Hard Rock Arrangement

by Ava Lore

  My own release came swiftly, an explosion of sensation cascading over my body, and I had to turn my face into my pillow to stifle my scream.

  I knew he heard me, though. Just as I was certain he knew I could hear him.

  I only had a moment to recover before the bed springs squeaked in the next room, the sound of someone's weight rolling off the bed.

  Kent was up. Our morning ritual was almost complete. The last one before we went to San Diego this afternoon for shooting.

  Standing up, I fluffed my hair out and opened my door the very moment he opened his. In unison, we stepped into the hallway and turned toward each other.

  Ostensibly, Kent was going to the kitchen for breakfast, and I was heading to the bathroom for a shower. That's what an outsider would think.

  Our eyes met.

  A jolt rocketed through me, dragging a gasp to my lips that I barely repressed. In the dimness of the hallway his blue-green eyes were gray-blue, like the sea under the clouds, and it took all my willpower not to suck my lower lip between my teeth. Kent wore the same expression he always did, a glower so black I always wanted to ask him who died, but I was too afraid to do so just in case he said, “You.”

  Kent started forward. He was so tall, he loomed in the narrow hallway like a black tidal wave, moving inexorably toward me, and I had no choice but to forge ahead to meet him, my eyes still riveted to his.

  Normally we would play a little game of sexual-tension chicken, but today he stopped in the middle of the hall, blocking my way.

  “Are you ready to go to San Diego?” he asked me suddenly.

  I stared up at him, surprised. “What?” I said. “Of course. I'm all packed and ready to go.”

  “That's not what I meant,” he said.

  Oh.

  Had Carter told him about Jason? I hoped not. I didn't want anyone else to know what an idiot I was. With Carter it was okay, because he was a master at embarrassing himself in public, so I didn't feel bad letting him in on my embarrassing secrets. Kent was different. I wanted him to think well of me. No one would think well of me if they knew I let myself be cheated on and lied to and stolen from for years. I didn't want to be seen as a victim.

  So maybe I could have been forgiven for what fell out of my mouth next, without my consent.

  “I'll be fine,” I said, listening to my own voice with horror. “I'll even take you guys to my old stomping grounds if you want.”

  What? What? Did I just say that? Am I an idiot?

  Well, yes. But I'd hoped not that much of an idiot.

  It took all my willpower to not suddenly clap my hands over my mouth as if I'd just blurted the secret location of the lost city of gold. Instead I smiled, though I'm pretty sure it looked like a grimace.

  Kent stared down at me for a moment longer, and then turned aside, allowing me to pass.

  “I'm sure that will be fun,” he said as I squeezed past him and ran into the bathroom.

  Yeah. Tons of fun.

  Oh well. That was for future Rebecca to deal with. She could fake a stomach ache or something.

  *

  An hour later and I was sitting in the living room, my body a bundle of nerves, my foot jiggling like crazy on my knee, and looking out the window when the van pulled up.

  Van? I thought as the driver leaned on the horn and honked long and loud.

  Leaning over, I picked up my duffel bag—actually Carter's duffel bag, “from back when I did kung fu!”—and swung it over my shoulder. It was a little embarrassing to have Master Wu's Lotus Kung Fu Academy on my luggage, but beggars can't be choosers. I peeked down the hall, wondering where Kent and Carter were, but then I heard Kent in Carter's room, admonishing him for making everyone late and I sighed. I'd just leave that to him, then.

  “I'm getting in the van!” I yelled down the hall then hoofed it out of the house to the still-honking van.

  When I opened the back door of the van to get inside, two things hit me: one was a cloud of pot smoke, and the other was the fact that Sonya was driving.

  I'd thought Sonya was too much of a princess to drive the band around, so I was surprised to see her sitting in the driver's seat, chewing angrily on a wad of gum and pounding away at the horn like it was wired to her clit. She shot me her customary glare when I hesitated just outside the door. “Well?” she said. “Get in.”

  “They're coming,” I told her.

  “Good,” she said. She didn't let up on the horn.

  Taking a deep breath, I reached out and climbed into the van.

  I was again shocked. Instead of seats, the van had what looked like a couch going down the passenger's side and wrapping around the back. Manny was already there smoking a joint. The atmosphere inside the van was thick with smoke. I coughed as I threw my bag down and tried to figure out how to sit properly on the couch. Did it have seat belts? It had to have seat belts. Should I wear one? Or was that dorky?

  Ugh, I thought. How did I come to a point in my life where I have to worry about looking dorky in my mid-twenties?

  That point was probably only reachable through the point where I thought it would be a good idea to team up with a rock band, I guess.

  “Hey Rebecca,” Manny said as I tried to surreptitiously check for seat restraints. “You want a hit?”

  I looked up and frowned at him to see if he were joking, and then remembered that he didn't know I wasn't Carter's real girlfriend. Carter's real girlfriend would take a hit, because surely Carter would take a hit. Shit, all this stuff was so confusing. Should I? I knew I shouldn't. I should be a good example. On the other hand I was already hotboxing just by getting into the car, so maybe I should just relax a bit.

  “Um, sure,” I said. Manny grinned at me and held out the joint. I took it, pinching it between thumb and forefinger and took a hit.

  It burned like a wildfire in my lungs and I immediately began to cough. “Jesus,” I said as the car began to spin around me. “Jesus, what is that shit?”

  From the front of the car, Sonya turned around, took one look at me, and glared at Manny. “You dumb fucker,” she said, “what the hell is wrong with you? Don't give that shit to people without telling them what it is.”

  Panic bubbled up in my chest. “Why?” I demanded, although it seemed like everything was suddenly very far away. “Why, what's in it?”

  “Nothing,” Manny said. “It's just pure medical grade weed.” He grinned at me and his teeth were as white as a shining moon.

  “Holy shit,” I said. The top of my head was trying to unscrew itself and float away. “What the fuck...”

  “You dumb motherfucker,” Sonya said again, and I had no idea if she was talking to me or Manny. Manny just laughed and Sonya leaned on the horn again.

  Time did a weird thing and stretched out very thin before snapping back again when someone opened the front door of the van.

  “Me, me, me!” Carter was saying. “I called shotgun before we even left the house!”

  I heard Kent heave a sigh. “Fine,” he snapped. “Enjoy it.”

  I turned my head in a haze, just in time to see Carter hop into the front seat. He turned and gave me a huge wink and I realized, with all the clarity of a weed revelation, that he was playing matchmaker. Trying to set me and Kent up.

  I burst into the most inappropriate giggles ever just as Kent climbed into the van.

  To my pot-addled brain he looked insanely attractive. Not just hot, but panty-melting hot. Which was weird since I had never ever gotten horny after smoking pot, but suddenly just seeing Kent set my nerves on fire.

  Then Kent locked eyes with me and I was hit by the sudden, heady paranoia of really good weed.

  He knows! my brain screamed at me. Knew I got turned on just seeing him, knew I got off to the sound of him jacking off in the next room, knew that I wanted nothing more than to screw his brains out, or to have him screw my brains out and Jesus, this weed was really good. He probably knew I was high, too. High as the moon. Moon. Mooooooooooooooooooon.r />
  I laughed harder.

  “Did you give her a hit?” I heard Kent ask Manny.

  “Yeah, man. She looked like she needed it.”

  Kent sighed. The sound of his breath raked over my senses, setting me on high alert, and my body felt heavy and suddenly I was starving.

  Clawing my way out of the giggles, I turned my head to Manny and tried to see straight. “You got anything to eat in here?”

  “Always, darling. Always.” He turned to the side and I realized there was a cabinet next to him. He opened the door and pulled out a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.

  How did he know? “You read my mind?” I asked him.

  “Who wouldn't eat these?” he said. He tossed them to me and I was incredibly shocked to find that I was able to catch them, although the sudden jump made me feel as though my face were about to float off my skull. This was some really powerful weed.

  “Hey Kent,” Manny said, “you wanna hit?”

  “No.” Kent's voice, always an almost physical presence to me, caressed my skin and I couldn't suppress the shivers that ran up and down my body. This, of course, did not stop me from yanking open my bag of potato chips and cramming them in my mouth. All it meant was that I was now happy on several levels.

  I turned to look at Kent and found him sitting tensely next to me, his whole body curled in on itself, his arms crossed and his eyes watching the window across from us, glaring out at the moving landscape. Moving. We were moving?

  The van went over a bump and I fell over, straight into Kent.

  So yes. Yes, we were moving.

  I started to giggle again. “I'm so sorry,” I babbled. “Manny didn't tell me this was medical weed. I had no idea...” My hand was on his thigh, and his muscles beneath the dark fabric of his well-worn jeans were hard as rocks. I stared down at where my hand had landed, marveling at how the paleness of my skin shone out against the darkness of him.

  He was stock still next to me, against me, and I looked up to see him staring down at me. His eyes... intensity. Ferocity. Staring straight through me...

  The van jostled again and I seemed to wake from my trance. With more force than necessary I pushed away from Kent, not sure how long I'd been feeling him up and staring into his eyes. I scrambled backwards on the couch and decided to keep at least a foot between us. The ride down to San Diego wasn't too long. Two hours at the outside. I just had to ignore him until then.

  Inhaling deeply, I turned toward the TV hanging from the back corner of the van. “Let's watch something,” I said to Manny.

  “Sure thing, darling,” he replied, and I wondered, somewhat distantly, why he had started calling me darling all of a sudden.

  Oh well. That was just Manny being Manny, from what I could tell. He flipped the TV on and I let myself slump in my seat, drifting away on a cloud of pot smoke and potato chips.

  *

  I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing.

  I kept my eyelids shut. My mouth was dry and my eyeballs felt like marbles, but even that discomfort couldn't distract me from the fact that it was the last ring tone I wanted to hear right now.

  Scratch that. The last ring tone I wanted to hear ever.

  Struggling through the post-high haze, I peeled my eyes open.

  Things were... different.

  For one, they were all sideways. I was lying down. And my head was on something warm. And living. And firm.

  And blue.

  Oh. Oh, dear.

  Adrenaline spiked through me and I sat bolt upright. “Are we there yet?” I chirped as brightly as I could, pretending I hadn't just been sleeping with my head in Kent Hudson's goddamn lap, holy shit!

  “We'd be there if it weren't for this fucking traffic.” I blinked. That was Sonya's voice. Turning my head, afraid that it would fall off, I noted that she was staring intently at the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. And the traffic was, indeed, atrocious. But we were here. We were in San Diego. I would have recognized it anywhere.

  The post-high haze began to recede and I looked around.

  Manny had succumbed to the pot smoke and was curled up on the couch snoring peacefully while Carter was quiet in the front seat. And next to me...

  Next to me Kent was staring at me.

  A flush of color and heat went through me, potent and startling, enough to take my breath away. I bit my lip and turned away, raking my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look as though I hadn't just been sleeping with my head in Kent's lap. The brother of my nominal boyfriend.

  I remembered Carter's wink.

  Okay, my nominal boyfriend's brother, and said boyfriend wanted to hook us up or something. Carter's motives for finagling this seating arrangement were somewhat suspect—if Kent and I were involved with each other it would obviously be harder to keep Carter on our radar, which was the exact reason we had agreed not to pursue anything, entirely aside from the lie that Carter had a wholesome girlfriend and oh my god when did my life get so complicated?

  I put a hand to my face just as my phone started ringing again. Again the dreaded ring tone. Jason's ring tone. The opening bars of one of his songs.

  Not looking at anyone I reached into my messenger bag and snatched the phone out of it before mashing the ignore button as though I could somehow ignore every call from him ever again. Why hadn't I blocked his number? I should have...

  “Are you all right?”

  Startled, I glanced up to see Kent still staring at me. The intensity of his blue-green eyes pierced straight through me, down into my heart.

  I sucked my breath in. “I'm fine,” I said. “I've just never had that kind of weed, that's all.” Jason had smoked the medical grade stuff, and so had most of his friends. It was easy to get it in California as long as you were white.

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything else to me. Instead he stood as far as he could in the cramped quarters of the van and turned toward the front. “Hey,” I heard him say to Sonya.

  I am not going to scope that ass. I am not going to scope that ass. I am not going to scope that ass...

  I sneaked a glance at Manny and found him still asleep. I was safe.

  I scoped that ass, for a good minute, and then we were finally pulling up to the hotel.

  *

  Check in was swift and painless, and we had a good hour left before the band had to be at the shooting location—the lighthouse, of course, on Point Loma. A great spot, with a beach and the sun and a desolate end-of-the-world feel, even on sunny days. And it was cheap. All in all, I should have figured that was where we would be going.

  I breathed the smell of the hotel—clean sheets and floor polish—and took my key from the nice receptionist lady. A block of suites on the fifth floor had been reserved for us, and I was looking forward to collapsing and taking a nice nap or watching some TV. Even though I'd slept in the van, travel wore me the hell out. I was staying in Carter's room, but luckily there was a pull-out bed on the couch in the suite, and as the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor with a ding, I made to follow Carter.

  “Rebecca.”

  Kent's voice cut through the quiet, tired shuffling of bags and clothes. I turned to see him still standing in the elevator. “Yes?” I said.

  He glanced at Carter who was standing next to me, looking puzzled. “Carter, could you take Rebecca's bag with you to your room? I need to speak with her alone.”

  He's going to tell me off for getting high, I realized. I knew it. Goddammit. I should have stayed sober. I'd let myself slip because Carter had been behaving himself, but I should have remembered I was here to do a job.

  I cast a pleading look at Carter, but he just looked relieved that it wasn't him on the chopping block this time.

  With a sigh I stepped back into the elevator. The doors slid shut behind me and suddenly I was alone in a confined space with Kent Hudson.

  Light lightning, awareness jolted through me. The last time we had been alone together, we had wat
ched each other. I'd watched him stroke his cock and he'd watched me bury my fingers in my cunt until we both came in the darkness. The time before that, he had cornered me in my sister's bathroom and born me to the ground, his mouth finding every soft, dark, secret part of me. And the time before that we had tangled in an airplane bathroom, coming so close to joining the mile high club that really only technicalities kept us from it.

  Kent and confined spaces mixed far too well. I knew it, and he knew it.

  His body went rigid as he stabbed a number on the control panel. Floor seven. The top floor. Why we were going there I had no idea. I forced my feet to take me to the opposite side of the elevator and leaned stiffly against the wall until the elevator dinged again and the doors parted. Then I shot into the hallway as though my ass were on fire.

  Breathing hard, I turned and watched Kent step warily from the elevator, his eyes locked on me. I won't say our eyes were locked because he seemed to be quite interested in what my breathing was doing to my breasts, and the caress of his eyes caused my nipples to harden, tightening painfully beneath my shirt.

  I swallowed. “Okay,” I managed to say. “What do you want to talk about?”

  His lips twisted and I could see him trying to figure out what to say. Maybe this wasn't about the pot?

  And then my phone rang.

  Jason. Again.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  Reaching into my bag, I yanked the phone out and ignored him again.

  That, apparently, was all it took to break the ice with Kent.

  He crossed the distance between us, drawing close and then taking one step closer, the step that brought him into my personal space. Startled, I squeaked and looked up at him, nearly dropping my phone. “What?” I said. My voice came out high and wheezy. Like a mouse fart, as my mother used to say.

  Kent glared down at me. “Who keeps calling you?” he demanded.

  Unable to look away, I shoved my phone blindly into my bag. “No one.”

  Blue-green eyes glared down at me. “It's not no one. They have their own ring tone. And you never pick up. Who is it?”