by Renee Rose
“Seriously, dude. That guy looks like he could kill a man with his bare hands and not break a sweat,” Lake says.
“I kind of think he has,” Ty agrees. “If I hadn’t seen the way he looks at Story, I would be scared to death of him.”
Flynn’s watching me, though. His mouth stretches into a wide grin. “So you finally sealed the deal with your Russian bodyguard, huh?” He has that sing-song congratulatory tone that makes me bristle even more.
“Shut up. Don’t be an idiot.” Now I really don’t sound like myself. Dang it.
The guys all gawk at me with interest. It’s not like me to get worked up over things. I’m as flighty, follow the energy, and laid back as they come. But the past four days since Oleg’s friends came and collected him have been torture. Endlessly long. Filled with questions. Empty. I’ve worried about Oleg. But more than that, having Oleg at my place changed something in me.
I missed him. Crave more time with him.
All of those things are so unlike me.
Which makes me desperately want to go back to the way things were before. To floating through life without giving two fucks about anything. Especially not a guy.
“Wait.” Flynn suddenly sobers, studying me with concern. “Did something bad happen?”
Now the asshole asks. It’s a fine time to suddenly be concerned about my well-being, when he’s the guy who left with two girls and told me to get Oleg to drive.
“No!” I throw my guitar pick at him.
He dodges it, his pirate grin stretching across his face. “Oh my God… you really like this guy!”
“No,” I scoff. I’m definitely not doing that. Not the relationship boomerang our mom subjected us to as kids. Falling in love. Breaking up. Grieving. Plunging into depression. Checking herself into mental institutions. It was an endless cycle of full and broken hearts. She and my dad separated and got back together nine times when I was little. When she finally divorced him because he was a cheating bastard, we thought things would calm down, but they didn’t. She recreated the same drama with a string of new men.
I’m not like her. I’m the opposite. I hang out with a guy. We hook up. Things get weird. I experience this inner nudge, this restlessness that tells me to cut things off before they go any further.
Flynn is a total man-whore. I’m not like that. I’m not just out for sex. I do crave real connection. I need to like the guy, to feel the spark, to find him entertaining and smart. But I don’t know, after a few months, I get itchy and feel penned in. I always find something that makes me want to end it.
Dahlia, our baby sister, is the only one of the three of us who seems to know how to be in a lasting relationship. She and her high school boyfriend went to college together in Wisconsin and are still going strong.
“Wait, so did something happen?” Flynn just won’t let it die. I seriously want to shove my boot up his butt right now.
All three of my bandmates stare at me expectantly. They’re not going to let me dodge this question.
“Yes!”
They all grin at me like goofballs.
“And?” Lake prompts. I’m pretty sure he and Ty have always wanted to hook up with me but know that I have no interest and also that Flynn would kick their asses all the way to Tokyo.
“Why are you guys being such girls right now?” I demand. “Since when do I share my sex life with you?”
“We’re being guys. This is locker room talk. You’re the one who hangs with guys, Story,” Flynn reminds me.
It’s true. Just by default of the amount of time spent together, these guys have become my best friends.
I really need to get out more.
And that thought instantly produces more thoughts of Oleg. Because he’s the one who changed up my rhythm. Threw me off my game. He left a sense of emptiness and longing in his wake that I’m having a hard time recovering from.
I did start to write a song, though. A hot, push me up against the wall kind of song. But I’m not ready to reveal it yet.
“It was hot,” I admit.
“No shit.” Ty tries to sound casual, but there’s a warble in his voice like he’s disappointed to hear it.
“Blister in the Sun,” I say to put the topic to bed and start rehearsal. I pick the start of the Violent Femmes song on my guitar.
“Hang on.” Ty scrambles for his drum sticks, almost missing the cue.
And then we’re into it. The music. The thing we all adore. It’s our addiction and our lives.
I don’t know why suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough.
Chapter 5
Story
He didn’t come.
I scan the Saturday night crowd for the eighth time, looking for my big Russian.
He’s not here. I can’t believe it.
“How are you all doing tonight?” I ask the crowd, faking my enthusiasm to be with them.
There’s already a decent crowd of our regulars here, and they cheer their welcome with over-enthusiastic vigor. “Story! We love you!”
I chuckle into the mic. “I love you, too.”
I don’t feel like playing the set list I put together. At Rue’s, we usually play a mix of covers and original pieces. We have enough of our own songs to do an all-original show, and we do when we get booked other places, but playing at the same place every Saturday, it gets old. People like to hear covers mixed in. They get excited about them.
My fingers play a few notes on my electric guitar.
Flynn laughs softly into his mic. He recognizes the song before I even do.
Fuck. It’s “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones.
I’m not that disappointed by Oleg’s absence. But the song choice says differently. I shrug and go for it even though the rest of the band won’t know what the hell we’re doing. The two of us grew up filling in with our father’s classic rock cover band. It’s why we have a huge repertoire to pull from.
Ty and Lake get on board fast enough as I take them through my version of the song, which makes our growing audience go wild—possibly because they can tell we’re figuring it out as we go along. People like to be a part of the show. Feel like they know you. Like we’re friends.
I stop myself from glancing at the table where Oleg should be. The one taken by a group of regulars I recognize.
I somehow knew when he left that he wouldn’t be here tonight, and yet his absence pierces me through the gut. He probably is still recovering. He’s too dizzy to drive. His head hurts too much for the loud music.
I know all those things, and they are perfectly reasonable explanations for his absence, but my emotions are haywire. They are not perfectly reasonable at all.
I’ve been raw and needy since he left. Worried for him. And now that I find he’s not here—the outcome I was sure I would face—I feel abandoned. This is exactly why I don’t like to rely on people. My parents taught me this lesson very well. They loved me, but they had their own demons. Showing up in the way I needed them to just wasn’t in the cards.
But Oleg… he was dependable. Like clockwork, every Saturday.
He told me he’d be here.
I know he couldn’t call. His phone is still in pieces in my bathroom trash. And he never asked for my number.
But that bothers me, too. He could’ve tried. Of course, he doesn’t type in English. I forgot that. Ugh! The fact that I’m using all this brainspace on this when I’m in the middle of my performance pisses me off.
I switch back to the planned playlist, and we get through the first set flawlessly. It all feels flat to me, but the audience doesn’t seem to notice. If anything, they are more boisterous than usual. There’s a festive, party-like atmosphere in the place, and yet I have an uneasy feeling, like I’m being watched. Not the pleasant Oleg’s watching feeling. Something more sinister. I scan the place and spot a guy with a scruffy beard and leather bomber jacket standing in the corner who doesn’t look like he belongs. He’s not smiling or talking to anyone. And he’s staring rig
ht at me in a creepy way. He’s the kind of guy I would never let in my apartment for a guitar lesson.
I find myself wishing Oleg was here to play my fake boyfriend again.
Real boyfriend, a little voice in my head murmurs, but I resist that notion. Because real boyfriends don’t last, and I want Oleg to stick around.
Rue waves me over from behind the bar as I walk off the stage to take a break. I met the mohawked owner through a mutual friend back when the Storytellers were just getting going. She invited us to play. Everyone had fun, so she invited us to play again. Pretty soon we were a monthly gig, then weekly. Rue’s transformed with us—our crowd became their crowd and vice versa.
It’s a hip, eclectic crowd, equal parts hetero and gay, lots of good will, a smattering of drugs. On Friday nights, they have a burlesque show that has also become its own special animal.
I squeeze through the crowd to her, accepting congratulations and greeting as I go until I get to the bar and a regular slides off his stool to offer it to me. “You sit. I was going to get up anyway,” he tells me.
Rue hands me a water bottle. “You guys are on fire tonight.”
“Are we?” It didn’t feel like it. Isn’t that always the way it goes. The times I try hardest are the times the audience just stares at me. Or worse—ignores me. But the nights I go on automatic, everyone loves us.
“Where’s your biggest fan?” Rue lifts her chin toward Oleg’s usual table. “That huge, silent guy who looks at you like he wants to eat you for dinner?”
I find myself looking toward the door, like Oleg might show up any moment. “I don’t know where he is.” I’m obviously not going to explain that my biggest fan is probably in the Russian mafia and got shot outside my apartment last week.
It’s funny how none of that churns my stomach so much as my need to see him again. It’s almost like my body aches to be in his physical presence. I want to sit on his lap. Feel the slap of his hand on my ass. The weight and hardness of that big, strong body against mine again.
And the fact that he didn’t come? Proves that having sex with him was a mistake.
Oleg was supposed to be the dependable thing in my life. The guy who always shows up like clockwork. The only constant in my chaotic universe.
But now we had sex, and its over. The constant became inconstant.
Rue moves back to making drinks, and I sit, deflecting the conversations people try to start around me.
I sit so long Flynn comes to collect me for our next set—which is odd because I’m usually the one chasing the guys down to get back on stage.
I get up on stage, casting a baleful last glance toward the door and start the last set.
Oleg
Closing time. I can’t fucking believe it. I haven’t missed more than one Saturday night show at Rue’s in nine months, and that was to go to Maxim and Sasha’s destination wedding.
I sit in the parking lot and watch the back door. The band’s van is parked out back, and so is Story’s Smart Car, so I know they’re still inside. I’ll just wait until I see her get safely in her car.
I spent most of the week in bed, recovering. And tonight… I just fucking overslept. I laid down to rest my aching head this afternoon, never dreaming I wouldn’t be up and ready to head to Story’s show on time. I didn’t set an alarm because I didn’t think I’d need one. I’d sooner puncture a lung than miss a show.
But when I woke up drenched in sweat with a foggy, aching head, it was already midnight. I had to scramble to take a quick shower and drive down here. I shouldn’t be here. I have no idea who’s sending men after me or how they tracked me down the first time. I should leave before I put my lastochka in danger. But she seemed like she really wanted me here, and the thought of letting her down kills me.
I blink, trying to get my thoughts straight.
Story comes out alone. Her shoulders are hunched, and she walks quickly toward her car. It’s unlike her—she’s usually surrounded by friends and hangers-on. Guys and girls who want to fuck her. Friends who think she’s cool. People who want her at their after-parties to make them happen.
Tonight there’s no smile on her face. No cocoon of a crowd.
Dammit. I did let her down.
As if she senses me, her head turns, and she looks right through my windshield. There’s an accusation in her gaze. Like she’s pissed I didn’t come. That thought blows through me, straightening my spine, puffing up my chest.
I’m out of the Denali before I even think, but things immediately go sideways.
A guy in a bomber jacket with a beard that needs trimming emerges from the shadowy corner behind her. “Get in the car or your girlfriend’s dead.” The Russian words are for me. The gun is at Story’s head. I put my hands slowly in the air. Look around. A car speeds up and stops between me and the mudak with Story.
I see one guy driving, another in the passenger seat. I slowly open the back door of the car. Not because I’m getting in, but to check to see how many guys I have to kill.
It’s empty. Easy. I just have to wait until that gun moves away from Story’s head. I’m not taking any chances where she’s concerned.
I’ll wait until we’re in the car to kill them both.
Except the asshole seems to know what’s important to me because he grabs Story by the arm and brings her to the car. “Get in,” he barks in heavily-accented English. He doesn’t move to open the door for her.
She looks at me with panic in her eyes, and I try to project calm. I won’t let them take her. No fucking way. I will sacrifice myself in a heartbeat before I let anyone touch a hair on her head.
Of course, that’s what they’re banking on. I’m sure the plan is to torture Story to make me sing. Spill the identity of every client Skal’pel’ cut into.
Fuck! How could I let her get involved in this shit?
Story pulls the handle. I palm my gun, keeping it hidden behind my back. Our eyes meet through the back seat of the car.
I just need the right moment.
A distraction. The gun pointed away from Story.
My beautiful, brave swallow reads my mind. She rams her guitar case into her captor’s belly. I take the shot across the back seat, then shoot the guy in the front passenger seat.
I have the driver’s throat in my hand. I snap his neck.
I shut the back door and wipe my prints from the handle. Running around to the other side, I shove Story’s captor’s body in the back seat, shut the door and wipe those prints, too.
Story’s backed up, shock still frozen on her face. Her eyes are twice the size they usually are.
Fuck!
I point to my Denali, praying she won’t run from me, but to my relief, she dashes to the Denali and climbs in. She still trusts me. Even after what she just saw.
I roll down the window on the driver’s side, put the car in drive and shove the driver’s foot over to the gas. Then I steer through the window to get the car out of Rue’s parking lot. When I get it into the alley, I point it down the street, jogging with it for a half a block until I’m sure it will keep going straight onto a major road.
I whip around to see headlights behind me, but they’re my own Denali, Story behind the wheel.
That’s my girl.
I run for it, throwing open the driver’s door as she climbs into the passenger side, acrobatic as ever.
I’ve never felt the need to speak more. I reach over and take Story’s hand at the same time I take off out of there, driving backward down the alley with my lights off until I’m out of the neighborhood.
The fact that she hasn’t spoken scares the shit out of me. I’m sure she’s in shock. I can’t say how fucking grateful I am that she got in my Denali of her own volition.
Because if she hadn’t, I would’ve had to force her. Story is no longer safe. That much is clear. Because I don’t know if I eliminated the real threat tonight or just another hired gang.
Story’s eyes are wide, and her breath rasps in and out, but
she’s craning her neck, looking over her shoulder. She hasn’t shut down completely.
I want to tell her it’s okay.
I won’t let anyone hurt her.
I need her to come with me to lie low for a while.
I want to say I’m sorry. So fucking sorry. Nothing surpasses my anguish at having put her in danger this way. I made her a target. It’s unforgivable.
“Where are we going?” she asks once.
I reply with what I hope is a reassuring squeeze of her hand. Her phone rings, but she doesn’t answer it.
I drive straight to my place in Ravil’s building—what the neighbors have dubbed “the Kremlin” because the entire building is filled with Russians. When I park and turn off the car, Story turns to me. Her face is pale and serious.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Fuck.
I get out and walk around to open her door, but she’s already hopped out, her guitar strap looped over her shoulder.
I cup her face and peer down into it, stroking her cheeks with my thumbs.
She nods. “I’m okay.”
Fuck. Her mind-reading thing only makes me twenty thousand times more addicted to her.
I draw in a relieved breath and nod back. I take her hand and lead her to the bank of elevators, swiping my card that gets me to the top floor. The penthouse suite Ravil shares with his cell.
Since he had a baby boy in November, I keep waiting for Ravil to kick us all out—to move us to a different floor, so he can use the penthouse for his new family. But apparently, his new wife Lucy doesn’t mind.
The other newlyweds—Maxim and Sasha don’t seem to mind communal living either. Which, frankly, is all the better for me. It’s harder to disappear in a smaller group, and disappearing is definitely my game.
My suite has its own entrance from the elevator hallway, which is good because it’s late. Even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t subject Story to the chaos of the group right now.
I think the private entrance is supposed to make up for the fact that I don’t have a view of the lake, not that it matters to me. My floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the city.