by Lyrica Creed
A smile quirked her lips. A breeze stirred her hair, and she hooked the tendril with a finger, shoving it unceremoniously back into her ponytail clip. “Figured you’d be sick of looking at your little sister by now.”
Her words were light, but she glanced at him with that sideways look she sometimes had. Was she asking what it seemed she was asking? And if so, was it conscious or unconsciously? She played with her forefinger, drawing squiggles in the sandy dirt. Watching her, he wondered if it was time to draw their lines in the sand—or more aptly, erase them—so to speak.
“I haven’t seen my little sister in a long, long time.”
That caught her attention. Her chin swiveled until she directly faced him, and then he watched a flush creep up her neck. Outside of music, he’d never been known for his timing. And now as they sat like Indians on a hiking trail while watching the sky slowly turn, he wondered if he was fucking things up with his admission. But he couldn’t stop himself now that he’d started. His gaze fell on her lips, which were barely glossed from a coating of Chap Stick he’d tried to pretend he wasn’t watching her apply in the Escalade earlier.
“I want to kiss you, Scar. A real kiss. One that’s not a mistake a minute later. One that’s not a shotgun hit…”
Her lashes flew up, unveiling her gaze even more. A school of emotions swam in her eyes, and he took in her desire-dilated pupils. Her chin lifted a bit and she seemed to sway ever so slightly his way—or was he tilting her way? He wasn’t sure, but he was never one to let opportunity pass. Angling his head and dropping his lips, he fit them to hers.
Mmh. Lemon Chap Stick.
Chapter 33
Nothing had ever felt as right as this. Except, the last time we’d kissed. Thoroughly, his lips caressed mine before he glided his tongue over my bottom lip and then beyond to touch mine. Eagerly, our tongues mingled together. His palm cupped the back of my head, and his fingers curled, parting the hair to rub against my scalp.
When we slowed for air, his eyes opened into mine and then closed again when we resumed the kiss. Somehow I ended up in his lap, and with both of his arms now banded protectively around me as we kissed, my emotions rocketed to a new level.
“Stay. Okay? Let’s figure this shit out between us…”
His breath warmed my lips as he spoke, and I realized I was nodding. That my body was answering even before I found my voice. “Okay.” The word was a whispered agreement.
“Hey, I forgot to get the—” Seth broke off as he rounded a bend and viewed us. “…keys.” Jeter was right on his heels.
Horrified, I scooted from his lap and both Gage and I shot to our feet. Gage tossed the fob to Seth, and as the boys moved beyond our sight, their conversation drifted back.
“Damn… You got that right… Thought that was your dad’s girlfriend…”
I was brushing the dirt from the seat of my shorts when Jeter’s words settled around us, and Gage bent, branding me with another kiss.
“…brother and sister…”
The teens were far enough away that their exchange was now a mumble, but that much I understood and jerked away from Gage again. His amused look told me he had heard too, but instead of being upset, he found it funny.
The sky had burned to orange when we reached the vehicle, which Gage had parked in a cul-de-sac near a friend’s house. He was breathing hard again, but that didn’t stop him from following me around to the passenger side and chivalrously opening my car door. After closing me in, he paused at the tailgate to toss in the backpack.
“Are we going straight to my house?” Seth asked, once the car was in motion, and expounded his inquisition. “Jeter’s dad is picking him up.”
“Sure,” Gage replied. He’d rested a hand on the back of my seat as he had reversed from his parking place, and before it fell completely away, he brushed my shoulder. “Listen,” his voice rose enough to carry to the back seat, “not to be awkward, but I should tell you… My father and Scarlette’s mother were married for a while a long time ago. We were once stepbrother and sister. Just thought it was important that you know the step part.
“Sure. Whatever,” Seth returned, seemingly unconcerned and then began to converse with Jeter about a skateboard they both wanted.
I turned the AC vent to blow directly on my heated face, and Gage’s hand briefly left the clutch to close over mine.
What was going to happen now that we’d kissed?
A dark SUV was already parked in Colt’s driveway and Gage parked a car length behind it. The boys gathered their things and we all exited en masse. Gage needed to speak with Colt and I was tagging along.
One of the back doors of the guest vehicle swung open as I neared and then immediately closed when Jeter climbed into the car from the other side.
I waved in passing even though I couldn’t see the occupants through the heavy window tint, and the car pulled away.
We followed Seth inside and the teen veered off down a long hallway after greeting his father. Colt was on his feet when we entered the den area, and he greeted me with a squeeze to my arms and dropped a casual kiss to my lips.
This was surprising, but I figured we had accelerated to a more familiar greeting phase. After all, since I’d been in La La land, I had witnessed even heterosexual women greeting each other with a peck on the lips.
Gage however, was not happy. “Damn it all, Powers. If you don’t keep off of her…”
Colt threw me a wink, as if to say he was only poking the bear and moved to stand before a stylish drink caddy. “What to drink?”
Gage shook his head and I followed suit. Soon the two guys were deep into talk about the upcoming session. Thankfully, we didn’t adjourn to the studio. I sat on the couch and flipped through a Rolling Stone magazine until I came to the cover story about Fire Flight. It was easy to tune them out, and keep my naughty thoughts from wandering back to the hiking trail as I read the article and pored over the pictures.
I felt it again―the intense change in the relationship between Gage and me ―when he held the car door open and closed me inside the dark vehicle. But the moment he was inside, he turned up the satellite radio and began to sing along with the current song. I enjoyed his voice and even joined in.
The next time I felt a bit of panic was inside the house, in the same room I’d apologized for my kiss the night we’d been to Outpost Road. Gage finished rearming the alarm and settled one hand on each of my shoulders as he dogged me down the narrow hallway to the main area of the house.
“Want to practice?” He was speaking of the song I had now learned from start to finish, but my naughty mind conjured up far more intimate things to practice. Subsequently, I felt my twentieth blush of the day and was feeling thankful he was behind me when he hugged me to him. We had reached the intersection with the wide hallway. Although I savored the feel of my back to his front, and the possessive wrap of his arms, I knew I had stiffened when his breath brushed my ear. “Don’t you say it.”
“But—”
Spinning me around, he covered my lips with his.
Where do we go from here?
“Let go, Scar.” The kiss was gentle, a mere few brushes of his mouth against mine. “Don’t think about it. Just take this one step at a time.”
I nodded. “I guess I’ll make your smoothie and then practice a minute while you get ready for tomorrow.”
We separated, him going to his studio and me to the kitchen. I used a pestle to grind a couple of the fresh ingredients and then added them to the blender. After pouring the mixture into a plastic tumbler with a lid, I set it in the fridge to chill for the next day because Gage swore that cold was the only way he could stomach it. Next, I poured a cup of tart cherry juice over crushed ice and carried it with me to the studio.
He wasn’t a fan of the juice, either. I could tell by his face each evening, but he didn’t complain, and he didn’t gag it down as he did the smoothies. Tonight he tipped the glass and downed it quickly with a slight shudder as the l
ast sip disappeared.
Gage discarded the glass on a table and resumed his tapping on a laptop across the room. I sat on the couch, and hunched over the guitar I’d been using all week. I could blaze through the piece now, and had begun elaborating measures with more measures. I had figured out the chords he’d taught me could be used up and down the frets and of course, combined differently. Several times, he looked my way and flashed a grin of encouragement and praise. After a bit, he closed the laptop, selected a guitar and spent a few minutes tuning it before closing it into a case and setting it near the door. He also packed up the laptop, zipped various objects such as data drives into the pockets, and propped it next to the guitar.
“Guess it’s time to learn a few new chords.” He settled beside me, and my body responded with an extra prickle of awareness on top of the one it had already developed where he was concerned. “And to decide if you want to learn a new song on this tuning, or be serious and learn to really play.”
“What do you mean this tuning?”
“It’s an alternate tuning. Almost anything on it sounds good.” He demonstrated by barring his fingers up and down the frets as he strummed. “But if you’re serious about playing, you should learn the chords for real in regular tuning.”
Pondering the excited and alive feelings coursing through me when I played, I only took a moment to decide. “I want to really play.” His face lit up the second my answer resonated. “But tomorrow.” I hopped up to replace the guitar on the wall.
“Yeah. Early bed tonight.” His husky tenor caused my heart to pound. Deluged with bed images involving him, I didn’t turn to face him right away. Thankfully. Because he went on to finish his thought, and it had apparently been innocent. “I hate when they schedule these things early in the day.”
“One p.m. is not early.” I swiveled around and relished teasing him about his sleep habits.
“Least it’s not before noon,” he conceded of his upcoming session with the band. His eyes were sliding all over my face. I felt silly standing there, but couldn’t make myself join him on the couch, so I pretended an interest in a framed array of guitar picks. “Those are all from musicians I’ve jammed with over the years. I’ve got a box full that need to be added.” I nodded and moved to a platinum record. Self-explanatory, so instead, he said, “Dad invited us to dinner tomorrow evening. Want to go to the studio with me and then we can meet him? Or I can send a car back for you once we’re done at Noise City.”
“I’d like to go. To Noise City.” I jumped at the chance to visit the studio while the band did their thing. “If I won’t be in the way.”
“You won’t.” He seemed pleased I had chosen to go with him. Or maybe he was happy I was finally meeting his eyes. “I’m not sure I can sleep without a kiss goodnight.”
Smooth. He’d answered the awkward question I wouldn’t ask and had put me at ease with that one goofy line. My feet shuffled automatically to him, and he reached a hand up, catching mine. His thumb caressed my fingers before he gently tugged, and I curled with surprising ease onto his lap.
Leaning his forehead to mine, he mused, “I wonder where we would be if we’d been best friends for several years who met up again? Instead of fighting something we felt because of a label our parents put on us?”
“Probably in this same place right here.” I whispered a fraction from his lips, desperate to feel them again.
“But sooner. Way sooner,” he agreed. His breath fanned my sensitive lips and I swallowed a groan. “I want you. So much. But even more than that, I want the full experience. The dates. The kisses that may or may not lead to more in that moment. Mostly, I don’t want to screw this up.”
It stunned me that the irresponsible rock star could be perceptive enough to realize we should hold off on sex while we were both in our own dark places. Or was he being ‘Gage the big brother best friend’ and sensing my caution and hesitance about moving ahead?
“We won’t screw it up.” My words were as quiet as his were, but they were firm with a certainty I hadn’t felt since the kiss at the hiking trail. If there was anything I did know, it was that Gage and I were an unfinished song, one that had nothing to do with those he was teaching me on his expensive guitars.
We sealed that pact with a very hungry and very cherry-flavored kiss. I wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, because time fell away, and there was only him and the sensations evoked by our fused mouths. Eventually, my body ached for his touch, but he kept one hand twined in my hair and the other splayed on my back just above my waist. My arms rested, one on each of his shoulders and gradually, my hands slid downward to rest on the warmth of his tee shirt as we exchanged a last goodnight kiss. I went up to my room, while he slept, as he had the last few nights, on the couch in his studio.
Chapter 34
Noise City wasn’t at all what I expected. At least, not at first glance. Gage drove past the entry, which was in a strip of businesses on a busy boulevard and after shooting down a narrow alley, parked the Lotus in a tiny lot behind the matchbox shaped building. Several other cars were already parked, and as we crossed the asphalt, I admired a couple of them, wondering if they belonged to his bandmates.
The door swung open right before we reached it, and I wondered if he had texted someone, or if there was a camera monitoring our approach. The middle-aged man held the door, greeted us, and shook Gage’s hand as we passed through. Without slowing our steps, Gage introduced me as ‘Scarla Smythe,’ and the man babbled politely that it was nice to meet me.
Gold and platinum albums and singles covered the walls on both sides of the narrow hallway. Peppered among them were photos, many of them faded and blurred with age. A few times, my eyes were drawn for longer than a swift glance, when I recognized an extremely younger likeness of an iconic figure.
Gage paused in the threshold of what appeared to be a cluttered office. Behind the desk and a dinosaur of a computer was a striking woman who leapt to her feet and squealed. “Gage, love! It’s been forever!” Mail fell to the floor when the female circled the desk in the tight confines and threw herself at him, giving him the same style peck on the lips Colt had given me the day before. Paybacks were a bitch.
“Hey, Jenni. How’s life?” He released the girl and reached back to tug me in front of him as Jenni quipped a polite response to his inquiry. “This is Scarla. I made her come along. If you find her wandering around bored out of her mind, can you save her?”
“Of course! Hi, Scarla.” After flashing a hasty but warm smile, Jenni turned back to Gage. “Everyone’s already here. You’re late, as usual. While you’re here though, I need to grab your siggy.” She passed him a pen and clipboard. “The auto deposit renewal. I put the original there if you want to compare and make sure I’m not putting your money into my secret Swiss bank account.” She waggled her brows.
A door opened from farther down the hall and two men, both with shaved heads and scruffy jaws headed our way. Gage was concentrating on the paperwork and didn’t immediately look up when they slowed to all but a stop in passing.
“The lesbian-hating loser in the flesh.” One of them drawled with a mocking glare at Gage’s profile. “Jenni, keep your distance from that asswipe, baby girl. No respect for your sweet cheeks.”
The change of emotions on the other girl’s face reflected exactly what I myself felt, only Jenni was processing more quickly. I spent several seconds in the stunned phase before moving into rage. In the meantime, the two men chuckled between themselves and carried on with the hateful words.
With the pen poised, Gage stared blankly at the clipboard before lifting his gaze to Jenni. His eyes softened, and a flash of pain glimmered as he took in her reaction. “Dooley, you motherfucker. Apologize to Jenni.”
“You need to apologize to our resident lesbian and to all―” Automatically, my brain tried to block the obnoxious term he used for that particular sexual preference, and the onslaught of ugly words made me queasy. The one Gage had referred to as Dooley
went on to say all the things he hoped happened to Gage when he found himself locked up for his crime.
The older gentleman who had welcomed our arrival appeared and attempted to intervene. Another door opened down the hallway and Colt, followed by a few other men spilled into the hallway. At first, I didn’t realize what had happened when Gage doubled over, until he straightened and swung the clipboard until it collided with a thwack against Dooley’s skull. It was then I realized the other guy had thrown a punch first.
The pair ricocheted off the walls, bringing pictures down for several of the longest seconds I had ever experienced before the other men managed to break them up.
It was the fucked up part of the rock and roll world that I remembered. I’d lost count of the fistfights I’d witnessed when my mom dated these same types of losers. The revulsion I felt was trumped by my concern for Gage. Outwardly, he appeared to have come out of the brawl without a scratch. But I knew he’d taken quite a punch to his midsection.
The two were ushered out. Gage dropped to a chair inside the room his band had appeared from. Everyone who hadn’t seen the start of the fight wanted to be filled in, and Jenni provided them with an explanation. It was several minutes before the talk between the guys died down, but Gage had said nothing. He’d nodded when asked if he was all right and drained a water bottle before he finally spoke. “My axe make it out of that alive?”
“It’s in there.” Colt indicated the room beyond a wall of glass.
Gage relocated to the next room and extracted his guitar from its case. I breathed a sigh of relief when after a cursory examination, he began to strum.
Colt and the rest of the band included me in their conversation while Gage lost himself in whatever he was playing.
A man had left the room directly after the fight, and now he returned, settling at the soundboard. I wasn’t introduced, but deduced him to be the producer Gage had mentioned would be at this meeting. He was in a foul mood and laid into Gage for the altercation in the hall.