Neon Nights (Against the Odds Book 1)

by Bryony Kayn

  Swan had started out by waiting for her each night when she came in to work. If Steve or Angel were with her when she came in, he’d just walk away as though he hadn’t even noticed her. When she came in by herself, he invariably tried to get close to her. The passive-aggressive stalking wore on her, and she finally explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that the only thing between them was friendship. She liked him and truly thought he was a talented musician. But she told him bluntly that Steve had a jealous streak a mile wide and if Swan didn’t give her some room to move, Steve would more than likely take matters into his own hands. The next time, she might not be able to hold him back, as she had done in the motel parking lot. She was relieved when Swan finally started paying attention to the women who openly admired him and approached him at every break, and stopped trying to come on to her.

  On Jake’s next day off from the club, she woke before anyone else and snooped through Angel’s bookshelves, pulling out all the photo albums she could find and stacking them on the floor by the couch. She fixed herself a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette, and starting going through them page by page. Some of the books were filled with photos taken during Blackstone’s two international tours, and she flipped through them quickly. The ones she was really interested in, however, were the older pictures, those that dated from before she’d left town. These she lingered over, smiling sadly as she caressed some of the photos.

  There was a picture of Steve and Angel on stage at the Neon in the midst of one of their earlier shows. There was a slightly out-of-focus photo of Jake herself, dancing with Nikky in front of the stage, both of them lost in the music. Photos of Quinn and a girl whose name Jake couldn’t remember. Marlo standing behind his drums with blurred sticks twirling through his fingers. T.J. and Jake playing a drinking game at one of the old tables by the bar. Then she got to a photo of Kila and her sister Spyk, the two of them decked out in performance attire.

  Jake moved her fingers over the picture wistfully. Spyk was a couple years older than Jake, and Kila a couple years younger. Other than a similarity in their eyes, the two women looked nothing alike and no one would have guessed they were sisters. Kila was—or had been, anyway—waifish and slender as a boy, with shoulder-length, light brown hair and wide, sky-blue eyes. Spyk, as befit her nickname, had worn her auburn hair short in the back and spiked in points on top, with the tips dyed whatever color had struck her fancy at the time. She had been a striking figure, taller and more voluptuous than either Kila or Jake. She’d been raucous and loud, usually the center of attention in a crowd. She’d had few real friends, although Jake had come to know her well-hidden sensitivity. She was also openly bisexual and had laughingly propositioned Jake as often as Nikky had.

  The next page in the album included pictures of Riley and Tanner, all of them gathered together at the Neon. They’d also been wearing their stage costumes, mostly in black, sewn with spangles here and there.

  Then Jake saw a picture of herself in her own stage gear consisting of tight, black vinyl pants that were supposed to resemble leather, a black lace shirt over a black bra, and with black sequins scattered randomly for sparkle. Her hair, not as long then as it was now, had fallen free down her back and across one shoulder, the rich blond color making her clothing look even blacker. In this photo, she was on the stage at the Neon, singing into a microphone held in both hands.

  Jake was surprised to feel tears well in her eyes, and glanced around quickly to be sure she was still alone. She’d left Steve sleeping in her bed and had yet to see Angel this morning. She dashed the tears away with the back of her hand and lit a second cigarette.

  There were more photos of her band on the stage at the Neon. Pictures of Spyk, her face severe as she focused on the guitar that she wore slung low. Pictures of Kila playing her bass and Riley behind his drums with the hand-lettered bass drum cover advertising the name of the band. Tanner standing behind his keyboards, his narrow, rather ascetic face pale under the stage lights.

  As she continued through the album, nostalgia overwhelming her with memories, she caught sight of another photo of herself. Her hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, and she was looking into a mirror as she applied makeup. Clearly visible was a yellowing bruise on her cheekbone, another on the angle of her jaw, and the recognizable pattern of fingertips bruised on her neck.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked up again quickly to be sure Steve hadn’t suddenly materialized behind her. She was still alone in the room, but her fingers shook a little as she held her cigarette to her lips. Exhaling a stream of smoke, she looked at the album again. There was another picture apparently taken on the same day. Jake had turned to face the camera, her make-up completed, and was saying something to the person holding the camera. The next photo in line, she’d put up a hand to block most of the lens.

  “Who took these pictures?” she said softly, turning the page. She honestly couldn’t remember—not because it was so long ago, but because she’d looked like that so many times over the four years she’d been with Steve. Sometimes it amazed her how easily she’d fallen into accepting the violence of their relationship, but she’d never really known anything better. Her life had never been easy, not in the system where she’d bounced back and forth between state-run institutions and foster care, or after she’d successfully run away to survive on the streets. She’d spent so much of her life fighting, she had become used to being only a step away from a physical confrontation at any given moment.

  On the next page there was a picture of Steve. His hair half covered his face, and he was shirtless, his back mostly turned to the camera. Two nasty, freshly healed lacerations crossed his back, the remains of Jake losing her temper and cutting him with one of the blades she had always carried back then. She still had her knives, but didn’t carry them anymore. They were in her room right now, wrapped in an old shirt and shoved into the bottom of her canvas duffel bag. She doubted she would ever get rid of them, but didn’t feel it was necessary to carry them on her person all the time as she had once done.

  “What are you doing?” Angel asked, and Jake choked on a drag of smoke, jumping a good two inches before she began to cough. “Hey, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Angel added, coming around the couch to rub her back.

  “It’s okay,” she said hoarsely, coughing again, and stabbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  He sat beside her, glancing at the album. “Taking a trip down memory lane, huh?” His sleep-tangled hair stuck out in spikes and elflocks, and Jake fought down the urge to run her fingers through it.

  “Yeah, I guess,” she replied, turning the page. More pictures of her old bandmates, this time at a party at the shabby apartment she and Steve had shared for a while. Spyk gesturing with a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other as she talked with Marlo. Kila sitting at the scratched and rickety kitchen table, playing quarters. Steve bending Jake backwards as he kissed her, his hands splayed against her back. “A lot of stuff I didn’t really remember in here,” Jake mused. On the next page, a photo of Angel crashed on the couch, his legs too long, so his feet hung over the armrest. T.J. and Jake sitting with their heads together, apparently carrying on a solemn conversation. Steve leaning against the wall, ankles crossed casually, a bleak expression on his hard face.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Angel said, pointing at a photo of himself dancing with Spyk, this one back at the Neon again. “She was one tough chick.”

  Jake nodded her agreement, turning to the next page. Here was a photo of her sleeping, her tangled hair spread out on the pillow, a sheet pulled haphazardly over her breasts. One arm and one bare hip showed. There were bruises and welts on both, although she couldn’t see any bruising on her face in this picture. “Who took these pictures of me?” she asked, still unsettled by the casual documentation of leftover violence.

  “Steve did,” Angel said quietly.

  “Why would he want pictures showing his h
andiwork?” she asked, not angry but uneasy. “You’d think he’d want to deny that he ever hit me. He never talks about it. He never even talks about that last big fight, when he put me in the hospital.”

  Angel was silent for a while, looking at the rest of the pictures on that page. All of them were of Jake, taken at different times, but there was a bruise or welt or cut visible in every one. “I don’t know if he just needed a reminder of what he was capable of. Maybe he was trying to convince himself that you deserved it.”

  She lit another cigarette, then took a swallow of her coffee and grimaced. It had gone cold.

  “You know, he never did say what caused that last fight,” Angel commented, snagging a cigarette for himself. “I always wondered, but even when I asked, he wouldn’t talk about it. No one else seems to know, either.”

  Jake closed the album and set it aside with the others she’d already looked at. She was quiet for a minute, remembering. Finally, she said, “I guess it was my fault. You could say I provoked him.”

  He raised an eyebrow when she looked at him, and stroked his free hand up and down her back soothingly.

  “I don’t remember exactly how it started. I think I’d been out longer than he expected, and he was pissed when I got back. Anyway, I was not in a good mood myself, so I antagonized him. You know I did that sometimes, even when I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  He nodded, but remained silent.

  She shrugged, ashing her smoke deliberately, turning the cherry against the bottom of the glass ashtray so she wouldn’t have to look up. “Anyhow, when he kept bitching at me about where I’d been and who I’d been with, I finally told him that I was pregnant.”

  Angel’s hand stopped. He didn’t even sound as though he was breathing.

  Jake went on in that same soft, painstaking way. “He was shocked, I think. He didn’t know what to say. He finally asked when I was due.” She glanced at Angel quickly from the corner of her eye, and took another drag off her cigarette. “I was still pissed off, I guess. I wasn’t tactful at all. I told him not to worry about it because I’d just come back from the abortion clinic.”

  Angel exhaled, sounding as though he’d been slugged in the gut.

  “There was no way we could have had a kid then, Angel, you know that,” she went on cautiously. “We could barely support ourselves. And what would a baby have done to the band? You guys were so close to getting signed.”

  “You had an abortion?” Angel asked, and there was pain in his voice.

  She shook her head, swallowing anxiously. “No, but I’d been thinking about it seriously. I really don’t think we were fit to be parents. Not then. Maybe not ever.” She finished her cigarette and put it out.

  Angel looked confused and still so shocked at what she’d been telling him that she had to fight back both a laugh and fresh tears.

  Jake turned her head toward the patio at the back of the house, not wanting to see Angel’s expression anymore. “Anyway, Steve lost it. He called me a bitch and a murderer and said he’d never forgive me for killing his child. And then he started hitting me.” Her hands were clenched into a tight ball in her lap, and she fought to keep from shaking. “I remember pulling my knives, and I can clearly remember cutting him across the chest. I can remember breaking his nose, too, but that’s about all I remember. The next thing I knew, I was in the ER and then a hospital room.”

  “Oh my God,” Angel whispered.

  “When I woke up the next day, the doctor came in to tell me what all was wrong—the concussion and cracked ribs and stuff. Then he told me that I’d miscarried. I told him he could let you guys know about everything but the baby. I told him that no one knew I was pregnant, and I didn’t want people getting upset about it.” She was almost shivering now, the shaking out of her control at this point. “I never told Steve. I didn’t talk to him after that, you remember. Didn’t talk to him again until I came back, and we haven’t discussed any of that. But I’ve thought about it a lot, and I don’t think he should know. He was so angry thinking that I got rid of the baby—if he knew that I miscarried because of him, I don’t know what he’d do.”

  Angel didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, and thoughts seemed to be racing through his mind, but his eyes gave little away. Speechless, he leaned over to drop his cigarette in the ashtray and then pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his wide chest. He stroked her hair over and over until her shaking dissipated, and she put her arms around him. She rested her head on his shoulder and just let him hold her.

  “Don’t say anything to him, Angel,” she whispered, taking comfort in his closeness. “He doesn’t need to know. Things turned out for the best, anyway.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Angel promised, smoothing her hair over and over. There was nothing else to say.

  When Steve came into the living room, he found Jake and Angel sitting on the couch. There were a couple stacks of photo albums on the floor beside them, and they were flipping through the pages of one on the coffee table.

  “Talk about a blast from the past,” Steve said, looking over Jake’s shoulder at the pictures of Blackstone. The photos were some that Jake had taken with a 35-millimeter camera on one of their early club tours. Each shot showed the band on stage, either all four members in a far off shot, or zoomed in on one at a time.

  She turned to look up at him, smiling. “You guys were hot. Still are.”

  He leaned down to kiss her, then said, “Is there any coffee?”

  “Yeah,” she answered, holding up her cup. “Get me a refill?”

  “Sure.” He took her cup into the kitchen with him and dumped the cold remnants into the sink. When he came back with two hot cups, Jake slid over closer to Angel so Steve could sit on her other side. The photos they were looking at now were of Jezebel. Jake’s band had also done a short tour in the days before they broke up. A mutual friend of both bands, Greg Stanfield, had gone along with them to help with equipment and run the soundboard. He had also taken pictures of the band on stage while they played.

  Steve tapped a picture of Spyk and Kila, leaning together back to back as they played guitar and bass, respectively. “You have any idea what happened to them?”

  Jake shook her head. “Nope. I haven’t heard from any of them. I guess I could call Ilone, the girls’ mom, and see if she has any info on them.”

  “Ilone passed away,” Angel said, surprising them. “She died a year and a half, maybe two years ago. Bad heart or something.”

  “How do you know that?” Steve asked, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

  “I ran into Spyk not too long after Ilone passed,” Angel replied. “She told me.”

  “That must have been hard,” Jake said, looking back down at the photo of the two women. “She was their only family.”

  “Well, you know how Spyk is. She didn’t act like she was too broken up over it, though she said Kila had a hard time,” Angel went on. “I still see Spyk every now and then.”

  “Where?” Jake asked.

  He actually colored a little and cleared his throat. “She owns a shop, kind of a boutique, and I occasionally go in to browse.”

  “What kind of shop?” Jake asked, one eyebrow raised.

  Steve started to laugh as he realized, “She runs that S&M store off the strip, doesn’t she?”

  A smile spread across Jake’s face as Angel’s discomfiture grew worse.

  “She has some great boots for sale, thigh highs with stiletto heels—”

  “I didn’t know that was your style,” Jake said, her smile widening into a grin.

  “Not for me,” Angel retorted gruffly and reached for a cigarette. “I’ve dated a couple of women who looked good in that kind of thing, so I go there to shop sometimes.”

  Jake just laughed. “Maybe we should get me a pair?” she suggested. “Do you think I’d look good in that kind of thing?”

  Steve laughed as well, enjoying the other man’s embarrassment, and said, “You’d loo
k great. We should definitely go check it out.”

  When they pulled over in front of the shop, Jake shook her head. The sign on the store stated Jezebel’s. “I wonder where she got the name,” Jake commented sarcastically and got out of Angel’s car.

  The shop wasn’t large, but it held an interesting mix of items. There was a large amount of black leather, everything from skimpy harnesses to full body suits, including head masks. There was an array of bondage accessories—handcuffs, silk scarves, and ropes of every description and length. There was a display of whips on one wall, from a short, serviceable riding crop to a six-foot cat-o’-nine-tails.

  “I didn’t know there really was such a thing,” Jake said, looking at the last item while keeping her voice low. There were three other people in the store who were busy at the counter paying for their purchases.

  “See anything you like?” Steve asked as softly, smiling when he held up a set of handcuffs.

  “Keep dreaming,” she replied. He’d handcuffed her once, back when they’d first gotten together, and it had not at all turned out the way she had expected. Instead of kinky sex, he’d left her cuffed to the bed to finish partying, and she’d spent most of the night trying to pick the lock on the cuffs to free herself.

  The people at the counter finished up and exited through the front door. The woman behind the counter looked over at them, noticing Angel immediately. “Hey, Angel,” she said, closing the drawer of the cash register and stepping out from behind the glassed-in display case. She wore a black satin bustier and tight faded jeans, and her long, auburn hair fell down her back to her waist.

  It wasn’t until she spoke that Jake recognized her. “Spyk?”

  The other woman looked at her and then Steve. “Well if it isn’t Jake and her man-candy. Long time,” she said, coming around a clothes rack to give Jake a swift hug. She nodded at Steve and left it at that. She and Steve had never gotten along, but he was civil enough to return her nod.