I try really hard not to think of that last one as ironic.
“Because I like having a nickname for you,” Lilith continues, reaching up to brush strands of hair from my forehead. It feels so goddamn good to be touched that I let my eyes drift shut for a moment, the sight of roadies in denim and sweatshirts and band tees fading away. “Besides, at this point it seems like you should probably just give up on trying to get Paxton to stop calling you that. I'm not sure that I've actually ever heard him say Michael before.”
Lilith's body drapes over the front of mine, her hands sliding around my neck, just above the new tattoo between my shoulder blades. I open my eyes for a split second before her lips touch mine, kissing me, igniting that violent fucking hunger that I can't seem to shake. I keep telling myself it's because I spent a year not having sex, but in reality, I think it might just be Lilith.
My hands settle on her hips, my cock pressing against the inside of my jeans, pushed up tight to her belly. I feel this surge of triumph as I get to make out with her the way I saw Paxton doing that night, the night when she wore the glittering green dress and got tossed out of the venue. It feels fucking great.
We pull apart after a few minutes, when my heart feels like it just might make a break and tear out of my rib cage, our gazes locked, her lips looking as swollen as mine feel.
“Thank you for the offer, about Seattle and all that,” she says, leaning back a little, putting some space between us. I notice she doesn't take her palms off the front of my hunter green t-shirt, the same color as those gorgeous eyes of hers.
“You're welcome,” I tell her, wanting her to move in with me and Pax, share my bedroom, share my bed. Pretty crazy thoughts to have about a girl I met two weeks, but fuck if I can help it. I don't know if it's some magic in that rosewater perfume she spritzes all over herself, or the way her red hair tumbles down her back in glistening ruby waves, or the feel of her hot tight cunt wrapped around my shaft, gripping and milking and working me until I come … but I can't get enough of her. “By the time this tour is done, I'll have convinced you to move in with me, so maybe you should just start thanking me for that, too?”
“Wow, cocky, much?” she asks, the others standing close to us, but staying out of the conversation. Or maybe they just can't hear for shit because it's so damn loud back here? “You have zero confidence, Mikey. None at all.”
“That's me,” I tell her, my own version of a smirk working its way across my face. I might not have that royal British swagger that Pax has got, but I know how to make a woman swoon.
“Can you do me a favor?” she asks, and I sense this is the real reason she came over here and buttered me up with a cock hardening kiss.
“Sure thing, Lil. What's up?”
I don't say it aloud, but in my head, I hear the words: I'd do anything for you.
How stupid is that? I keep a goddamn lid on that shit.
“Do you think you could borrow that truck we used today and drive me over to Gloversville on the way to Montréal? It won't add any extra time to the trip except for whatever actual time we spend there.”
Her breath catches a little as she talks, her mood shifting despite the obvious push to make herself smile.
“Fuck, Lil,” I say, reaching out to touch the side of her face with my tattooed hand, loving the contrast between the dark designs on my skin and the pink freshness of hers. I knew she wanted to stop in and see her childhood home one more time, pick up her father's ashes, but I guess I just hadn't given much thought to how we'd go about it. “Of course. I'll talk to Octavia about it later.”
And by talk, I mean basically tell her what we're planning on doing. There's no way in hell she or the record label is putting a stop to this little side trip.
“Did you want it to be just us?” I ask, wondering as the words come out if that's what I want, to spend time together with just her. But no. I actually stand there and hope she asks to bring her other lovers—my friends. My family, really, since the only person in this world that I'm actually related to is a liar and a fucking thief. Who also happens to be the man that raised you, my mind adds, but I'm not going there, not right now. I'll officially deal with Tim once we're back in Seattle.
“I think we should all go,” Lilith says, glancing over at the guys. They're all standing behind us, fresh tattoos peeking out from the back of Cope's neck, Ransom's elbow, Muse's hip. Paxton's is hidden beneath the folds of his grey suit, charcoal button-up, and pale pink tie. It was a hell of a lot harder to figure out where to put his than it was for even me. Pax's tattoos basically cover him from head to toe. But Lilith managed to pick out this one, single blank spot on his chest, just above his heart. It even seems to compliment the lyrics written out below it, from his neck all the way down to his hips.
“You guys are up in just a minute,” Octavia says, shouting a little to be heard over the backstage din. “One minute.” She holds up a single finger and I pause to press one last kiss to Lilith's mouth.
“Break a leg,” she tells me, giving the other guys kisses on the lips, one after the other. But it doesn't just look like she's going through the motions. The way she kisses each one of us is different, her mouth as hungry for Muse as it is for Cope, Ran, Pax. Me. “Good luck!”
We make our way onstage, picking up our instruments, getting ready for the second to last show stateside. Well, okay, so we're also playing Montréal, but technically that's in Canada, so it counts as world tour destination number one.
I slip my Gibson's strap over my shoulder and slide a purple guitar pick from my pocket. My fretting hand finds the neck, one thumb resting on the backside, my knuckles bent. My upper right arm rests along the body of the guitar, my strumming hand floating over the sound hole. This particular guitar is ocean burst green. To me, it looks like the exact shade of Lilith's eyes.
I'm so deep in Lily fucking la-la land that I can't remember what song we're supposed to start with, so I take a small step back and glance at the set list taped to the floor. Ah. Shit. This song is perfect.
I dig the purple and black bandana out of my other pocket and tie it around my forehead, using it to pull my long dark hair back. That first night that Lilith and I got together, I was so pumped to play for her, picking at my guitar strings like in incubus intent on seduction. But she didn't get to hear me then, so I'm going to make this count tonight. Obviously she's seen a bunch of shows between now and then, but tomorrow's going to be a hard day for her. I want to make it just that much easier.
Our animated video nears its end as Pax tilts his head back and takes a deep breath.
“You guys ready?” he asks as Muse hefts a black and white guitar into his hands, Ransom clutches his jet-black base, and Copeland twirls his drumsticks around in his hands.
“We're ready,” I say as the curtain starts to lift up.
“Congratulations, Philly,” Paxton says, when it's still just our shoes that are visible, my black motorcycle boots, his fancy custom Beatle-boot-meets-biker-boot Barker Blacks, Muse's red Chucks covered in black Sharpie graffiti. “You've got Beauty in Lies in town tonight. My name is Paxton Blackwell, and this is a song my friend, Michael Luxe, over here wrote when he was desperate to fall in love.”
The crowd roars, the sound caught somewhere between an earthquake and a tornado. Definite destruction. Tonight's venue is this massive industrial building with exposed ductwork and two long metal balconies that run the whole length of the space. Two intricate chandeliers drip their glittering crystal forms over the dark mass below us, looking oddly out of place amongst all the steel and chrome.
“He, uh,” Pax continues, tapping the heel of his boot on the stage and shaking his blonde head with a sly smile, “was sleeping with any groupie he could get his hands on.” I am going to fucking kill him after this, I think as I look to my left and spy Lilith watching us from the edge of the stage. Our eyes meet and she smiles. “Even though he had a girlfriend at the time …” The audience groans as I roll my eyes to my friend'
s back and seriously think about stabbing him in it. “Even though he did,” Pax goes on, “he was lonely as fuck. This song is dedicated to the new woman in his life, and it's called Hey You, Everything.”
The room goes completely nuts as I curse under my breath and someone releases a sea of balloons from the ceiling in white, pink, and black. They fall from the net between the chandeliers and drench the crowd, bouncing and dancing as I reach down and start to finger my guitar. I'd rather I was fingering Lilith, but I'll take what I can get.
It's just me and my guitar for a few seconds, Copeland joining me next. Muse and Ransom don't drop in until Paxton starts singing.
“Hey you, is your life everything you thought it'd be when it began?” he croons in the dulcet tones of a lover's bedroom voice. “Mine's not shaping up the way that I'd dreamed. The blood inside my veins tells me I need a different plan. Our eyes met; you bled me dry. Now I guess I just don't understand. You, for me, you're everything. Just the two of us until world's end.”
Ransom steps in for the screaming/growling portion of the song, blowing my mind as he usually does when he's onstage. How somebody who speaks every word in a whisper can crack the sound barrier like that just fucking baffles me.
“YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW THAT I FEEL THIS WAY! YOU MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND THE THINGS MY LIPS DON'T SAY! WELL, SHIT IF I'M LETTING IT END THIS WAY!”
“If I asked you for your hand, just what would you say?” Paxton sings, carrying his notes through another round of Ransom's hoarse screams, the two competing sounds cutting across one another in a way that's still somehow harmonious. Listening to them sing together like this … I guess I can kind of see some connection I might've missed before.
Jesus. Pax and Ran as lovers? Lilith Goode, what have you done to this band?
“Tell me, what would you say?” he continues, sliding his hand down the front of his pink tie. I know he'd never cop to it, but I think he wore it for Lilith. Pink seems to be her favorite color. “Maybe you can't tell how twisted these feelings make me? Hey you, everything, my plan's not anything I ever really planned. My love for you is now just a quivering plea. Why can't I just say it? What the hell is wrong with me? My life was nothing until I saw your perfect face. Hiding all of this deep inside just makes the aching feel real ugly.”
Ransom's screaming portion of the song comes back around, repeating the same lines a few times as he strums his bass with relaxed, easy motions, buried inside a purple and black striped hoodie, the slight darkness of stubble on his face.
I cut him off with the raunchy guitar portion of the song, inviting Muse up to the center mic as Paxton steps back and lets us have the limelight. You'd think with his personality that he'd be one greedy motherfucker when it comes to attention, but he's not. For a kid that grew up rich as fuck, as royalty, he's not as pretentious as you might think. I wouldn't be sharing a condo with him if he were.
Muse and I line up together, thrashing the stage as Paxton moves into place beside Ransom for the next few lines, barely audible over our frantic strumming. If I had to describe the sounds we're making together, I'd have to compare it to the wail of a banshee, a dark faerie that calls out a person's death just before they lose their life. But this, maybe it's worse than that because it's not about dying, it's about never living, never finding a person you truly love. Or fuck, even shittier than that—finding them and not letting them know how you feel. That's what this is about.
“Hey you, can you hear my blood singing your name? My heartbeat, my lips, my body just waiting to live? Hey you, can you tell I feel all of these gloriously awful things?”
Muse and I break for a moment, letting Ransom use his fingers to claw out a deep, sad sound, one that reminds me of a dirty, throbbing heartbeat. We start back up again a few seconds later, Copeland right behind us, chasing our asses with these sick clattering beats that churn up the crowd … even Lilith.
I can see her from the corner of my eye, moving with the music, not at all ashamed to be dancing alone on the side of the stage by herself.
As our guitar solo winds to an end, I start to move back, catching sight of Ran and Pax, sharing the microphone for the next verse, their lips … intriguingly fucking close.
Dear god, can they just fuck already?
As the lighter instrumental portion of the song comes up, I wait for Paxton to take center stage again, distract the crowd by tossing and catching his microphone, taking off his tie, unbuttoning his shirt.
Instead … Ransom and Paxton start to kiss at the mic.
Like, really kiss.
The crowd goes batshit as I improvise for the next line of missing lyrics, dancing my fingers across my guitar for a little extra thrill, putting my own lips to the center microphone. I'm no Pax, no Ransom, but with Muse and Cope joining me for backup vocals, we sound alright.
“Hey you, I know you're not the one to blame. You can't read the shape of my mouth or my breathless sigh. Why would I play this stupid game? There's not a thing in my life that makes sense with you missing. This isn't the way I wanted this wild ardor tamed. So, you, my everything, do you have all the things you need? If there's something missing, just remember my name. Hey you, goodbye and sorry it had to end this way.”
The three of us finish off the song without a bassist or a lead singer, the last few notes of the song echoing around the roaring, shaking, quivering room. The whole thing sounds like a collective gasp of breath or a stuttering heartbeat.
Ran and Pax … still kissing.
Sweat drips down my face as I tilt the mic to my lips.
“You want to meet the girl?” I ask, briefly distracting the masses. “The one I was playing for tonight?”
Before Lilith can even think to run away, I'm jogging over to her and taking her by the hand, pulling her into the spotlight with me, over to the center mic.
I … Jesus fuck. There are no words to describe how beautiful she looks standing there with the colored lights flickering across the liquid fire wash of her hair, the priceless glimmer of her eyes.
Behind me, the roadies pull out a set of stools for one of our acoustic pieces, trading Muse's electric guitar out for an acoustic one.
Glancing back, I see Paxton's long cruel tattooed fingers on the mic, Ransom's hand dressed in a fingerless black glove curled around his tie. They look … almost relieved to be making out onstage.
“We got this,” Muse whispers as the crowd starts to murmur, and we trade places.
Lilith looks confused as hell—and admittedly kind of excited—as I have her take a seat on one of the stools. Muse stands at the center mic, looking back at Copeland and giving him a brief nod as he comes down the dais steps and grabs a small drum from one of the roadies' hands, taking a seat and letting them adjust another mic near his hands.
“Hey, Lil,” I whisper, handing her a tambourine. “Can you find the beat with us?”
“I can try,” she says, biting her lower lip, cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Just hit this against your leg in time with the song. It should come pretty naturally.”
I take a deep breath and sit down with the guitar.
Obviously, Pax is supposed to sing this one while Muse plays the acoustic guitar. I actually use the fucking tambourine, and Ransom does backup vocals; Cope taps out the easy beat on his drum.
I see Octavia sneaking around behind Cope's drum dais, but I ignore her as I pluck the first note.
“This one's got a long name,” Muse begins, shoving his hands into the pockets of his unzipped hoodie as the crowd cheers. They already know where this is going. “It's called Keep Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer, And Your Friends Will Help You Bury their Bodies.”
He clears his throat and closes his eyes for a moment, the crest of his mohawk catching the light from above.
“You ready?” I ask Lilith and she nods, glancing back at Ran and Pax briefly, her lips curling into a grin that's half amused and half embarrassed. Fuck, she should be; those are her goddamn boyfriends
messing up the show.
I smile, too, and shake my head.
“Tiptoeing past that closed door,” Muse sings in this disturbingly gentle voice, trying to capture the irony of the song the way Paxton does. He's nowhere close, but he's not half-bad either. I know I sure as hell couldn't hold half these notes; I give him mad props. “We made it down to the bottom floor. Exchanging looks and half-smiles, we know there's a reason that for each other we'd travel more than a thousand grueling miles.”
Muse takes a deep breath as Cope pounds the drum with soft easy smacks of his open palms. I strum the guitar with my bare fingers and watch as Lilith starts to tap the tambourine against her denim clad leg, sharing a secret smile with me.
I hope she's not pissed about me dragging her out here. That, and I'm kind of curious to see what all the media hype says tomorrow when news of Pax and Ran's make out session mixes with the reveal of my redheaded girlfriend, the same one that Cope was kissing in that picture from last week.
Should be interesting.
But frankly, I don't give a shit whether they like any of this or not.
I just spent two years of my life living for somebody else. I don't need to keep doing that. I won't bow down to please anybody—not even the world.
“Blee-ding,” Muse sings, dragging the word out with two, long unbroken sounds. This part in particular is hard as hell, and we both look relieved with Paxton steps up next to him and helps finish out the line. “But my friend, they really had it coming. In the whole world, you guys are the only ones who'd stand with me. The ones who sent my enemies running.”
Ransom steps up beside me and takes the last empty seat, the one with a mic tilted low for backup vocals. His face is streaked with sweat and he's shaking like hell, but it's a different sort of tremble from his usual. He doesn't look like he's about to have a breakdown right now. Although his cheeks and forehead are the same color as Lilith's hair.
Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2) Page 18