By the time Dirty hit the stage again for their final encore of the night, treating the crowd to their classic cover of The Doors’ “Love Me Two Times,” I was in tears.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jessa
“So, what do you think?” Zane’s ice-blue eyes met mine as he mopped sweat off his face with the T-shirt he’d just peeled off, and clawed his now-limp mohawk back. “Wanna do that again sometime?” He tossed the shirt aside and grinned at me in a way-too-happy, carnivorous sort of way that I knew from experience was probably a bad thing.
We were backstage, Dirty had just come offstage for the final time, and we were all gathered around in a tiny dressing room—just Zane, Jesse, Elle, Dylan and I, sweaty and spent, flung across the furniture—and they were all looking at me.
Staring, actually.
“Um… sure? Maybe.” I didn’t actually know if I ever wanted to do that again, but this didn’t seem like the time to put that out there. Clearly, they were all in their afterglow phase. Why ruin it?
“Yeah?” Dylan asked. “How’d it feel?” He’d also stripped off his drenched T-shirt and his kilt, and was now sitting next to me on the couch in nothing but his incredibly revealing white underwear, his booted feet thrown up on a broken end table and his arm slung behind me. The overwhelming—and alluring—aromas of sweaty men, whiskey, beer and pot assailed me. I met Elle’s eyes as I avoided the sight of Dylan’s prominent package, and she smirked knowingly. I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand how she got used to this.
“Terrifying,” I said, straight-faced.
Elle snickered and Zane laughed. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.” He shot my brother a look, which was when I noticed the serious expression on Jesse’s face. He sat quietly in a corner, his dark eyes on mine.
“What?” I demanded.
“What would you say if we told you we want you to join the band?” Jesse asked me, and everyone got really quiet.
“Join…?” I repeated stupidly, the connections in my brain not quite working right. My head was still pounding from the adrenalin and the thunder of the crowd; from being completely blindsided by Seth’s appearance, and disappearance. “What do you mean… join?”
“Join Dirty,” Elle said. She cocked her head at me in that cute way she did, smiling. “As our new rhythm guitarist.”
“And lyricist, of course,” my brother said.
“And we know you can sing,” Dylan added with a grin. “You know, decently.”
“A fuck of a lot better than Dylan,” Zane said, grinning lazily. “You’ve got a lot to offer, little sis.”
“Good-looking, too,” Dylan added.
“A fuck of a lot better-looking than Dylan,” Zane agreed.
I just stared at them all, blinking, like maybe this was a hallucination. I’d breathed in too many moldering-old-beer-carpet fumes in this place and it was getting to me.
Seriously?
Were they serious?
Gathering from the looks on their faces—Jesse’s, Elle’s and Dylan’s dead serious, and Zane’s with a maniac grin—they were.
I also noticed that Ash had suspiciously disappeared.
“What about Ash?” I asked.
“Ash already has a band,” Dylan said. “He’s not gonna quit as the Pusher’s lead singer to play rhythm guitar with us.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Dirty was only about ten times more famous than the Penny Pushers.
“And we didn’t ask Ash,” Elle said.
Which was crazy. Why not ask Ash? He was way the hell better than me on guitar.
I looked around the room, struggling to understand, which was when it struck me that Brody wasn’t here, and he should really be here for this conversation. Where the hell was he?
And where was Maggie?
“What does Brody have to say about this?”
The expression on my brother’s face got a shade darker. “Brody will say whatever we want him to say.”
Okay?
I knew my brother was a little… put off… by what went down between me and Brody in his driveway the other night, though he didn’t even know what happened. I wasn’t about to get into it with him; all he really knew, as far as I knew, was that Brody and I weren’t talking.
I watched as Zane kicked my brother’s boot. Dylan just shook his head a little, tussling his sweaty auburn hair. Elle shrugged and smiled at me, sipping her bottled water.
“Just think about it,” Zane ordered. Then he pulled out a couple of joints and handed one to me. “This might help.”
It was the middle of the night and the Back Door had closed, but in true rock ’n’ roll fashion, we were still partying—down at Misty’s. The band and the crew, the bar staff and a few dozen VIPs. I’d made it a point not to get drunk—I didn’t want to be wasted when I talked to Brody. But I’d smoked up with Zane to take the edge off, and I was glad I did. Because the pot had slowed down my anxious mind enough that I could truly absorb my surroundings.
For the first time, the shiny, glossy, pink-and-sparkly room really came into focus.
Maggie had just left. I couldn’t really blame her, though she’d appeared unfazed by the sight of a pair of strippers leeching onto Zane like sparkly bookends in their skimpy stage clothes. When I asked if she was okay, all she said was, Zane isn’t into chicks who expect more attention than they’re willing to give.
And maybe she was right about that.
Those girls were definitely vying for his attention, but Zane just sat back in his chair, legs spread and relaxed. It was Dylan who had one of the girls—a cocktail waitress—right up in his lap. And while I perused the club with my slightly fuzzy eyes, watching the strippers work the room… and that cute girl flirting with Dylan, her cleavage in his face… and Katie in her miniskirt, with my brother all wrapped up in it… something occurred to my slightly doped-up mind that hadn’t quite occurred to me before.
Why?
Because I was an idiot, apparently.
Because it should’ve occurred to me long before this moment that if Brody wouldn’t look me in the eye and listen to what I had to say, I still had a whole arsenal of weapons at my disposal which I hadn’t really put to use. I, too, had boobs and a butt. Among other things.
And it wasn’t like it had never occurred to me that I possessed such assets. It just hadn’t occurred to me, until now, to use them on Brody, so to speak.
Yeah. Idiot.
Since Maggie had made her exit, I figured I could slip away without seeming entirely ungrateful for the offer the band had just made me. The truth was, I didn’t know whether to be more stunned by the offer or by the fact that Brody wasn’t there when they’d made it. And I really needed to face that bullshit down. The silent treatment had gone on long enough.
Maybe this was payback for my years of avoiding him, but it’s not like Brody had hunted me down and made me talk to him; not like I was about to do to him, right now.
I knew he was probably wherever Jude was, since Jude was also conspicuously missing from the party, so I went looking. I headed upstairs through the staff stairwell, into the backstage area, where I ran into Zane. He’d magically vanished in Maggie’s wake, and now I knew why; he’d either walked her out, or followed her out.
“Hey, sis.” He started to smile his charming, Viking-on-a-pillage grin when he saw me, but I shut that right down.
“You better be good to Maggie,” I told him, because for the moment, I was over men and their bullshit. And Maggie being secretly married to—and possibly in love with—Zane, while he let sparkly strippers drool all over him in front of her, was bullshit.
His smile faltered. At the suggestion that he wasn’t being good to Maggie, or because he was caught off guard that I knew he wasn’t being good to Maggie? I couldn’t tell. Wasn’t really in the mood to explore it, either. But I figured I was within bounds.
Maggie had made me promise not to say anything about what was going on between them—what little of it I knew
—but I assumed that didn’t mean I couldn’t say anything to him, since he already knew.
“Always am, little sis,” he said, a bit of an edge to his voice. Then he burrowed his hands in his jeans pockets and drew up his shoulders, like a kid caught stealing. His eyes looked a little glassy and pink from smoking up, but there was something else there too.
Oh, Jesus.
Did he have feelings for her, too?
What a fucking disaster.
Had he even thought about her job while he was sticking his dick in her? How important it was to her? Because the reality was, Zane held the cards. If it was Maggie or Zane, she’d have to be the one to go. Zane was the face and the voice of Dirty, and as valued as Maggie was, the band was never going to fire their lead singer, a founding member, so they could keep her.
I wasn’t exactly in a position to give relationship advice, though, and even if I was, Zane wouldn’t hear it from me. Little sisters weren’t really qualified to give that kind of advice. Jesse had never taken my advice over the years, even when I warned him not to go there with Elle because he’d break her heart. I’d seen that one coming from miles away, but did he listen to me?
Nope.
“How’s Brody?” Zane asked, his cool blue eyes still on mine.
I planted my hands on my hips. “None of your business.”
His pierced eyebrow arched and I didn’t love the smirk twitching on his lips.
“Whatever. Get out of my way.” The Viking grin was back as I brushed past him.
I hit up the ladies’ room and checked myself out in the cracked mirror. I looked a little buzzed, since I was—a few beers and a couple of Zane’s joints had taken care of that—but not in a bad way. And the silver halter was doing my figure some major favors.
Surely Brody had noticed that, even if he’d barely given me a glance?
Pretty much every guy who’d talked to me tonight—or even brushed past me—had put his hand on my bare back, which meant this top was doing its job.
How could Brody ignore me if I cornered him, wearing this?
Let him try.
In my slightly buzzed state, I couldn’t imagine any other outcome to that maneuver other than Brody and me promptly making up, then making out.
All I had to do was get him cornered.
I peeled off my bra, dumped it in my purse, and went braless. The slippery fabric of the halter against my bare breasts felt like the promise of sex.
On second thought, I took off my panties too, then put my jeans back on.
Then I smoothed my hair, took a breath, and went to find Brody—and sex him into submission.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jessa
When I stepped out into the bar, I found big gates locked over the public entrance and Faith No More’s cover of the Commodores’ “Easy” playing from the speakers all around the bar—to an almost-empty room. But I did find Jude, at a high table in the corner with Piper and a couple of other guys in Kings leathers. They were the only ones left in the bar.
I didn’t see Brody anywhere, and I stopped in my tracks.
Would he seriously have left? Already? It wouldn’t be like him to leave a gig he’d organized before the band did, but maybe he was really that mad at me?
How the hell was I going to sex him into submission if he wasn’t even here?
I started across the room toward Jude—but then he was here, out of nowhere. Right in my face… taking hold of my arm and steering me back into the ladies’ room, as Jude met my eyes and kind of snickered.
Once we were inside, he shut the door and shoved the garbage can up against it.
“You’re here,” I said.
“Yeah,” Brody said flatly. “So are you.”
“Um… good. Maybe we can talk?”
He glared at me, but at least he was looking me in the eye. “What’s to talk about? You think I’m gonna sit around with my dick in my hand watching you hook up with someone else, you’re wrong. Been there, done that. Not interested. So if you’re trolling for cock, you can do it somewhere the fuck else.”
“Trolling for…?”
“Just do me a favor,” he said, his voice dead-cold, “and do it somewhere other than in my fucking face, with my fucking friends.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Jimmy,” he said. “Or Snake. Or any of the other guys you’ve been flirting with all night, or whoever the fuck else you want. Take your fucking pick.”
“Snake?” I shook my head in disbelief. He actually thought I was trying to hook up, again—with anyone and everyone—to make him jealous? What kind of uberslut did he think I was? “You’re such an asshole, you know that?”
“Get fucked, Jessa.”
I took a step back.
With that sweet little sign-off, I expected him to walk out, but he just stood there staring me down.
“Would you please stop telling me off?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, making his muscular biceps and forearms bulge. He was wearing a thin, distressed T-shirt, and I could see everything through it. His hard nipples, his distracting pecs, his trim waist.
Maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d figured out how to use their assets.
“Stop telling me you’re gonna leave,” he said.
“I didn’t.”
“It was implied.”
Oh my God. Had there ever been a more frustrating ass of a man on the face of the planet?
And I had to have the crazies over this one?
“Don’t you have any faith in me? Like at all?”
“Depends if you’re telling me you’re gonna leave or not,” he said.
“You made it pretty clear you want me to leave.”
His glare turned from icy to arctic. “Is that what I said?”
“You said you’re done with me, and honestly?” I threw up my hands in surrender. “I can’t really blame you for that.” So much for sexing him into submission. Maybe on this one I’d just have to admit defeat.
“The band made you an offer,” he said. “You gonna take it?”
I blinked at him, jolted by his switch into business mode. “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“That because of me?”
“It’s because it’s not the right fit for me, or for the band. And you, of all people, must know that.”
He took a few steps toward me, closing the space between us. “If you and I work our shit out, you gonna change your mind about that?”
“About being Dirty’s rhythm guitarist?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s crazy. You know that, right?”
“What’s crazy about it? The band wants you.”
“And you’re okay with that? With me being a member of Dirty?” I just couldn’t see how that could ever work. Even if I wanted to join the band… I wasn’t good enough. Even if Brody and I could “work our shit out.” “You know I’m not strong enough,” I added. “On guitar, I mean. I’m not that good. You told them that, right?”
“You are good. And for the record, you’re the only one who doesn’t recognize it. With some work and devotion, you could be great.”
“I don’t think—”
“If you could see what we all see when you’re up there onstage, with the band… You can learn to be better on guitar, Jessa. But that chemistry? That vibe? You can’t learn that or manufacture it. You’ve been running from it for so long you don’t even know it anymore, but you have it. That thing Jesse has? You’ve got it too, in fucking spades. Why not embrace it instead of hiding from it? Just live the fuck out of it like your brother does.”
“I’m confused. Are you telling me to get fucked, or are you telling me to join the band?”
“I’m telling you if you were to commit, if you were to take it seriously and we could actually count on you for fucking once, you’d be amazing with Dirty.”
I shook my head, because it was ridiculou
s.
I was never meant to be in Dirty, like playing with them on tour and stuff. I was just a part of the bigger picture… a songwriter. A lyricist. I never wanted to be a rock star. That was an entirely different beast and it definitely wasn’t me.
“I mean… not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but—”
“You belong in the band, Jessa. You always have.” He shook his head, studying me. “I guess it’s just a fucking shame you’ve never wanted it.”
“I did want it,” I admitted, cautiously. “I always wanted to be a part of it. I mean, the music… the music is everything. I’ve always known that. And I know there’s a part of me that loves playing with them. It’s amazing when we get together. But performing? I can’t get onstage and do what they do. This show tonight was one thing. One acoustic song. Just a small bar in front of an unsuspecting crowd with zero expectations of me. But the shows Dirty plays on tour, arenas and stadiums filled with tens of thousands of people… that’s not my speed, Brody. I’m no rock star.”
He laughed in my face. “Not a rock star? You’re the walking definition of a rock star, Jessa. Talented as hell. Sexy as fuck. Mysterious. Gorgeous. Charismatic…” His eyes raked over me. “Did I mention sexy as fuck?”
“A couple of times.”
“Good. If it doesn’t bear repeating, you’re not a fucking rock star. And sweetheart, it bears repeating.”
I swallowed, but stood my ground as he got close.
“The fans will love you,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he knew it or not, but he was getting in my face; I resisted the urge to take another step back. “Jesse’s beautiful sister… the gifted, elusive songwriter who quits her modeling career to follow her true passion… what’s not to love?”
Then I did take a step back. “Is that what this is? You’re looking for a chance to spin some hot new angle for the band’s anniversary tour?”
He moved into me, and the air charged between us; I felt that crackle of electricity, that overwhelming, frenetic thing that turned my stomach to a swarm of butterflies, and up close, felt like a magnetic pull. I literally wanted to slam right into him.
Dirty Like Brody: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 2) Page 24