Rock

by J. A. Huss

  “Then my evil plan is working.” Missy laughs. She shifts her body too, so we are face to face. “Did you finish the song?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” I say, one hand coming up to brush a stray hair out of her eye. “Recorded it, edited it, mixed it. Done.”

  “Done?” she asks. “Done as in I can sit down and listen to the finished product? How did you do that?”

  I shrug, staring into one blue eye. God, she’s pretty. “It’s just how I roll, Miss. All manic, all the time, right?”

  “Does it have a title? Can we stop calling it the song?”

  I lean in and kiss her neck. “It’s called the Show Me Your Tits Song.”

  She laughs and pushes me away. “Is not.” She laughs again. “Asshole.”

  I grin and then lift her shirt up so she has to show me her tits. My mouth covers her peaked nipple and then I bite it. Not hard. It’s not a push-me-away bite. It’s a throw-back-her-head-and-let-out-a-moan bite. “It’s called the Take Off Your Pants Song.”

  “RK,” she lazily warns. “What’s it really called?”

  My hand is still between her legs, so I begin a slow circular motion over her clit. “It’s called the Let Me Take You Any Way I Want Song.”

  “OK,” she says, her hand reaching down for my dick. I’m hard as fuck right now. “I’ll play along.”

  “Sucker.” I laugh, taking a break from biting her nipple to peer up at her. She goes to pull back, the slap I probably deserve already in motion. But I scoot up, move over top of her, and pin that hand to the mattress. “Be patient, Miss Vetti.”

  “I was patient for two days,” she says, her hand slowly pumping me up and down. “I want answers. I want inside info. I earned it.”

  “Are you going to sell this conversation to Metal Notes Online?” I laugh.

  “I will,” she says, shooting me a sly smile. “If you don’t tell me what you’re calling it.”

  “That was my dad, you know.”

  “What was?”

  “The person who recorded the song at the funeral and leaked it. I found the evidence downstairs.”

  “Well, I’m glad he did. The world deserves to hear it. Now,” she says, leaning up to give me a quick kiss before she finishes her thought.

  But I don’t want a quick kiss, so I open my mouth and kiss her thoroughly, my hand reaching behind her neck so I can control it.

  “Tell me the name of the song, Rowan Kyle,” she whispers into my mouth.

  “It’s called the Let Me Fuck You Hard First Song.”

  “RK!” she yells. But she’s laughing. “Why do you torture me?”

  “I’m horny,” I chuckle back. “Give in, Miss. Just give in and your torture will go a lot easier.”

  “Maybe I don’t want it to go easy?”

  I sit up, lean back, pull her shorts down, and slip them over her feet. “Perfect,” I say, throwing them on the floor. “Now for the pesky tank top. Sit up a little.”

  She sucks in a breath between her teeth, but she does as I ask. I ease the top over her head and it joins the shorts on the floor. “Now we’re naked,” she whispers.

  “So we are.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Both hands grab her under the knees and I lift her legs up and out, spreading them wide. “Lie back and relax, Miss. Enjoy the show.” My face dips down to her warm pussy, inhaling her scent. And then my tongue darts out and begins the same lazy circles my thumb was doing earlier.

  She fists my hair, grabbing it hard as her hips rise up, begging for more. “Hell, yes,” she says. “That feels amazing.”

  “Hmmm,” I murmur, taking her clit gently between my teeth. She hisses out a breath, so I pull back and lick her. I push a finger inside her wet pussy and this elicits another moan. Her legs tighten around my shoulders and I have to push them back down into compliance before inserting another finger and pumping her harder. “Do you want to come like this?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, her eyes closing. “But I want to enjoy it a little longer.”

  “Don’t worry,” I breathe between sucking and licking. “I’m not in a hurry to stop.” I flick my tongue back and forth a few times, then lean in to suck her. This makes her back arch again, and her knees are pushing against my ears. I reach up with one hand and squeeze her nipple, then palm her whole breast and start kneading it. I pull my fingers out and my tongue replaces them.

  “Oh, yeah,” she says in a low voice.

  My fingers are still dripping and wet when I reach up and slip them into her mouth. She begins to suck. That makes my dick even harder. I peer up at her face between her legs and she’s watching me.

  We smile.

  I ease up, licking and kissing her as I make my way up to her mouth and then replace my fingers with my tongue there too. She kisses me. And just the thought of her tasting herself drives me wild. I reach under her hips and roll over, placing her on top of me. We kiss a little more, our tongues twisting together until I taste her too.

  She pulls back and kisses my throat. I realize her lips are on the scar I have from the tracheotomy the medics did the night of the accident. She looks up at me, frowning, but I shake my head. “Don’t,” I gently warn her. “Don’t ruin this moment with that one.”

  She sighs, but continues kissing, moving down to my chest. She kisses my nipples, licks them, and then licks all the way down my abs.

  I can’t fucking wait anymore. All I want is her mouth on my dick. So I grab her hair and push. She responds by moving lower, the heat of her breath flowing over the tip of my head. But the moment she has my cock in her mouth I lose all sense of reality.

  “Fuck,” I say, gripping her hair tighter and pushing her down. She opens wider to take in my full thickness, and then her lips seal around my shaft and I’m the one closing my eyes.

  I sit up so I can place my hands on her back and feel her soft skin. They ease down the length of her body and squeeze her ass cheeks. She pulls back, her tongue flat and sliding along my shaft, and then dives down again, trying to take me in as far as she can.

  “‘It would’ve been better,’” I whisper-sing. Missy’s eyes dart up to mine. “‘So much better if I had never let her,’” I continue, the words coming out without warning. She stops what she’s doing and goes very still. Like she’s afraid she’ll spook me. “‘Get to me the way she did.’”

  Missy sits up a little and frowns, realizing that line is about Melanie.

  “‘It would’ve been better. If we lived through it together. It’s always better to do it together,’” I finish.

  “RK,” she whispers back.

  “That’s the name of the song, Missy. It’s the Better Together Song.”

  She crawls up my body, her eyes all glassy with the threat of tears, and then she cups my face in her hands and kisses me. “I love you,” she says into my mouth. “I love you so much and we’re going to get through this.”

  “And be better than ever on the other side,” I say back.

  She lifts her hips up and reaches down for my cock, placing it at her entrance. She slowly eases down, filling herself up with me. I wrap my arms around her back and pull her to my chest until she lies flat and relaxes.

  And then we really begin.

  This isn’t the hate fuck of that first night. This isn’t the manic fuck in the back room of Float’s. This isn’t even the first real fuck when we got home that night.

  This is starting over.

  This is making love by making good.

  This is finishing what we started.

  This is getting there the way the crow flies.

  We come at the same time and the only thing on my mind is how much I want to do this again. Not fuck her. Love her.

  And then I gently turn, letting her body fall to my side, and I hold her tight. I hold her like a man who is drowning in his past and she is the only person around with a life jacket.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “We don’t have to go to the party,” Missy says
a few minutes later. We’re just relaxing. Enjoying each other in silence.

  “Fuck that,” I say. “I want to go. You’re headlining opening day at Float’s. You gotta soak it all up, Missy. Enjoy it. I never did, ya know? It was all fucking rushed when I did it. Kenner and I worried about everything. Bills. Making enough to cover the beer we drank on show nights. Making enough to pay the rent on that crappy studio apartment we were sharing. It was stressful when we started playing clubs. This is the perfect way to make your entrance.”

  “Entrance to what?” She laughs.

  “Rock stardom, Melissa Vetti. It’s your destiny.”

  “No. It’s just a stupid festival at the end of the world.”

  “Ack,” I say. “It’s not. It’s a huge deal.”

  “You play in front of a hundred thousand people, I bet.”

  “Shit. Stadium shows are nothing compared to Float’s. I’d rather play Float’s, to be honest. I’m a little jealous of you right now.”

  She sits up and smiles down at me, her long mahogany hair draping over her shoulder and tickling my chest. “You can play if you want.”

  “No,” I say, pulling her back down to my chest. “This is your gig, Missy. Not mine. Like you said, nobody wants me there upstaging their big day.”

  “I’d want you there, Rowan Kyle. I’d love it if you played.”

  “I’m pretty sure your show has no room for me. Besides,” I say, kissing her mouth. “I’m not ready.”

  She stares into my eyes and nods. “I get it. Don’t worry. I get it.”

  “Do you want to hear the song before we go?”

  “Oh, my God. Are you kidding?” She chuckles into my chest, those little vibrations making me so happy, I have no words to describe it. “Yes. Right now.”

  She jumps up and walks out of the bedroom, coming back a few minutes later after using the bathroom. “Come on,” she says, taking my hand and pulling me up. “Get dressed and take me down there.”

  She starts putting her shorts and tank back on and I reluctantly go to the front bathroom, clean up, and then rifle through my boxes in the living room for a pair of jeans. When I come back into the kitchen Missy is leaning against the basement door, grinning like a kid on Christmas Day.

  She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I’m nervous.”

  “Why?” I laugh, pulling the door open. It’s not dark this time, I left the lights on when I came upstairs. “It’s just a song.”

  “It’s not,” Missy says, taking my hand. “It’s so much more than that.”

  We walk down the stairs and go into the production room. I take a seat in front of the monitor and wake it up. I have everything inside a folder, and in that folder are all the other folders for each track.

  I click the master file and it opens up in the player. The mouse pointer hovers over the start button and I look over at Miss. “Ready?”

  She takes in a breath and holds it. Then nods. “Yeah,” she says softly. “I’ve been ready for five years.”

  One click. That’s all it takes to change everything.

  I’ve never watched Melissa Vetti as she listens to one of my songs. It’s a big deal to watch her now.

  It’s nothing but piano in the beginning. Thirty seconds of soft music before my new voice enters. It’s deeper now, and it’s not bad. Not as bad as I feared. But it’s definitely not the same either.

  I think I’m OK with that.

  Missy leans in, listening intently to the words. I close my eyes and picture the imagery going through my head. I grew up seeing double, like a mirror, same as you. Never knowing if it’s true. Never knowing what you’ll do. Because the truth is hard. And the truth is leaving. And the truth is tricking me into believing. I’m always the one believing.

  She looks at me as the last line of that verse ends and the piano picks up a little.

  It’s sneaking out and slipping down. The rabbit hole of lies and silencing the sounds. It’s an innocent kiss from me. Not for her, just you. Leaning up against that tree. Can’t you see me? Drowning in your beauty?

  She lets out another long breath. Like she’s nervous and can’t remember how to inhale and exhale. “You,” I say, before the next verse starts. “Are my life jacket.”

  I'm seeing double so how am I to know? Which of you is real to me and which of you is putting on a show? Because she hurts you when she lies. And I hurt you when I'm blind. When knowing better is the only way to. Keep our love. And let it go.

  Missy comes and sits on my lap, wrapping her arms around me and leaning her head against mine.

  The bridge starts and I smile. It’s a good song.

  Your eyes are not her eyes. And I don’t even have to try. I can pick you out and pull you in. Your soul string always pulls me in.

  There is no chorus or refrain in this song until the very end. So the verses are merely separated by the bridges. And since the song is long, it’s got a three of these transitions.

  And then that night the shattered dream won’t let me go. Tightens its fist and delivers one last blow. And so I did it alone. And I left you here. Because how will I. Ever get over all the things she made me do. When I should’ve known better…

  Another bridge and this is where it all gets deep.

  It would’ve been better. So much better. If I had never let her. Get to me the way she did and. Made me live with I did.

  So there I was that night, twisted and confused. Nowhere else to turn but classic self-abuse. And even though I did it alone. It’s never better to do it alone. But I’m a sucker for abuse.

  It would’ve been better. So much better if I had never let her. Get to me the way she did. It would’ve been better. If we lived through it together. It’s always better to do it together.

  Another sigh from Missy as the piano dominates again and I repeat the last part three times. All the other instruments fade away and then it’s over.

  “It’s an apology song,” Missy says, wiping her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just sorry.”

  She leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “Me too,” she says, sniffling. I didn’t want to make her cry. “Me too.”

  I reach over for the mouse and highlight all the folders inside the main and press delete.

  “What are you doing?” Missy asks, getting up off my lap. “RK? What are you doing?”

  I highlight the final render of the song and press delete again.

  “What are you doing?” Missy says, louder now. “Get it back!”

  I shake my head as I go into the trash bin and hover over the empty button. “No,” I say. “I did this for you because you said we needed it to move forward. This was only for you, Miss.” I look up into her shocked face. “I love this song and I’ll do it again. But not without Kenner. No one but you will ever hear this version without Kenner. He’s all I have left of that life. I don’t want to make music alone, Missy. And I did this alone. But that’s the whole point of the song, right? It’s better together. So if this song ever gets released, we’re all going to do it together.”

  And then I click the mouse and empty the trash.

  Chapter Thirty

  Where is Kenner? That’s all I’ve been thinking about since Missy and I left the house, escorts behind us, and headed down to Float’s in town for the party. The town is alive now that summer has officially started and there are tourists walking down Grand Avenue. Families mostly. Here for a week of fishing probably. The bar is at the western edge of town, so we only get a glimpse of what’s really happening as we pull into the parking lot.

  “How many people invited?” I ask Missy as I park the truck. The sheriff’s car pulls up to their usual space in front of the door.

  “Fifty or so. There’s five bands. Each of us get two tickets. And Teej and the staff, of course.”

  I turn the truck off and watch the deputy get out of his car. He’s got a buddy with him tonight. Why double up? They don’t usually have a partner. “Why do we need tickets anyway?�
�� I look over at Missy who is checking her makeup in the visor mirror.

  She shoots me a sardonic glare. “Please.”

  “What?”

  “People know you’re here. Everyone is trying to get in the bar since it got out you’re home.”

  “So put a ‘private party’ sign on the door and get a bouncer. Why spend money on tickets?”

  Missy looks away nervously and then opens her door and gets out of the truck before I can ask any more questions. I’m not done though. Something is going on. “Miss,” I say, walking around the truck and taking her hand. “Just why the fuck? Why does he need tickets? There’s not even a show.”

  Missy sighs, avoids my gaze, looks out the water, then at the bar, and gives in by slumping her shoulders a little. “OK, we just want to know who’s here. That’s all. Everyone had to fill out a form online to print their ticket.”

  “That makes no sense.” I gave it a second. I didn’t just write it off. But it makes no sense.

  “Not everybody likes you, Rock.” Missy enunciates my name in that sentence, making a point.

  “So?” I laugh. “What are you trying to say? People have been making death threats or something?” She doesn’t look me in the eye, but instead stares over at the deputies, who are each leaning up against a post, arms crossed. Both are glaring over at me like I’m wasting their time. “Missy?”

  She lets out a long breath of air. “Not exactly. I mean, no. No death threats. But weird shit, RK. Some really weird shit is happening. We almost canceled the opening weekend show. In fact, I told TJ we should cancel the whole summer, but he said no. We’ll just get more security and we’ll handle it. You can come see me play on Saturday, RK, but you’re going to have to watch from the office window above Float’s.”

  What? “What kind of threats?” I ask.

  She rubs my shoulder and smiles. “There’s no threats, RK. I swear. It’s just everything that happened with the… accident, you know? People are upset. No one really understands what happened. You’re not talking about it and we just feel like… extra security is necessary.”