Wild Chase (15 page)

I put on my game face, remembering that these are professional musicians and this is my chance to show off my skills.

I let the song play for about a minute before pausing it, “It’s good, but the vocals need to be a little bit deeper; Avery’s voice is almost too soft sounding for the track. The lyrics are heavy, and so is the bass line, so the vocals need to match. You need someone to either sing some backing vocals during the verse, or switch it up and have someone with a deeper, rougher voice sing the whole song.”

Oh my, Sweet Baby Jesus, I can’t believe I just blurted that out. I feel about 2 inches tall as the guys stare at me with wide eyes.

“I fucking told you! You should have taken the lead vocals on that damn song, Jesse!” Avery says, reaching across me and smacking the bassist in the shoulder. Jesse smiles and shrugs.

Adam opens his mouth to say something but Jesse shushes him.

While keeping his eyes on mine he says, “Go on, what else?”

I stutter, slightly intimidated, “W-well, you could use more than just lead guitar, no offense Kennedy! If you put Avery on rhythm guitar, that would help add a little more to it. It’s a heavy song, and it needs to feel that way. And if you really want to know what I would do, I’d write in a violin melody for the intro and throughout. The mix of classical with rock always adds that extra something for me, and I think it would blend perfectly. Honestly, it would sound killer.”

I take a breath after finally spilling my thoughts about their song. Jesse just stares at me.

“Fucking genius!” he breathes, the sides of his mouth curling up slowly, “and you sing too, don’t you?”

I just blush, not wanting to answer that.

I flick my glance over to Avery, and he’s shaking his head with a smirk on his face that’s hard to read.

“What?” I ask defensively, more offended that he hasn’t said anything than at the fact that Adam is back to texting on his phone and ignoring us altogether.

“Nothing, I’m just not surprised at all.”

“Text Michael, Ave. We need a violinist ASAP and tell him we are about to rework the hell out of that song tomorrow,” Jesse says excitedly, raising his beer in the air. I turn back to the dark haired boy.

“You’re seriously taking my advice?” This time he looks shocked.

“Ugh, are you kidding me? That’s the best advice I’ve gotten lately! All I hear is ‘oh no, it’s so good already!’ or ‘record something new!’ like it’s that easy to come up with an entirely new album! So yeah, I am most definitely taking your advice, Beautiful.”

I start to grin until I feel Avery’s hand on my leg and I jump again. I glare at him as I rub my sore knee.

“Excuse yourself to the ladies room,” Avery whispers to me.

“I bet you’re one of those yodelers,” Jesse says suddenly.

I tear my gaze away from those stormy eyes and raise an eyebrow to Jesse, “Huh?”

He laughs, “The reason why you won’t answer me about singing. You yodel, don’t you?”

I can’t help but burst out laughing.

“No! I don’t yodel!”

“I think you do. I think you were a yodeling champion back in Texas,” he laughs along with me.

Ignoring the nudging from my side, I continue to argue.

“I do not yodel! I can sing normally, thank you very much!” As soon as I say this Jesse’s eyes light up.

“HA! I knew it! Sing something for me.”

Oh god, not this again.

“I don’t kno—”

“Come on, Melanie. Prove it,” Jesse says in such a low voice that it could have easily been mistaken for one of those late night 1-900 numbers. I bite at my bottom lip and shake my head. He arches his eyebrow and starts to sing along to the song humming over the bar’s speakers.

Damn!
His voice is much lower than Avery’s, rougher and sexy, too. I remember it vaguely from the music Avery played for me years ago. Of course, the song playing is one of my favorites, and hearing Jesse’s raw vocals sing along to “Titanium” does me in. I feel Avery grab onto my leg, but I don’t jump this time. I also ignore him and start to sing softly to his friend.

I may have gotten a little carried away, singing my heart out on the last few lyrics, but I love that song. I stop at the end of the chorus, and open one of my closed eyes and peek at Jesse.

Very slowly licking his lips, he delivers one of his panty-combusting smiles.

Oh my…

“Marry me,” he says with a huge grin, taking my hand and holding it to his lips, and then flashing me a super sexy, yet goofy, pleading expression.

I just laugh as Avery tightens his grip on my leg. I sigh and take a long sip of my drink.

It’s probably time to get this talk over with anyway.

“If you boy’s will excuse me, I have to go to the ladies room,” I say calmly and sweetly, but on the inside, I’m a freaking mess.

After fifteen minutes of waiting in the hallway where the bathrooms are, I’m beyond furious. Why the hell did he tell me to come here if he wasn’t coming over to talk to me? I scowl and start to make my way back to the table, determined to let him know his one chance to explain himself just went down the crapper.

The first thing I notice is the busty brunette curling up in Adam’s lap, chewing on his ear. Eww.

The second thing is that Vic and Kennedy are nowhere to be seen. Double Eww.

Finally, my eyes quickly find that my seat is now occupied by a pretty little thing with perfectly curled dirty blonde hair. She starts to laugh, then leans in, and plants a huge kiss on Avery’s lips.

“SERIOUSLY?” I snarl, before I can catch myself.

Everyone’s eyes snap straight up to me.

Just great.

Letting out a low whistle as the purple-haired beauty walked off, “That is going to be the mother of my children right there,” Jesse says, taking a swig of his beer, his eyes never leaving her until she was out of his sight.

Avery shifts in his seat and rolls his eyes at his friend.

“You? Settle down? I thought you were perfectly happy with, what was it you said, your ‘care free, nag free, leech free’ lifestyle.”

Tilting his gaze down and keeping his hands busy with his ever-interesting beer bottle, Jesse shrugs.

“A guy can change his mind,” he states as he drums his fingers on the table, idling over his thoughts before a Cheshire grin strolls over his face, “Besides, have you seen her? Christ, everything about her is making it more and more uncomfortable to sit here in these tight fucking jeans,” he says, widening his eyes, raising his eyebrows, and then shakes his head with a laugh.

“Jess, I don’t want to hear that!” Avery all but cries out, motioning for him to scoot over so he can leave the booth, but Jesse doesn’t budge.

“Oh, come on, Olivia or not, for god’s sakes, you had Melanie in your lap all morning. You can’t tell me you didn’t appreciate the view. She’s like… an alternative pin-up girl,” Jesse argues.

“Dude, her rack is huge. You’re lying if you say you didn’t notice. And their real,” Adam pipes in, prying his eyes away from his phone long enough to shoot Avery a look that says ‘don’t lie to me’.

“How do you know their real?” Jesse asks, turning his amused face to his band mate.

“Do you really need to ask me how I know? I just know these things! Plus, when she had them pressed up against me—”

“Seriously, Adam?” Avery huffs out, trying again, unsuccessfully, to get out of the booth as his laughing friends pinned him in from both sides while laughing furiously.

“What’s gotten into you tonight, Ave?” Jess asks, halting his laughter long enough to ask his friend a serious question, but before he could get an answer, their attention went straight to the annoying voice approaching their table,

“Why haven’t you answered any of my calls or texts today?”

They are all staring at me and I have no clue what to say.

Maybe I’ll just vomit.

I certainly feel like I could puke right now. It might distract them from the fact that I just barged up here, screeching as if we are on an episode of Maury.

Oh my god, eyes, so many eyes on me. Yeah, I think I will just vomit.

“Seriously is right! I mean, that ladies room was ree-dic-u-lous,” my beautiful, crazy, blonde friend suddenly appears behind me, swinging an arm around my neck and raising an eyebrow. I nod, feeling like she may have just saved me from hurling up that pretty pink drink in front of all the rock stars in the room. I sigh and follow her lead as she pulls at my neck.

We walk up to the table, everyone’s faces now not solely focused on me, thank god. Vic softly whispers in my ear, “Breath. It’s ok. She’s not even that pretty.”

A small smile lights my face knowing that my friend must have seen the harlot and gone looking for me.

Speaking of harlot, my attention falls on the epitome of Barbie beauty sitting in my seat. Not that pretty?

Fuck her.

Ahhh, I’m just being a bitch now, but she’s just so cute, it’s sickening. Button nose, golden brown eyes, dirty blonde hair, super thin, and the jewelry and clothes she’s wearing are probably worth five times as much as the bucket of junk car I’m driving around.

“Melanie, this is Olivia. Olivia, this is Melanie, my friend that I was telling you about,” my most awesome best friend speaks up for me. I plaster on my best southern sweetheart smile, despite the growing ball of knots in my stomach, and say hello. I can feel Avery’s eyes on us, and the whole flipping moment just feels awkward as hell.

I’m ready to get the hell out of dodge.

Olivia looks away from Avery slowly. Her posture stiffens and she puts on a slightly catty smile.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” she says, well, more like sneers, her eyes boring holes into me.

For having just met me, she seems rather on edge. If she only knew the half of it.

I hear Jesse snicker and my eyes fall to him, “We were just telling her about the shoot this morning.”

Bingo. Either she’s pissed about the risqué nature of the shoot or she’s pissed about them taking the models out afterwards. Or both. I’m guessing both.

Can’t say that I blame her. I nearly flew across the room at her when I saw her kiss him and he’s not even mine. I’d probably be a bloody mess if she’d been at the shoot today.

I sigh softly, quickly trying to remind myself that I’m not a thirteen-year-old girl and he’s not my boyfriend. Avery and Olivia are getting married and I need to respect that and move on… and ignore the deep feeling of rage I feel every single time I watch her touch him.

“Yeah, the shoot was a blast. Your album cover is going to look amazing,” Vic says, still standing by my side at the front of the table.

Olivia frowns and turns to Avery, “So they rejected it again, huh?” I watch as his jaw tenses and he nods quickly. She smiles. I can’t believe I watch as she actually smiles. It fades as fast as it appeared but it was there. What the hell?

She leans in and whispers into his ear, a tiny smile appearing on his face. They turn to look at one another and just as she leans over to kiss him, I turn my attention back to Jesse. I can’t bring myself to watch their exchange, just the thought of it hurts. Jesse is messing around on his phone, but quickly looks up at me, and smiles.