by Quinn, Cari
Narrowing my eyes on the screen as Nash embraced his whore, I leaned back in my chair.
“Say goodbye, lovebirds.”
Thirty-Three
Straightening my shoulders, I walked down the hall to the reserved hotel conference room where we would be having the band meeting with Lila. I was a little early, which was a miracle considering how late I’d been for my flight. But it had helped that Alex hadn’t encouraged me to have any quickies before we parted.
Dammit.
I couldn’t claim to be undersexed though, not after that crazy dressing room hookup—and the couple of days of laughter and movies and takeout and lovemaking that had come before it.
There was no reason I should have this tickle between my shoulder blades. Sure, we were new, but I wasn’t the type to hang all over a man.
Of course I’d never been officially in love before either. Not since I’d been a teenager with no clue about the true meaning of the word.
I was only beginning to grasp it now. And Alex wasn’t about to make it easy for me.
He had so many ghosts of his own, ones that made me ache for him. With him. As painful as the things he’d told me were, I felt honored he’d shared them with me. That he’d taken that step.
That he trusted me.
For those moments in the park, I’d felt so much closer to him. I didn’t want to think about him hurting or in pain. Knowing that he’d been in such agony for so many years over a dangerous mistake—one that could’ve been deadly, but luckily, had not been—had ripped me apart.
I’d cried a little in the park and in the bathroom after we’d gone back to his place, but then I’d repaired my makeup and put on a brave face.
For him, not for me. I would give him my tears.
Would give him far too much.
There was no denying I’d felt some definite distance after his revelations. We hadn’t spent long together afterward, but I’d wanted to say goodbye to Sarge and Brutus, the staring weirdos. Adorable as they were.
By then, Alex had already started retreating. I was pretty sure he’d locked himself away again entirely before we even made it out of the park.
He’d tried to cover it with smiles and conversation. I hadn’t been fooled.
Maybe that was why I regretted that we’d had no time to be together before I left. At least while we were naked, there was no room for anything but honesty between us.
Perhaps that was just wishful thinking.
I turned the doorknob to the conference room, widening my eyes at the sight of Lila, our prim and proper Ripper Records rep, on a shaggy-haired blond guy’s lap in one of the conference chairs. They were laughing, not making out—thank God—and no articles of clothing had been removed—also thank God—but still, whoa.
One more thank God? When the chair spun around and I could see the man’s face, it was that of her husband, Nick Crandall, Oblivion’s lead guitarist. I really hadn’t wanted to catch someone in the act of cheating.
I shuddered. Especially not someone as seemingly respectable as Lila, who just happened to be my band’s rep as well.
“Oh, hi. I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m early. I just figured I’d get my thoughts together before everyone arrived.” I held up my songbook.
That was a half-truth. I’d actually intended to tell Lila about the weird phone calls. After the Donovan meeting, I’d made the decision that all should be on the table, silly or not.
I didn’t want to seem like the type who jumped at shadows. I mean, prank phone calls? That was such seventh grade stuff. It wasn’t as if I’d been threatened. I couldn’t even fully make out what was being said. If anything.
Except it sounded like you…
“Hi, Lindsey. No worries. We traveled together, and he’s hard to get rid of.” She ruffled her husband’s longish hair, clearly in no rush to do so. I’d never seen his hair that length or his skin so tanned, shown off even more by his thin white collarless shirt.
“No problem. I’m early as I said. Hey, beach boy, summer’s over. That isn’t spray on, is it?”
Lila laughed as Nick shook his head. “Real nice, Lindz. No. Just had a good summer. Our girls tend to want to swim more than they sleep, so lots of sun. No spray. Dear God. Do you think my last name is Kagan?”
“Which Kagan are you referring to? I hear there are multiples these days.”
“Sure are. The younger model is just as annoying as the older one. Family trait.” Nick grinned. “By the way, looking forward to catching the show tonight. Nice move with the guitar too.”
I winced. I still hadn’t dealt with the fallout from Oz’s little stunt, but I knew it was probably coming. Lila’s furrowed brow didn’t exactly reassure me on that front.
“If you want to try it again, I have one you can use.” Nick clamped a hand on Lila’s hip when she moved to stand, holding her in place. “You know, like make it a show tradition. We don’t do that shit because everyone’s all married and domesticated and dealing with spit-up.”
Lila shoved him in the gut. “And you better not try a move like that.”
“Couch forever,” he mouthed to me over her shoulder, making me laugh.
They were so cute together. Something panged deep inside me, a wish I didn’t dare make. But God, I wanted this. I wanted laughter and inside jokes and history. I wanted a guy to look at me the way Nick was looking at Lila right this moment, although her eyes were narrowed and she was giving him her best stern face.
None of us were fooled. She was as head over heels for him as he was for her.
I’d never focused on anything other than my career. But maybe I had a chance at finding that kind of happiness myself.
Maybe I already had.
Another song had started swirling around in my head on the plane. A legit love song. I hadn’t written many of those. It wasn’t a shock why I was on the verge of composing my first true one without Jamie’s legendary snark for balance.
This was simple. An acoustic piece laid bare in all ways.
I smiled. “You know, Nick, you should play a song with Elle tonight. The crowd would love it. That thing you did with her during Warning Sign’s first big concert back last year was a huge hit. Million views on YouTube in a few hours, wasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t keep up with that shit. I mean, it’s awesome, but that’s the way to make yourself fucking mental. I have enough issues with getting out on stage to begin with, thanks.”
I frowned. What was he talking about? But he was already speaking softly to Lila.
“Not tonight, but maybe later on in the tour. Work your magic. Find a good spot.”
Lila sighed, but she was smiling. “Woke the monster, didn’t you, Lindsey?”
He shrugged. “Just saying. It’s fun for the fans.”
“It is. Fun for you two too.” She brushed her hair away from his face like I’d done with Alex earlier. Such an instinctive gesture yet I could see the love in it.
Had felt it when I’d done it myself.
“Well, duh.” He patted her ass and finally nudged her off his lap, a place she’d seemed all too happy to stay. “Guess I’ll go relieve the nanny and detach Charlie from the ceiling so mama can get some work done.” The lascivious way he said mama made it sound as if he was doing the voiceover track on a porno.
Not that I knew anything about such things.
“See you later.” Lila gave him a quick kiss and a light shove and he ambled off, wearing a grin.
“How long have you been married?” I asked.
“Five years in a few months. Fairly crazy, since I hated him on sight.” Lila picked up her iPad and tapped a few buttons, clearly texting a response to someone. “Bringing him and the girls on this trip wasn’t planned. But we’re trying to have another baby, so…timing.”
It took me a second, because babies were so not on my mind in any way, shape or form. “Oh. Oh.”
“Sorry if that’s too personal.”
“No, it’s fine. It’
s okay. I understand.” I didn’t, not really, but I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around marriage yet either.
At least I was closer than I’d once been to grasping the concept.
“I wouldn’t have normally shared, but my mind’s half in this room and half elsewhere. Donovan has an issue. And if he has an issue, so do I.” She propped up her iPad on a little stand and went back to tapping on the screen with her French manicured nails.
I gripped my throat. That didn’t sound good. Hopefully, it didn’t have anything to do with my band.
“About what Oz did—”
Lila waved it off. “It got you in the news. People still love a good episode of rockstar badassery. No one was injured and there wasn’t any serious damage, so don’t worry about it.”
“Whew.”
Lila’s bluebell eyes zeroed in on me like twin laser beams. “Don’t try it again. Not that you’d be stupid enough to do that, but pass along the message to those who are.”
“Got it.”
She went back to her screen and tapped some more. A moment later, a vaguely familiar voice floated out of the speakers. Lila watched for half a moment and pulled out her cell.
“I can’t believe she’s taking this risk,” she snapped into the phone.
I glanced at the door. “Do you want me to leave? I can come back.”
This time, she didn’t even appear to hear me. She was fixated on the screen and the somehow angelic voice slipping into the room.
Who was it?
Then the words started coming into sharper focus. So sharp that it was as if all sounds in the building ceased but that acoustic guitar and those lyrics meant to wound.
Bad for me is what you are
Dragging me back to my dark
Don’t need a new drug
To crave
When everyone wants you on stage
Gets their piece for the price
Of a ticket
The singer stopped and sniffled, sounding as if she was crying. “I don’t understand why Nash wants to take it back. I thought it was an olive branch. He was so cruel to me. Then he gave me this. But some is mine. I made it even better.” She started to sing again, although I almost missed the words because Nash’s name was on repeat in my head. An endless reverberation.
Selling your soul
But I won’t sell mine
Selling your heart
But I’m not buying
Not this time
The lyrics brought back our earlier conversation in front of Saks. How he didn’t want me on stage. That was for safety reasons, I’d thought. Perhaps not. But why would he write a song about me and give it to Angel of all people?
He has his ways of getting his message across. You got it, didn’t you?
Giving it to Angel was another way. She just happened to be the woman I’d replaced at Lo’s.
Had Nash somehow decided she wasn’t so bad after all? Maybe even better than me. He’d certainly never offered me or my band any of his pieces. Of course he didn’t need to give me any olive branches.
Or he hadn’t before right now.
Angel was crying again as she sang, muddling some of the words. Lila was barking into the phone while she typed in a message box on the screen. In the corner, Angel’s livestream continued. She was curled up on a couch, acoustic in her lap, her long green-tipped white hair hiding her face.
I was looking right at her when she lifted her head, blew her hair out of her face, and delivered a short-armed punch to my chest.
“That was ‘Unlove.’ We all know what it’s like to need to let someone go. Feels good in the moment, but they’re not good for you. Fuck it, I’ve got one more for you. Nash gave me this too. He’ll probably want it back afterward but too late. He gave it to me and I made it mine. This is ‘Never Again.’”
Even before she started to sing, I knew.
The song I’d heard on repeat in his house. How could he? Why?
I knew what was coming and I still couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t wrap my arms over my head like someone caught in a storm, trying to protect themselves from falling debris.
There was no safety for me now.
A touch sets off a memory
I crush it underfoot
Watch it die
Don’t want to be her anymore
Don’t want to feel that way again
Not again
Can’t return when you’ve never left
Arrow found its target
Opened a wound
Want what you can never have
Innocence tarnished, ripped to shreds
Oh, oh, never again
There was no mistaking it was the song Nash and I had written at Logan’s.
Together.
He’d told me how much he needed that song. To hear us together.
That wasn’t his to give away. Even if he’d decided afterward he wanted to take back what he’d carelessly offered up like party favors to Angel.
It didn’t fully make sense, but raw emotion crowded out all the logic in my brain.
Hey, sorry we argued, want this song Lindsey bled over? Because she’s a damn idiot who’s in love with me. Who fell for me from the very first night when I fucked her, then fucked her over.
Even as I reeled, some part of me tried to inject reason.
Maybe he gave her the songs before. Angel said he wanted them back. You’ve grown so much closer now. What he did before these last couple amazing days together doesn’t count.
But it did count. Nash was a musician too. He understood. There were slices of my soul in those words. Even if that wasn’t true for him, even if he hadn’t felt for me what I had for him from the first, it didn’t matter.
It was too late.
All too fucking late.
Angel kept singing, but I’d heard enough. I couldn’t decipher any more anyway. It was as if a veil of red had dropped down over my vision and my head had been stuffed with cotton. The Lindsey who was always business first, who always kept her emotions in check to make sure she did what was needed for her band, had left the building.
I didn’t think. Pure instinct had me rearing forward to grab Lila’s iPad off the table. The music had to stop. I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I had a second to see Lila’s eyes flare wide before I tossed the iPad at the wall, clenching my fists as it made a satisfying crunch. Then I walked over to it and stomped on the pieces with my four-inch heeled boots, grinding them into the carpet with a howl of victory and triumph and rage.
So much rage.
The door opening didn’t make me stop. Neither did the swivel of Lila’s chair away from the table. I kept pounding the shards into the fine threads of the carpet. Kept making that same keening noise of completion as if finishing this one task would somehow erase the pain that had been welded into my chest with a crowbar.
“Miss York.” The voice was cool. Not Donovan’s cultured tones, but a flatter, grittier voice that brooked no arguments. “Miss York,” he repeated when I didn’t react.
I didn’t stop for him. I would never listen to any male again.
“Christ, what the hell happened, Lindz? Lindz.” Jamie grabbed my arm and when I still keep driving my boot into the carpet, she took care of business as only my best friend could.
She hauled back and slapped me dead in the face.
That snapped me out of my trance.
Gasping, I stumbled backward, bumping hard into the conference table. “Fucking hell.” I whirled around and slammed my hands down on the table, only to see my entire band clustered around the open doorway, staring at me as if I was the devil herself, horn, tails, and all.
Right now? I probably looked pretty fucking hellish.
Along with my dazed band stood Noah Jordan, the security expert with Roth Defense. I’d met him a few times over the years, but I’d forgotten he was Hunter’s brother. They were so different.
Noah was the one who’d spoken with such level detachment. I had
no doubt he would’ve strong-armed me in a hot second if I’d gone for any more Ripper Records personal property. With him was a petite blond with shocked pale blue eyes. She had her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans and she kept looking from Noah to Oz as if she expected someone to have to restrain me.
It was a distinct possibility.
I exhaled and hauled out a chair at the table, dropping down into it as if I weighed approximately one thousand pounds. I’d dropped my songbook on the opposite side of the room. Without me even asking, Jamie retrieved it and pushed it toward me across the table.
“You okay?” she asked, voice low.
My eye was watering and my cheek was on fire from where she’d slapped me. Damn her for never pulling a slap. “Fine. Peachy. Is it finally time for the meeting? Let’s go.”
“It would be,” Lila said tightly, “except I no longer have my iPad. Care to explain what just happened here, Lindsey?”
I stared at my hands. “Men are fucking dirty pigs and I hope they all rot in hell.”
“Hear, hear,” Teagan chimed in, causing Cooper to slant her a look. “Well, they are,” she said defensively. “Like your dick gives you special rights or something. I have a vagina and it doesn’t make me think I own the earth.”
“It should,” Oz said from the back of the group. “Men revere them. A dude in lust will literally do anything to get inside one. You could have a fucking slave for life.”
“Bullshit. You’re all too fickle to care for long. And you think women are like Baskin-Robbins. Try one flavor today, another three flavors next week.”
Even as I spoke, I knew I was being ridiculous. But it had been a long, exhausting day—hell, week, month, and year—and I was flying high on too many emotions between what Nash had told me, my own security issues that had brought Noah Jordan to our doorstep, and now Angel’s little livestream event that had nearly torn me to shreds.
I’d handled all of it remarkably well. Now? That time was over. I was officially a freaking basket case.
Jamie snorted. “She’s not wrong. But men have their own flavors. Just some of them need to shower more often.”