“We only hired Chief because the job got too big for you to handle and be on stage,” Gavin adds. “But if you’d be willing to take over the helm again, and let Ryan step in on drums, there’s no one I’d rather have running the show.”
Tyler’s last to speak. “Maybe the reason you’ve been frustrated with the band is because you’re frustrated with yourself. You keep saying you’re not a good enough musician. We give you shit, but that’s nothing compared to the shit you pile on yourself. Why not get off the drum throne and give yourself a break?”
My mouth hangs open. That grenade? It’s gone, replaced by a staccato beat of my heart. And it only takes a few beats to realize that yes, hell yes, this feels right.
Tyler’s smile cements it. “You’re part of the band, no matter what, Dave. If you want to stay onstage, we’ll work with that, maybe get some other guest musicians from time to time. But if you want to do something different, I think this could be good. Real good.”
What I want. How is it that I’d never considered this before? I’d never looked at what I do—all that I do for this band—and thought, hey, do I like this better than that?
Being in a band, a successful top-of-the-charts band, has been my dream since I was a kid. But when I parse that out, it was never about being the drummer. It was about being part of the success.
Success I made happen. Success I could make even better.
“What do you say, Ryan?” She looks up at me, startled. “You want to rock with this band of assholes?”
Her eyes shine and I see the hunger in them to make music, the same thing I see in my bandmates. “More than anything.”
“Then it’s settled. My first act as manager will be to tell you all to get your asses back to practice.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I show up at Willa’s in a bona fide suit, with the wildest bunch of flowers I could get my hands on.
When she peeks out her door, they have exactly the effect I was hoping for. Shock paints bright spots on her cheeks.
“Can I come in?”
“Oh. Sorry, yes.” She pulls open her door, still hiding behind it a little, so I don’t get the full effect of what she’s wearing until I’m all the way inside. I turn to look at her and holy wow.
“You. Look. Amazing.” I’m surprised I can even string three words together, considering how she is transformed. Her hair is in big pink Marilyn Monroe curls, and the dark blue-green dress does things for her cleavage that make my mouth water.
And her legs. Oh my God, her legs are strong and curvy like some pinup bombshell fantasy.
“Don’t get used to it.” She blushes even harder and smooths the dress. “I’m pretty sure this is the only thing I own that doesn’t have paint on it.”
I pull her hand to my mouth to kiss it and notice paint still stuck around the edges of her nails. That makes her even more perfect. “You get that I’m going to spend all night fantasizing about how I’m going to peel this dress off you, right?” I lower my voice and breathe a few more words into her ear. “With. My. Teeth.”
Her shiver is palpable and I fold her into my arms, kiss her hard and then kiss her soft. I kiss her in all the ways I want to make love to her tonight, all the ways I have to show her what she means to me.
When we’re both out of breath and kind of dizzy, she pulls back a little, squeezing my biceps. “Behave. We’re already showing up fashionably late, but if you keep kissing me like that, we’re going to miss the whole damned show.”
***
The crowd is thick in the gallery, but Patricia pounces on Willa the minute she steps in the door. She propels us to the corner of the gallery where there’s a little raised platform, and takes Willa up two steps to a microphone while I stand to the side of the stage.
It feels good, actually. Knowing I helped her get here, even if I’m not sharing the limelight. It reminds me that manager is who I am, what I do best, and what I love best.
Best, after Willa.
“Thanks for joining us for an encore show for Willa,” Patricia says. “We heard from so many of you after her first collection sold out that we were able to do it again. So please join me in welcoming the artist.”
There’s strong applause from the crowd, and cheers and hoots from an especially rowdy corner. I recognize them—the whole band and all the girls are here to support Willa’s show.
It feels like a homecoming.
“Unfortunately, I have some bad news,” Patricia continues. “This show sold out in thirty-five minutes. It’s a new record for our gallery, and I apologize to those of you who were unable to purchase your favorite pieces. But I think it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing a lot more from Willa.”
My girl smiles and nods, adding a heartfelt thank you to the crowd. When she steps down from the podium I can’t help it—I catch her and twirl her and kiss her again like nobody’s watching.
Of course, everybody’s watching, but for once, Willa doesn’t seem to mind. When we make our way to the rowdy kids in the corner, the band holds champagne flutes and swiftly plants one in each of our hands.
“To Willa!” Gavin toasts and we all clink glasses.
Patricia doesn’t let her stay with us. She captures Willa and steers her through the crowd of buyers and media. I stand back, admiring Willa in a spotlight that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she has made her mark.
When the crowd thins and she’s finally allowed to go home, I capture her, steer her to a waiting limo, and give one request: “Just drive.”
We’re quiet in the back seat, our hands twined together as we glide through the city at night. The energy from the opening still buzzes inside us, and Willa is wide-eyed from the utter chaos she just created in the art world.
They never expected her. They never expected to love her. And now, tomorrow’s going to be even brighter.
And that’s how it should be.
“You got any cash?” Willa asks.
I pull a wallet out of my suit jacket and hand it to her. “Yeah, plenty. Why?”
“Let’s get pizza.”
We direct the driver to an all-night pizza joint and go in to order. It’s her day, and if my girl wants pizza, I’m not stopping her.
“How many pizzas could you make in, say, the next half hour?” she asks the scruffy guy behind the counter.
“Uh, fifteen?”
“Try harder. Think you can do thirty?” Willa gives him the same man up look she gave me when I was drowning in self pity and I almost laugh at his frightened expression.
“I can try,” he says.
“Good, because two bucks tip per pizza says you’re going to try really damn hard.” Willa slaps my cash on the counter and the guy shouts to the back for another dude to come help him.
We wait.
“Um, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I don’t think I can eat thirty pizzas,” I say.
She cocks a brow. “They’re not for us.”
She deflects my prying until we’re each laden with more than a dozen fragrant pizzas. “Follow me.”
I know better than to question her or her rules. Keep up. Follow her, ask questions later.
She directs the limo to take us back to the railroad bridge where we had our first not-a-date. Then she dismisses the driver for the night.
Pizzas in hand, I follow Willa through the homeless camp, handing out boxes, insisting, “No, really, take the whole thing.”
Willa introduces me to Hal, who let her sleep in his tent the first winter she spent on the streets, a grandmotherly woman named Maggie who fusses over us and calls me handsome a dozen times, and some hard-eyed teens who greet Willa with a an unexpected warmth.
“Remember how I told you they’d give out food, but they’d never give street kids art supplies?” Willa asks as we walk from one makeshift shelter to the next.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s change that.”
When our arms are empty, I follow her up the steep steps to the bridge.
She takes off her heels and steps carefully on the narrow beam, out to the center above the rushing traffic.
She looks happier than I’ve ever seen her.
We both start talking at once, and she laughs.
“You first,” I offer.
“You saved me,” she says. “When I thought I’d never be able to deliver for the first show, you believed in me and got me through it. There aren’t enough words in the world to tell you how grateful I am, but there might be enough paint.”
She points, and I look at the warehouses stretching down the block. There’s a mural painted in a strange way, pieces of it on the edges of three buildings.
These pieces wouldn’t make sense to someone looking at them from the street. But from this vantage point—and I realize, only from this vantage point—I can read them clearly.
There’s a shape of two fists, knuckles facing me. And on the knuckles, the words love and fear are written.
I look down at my hands, exactly the same as this mural, then back up to the mural where the words written above the fists take my breath away.
Because I know love,
I know no fear.
“Oh, Willa.” I pull her in close, breathing in cinnamon and eucalyptus and just her. This strong and complicated and fierce woman who fought for me. And I fought for her.
I swallow hard and finally let go of her enough to cup her chin and tip up her face so I can see the clear blue in her eyes. “You say it louder in paint, but I’ve got to say it in words. I love you.”
Her breath hitches, but when she smiles, when she says those three words back, it’s like my own personal drum line is beating its way down the street in celebration.
DEAR READER
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xoxo,
Second chances don’t come easy for a guy like me.
When I get one—as a roadie for Tattoo Thief’s concert tour—I’m gonna give it all I’ve got.
But the band’s new drummer rocks me in every way. She’s Ryan Sinclair, my teenage dream. I fell in love with her, and then I broke her heart.
No way she’ll give me a second chance. No way I’m leaving this earth without it.
Skip a Beat (Tattoo Thief #5) is coming January 31, 2017.
Read on for a sneak peek at one of the first chapters…
I mash my foot hard on the accelerator, trying to find the speed that will get me back to Jayce in time for the concert, but not pulled over.
If I get stopped, I’ll never make it in time, and Jayce will be playing the concert without his guitar. I’ll have another mark on my already shaky driving record. And this roadie gig will vanish faster than concert beer.
I’ll be back to unemployed. Fuck if that isn’t depressing.
This gig is supposed to be the start of something great. If I’m careful, a sixteen-city tour with Tattoo Thief will fill up my bank account enough to get through my last year in school.
I curse myself for not checking backups. As the lead on the string instruments, I’m responsible for tuning and setting a half-dozen guitars for Tyler, Jayce and Gavin.
When Jayce sprung his D string in sound check, it was no big deal. But when I finally found the box of spares with no D strings to be had, I screwed up his other guitar trying to swap strings.
One more screwup in my already screwed-up life.
I dump the truck next to our tour trailers and weave through the back lot behind the amphitheater, hoofing it to the green room as fast as I can go. I cut myself in my haste to change the string, curse, and wipe the blood off the instrument with my black T-shirt.
Tuning the D almost does me in—I’m shaking from the adrenaline of the run but force to be silent, nearly still, to ensure I get the note right.
Then I’m running again, my Chucks pounding up black stairs marked with glow-in-the-dark tape. The crowd’s cheers reach a roar when Tattoo Thief walks onstage, and I slip onstage behind them to deposit the guitar in its stand.
Jayce catches me in his peripheral vision and quickly ducks out of the guitar strap holding my baby. The Taylor’s not too spendy, it’s definitely not pretty, but it was the best option when I was the guy who screwed up Jayce’s guitar in the first place.
We swap, he gives me a friendly pat on the back in thanks, and I turn my back to the crowd as Tattoo Thief takes their places for the show to begin.
I close my eyes. Just for a half-second. Just long enough to pause, to believe that thousands of screaming fans are here for me.
That’s the dream.
But this is reality. And reality says I’m not just a roadie with a dream, but a financially responsible future business guy.
What will I be selling? No clue.
I stride to the edge of the stage and I’m just about to hit the glow strips down the stairs when the snap-pop of a snare and high hat signals the start of Tattoo Thief’s first song.
I turn to look at the drummer, some last-minute addition to the tour like me, and nearly sprain my ankle as I clatter down the stairs. I grip the handrail like a lifeline, then turn back and just stare.
It can’t be her.
Jesus. It feels like a grenade to my chest, this explosion of knowing. My teenage dream, Ryan Sinclair, is sitting on the drum throne, legs spread around the snare. And she’s fucking glorious.
My body vibrates in her presence, like the tingly return of sensation to a numbed limb. I’m frozen in place, clutching the rail like I’m drowning as I watch her beat a ferocious pace down the toms and cymbals.
Her sure hand moves back to the snare and she’s everything, she takes up my whole vision. The lights and the stage and the crowd are edged out of the picture by pale brown hair that sways around her face in a few soft curls.
Her arms flex and her whole body moves in a dance, wrapping thousands of fans in her spell and driving the other three musicians forward.
She’s got the beat. Layers of it. My heart stuttered when I saw her—when I recognized her—and now it’s in rhythm with her beat, like she sets the pace and I follow.
That’s always the way it was between us, until the day I broke her heart.
“What are you doing, man?” Somebody jerks on my sleeve and it takes me a moment to refocus on anything beyond Ryan.
Guy in black. Right.
Another roadie like me.
He tugs me down the stairs to wait out the first few songs and I sway like I’m wasted or out of it. Memories of how Ryan smelled and tasted and felt under my body hit me faster than her drumbeats, each sense memory bitter and sweet.
But so potent. So fucking potent that I could play reel after reel in my head of the way her small pink nipples tightened in my hands. The tiny moans she’d make when I touched her just right.
In my dreams, I’d win her back. And she’d be my own personal porn star, straddling my lap and riding me like a rodeo horse so hard I’d gasp when I came. And then she’d go sweet, tender, as she kissed my eyelids after fucking me senseless.
I feel my jeans tighten but before I have a chance to covertly adjust my squashed dick, the roadie next to me barks “transition!” and we’re pounding up the steps, ready to move shit here and set shit there so the band’s ready for the next song.
I take a little too long to move Tyler’s monitor. I’m staring at pale brown hair, li
ke coffee with too much cream, as she tips back her head to chug from a water bottle.
Fuck. Even watching her throat work as she gulps it down is going straight to my groin.
She puts the bottle down, grabs her sticks, and then I’m caught.
Caught in the tractor beam that is her gaze, frozen in carbonite like Han Solo, and shit, maybe I’m mixing Star Wars and Star Trek metaphors but this girl is like her own planet.
She stares at me and licks her lips—not in the porn star pre-blow job way, but furtively. And even that is enough to unbalance me.
Her own gravitational force. Pulling me in, again.
But this time, I won’t let myself burn up in her atmosphere.
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xoxo
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wrote this book for you.
Yes, you.
Since I published Revenge Bound, I’ve received so many messages from readers like you—on Facebook, on my website, and via email—asking when Dave and Willa’s story would be published.
Holy wow, you’ve been patient.
Thank you so much for sticking with me.
Your messages encouraged me when I wasn’t feeling like much of an author. You helped me keep my head up and refreshed my focus on this fabulous band, Tattoo Thief. You contributed ideas, including some of the names in this book, via my Facebook page.
Some of you have been waiting patiently for more than two years. I took a break to publish another series, bought a new house and sold the old one, changed jobs and traveled a ton. After all of that, I’m back at my keyboard with great joy.
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