Groupie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 1)

by C. M. Stunich

  “You sing?” I ask and Muse shrugs, sitting down in the swivel chair opposite me. I adjust my position to face him, curling my legs toward the guitar case and listening to the rapid thumping of my heart, the only sound besides the faint murmur of the shower behind the closed bathroom door.

  “Not at a professional level, but it helps to write music if you can at least carry a passable tune. My passion,” Muse says, tapping the guitar with a loving hand, “is this baby right here.”

  He starts to strum the strings with his fingers, forgoing a pick. The sound is softer, warmer than I expected—especially coming from such an edgy instrument in the lap of such an edgy looking musician. The notes are sad but hopeful, accompanied by the gentle tapping of his bare foot against the wood floor.

  “If I had a first choice, love would be my last. My heart would always stay whole, my own secret stash.” Muse's voice is rougher than Pax's, not as practiced, but it's beautiful anyway, especially when he closes his eyes, his silver hair fanning across his forehead, the tattooed bats on his fingers dancing across the strings of his guitar. “If I let all of the hope go, would I be happy? Would I be? Would I be? If I took you in my heart, would you make me bleed? The love I've always let go, the truth I'm afraid I'll never know. If I let you in, could you show me how? Could you though? Could you though?” Muse carries the notes low and easy, doesn't try to show off by hitting notes he knows he can't reach. And oh god, the way he plays that guitar … it's no wonder Paxton recruited him for his band. If it's pain he was looking for, Derek Muser has it in spades. “Ooh, could you show me how to be happy? Could I be? Could I be?”

  His voice trails off and his fingers tell the rest of the story, strumming and plucking and teasing emotion from the gorgeous black instrument clutched in his hands. He looks just as comfortable holding that guitar as he did his cup of tea.

  “Ooh, tell me this is a night I won't regret. That I won't lose it all on this one bet. Ooh, could I be happy? Should I be? Should I be?” he finishes, glancing up at me through the thick lenses of his glasses. Muse ends the song with a few high, sweet notes and then smiles. “So that's that,” he says, like he didn't just serenade me with a soft sad song that brought tears to the edges of my eyes.

  I set my tea aside and stand up as he puts the guitar down and lets me hug him tight, sit in his lap and squeeze him the way he deserves to be squeezed.

  “Does it have a name, that song?” I ask, my face pressed into his purple sweater, the sweet scents of incense and tea making all that much more sense now that I know where they come from. I like the idea of Muse getting care packages from somewhere. It shows that somebody's thinking about him. That's always nice, to have somebody in this world care not just whether you live or die, but if you're happy. I glance at the Love Spell book.

  “Nah, it's not even finished yet,” he says, but there must be some reason he decided to play it for me, so I hug him a little harder.

  “It's beautiful,” I say, leaning back and looking into his eyes.

  Our mouths meet just a few seconds later and when he reaches up to take his glasses away, I put a hand on his wrist to stop him. His tongue parts my lips and warms my body from the inside out, burning me up with heat and want and desire. I don't know anything about Muse when compared to the other guys on this tour—even Michael—but I can't make him tell me. I just have to coax and wait, to be patient.

  But I'm afraid that if I'm too patient, I might not learn anything about him at all.

  His kisses get more fervent, his hands sliding up the back of my shirt. I stand up and let my sweats fall around my ankles, stepping out of them as Muse shoves his own down and pulls me onto his lap. Our bodies join in slick, sweet agony and I ride him until the sounds coming from his throat are barely distinguishable from the sad but hopeful notes of his nameless song.

  “I like her,” I say mildly as we mill around backstage waiting for our set.

  “We all like her, you fucking twat. Why the hell else would she still be hanging around here if we didn't?” Pax says as he smokes a cigarette and ignores the glares coming from the venue's manager. He's not supposed to smoke in here, but he's doing it anyway; he's not the only one.

  “No, I mean, I really like her,” I say, wondering how Lilith's doing up in the balcony, if she's wishing she was down here instead of all the way up there. “I think I might ask her to be my girlfriend.”

  “Are you bloody fucking kidding me?” Pax snaps, casting a steely eyed glare in my direction. “You just fucking met her.”

  “So what? It's been a week, and I still like her. We have about a week to go until we head to Montréal. I saw a passport in her purse when it spilled the other day, and if everything keeps going well, I'm going to ask her to come with us. But I figure I should talk to Octavia now and see if there's anything else I need to make sure Lilith's okay to fly with us.”

  “You want Lilith to be your girlfriend, honey?” Ransom asks softly, drawing my attention over to him in his usual black hoodie.

  “I think so. I mean, I know it's still early, but international travel gets tricky and there's only a week to go. It'd be easier to make arrangements now and cancel them later. Besides, why not? She has nowhere else to go and she seems happy with us. Why not take her along for the ride if she wants to go?”

  “You can't ask her to be your bloody girlfriend,” Pax mumbles as he smokes his cigarette and shakes his head like I've completely lost my mind. But I haven't. My lonely traveler's met another lonely traveler, and he likes the company. Lilith has nobody; I have nobody. We could be each other's somebodies. I like the idea of that. And not just that. I like the shape of her smile, her curves, the way she talks about her family and her art, how she raves about strawberries like she's the fruit's damn lobbyist.

  “Why can't I?” I ask, stuffing my fingers into the front pockets of my charcoal grey military jacket. I'm wearing it unbuttoned over a white wife beater, my mohawk spiked up into a wild crest. “What's it to you?”

  “Because I'm not fucking finished with her yet, that's what,” Pax snaps and I raise my eyebrows. He continues to smoke his cigarette like that's that, subject closed. I glance over at Ransom and Cope, noticing that Michael's staring at his phone, acting like he's completely checked out of the conversation. But that's a lie. I can see little beads of sweat on his forehead. If he was smart, he'd break up with Vanessa and spend a night with Lilith instead.

  Which, I know, is a totally weird thing to say about a girl I'm thinking of asking to be my girlfriend. But it's not that I actually mind the arrangement that we have right now; I just don't want it to end in New York.

  “What do you think?” I ask Cope as he drums his long fingers on the black matte wall behind him. He just took Lilith dancing last night, out on a proper date which he never does with groupies. But if any of the other guys have intentions, they best fucking tell them to me. I'm not going to let this girl slip from my fingers because nobody else wants to have a messy conversation with me. No, sorry, but my past is so fucked-up that just thinking about it chokes the life out of me. I see a possible future with Lilith and I'm not letting go without at least seeing where that might take me.

  “I like her, too,” Cope says, but his voice is completely shutdown and unreadable.

  God.

  How fucking annoying.

  “So you want to date her, too?” I ask and he tosses me this glare that makes me smile. “I see. So that's how it is then. Ransom?”

  He scrubs both hands down his face.

  “Yeah. Yes. I want her to stay for a while.”

  “Okay then,” I say, adjusting my stance, putting my hands in my back pockets instead and rocking back and forth in my slip-on checkered Vans. “So it's not that any of you mind her staying, just that you don't want me to ask her on my own behalf. This is an invitation issued by the whole band?”

  “There's still a week to go in the States,” Pax says, throwing his cigarette to the ground and crushing it out with his exp
ensive loafers. “You might hate her by the end of it—or get tired of sharing.”

  “Maybe,” I say, even as I feel sorry for the spoiled brat. Pax has had hard shit in his life, yes, but he's not used to having to deal with practicalities. That's always been taken care of for him. Even now, he knows that if the band falls apart, he's got his rich family back in England. I think they're even distant royalty or something. “But what if she needs a visa or something? You can't just decide last minute to rocket someone around the world. Arrangements need to be made, Pax.”

  “Whatever,” he drawls and I roll my eyes dramatically.

  Jesus.

  Didn't expect this to turn into a goddamn production.

  “I'll talk to Octavia tonight, after the show. If we decide we don't want her to come with us, no harm, no foul. But at least this way, we have options.”

  “You're smart as hell, Muse,” Ransom whispers, lighting up his own cigarette. “You always think of every little thing.”

  I smile but Ransom doesn't smile back. He knows what it cost to me to learn to be like this, all the things I went through, saw, felt, suffered. I blink a couple of times to push the emotions back. I don't want to feel them, process them, understand them. I just want to let them all go and study Ransom's wary but desperate expression, Cope's stricken look of resigned disappointment mixed with unwanted hope, Paxton's false mask of rage covering up some real jealousy. Michael, too, texts Vanessa and pretends to be excited about seeing her tomorrow, but he's not. That relationship died a long, long time ago and I think they both know it. I wish either one of them would realize that and be brave enough to let this toxicity in their lives go.

  “We're up next,” Octavia says, her face drawn and blank. It'd have to be, after that row she had with Paxton last night. He almost fired her on the spot, but I managed to calm him down. If we fire her, the label will just send somebody else, maybe even somebody worse. Our last manager was a militant prick. “You guys ready?”

  “We're ready,” I say, but I'm the only one that bothers to answer her.

  We take the stage a few minutes later, walking out behind the long white curtain, listening to the voiceover and the sound of confetti being blasted across the crowd. I pick up my red guitar and hoist the strap over my head, knowing that when I play tonight, I won't be playing for the crowd. I'll be playing for a single redheaded girl in the back, a girl who has so much heart that she cries at a half-finished song and tries to comfort other people in the midst of her own grief.

  I might regret taking Lilith along on the world portion of our little tour, but I don't think so.

  No, no matter what happens, having her with us on this bus has given me a brief reprieve from my loneliness and that, that's worth whatever price I have to pay to get it.

  Michael is a bundle of nerves as we pack up quickly after the show and load onto the buses. It's not a long drive from Nashville to Atlanta, but the venue the boys played at tonight is having another show tomorrow and those bands are rolling their buses in later; there's not enough room for everyone in the back lot so we're heading out this evening instead of early the next morning.

  Apparently this is something that was planned in advance because Michael's already got a date to meet Vanessa for an early breakfast.

  “This is perfect, Mikey,” Pax says as he loosens his tie and drapes it around his neck. “You can break up with her when we get there and then after the show, the six of us will go out and party without that fucking ball and chain dragging you into the cement. What say you, mate?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Michael groans, leaning back in one of the swivel chairs and putting his boots on the coffee table. He's draped a cold rag over his eyes, moving it briefly to glare at Paxton. “Why are you so dead set on me breaking up with her? What's it to you?”

  “She's an awful cunt, that's what,” Pax says, glancing over at me as he removes his cuff links with a slow, careful intent that bathes my body in desperate heat. “Pardon my French, love, but it's true. Wait until you meet this girl and you'll see what I mean.” He grins at me and moves over to the couch, taking my hand and pressing his cuff links into my palm. I look down and see that they're a pair of broken hearts. “Nothing at all like you.”

  “Lay off, Pax,” Michael says, putting the rag back over his eyes. “I'm already stressed-out enough as it is.”

  “Because you hate the bitch,” Pax supplies as he stands up and I lean my body into Ransom's, his violet tinted scent surrounding me like a fragrant hug.

  “Shouldn't you be at least a little excited to see her?” Muse asks from his spot near the stove, pouring steaming water over a little silver strainer filled with loose leaf tea. “I mean, isn't that the whole point of dating someone? They make your chest tight, your heart beat, your—”

  “And you've had how many actual girlfriends in your life, Derek?” Michael snaps, neglecting to move from his reclined position, white rag still firmly in place.

  “None, but I'm telling you that if I looked forward to seeing my girlfriend for the first time in a year with literal dread and angst, I'd reconsider our relationship.”

  Michael makes a frustrated sound in his throat, but he doesn't respond to Muse's statement.

  I fondle the cuff links in my palm and glance over at Copeland, noticing that he's acting strangely quiet tonight, eyes glassy and slightly far away. There it is, the first time I've really seen it so bare in his face: loss. That's fucking grief burning with an awful cold fire behind his turquoise eyes. I've seen him look sad, resigned, distant, but not devastated, not like this.

  As if he notices my attention on him, Cope blinks and forces a smile.

  “When I was dating Cara,” he says and the room goes completely quiet, “I couldn't wait to see her. If it was a day, an hour, even just a few minutes, I was always happy to see her face.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn't cheat on Cara,” Michael says, blatantly laying his sins out there for everyone to see. “I did. I gave Vanessa a legitimate reason to act the way she does. Fuck off.”

  “You never much liked her anyway,” Pax says as Muse comes over to the couch and hands both me and Cope mugs of tea. Cope looks surprised, but he takes it in his hands with a sad smile.

  Cara.

  I haven't heard anyone mention Cara before. I wonder what that's about? Like Muse's entire history, this part of Copeland's is a complete mystery to me. He sucks on the silver ring in the center of his bottom lip for a moment and then takes a sip of his drink. I do the same and find myself overwhelmed with floral notes and the fragrant scent of roses.

  “Shit, that's good,” I whisper but the conversation is stuck on Vanessa and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I notice Muse pushing his glasses up his face and smiling at me though. At least he heard me.

  “Let's be frank here, shall we?”

  “Are you ever anything but frank, Pax?” Michael asks caustically.

  “The reason—the only fucking reason—that you're still 'with' Vanessa is because she had a miscarriage. That's it. Only reason. You feel bad for knocking her up and cheating on her. Be sorry about it and move the fuck on.”

  Michael finally snaps, and tears the rag off his face, chucking it at Pax. It hits him in the leg and falls to the floor with a wet plop.

  “I'm done with this goddamn conversation,” he says, kicking to his feet and storming past his friend down the hallway. There's this moment where he pauses, and I hear him walking back in this direction. Then he disappears into the bathroom and slams the door.

  A small smile teases my mouth. I think he was on his way into the Bat Cave, remembered I was staying there and backtracked. I appreciate the respect.

  “Do you all hate Vanessa that much?” I ask and feel Ransom shrug behind me.

  “She and Michael just … don't really go together is all, honey.”

  “Go together?” Pax snorts, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over Michael's abandoned chair. “They don't belong in the same state. Just wat
ch: I predict a blow-up by the end of breakfast. Maybe he just wants to fuck her? Hell if there's any other reason for him to see her. And I can't even believe she's bringing Tim with her. Has she gone completely mental then?”

  “Tim's … Michael's brother, right?” I clarify and feel Ransom sighing behind me.

  “Yeah, older by eight years,” Muse explains as he brings his own cup of tea over to the living room and sits down in the chair next to Pax's. “Michael's parents died in an accident when he was ten and Tim was eighteen. Basically, Tim resents Michael for having to raise him. They don't get along at fucking all.”

  Ah. Now I remember Ransom telling me that same story in Chicago. Shit.

  “The fact that Vanessa would even think to bring Tim with her shows how little she knows or cares about Michael,” Cope adds on the end of a long sigh, ruffling his red hair with his long fingers. He looks away, takes another sip of his tea, and then grabs for a book. When he cracks it open in his lap, I notice that his eyes are glassy again. He's not even reading the words as he sits there and stares at the page.

  Fuck. Now I need to know everything about this Cara person.

  I swear, I think I'm addicted to these boys' pain. And not because I want them to suffer, but because I want to save them from it. I want to bandage their wounds and staunch the bleeding of their hearts when what I really should be doing is that same thing for myself.

  But my grief, my wounds, they feel like they'll never heal. Maybe by taking the pain of the men around me onto my shoulders, I can pretend my own doesn't exist?

  I miss you Daddy.

  I shut that thought down quick. I still have a week to be Cinderella, and I'll be damned if I'll give up my glass slipper early.

  I toy with the rhodonite tear on my charm bracelet and try to banish the butterflies from my belly. How stupid for me to get all worked up over the fact that Michael's actually going to have sex with his fucking girlfriend. I have no claim on him.