Marked By Fire

by Meg Ripley

  “New bartender at Respects,” Mark replied. My hand slipped on the neck of my bass.

  “Really?” I hadn’t mentioned my upcoming date with Sophie to Mark—I figured he didn’t need to know until after I found out if there was anything to it.

  “That Sophie chick?” Nick raised an eyebrow and looked at me. I’d told him about going home with Sophie, and that we’d made a date.

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “I gave her my number the other night and we’ve been texting back and forth a bit. I’m taking her to the De Sade show.” Nick looked at me again, and I shrugged—hopefully not enough that Mark could see.

  “Five minutes, guys,” Jack said from the control room. “Let’s get this show rolling, shall we?”

  We started in on the first track, and I tried to focus on the task at hand, but the fact that Mark had a date with Sophie stuck in the back of my mind. Mark didn’t know that I had a date with Sophie; so there was no reason for me to be mad at him—but I was. I was mad at Sophie too, probably with more reason. After all, she had made a date with me, and then turned around and made one with Mark as well. You did tell her to text him if she was interested, I reminded myself, but even then it didn’t seem like any kind of excuse. She knew that Mark and I were in a band together—and she should have been able to figure out that it would put a strain on things between us to both go after the same woman.

  “We’re getting ragged in the rhythm section,” Jack said from the control room after we went through one of the new songs for the third time.

  “What’s up?” Jules looked from Mark to me and back again. “You two are never sloppy like this.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Just tired.”

  “Take a break,” Alex suggested. He turned to the control room. “We’re going to take five, Jack—I think we’re overthinking this whole thing.”

  “Make it ten, get a cigarette and come back,” Jack suggested. I checked my pockets, found my phone and cigarettes, and put my bass down. I had to get out of the room—and I definitely needed to confront Sophie about what I’d found out. If she was going to play Mark and I off against each other, I’d cancel the damn date; I didn’t need that kind of drama in my life. Fuming, I left the studio and headed outside, blinking against the bright, mid-afternoon sun.

  I sank down onto the grass, took my phone out of my pocket, lighting a cigarette and found Sophie’s number in my contact list. She’d given it to me before I’d left her apartment a few days before, and I’d texted her once or twice since then—mostly just how-are-you, checking in-type messages. I’d been totally clueless to the fact that she’d even followed up with Mark. Hey, I wrote. Just heard some interesting news. I tapped send and set my phone down on my knee while I smoked, trying to keep my anger in proportion.

  A moment later, my phone vibrated and I looked at it. What news would that be? Something up with the album? I pressed my lips together until my throat tickled from the smoke hanging in it. I exhaled the smoke and coughed.

  Actually, I heard that you have a date with Mark, I wrote back. I wasn’t about to sugarcoat anything. Anything to say about that? I checked the time; I had another couple of minutes before we had to go back into the studio and get back to work.

  He asked me out, I said yes. You told me to text him if I was interested. I stubbed out my cigarette and shook my head to myself.

  I also asked you out, and you said yes. I took a deep breath. And you said yes to me first. What’s the deal there? I slipped my phone into my pocket and stood up. I wasn’t sure there was even anything that Sophie could say that would matter to me at that point; the fact that she hadn’t apologized or offered any kind of justification, any kind of reasoning behind accepting dates from two guys at the same time, pissed me off.

  Before I could walk back inside the complex, though, Nick appeared. “I talked Jack into a longer break,” he said, looking me up and down. “We going to have drama between you and Mark now?”

  “Mark didn’t know I’d asked her out,” I pointed out.

  “But she knew—at least I assume you asked her out first,” Nick said. He took his cigs out and gestured for me to sit down.

  “Am I about to get a pep talk from you? Because I gotta say, the idea of getting relationship advice from a guy who until—what—a year ago was fucking everything with two legs and a vagina…”

  “The two legs thing wasn’t a prerequisite,” Nick said with a little smirk. I rolled my eyes.

  “Anyway: say whatever the fuck you came to say.”

  “You’re pissed off,” Nick said, lighting up. “I get it.”

  “You say that like most people wouldn’t get me being pissed over my best friend going on a date with a girl I’m into,” I countered.

  “How many times have you and Mark ended up fucking the same girl? At least five, right?”

  “That’s different,” I insisted. “Those weren’t…they were just chicks on the road.”

  “Still, you put your dick somewhere Mark did. And vice versa. Hell, you’ve fucked girls who fell out of Alex’s bunk too.” Nick shrugged. “We all have. What’s the issue now?”

  “So, you’re saying that I shouldn’t be upset about it because Mark and I have fucked the same groupies before,” I said. I lit another cigarette; Nick shrugged and took another drag of smoke.

  “You’re pissed because you’re actually into her,” Nick said matter-of-factly. “But are you pissed at him, or are you pissed at her?” I considered the question.

  “It’s alternating,” I admitted. “Even though I know I don’t really have a reason to be pissed at Mark—it’s not like he knows anything.”

  “So talk to him about it,” Nick suggested. “See what he does. If he backs off—then just be mad at her.”

  “And if he doesn’t back off?” Nick looked at his cig for a moment or two.

  “Then figure out whether you really want to have shit with him,” Nick said. “We’ve got work to do, man. We can’t get this album done right if you and Mark are having drama and trying to point fingers at who’s being sloppy in the studio when you’re actually both out of sync because you’re not listening to each other.” Nick stood on his long, skinny legs and stubbed his cigarette out against the wall. “Finish that and come back in. We’ll get through it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I thought about what Nick had said the entire time we were in the studio that day. I knew I didn’t have any right to be pissed at Mark until after I confronted him about what had happened; but I didn’t know if—technically—I even would have a right to be pissed at him even then. Mark had acted in his own interest, just like I had. Sophie was a separate issue—at least that’s what I thought at first. She had gone from not dating anyone in the local scene to dating two guys in the local scene at the same time, and both of them members of the same band. Benny’s sure as hell going to be pissed off about it, I thought wryly.

  I knew I should talk to Mark about the situation, but there wasn’t an opportunity for the rest of the day. The five of us went through one song after another, recording, stopping, talking, recording again, tweaking this, changing that, talking some more. We mostly worked on the songs that Alex and Nick had written together, and in some respects, it was exactly the way that it always had been—wrangling out details, talking about changes, reworking this or that or the other thing.

  But it was obvious to me at least that things weren’t exactly the same way as they’d always been. Jules was more aggressive with his suggestions. Mark wasn’t as patient with working out what exactly Alex wanted from the drums. I wasn’t gelling with the beat the way that I normally did.

  “What the hell was that?” Alex turned to look at me when we came to the end of a song—his song—that we’d already played through about half a dozen times and recorded three of those times.

  “What do you mean, what was it?” I looked from Alex to Jules to Nick, to see if either of them had a similar issue with my playing.

  “You to
tally dropped the beat in the second verse, and what the fuck was that bit in the chorus?” Alex shook his head.

  “You’re the one that keeps changing it,” Jules pointed out. “Hell, it’s a wonder I even knew what you wanted to play.”

  “But you did,” Alex insisted. “What’s going on, Dan?” I shrugged.

  “Nothing,” I said. It was a lie of course, but I wasn’t about to drag my issues with Mark out into the studio live room.

  “Let’s go through it one more time, recording off, and see if we can’t get it right,” Nick suggested. “And this time let’s stick with the original. I’m not solid on that riff in the third verse anyway.”

  “Think you’re up for it, Dan?” Alex gave me a sharp, almost a mocking look.

  “Sure,” I said, smiling in spite of how irritated I felt. “Let’s go over it again. But none of that new shit you’re wanting in it—just the normal fucking song, okay?”

  “Mark, count in.” I felt my heart beating faster as Mark hit his sticks together to count the beat off, but I pushed the feeling aside. I was in the studio to work; I’d get a chance to talk to Mark after we finished for the day. Nick came in, and then Jules, and then I started playing the bass line, listening to Mark’s beat and trying to separate him from the beat I had to follow. I closed my eyes and just listened to the music swirling around me, fitting the notes I played into the fabric of the song itself, following along as mindlessly as possible. I could play the original version of this song—the way Alex had first presented it to us—in my sleep. I didn’t even listen to Alex singing; all I did was go along with the rhythm and melody without thinking.

  “Better,” Alex said when we came to the end once more.

  “I think we have it solid now,” Jack said from the control room. “Why don’t we revisit this after you’ve had some time to get the parts into your muscle memory? Call it a day.” I looked at Alex; ever since he’d taken up with Mary the perfectionist streak in him had come out more and more, and it was hard to know when it would show up. He looked at each of us in turn and then nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re not going to get it any better than that today. Let’s call it done, and we’ll listen to the replays tomorrow when we get in.”

  We started putting our shit away, and I rehearsed what I was going to say to Mark in my mind. I couldn’t start out in anger; Mark hadn’t known that I’d already asked Sophie out. Hell—I hadn’t even told him that I’d stayed the night at her place. He was just doing what made sense: he had given her his phone number, he had made the move, he had closed the deal. I couldn’t blame him for any of that. But I’d asked her out first. Really, both of us should be mad at Sophie; she was playing us.

  Mark somehow managed to clear out before I could get my thoughts together. I heard him saying his goodbyes and almost dropped what I was doing to follow him; but instead I finished putting away my guitars and gathering up my things. I didn’t even know what to say to him—I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t really have any kind of specific claim on Sophie in spite of the fact that she’d said yes to going on a date with me. All I had was some resentment that one of my best friends had unknowingly asked out the same girl I wanted to see.

  I was still thinking about the situation when I left the complex. “Dan!” I looked up and stopped in my tracks. Sophie was sitting on the hood of my car, a few feet away from me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I stared at her. She was wearing a jumper and a tee shirt, and something about the cut of it, about the way it looked on her, made her sexier than ever. Don’t give into it. Don’t.

  “Well, you weren’t answering your text messages,” Sophie pointed out. She slid off the hood of my car and walked up to me. “So I figured that if I wanted a chance to make things right, I would have to do it in person.” I raised an eyebrow.

  “How long have you been waiting there?” Sophie gave me that little knowing smile.

  “About an hour,” she said. “Fortunately, I’m off tonight so even if you stayed in there until midnight it would’ve been okay.” I couldn’t help myself; I laughed.

  “Okay,” I said. I resisted the urge to reach out for the hips that practically begged for my hands on them. “So how are you going to make this right?” Sophie crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at me.

  “I was going to tell you that I get why you’re upset. I shouldn’t have accepted a date from Mark.” I nodded.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I am going to tell him that I have to cancel,” Sophie told me. “I should give you precedence since you asked me first.”

  “That is very mature of you,” I said, resisting the urge to smile. “And so fucking eloquent.” I found myself moving closer to her instinctively. “But I’m not sure it’s enough to make up for going behind my back.”

  “I didn’t!” Sophie looked up at me sharply. “You said to text him back and to go out with him if I wanted to,” she pointed out.

  “I said if you were interested,” I corrected.

  “Whatever,” Sophie said. She rolled her eyes. “So, what will it take for you to forgive me for creating tension between you and Mark?”

  “Go to dinner with me,” I told her. “That’ll make up for it.” I moved closer still; it was like her body was a magnet, drawing me in, almost against my will. “Go to dinner with me and don’t tell Mark why you have to cancel.”

  “The first: okay,” Sophie said. “The second: why?” I licked my lips. I wanted to kiss her so badly I could almost taste it.

  “I need to talk to him, guy-to-guy,” I told her. “Just let me handle it.” Sophie looked up at me, meeting my gaze with her big, dark eyes for a long moment.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll do it your way. Where are you taking me for dinner?”

  “Oh—you’re taking me to dinner,” I told Sophie. “After all, you’re the one who wronged me.”

  “You make so much more money than I do! That’s not fair. Besides, you said go to dinner with you, not take you to dinner.”

  “We’ll split the check,” I suggested. Sophie pouted, shaking her head.

  “This isn’t a date then?” I laughed.

  “It is, but it’s a makeup date. You’re making it up to me for going after my friend after you already said yes to me. So you pay for your own food. Next week, when we have our actual date, I’ll pay.” Sophie flashed that little smile up at me and I almost couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her.

  “Deal,” she said. Sophie took a step back and laughed, shaking her head. “I cannot believe you got me to agree to that.” Sophie half-turned away from me and slipped her keys out of her pocket. “You’re lucky you’re hot.”

  “Lucky? Luck has nothing to do with it,” I informed her. “I have the most aggressive skin care regimen of anyone in the band.” Sophie snorted.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Get in the car,” I told her. “I’ll bring you back by here to get your ride after dinner.” Sophie gave me a watchful look, but slipped her keys back into her pocket.

  “I will so get a fucking Lyft if you use this as an excuse to be an ass,” she said firmly.

  “I promise I will be a perfect fucking gentleman,” I said. “Get in the car.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So, tell me: what’s it like to be a famous musician?” Sophie reached out with chopsticks in her hand and snagged a piece of grilled eggplant off of the plate in front of us. I’d taken her to Yakko-San, not too far from the studio.

  “I’m not famous,” I said, shaking my head as I grabbed for a bite of tuna.

  “Sure you are,” Sophie said. “Molly Riot is the success story of the scene.” I rolled my eyes.

  “All happenstance,” I told her. “Alex had that big raid, and then Nick got involved with a journalist, and Jules…” I shrugged and ate my bite of tuna, before reaching for a slice of grilled sea bass. Sophie plucked a dumpling off of a plate.

  “The reason doesn’t
matter,” she told me. “You’re famous.”

  “Does that matter to you?” I ate my sea bass. Sophie looked at me thoughtfully, chewing her gyoza.

  “Not really,” she replied after a moment. “I mean, obviously it will ruin my cred in certain circles, but I can deal with that.” I laughed.

  “So we’re operating on the assumption that this is going to be an actual thing?” Sophie’s lips twitched in a little smile.

  “I’m kind of hopeful it will,” she said. “But I mean—obviously, that’s going to depend on how it goes in the bedroom.”

  “You have doubts?” I snagged a dumpling and ate it, eyebrow raised.

  “Well, I can’t know for sure until we get there, right?” Sophie tilted her head to the side.

  “You didn’t get anything from that kiss the other day?” I held her gaze.

  “I was half asleep,” Sophie pointed out. “Maybe if you tried it again I could judge better.” I chuckled, and snatched another piece of tuna off of one of the plates.

  “I think I can manage that,” I told her. Sophie grinned.

  “I’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.”

  “Well I’m not going to kiss you right here—I taste like fish.” Sophie snorted.

  I insisted on paying for dinner at the end of it all, even though I’d said we were going to go Dutch. We walked out of the restaurant, and acting on impulse I grabbed Sophie’s hand. Her fingers tightened around mine as we went to my car. She turned to face me as we got to the passenger side door, but before she could say anything, I leaned in and kissed her. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pressing her body against mine, and deepened the kiss moment by moment. Any and all thought of Mark completely left me.

  I pushed Sophie up against my car, letting my hands wander over her body slowly; I hadn’t realized how much I’d been thinking about kissing her, touching her, holding her ever since I’d left her apartment days before. I could feel myself already starting to get hard as Sophie began to squirm against me, her hands moving across my back and shoulders as I deepened the kiss.