Stryker's Desire (Dragons Of Sin City Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  We both collapsed against the couch, panting and gasping, drenched in sweat when we finished, and I was already mentally ready for more by the time Allie’s breathing began to slow down. “Remember to talk to Alex,” she told me. I laughed and shook my head.

  “If you tell me that was on your mind while I was fucking you, I’m going to dump you right now,” I told her, kissing her on her lips so she wouldn’t--couldn’t--answer. It was a joke, but it was also the truth; I didn’t want to admit to myself how much truth was in it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A day or so later, I was in the studio again. According to Jules, Alex had stayed late the last time, listening to the tracks with Jack, going over everything. It was actually starting to look like we might have a real album to put out--and it was coming together before the label could think to ditch us, to pay us off and let us go.

  “Yo,” Nick said, coming into the live room where I was checking on my kit.

  “Think we’ll actually get anything done today?” I tightened one of the wingnuts on a cymbal. “Or do you think Alex is going to fuck around with vocals on that pet song of his?”

  “Ron’s come down on him pretty hard,” Nick pointed out. “More than the rest of us--more than you, and you’re the big reason we initially had such a fucking delay.” He grinned to show me he didn’t actually mean it--or at least, that if he meant it, he wasn’t taking the delay as a serious issue anymore. “So I think he’s doing all that fuckery after hours now.”

  “Good for him,” I said. I sat back and surveyed my kit. It hadn’t felt quite exactly right ever since I’d played the festival gig with Bent Bridges; it was familiar, and everything was the way I’d set it up, the way I’d always set it up, but I had the feeling like I was missing something. “Mary can’t be too pleased with that.”

  “I hear they’re fighting,” Nick said. He pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows. “By which I mean, Mary’s been bitching to Liv about it, and Liv’s been pointing out that Mary owes Alex some space after last month’s debacle at the treatment center.” For a while, Mary had had a job as Alex’s life coach, keeping him sober--or at least off of hard drugs, even if he still occasionally drank--on the label’s payroll. But she’d gotten tired of only having one client, and had managed to use her connections to get a new job at a mental health facility once again.

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t her fault,” I pointed out to Nick. “She didn’t ask to be trapped in a week-long lockdown.”

  “Still,” Nick said with a shrug. “Whatever it is. Alex’s boxers are fucking bunching in his crack.” I rolled my eyes. That would make Allie’s suggestion that I talk to our lead singer one-on-one a little harder to follow through on.

  “Allie wants me to talk to Alex,” I told Nick. “She’s still spooked at Alex’s insistence that she only hooked up with me to get access to the band and pad her career.” Nick snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “You know, for a guy who doesn’t smoke weed anymore, he sure is fucking paranoid,” Nick said. He lit a cigarette and walked over to his gear, looking at it with almost the same amount of affection as I’d seen on his face when he looked at his girlfriend. “Liv is setting up to work with your girl, by the way--she’s keen to get started on the project. Maybe you can dodge both bullets and Allie will be too busy to even think about doing studio pics.”

  “Maybe,” I said, hoping against hope that that would be the case. It would sure as hell make my life that little bit easier.

  “You know, maybe you should talk to Lex,” Nick said after a moment of making sure that his guitars had come to no harm while he’d been away.

  “What do you mean?” I started checking to make sure I had enough fresh drumsticks to last through the session.

  “I mean, he’s being an asshole, but it’s kind of understandable,” Nick said. “You said it yourself months ago: everything is changing to fucking fast, none of us is really in control anymore. That bugs the shit out of Alex more than anything else in the world could.”

  “So, what is me talking to him supposed to accomplish?” I lit a cigarette of my own. Nick flicked ash off the tip of his into an ashtray and shrugged.

  “It’ll give him the illusion that something is under his control again,” Nick said. “That people care about his opinions beyond just going with them to stroke his ego because it’s easiest that way.” I laughed. It was true and not true; we had a kind of democracy in the band--we never made a move that we didn’t all agree on--once upon a time. But as things had changed, from Alex going to rehab, to Jules starting a solo project with his girlfriend, and then the massive shit show that the current album had started out being, we’d lost sight of that. Nobody had single veto power on anything anymore. Alex’s opinion was still important, but we’d all kind of grown more independent in certain ways.

  “His poor fucking ego,” I muttered.

  “It’s served us well before,” Nick countered, smirking. “Anyway, I think it’ll help things if you make him think his opinion about your love life matters.”

  “What do you think?” Of the members of the band, the only two whose opinions I really cared about--at the end of the day--were Nick’s and Dan’s. So far, I thought they seemed pretty on board with me dating Allie, but some little voice in the back of my head insisted that they were just going along with it because it made things more pleasant.

  “I think she’s a talented photographer, and a fun person to be around,” Nick said with a shrug. “I think she’s good for you.” He looked at me and stubbed his cigarette out, blowing a plume of smoke out through his lips. “I also think that if she is just using you to get ahead, we can easily destroy her career in a week.”

  “You think it’s possible?” I stared at Nick. He shrugged again.

  “Anything is possible,” he pointed out. “It’s possible that the only reason Fran hooked up with Jules was to further her chances of a solo career.” He paused and strummed a quick chord. “I don’t think it’s that likely. If Allie was just interested in getting access to the band for career purposes, she wouldn’t be hanging around for what--a month or more?” Nick paused. “Unless she’s super patient, she’d have dashed as soon as it became clear that wasn’t going to work out quickly for her.”

  “What if she is super patient, though?” Jules had come into the room without either of us hearing him.

  “Then Mark gets some grade-A ass for a while and when she makes her intentions clear we destroy her in the industry,” Nick replied matter-of-factly. I looked at my bandmates, a little shocked.

  “Destroy her?” Jules smirked.

  “If she’d been just using you to get access to the band, would it really bother you to ruin her livelihood for a while?” I thought about that--I couldn’t help it--for a few moments.

  “If she were just using me, then I guess…” I sighed. “If she’s just using me then she’s putting on an excellent fucking front.”

  “I don’t think she’s using you,” Jules said, sitting down next to one of the monitors. “But like Nick said, it’s a possibility. You can’t ignore it.”

  “I’ve been trying to,” I told him. “Because if I treat it like it’s a thing then everything she does is suspicious as hell.”

  “That’s a good point,” Nick said. “Are we getting started soon, or what?”

  “Alex is on the phone with Ron,” Jules told us. “I figure another fifteen minutes or so before he gets his ass in here. Dan’s grabbing a beer in the break room. Jack is setting something up in the control room.”

  “Feel like jamming for a few minutes while we wait?” I looked at Jules and Nick. They shrugged and picked up their instruments, made sure they were plugged in properly to the monitors.

  We started out playing an old Strokes song, loose-goose, just following the movements, and after we’d gone through it, Nick took the base note of the melodic line and started into a new groove, and I followed him for a few bars until Jules came in. It felt good--it felt al
most like playing with Bent Bridges had: fun, low-stakes, and spontaneous. I thought to myself a big part of the problem with Molly Riot, why we didn’t seem to be gelling as much as we used to, at least at the beginning of the recording process, was that we just didn’t do shit like this anymore. We went into rehearsal spaces to work. We went into the studio to work. We got down to business and stayed on task--which was what the label tended to want. There wasn’t any of this fooling around, no playing with melodies.

  Dan came in, and then finally Alex, and I felt the tightening in my gut that told me that playtime was over; it was time to get to work. “What are we working on today?”

  “We’ve got another two or three songs,” Dan said. “And then we can send the first rough crop to the label.” I looked at Alex for a moment, safely concealed by my drum kit.

  “Let’s get down to it, then,” I said, taking a deep breath and stretching my shoulders a bit. At least the little jam session had been fun.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I saw Alex leaving the studio during the break and decided it was just as good a time as any to have the talk with him. I didn’t want to do it; I didn’t even think that it would go particularly well. But I might as well get it over with, I figured--there didn’t seem to be a good time until after the album came out to do it, and then it would be beside the point.

  “Yo--Lex,” I called out, following him out of the studio. “Wait up.” He turned around and raised an eyebrow at me, but stopped.

  “What’s up?”

  “I wanna talk to you for a second,” I told him. Alex kept looking at me for a moment and let me come towards him, looking skeptical, but not pissed.

  “It’s about her, isn’t it?” Alex cracked the knuckles on his right hand and leaned against Jules’ car.

  “If by her you mean my girlfriend, yeah,” I said.

  “She’s after you to do a photoshoot, isn’t she?” I counted to five mentally.

  “Actually, I’m pushing that idea,” I told him. “Dan and Nick are down for it, Jules is indifferent, but she thought I should get your approval before I suggested it to the label or to Ron.”

  “She’s a decent photographer,” Alex said, moving to his other hand to crack the knuckles there, too. “But don’t be surprised if she dumps you as soon as she gets the score.” I rolled my eyes.

  “You know, when you found Mary I was happy for you,” I pointed out. “I have been happy for just about every member of this fucking band finding women who like them.”

  “Except Dan,” Alex countered.

  “Do you really care about that? It’s resolved.”

  “It threw off our schedule by months,” Alex said.

  “So, you’re still blaming me even though we’ve turned the corner and are putting out a better album as a result.”

  “I’m saying that you’re being a fucking idiot,” Alex said. “She’s using you.”

  “So you keep saying.” I sighed. “Look--if she’s using me and you’re right about it, then you get to be big old Mister-Fucking-Right and I’ll take my lumps like the damned chump I’ll be,” I said. “But it pisses me the fuck off because it looks more like you can’t deal with me having something of my own for once.”

  “Everyone in the band has something of their own,” Alex said, rolling his eyes. “That’s not the fucking problem. The fucking problem is that you’re not paying attention.”

  “I’m not?” I waved towards the studio we’d just walked out of. “I’m working as hard as anyone else in the band, asshole. I’m laying my tracks down, doing my work. I’m more on top of things than I was two months ago, that’s for damned sure.”

  “And you’re so wrapped up with her pussy that you don’t care whether she’s actually with you because she wants to be with you or because she wants to get some career action and then move on,” Alex insisted. “And then when she does dump you because she’s got what she wanted, you’re going to act like an asshole again, and who even knows whether it’ll be while we’re trying to finish the album or trying to promote it or touring for it--any of those times you going all to shit again would fuck everything up.”

  “Oh, right, because I’m such a fucking wimp that losing a girl is going to derail me again,” I said, shaking my head. “Look, I wanted to talk to you because Nick and Jules thought it was a good idea, and because Allie is at least honest enough to not want to push any kind of professional involvement without you being okay with her.”

  “You’ve done it,” Alex said, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, what now?”

  “Now you either decide if you’re okay enough with her taking some pictures of us so we can promote our own fucking album, or you decide you’re going to be a petty fucking asshole and shit all over the best thing that’s happened to me in over a year.”

  “Invite her to take pictures,” Alex said. “I don’t really care. But you better fucking promise me that when she ditches you, you’re still going to be capable of doing your goddamn job.”

  “You know,” I said, taking a quick breath and shaking my head slowly, “this band used to be about us hanging out. Having a good time together. Being fucking friends in a group.”

  “That went out the window when we started to let management decide things for us,” Alex said.

  “Why does it have to?” I held his gaze for a minute. “I mean yeah, we can let Ron and the label decide some things--that’s what the fuck they’re there for. The goal was to make our lives easier, to let us focus on the fucking music. All we’ve done is become some fucking hit factory.”

  “Don’t like it? This is what success as a band is,” Alex said.

  “No, this is what selling out is,” I countered. “We don’t have to be businessmen to make this work. We can be goddamned friends. We used to be able to do that.”

  “As your friend, I’m worried that you’re going to lose your fucking mind if it turns out that Allie is using you,” Alex said. “As the lead singer of your band, as one of the guys working with you, I’m worried that you losing your fucking mind is going to cost all of us money.”

  “I’m worried that if we can’t fucking exist as friends anymore without ripping each other’s asses over the choices we make, we’re not going to be a fucking band anymore,” I told Alex. “Everything is like this, any time there’s any little shake-up. Someone gets pissy and everyone either is for or against and we sit around in stalemate for fucking weeks until someone breaks.” I shook my head again. “And you’re pitching your own bitchfest over me dating someone and trying to dress it up as being worried about me.” I scrubbed at my face with my hands. “Look--this was a mistake. Forget I said anything.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake,” Alex said quietly. “Let’s talk about this again when we’re not on break.”

  “We’re not in the studio that much longer,” I pointed out.

  “If you want her to come in and take some shots, invite her,” Alex said. “I’ll be pleasant to her.”

  “But you don’t like her or trust her,” I said.

  “I don’t have to like her or trust her to be pleasant to her,” Alex said, smiling slightly. “I don’t like or trust our A&R guy at the label, and he doesn’t even know it.” I laughed.

  “Fifty bucks says he does,” I countered. “But he’s A&R--it’s probably pretty rare that any artists like or trust him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You’re sure this isn’t going to be a shit show?” Allie had her camera around her neck; she’d ridden out to the studio with me, and we’d parked a minute before.

  “Alex says he’ll be pleasant to you,” I told her. I’d told her more or less about the conversation, about how Alex didn’t like or trust her--but was willing to basically go along to get along. She hadn’t been all that enthused, and when she’d agreed to come along anyway I had to admit that there was something like an alarm bell in my brain telling me it was another sign that Alex was right--but she’d agreed to come along.

  “I
want the shots to be as candid as possible,” Allie said, checking her equipment. “I guess I’ll just hang around, and wait for things to kind of settle in.”

  “Probably best,” I said, steeling myself for the initial drama. I could count on Dan and Nick to be solid. I could probably count on Jules to be charming in his usual snarky, sarcastic way. I didn’t know what Alex would do. “We’ve got a long day of tracking ahead of us--trying to wrap things up as much as possible,” I added. “If you need to head out, you can use the car--I’ll catch a ride home with Nick.”

  “If you can hang for the whole day, I can,” Allie said, smiling at me. “As long as we don’t end up with the cops getting called, I’m in.” I laughed.

  I definitely steeled myself a bit when we went into the studio, expecting at least some kind of tension from Alex’s quarter; but at first at least, Allie seemed content to hang out a bit, to stay at the fringes of what was going on as we sat in the control room and talked to Jack about the day’s work, as we discussed what we were going to do, what we wanted to go back to and tweak. Alex said hello to Allie and then mostly ignored her. Allie kept the camera around her neck, but she didn’t take pictures, for the first thirty minutes--then for the first hour. By the time she actually started taking pictures, I barely even noticed that she was doing it.

  Of course, I thought to myself; that had been her plan all along. I’d seen her work this way before, keeping the camera on her but not using it, waiting and waiting until people started to relax and stopped thinking about the camera being there at all. Then, when she started taking pictures, nobody really noticed; even Alex didn’t seem to particularly see that Allie was snapping the occasional picture, moving from the live room to the control room to one of the individual spaces as her interest carried her around. I tried not to feel on edge, tried not to keep waiting for something to happen between her and Alex, but I couldn’t help wondering just how well my friend was going to be able to keep with his promise to be pleasant to her.