Love Song

by Elle Greco

  The sound of Rafe’s rich laugh filled the apartment, making the tension of the night slide out of me. Or maybe it was the wine. I shimmied out of my towel, and as it hit the floor, I realized that Rafe was no longer laughing. Instead, he was beside me, holding a refilled glass of wine to my lips. I took the glass and met his eyes, my legs shaking. His other hand went to my waist to steady me. Upon contact, his hand slipped down my hip, and he pulled me to him.

  My breath caught as his other hand brushed against the back of my neck before sliding into my hair. My breath caught again when he tugged me close, our mouths inches apart. His head dipped, and butterflies took flight in my stomach. I stared at Rafe’s lips, willing them to land on my own.

  Nikki pounded on the door. It was definitely Nikki, because she was yelling our names too.

  “Fuck,” Rafe whispered before breaking away from me.

  Shaking, I turned to my duffle, grabbed some underpants, and snatched up the first pair of bottoms I found: a pair of old, baggy sweats. I yanked them on fast as Rafe stalked down the hall.

  As soon as he cracked open the door, Nikki pushed her way in, pinning Rafe behind the door until Dion crossed the threshold and closed it behind him.

  “Girl, you better start talking,” Nikki said, prowling toward me.

  “About what?” I asked, my body still on fire from what had almost just happened between Rafe and me.

  “All of it,” she said, snatching my wineglass from the table and taking a hardy gulp.

  “Sorry to barge in, bro,” Dion said to Rafe.

  “You better be” was Rafe’s response. Neither man ventured much past the entryway. Smart boys.

  “Why don’t we start with that crack about Presley and Vince?” Nikki snapped. My eyes went wide. “At the rehearsal room today. You accused Presley of fucking Vince, and now you two are getting into a hair-pulling match on the floor of the Lair?”

  “You weren’t even there,” I muttered.

  “Didn’t have to be. My goddamn phone blew up. This shit is everywhere.”

  I groaned and dropped my ass on the couch.

  “Talk,” she snapped.

  Rafe and Dion inched closer toward the living room.

  “They were there together,” I said, adding an eyebrow lift to stress the “together” part.

  Nikki jutted out her hip and waved the glass. Wine sloshed dangerously toward the top. “And?”

  “To-geth-er,” I repeated, my other eyebrow meeting the first.

  “He took her to The Dragon Lair. So what? Bobby Gee was there with you,” Nikki pointed out.

  I pulled myself to my feet and snatched my wine back. “Yeah, but Bobby and I weren’t to-geth-er. Not like that.”

  Nikki looked at Rafe. “Were you there? Is this true?”

  “Bloody hell, Nik, why are you asking him?” I snapped, flinging the glass out in Rafe’s direction. Wine spilled over the side. “You don’t believe me?”

  “You don’t believe Presley,” she said.

  Touché.

  I swallowed the remaining wine in one gulp. Time for a refill. Rafe met me in the kitchen and pulled out a new bottle and the corkscrew.

  “Look, I just want to hear what happened from someone a little more objective,” Nikki said on a sigh, then settled onto the arm of the couch. Dion moved in and stood at her back.

  Rafe paused, corkscrew half in the cork. “I’m not saying Beanpole here’s right about what’s going on between them. But she’s right in that it looks like something’s going on. The optics, man, they’re bad.”

  I scowled at the Beanpole crack but let it slide, since it wasn’t important at the moment. Plus, he agreed with me. Then I shifted my eyes to Nikki, who slid her ass from the arm of the couch to a cushion. She looked defeated.

  “They’re both adults,” she said with a weary sigh. “I mean, it’s gross, but—”

  “It’s not like they’re related,” Dion said.

  “It’s the age difference that’s weird,” Nikki said. “And that he and Mom, you know, did it.” Her face twisted, and her body vibrated with a shudder. “And now he’s maybe doing it with Presley.”

  This time my face twisted along with hers. “It’s very Soon-Yi and Woody,” I said.

  “But it’s none of our business,” Rafe said, yanking the cork out of the bottle. He refilled my glass. “It’s hella weird, but it’s not illegal.”

  “And it’s also not any of our business,” Dion echoed.

  “But he’s also, like, her boss,” I said. “There are too many power dynamics going on here that make it really uncomfortable.”

  “Are you saying he’s forcing her?” Dion asked.

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” I said, taking a sip of the wine. “Vince is cool, really. He tried with us, I know he did, tried to give us a decent life and all. But—”

  “But he never acted like a dad,” Nikki said.

  “So then it’s okay that he’s nailing our sister?” I asked. “And do I need to point out that this means Mom was right this whole time?”

  I didn’t know what pissed me off more—that Vince and Presley were borderline inappropriate or that my batshit mother had been right about them.

  “I can’t judge, sis,” Nikki said, her eyes moving to Dion.

  “That’s different,” I said.

  As I talked, a low thrum came from behind me, forcing me to raise my voice. I twisted around, and Rafe was leaning against the wall of windows, guitar in hand.

  “What songs you putting on the EP?” Rafe asked, his fingers working the strings.

  Dion’s eyes narrowed. “I still can’t believe you’re cutting an EP with Bobby.”

  “What’s so hard to believe?” Rafe asked.

  Dion looked between the two of us. “What about Satan’s Sisters?”

  “We’re on hiatus,” I reminded him.

  “So you start a solo career with another label?” Dion asked.

  “Dion, I’m frickin’ homeless,” I said. “My car’s in the repair shop, and I have no way to pay them to fix it. Vince cut off my college fund. What else can I do?”

  “You need money? We can lend you some,” Dion said.

  “I blow through that, and then what?” I asked. “You’re going to kick over more?”

  “That’s a temporary fix, man, and you know it,” Rafe said, taking my side.

  Dion shook his head. “Whatever happens, we’ll manage. Sell some songs—sure, I get it. Sing for his artists, sure. But actually cutting an album with him? I think that should stay in the family.”

  My hands fisted, and I brought them up to my temples. “Jesus, Dion. I am not your family!”

  “You go out on tour with Rogue, you’re family,” he snapped.

  “Dion, come on,” Nikki said, pressing her hand into his chest.

  “Dude,” Rafe warned.

  “What? You think Grimm—” Dion started.

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. “Fuck Grimm. Bobby thinks I’m good. No, he thinks I’m better than good.”

  “You are beyond better than good,” Nikki said.

  “That’s why Bobby’s giving me a shot. A shot Grimm never gave me. And Vince never gave me.”

  Nikki’s hand pressed into Dion’s chest. “She’s not wrong, baby.”

  Dion looked at the ceiling. “But Bobby?”

  “Bobby will look out for her,” Rafe said. “May even make her a star.”

  Nikki’s eyes met mine. Then hers widened, and she grinned. “A star, you say? Middle sister, are you down for that?”

  “Honestly, Nik, I just want to write my lyrics and bank some coin,” I said. “Bobby’s giving me that. Vince? Grimm? They didn’t.”

  Nikki settled back into the couch cushions. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go over the Bobby Gee EP set list.”

  18

  Rafe said his goodbyes to Nikki and Dion as I rinsed the last wineglass and placed it on the drainer. I turned to head into the living room, when I saw Rafe,
his lean frame against the wall. He was watching me.

  “Thanks for cleaning up,” he said.

  “Just a few glasses,” I said with a shrug, trying to ignore the fact that Rafe leaning against the wall in shadow was damn hot. Instead, I continued to the living room, busying myself with putting away his guitar.

  For a night that started out pretty crap, it had turned into a great one. Once Dion got over the EP—and I got over Presley, sort of—they’d helped me cull my lyric notebooks. Rafe and Dion both knew Jamie Sage and had picked out songs that could mix with En Fuego’s signature sound. Nik had shared some thoughts on rewrites with me, but she’d also snagged a good number of songs for Satan’s Sisters to try out once we got back into the studio—if we got back in the studio—making them off-limits to Bobby. That made me feel better about the future of our band. I was flattered that she’d felt the need to snatch up so many of my songs. As Rafe kept filling up our wineglasses, the En Fuego assignment turned into an acoustic sing-along. We ended the night with a rock-inflected acoustic version of Sister Sledge’s disco hit “We Are Family” that had left the four of us howling.

  Now, I was coming down from the high, and my first official day as an En Fuego singer-songwriter loomed. What I felt in my stomach now were nerves churning.

  I snapped the guitar case closed and moved it off the couch. Then I took out the sheets to spread on my makeshift bed. Before I could shake them out, Rafe caught me by the arm.

  “No couch,” he said.

  “So where am I going to sleep?” I asked.

  He cocked an eyebrow and nodded toward the bedroom.

  “Then where are you going to sleep?” I puzzled.

  He lifted his head to look at the ceiling. “Where do you think, Beanpole?”

  “I’m good,” I said, snapping open the sheet. We were getting close. Too close. I wasn’t sure if I could maintain the slight distance left between us if I spent another night curled into him.

  “Jett, you’ve got a huge-ass day tomorrow. You’ll sleep better in a bed,” he said. I spread the sheet out on the couch. “It’s a Hästens, you know,” he added.

  “It’s a what?” I asked.

  “The bed. It’s a Hästens.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  Rafe grabbed my hand and jerked me toward his bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” I snarled as I stumbled behind him. Using my lack of coordination to his benefit, he whisked me into the room and gave me a final shove so I face-planted on the bed. Upon impact, I melted into the mattress.

  “This is a Hästens,” Rafe said, flopping down next to me.

  “I gotta get my jammies on,” I said into the mattress.

  But I didn’t want to move. The way the bed molded itself to my body was exquisite.

  “Sleep naked,” Rafe said.

  I raised my hand off the bed—the only body part I was willing to separate from the mattress—to give him the middle finger.

  I felt the weight of the bed shift, and a soft blanket landed on me. I snuggled into the cashmere and drifted to sleep.

  The weight of an arm splaying across my stomach woke me up. I opened my eyes, the room dimly lit by the weak glow of the early morning sun peeking in from the sides of the window treatments. Rafe’s head was nestled in the crook of my neck, his arm across my middle pressing me firmly into his side.

  I blinked up at the ceiling. A slight headache nagged behind my eyes. I wanted to pretend that the pain was from too much wine last night, but the ache in my jaw said otherwise. I had spent the night grinding my teeth, something brought on by stress. In the haste of leaving the mansion, my mouth guard had gone missing. Crap.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  The sound of Rafe’s sleepy growl hit me in my lady parts, which I ignored.

  “Fine,” I said. “Headache.”

  His arm shifted, and his hand gripped my side. He rolled toward me.

  “Not surprised, with all the grinding and clenching you were doing.”

  Ugh.

  “Sorry, did it keep you up?”

  “A little,” he said, a smile tipped up at the corner of his mouth. “What’s on your mind?”

  I took a deep breath. “What if my songs suck?” I whispered.

  “Not possible,” Rafe said without a pause.

  “I don’t write that bubblegum pop crap,” I said.

  “Bobby doesn’t—”

  “He referenced Taylor Swift,” I said.

  “You ever listen to Taylor before she started writing about her celebrity boyfriends?” I shook my head. “That shit was not half bad. Change the hooky melody, and you could have a rock hit just as easy.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “If he’d referenced Tori Amos, or Shirley Manson, or hell, even Lady Gaga, I’d be more confident. And since when do you listen to Taylor Swift?”

  “I’m an onion, Beanpole” was his response.

  “A what?”

  “Layers, babe, layers. I have layers. Like an onion. There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Rafe said, his voice rough.

  My stomach got tight, and I bit my lower lip, shoving aside the warmth that was spreading from my chest and moving lower.

  “The point is, what if my songs suck? What if they’re something I don’t want them to be?”

  “Girl, you gotta understand something. I didn’t sit in my living room with Nik and Dion for the better part of three hours last night digging through your lyric notebooks to blow smoke up your ass about your talent. Talent you have in fucking spades, Jett. Talent I sure as shit wish I had. Talent that turns your sister Presley into a green-eyed monster, because there’s a lot more of Pamela in your sister than you want to admit, and you are going to have to learn how to deal with that too.”

  My breath hitched, and I closed my eyes.

  His voice got soft. “But that’s trouble for another day, babe. The point is, Nikki grabbed up over fifty percent of your catalog for Satan’s Sisters. She wanted to snatch up more, but she was holding back. Hell, I think she wanted all the songs. Except for ‘Fury.’ That one? Dion was fucking salivating over it.”

  “You told me to shelve that one,” I said.

  “Yeah, so I could negotiate a buy on it, for Rogue,” he said. I smiled, my eyes cast down. “We’ll draw up the contract and fudge the date to keep you in the clear with Bobby. But that song was meant for Rogue Nation.”

  “I don’t have a contract with Bobby yet,” I said.

  “Even better. Tell Mike to call me before he sorts out Bobby’s contract so I can negotiate,” Rafe said. “Do not sign with Bobby’s until we get the song cleared. Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. My headache began to lift. “Thank you,” I whispered after a relieved breath whooshed out of me.

  “Ain’t no thing, babe,” he said, giving my hip a squeeze.

  “No, it is a thing,” I said. “You’re really good at this.”

  “I know,” he said.

  I smiled, because he didn’t even attempt modesty. It was pure Rafe.

  “And you’re helping me,” I continued. “With Bobby. With my career. No one’s ever done that for me before. I appreciate it.”

  His gaze swept over my face, lingering on my eyes, which I knew were wet. I closed them, and one traitorous tear leaked out and traveled down my cheek. Dammit.

  “It was not lost on me how you went through a lot of your shit alone,” Rafe said. “You’ve forged a different path than your sisters—it’s similar in some ways, because you three are all about the music, I think even more than me and Dion. But for Nik? She needs a band, and she wants to play. Period. Presley is all about Presley, and that will never change. But you? You need the music, Jett. You feel it deep. It’s coiled in your soul. That’s artistry, babe. And you’ve got that. Not too many people do. They may be technically proficient; music may move them. But for you, it’s life.”

  “And how do you know this? Are you, like, an oracle?” I teased, trying to ignore the
feelings that cascaded through me at his words. Feelings I so did not want to have.

  “Because I see you, Jett,” he said. “I see you.”

  I closed my eyes again, willing myself not to cry. All my life I’d been invisible, plodding along in the background, neither the showy sister like Presley, nor the daring one like Nik. This invisibility kept me sane, kept me safe, kept me in my cocoon when my world had spiraled dangerously out of control. When my drug-addicted dad walked out on us. When my mom gave us a childhood filled with bars and clubs and cheap hotel rooms and strange men.

  But Rafe saw through this protective shell, the one I wore like an invisibility cloak, and his eyes pierced deep inside of me. And that scared the shit out of me.

  “That’s enough,” I said quietly.

  “No, it’s not enough.” Rafe’s voice was husky. His arms reached for me, pulling me to him. The heat of his body wrapped around me. “I know, Jett. I fucking know. My old man died with a needle in his arm while I sat there plucking his guitar, too young to know what the fuck was happening. I live in that world too, babe. And I see you.”

  “Stop,” I whispered.

  “Not going to stop, not this time,” he said. “Today you will walk out of this apartment knowing that I have always seen you. And you are all I need to see.”

  “Are you taking the piss?” I asked. “Because if you are—”

  Rafe knifed up in the bed. “Fucking hell, Jett. That’s all you have to say?”

  I scooted up to a sitting position. “You’ve never been nice before.”

  “You think this is me being nice?” he asked. I nodded, and his face went dark. “Damn but she did a number on you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Pamela,” he said.

  “I don’t see what my mother has to do with this,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Rafe snatched me around the waist before I could get up. “Cut the crap, Rafe. I have to get to En Fuego.”

  “It’s four in the damn morning.”

  “I want to get an early start.”

  “No. You’re running away.”

  “Hard to run when you won’t let me go,” I snapped.