Flirting With Disaster

by Ruthie Knox

  They disappeared into the crowd.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “I needed to see if he would come.”

  “Is that why we’re in Iowa? So you could see Ben Abrams again?”

  “Sort of.” As she watched him, he became himself again. The nervy glitter in his eyes disappeared, replaced by his usual confident swagger. Judah’s social mask.

  He patted her cheek and, without warning, kissed her full on the mouth. “Thanks for your help, sugar lips. I have a show to do. Hey, Ginny?”

  Seeking Ginny, Judah turned in a full circle while Katie considered whether she ought to kick him again.

  “There you are. What are we closing with tonight? I didn’t finish the list. I thought you’d—Hey. What’s the matter?”

  Katie visually located Ginny just before she turned and fled from the Yacht Club basement.

  “Shit,” Judah said. “Didn’t see that coming.”

  “Did you see me punching you in the stomach?” Sean asked as he sauntered up.

  “I did, actually. Can we get to that later? I’ve really got to roll here.”

  “I’ll give you a rain check.”

  “You should talk to Ginny,” Katie said. “And Paul, too. You were a dick to both of them.”

  “I didn’t do anything to Ginny.”

  “You kissed me.”

  “So?”

  “So she’s got a thing for you.”

  “I know that, babe. I’m not blind. I just don’t see how it’s my problem.”

  Katie shook her head. “I don’t even know why I like you.”

  “It’s a mystery,” Judah agreed.

  Sean cut in. “Want me to go see if I c-can sort Ginny out?”

  “Do what you want,” Judah replied. Sean started to leave. “Hey, Owens? What song should I close with?”

  “How should I know? I don’t listen to your c-crap, man. You know that.”

  For Judah and Sean, it was practically a bromance moment.

  Sean walked out. Katie squatted down to look at the set list taped to the floor. A lot of old stuff, but not her favorite song.

  “Do ‘Slant,’ ” she said. It was a song about young love. About a quiet woman with a pure heart and a slanted smile.

  Judah pulled a permanent marker out of his pocket and handed it to her. “That works. Write it down.”

  Fitting, she thought. That he should close the night with a song about Ben.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Judah didn’t want her to see him like this—bathed in sweat, his skin steaming in the freezing air as he leaned against the alley wall with an open bottle of tequila in one hand.

  A cliché.

  “Good show,” Katie said.

  It had gone all right for most of the first half, but a few songs before the break his hands had started shaking. The crowd had been a surging, seething mass of strange faces. Young faces. When had he gotten so fucking old?

  He hadn’t been able to find Paul by the side of the stage where he always stood, hadn’t been able to pick out Ginny or Katie or Ben. Every time he looked into the audience, he saw a bunch of identical white kids dressed in an identical uniform of shopping-mall subversive T-shirts and brightly colored skinny jeans, bopping their heads up and down.

  The more he had to look at them, the more disgusting he felt, until finally he’d had to choose between cracking a bottle or walking out.

  Paul hated it more when he walked out.

  “I’m a fraud.” He let his head fall back against the cold, unforgiving concrete.

  “What kind of fraud?”

  “As a musician. I’m a fraud as a musician. My music is shit.” He brought the bottle to his lips and drank, needing to take the edge off the raw wound in his chest that just kept getting bigger all the time, no matter what he did.

  “I like your music.”

  “I’m fucking Lancelot Link up there.”

  “Who’s Lancelot Link?”

  “You’ve never seen that show? He was a talking chimp on TV. They made him chew gum, dressed him up in people clothes. ‘Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.’ My mom used to watch the reruns.”

  “I think animals in people clothes are creepy.”

  He raised the bottle in her direction and stared toward the mouth of the alley. Three girls walked by, heels clacking against the pavement, hands buried in their coat pockets. “… midget at the door grabbed my ass,” one of them said, and another one giggled.

  “I’m a fraud as a sex symbol, too,” Judah added, vaguely aware he’d lost his place in the conversation.

  “You’re sexy.”

  “I’m gay.”

  “Gay men can be sexy. What’s your deal tonight? You lost it out there. Was it Ben?”

  “Sure, Mom, it was Ben.”

  Katie wrinkled her nose. “You’re in a vile mood.”

  He closed his eyes, then sank down to the ground and took another drink.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “You missed your calling, babe.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Should have been a therapist.”

  She squatted down in front of him. “You told me not to worry about Ben. We went down a list of names six hours ago, and you said ‘No, no, no, no’ in response to every single question I asked you.”

  “That I did.”

  “But you knew he was coming.”

  He hadn’t known. He’d hoped.

  “You have to trust me with something, Judah, or there’s no point to any of this.”

  “There’s definitely no point to any of this,” he said.

  Katie pried the bottle out of his hand. Glaring at him, she took a long slug and made a repulsed face. “You’d think a guy like you would have the resources to drink something better than warm, cheap tequila straight out of the bottle. Aren’t you supposed to be guzzling Courvoisier or Dom Perignon?”

  “With one groupie on each arm.”

  “And leather pants.”

  “And a raging case of crabs.”

  She smiled sadly and stroked the hand he’d wrapped around his knee. “Paul’s looking for you.”

  “Is he?” He’d thought he might finally have managed to drive Paul away for good. “Probably wants to chew my head off.”

  “I think he’s still pretty mad. That last set, you seemed kind of …”

  “Like a raging alcoholic has-been head case?”

  She nodded.

  “He hates that,” Judah said. “He hates it when I fuck up. It’s like dragging my disappointed father around the country with me.”

  One disappointed father was plenty. Paul had stuck with Judah through a lot of unpleasant shit, but for the last couple of years Judah hadn’t been able to shake the impression that if he’d somehow been able to present Paul with a featureless, personality-free version of himself to manipulate at will, his manager would be a hell of a lot happier.

  “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  He stared down at his forearm, wrapped around his waist and covered in goose bumps. The short hair stood on end, frosted. A shudder racked his torso, but it was as if it were happening to someone else. He couldn’t feel the cold.

  “You’re really in trouble, aren’t you?” Katie asked quietly. “Way more than me.”

  “You’re all sunshine and roses, hon.”

  “You think?”

  “I do.”

  She fiddled with her thumb and stared at the wall beside his head. “Why’d you really hire me?”

  “Because I wanted you around.”

  “And all that woo-woo stuff?”

  Such a load of crap, his hunches and instincts. Following his heart. Hiring Katie. Seeing Ben.

  Judah had no business making friends with Katie or asking for help. No business hoping. He was a washed-up has-been singer, and his job was to finish his slow dive toward the Behind the Music black moment. Pickle himself in alcohol or die in a flaming car crash. Be a joke.

 
And if it made him angry to think about ending up that way, well, have another fucking drink.

  “You make a good conscience,” he said. “Want to be my professional girlfriend? I’ll take you on tour with me. There’s good money in it, and when I need a confessor, I’ll have you handy. Can you give a decent blow job?”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  She stood up, frowning down at him. One more person he’d disappointed. “I’m not your conscience. I’m a professional.”

  He laughed, a hollow sound that made the ache worse.

  Katie wrenched the bottle out of his hand and lobbed it at the alley wall. She threw like a girl. It hit the bricks, hit the ground, and spun in a lopsided circle, spilling tequila out on the filthy bricks.

  “I’m sending Paul out,” she said. “With a coat.”

  “You’re fired.”

  An endless minute went by while she stared at him, her eyes bright and big and brown, her face too precious and too hurt for him to bear it. He wondered what it would take to get her to go. He wasn’t sure how much more he could hurt her.

  Then she went back inside, and the fire door shut and cut off the sound of her heels clicking over the concrete hallway backstage.

  The tequila puddle crept over the bricks, growing colder by the moment.

  He couldn’t feel the cold. He couldn’t feel anything.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “This whole case is a fucking mess.” Sean pulled off his jacket and looked around, trying to figure out where to throw it. None of the chairs had backs. The Hotel Vetro was an ultramodern glass palace, weirdly unsuited to Iowa.

  Finally, he laid the jacket on the glass-topped table by a bowl of apples.

  “I know,” Katie said from over by the closet, where she was hanging up her own jacket. “I can’t believe he fired me.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Unless you want to be ffired, just ignore it. He has t-to drop the c-contract with your brother if he wants to g-get rid of us.”

  “I’ve never been fired before. You know how many jobs I’ve had? Bus girl, lifeguard, camp counselor, waitress, barista, bartender, business owner, office manager. That’s … what?” She paused to look at the ceiling and count. “Seven. And that’s just kinds of jobs. It doesn’t count all the different places I worked. Nobody’s ever fired me before. I really do suck at this.”

  “It’s eight.”

  “What’s eight?”

  “Bus girl, lifeguard, camp counselor, waitress, barista, bartender, business owner, office manager. That’s eight jobs. And you don’t ssuck. He d-didn’t fire you because you ssuck.” Sean sat down on a backless bench to take off his shoes. They were tacky with spilled drinks and filthy from being stepped on.

  “Well, maybe not,” she said. She snagged his jacket off the table. “I’m pretty sure he fired me because he’s drunk, and he’s an asshole, and he’s really hurting for some reason. But even so, it gets to me, you know?”

  She put his jacket on a hanger, and he admired the slim shape of her. “You d-don’t have to do that.”

  “Do what?” She looked at her hands. “Oh. Sorry. I’m programmed to clean up after other people. Blame my mother.”

  She slid the mirrored closet door closed, and it hit the end of the track with a bang that made the glass shudder.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, fine. I’m fine. I just …” She raked her hand through her hair, and for a second she looked so fragile and shaken, he reached a hand out without even thinking about it.

  “C-come here.”

  She obediently stepped closer. He caught her by the hip, but she didn’t move into his embrace. Her expression remained distant, unfocused, even as her eyes looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I wanted to be good at this job,” she said. “But if I wasn’t good at it, I at least wanted to be a good friend to Judah. And now I’m neither. I guess … I’m not really sure what I am anymore.” She met his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re doing great.”

  She made a dismissive sound, and he wrapped his other hand around her hip. “Ssweetheart, you are. Pratt’s a mess. He’s a much bigger mess than anybody c-can fix in a few weeks. There’s no way to rescue ssomebody who doesn’t want to be saved.”

  Her mouth flattened. “I’m not trying to rescue him. I don’t do that anymore.”

  He’d inadvertently pushed a button. “Okay,” he said, but it was too late.

  “I’m not trying to rescue you, either,” she said, pushing off his shoulders with both hands until he released his grip at her hips. “From now on, hang up your own coat.”

  “Okay.”

  She dipped sideways and lifted her foot to take off her boot, giving him a view up into the dark valley between her thighs. His hands twitched.

  “What was Ben Abrams doing at the concert?” she asked.

  “Visiting an old ffriend?”

  She frowned. “They were a lot more than friends.”

  “They’re living in P-pella, right? Where Judah grew up? I checked, and it’s a seventy-five-minute drive. The c-concert announcement just went up on Facebook this afternoon. They would’ve had to want to c-come pretty bad to haul ass to Iowa City after work. Not to mention they didn’t fit in that c-crowd at all.”

  “Plus, no way did she wear that outfit to work.” She leaned over to pull off her other boot, which put her chest directly in front of his face.

  When she straightened, instinct made him glance at the door to confirm he’d flipped the deadbolt.

  “She’d done her makeup for the show. I bet it took her more than twenty minutes. That was some elaborate eye shadow.”

  “So how did Ben know Judah was c-coming?”

  “How did Judah know Ben was coming?”

  Sean caught her waist and pulled her between his legs. She needed cheering up, and he’d been waiting since yesterday afternoon to get his hands on her again. Thirty-one hours, give or take.

  He lifted the tight, stretchy red shirt she’d worn under her jacket and put his nose in her navel, breathing in the lemony smell of her skin.

  Sean moved his hands up her back and found her bra clasp. “Take your shirt off,” he said before lowering his palms to her ass and pulling her closer.

  “I thought we were working,” Katie protested. But she pulled off her shirt while he kissed a path from her belly up to her rib cage. She was still hot and damp from the club, salty on his tongue. She wore black lace.

  “We got fired.”

  “I don’t want to be fired.”

  “All right. We’re taking a b-break.”

  “I can’t concentrate when you do that.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Why did seeing Ben upset Judah so much, if it was what he wanted?”

  He kissed the rounded flesh of her breast where it met the lace of her bra, and she arched into him. He found the zipper on her skirt. “Ben didn’t seem too happy to see him.”

  “You don’t think so? I don’t know,” Katie said, stepping out of the skirt when it hit the floor. “I think that’s just how he is. If he were happy or plotting Judah’s death, I’m not sure we’d be able to tell the difference.” She wore thigh-high stockings held up with a black lace garter belt that matched her bra and the edges of her white, shiny panties. Her hair was damp at the temples, and her skin glowed in the soft city light that filtered through the glass wall of the hotel room.

  Sean had never known craving came in so many shades. Tonight, it was dark and purposeful. Direct. Powerful.

  “I smell like a beer bong.”

  “On my lap,” he ordered, urging her closer.

  She resisted. “I’m, like, a dorm room. I’m dirty old socks. You do not want to touch me until I’ve taken a shower.”

  He scraped his teeth over one nipple through her bra cup. Already stiff, and
he could practically taste her arousal. “Oh, but I do.” He picked her up and put her where he wanted her, legs spread wide to straddle him, hips nestling against his rock-hard erection. “I’ve been wanting to t-touch you for days.”

  “You just touched me yesterday.”

  “True.” His mouth found her throat, and she tipped back her head. “You’re good to touch. And you smell good, too. Like a woman.” He kissed her pulse point, her chin, her mouth. Finally her mouth. “You t-taste like my woman.”

  “You’re such a Tarzan.”

  “Shut up and kiss me, Jane.”

  She did. She kissed him hard and awkwardly, their teeth knocking before she eased up just long enough to say “sorry” and came at him again, at a better angle this time. He cupped her head in both hands and moved his tongue into her mouth, tasting her deep as his cock settled at the warm, soft juncture of her thighs.

  “Something’s wrong with Judah.” She unbuttoned his shirt, making him harder with every soft collision of her knuckles against his stomach.

  He thumbed her nipple and kissed her again. “There’s a million things wrong with Judah. Let it go.”

  “I have to figure out how to help him. Do you think Ben—Ohh …”

  He’d rolled the nipple between his thumb and finger, knowing it would make her gasp and lose her train of thought. Right then, he didn’t give a damn about Judah or Ben or any of them. All he wanted was to be inside Katie. To wipe that line between her eyebrows away and replace it with bliss.

  “Unzip me,” he said.

  Her nails raked down his stomach, and she lifted a few inches off his lap so her fingers could find his cock and stroke him. “You have a serious problem here, don’t you? I think you could use this thing as a jackhammer.”

  “I’m p-planning to. Unzip me.”

  “Why don’t you do it?”

  “My hands are busy.” He used one to pull down her bra far enough to get her nipple in his mouth. The other was inside her panties, reaching between her legs from behind.

  He found her ready for him, even though her mind was elsewhere. When he sank two fingers inside her, rough in his haste, she gave a little cry and arched into his hand, asking for more.

  “You’re wet.”

  “It’s entirely possible that I’ve been wet for a week.”