Storm

by Mankin, Michelle

  “Mine won’t change his mind.” His eyes as turbulent as his name, Storm shook his head. “This confrontation was a long time coming. I’m just sad that you had to see it. It’s humiliating, what he said to you. I’m sorry he’s so awful.”

  “It’s not your fault what he does.” My stomach rolled, unsettled by the effect his father had on him. “But what if—”

  “No more what-if scenarios with me and my old man. It’s over. It’s finally over. It’s a fucking relief, really.” His brows drew together, and his gaze turned unfocused. “My mom will be okay. Saber will take care of her and Shield. And I can take care of myself.”

  Storm was right about his older brother. Saber might be passive where Storm was concerned, but he was fiercely protective of Shield. Still, Saber followed his father’s directives, and as a result was the favored son.

  “Where will you stay tonight?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll just crash at a friend’s house.”

  A friend who was a girl, I was sure. Storm had plenty of those, which was one of the reasons why I suspected his dad had jumped to the wrong conclusion about me. My dad had hinted at a similar worry until I’d set him straight.

  We retraced our steps from earlier, but instead of continuing to our favorite surfing spot at the cliffs, we turned right on my street and stopped in front of my apartment complex. Upstairs on the second floor was the one-bedroom apartment I shared with my dad and my little brother.

  “Storm,” I said, just as the sun slipped over the horizon. I was frightened for him more than I was sad for me. “Don’t be stubborn. You’re only wearing a wet suit, and you’re barefoot. You should go back to your house so you can at least try to get your things. Try to—”

  “No,” he snapped.

  I flinched, but it wasn’t the harshness in his tone that gutted me. It was the bleakness in his eyes.

  “We’re done being friends, Lilly . . . Lotus. This right now has to be the end of our friendship.”

  “No.” Tears pricking my eyes, I whispered determinedly, “I’ll always be your friend.”

  “I’m not good for you. I have a temper like him, and I’ve known for a while that people are saying shit like he did. Only I was too selfish to let you go. I needed you and your friendship too much, you see.”

  “I need you too.” I tried to reach for Storm, but he stepped back just out of reach, and my heart lurched as my hand fell to my side.

  “We need to say good-bye now.” His expression turned as blank and unyielding as a wall. “We have to. I insist.”

  “We don’t have to do anything.” Stubbornly, I shook my head. I would scale that wall if I had to. I would say or do anything I needed to keep him close. “You can’t leave like his. I don’t care what people say.”

  “You don’t care now. But when you get older, you will, and you should.” Storm scrubbed a hand over his face. “You have your whole life ahead of you. A good one. Boyfriends on the horizon. Girlfriends too, that will make better friends for you than me. Parties to go to. College someday. You have a dad who supports you, and a little brother who adores you. One day, you’ll have a great family of your own. I don’t fit into any of that. But I promise you that I’ll never forget you.”

  His eyes glistened. “You’ve been a great friend, the best one I’ve ever had. I hope you won’t forget me.”

  “Never.” Fear tightened my throat, but I wrenched the words free. “I’ll never forget you.” A tear slid down my cheek, trailing the only warmth I could feel. The rest of me was as cold as the ocean on a stormy day.

  “I hope you take my advice and talk to your father.” He gave me a firm look. “He needs you, and you need him.”

  “I will. I’ll talk to him.”

  Storm’s shoulders relaxed a bit as he sighed. “I believe you. You have a good heart. You’re a great daughter, a good sister to Cork. And very talented. I expect that you’ll do great things with your poetry someday. I’m sorry I’ll miss all that. I’ll miss you.”

  His expression soft, Storm stepped closer. I held my breath as he framed my face and swept his thumbs over my cheeks. Warmth blazed in my skin where he touched me, but chill bumps bloomed everywhere else.

  “Good-bye,” he whispered, then dropped his hands.

  Colder than before, I stared at him. More tears fell as I watched him walk away, one long stride after another, each increment of separation between us prying away another piece of my soul.

  I continued to stare until nothing remained but me and the empty space in my soul his absence left behind.

  PART II: THE PRESENT

  Lotus

  Nine years later

  “EXCUSE ME,” I said to the large guy standing in front of me.

  “Excuse what?” Turning around, he gave me the once-over.

  “I need to get to my bestie.” I gestured to her with my chin since I was carrying plastic cups filled with draft beer in both hands. “The girl up there by the stage wearing the Dirt Dogs T-shirt.”

  “Oh, her.” He winced. “She’s pretty like you, but obnoxious. Guarding her territory up there like a hungry dog with a juicy steak.”

  My lips twitched. His analogy was spot-on. Sophia was fierce once she located and claimed the best viewing spot for a concert.

  “Enjoy the show.” Shifting sideways, he sucked in his gut, giving me about three inches to shimmy between him and the guy beside him.

  “Rock on,” I said to smooth the feathers my bestie had apparently ruffled.

  I was a people pleaser, wanting everyone to like me. I knew this about myself, knew the origin for it came from being abandoned, rejected by my mother when I was young. My loud, opinionated, and beautiful best friend, Sophia Benito, had difficult stuff in her past too, but she tended to overreact at a high decibel level to situations, whereas I usually chose to suffer in silence.

  When I reached Sophia, I scooted into the spot she’d saved for me and handed her a beer.

  “What took you so long?” Her hazel eyes scanned me with suspicion. “Anyone’s ass I need to kick for hitting on you?”

  “No one hit on me.” I frowned. “I can handle myself.”

  “Yes, you can when you’re bartending at the Deck Bar. Behind your counter slinging drinks, you rule, but without that barrier between you and assholes, especially one asshole in particular who forgot your birthday today, you’re far too nice.”

  “I wasn’t even gone ten minutes,” I muttered, not bothering to argue about the being-too-nice part, or about the asshole who forgot my birthday. She was right, but the last part hurt too much to think about.

  “Felt like longer.” Sophia slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me into her side.

  Accustomed to her spontaneous displays of affection—and loving her for them—I was prepared and didn’t spill a drop of my beer. Part of that experience came from bartending, the other from going to concerts. Sophia and I had been in lots of standing-room-only pits in front of plenty of stages. The objectives were a lot like bartending—find and hold your position, and never spill alcohol on someone else.

  “How’s your beer?” I asked as she took a sip.

  “It’s good.” She licked her lips.

  “It’s a local IPA.”

  “Nice. Very hoppy.” She took another sip, her gaze drifting over me. “You were gone so long, I was afraid you’d sneaked off to call Saber and made up with him. Again.” She made a face.

  “Not doing that anymore. It’s over this time for real.” Knowing her opinion regarding my on-again-off-again boyfriend, I repeated it. “I can’t keep letting Saber put me off and string me along every time something comes up with the band.”

  Her black brows inched together. “He always has some lame excuse.”

  “This time it seemed legit.” An ultimatum from Ash. Rephrasing Saber’s words, I attempted to mimic his lead-singer voice. “Sorry, baby, I can’t come with you to LA. Boss-man made your birthday the deadline to turn
in our single.” My stomach tensed as I remembered how him giving me that excuse had made me feel. “Ash is pressuring him about band personnel too. He told Saber the group chemistry is wrong.”

  “Everyone has work stress. Saber should have put you first. Sucks deluxe that he didn’t.” She frowned. “Makes me mad the way he dumps all his stress on you, but shuts you down whenever you bring up yours.”

  “I have a lot more stress than him.” I bit down on my lip. “I don’t want to overwhelm him.”

  “You’re making my point.” She shook her head, and her shoulder-length straight black hair swished over her slender shoulders. “He should have helped you more. Couples work out problems together, Lotus.”

  My parents hadn’t. They’d lived separate lives in the same household, and then my mother had taken off. I knew I had to handle things differently, break the cycle. With Saber, I’d tried, but apparently I didn’t know how.

  “If it wasn’t the band,” I said, “then it was always something else that put me in second place.”

  I lifted my chin, holding my ground like Sophia and I were doing front-row center at the stage. Maybe I hadn’t broken the cycle with Saber, but I could learn from my mistake and do better going forward.

  Conceding her point, I added, “It’s not a good relationship, a healthy one worth keeping, if a guy doesn’t put me first.”

  Sophia nodded. “Now you’re talking truth, sister.”

  She held up her free hand for a fist bump, which I readily gave her. But instead of an explosion after, we both lifted two fingers in the peace sign.

  “Peace out,” I said.

  “Peace received,” she said, giving me her usual response.

  I gestured at the stage with my plastic cup. “Roadies set up fast while I was at the bar.”

  “No road crew. The band did their own setting up.”

  “Ah, I should have guessed.”

  The opening band was usually local, undiscovered, and on a budget too tight to afford roadies. OB Hardy, Saber’s band, had done their own setting up until they signed a deal with Ashland Keys’s record label, Outside.

  “The lead singer is hot.” Sophia fanned her face.

  “How’d you know which one was the lead singer?” I raised a brow. “Did he wear a name tag,” I teased, my mood already lightening because of her.

  “Might as well have,” she said with a grin. “He put his guitar in a stand next to the center mic. And I said to him, ‘Hey, you’re hot. Are you the lead singer?’”

  “How did he respond?” I asked, shaking my head at her play-by-play that I suspected she exaggerated to get my mind off my breakup with Saber.

  “‘Yeah, darlin’, I sure as fuck am.’” She waved a long piece of paper in front of me that looked like a bar receipt and sported a masculine scrawl. “He gave me his cell number.”

  “Hmm. I see. That’s interesting.”

  And impressive, but not an unusual occurrence for my best friend.

  Sophia was beautiful and exotic-looking with her ebony hair, hazel-green eyes, and coffee-with-cream skin. She was also taller than me, confident, and moved seductively like she danced, which tended to catch a guy’s attention and keep it.

  I took a sip of my beer. It was cold, heavy on the hops, and refreshing. Noting the lead singer’s guitar, a gleaming denim-blue Martin hollow body, I grinned as excitement thrummed in my veins.

  I loved music, the whole atmosphere at a concert, the hush of anticipation before the first band took the stage. Sometimes music was the only thing that got my mind off everything else. Our love for music was a passion Sophia and I shared. A passion I’d once shared a long time ago with my only best friend before her.

  “Ask me about the rest of them.” Sophia’s eyes danced, doing a little salsa within her thick lashes. She loved concerts and ogling the sexy guys with their guitars like I did. What girl wouldn’t?

  “Okay,” I said, playing along. “Tell me about them.” Her company and her enthusiasm were a buoy, keeping me afloat on a night when I otherwise would have been floundering in sadness and self-pity.

  “The drummer is small, but cute like that actor from La La Land. The bassist is lanky but doable. Think Christian Bale from his performance in The Dark Knight. But the guitarist?” She fanned her face.

  “Hot, huh?” I shook my head at her. She loved movies and often compared guys to actors.

  “Hotter. Tallest of the bunch. Too good-looking to compare to any actor I’ve seen.”

  “Whoa.” My eyes rounded. If she was at a loss, I was certainly very eager to see this paragon among men.

  “Six foot one, maybe six-two. Shoulder-length light brown hair with a lot of wave to it. Full mustache and beard. Chiseled body like a Greek statue. Tatted arms and neck. The works.”

  “Sounds dreamy.” And sounded like she’d done a thorough investigation. “You sure you don’t want to call dibs on that one?”

  Before my dad had passed three years ago, I might have called dibs myself. In the days when my heart had been mostly intact and my time had been freer, one of my favorite things to do with Sophia was going out to see as many bands as we could in one night.

  On those nights, which we’d dubbed Sophia’s and Lotus’s Musical Adventures, we chose the cutest guys in the best bands and flirted with them from the pit, and sometimes even went out with them. On one of those adventures, I met Saber. Well, I’d known who he was before that because he was Storm’s older brother. But we’d only started dating this past year.

  Storm.

  Just thinking his name collapsed my lungs. Even though it had been nine years since we’d parted ways and I had Sophia now, I still missed Storm. The closeness I’d had with him had never been duplicated with anyone else.

  But that was over. It was in the past. Even his own family hadn’t heard from him in years. I needed to learn to let hurt go like Storm had told me to. I needed to let him go, needed to let the music heal me.

  “No, he’s all yours,” Sophia said, and it took me a moment to remember who we were talking about.

  Oh yeah. The paragon of men, the guitarist.

  “Thanks, but I’m a little too busted up tonight to go for it—go for him. So I think I’ll pass.”

  “C’mon, Lotus.” She pursed her lips. “It’s been too long since you let loose.”

  She was right. I hadn’t relaxed since my father died and I’d become the sole guardian of my brother, Cork. But I couldn’t afford to . . . not with the responsibilities I had now.

  Giving her a firm look, I shook my head. “I can’t let loose anymore.”

  The steadying influence of Saber was one of the big reasons he held such appeal. He was the opposite of Sophia. With him, it was easier to bury the desire to be anyone but the responsible version of myself.

  “You can let your hair down for one night.” Her brow furrowed as she took in my long, efficient work braid. “Fanny has Cork at Ash’s penthouse. He’s in a safe, protected environment. Probably safer there with all their security than your apartment. We’re miles away from home. No one knows us here. LA can be our Vegas. What happens in LA, stays in LA. You deserve an adventure. C’mon.”

  She bumped my shoulder like Storm used to do when he was being playful. “We both deserve a little fun.”

  “I just broke up with my boyfriend.” I experienced a heart spasm again just saying the words out loud. It made the situation seem a lot more permanent.

  “No better time to have some harmless fun.” Sophia waggled her dark brows.

  “I have work tonight.” My protest sounded weak, even to my own ears.

  “You don’t have to work all night.”

  Considering, I took another sip of my beer, staring at the stage rather than at her. I didn’t want her to see how much the breakup with Saber hurt, or how tempted I was to give in, to be carefree. It would be nice not to think about responsibilities and consequences, even if it was only for a night.

  “You know I can’t,” I said, kno
wing it would be too hard to return to being responsible again. Gardening and my poems were the only outlet I allowed myself anymore, and even those weren’t strictly for fun.

  “Okay, honey.” Sophia’s expression softened. “I just wish more for you. You know I do. So, this opening band,” she said too brightly. “What did Ash tell you about them?”

  Ashland Keys wasn’t only the co-owner of Outside. He was also the drummer for the world-famous Dirt Dogs. Semi-retired from his band, he worked full time at the label he’d cofounded with his cousin, Lincoln Savage, the lead singer of the Dirt Dogs. Incidentally, Ash was also my boss. Well, he was for tonight, and any other time he needed a special-event bartender.

  “Ash says they’re my speed,” I said. “Loud and heavy on the metal like Tempest, and they have double guitarists.”

  “That sounds cool.” She nodded reflectively. “Nice of him to give you a break at the beginning of the evening to catch some of the lineup.”

  “Not here for the concert. Here to work. He pays me well to bartend for these special events outside of Ocean Beach.”

  “Sí, mi flor.” Yes, my flower. “But it’s your birthday,” she said with a frown. “He should pay you triple, considering that.”

  “Maybe.” Letting Sophia’s richly accented voice and her indignation on my behalf wash over me, I set my troubles aside and gave her a smile.

  At that moment, the recorded background music stopped, and I turned my attention to the stage. The house lights lowered, and the stage lights came on.

  Ash came out. Strutting confidently across the stage, all blond and blue-eyed with his golden tan, he looked like a typical SoCal surfer. But in his all-season wool slacks and button-down shirt, he was dressed like a business exec.

  “You guys having a good time?” Ash asked the audience, his mouth to the center mic.

  I clapped enthusiastically like everyone around me. His gaze finding me, Ash smiled. He was awesome. I didn’t tell Sophia, but I would find a way to do these events for him, even if he didn’t pay me as well as he did.