, though.”

“Last Cannibal broke up as soon as Logan left. He was the only one in the band who knew what he was doing,” Steve said.

Logan shrugged. “That’s because the rest of them were too lazy to schedule gigs. When you’re first starting out, you have to network constantly. They wanted to skip directly to the after-parties.”

“Logan got us most of our gigs when we first formed,” Dare said. “If he wasn’t such an awesome musician, he’d have made a great manager for some lucky band.”

“I hated doing that shit,” Logan said. “A necessary evil to get noticed.”

Logan glanced at Toni and found her gazing at him with adulation. Awesome.
Keep talking me up, guys
. He was all about getting noticed. Always had been.

“So when did Max join?” Toni asked.

“We’ve been through a couple lead singers,” Dare said.

Logan tried not to feel too bitter about that since he’d been the band’s first and shortest-lived vocalist.

“It’s hard to find the right voice sometimes,” Dare said. “You know after a few shows if they’re right for the band or not. Since they get most of the attention and glory—”

“But have the easiest role,” Steve interrupted.

Max leaned across Toni to shove Steve halfway out of the bench. He was the only one who’d finished his breakfast. That explained why he’d been so quiet throughout their story.

“—you have to find someone who can sing and incite a crowd,” Dare continued. “Especially if you plan to make it as a live band. Plus he played bad-ass lead guitar.”

“Wait,” Toni said. “I thought that until he hurt his wrist, he played rhythm guitar.”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Dare said.

“When we first started we had two leads,” Max said. “The record label made us tone our sound down a little. Have you heard our first album?” he asked Toni. “The one we produced ourselves? It’s hard to find. We only pressed a few hundred copies. But we sounded quite a bit different then. Very guitar heavy.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard any of your early work,” Toni said. “Is there any chance we can share some of it in the book?”

She was so excited her voice squeaked. If Logan hadn’t already been crushing hard on the woman, that little sound of joy would have done it for him.

“Maybe,” Dare said. “We’ll have to check with Sam. We have to worry about record contracts and no-compete clauses and all that legal bullshit. That’s why we never rereleased that album digitally.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I hope we can at least share some clips, but if not, I’d really like to hear it just for personal enjoyment.”

“It’s not as polished as our record label stuff. You might not like it,” Max said. “Two lead guitars is a bit overpowering.”

“Sinners pull it off in their solos,” Reagan said. Her entire body was quivering with the excitement of possibility.

Logan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Now don’t you let that boyfriend of yours give you any ideas. We stick with what works for us, not what works for Sinners.”

She sighed in disappointment.

“She wants to play lead so bad she can taste it,” Max said with a soft laugh.

“Sorry, Reagan, that’s my gig,” Dare said. “You’ll play lead in your own band someday. You’re too good not to.”

This seemed to placate her for the time being. Logan loosened his hold. Toni released a loud breath. Hmm . . . Did she not like it when he hugged Reagan? Or was she sighing in relief for some other reason? Logan rubbed Reagan’s bare arm and watched Toni for her reaction. Her eyebrows drew together in a harsh scowl. So she didn’t like him to touch Reagan. That was a certainty. The elbow jab to the ribs told him Reagan wasn’t much appreciating his familiar fondling either.

Logan dropped his arm and located his fork. He picked the tomatoes out of his omelet, eating them one by one, before he repeated the task on the avocado slices. He liked the components separately, but wasn’t a fan of their flavors blended with eggs and spinach.

“How did you know Max was the right singer for the band?” Toni asked.

“The first night Max sang onstage with us, we all got laid,” Steve said.

“Weren’t you married at the time?” Toni asked, her doe-like eyes wide.

“Yep,” Steve said with a curt nod. “Bianca had stopped fucking me regularly by then, so when she jumped me backstage that night, I knew Max had what it took.”

“To get you laid?” Max frowned.

“To get us
all
laid,” Steve said.

“Max does get the ladies hot and bothered,” Dare said.

“You all get the ladies hot and bothered,” Reagan said. “Frankly, I don’t see the appeal.”

Knowing she was teasing, Logan grabbed her thigh just above her knee and squeezed repeatedly until she was thrashing about in the booth and laughing. “Reagan lies,” he said. “She’s totally boy crazy.”

“I totally see the appeal,” Toni said.

“Are you hot and bothered, Toni?” Max said near her ear.

She stared at Logan as she said, “You have no idea.”

Seven

Toni tried not to geek-out in the limo, but it wasn’t easy to play it cool. Especially since Logan had taken the seat next to her and she could feel his body heat from knee to shoulder. Every time he moved, his scent engulfed her and it was all she could do to keep herself from burying her nose in that tight blue T-shirt and inhaling his subtle cologne like a cocaine addict.

She’d gotten lots of great material for her book at breakfast. She hoped she’d be able to share some of Exodus End’s earliest songs as part of the introduction. She was already thinking of ways to connect the MP3s to the stories of the band’s inception. Maybe different songs could play in the background as a reader made their way through the book. She wasn’t sure if using their recorded music was possible. Their record label probably held the rights to all the band’s songs tightly within its grip.

“Toni?” Logan’s voice caressed the back of her neck. The sensation snaked down her spine and made her nipples tingle. That morning she had purposely chosen to wear a thick button-down blouse that didn’t hug her breasts. Not because she didn’t want to attract the man’s attention, but because her nipples were like beacons every time he was near and it was embarrassing.

“Yeah?” she asked, looking up into his blue eyes.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “I just wanted to say your name.”

Her breath caught.

Okay, she needed this man in a bad way. She didn’t care if he was playing her. Didn’t care if he had only one thing on his mind. Didn’t care if he never wanted a relationship. She could deal with all of that when the time came. What she couldn’t deal with was the thought of never again feeling his warmth against her naked skin or his thick cock driving into her body.

“Logan?” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. The rest of the band members were talking about football, a subject that had never appealed to Toni, but was apparently something that got Reagan amped up. An avid Chargers’ fan, she looked ready to throttle Steve, who claimed to be a Raiders’ fan. Or maybe he was just pretending to get her all riled and animated. They seemed to like her that way.

While everyone’s attention was elsewhere, Toni slid her hand over Logan’s knee to press against the inside of his thigh.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about my lack of . . . physical education.” She moved her mouth closer to his ear so no one would overhear what she was about to say. “Do you think you could teach me things?”

The muscles beneath her fingertips clenched. “What kind of things?”

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe we could start with . . .” She searched her brain for something that he would probably like if she had any idea what she was doing. “. . . how to suck . . . uh . . . give you a blow job?”

Logan choked and then went into a coughing fit that drew everyone’s attention.

“Are you okay, dude?” Steve asked.

Logan nodded vigorously. “I’m fine,” he sputtered between wheezing breaths. “Choked on my own spit.”

“Smooth,” Steve said with a laugh.

When Logan finally settled, he squeezed Toni’s hand. “Damn, woman,” he said under his breath, “are you trying to kill me?”

She closed her eyes to keep the threatening tears from spilling. “I understand,” she whispered.

“You understand what?”

“That you don’t want anything to do with me.”

He knocked on her skull with his knuckles. “I thought you were supposed to be smart up here.”

She opened her eyes to find him grinning at her. “What do you mean?”

He leaned close and whispered, “I’ll teach you anything you want to know. When would you like to start?”

Now
, her body demanded. Unfortunately, her brain didn’t agree with that degree of spontaneity and inhibition. “As soon as we can be alone,” she whispered.

“Do you want to skip the radio interview?”

Yes
, her body demanded. Unfortunately her brain realized they both had a job to do and that job didn’t include her learning how to give oral pleasure.

She sighed. “We can’t.”

He echoed her sigh. “You’re right. After the interview we have to travel to the venue for tonight’s performance. Once we get there, there’ll be sound check, then a meet and greet, dinner, and then the show followed by the after-party. Maybe I can call in sick. The band doesn’t really need a bassist. We’re highly overrated.”