Blood and Guitars

by Heather Jensen

  I called Wes on my way home. He answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hey Wes, tell me you don’t have plans in the morning,” I said.

  “I had my heart set on eating pancakes in my underwear but …”

  I laughed. “Not a mental image I needed.”

  “You’re the one who asked.”

  “Actually, there’s this girl I want you to meet.”

  “Trey, I have a girlfriend,” he said, sounding almost bored.

  I laughed again. “No, it’s not that. Actually, I’m hoping she’s into me.”

  “And why are we meeting?” he asked curiously.

  “It’s a business proposition,” I said. “She’s an artist, and she’s absolutely amazing. The guys and I want her to the do the work for the album.”

  “Let me guess. You want me to pitch it to the label?”

  I grinned. “This is why we hired you, Wes. You can practically read minds.”

  Wes sighed but I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke again. “What time?”

  “She has an art studio on Cleveland called The Waking Moon. Bring Lisa around eight and I’ll bring coffee and pastries. We’ll make it a double date.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “See you tomorrow.” I ended the call and dialed Aurora’s number next.

  “Miss me already?” she asked when she answered.

  “You know me too well,” I said with a laugh. “Hey, Wes agreed to come by The Waking Moon tomorrow morning and see your work.”

  “Really? Tomorrow?” I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or just caught off guard.

  “Hey, it’ll be okay,” I promised. “Just bring the stuff you showed the guys tonight. He’ll love it. He’ll love you.”

  “If you say so,” she said, trying to sound optimistic.

  “I’ll meet you there the morning. Wes and his girlfriend will be there at eight.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “See you in the morning.” I was suddenly glad Aurora couldn’t see the idiotic grin on my face as I hung up.

  Chapter 29

  I should have gone to bed at some point during the night but I’m wired to be alert when the moon is out, so I worked to perfect the drawings I’d done at the studio. I spent hours working on my sketches of Trey and his band mates, adding crazy backgrounds to each of them, giving them a surreal effect worthy of an album jacket.

  Then I did an entirely new sketch of the group. I drew a close up of a guitar, or at least the main body of one. Then I added drops of rain falling onto it. Within each drop of rain and the splashes of water that ricocheted off the guitar were images of the different guys. Their faces were stretched and distorted within the drops of water but not beyond recognition. Six a.m. rolled around entirely too fast and I scrambled to get showered and dressed for the day. Then I put my sketches in the portfolio and loaded them in the car to drive to The Waking Moon. I paced around the front of the studio for a while, rearranging things to make sure that Wes would get the best first impression of my work possible. I set out an easel with the painting I’d done of Trey while he’d been playing his guitar in my loft the other night, hoping it would give Wes a good idea of how I could represent Trey and the other guys on canvas.

  Trey showed up at half past seven with a box of assorted Italian pastries and four coffees. He must have read the anticipation on my face because he set everything down and wrapped his arms around me. “Don’t tell me you’ve been obsessing all night about this,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I know you too well.” He kissed the top of my head and then released me. “And you worry too much.”

  “There are a lot of starving artists in the world.” I took a coffee and sipped it. “There’s a reason I’m not one of them.”

  “Because you’re amazing.” Trey said.

  “And because I obsess,” I added with a wry smile. I opened my sketchpad and showed him the new drawing I’d done last night.

  “This is me learning to shut up,” he said with a grin as he admired the drawing.

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  I set the sketchpad aside and Trey offered me the box of pastries. We snacked for a few minutes and Trey debated about which painting hanging on display Wes would like most. I sensed Wes a moment before he came into view through the large front windows.

  “They’re here,” Trey announced unnecessarily as Wes pulled the front door open and held it for a woman I assumed was Lisa, the girlfriend Trey had mentioned. “Hey, you found the place,” Trey said as he and Wes bumped fists.

  “You gave me decent directions for once,” Wes said, removing his sunglasses.

  Trey handled the introductions and I shook both of their hands.

  “You really did all these?” Wes said to me, gesturing with a sweep of his hand to all the paintings on display.

  “And more,” I said. “It’s how I make a living.”

  Wes smiled as he noticed the painting I’d done of Trey for the first time. He stepped forward to get a better look and Lisa followed. Trey caught my eye and winked at me.

  “This is amazing,” Lisa said as she looked over her shoulder at me.

  Had it been dark out, I’d have been reading Wes’s mind already. His silence was deafening as he walked around the showroom and studied my work. Lisa was more talkative, which you would have thought would help me relax some.

  “I always wanted to take an art class,” Lisa said to Trey and I. “It seems like it would be good for the soul to be able to express yourself that way.”

  “Aurora gave me my first lesson,” Trey added.

  “I bet that was entertaining,” she said with a small laugh. “What did you paint? A guitar?”

  Trey sipped his coffee to buy a few seconds and then shrugged at Lisa. “Maybe.”

  Lisa rolled her eyes at him but she was smiling. The banter between them was evidence that they’d spent enough time around each other for Lisa to feel comfortable giving Trey a hard time. It was just one more piece of the puzzle, an explanation as to how Trey and his band mates managed to stay so grounded despite their successes.

  Finally, Wes tore himself away from my paintings and approached us. A hint of a smile was playing on his lips. “Well, you certainly have the talent for the job,” he said to me. “I guess the real question is can you stand to spend that much time with Trey and the other guys?”

  “It’s a rough job, as you know,” I said. “But someone’s got to do it.”

  “At least then you’d be getting paid to put up with this one,” Lisa said, gesturing at Trey with a slight jerk of her head.

  “I am sitting right here,” Trey reminded her. Then he added, “Aurora is perfect for the job. The fact that I get to be the subject of her art is just a bonus.”

  “For who?” Wes teased. Trey ignored him, taking a bite from his pastry and chewing happily. Wes turned to me and said, “Trey mentioned you have some sketches you did at the studio?” I pulled out my sketch pad and handed it to him, feeling a little more relaxed now as he flipped through the drawings. “I know the guys didn’t sit still and pose while you did these,” Wes said. “Which only makes it all the more incredible that you managed pieces of this quality. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but I’m glad you did. I’ll talk to the guys at Celebrity Dent. This should be one of the easier pitches I’ve made on the band’s behalf.”

  “Thanks,” I told him sincerely. “Take the sketch book with you. Hopefully my work will speak for itself.”

  Trey was munching on a second pastry, and he offered the box to Wes and passed Lisa and Wes both a coffee.

  “I’ve driven past this place before,” Lisa said. “I always wondered what might be inside. Any special reason you chose the name?”

  “It’s one of the names given to the full moon in April,” I explained. “That and it just sounded better than Egg Moon or Fishing Moon.”

  Trey chuckled. “No argument ther
e.”

  Wes took a sip of coffee and said, “Do you have any ideas in mind for painting the guys?”

  “A few,” I assured him. “I want to really capture what makes each of them unique in their individual paintings, because I think those qualities are what make them so strong when they come together.” I was somewhat surprised once the words had left my mouth. It was quite a contrast to my emotionally distant nature, but I’d been surprising myself a lot lately. In true Trey fashion, he pretended to wipe invisible tears from his eyes. I glanced at him just long enough to roll my eyes at his theatrics and then continued. “I’ll add my own little strange twist to each piece, but that sort of thing just comes as I go.”

  “Well, I think it will be great to have someone who’s actually spending time with the guys do the artwork. It’s a good idea all around.”

  After some more small talk, Wes and Lisa thanked us for the goodies and left to go about the rest of their day.

  “You’ve got it,” Trey said confidently.

  “Do you think?” I asked, although I had a feeling he was right. I was more excited about the prospect of being able to work for the band than I’d realized until that moment. If everything went as planned, I’d have a legitimate business agreement involving Trey that would help me justify all the time we were spending together.

  Chapter 30

  I almost panicked when I found out that the VMA’s and the Lunar Eclipse ritual with the Synod were happening on the same night. Normally I would have freaked, but apparently Trey’s carefree attitude had worn off on me some during all the time we’d been spending together. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t completely caught on to the whole happy-go-lucky thing, but the fact that I was determined to make it to both events ought to count for something. Besides, I could never have cancelled on Trey. If it were that easy, I’d have been able to turn him down to begin with. But the last thing I’d wanted was to cause him pain, and it wasn’t hard to see how much he was looking forward to taking me along with him to the award show.

  Hence the overscheduled evening I had ahead of me. And the day was still young. I’d been careful not to let Antonio or Mark know that I had other plans that evening, since that would have been more than suspicious. Antonio had been pretty easy in that area, since I’d only spoken to him on the phone since the last full moon, but Mark had been a different story. I’d told him a half-truth by letting him know that I’d been hired to do some work for a record label, but I hadn’t mentioned that it was for Trey’s album, or that Trey was even a musician. In fact, Mark had no idea that the human we’d gotten into a huge fight about was still in my life at all. I just had to keep it that way.

  The last week and a half had rushed by in a blur of afternoons spent at the recording studio. Wes had called me the morning after our meeting at The Waking Moon and given me the good news. I’d signed paperwork with him that night at Trey’s, and since then I’d been under official contract with the recording label to do the artwork for Catalyst’s new record. I’d been a regular at the studio each night, bringing along my easel, blank canvases, paints, and brushes. I usually just picked a spot nearby, depending on what room the guys were playing in, and painted away while they worked on songs. On Trey’s nights off, he spent time writing songs at The Waking Moon, watching me paint and occasionally joining in. The album was almost finished now. The guys had recorded eighteen songs for it. Soon they would just be narrowing it down to the best ones for the album.

  I had gone shopping for a dress to wear to the awards show a few days ago. I’d dragged myself out of bed way too early in the afternoon so I could hit the shops before they closed. I’d managed to find the perfect dress. I could almost see the look on Trey’s face already. He was going to love it.

  Right now that dress was carefully concealed in a garment bag and laid out in the backseat of Trey’s Mazda as we closed the distance between Clearwater and Miami. We’d spent the better part of the morning heading south on I-75 and I’d been trying to hide my anxiety about the crazy night ahead of me, but now that we were nearing our destination I began to relax.

  “I can’t wait to get out and stretch my legs,” Trey complained halfheartedly.

  “Shouldn’t you be used to traveling?” I teased.

  “I’m not usually the one driving,” he muttered. “Plus, I can get up and walk around on the tour bus.”

  “We could have flown,” I countered. He’d offered to get us plane tickets initially, but after we debated the pros and cons of dealing with airport lines and security we had decided to make the drive. “But I’m glad we didn’t.” And that was true. I hadn’t regretted that decision once. I’d had over four hours of alone time with Trey already today, and I was enjoying every minute of it. I’d made a point to go out last night and feed. The last thing I wanted was to be lethargic while trying to pretend that being out all day wasn’t a big deal. Hopefully the feeding combined with a glass of blood/wine I downed before leaving today would help in that area. Plus, I hadn’t forgotten that I was going to be in a large venue surrounded by mostly humans tonight and I didn’t want to be tempted in the slightest. Tonight was Trey’s night, or at least it was until midnight. Then, I would have to get away for the Lunar Eclipse ritual, and for that I had a plan.

  Trey reached over to squeeze my hand gently.

  “Where’s Cowboy?” I realized that he’d have had to leave his dog with someone to make an overnight trip like this.

  “Jonas’s sister took him for me. She spoils him rotten so he loves her.”

  I nodded and tried to remember what life had been like back in the days when I’d last had a pet. Of course, I’d been human in those days. Sometimes that part of my life seemed a century away, but at times like this when I was with Trey and things were almost normal I remembered it clearly. That is, if you consider my staying up all moon- forsaken day to attend a high-profile pop culture event with a ridiculously famous human normal.

  When we arrived at the hotel, Trey arranged to have our things taken up to the room and then declared that it was time for some lunch.

  “I thought you might feel that way,” I told him as he took my hand and guided me in the direction of the hotel’s restaurant. “Anyone within a mile radius could have heard your stomach growling the last half-hour of the drive.”

  “That bad, huh.” He chuckled, patting his stomach. Before we entered the restaurant Trey got a text from O’Shea. He and Jonas had just arrived at the hotel a few minutes behind us.

  “They might as well join us for lunch then,” I suggested.

  When Trey looked at me his face seemed pleasantly surprised at the idea. “Are … are you sure? I mean-”

  “Of course I’m sure,” I said. “Besides, O’Shea has promised to divulge a bunch of embarrassing stories about you. Now is as good a time as ever to cash in on that.”

  A nervous laugh escaped his lips as he sent a reply back on his phone. We requested a table for four and were immediately taken to a quiet corner in the back. Knowing the guys, it wouldn’t be quiet for long.

  “Where is Chase if he’s not with the other guys?” I asked as we opened our menus.

  “He flew down early this morning to meet a girl he knows here in Miami. I have no idea where he’s at now, but he has a room near ours for tonight,” Trey explained.

  “Chase is bringing a date tonight,” I though out loud.

  “Seems that way.”

  “And Jonas and O’Shea? Are they-”

  “Dateless losers?” suggested a familiar voice from over my shoulder. I turned to see Jonas and O’Shea sauntering toward us.

  “That pretty much sums us up,” Jonas said, agreeing with O’Shea’s assessment of their social lives.

  “Hey guys,” Trey and I said together, greeting them as they joined us at the table.

  “I’m starving,” O’Shea said as he opened his menu.

  “Join the club.” Trey gave me a smug ‘I’m not the only one’ look that made me laugh.

  A
waiter took our orders and the conversation immediately turned to what the guys would say if they happened to win the award tonight. They threw around a couple of names of people who had contributed to “Filtered Ache” and the music video they’d done for the song. I wasn’t surprised to hear Ken mentioned. Of course he would have been the one to produce the song. It didn’t take them long to come up with a definitive list of names of people who deserved thanks, which O’Shea had taken the liberty of writing down on an old receipt he had in his wallet.

  It didn’t take much prompting on my part to get the guys spilling the beans on Trey. All I had to do was gently nudge them in the right direction and the stories came freely. To Trey’s credit, he was a much better sport than I would expect anyone to be when reminded of their most embarrassing moments on and off stage. He did a lot of eye rolling and elbow jabbing but the smile never left his eyes, which was impressive considering the stories I was hearing. Trey was the prankster, and so the rest of the guys always had a lot of getting even to do. Once, O’Shea had even gone so far as to squirt Trey’s microphone with ‘skunk juice’ as he’d referred to it. Apparently the audience had gotten a kick out of the look on Trey’s face when he’d stepped up to the microphone, which had replaced his normal one halfway through the show. Trey hadn’t actually sang into the microphone, but had grabbed it in his enthusiasm to start the next song in the set and then the smell had hit him, along with several people in the front row. O’Shea and the rest of the band had laughed until they were almost in tears as Trey dropped the mic and kicked it to the side of the stage where a poor member of the stage crew had collected and disposed of it. Even Trey was laughing along by the time O’Shea had reached this point in the story.

  “My hand stunk for like a week.” Trey wrinkled his nose. “It didn’t matter how many times I washed it and tried to get rid of the smell. It was brutal.”