Groupie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 1)

by C. M. Stunich

  “I don't understand,” I say, looking at him and trying not to notice that my hands are shaking a little. His offer sounds too good to be true, and I don't trust stuff like that. Life is never kind or friendly or easygoing; she's a raging bitch. “Why?”

  Muse smiles and I realize I'm doing exactly the same thing I did before, when he told me he cleaned up my stuff, when he offered to let me use his credit card to buy a plane ticket. He sighs and sets his cup aside, leaning over and putting his elbow on his knees, his fingers in his hair.

  “When …” he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “When you see another lonely traveler walking the same sad, strange path you almost fell off before … it's only right to see if you can guide them down a different road.” Muse opens his copper-emerald-sapphire flecked eyes and looks back at me with a half-smile that matches his words: sad and strange. “If Pax hadn't brought me into Beauty in Lies, I'd be dead right now.” He chuckles and sits up, the pins on his coat rustling with the movement. “And let's be honest, when I joined, I was shit at the guitar. I had no clue what I was doing. But he didn't hire me because I could or couldn't play music, he hired me because he recognized the same thing in me that he had in himself.”

  Muse stands up and looks down at me.

  “It's not technical skills or schooling or even passion that makes good music: it's pain. Pax has it; Ransom has it; Cope has it; Michael has it. He picked me because he knew I had it, too. He could teach me to play guitar; he couldn't teach me what it's like to suffer and survive.”

  “But what happens if I stay here?” I ask him and he smiles a much happier sort of smile.

  “That's up to you. You decide what you do with your time here. And when we play our last stateside gig in New York, make a choice. Stay there, go back to Phoenix, move to Hong Kong if you want.”

  I can't help but smile at that, but my hands … the shaking has doubled, tripled.

  “You can have the Bat Cave. Consider it yours for the remainder of the trip. Two straight weeks to grieve your dad, to figure shit out.”

  “Did you talk to your bandmates about this?” I ask, even as I'm dying inside to say yes. It crosses my mind that if I agree to this, I'll be spending two weeks with four guys that I fucked. Things are bound to get … messy and awkward.

  “Cope and Ransom,” he says, slipping the fingers of his tattooed hand into his coat pocket and watching my face carefully as his full lips twist into a mischievous smile. I think about what Ransom said, about Muse being overreaching, acting like he knows people when he doesn't. I can see that. I also wonder how many lives he's saved by doing that. Because right now, it feels like he's saving mine. “Pax and Michael, we'll deal with when they get up. But it's three versus two, and we have a majority rules plan in place for disagreements so it doesn't matter.”

  A drop of liquid plops into my tea and I look down in surprise, only to realize that I'm crying yet again. But it's only because I'm thinking of Dad. He would never approve of me hanging out on a bus with five dudes, but if it's what I wanted to do, he'd support me. He was old-fashioned in some ways, but he loved me more than he loved his traditions or his values.

  I open my mouth to talk, but Muse steps forward and gently covers my lips with his hand.

  “Don't ask why,” he tells me and I smile beneath the heat of his palm, “just say yes or no.”

  “It sounds like you're asking me to marry you,” I joke when he drops his hand and grins a little.

  “Who knows? I'm definitely into you. Maybe by the end of all this, I will be?”

  I laugh, but the thought of hanging out here, drinking spicy cups of tea with Muse, hearing Ransom call be baby doll, eating burgers in this living room, that all sounds like heaven. Then again, maybe they've only been so nice to me thus far because they expected me to leave? I could be in for a completely different sort of two weeks.

  But it's better than lonely Phoenix and motel rooms that take cash and wondering if I can get a food stamp card from the human services office.

  “I'd be an idiot to say no,” I tell him, setting my cup aside and standing up. I throw my arms around Muse's neck and he wraps his around my waist. I'm not sure it's ever felt so good to hug a stranger … except for maybe Copeland. Those two definitely rank up there in the hugging department. “Who knew a stupid one-night stand would get me on your fancy bus for two weeks?”

  “It wasn't the sex; it was your eyes,” he tells me and I squeeze him tighter because he sounds so serious. Underneath my brief flicker of happiness, I feel melancholia leaking through, but I ignore it, push it back. I won't waste these two weeks wallowing in misery; I need to come up with a plan, something that would've made Dad proud if the cancer hadn't stolen him away from me.

  I hear the sound of the hall door and glance over to find Ransom staring at me from his dark eyes. He lights a cigarette as he watches me let go of Muse's warm body with a strange sort of reluctance that I don't quite understand.

  “Guess this means you're staying, honey?” he asks in his leather and lace voice.

  “Staying?” Paxton asks, pushing past him and moving into the kitchen wearing yet another fucking suit, all perfect and pressed and polished. “Who's staying?”

  He pours himself a cup of coffee before he turns and spots me standing there.

  I have no idea what to make of the impression in his cold grey eyes.

  I can't spend my bloody time worrying about some girl who blushes and cries when I fuck her; I have a show to think about. I run a hand down the rich royal purple color of my tie and stick a cigarette between my lips.

  “You're okay with this?” Michael asks, looking like he wants to punch somebody. Nothing new there; Michael always looks like he wants to punch somebody. “With this girl staying on our bus?”

  I pause and check out a gaggle of girls in the corner, all dressed in expensive VIP badges, biting their lips and staring at the two of us like they'd enjoy eating us for dinner. I ignore them; they'll be here whether I give them any attention or not.

  “What's the problem? A hot groupie in permanent residence? Why should I complain?” I might not have time to worry about that girl, but I'd take another shag or two or ten. I feel like her curves are tattooed across my body along with all the song lyrics. “My dad died yesterday.” Well, shit if that doesn't make me feel like a right arsehole. Maybe that's why I ran away from her, out into the fucking pouring Arizona rain?

  And she knew it, too, that I was running away.

  Wish she could explain to both of us why I panicked like that.

  “Because what I said before still stands: if she's on the bus, no more groupies. You guys are not going to start collecting them like souvenir fucking postcards.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” I ask him in the hazy backstage darkness. Up ahead and to my right, there's a set of steps that lead to the stage. I can hear Rivers of Concrete playing their set now, hear the crowd getting warmed up and ready for us. This is probably my favorite part of the whole night, all the anticipation, the expectation, the excitement. “That's ridiculous. You're not punishing me for a decision that Muse, Cope, and Ransom made. If I want to fuck a girl on the bus, I damn well will.”

  “Where? With some redhead in Muse's baggy t-shirt walking around and sleeping in the Bat Cave? I will not have this shit turn into some sort of catfight-fuckfest.”

  “Because you can't have a bloody lick of fun doesn't mean you have the right to cut the bollocks off the rest of us,” I say as I turn and look my friend in the eyes. He's wearing too much eyeliner and a leather jacket with a sweater underneath it, his dark hair falling across his sweaty forehead. We haven't even taken the damn stage yet and already it's hot as the surface of the damn sun in here.

  I straighten my collar and adjust my cufflinks as I return Michael's sharp look.

  “If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were just jealous. Maybe that curvy little redhead is tempting you more than you care to admit?” I smirk when I say that a
nd watch as his hands curl into angry fists.

  “Like I'd want to touch some girl all four of you fucked. That's disgusting.”

  “Tell yourself whatever you want,” I say as my smirk gets deeper, darker, “I had her first.”

  I saunter past him over to the steps and smoke my cigarette, eyes scanning for Lilith Goode. I find her near the refreshments table, drinking a red cup filled with beer, wearing that little scrap of a black dress I saw her in yesterday. Admittedly, I like the look of it. Sharp red heels, scorching red lips, vibrant red hair.

  When I see the others clustered around her, my eyes narrow a bit. I did bloody have her first, didn't I? And what's she done to get those three panting at her heels like that?

  I lean against the wall and watch her until our set comes up and she moves away, disappearing down a different set of steps, heading towards the audience instead of the stage.

  “Looking for a replacement for Kortney?” I ask Ransom when he moves up next to me. Anger ripples through him, but he doesn't react. That's one of the things that drives me up the bleeding wall, watching him coil up inside of himself like that. He never fucking shouts, hardly gets visibly angry. And I want that, crave it really.

  It's his fault that my girlfriend, Chloe, and my sister, Harper are dead. His fault. We used to be friends; he's the reason I'm a musician after all. But I can barely look at him anymore.

  “Leave Lilith alone or I'll give you another concussion,” he says softly, voice hardly audible above the cheering of the crowd. But I don't intend to listen to that. If I can get that girl into bed again, I will—especially if that fucker Michael intends to keep other girls off our bus. I almost believe he'd do it, too, walk away from all of this just to prove to himself that he's not an asshole like the rest of us, run home to Vanessa and marry some girl he hates.

  “Lilith,” I say as I smile wickedly at Ransom and he narrows his dark eyes, “doesn't belong to you, now does she? She's a free woman, and if she's going to be our houseguest for the next few weeks, I may as well have another go at her.”

  “She's not your whore, Pax,” Ransom says, his voice edgier but still no louder than a whisper.

  “Did I say she was? She's clearly into me is all. I wouldn't be surprised if she fell on my dick before the end of the night.”

  “I could slit your throat and not lose a single night of sleep,” he whispers back and I smile even bigger.

  “Didn't you already do that and get away with it once? I'd hate to see you try it a second time.” I pause as our manager, Octavia, listens in on her headset and then gives me a firm nod of her head. I've got a pretty good idea that she's in love with me, but I don't shag my bosses. Doesn't usually turn out well, that. “Oh, but wait, you didn't just slit his throat, did you? You stabbed him, what was it, a hundred and fourteen times?”

  “You're a monster,” Ransom says, but I can barely hear him because I'm heading up the steps to the stage and listening to the crowd explode in wild excitement. I wave at them and then pause at the front of the stage to take a deep bow, grabbing the mic when I stand up and waiting for them to quiet down a little. Takes 'em awhile, but I just wait there and glance into the shadows at the base of the stage, at the small cluster of VIPs behind the bodyguards. Lilith's hair is such a strange color that I pinpoint her position right away.

  “My name is Paxton Blackwell,” I say as I put my hand on the mic stand and walk in a tight circle around it, my black loafers loud against the surface of the stage as I look up and across the glittering crowd. “We're Beauty in Lies.” More cheering, always with the bloody cheering. It's not that I mind—who the fuck doesn't want to be worshipped—but sometimes it just gets annoying. “And we're from Seattle, Washington.” Well, that's where our band started. Really, I'm from a small rural town outside of York, but who the fuck here cares about that? “We're starting off with a song I wrote for an ex-girlfriend.”

  I look up at them and smile like I've just decided this. In all reality, our manager's had our set lists for each city predetermined and ready to go since we announced the tour six months ago.

  “This one's called Chloe,” I say and I try not to sound disdainful when I say her name. She is dead after all, and even if I started hating her before that happened, I try not to let my voice drip with irony when I sing this song.

  I clear my throat and the band starts up behind me. Michael first, then Copeland, Muse and Ransom. The mic lifts to my lips.

  “Since I met you a year and yesterday, you've done nothing but take away my heartache and my pain. Without you, it's only darkness that I breathe. The sunshine never smiles down on me, and I'm left pining here; I bleed. Empty and broken. A mirror of shattered glass, in love with a razor's reflection, feeling my end coming on so fast. Oh, Chloe, sweet thing, you make me want to breathe again.”

  I take a deep breath and a step back as Ransom screams into his microphone.

  “LIVE AND LOVE AND LEARN TO BREATHE AGAIN!”

  I don't bother to move around, not for this song. I clutch the mic stand and let my head and foot move in time with the beat.

  “Hair like roses, smirking lips and beauty queen poses. Of all the stars in the night sky, you're the only one that makes it bright. Chloe, sweet thing, in your arms I breathe again. That shattered glass and silent moments, with you I feel the truth it poses.”

  Taking the mic in both hands, I slip it back into the stand take off my cufflinks as I sing, the right and then the left. I stick them in my pockets and glance down at Lilith Tempest Goode, standing there watching me with a red Solo cup and an enigmatic expression that frustrates me to no end.

  I ignore her, wondering why I even give a fuck what some random groupie thinks. And she might say she's not a groupie, but why the hell did she follow me back to the bus then? Because her dad died? Just a little grief filled fucking then? I suppose I could understand that. Did the same when my sister died in Chloe's drunken car accident.

  But the thing is, I learned my lesson with that shit before. I may never trust another woman—another person—ever again. Maybe I should've put my foot down about this girl being on our bus? This majority rules bullshit shouldn't count when it's something as big as this, as big as carting around some crying-blushing redhead.

  I finish that horrid song and smile as Muse and Michael toss their guitars up in the air, across the stage and towards a pair of waiting roadies on either side. The crowd cheers dramatically as the confetti machines explode and drench them in vibrant bits of colored paper.

  “This one,” I say as I shrug out of my suit jacket and hand it to another roadie, pushing up the charcoal grey sleeves of my button-up, “we've never performed it live before.”

  I raise my brows and catch Lilith's eyes yet again. Seems strangely impossible in a room full of two thousand people that I would keep looking at her, but it happens and I feel a slight frown crease my mouth.

  “A few years back, my sister, Harper, was visiting the States from England.” I take a few steps back as some roadies roll a gleaming black piano onstage, front and center. “When she died in a car accident. This song is for her.”

  I sit down on the bench in front of the piano, letting the roadies adjust my mic as the crowd bubbles excitedly. Truth be bloody told, this is the last song I'd ever want to perform live, but our record label has spoken and so shall it be done.

  Taking a deep breath, I place my fingers over the keys.

  “Of course, this is called Harper B.,” I say and then I start playing, closing my eyes for a moment, letting myself fall into the music. If I don't, if I have to sit here and listen to Ransom play his bass guitar and sing alongside of me, I might just kill someone. The other boys sit this one out; it's just me and fucking Ransom Riggs.

  I hit the keys hard and listen to him strumming softly behind me; he plays his instrument like he talks, quiet and sensual, like he's trying to seduce some poor chick into his fucking bed, to lay there all damn night and listen to his nightmares.

&nb
sp; Ironic, too, that it's at least partially his fault that she's dead.

  “Harper B., the night you said goodbye I cried, so loud the angels came to say goodnight. How can I live another day knowing you won't be there to hear me play? Why is the world so fucking cruel? Why did God take someone as beautiful as you? Remember that summer day we flew to Seattle just to stay? I wish I'd hugged her, kissed her, Dear God, how I miss my baby sister.”

  My fingers strum across the ivory keys as I suck in a deep breath and push my anger, my pain, my rage away. That night she came to visit, Harper and I were supposed to go out and party, but I was so goddamn upset with Ransom and Chloe that I just couldn't be bothered. Chloe showed up at my place after I left to cool my head, and took Harper with her; they never came back.

  If Ransom hadn't tried to steal my girlfriend, if he hadn't picked a fight with me that night, Harper would probably still be alive. Of course, I blame Chloe, too, since she was the drunk idiot that was driving that car, but she's gone, too, payment extracted and served. Good riddance.

  I hit the keys harder, pushing my fingertips into the piano like I blame the instrument for my pain and my frustration. I feel myself gritting my teeth and almost miss the next verse. But I'll be damned if I let Ransom sing about Harper without me.

  “Harper B., please wait for me, I'll be coming to see you soon. Because in the end, it'll just be me and you the way we've always known. Baby sister, oh God how I miss her, please tell me why it had to be this way? Tell me why I should I even stay? Harper B., baby, just know that I love you more than I can ever say.”

  Once more, I glance down into the shadowy space in front of the stage and catch Lilith's eyes. This time, she's crying again and when our gazes lock, she smiles softly.

  What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

  I tear my eyes away from her and force myself to finish the song, the set, and I don't look at her again until I'm tearing down the steps and into the hazy glittering darkness backstage. It's like a gathering of dark fae back here, all of this raunchy beauty, like the Unseelie court's finally crossed the veil and managed to spread their wicked revelry.