Unchained Melody (21 page)

‘I know right?’ Ryan winked and pulled his chair closer to hers, leaning his head towards her like what he had to say was of vital importance and secrecy. He removed his hand from hers and used it to prop his jaw up while his other stretched across the back of her chair, surrounding her but not quite touching her. It was agony.

‘Okay so we’d get up the mountain and I was going to take you up to the main jumping rock.’ His eyes stroked her neck, then met her eyes. ‘Remember the one I used to play guitar on?’

Callie nodded, remembering the first time she had seen Ryan up there and thought of him as: the cute one. ‘Blue board shorts,’ she whispered, her face growing hot.

‘That’s… that’s right!’ Ryan grinned again and nudged his shoulder against hers. ‘Good memory.’

‘One of my favorites.’ Their low voices formed a sort of mist around them. ‘Go on.’

He grinned at her and suddenly, his lips and teeth were the most fascinating thing in the world. ‘Once I got you up there, I was going to lay the blanket down, pull you into my lap, and ask you to play and sing for me.’ Ryan’s knee brushed against hers now but she was already too hypnotized by his sensual mouth and the way he had started lightly running his fingers down her hair to have enough lung space left to gasp in reaction. ‘And if you were too shy, I’d beg.’ His voice was almost toneless, breathy and warm against her jaw. ‘I was going to reach around you and pluck out a few chords but really it would have just been an excuse to get my arms around you… you know?’

‘Of course.’ Callie closed her eyes briefly, luxuriating in Ryan’s nearness, his barely there touches driving her out of her mind.

‘Right. And then, I was going to use the tip of my nose to part your hair until it parted over your neck…’ Ryan turned his face into the arch of her neck as he pulled her hair away from her pulse. ‘And then I was going to kiss you right there, on your nape,’ his thumb rolled over her topmost vertebrae, ‘and tell you to keep playing no matter what.’ Callie’s eyes fluttered shut as Ryan’s lips glanced off the sensitive flesh just at the curve of her jaw. ‘And while you sang like the angel you are, I was going to keep kissing down your spine...’ One of his fingers made her skin shiver as his free hand ran along the low scooped back of her black halter top. ‘The kisses would have gotten a bit wet, and a bit messy and I hoped, you’d start to find it hard to concentrate on your song…’

Callie moaned, because she could barely concentrate on breathing. ‘What song?’ She asked softly.

‘Chains- Tina Arena…’ Ryan’s nose nuzzled her throat again and made her dizzy, just as his ankle hooked around hers, spreading her legs slightly under the tablecloth. ‘I loved it when you sang that…’

‘Oh?’ Callie’s stomach clenched and she felt herself grow damp and more lucid, not even trying to disguise her moan as Ryan’s hand cupped her knee and slid slowly up her thigh.

‘Yeah. If you started to fade, but stayed in my arms, reacting to my touch, I was going to slip my fingers over your thigh, pull back the edge of your panties right…’ his hand slipped under the hem of her black leather mini-skirt and then fingertips were tracing the crease between her lace panties and her inner thigh and Callie felt everything inside her tighten. She bowed her head towards his, aware that there were at least five other couples in the dim restaurant, and that Doris Day’s Perhaps was being filtered too softly through the built in speakers in the ceiling to disguise much of any sound she made, maybe even her breathing, which was becoming erratic- but she did not care. ‘Here…’ Ryan whispered. And then he slid those fingertips just under the lace, lifting it away from her flesh but not inching across, making her throb without actually coming close enough to press into her and offer relief.

‘Oh…’ she exhaled the word, her eyelids falling like shutters. Her hands tightened on the stem of the wine glass as though it might hold her up. ‘Ry you are…’ her face tilted towards his, felt him panting against her neck.

‘Teasing you?’ Callie moaned softly and nodded as his fingers tickled up her inner thigh. ‘Making you wet?’ His fingers stroked the other thigh. Callie almost groaned at his words and she wished fervently for her powers back right then so she could throw up a wall of sound to cover the things she wanted to make him grunt at her. She tossed him a sideways look and smiled, abashed.

‘Why don’t you find out for yourself Weaver?’

‘Oh hell Cal don’t encourage me…’ he growled into her ear. ‘You are so soft. So soft that it makes me want to be hard on you. Rough. If we were on that mountain right now I’d have two fingers working this… in and out… finding where you need to be touched while I strummed this-’ Ryan’s thumb slid down over her clit now and his aim was direct and her thighs clamped down on his wrist as a shudder went through her. She was close, so close that a moan escaped her and Callie knew that if he didn’t pull away they were going to be late. A little late was fine, in fact it was what she was aiming for, why she’d let this begin- hoping to distract him, knowing what the band would do if the lead singer was delayed. But she hadn’t counted on Ryan being quite so good at this and now Callie wanted to detain him for hours- years. Which was exactly why she had to put an end to it before she lost any semblance of control she’d thought she had. It was too early to play this card yet- Hunter needed to be built up, not just torn down from mediocrity.

‘God Ryan we have to stop…’

Ryan blinked, his dark eyelashes casting shadows. ‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want to, that’s why. But the music…’ Callie swallowed and tried again, ‘the competition. Hunter is counting on you Ry, on us.’

The hand on her leg stilled. ‘You’re thinking about Hunter right now?’

Callie’s eyes opened wide. ‘Not in that way!’ She said quickly, because she wasn’t. ‘But we’ve been on a clock all night and as much as your hand feels like it’s literally slowing time, it’s not.’ She glanced at her watch, frowning. ‘Oh shit Ryan it’s ten to nine.’

Ryan blinked again and frowned. Not angry, but perplexed. He took her wrist and checked her watch and his eyes widened as well. ‘Dammit. You’re right.’ He got to his feet, pulled his wallet from his rear pocket and tossed four fifty dollar notes down on the table. ‘As much as I wish you’d been oblivious to the time Cal, we do need to go.’ Her jacket was draped over her shoulders and when she rose on her weakened legs, she felt him pull her chair away. She turned, watching him shrug into his own black leather jacket, saw his muscles tense and flex with every movement and the distracted, somewhat sullen shadows darkening his blue eyes. She swallowed, stepped into him, and joined the zipper to the metal teeth just above his hips. She could feel him against her own hips, a hard bulge that promised so much pleasure. He stiffened somewhat and sank his top teeth into his bottom lip for a moment before shifting his guarded gaze to hers. ‘Be careful what you’re accidentally brushing up against there little lady,’ he teased but in a voice that was somewhat gruff; frustrated.

She lifted her face to his and smiled shyly. ‘That was no accident.’ She zipped him up slowly, wishing it was the fly on his pants that she had instead. ‘And when the time is right, I’m going to do it on purpose again.’

She expected Ryan to smile, but he removed her hands from his zipper and stepped away. ‘This timing you speak of… how much is Hunter a factor in it?’

Callie froze, stung. Not because he was wrong, but because he was so right. ‘I don’t know.’ She admitted honestly. ‘And you knew that when you asked me out tonight.’

Ryan pulled his keys out of his pocket and spun them on his finger, still not looking at her as he waved to the waitress in the corner, pointed to the money he’d left on the table and then began moving towards the door. ‘Can I ask you one favor Cal?’ Callie frowned as she followed him, knowing she couldn’t promise anything or explain why. Ryan opened the glass door of the restaurant, holding it ajar for her. She ducked under his arm as she had the night before and when he fell in step behind her, she heard the metallic click of a lighter followed by the scent of cigarette smoke. ‘Get him out of your system fast, Callie,’ his hand rested on her lower black so he could whisper into her ear: ‘So I can get inside you and stay.’

She blinked up at him, perplexed. ‘You are in my system Ry.’ She ran her thumb over the stubble on his jaw until she could move his face so that his eyes were level with hers. A drifting cloud of translucent smoke hung between them and Callie was surprised how much the scent appealed to her, when it was exhaled from Ry. ‘You were the first one I felt anything for. When you didn’t kiss me in your lounge that day… God my lips felt bruised.’

Ryan whirled on her and suddenly, Callie was up against the pillar outside the door, and he was closing around her, his lips brushing against her own. She sighed in expected ecstasy but his mouth landed on the curve of her parted lips and he whispered: ‘Hunter was the first guy you kissed Callie. But I want to be the last.’ He caught her bottom lip between her teeth and groaned in frustration and she felt every nerve ending inside her implode. He pulled away and eyed her with a lusty, desperate and resigned gaze. Each emotion was a different shade of blue or green. ‘But that’s not going to happen when it’s his feelings you’re more worried about than mine, is it?’

Callie didn’t know what to say, so she looked down at her shoes and said nothing.

‘Yeah that’s what I thought.’ When she looked up he took a draw from his cigarette, shook his head and then flicked it into the car park. ‘We’ll kiss when you’re ready to fall in love with me Callie- and not a second before.’ With that Ryan turned and sauntered off like what he’d said was no big deal. She hugged herself in the cold night air, commanding herself not to tear up, wishing like hell that she could fall in love with him, give him her heart- but knowing that she never, ever would.

20.

Hunter’s fingers tripped clumsily over the strings in his sweaty hand and as the chord dropped, his stomach followed suit. He was hot, the lights were too bright and right in his face, most of the crowd seemed to have swarmed to the bar and his voice was wobbling over the opening lyrics of the first track on their list; Poison by Alice Cooper like he was a fourteen year old boy playing air-guitar in the shower. He was impressing nobody, and he felt the exasperation of his bandmates behind him.

He was going to kill Ryan.

Hunter had taken the lead before, but it had always been an act of stepping up after Ryan had already loosened the crowd. The band before them had sucked the energy out of the room with their amateurish attempt at death metal and there was no atmosphere left for Hunter to work with. He’d have to build it from scratch but his insecurity was distorting everything for him. He was a skilled guitarist, and had never baulked at singing along before while keeping up the leading melody, but in that moment, it felt like trying to rub his head and pat his stomach at the same time.

‘Your blood, like ice-’ Hunter sucked in a breath and tried to get closer to the right pitch on the next words. He loved this song! Hearing it as a little tyke had helped feed his need to grow up and do the same one day. He’d wanted it all; leather pants and long black hair and studs and hot girl in lace writing on chains- this song was the dream. This song was his dream.

But he was not Alice Cooper. No matter what he did Hunter had been born a pretty boy and was going to die one. If he grew his hair out, he ended up looking like a girl. And if he tried to skip showering or let his stubble grow- he looked like a dirty girl with a hormonal imbalance. He was never going to eat a bat onstage, and he still felt guilty taking the soaps from a motel room let along slamming a lamp against the wall and landing himself in hot water when his folks found out. And he liked himself just fine; which was probably why he’d never changed. He had no piercings, no tatts- in fact he was shit scared of doing something so drastic. He could mess around with a bunch of girls but he couldn’t imagine ever really treating one like shit; he was still shaken and drowning in guilt from the sound of Eva’s tears from the night he’d ended things, so orgies with playboy playmates was probably never going to be in the offing and Hunter was… well he was fine with that.

He liked Rock for the way it ripped through his soul and left life behind, not darkness. He sang because he literally couldn’t not sing when the music moved him, and he’d been just as delighted to hear Callie do Madonna in that haunting voice of hers, as he had listening to the little gay guy bring the ceiling down with Metallica.

Gavin the little gay ballet dancing guy. Just the thought of him pissed Hunter off. The guy was just so freaking talented and he’d known it too. How good would it feel to know that you were doing the music justice- not the other way around? Angry now, mad at himself, Hunter let the next words out from somewhere deep inside his lungs and was shocked to hear how much clearer they were, though his rage made the lyrics growl. He dropped his eyes to the mic in his hands, not wanting his foolish grin of triumph for having sorted out his pitch at last be noticed by a single face in the crowd. ‘Black lace…’ he cranked his own personal volume dial up. ‘On sweat…’

Behind him Nick lost his shit on the drums in the very best way and that energetic response to Hunter’s vocal prompts spurned him on more. He launched into the bridge, feeling that feeling sweep over him- the pure joy of getting the notes right, of everything coming together, drums, guitars, amps, bass… and then voice. His voice. Rising above them all, hitting the spots in the back of the room that drums couldn’t go. He thought of the lyrics, of the poisonous girl, the forbidden temptress and there was Callie sobbing on his bedroom floor, her bare midriff clashing with her devastated tears. He shouldn’t have touched her but he did. There was Callie, sliding into the pool in that red bikini with her tits pressed together and the tone in her stomach forcing his eyes to follow down to where he knew heaven waited between her thighs. He shouldn’t have touched her that night but he did.

He was always going to touch her and probably at the worst possible times and she could have stopped it by staying away but she didn’t. Yes she was poison, but she had the antidote to it between her ripe little thighs and Hunter had been too much of a pussy to pin her against him and take everything she had to offer. And now, fuck now she was probably somewhere with Ryan-

And then he felt her. Mid-way through the chorus Hunter looked up and there was Callie, shoving her way through the crowd like the crazed fan she’d been at The Silverchair concert in Ninety-Seven, rather than the delicate ballerina she’d become since. She was sex on legs, wearing the tightest, shortest black leather mini skirt he had ever seen, which clung to her ass, and a black top which draped from her neck, parted at the rise of her breasts and then puddled near her upper ribs showing the taut bronzed flesh of her chest and the inner curves of her champagne-cup breasts. She turned and beckoned hurriedly to someone, and Hunter almost got hard then and there to see that aside from the tiniest strings of black elastic slanting across her back, her skin there was bare and bronze and taut too. And just to make her that much more perfect-she had black Dunlop Volley’s on her feet. Not heels, not boots, not trying too hard but just enough like she’d been going for glamorous but before she could complete the look, a good song had come on the radio and she’d totally forgotten that she was dressing to impress. The curve of her ankle bone was the sexiest thing Hunter had ever seen, and he loved the way she’d taken to wearing her black hair and out straight. Not iron straight like all the girls were suddenly doing, getting around with weird heat creases at their parts and going off their nuts when a guy dared touch the hair she’d spent hours to make it look like they’d done nothing to. No Callie’s black hair fell thickly and freely and ever so slightly rumpled. It was the hair of a girl who wanted something to hide behind. The hair of a girl who intended on breaking her neck to the next good beat that came along.

The hair of a girl who didn’t care if someone stroked it. Hair that wanted to be pulled. Hair that wanted to be worked into a wild fury against his sheets if not his carpet and then the shower door. A sandstorm of need ripped through Hunter. He sang louder, hotter, rougher. He focused on Callie, not deigning to give Ryan the slightest nod of acknowledgment for fear he’d smile a: ‘Fuck you the mic’s mine!’ smile and render himself a try-hard dork.

Callie looked back, her eyes widening in surprise as though she’d only just realized that there was music playing and that Hunter was the one making it happen. Then she looked around her, somewhat dazed and her gaze led Hunter to see that Callie was not the only one noticing him. The bar had been a flurry of activity but now people were stepping away, exchanging grins and nodding towards the stage; towards him. Then the chorus changed back to the verse and the tempo slowed and Hunter couldn’t help but notice Ryan stumble in behind Callie and halt. Their eyes met, and a smile lifted one of the corners of Ryan’s mouth. He looked embarrassed and slightly annoyed to see that they’d started without him, but there was appreciation there too and it fed Hunter even more. He knew that smile, it was the way he usually grinned when Ryan was the one working the crowd into a frenzy, a musician’s grin of appreciation.

Music was one of the few pursuits in the world that was not a competitive sport. Okay maybe rap was a tense vocation, lots of gang history and the need to directly insult someone in a clever, quick way- but Heavy Metal wasn’t. No rocker ever wished that another band fell flat on their face. Miss a note? Maybe. Come in second to themselves? Fuck yeah if the prize money was high and the band poor or they’d mouthed off about them before. But when the music was good, no one wished it wasn’t. Musicians didn’t stomp on one another on their way to the top but grew from one another. Hunter had always been jealous of Ryan but he’d never wished that Ryan was less talented, only that Hunter could become more. And in that minute, he was more. Maybe it was fleeting. Maybe he was just in the zone, but Ryan wasn’t sitting there praying that Hunter would fuck up. He was itching to have a turn of his own yet happy to bob to the beat and just take it all in in the meantime.

Callie shifted and pulled Hunter’s focus back. She wasn’t holding Ryan’s hand, as Hunter had been dreading and was holding herself instead, sliding her hands up her arms like she was chilled, but swaying as she moved closer. Even though the light was bright and most of Hunter was focused on his fingers sliding over the neck of his guitar just so, Callie filled his vision. Black leather on sweat.

‘I hear you calling…’ Hunter stepped into the mic and looked down as Callie came closer yet. Her eyes blinked closed and a dreamy smile spread across her features as she began to run her hands up her waist, lifting her hair off her shoulders and letting it fall before she brought her elbows together over her brow and swayed her hips a little more to the rhythm, not looking at him but drinking him in all the same. Hunter growled out the next lines, and her eyes opened and found him once more and he grinned as he sang, letting her know exactly how much he was enjoying having her as his audience. Letting her know that she was the only audience that counted. Callie bit her lip and blushed, shouldering her way closer until she was at the edge of the stage. She pressed her hands between the stage lights and gyrated her hips to Nick’s rapid drumbeats before Hunter began singing the chorus again.

Pressure was building in Hunter’s chest and singing harder was the only way to let it out. He could not look away from Callie as she writhed for him, and Hunter noticed that several other people close by had backed off a little to watch her and give her the space to work herself further into a frenzy. It was so raw, so hot, that Hunter was taken back to that night of the inter-school disco when Callie had first dipped and rolled to hip-hop, proving that her years of ballet training had given her the kind of fluidity of movement that was going to eventually drive him out of his pubescent mind. She was everything he wanted, and music had gone from being a secret language of friendship to every dirty thing he’d never said to her. The flashing lights cast her black leather green then purple then red and when he looked into her eyes, he could swear that her golden brown irises were swirling like a tumbling sunset. He blinked and they were brown again, and then she pressed against the stage and inverted her back into a body roll that gave Hunter a view of her cleavage that made his mouth go dry- like her bones were made of liquid, a belly-dancer, serpine and so flexible that he wanted to tie her in a knot around him.

Then Ryan’s hands were on Callie’s hips and Hunter felt stricken when Callie rolled up, reached across to tug lightly on Ryan’s collar, which inched their lips together. Her perfect little ass shimmied against Ryan’s groin and Hunter felt every twitch. He pressed his 6-string harder against himself, sang louder, tried to pull Callie’s gaze back but she looked like she’d forgotten that either of them actually existed and was so lost in the sensuality of the song that she simply had to grind against something. Ryan wasn’t smiling, he look entranced, staring at Callie’s lips, slightly craning his neck closer and Hunter could almost feel the pull of her mouth, how he would dart his own tongue between those breathily parted red lips and taste her poison. He was out of his mind with jealousy and desire and he knew he was a breath away from reaching down and yanking Callie up onto the stage and out of Ryan’s arms. It sort of felt like that day in the shed again; a storm was brewing around them but Hunter and Ryan existed only to worship Callie. Once again, she was sandwiched between them, once again, she was on the cusp for showing preference to one or the other.

And Hunter knew he would die if it wasn’t him. And he’d die a thousand deaths if he was the one with the front row seat to his best friends falling in love to his accompaniment.

Then the music shifted up a gear and Ryan looked up, startled, as though snapping out of his trance. His gaze swept to Hunter’s usual spot and rested on the guitar there and then he was launching himself up as well, abandoning Callie and embracing the guitar they’d left out in case. Everything that had been growing taut inside Hunter relaxed and gave way to the rhythm as Ryan did what only Ryan could do- his fingers flew madly over the guitar solo without missing a beat. He stepped forward, his strap hanging uselessly between his body and his instrument as he gave one hundred percent of his focus to his craft, and the room gave one thousand percent of their attention to him.

Hunter’s eyes closed in a moment of respite, relief and absolute bliss as he listened to Ryan recreate the guitar solo with perfect precision. When he opened his eyes, he glanced behind him and saw that Nick and the bassist Rathe were grinning like mad, as charged up as he was, welcoming Ryan back into the fold because they needed him. Music needed him. They were all better for him, and yet Hunter grinned to know that Ryan was playing harder, better, louder than ever because Hunter had finally been the one to raise the bar.

‘One look…!’ Hunter roared the vocals and the crowd roared back. They were jumping, writhing, Callie was grinning, her eyes darting between him and Ryan not in indecision but... in worship.

‘... your thrill….!

And then her eyes bounced back to his and stayed there and Hunter knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he’d just pulled into the invisible lead.

*

When Poison ended, the band continued to play slipping so smoothly into the slower-paced opening strains of ‘INXS’s’ biggest hit: Need You Tonight Callie almost swooned, feeling uncharacteristically at peace with herself for a change. So she danced, she swayed, she listened with every cell to every rap on the drum, every strike of the chords and lost herself in her purpose.