by Ava Lore
Big surprise.
Kent was a ball of rage and tension as he drove, and I felt it humming through the car. I had the stray thought that if Kent could get into method acting he'd probably be way better at it than Carter; it was impossible not to feel what he was feeling. He projected emotions like the sun.
I saw the line of people waiting to get into Sunset before I saw the club itself. It went on for blocks, crowds of people in the newest fashions and most polished styles. There were plenty of people in LA who looked like me, all dyed hair and piercings, but we didn't hang out at the places where the pretty people went. The glitterati and the real housewives wouldn't be caught dead rubbing social elbows with us. They'd take a drink from our hands or let us wait their tables or do their hair, but they didn't want to rub elbows with us while they were trying to claw their way up the social ladder.
I wondered if even Kent was going to be able to get me in. I wasn't a cute teen pop sensation; I couldn't get away with looking like I did at a Hollywood club.
“Are you sure Carter is here?” I asked Kent.
He nodded. “I put a GPS program on his phone yesterday,” he said. “He doesn't know. I can't have him running off to fucking Vegas again. Who knows where that idiot will go next time?”
I wanted to say that Carter wasn't really an idiot, but I had a feeling there were some family dynamics going on here that I shouldn't mess with. My own family was huge and warm, and yeah, we might call each other idiots when we were being idiots, but even an outsider could see Carter was getting sucked into the lifestyle as a release from tension. Calling him an idiot was just going to create more tension. I couldn't very well point that out, though. That wasn't my job, and Kent's expression was so thunderous that any gentle queries I could think of died on my tongue. I turned away and stared at the mass of people who waited to catch a glimpse of a celebrity in the wild.
To my surprise, Kent pulled up outside the club and hopped out of the car. For a second I debated taking my bag with me, but it would be unwieldy in a crush, so I left it, taking only my phone with me.
Kent hardly spared me a second glance as a valet sprinted past him, grabbing the keys from his outstretched hand. He strode straight for the entrance, and I wondered if there wasn't a second entrance or something, for celebrities who didn't want to get mobbed. Then again, why be a celebrity if you didn't want to get mobbed?
I stumbled behind Kent as he walked, feeling foolish and small, drab in comparison even to the bouncers who stood at the door.
As we went straight to the front of the line, a ripple started in the crowd of people. Suddenly, where before they were milling purposelessly, they surged, craning their necks. Phones flashed, and I suddenly realized, with a weird feeling in my stomach, that I was going to be beamed out across the world. Then I realized that this was what Kent had wanted.
He wanted the world to see me. Carter's girlfriend, entering the club. No one would know who I was tonight. There would be plenty of time for them to speculate, the girl at the bottom of the totem pole entering the hottest nightclub in LA with the bassist of the hottest rock band. Buzz, gossip—it would spread out from here.
It's rare that you can feel the moment where your entire life changes. But I felt it, right there on that LA sidewalk, with Kent Hudson next to me.
Then we were at the door and Kent grabbed my wrist in his strong hand, nodding to the bouncers who moved aside smoothly and allowed us to enter. Voices rose and mingled, and I heard snatches of conversation.
“Holy shit, that's Kent Hudson! Carter Hudson's brother, he's the bassist—”
“—Lonely Kings! The Lonely Kings! You have to have heard—”
“—so hot, I have to call Maddison right now, she is going to freak out—”
“—that girl with him? I've never seen—”
And then we were through the doors and into the riotous, chaotic atmosphere of the Sunset Club.
You'd think as the former nominal girlfriend of a mediocre wannabe rocker I would be more used to clubs, but I have to admit, I hate them. The crush of people, the sweat, the guys rubbing all up on you without so much as a hello, the overpriced drinks, the stink of the bathrooms, the heavy pounding music that deafens you. OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ. It's fine in moderation, but the relentlessness of it overwhelms me and makes me want to crawl into a hole.
Also, since my trade of choice was booze slinger, I knew just how terrible the people who go to clubs can be. The sorts of things they get up to in the bathrooms and corners. I once worked at a popular club in San Diego for a few months, and it made me so depressed I had to quit. People out of their mind on coke, or MDMA cut with bath salts, girls getting molested and assaulted in the dark nooks and crannies, people who should be in hospitals carted away by their drunk friends because no one wants to go to jail for holding... Sunset brought it back to me in a sudden, horrible rush.
As Kent dragged me through the crowd, looking for Carter, the bottoms of my feet began to itch, the backs of my knees twitching, telling me to get out. Claustrophobia crawled up my legs, but there was no where to go to get away from it. How could Carter like these places? He'd seemed sweet, unassuming, not much like a rock star at all except for his cavalier disregard for his well-being and a certain self-centeredness that, well, bordered on tantrum-throwing territory...
Okay, he was kind of a star. A nice diva, but still a diva.
I tried to take deep breaths, but the air was thick with sweat and heat, cloying, clogging my nose. The stink of alcohol bloomed from every passing body, and more than once I felt a hand on my ass. I struggled to stay close to Kent, but he walked quickly, his face grim, his shoulders set and hard as he glanced around the club, searching for his wayward brother.
Carter was nowhere to be found.
After an eternity of flashing lights and pounding music, Kent stopped dead in his tracks and I crashed into him. The bombardment of stimulus was so great that I barely felt it, and when Kent turned and put his mouth to my ear only the barest of tremors shuddered through me.
“We need to split up!” he yelled to me. “Look for a group of women! Get him out of here if you find him—I'll find you!”
Biting my lip I pulled back and nodded to him. He gave me a curt nod back and disappeared into the seething mass of people, and then I was alone in the crowd.
Sunset was a big club, in an old warehouse, and I had no idea where to go first. Blindly I struck out toward the dance floor. Without Kent's tall frame dragging me around, I had no buffers against the assault of bodies, and by the time I reached the dancers I felt bruised and battered. No one paid me any attention.
The dance floor was even worse than the club proper. It was packed so close it was a wonder anyone could breathe, let alone get down with their bad selves. Reasoning that no one was going to recognize me in all the flashing lights, I began to shoulder and shove my way between people. Not enough to start a fight, but definitely enough to get a shove or two back. I peered into faces. They were beautiful, shiny, sometimes harsh and distant, but none of them were Carter, and I despaired of ever finding Carter—had he divined our arrival and already left the club?
But then, quite by accident, I found him.
Or, more accurately, my nose found Carter's shoulder.
It hurt. A lot. Enough to jerk me out of my sound and light induced haze, so at least there was that. Stumbling back, my hands clapped to my face, I blinked the tears from my eyes to see Carter grinding against a leggy blonde, his head thrown back as he reveled in the beat. His eyes were closed. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and his hair hung in damp ringlets around his face. He looked like a boy in high school, even though he was just a year shy of my own age.
Reaching out, I put my hand on his bicep and squeezed. He didn't even respond. How drunk was he?
Sidling up as close as I could without endangering my nose again, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“CARTER!”
Somehow he heard me over the poundin
g music, opened his eyes and turned around. At first he didn't seem to recognize me. Then his brows shot up into his hair.
“How the hell did you find me here?” he hollered. “And how did you get in?”
I ignored that question. “Come on, Kent is going to rip you a new one if you don't come with me!”
To my shock, Carter made a face. “Then let him come find me! You can't boss me around, I'm paying you!”
Anger rose in me. “Kent is paying me to boss you around!” I yelled back. “If you don't care what he does to you, can't you do it so I don't get in trouble with Kent?”
That actually seemed to get through to him, and I saw hesitation in his face. He was on the verge of saving my bacon from the brother he thought of as an evil taskmaster when it all fell apart.
Harsh hands on my arm, pulling me away, and I turned to see a very beautiful and very cross girl scowling at me. The leggy blonde who'd no doubt been enjoying Carter's hard-on in her ass crack a minute ago. I didn't blame her for looking so cross.
“Hands off,” she yelled at me over the sound of the music. “I was here first!”
Desperately I looked around for Kent, but he was nowhere to be seen. What should I say? The girl staggered a bit on her gorgeous stripper heels and I realized she was drunk.
Of course she was drunk. Everyone was drunk. Perilously she teetered, but before I could do anything Carter reached out and caught her, laughing, and then he staggered, too.
In horror I watched as, almost in slow motion, they collided with a large man grinding against a very beautiful, lithe woman. The woman stumbled, her ankle giving way under her, and the man turned and shoved Carter hard in the chest.
Carter punched him in the face. Or he tried to. His swing was wild, sent him off balance, and he clipped the man in the ear. The man tumbled sideways into someone else, and then it was all over.
The lights and the music battered against me as a fight broke out. People shoved and panicked, like sheep, as fists began to fly.
Women shrieked and tried to get out of the way. Drinks sloshed, splashed across the ground and all over expensive club clothes, bodies banged and ricocheted around like pin balls in a machine, and in the middle, Carter disappeared into a suddenly frothing fist fight.
The wave of people swept me back, away from him. I struggled against the tide, but it was futile. Carter popped out of the melee for a moment, and desperately I reached for him. My fingers caught his sleeve, but he tumbled away again, into the crowd. Something hit me across the back of my head, hard. The world swam, and I nearly fell—
Then Kent was there. Tall, strong, implacable, but weirdly it was the glittering jewelry in his ears that stunned me. In the lights of the club, he sparkled. His arms were around me, keeping me from falling to the floor and being trampled to death. His hard body was a sudden, queer comfort, but I had no time to enjoy it. He set me on my feet, then, bobbing and weaving, dove into the brawl.
Only seconds later he emerged, his brother in hand. He didn't even glance my way as he propelled the drunk and hapless Carter across the dance floor, to the back of the club, and I sprinted after them. My heart roared in my ears, drowning out the music, and when we reached a door marked Employees Only Kent didn't hesitate to dive right through. I followed him, barely registering the back rooms before we were stumbling through the back door and into the alleyway.
“Hold him,” Kent said, and practically threw Carter into my arms, then took off running down the alley.
Helplessly, I kept my arms locked around Carter, who'd gone limp like a cat that knows it's about to be tortured with doll clothes. The seconds ticked by and he got heavier and heavier, until the flash of headlights illuminated us from behind.
Turning, I saw Kent's sleek black car pull through the alleyway before stopping abruptly in front of us. I loaded Carter into the back, hopped shotgun, and away we sped.
I barely registered the completely ordinary ranch-style house where Carter lived, I was so exhausted from the rush and drop of adrenaline. Carter had sat in the back seat the whole way home, drunk and complaining that Kent was harshing his buzz. I wanted to turn around and slap him on the cheek that didn't have a faint bruise, but I didn't. Honestly, I was just too tired.
Kent pulled his slick car into the garage and closed the large door before turning to where his brother sat moaning. “We're home, man,” he said. “Let's make Rebecca welcome.”
Carter looked at me, but it was a bit of a cross-eyed gaze. “Welcome, Mrs. Girlfriend,” he said sourly. “Thanks for the cockblock.”
Ugh, I thought. But all I said was, “You need to sober up.”
“I'll be sober in the morning,” he told me.
No you won't, I thought. You may just not be drunk any more. With a sigh I opened the door and got out of the car.
“You get your things, I'll handle this guy,” Kent told me, popping the trunk, and I nodded at him gratefully. He was better equipped to drag Carter's drunk ass into the house anyway, so I retrieved my things and followed them.
Carter was still protesting as Kent led him into the bathroom, ordered him to wash his face, drink some water, and go to bed. I stood in the small living room, feeling awkward. The house was just like any other house—pretty messy, but nothing like the disaster I'd imagined after the horror of the rehearsal loft—and I had to remind myself that the Lonely Kings were still on their way up. Their names may be everywhere on everyone's lips, but they were still new. Whatever money they were making was only just now starting to trickle in as everyone took their cut off the top. Still, the house was pretty big for Cali. Real estate was still grossly expensive here as opposed to where I grew up.
Reasoning that the house was now, for all intents and purposes, my home for the time being, I set my things down and collapsed on the couch. I closed my eyes for a moment.
Kent's hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently woke me, and I jerked out of a shallow slumber to see him standing over me, giving me a tired smile.
“Thought you might like to use the bedroom instead since you've been sleeping on a couch for a week,” he said.
“It was a lot longer than a week,” I said. “It just wasn't the same couch the whole time.”
“Surfing,” he said, nodding sagely. “Well, come on. The guest room is yours now.”
He picked up one trash bag and I hefted the other, following him down the hallway to the last room at the end. Together we heaved my bags in through the door, and I walked in, surveying the place.
A nice bed, covered in the ugliest orange and lime comforter I'd ever seen, stood against one wall. An easy chair and a dresser with a TV on it also decorated the room. It smelled a little musty and disused, but I didn't mind. It was clean, and a bedroom, and I could finally, finally sleep.
“Yeah,” I said. “This is nice. Thank you.”
Behind me, Kent cleared his throat. Then, abruptly, he said: “Rebecca. We can't touch each other again. Now that you're here, you have to be focused on Carter completely.”
I almost protested that it wasn't me that was doing all the handsy shit, but when I whirled around to confront him I stopped.
He actually looked sad. Contrite. His shoulders, normally so hard and set, drooped slightly. A heavy weight, I thought, not for the first time. He had heavy weights to bear, and now I did, too. He'd hired me to help him, not go crazy all over his cock. I had a feeling he was telling himself as much as me that we needed to concentrate on Carter.
After a moment, I nodded. “Okay.”
If anything, his shoulders drooped further. “Can you get yourself settled?” he asked.
I gave him a little smile. “I'm a big girl. When I have to be.”
He nodded. “Good. You'll have to be.” He turned to go, then paused and looked back at me. “Rebecca?”
I raised my brows, telling him to go on.
He hesitated. “Thank you,” he finally said. Then he turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
&n
bsp; I stripped down in silence, turned out the light, and got into bed, suddenly too tired to even look for my pajamas. I crawled between the sheets and was asleep in seconds.
In the early morning hours I awoke, terrified.
Panic reigned, and for a long moment I forgot where I was. I was no stranger to waking up in strange places, so that part didn't bother me. It had all been a part of my life with Jason, whenever we ran out of money. Some nights I even slept at the bar. There was a cot in the back for drunks too wasted to go home, but me—I usually didn't have a home. Sometimes I was in a strange bed, or sleeping on a strange floor, or in the back seat of a car or on a couch in a house I didn't recognize. I'd woken many places before, so that did not scare me.
No, the terrifying thing was the sudden fear that I was back there, back in time, dating a washed-up wannabe rocker, treading water, scraping for the next rent check and failing and moving on.
What scared me was not waking up in a strange place; what scared me was the thought that I was not done waking up in strange places.
I sat straight up in the bed, panting, my eyes darting wildly about the room.
There was a figure in the doorway, and for a second my heart leaped straight into my throat.
Good thing, too, because it blocked the scream that threatened to break free there.
“It's me.”
Kent. The band, the contract, the new house.
And of course it was Kent. Who else would be so audacious as to sneak into my new room right after he told me we needed to keep our hands off each other?
I remembered I was naked and snatched the sheet to my chest.
“What are you doing in here?” I hissed. “Didn't you just tell me we had to stop touching each other?” I couldn't see his face. In the darkness of the room he was a hole cut in the world.
He shook his head. “I didn't come here for that.”
I stared at him, not buying it, and he appeared to have a brief attack of conscience. “Well,” he amended, “not entirely.”