The Jagged Heart

The Jagged Heart

(Book 1 of the Phoenix Murphy Story)

by Trinity
Lee

SMASHWORDS
EDITION

Copyright © by
Trinity Lee 2012

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This is a work
of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are
either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or
dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental. Contains
graphic sexual content. Not recommended for those under 18.

All characters
depicted are over 18 years of age. This is a work of sexual fantasy
and does not recommend or endorse unsafe sex.

*****

He paced and up
and down relentlessly. He was miserable, he was alone, but more
than anything, he was hungry. He opened the fridge door again, as
though food might have miraculously appeared while he wasn't
looking. Nothing. A can of soda and a small block of cheese growing
blue mold.

He glanced out
of the window. They were all down there still: photographers with
long-range lenses and reporters with laptops and some with
old-fashioned pen-and-paper notebooks. There was no way he could
risk a walk to the shops with the press pack there, and he'd burned
so many bridges in his home town that there was no one he could
call and ask to go to the shops for him.

He couldn't
believe how quickly he'd become institutionalized, used to having
someone do everything for him. Leaving a band as big as Mudride was
like being discharged from prison, or from a psychiatric ward, he
reflected. For two years, he hadn't had to book a plane ticket, a
hotel room, buy groceries or pay a bill. Fay was always there to
handle stuff like that for him, and if Fay wasn't around, someone
from the record company would do it.

Phoenix
distractedly ran a hand through his mop of brown hair, narrowed the
dark eyes that had broken thousands of fans' hearts and sat down on
the bed with his guitar, soundlessly strumming. No point in
plugging it in. The walls were paper-thin, and the neighbors here
hadn't been impressed with him even when he was the guitarist in
one of the world's biggest touring bands, let alone now he was a
washed-up twenty-one-year-old with scandal trailing in his
wake.

He had enough
money in the bank to last a few months, and the rent was paid up
for six, but his problems went deeper than just cash. He'd left a
trail of destruction behind him. After all, he wasn't the only one
who was sitting in a room kicking his heels and wondering what to
do next. When he'd walked out, finally did it after months of
threats, the band were mid-tour and halfway through promoting their
new album, and now they'd had to cancel tour dates all over the
world, leaving fans furious and promoters demanding their money
back.

He knew that
they wouldn't be able to recruit a new guitarist in time to carry
on the tour, and he'd chosen the time of his departure to cause as
much chaos as he could. He felt sorry for Dylan and Zed - they were
his friends and none of this was their fault - but more than
anything, he wanted to destroy Taylor, Mudride's too-hot-to-handle
lead singer. All Taylor cared about was Mudride, and Phoenix knew
that wrecking the band was the best way to get at him.

He sighed. He
couldn't remember when getting revenge had become such a big part
of his life. Was it only two years since he'd sat in the same
studio apartment, breathless with the excitement of being asked to
audition to join his favorite band? He'd been so innocent then,
little more than a nineteen-year-old fan handed a winning ticket in
the lottery of life, his hours of obsessive practice in his
small-town bedroom turning into a reward he could not have dreamt
of.

And now he
couldn't even go home to his mom and step-dad. The gossip mags had
filled pages every week with every little detail of his
on-off-on-again-off-again relationship with Taylor, and he burned
with shame at the memory of how he'd let his mom discover the truth
from a sleazy gossip column, instead of calling her and warning
her. The fact that she'd been totally cool about it just made him
feel even worse, and it hadn't sat right with him ever since.

Damn Taylor.
Even hundreds of miles away in LA, Taylor haunted him, invading his
thoughts at every turn. Those ice-cold pale blue eyes, the taut,
whip-thin body, the hands and lips that could melt him inside and
make him feel like no one had ever made him feel, before and since:
Phoenix was obsessed, and the only way he knew to get Taylor out of
his system for once and all was to keep a safe physical distance
between them.

The doorbell
rang again, more insistently this time. He groaned. It would only
be a matter of time before the neighbors complained about the scrum
outside and he had to move out. He'd thought the madness wouldn't
last more than three or four days at most, but it had been more
than a week, and they showed no sign of leaving.

He walked over
to the door and pressed the intercom without waiting to hear what
the sleazeball had to say, whoever it was.

He knew there
were good journos, of course, like Ethan, who had promised to be so
much more than just a friend until Phoenix had hurt him, too, but
they were few and far between.

"Why don't you
fuck off and leave me alone?" he snarled into the box. "Go and find
yourselves someone else to stalk."

"Phoenix, stop
being an asshole and let me in."

He stepped back
in shock. It wasn't the last voice he expected to hear - that would
have been Taylor's - but it was close.

The last time
he'd seen Mudride's bass player, it was the look of disappointment
in Dylan's eyes that had hurt him the most. Dylan had been the rock
that he turned to every time things got bad with Taylor, and he had
even fallen asleep in Dylan's arms one night after writing himself
off with a bottle of Jack and sobbing himself into a stupor.

He'd wondered
briefly how his life would have turned out if he'd fallen for Dylan
instead of Taylor... not that he'd planned to lose his heart to a
guy in the first place. But nothing had ever happened between
Phoenix and the handsome blond bass player - and nothing ever
would, now that Dylan was head-over-heels crazy in love with his
tattooist boyfriend, Sam. No, he and Dylan were like brothers, or
they had been until Phoenix ruined it all.

"OK, but make
sure you don't let in any of the scum that are down there," he
said, buzzing Dylan in and leaving the door open.

Thirty seconds
later, Dylan was in through the door, hands up in surrender.

"It's OK, I
haven't come to give you a hard time," he said, his blue eyes
showing nothing but compassion for the sorry figure slumped on the
narrow bed.

He loped over
to Phoenix and put his arm around him.

Phoenix leaned
against him, grateful for the first physical contact he'd had with
anyone in five days.

Dylan put his
hands on Phoenix's shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"Don't worry,
Murphy, I'm not here to talk you out of it. We tried that and I
know your mind's made up. I hope you don't hate me for what I'm
going to ask you."

"Ask away. My
life really can't get a lot worse." Phoenix's voice was dull.

"I've got a
hired bike outside. If we can lose the paps, there's someone I need
to take you to meet."

Phoenix
recoiled in shock.

"If it's
Taylor..."

"It's not
Taylor," reassured Dylan. "There's no way I'd do that to you. I'm
sorry I can't tell you any more, but if I let you know it's
something you can do for the band, to stop the whole thing going
down the toilet, is that enough? I know you'd like that to happen
to Taylor, but think about it: do you really want to hurt me and
Zed, too?"

Phoenix stared
at Dylan, trying to second-guess him. If it wasn't Taylor, who in
hell was it? And what could it possibly have to do with him?

"OK," he said
reluctantly. "I've been climbing the walls in here. And you're
right: I owe you and Zed. But if you're taking me to see Taylor,
then I'll never speak to you again."

Dylan put his
arms around Phoenix, and Phoenix relaxed against his chest, briefly
tempted to kiss Dylan on the lips and see what happened, then
remembering about Sam. Moving in on Dylan like that would be a
manipulative move worthy of Taylor, and Phoenix didn't want to be
anything like Taylor any more.

"I wouldn't do
that to you, Murphy," said Dylan, ruffling Phoenix's hair.
"Taylor's my buddy, asshole that he is, but he doesn't know that
I'm here. You gotta believe me."

Phoenix was
already up off the bed, eager to leave his prison.

"We gotta get
past this lot first. How fast did you say your bike was?"

The hired
Harley proved itself more than capable of outrunning the pack, and
Phoenix was almost sorry when the ride ended outside an anonymous
motel just outside the city limits. It was good to have the wind in
his hair again, leaning into Dylan's leather-jacketed back and
forgetting his troubles.

His curiosity
was piqued now. Who the hell stayed in a place like this? And what
was Dylan up to that was unsanctioned by Taylor? If it was to do
with the band, then going behind Taylor's back like this was
seriously risky.

As they walked
up the single flight of rickety stairs, Dylan had a spring in his
step, Phoenix noted, like he was excited about something.

He tapped hard
on a door, and a guy, wearing only a faded pair of jeans, opened it
and pulled Dylan into a tight hug, smiling over Dylan's shoulder at
Phoenix.

Phoenix
recognized him instantly, and a shock wave ran through him.

Caedem Hardy.
More than two years since Phoenix had last seen him in the flesh,
even if that had been at a distance of fifty feet, Caedem on stage
with Mudride, and Phoenix in the audience, a nineteen-year-old
fan.

He'd have known
Caedem anywhere, even without the curly dark hair that was now
transformed into a severe buzz-cut. When Phoenix had replaced
Caedem as Mudride's guitarist, everyone had commented on the
similarity, but Phoenix had never seen it himself. Until now.

Caedem released
Dylan and stretched his hand out to Phoenix, who looked at Dylan,
bewildered.

"What's going
on?"

Dylan smiled
enigmatically.

"I'll leave you
guys to it. Best if I don't interfere. Murphy, call me if you need
a ride back. I'm in town for the next twenty-four hours, and I'm
booked into a room on the top floor here - 304."

And before
Phoenix, open-mouthed, could protest, Dylan was slipping down the
stairs, revving up the Harley, and then the engine faded into the
distance, and he was standing in the entrance of a cheap motel
room, faced with a guy he never thought he'd meet.

"I shouldn't be
here," muttered Phoenix. "It's too weird, and I'm not in a good
place right now."

But Caedem
reached out his hand and put it on his arm, and suddenly the force
between them became something unbreakable, and a shiver went
through Phoenix's whole body as he saw into his future.

"Please. Just
let me explain."

And so Phoenix
followed him into the room, heart in his mouth, feeling that his
life was going to be turned upside down all over again, and hating
Dylan for doing this to him.

The room was
empty and as bare as a monk's cell, except for the four beautiful
guitars lined up against the wall. Phoenix never let anyone else
touch his own guitars, but he couldn't resist, heading for the
vintage Strat and picking it up, strumming the first chords of the
first Mudride song he had ever learned, the irony totally lost on
him.