by Nalini Singh
Startled, she glanced at Fox. “I can’t do that.”
Fox rubbed his hand over her hip. “Sure you can. Do you want to?”
Molly shook her head. “Not alone.”
“Together, then.”
Her heart squeezed. “Together,” she whispered, finding her courage in him.
Copyright © 2014 by Nalini Singh
David’s Memo to Thea
This memo was sent by David to Thea during the tour, so it would fit into the second half of Rock Courtship.
David’s Memo To Thea
By Nalini Singh
Reasons Why I Should Not Have to Appear on the Next Episode of MZ Talk
In which I, David Rivera, lay out all the excellent reasons why I should never have to suffer the torture that is MZ Talk’s “magazine style” television format ever again.
First of all, the host of MZ Talk has the hots for Noah. Send him, tell him to take his shirt off and everyone will be Googling Schoolboy Choir before you know it. I, meanwhile, will inevitably disappoint with my non-shirt-taking-off ways, leaving us in MZ Talk’s bad books forevermore. (I never thought I’d ever use the word forevermore, but I’m starting to like it.)
Secondly, I am currently on a grueling (GRUELING) national tour. The trauma of trying to keep my head from exploding during the host’s execrable (looked that one up in the dictionary), attempts at humor may leave me too traumatized to perform. Imagine all the pissed-off fans if the drummer decides not to turn up to gigs.
Thirdly, I have far better uses of my time and energy. If you cancel the MZ Talk date, we can have thirty-six uninterrupted hours all to ourselves. Imagine that, Thea. Thirty-six hours for me to learn every tiny pulse point on your body. Thirty-six hours for me to eat you up like candy. Thirty-six hours for me to try out my sex-in-a-tour-bus fantasy scenarios with you. I say scenarios because when it comes to you, I never just have a single fantasy.
You know my favorite fantasy in this particular collection? Slow dancing with you in the living area, just the two of us in our bare feet, you wearing my shirt like you sometimes do, me in my jeans (though if you prefer a suit, I’m game). Your hair ripples down your back in this fantasy, and maybe I sneak a kiss or seven, but mostly, we dance. Dance with me?
In conclusion: I believe I have proven that sending me to be a guest on MZ Talk would not only be a futile maneuver in terms of promotional activities, it would also sap energies I could put to far, far better use. For the love of all that’s holy, cancel that appearance.
Copyright © 2014 by Nalini Singh
Thea’s Reply
This memo is from Thea to David, in response to David's memo. This memo exchange slots into the second half of Rock Courtship.
Thea’s Reply
By Nalini Singh
Reasons You Will Appear on MZ Talk
In which I, Thea Arsana, lay out the reasons why you, David Rivera, are going to be on MZ Talk in a week’s time.
Firstly, while the host does in fact have the hots for Noah, she also has the hots for you. I believe she called you “swoonalicious” in her review of the band’s current album. No taking-off-of-the-shirt will be required. In fact, I strictly prohibit this. That view is mine.
Secondly, Noah, Abe, & Fox have all run the MZ Talk gauntlet. All three have threatened me with various forms of retaliation if I book them back onto the show anytime in the next year. You’re the only one left. I can’t be accused of favoritism, can I? (Even though you are absolutely my favorite. xoxo)
Thirdly, this episode is dedicated to the best drummers in the business today. You are the best, and while MZ Talk may make your head explode, it will also do incredible things for your profile.
To counter your inevitable rebuttal that you don’t give a damn about your profile, I say tough luck. You and the others shouldn’t have hired me if you wanted a publicist you could ignore—try that and we’ll be having a serious personal discussion.
Furthermore, I refuse to permit a show with a reach as big as MZ Talk to go on air talking about the best drummers in the business without you being on there. You can drum rings around the other guests. So grab the sticks and be ready for the car to pick you up at six on the night.
Fourthly, as I will be in that car, we can get started on our thirty-six hours straight away. I will also attend the filming session and I’ll make sure to extract you before your head does in fact explode. Trust me, Mr. Rivera. I find the host’s sense of humor execrable too.
After the filming, we can disappear for the next thirty-four hours. I’ll even turn off my phone and have my assistant deal with anything that arises. The guys can just bang on your bus door if they need me urgently. As for the dancing...I want to do it right this instant. I’m sitting in my office, and all I can see is us dancing.
Yes, David, I’ll dance with you. And when you’re back in L.A., we’ll dance in my office. I want to have that memory for the next tour, want to remember us laughing in each other’s arms in this room. I want to bury my nose in your neck and breathe you in, want to feel your stubble catch at my hair as your arms hold me tight, want to hear your voice in the cocoon of the dance.
In conclusion: I believe I’ve proven that it’s in both your best interest and mine for you to appear on MZ Talk. I’ll be waiting to dance with you.
Copyright © 2014 by Nalini Singh
With This Memo
Author’s Note: This short story follows on from Rock Courtship, and gives us an extra little look into David and Thea’s dreamily romantic wedding.
With This Memo
By Nalini Singh
Thea’s wedding day dawned bright and clear, the heavy humidity that had been plaguing Bali having lifted in the night. She’d grown up here, could taste the weather, knew it would hold until tonight at least.
She smiled a smile so deep it threatened to carve itself permanently on her face: her and David’s wedding day was going to be beautiful.
Checking the little clock on her bedside table, she saw she had plenty of time to go downstairs to the kitchen and grab a cup of coffee before showering. Her father would likely also be up, would’ve got the pot going. Thea would have a cup with him, this man who’d raised her as his own and who’d always been there for all three of his daughters.
Her heart filled, overflowed.
She got out of bed, stretched, then smiled again. She was about to marry the man she loved with everything in her. And that wedding would take place in front of the people they loved and who loved them in turn. Thea couldn’t imagine that she could be any more happy than she was at this moment.
It was as she was walking to her door to pull on the robe that hung on the back that she saw the envelope lying on the gleaming wood of the floor. It had clearly been pushed under the door. She picked it up, found her name written on it in a distinctive hand. Butterflies taking flight in her stomach, she returned to the bed, sat down, and opened the envelope to discover a handwritten memo.
To: Thea Arsana
From: David Rivera
In which I, your future husband, attempt to convince you that I am not an idiot and that you should still marry me.
Yes, I know I have a tattoo of a daisy on my ass, but in my defense, at the time I made the decision to get said daisy I was drinking some stuff that shouldn’t be legal. I’d argue that this is an indisputable case of diminished responsibility.
Also, even stone drunk, I apparently would not shut up about how much I love you. Abe told me that I asked the tattoo artist to ink your name around the daisy.
Thea began to giggle, the sound so unusual coming from her throat that had her sisters heard her, they’d have come in at once to investigate. Thankfully, as teenagers, they were still comatose at this hour.
Abe, however, was able to talk me out of that genius idea. Apparently by telling me that you’d kick my ass if I put your name on that ass. After which, I asked the tattoo guy to ink your name in ten-inch letters across my back and I was apparently quite belliger
ent when Abe hauled me off and told me it was Fox’s turn for a daisy. (No, I don’t know why daisies.)
Added to that... Okay, I have no other extenuating circumstances to put forward, but in conclusion, I say: no matter what, I love you. I’ll always love you. I can’t wait to be your husband.
Thea pressed the memo to her heart. It was her wedding day. She could be foolish and romantic if she wanted to be. And though she knew David was well aware she adored him, she found her phone and sent him a message anyway: I’ll marry you today, tomorrow, and any other day you want.
The response came fast for David—who was the slowest texter she’d ever known. It meant he’d started the reply as soon as he’d received her message.
I did get a tattoo of your name—yesterday, when I was as sober as a judge. You’ll have to find where it is on our wedding night. Clue: not anywhere near the daisy.
Thea laughed softly. Deal. She sent him some kisses, got some back…and then it was time to start getting ready for their wedding. But first, she made a silent promise to herself to write David a memo during their honeymoon. It might not be the language of romance for anyone else, but it was theirs. And each time she read one of his memos or wrote one to him, she remembered how much her drummer loved her. Enough to fight her demons and haul her right into his arms.
After carefully putting the memo in a safe place, she glanced over at where her wedding sari hung on a garment rack in front of the wardrobe; the dawn sunlight made it glow, catching on the fine metallic threads in the fabric and spilling golden light across the entire room.
Yes, it was going to be a beautiful day.
The best thing was that by the end of it, she’d wear David’s ring on her finger and he’d wear her ring on his. Signed, sealed…and memoed.
Copyright © 2016 by Nalini Singh
Sunshine
Spoiler warning: Please save this short story to read after you read Rock Redemption (unless you don't mind spoilers, in which case, enjoy!).
Sunshine
By Nalini Singh
Noah’s mouth fell open as David brought a bright pink Ferrari to a stop in front of Noah and Kit’s home. “What the fuck man?” he said as the drummer slid out, a smiling Thea getting out on the other side.
“You like it?” David petted the top of the car with an adoring hand. “She runs like a dream. I couldn’t help myself when I saw her in the showroom.”
Blinking, Noah looked from David to Thea, then back to the glaring travesty parked in the drive. “I seriously have no words.” He walked to the car, looked inside. “Christ, it’s baby pink inside too! Oh man, are those diamantes on the dash?” What a horrible fate to befall a crouching beast of a machine.
It had been ruthlessly neutered.
Noah’s own balls ached in sympathy.
“Yes,” Thea said, peering at him through the open window on the other side, her silky black hair falling over the shoulders of her short-sleeved white top and her sunglasses big and dramatic. “The pink inside was extra. Special detailing you know.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed. Rising to his full height, he looked at David, caught the other man with a suspiciously bland look on his face. “Funny.” He punched his bandmate on the arm. “Where the hell did you get the hideous abomination?”
Shoulders shaking as his laughter erupted, David bent over, bracing his hands on his thighs, his jeans so well-washed they were faded and soft. Thea, meanwhile, her long legs bared by her tailored black shorts, grinned and went to hug Kit, who’d just walked out of the house. She’d told Noah to go welcome the others while she finished putting out the snacks. They’d have been out already if he hadn’t distracted her with kisses that had led to a tangle of limbs in the garden, her khaki colored shorts pulled off and thrown over a tree limb.
Kit’s cheeks were still glowing from it.
Noah resisted the urge to strut. “David,” he said as Kit’s eyes widened at first sight of the pinkmobile. “Explain this.”
Another car roared down the drive before the drummer could reply. A much more acceptable hot red, the Lamborghini was Fox’s pride and joy. Getting out, the lead singer groaned in agony at seeing the pink Ferrari before shielding the dark green of his eyes. “Don’t look, baby,” he said to Molly, making as if to turn her face away. “It’ll traumatize you for life.”
Laughing, Molly kissed his palm before going over to examine the pinkmobile. “Where did you get it?” she asked, all curious brown eyes and slightly sunburned limbs in her shorts and floaty top. “I like pink but this is pretty hideous. Like the color of that lotion people use when they have chickenpox.”
“It was a gift,” David finally managed to get out, the golden brown of his skin flushed from his laughter.
Noah raised an eyebrow. “A hopeful groupie with a lot of money and really bad taste?”
“Not a gift for me.” David’s grin was slow. “For Thea.”
Everyone’s mouths fell open this time. Thea was definitely not a pink car type of woman. She probably ate pink cars for breakfast and still had room to chew up a paparazzo or three.
“Hey, I could do pink,” the band’s publicist said into the stunned quiet, a mock-offended look on her face.
Shaking her head, Kit came over to wrap her arms around Noah. His heart went boom, still not used to being claimed so openly. But damn it felt good, he thought, cuddling her against him. No one else had ever looked at him with such pride. It humbled him, destroyed him, made him fight each and every day to be the man she saw in him. A better, stronger man than Noah had ever thought he could be.
“Sorry, Thea,” she said as he stroked his hand down her back, “but I’m with these guys. What idiot sent you a pink car as a gift?”
“A corporate that wants to hire me.” Thea pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, her uptilted eyes a sparkling burnished brown. “I’m going to send it back, but I couldn’t resist bringing it today, especially when David agreed to drive.”
“Those photos are going to follow you to your grave,” Fox predicted, pointing a finger at David, his other arm hooked easily around Molly’s shoulders. “You know the press vultures caught you. They’ll start questioning your sexuality any second now.”
“Who cares?” Sanguine, David walked over to steal a kiss from Thea. She smiled into it. Before David and Thea got together, Noah would’ve never believed that Thea could go all soft and happy as she did at that moment. Only for Schoolboy Choir’s drummer, however.
To everyone else, she remained a scary hardass of a publicist.
“Worth it to see the looks on your faces,” David added after the kiss, walking behind Thea to wrap his arms around her. “And the world can question all they like—I’m confident in my sexuality.” A glint in his eye, he turned to look at Noah, then Fox. “Are you?”
Fox blanched. “I could be dead and you’d still not see my corpse in that insult to the most gorgeous machines on the earth.”
“Chickenshit.” David’s eyes landed on Noah.
“Only if I can take a sledgehammer to it afterward.” Nuzzling his chin on Kit’s hair, Noah soaked in her laughter. “Where’s Abe anyway? He better not miss our pool-warming.”
It was Molly who answered. “He’s on his way.” She held up Fox’s phone. “Message came in while Fox was driving. He had to chase down an escapee dog.”
Abe didn’t have a dog. Interesting.
Noah looked down into Kit’s eyes, saw identical speculation. Lifting a finger to her lips, she shook her head. He nodded. There was a time to hassle a man and there was a time to let him be. When he glanced up, he saw the others had all made the same decision. Fox was the one who spoke. “Where’s this pool you’ve been so secretive about?”
Noah grinned. “Follow us.” He and Kit led everyone around the house and through the shiny new gate that opened out into the pool area—which could also be accessed via the back of the house
“Oh my God!” Molly danced in place. “You have waterfalls!”
Their laughing, happy voices filled the air.
David, having found the beers Noah had put out right before everyone arrived, popped the top off one and passed it to Fox, then did the same for Noah. “Waterfalls, huh?” Walking to stand at the edge of the pool, he looked down the length of the sunshine-kissed water, to the double waterfall at the curve of the pool, one small, one large.
“Kit wanted them.” Noah rocked back on his heels, so stupidly happy that he was almost terrified. But it was getting easier to accept the joy with each day that passed, each night he spent in Kit’s arms. “It’s fun.”
“Why the hell aren’t we in the water, then?” Fox asked.
Two minutes later, they were, everyone having come prepared to swim. The women joined them within the next five minutes and each person in the pool had swum under the waterfalls at least once by the time Abe’s SUV pulled into the yard.
Noah, having swum to the head of the pool to brace his arms on the edge, took a sip of the beer he’d left there. “Everyone’s here,” he said to Kit, who’d swum up next to him.
“Just in time for the pizza I put into the oven.” She pulled herself up so she was sitting on the edge, those glorious long legs within his reach—so of course he had to press a kiss to her thigh.
“I love this pool,” she said, her hand in his hair. “Thank you.”
He felt his lips curving, the stupid happiness overflowing his body. It was still scary as hell leaving himself this vulnerable, this open, but every time Kit smiled at him with her heart—her love—right there for him to see, it got infinitesimally easier. “I suppose you want some romantic bullshit now.”