by Emma Scott
“The hell we are,” I said, not taking my eyes from Ryan. My one arm held Kacey tight, the other balled into a fist at my side. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and it felt fucking good, and reckless. I wasn’t a violent guy but if this bastard wanted a fight, I’d give it to him.
The band members, with some prompting from Jimmy, moved toward the house. Ryan was too drunk to fight, and I think he knew it. He flipped me the bird and let himself be pulled away by his mates. Lola remained behind.
“We’re all good?” Jimmy asked. “You okay, kitten?”
Kacey moved away from my arm but stayed close, holding onto the cuff of my jacket. She gave a stiff smile. “Sure, Jimmy. I’m great.”
“Screw that,” Lola said, glaring at her manager. “If Ryan touches her again I’ll chop his dick off. Get rid of them, Jimmy. Find another opening act.”
I liked this Lola.
Kacey waved a hand. “No, no, it’s not a big deal. It’s okay…”
“No, it’s not okay,” I said.
Jimmy rubbed his chin. “This has to be a big thing? Right now? I got a hundred people coming to this party…”
Even as he spoke, other cars were arriving, cabs and limos—a steady stream of people. If I didn’t move the limo soon, it was going to get boxed in.
I looked down at Kacey. She was drunk, and if I let her go inside that house, she’d only get drunker. Or pass out. Ryan might decide to take what he wanted anyway, and in a house that size, with a party raging, who would know?
Keep to the routine, I thought, even as my hands moved on their own. I took Kacey’s face and tilted it gently, making her look at me. Her broad mouth trembled under red lipstick. Dark makeup pulled her eyes into long blue sapphires, pale blue with a darker ring around the iris. I hadn’t noticed that before. Beautiful. She didn’t belong here.
“You want to leave?” I asked.
Her eyes held mine, liquor dimming the shine I’d seen in them during our lunch. But her voice was steady when she answered, “Yeah, I do.”
I smiled at her, strangely proud. “Done.”
Her glassy eyes widened in surprise, then with a gust of whiskey-soaked breath, she wilted against me. “It’s all good, Jimmy,” she murmured. “Jonah…He’s so good to me.”
I walked her to the front seat of the limo and helped her in. Her head lolled against the headrest, her eyes closed, and I buckled the seatbelt on her to keep her safe.
“Pack her a bag?” I said to Lola, shutting the door.
She narrowed her eyes at me, sizing me up, then nodded and went into the house.
Jimmy looked after her, then swung around back to me. “Pack a bag?”
“She’s staying with me a few days,” I said.
He blew air out his cheeks wetly. “We’re outta here on Tuesday.” He was drunk as hell too, but trying to hold onto some authority. “I got twenty-five more cities lined up and she’s under contract. Just so you know the score.”
“I know it,” I said, my voice stony. I pulled up all of my six feet, towering over him. “She’s taking a break from this scene.”
And then what? the voice of caution asked me. I ignored it.
“A break. Yeah, okay.” Jimmy lit a smoke and jabbed the two fingers that held it at me. “I know where you work. You want to keep your job, you take care of her.”
“Better than you have,” I said.
“You think you’re special to her? Her hero?” He snorted a laugh. “Take a number, buddy.”
He retreated into the house that was rapidly filling up. Lola came back with a duffel bag and a small leather backpack. I took them and walked to the trunk.
“What’s the deal here?” Lola asked. “Are you two…?”
“No.” I tossed the bags in the trunk. “She needs some time away. Obviously.”
“So she stays a few days on your couch, and then rejoins us before we leave Vegas?”
“That’s the plan.” I slammed the trunk lid. “If you’re worried whether or not she’s safe with me, she is. I swear on my life I would never hurt her, okay?”
Lola nodded slowly. “Okay, fine. This could be good. It wouldn’t kill Kacey to stay sober for forty-eight consecutive hours. I love her to pieces, but she’s a fucking flake. This is our big break. It’s my big break, and if she can keep her shit together long enough, she’d see that it’s her big break too.”
I doubt it. I moved to the driver’s side.
“I’m going to call her,” Lola told me, following. “To make sure she’s all right.”
“I would hope so,” I replied, and slammed the door.
You can’t peel out in a limousine, but I came close, and the pink palace faded out of my rear view.
I drove back to A-1 to return the limo, hustling Kacey through the garage into my truck. By some miracle no one saw us. Back at my apartment, it was last night all over again, except that Kacey didn’t smell of puke and smoke. The scent of her perfume, her sweat and a tinge of whiskey permeated the air as I helped her out of the truck.
This time, she wasn’t out cold, but swimming in inebriation—sometimes deep under and hardly able to keep her feet, sometimes coming up for air to walk with me. Twice she threw her arms around my neck and murmured in my ear how grateful she was I’d saved her. My skin broke out in gooseflesh and my groin tightened as I went to lay her down in my bed.
“Jonah,” she sighed, still clinging to me, trying to pull me down on the bed with her. “You’re so good to me. The last good man on earth.”
“Kacey, wait…”
I tried to gently pry her arms from my neck but she was tenacious. Her lips brushed my skin above my uniform collar. Warm, wet kisses under my ear, working up until her teeth grazed my earlobe, and I had to clench my teeth. She licked and teased, her mouth a gravitational pull and I was being sucked in, ready to collapse over her, into her. My hands wanted the softness of her skin and hair, the full curve of her breasts under my palm…
“Kacey,” I said. “We can’t…”
“We can,” she whispered against my cheek. Her mouth moved along my jaw, her lips blazing a trail across skin that hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in more than a year. Her hands tangled in my hair, little breathy noises of want issuing from her throat. Her mouth had almost found mine when a pungent waft of whiskey filled my nose, bringing me around like a slap.
What the hell are you doing?
I pulled away before her lips found mine and disentangled myself from her embrace.
“You’re no fun,” she murmured, and then stretched her arms over her head, her fingers splayed on the wooden bedframe. Her breasts pushed against the flimsy, glittery material of her black halter-top. “Don’t be like that. Come to bed, baby.”
Reality doused me like a bucket of ice water.
I could be anyone right now.
“You need to sleep it off,” I snapped. I unzipped the duffel that Lola had packed for her, and dug around until I found a T-shirt and pair of soft shorts. I laid them out on the bed and started for the door.
No sooner had I shut off the light then her voice carried to me, small and fragile in the dark.
“Wait. Jonah…?”
I stopped but didn’t turn, my shoulders sagging. “Yeah?”
“Stay. The ceiling…It’s spinning…”
Don’t do it.
I did. Drawn in.
I turned and moved slowly back to the bed. The only light came from the street outside, a white light casting a silvery glow over the bed and through her hair that had fallen from its knot. She held out her hand. I took it, and sat beside her.
Kacey sidled up close to me, pressed her cheek against my thigh and wrapped her arm around my knees. “Where am I?” Her voice was slurred a little, growing weak as sleep took her. “Where am I, Jonah?”
“You’re safe, Kacey,” I murmured. I held her for a little while, then helped her change into her comfortable clothes—taking care to keep my eyes averted as much as possible from her body, pale and smooth and stretche
d out before me.
I pulled up the covers. And because I thought she wouldn’t remember this in the morning, I stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Then I went out, closing the door softly behind me.
Someone was running that damned chainsaw again.
I jerked awake, blinking at the early morning light streaming in from a small window. It illuminated a bedroom: bed, dresser, nightstand, all plain in a bachelor-pad kind of way. On the floor next to the bed were my duffel and the small leather backpack that served as my purse. Outside the door, the whirring continued.
Jonah and his godawful blender.
It took me a blurry minute to put the puzzle pieces together from last night. Memories came to me like scattered photographs: the drummer from Until Tomorrow, our opening act, pawing at me before Jonah knocked him on his ass.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
And I had felt so safe…
I sat up slowly and pushed back the covers to find I was in a T-shirt and sleep shorts. A vague memory swam up: Jonah helping me peel off my leather jeans, helping me change clothes…
I kissed him. Just his neck and ear… But he smelled so good. I tried to pull him to bed and…
“Oh my God.” Mortification ran scarlet over my skin and I held my aching head in my hands. “No, no, no… Not Jonah. Not him.”
It wasn’t the alcohol. Not entirely. It was the goddamn insatiable need for connection, driving me to find comfort anywhere and any way I could. Jonah took care of me, protected me, and I’d reduced him to the same level as the nameless roadies I took to my bed.
I glanced at the nightstand. A glass of water, two aspirin.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
The clock radio read 7:04. Jonah would be leaving for the hot shop any minute. I got up, opened the bedroom door and padded into the narrow hallway. The blender went quiet and I heard men’s voices talking. Someone else was here. I shifted on the balls of my feet, frozen. Part of me begged to slip back to the bedroom and hide, pretend none of this happened. The other half, sick of hiding behind Jagermeister and whiskey, pushed me toward the kitchen.
Jonah looked cleanly handsome in jeans and a pale blue T-shirt. He took a pill from the Sunday compartment in one of those day-of-the-week medication containers. The rest of the compartments were crammed full, their lids bulging into domes. He washed the pill down with what looked like a tall glass of mud and ground up grass. The grimace that twisted his lips told me the drink didn’t taste any better than it looked.
A gruff cough jolted me from my thoughts. The hot guy from the photos on the living room wall leaned against the counter, clad in a black T-shirt and jeans. His muscled arms, inked with tribal tattoos, crossed against a broad chest. His dark hair was cut short and a thin growth of stubble grew along his jaw. He was a bulkier, more rugged version of Jonah. It had to be his brother. But where Jonah’s face was handsome in its open, friendly demeanor, his brother’s was closed down, tense and dark. His angry gaze darted between Jonah’s medication and me, as if he couldn’t believe the two things could exist in the same space.
The feeling of being a trespasser again twisted my already unsteady stomach, then Jonah turned to me. The smile that broke over his face when he saw me warmed me like a summer sun.
“Um, hi,” I said. “Good morning.”
“Hey.” Jonah caught sight of his brother’s astounded expression, and shifted his own quickly back to neutral. “Kacey, this is my brother, Theo. Theo, this is Kacey Dawson. She’s going to be crashing here for a few days.”
“Nice to meet you, Theo.”
Despite his Death Glare from Hell, my instinct was to hug Theo; I was big on hugs. And because he was Jonah’s brother I immediately felt a sense of affinity for him. But his cold stare pinned me to my spot.
Theo’s eyes raked me up and down, taking in my messy hair, my long t-shirt that covered my shorts and made it look like I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. It was pretty obvious what Theo assumed was happening between his brother and me, and he didn’t like it.
“When did this happen?” He demanded of Jonah, not even bothering to hide the accusatory tone in his voice.
This? I’m a this? I don’t think so, pal.
Before Jonah could reply, I said, “This happened last night. We got married at one of those drive-thru chapels, didn’t we…Johnny? Jordan?” I snapped my fingers, my face scrunched up in confusion. “Wait, don’t tell me…it’s definitely a J name.”
Jonah smothered a laugh.
Theo glowered but ignored me. “She’s staying here? For how long? When were you going to tell me?”
“Yes, until Tuesday, and I was just about to, but Kacey beat me to it,” Jonah said. “And Jesus, you’re being rude as hell. Even for you.”
The mother of all awkward silences descended on me as the brothers stared each other down and held a private conversation; I could practically hear the thoughts passing between them like words.
Finally, I cleared my throat and pointed toward a grocery bag on the counter surrounded by creamers and sugars. “What’s all this?”
Jonah’s eyes slowly left Theo’s. “I went out and got a few things.”
“That’s thoughtful of you this early in the morning.” I sniffed at the air. “Decaf never smelled so good…”
“That’s because it’s regular.” Jonah pulled a UNLV mug from a cupboard, filled it, and handed it over.
“Thank you.” I moved carefully past Theo. His dislike of me was still emanating off him like heat from a furnace. I took a stool on the other side of the counter, tucking my shirt up a little to prove that I was wearing shorts.
I saw Theo’s gaze land on the sugar skull tattooed on my left thigh. For a brief moment, his expression loosened, grew curious. I started to strike up a conversation about his tattoos, when his Death Glare returned, like a door slamming in my face.
He pushed himself off the counter. “You ready, bro?” he said. “Let’s hit it.”
Jonah finished off his protein shake and tossed the cup in the sink. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said to me. “So you’re not left stranded for lunch.”
Theo’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to work through lunch?”
“First time for everything,” Jonah replied.
“No, I don’t want to throw off your schedule,” I said. “You have a lot of work to do. I’ll be fine here, really.” I glanced at Theo. “Really.”
“Really,” Theo said, deadpan.
“Really, I’ll be back for lunch,” Jonah said. “If you need anything else, there’s a convenience store up the street, about a ten-minute walk. Give me your cell number, and I’ll call if I’m running late.”
Theo watched darkly as Jonah and I exchanged cell numbers. “You’re still coming to dinner tonight, right?” he said. He looked at me, his lighter brown eyes stony and hard. “We do it every Sunday. Family only.”
Jonah scrubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus Christ, Theo.”
For half a second, Theo looked contrite, then turned to stone again. “I’ll be waiting in the truck.” He strode to the apartment door and shut it hard behind him.
“Nice meeting you,” I said to my coffee cup.
“I’m so sorry. He really has become a pain in the ass since…” Jonah laughed shortly. “Since birth, actually.”
“Does he work with glass too? Is that why he’s going to the shop?”
“No, he’s a tattoo artist.”
“Really? I was thinking about getting another tattoo. Too bad he hates my guts.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s just…protective. He helps me out at the shop sometimes. I have an assistant too. Tania. But she’s off on Sundays.”
“So he drove here to pick you up?”
Jonah raked his hand through his hair. “Yeah, we’re… We’re close. And he likes to hang out.”
“So under all that glowering and barking, he’s a softie.”
Outside, a car horn blared, loud and
long.
I burst out laughing.
Jonah laughed too and then a short silence fell. I figured it was now or never if I was going to apologize for last night.
“That was nice of you to let me crash in your bed last night. I was…pretty drunk. Didn’t mean to evict you. Or—”
“You didn’t,” Jonah said. “I don’t sleep in the bed. I haven’t in about four months.”
I blinked. “Um, okay, I’ll bite. Where do you sleep?”
He nodded his head toward the living room area behind me. “In the recliner. My doctor wants me to sleep semi-inclined. For better breathing. It’s not a big deal,” he added quickly.
I frowned. It sounded like a big fucking deal. What would happen if he slept lying down? He’d stop breathing? I couldn’t ask that, so instead I said, “Is that…comfortable?”
“It’s just another adjustment.”
“Why don’t you buy one of those fancy beds? Where you can raise the head?”
“Not in the budget,” Jonah said and a sour look contorted his face. He bent forward, hands on the counter, his head hanging between his arms.
My heart jump-started. “Jonah?” Every muscle in my body tensed. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said to the floor, sucking in draughts of air. “Just nauseated.”
“Do you want some water?” I was already off the stool and rummaging his cabinet for a glass. I filled it halfway from the faucet and pressed it into his hand.
He unbent himself and drank a little. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s passed.”
I could smell his aftershave—clean and masculine. The memory of his skin under my mouth made my knees tremble. I slipped back to my stool, cheeks burning.
Jonah took a last, deep breath and set the water aside. “Thanks again.”
“Does that happen a lot?” I asked. “When you take those pills?”
He nodded. “They’re immunosuppressants. They prevent my body from rejecting the heart, but their side-effects aren’t fun.”
I tried to think up something better to say, something comforting, or something funny to make him laugh, but all I could think of was that I was sorry he had to suffer this at all.