by Tara Leigh
We watched the next two acts. Or rather, Delaney watched them, and I watched Delaney. She was at the edge of her seat, holding her drink, taking quick pulls of her straw as she rocked her head from side to side in time to the beat. So when she said something to me, I had to ask her to repeat her question.
“I said, do you do anything else besides sing?”
And what a loaded question it was, especially with her lips wrapped around the straw giving me all kinds of ideas. I quirked an eyebrow, feeling the slow churn of lust grabbing me by the balls. “Anything you want.”
Following the obvious, and clearly X-rated, direction of my thoughts, Delaney released her straw, cheeks nearly as pink as her toes. “I mean, musically.”
She may as well have stuck a pin in my balloon. I looked down, swiping at the condensation that had accumulated on my beer bottle. “Started out playing guitar,” I mumbled.
Delaney must have been a lip-reader, because she acted like I’d announced it over the speakers. “Guitar? Do you still play?”
I did, but only when I was writing songs. Being reminded of the reason I’d taken the mic in the first place was just too damn hard. I managed a stiff nod. “How ’bout you?”
“Does the recorder count?” Her impish smile managed to drag my mind back to the present. “I tried playing violin and then the flute. But truthfully, I was horrendous. I think the only one happier about me quitting was my mom, who had to listen to me practice every day. After a couple of years, I gave up and stuck with chorus.”
“Chorus, huh?”
She glanced at the stage. “Don’t get your hopes up. No one ever gave me a solo.”
But my hopes were already up, along with another part of my anatomy. I leaned forward in my chair, elbows propped up on the sticky table. Needing to be closer to her. Pulled by something I didn’t understand.
She leaned in, too, anticipation quickening her breath.
“Delilah!” came through the speakers, followed by a, “Sorry, Delaney?”
We both fell back, spines making contact with the wooden spindles of our chairs, the moment broken.
“Get up there and break a leg, Delilah,” I teased, remembering a time when I’d been called the wrong name, too. In my case, it had worked out just fine.
The color drained from her face. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, dropping her depleted drink on the table and standing up.
Fuck. No way was I letting her get up there in a top that left little to the imagination. “Wait.” I jumped to my feet, quickly shrugging out of the black shirt I’d worn over a white tee. The back of my knuckles grazed her breasts as I draped it over her shoulders, pulling the ends together.
A shock of awareness lit into me, gripping me by the throat.
Delaney felt it, too, her eyes flaring, the pulse at the base of her throat fluttering wildly. Unable to stop myself, I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her sweet, sweet body into mine. Had anything ever felt so good, so right? Like the entire universe had conspired to bring us together. But what I really wanted to know was—why the hell it had it taken so long?
The asshole in the booth called her name again, and she stumbled back, giving me one last confused look before weaving through the tables and making her way to the stage.
I sat back down, feeling like I’d just run a mile in wet sand. Exhausted and energized at the same time. Body buzzing, mind whirring, breaths coming heavy.
Delaney took her place in the center of the small stage, her hair glinting chestnut beneath the lights. She reached out for the mic, adjusting it before giving a quick nod toward the booth. And then she stared straight at me, looking all kinds of composed. Not exactly confident, but steady and sure.
I was impressed. It had taken me years to get up the courage to sing in front of an audience. Thousands of hours of practice and friends up onstage with me, too. Beneath Delaney’s tight pants, she had quite a set of balls.
Reverence was shoved aside by recognition as the first chords came through the speakers.
No.
Of all the songs in the universe, Delaney had picked the only one with the power to crush me.
Of course she did.
“Shoulda Been Me” had put Nothing but Trouble on the map. Took me from relative obscurity to the top of the charts. A song I wrote from the depths of a drunken, drugged-up stupor, when the pain in my head, in my heart, couldn’t be contained any longer. I hadn’t sung it in years.
Now my lyrics, those tainted shards of emotion, were skating through Delaney’s trembling lips in a voice that was untrained, but even and pure. They wrapped around me, pulling tight. Each line another coil, encircling my abdomen, my chest, my throat. Squeezing. Suffocating.
Panic rose, surging through my veins. The sound of my racing heartbeat not nearly loud enough to drown out Delaney’s voice singing my words.
I must have been looking away
On that senseless day
They say actions have consequences
I committed the baddest blunder of them all
Why did you have to take the fall
Shoulda been me
Shoulda been
Shoulda been me.
Coulda woulda shoulda—held on harder, stronger
Drivin’ crashin’ dyin’—heaven got another martyr
Shoulda been me.
The lyrics were dark, but I’d set them against a melody that was quick and upbeat, almost buoyant. One of the reasons I’d stopped performing it was because the audience would sing it back, smiles on their faces, looking so damn happy. Not Delaney. Maybe she was just nervous, or unused to the lights, but I could swear she was blinking back tears. There was no hesitation as she sang, no forgotten words or missed beats. She didn’t even spare a glance at the monitor in front of her, which had a bouncing ball lighting up each syllable in tune with the music.
As I listened to Delaney sing my song, it became hers, too. Like she knew exactly what the lyrics meant, the place they had come from. Almost as if she’d written them herself.
As the last notes faded away, Delaney set the clunky microphone on its stand and made her way back to our table.
“Hey.” She appeared in front of me, a little breathless but radiant. The stage did that to a person, gave them a buzz in all the right places. “How did I do?”
You were fucking breathtaking. What came out instead was a brusque, “You ready to get out of here?”
A flash of hurt streaked across her expression. “Yeah, sure.”
Dropping cash on the table, I cinched an arm around the curve of Delaney’s waist and propelled her toward the exit. The air outside smelled of exhaust and weed, but I took a deep breath and ran a hand over my face.
Delaney sidestepped my embrace, looking worried. “Are you okay?”
I dropped my hand, opened my eyes. Shook off the effect she’d had on me. Enough to function, at least. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine to me.”
I scanned the street, trying to orient myself. Right or left? I had no clue. Listening to Delaney had pulled me out of my shell, and now I was just a quivering, spineless mollusk standing on a dirty L.A. street. In a goddamn baseball cap. “Which way back to your place?”
Delaney turned away and began walking. I followed, using the time to pull myself together. We walked in silence, not exchanging another word until we were standing in front of her apartment building again. I eyed it cautiously. I’d lived in worse places than this. Hell, I’d lived on the streets. Crashed on floors and couches, or with anyone who would have me. But still, I didn’t like leaving Delaney here. “How about I take you back to my place?”
“For my private concert?”
“For whatever you want.” I wiggled an eyebrow, adding a liberal dose of wickedness to cover up my unease. Like a magician hiding his tricks with a sleight of hand, flirting was my fallback whenever I felt someone getting too close.
Delaney backed up against the door, her knowin
g eyes staring right through me. Burrowing beneath my Shane Hawthorne veneer. Getting a good hard look at all the shadows and sins I kept under lock and key.
“I think I’ll pass.” Shying away from them.
I shifted from one foot to the other. Any other girl and I’d already be back in my car. Zero fucks. That’s how I lived. Not caring about anything but my music, my career. Myself. Delaney had walked away from me not two hours ago. Why couldn’t I walk away from her now?
There was something about this girl that made me feel better just knowing we were breathing the same air. I edged forward, needing to be closer. “How about you let me come upstairs, then?” Was I seriously begging? Yes. Yes, I was.
With barely an inch between us, her shuddering breath rippled across my skin. I dipped my head, planting a light kiss on her forehead, lingering as a nearly inaudible whimper escaped her throat. “You want to. I can tell.” I pulled the elastic from her hair, took a whiff as a shower of dark chocolate strands tumbled to her shoulders. So sweet—better than a box of Godiva. I wanted to swallow her whole.
Pulling back, I expected to see an easy, wanton smile tripping from those lush lips of hers. Instead, Delaney’s lower lip was tucked between her teeth. Curiosity and compassion radiated from her expression, as obvious as her high cheekbones and thick lashes.
She didn’t belong at Travis’s party earlier tonight, and she sure as shit didn’t belong with me now. Didn’t stop me from wanting her though. Didn’t stop me from edging even closer, pushing denim against cotton, proving just how badly I wanted her. “Delaney.” I groaned her name. Running my nose along the elegant sweep of her cheekbone, I breathed in the desire rising from her skin like fog off the morning tide. My palms skimmed over her rib cage, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of her pants. Finding a satiny sliver of skin. And a set of keys.
Leaning back, I dangled them between us. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Eyes that had been as soft and smooth as sea glass blinked into focus, narrowing at their corners. “You really have a one-track mind.” Disappointment trekked across her features.
I slapped away the impulse to explain why—that if I didn’t stay focused on the easy, the attainable, I’d be dragged down by my inner demons so fast, running away would be like trying to sprint in quicksand, each panicked step making me sink deeper. “Doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
“Maybe not for you.” Delaney reclaimed her keys, ducking away from me. Grabbing for the door handle, she gave it a firm twist. It squeaked open, sounding mournful and sad. Sounding like an ending. “But the track I’m on doesn’t leave room for middle-of-the-night booty calls with a guy who can’t even be bothered to tell me what he thought of the three minutes I spent onstage—for him. Good night, Shane. Save your voice for someone still willing to listen.”
And then she was gone. Leaving me with only the memory of her bewitching smile and pure voice. And a knot of remorse sitting heavily in my chest, leaching toxins into my bloodstream with each dull, disappointed thud of my heart.
Delaney
I wasn’t planning to look out my window when I went back to my apartment, but I couldn’t help myself. There was no way Shane would ever show up at my door again, not after I’d given him the brush-off twice in one night. And I certainly wouldn’t be invited to another Travis Taggert party. But I couldn’t resist the urge to catch one more glimpse of my teenage crush—even if it was just to watch him walk away.
Except that he wasn’t walking away.
Shane was sitting on the back bumper of his car, his body tense as he stared at something just beyond my view. I raised the window slowly, holding my breath and hoping it wouldn’t squeak. Once there was enough room, I stuck my neck through the opening like a nosy turtle. A couple was stumbling toward Shane, their arms intertwined as they zigzagged from one end of the sidewalk to the other, their manic laughter and broken bits of slurred words audible even from my fourth-floor window.
Suddenly, they broke apart, the guy scrounging in his pocket and pointing something I assumed to be his key fob at the car behind Shane’s. It flashed its lights and chirped, and the guy tripped off the curb and rounded the bumper to the driver’s side. My breath hitched in the back of my throat. Neither one of those two should be driving. Before I could even think to call 911 from my phone—not that it would do any good; by the time the police responded to a call from this neighborhood, they may have killed someone already—Shane’s deep baritone echoed off the street. “Hey, I just saw something crawl into your engine.”
Oh, no. What did Shane think he was doing? He wasn’t in Beverly Hills anymore.
No one would ever accuse Shane Hawthorne of not being able to take care of himself in a fair fight. Hadn’t I just read about him training in Krav Maga, the Israeli martial art that looked like a crazy mash-up of karate, Zumba, and tai chi, with some acrobatic tumbling thrown in for good measure? But in this neighborhood, fighting fair wasn’t a given. Here, thugs carried knives and guns. Shane’s rock-star veneer might impress his fans, but it was far from Kevlar.
Drunk guy was clearly not a fan. “You shittin’ me?” he shot back, punctuating his retort with a loud belch. He was wearing faded jeans and a grungy tee, not quite as tall as Shane, but heavier by at least fifty pounds. And maybe not as drunk as I’d thought. Confronting Shane, his words had lost most of their slur.
“Pop the hood; check it out for yourself.”
Drunk girl leaned against the car, her shirt rising to expose a wide tattoo covering her lower back. “Don’t do it.” She snarled the warning. “How do we know this guy’s on the level?”
Keeping the brim of his hat low, Shane moved aside to expose the Ferrari crest, holding up his key. “This is my ride. Not lookin’ to trade.”
Christ. Was he trying to taunt them into a carjacking? What if they had a gun? I ran to my bedroom, rooting around in my nightstand drawer until I found what I was looking for, and sprinted back downstairs on bare feet. By the time I poked my head through the door, cell phone in one hand and a can of Mace in the other, the hood of the Toyota was open, Shane’s boots just barely visible underneath.
A second later, the hood slammed down with a bang, and I saw Shane toss whatever he’d pulled from the engine through the sewer grate.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the guy bellowed.
I was about to race out of my doorway and attempt to save Shane and the streets of L.A. with my can of Mace when Shane reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, handing a wad of cash to the guy, whose expression quickly transformed from furious to dumbfounded. “You don’t want to get behind the wheel right now. Take a cab home tonight, and use the rest of this to buy a new spark plug tomorrow.” Without a second glance, Shane turned on his heel, got into his own car, and drove away.
As I eased back inside the stairwell, I saw the guy counting the bills in his hand, his whoop of excitement chasing me up the stairs.
Once I was back in my apartment, I yanked my window closed, not caring if anyone heard, and crawled between my sheets, trying to make sense of what I’d just seen.
The only way it made any sense at all was if Shane wasn’t the arrogant, self-centered jerk I thought he was.
* * *
Looking over my assigned table the next night, I recognized a newly familiar face. My shoulders tensed, inching toward my ears. “What are you doing here, Travis?”
He toyed with his knife, casually running his thumb up and down the serrated blade. “Shane Hawthorne took quite a liking to you.”
I fidgeted with my order pad and pen. Maybe he did, but after I basically slammed the door in his face last night… “I doubt that.” Which was too bad, because the Shane Hawthorne I’d caught a glimpse of when he thought no one was looking was a hell of a lot more intriguing than the guy whose face had graced my bedroom wall.
“It’s true. As a matter of fact, he’d like you to join his team.”
“His team?” After one nigh
t of karaoke, had I earned a spot as a backup singer?
“Yes. He’s going on tour next week and he needs an assistant. Someone to make sure his dressing room is organized, keep him on schedule, that sort of thing.”
Oh. He didn’t like me. He just wanted to hire me. Definitely not the same. I gestured at the dining room of the sumptuous restaurant. “I have a job.”
Travis chuckled. It was early, and so far he was the only person at any of my tables. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Delaney. I did a little digging after we met yesterday.” Leaning his elbow on the table, Travis stroked his left eyebrow, dark eyes holding mine captive. “Looks to me like you ran as far away from home as you could get. Never got to finish school. Going on the road with Shane Hawthorne…it’s a pretty well-paying gig.” He mentioned a sum that would more than cover the three semesters of tuition and expenses it would take to earn my degree. I almost choked. “You’re a bright girl, Delaney. I’m offering an opportunity you shouldn’t turn down.”
I’d been saving as much as I could from my various jobs over the past three years and it wasn’t even close to covering textbooks, let alone tuition. Travis was dangling a carrot in front of an emaciated horse. Unfortunately for me—it was a carrot in the form of Shane Hawthorne. But Travis was right. I didn’t want to be a waitress for the rest of my life. I wanted to go back to school, get my degree. But I couldn’t, and not just because I didn’t have enough money.
How could I move forward with my life while my father was sitting behind bars, charged with my mother’s death?
“What do you have to lose? You’re a young girl; it’s a six-month tour. All your expenses will be covered, so you can bank everything you earn. And when the tour’s over, you can catch your breath and figure out what you really want to do with the rest of your life.” He smirked. “Because we both know it’s not waitressing.”
Bitterness rose, coating the back of my throat. It was the truth. I had nothing to lose.
Because I’d already lost everything.
What I wanted was to have my old life back. I wanted to call home. I wanted to hear my mother chiding me for spending too much time with my books and not enough time making friends. I wanted her to pass the phone to my father, who would question me about my coursework.