Getting Lucky (Jail Bait #4)

by Mia Storm

  The guy is nodding along as she talks, way less nervous now that he thinks I’m not who I really am. “Yeah. I mean, seriously. She could totally pass for her.” He smiles at me and holds out his hand. “I’m Greg, by the way.”

  “Lilah,” she says, shaking his hand even though it was pointed at me. “And this is Giselle. She’s an exchange student from Costa Rica and doesn’t speak much English.”

  The way this guy’s eyes go all glassy as they scan down my body, you’d think she just told him I was made of pure gold. “Giselle,” he says, sliding onto the stool next to me. “Wow…so, Costa Rica, huh? This must be a big change.”

  “Take a hike, buddy,” Bran says, pounding the side of his fist on the bar in front of us.

  Considering Bran’s neck is nearly as wide as this guy’s waist, the look on his face when he turns and sees Bran is no surprise. His eyes widen and he lifts his hands as if to demonstrate that he’s not touching anything he shouldn’t be. “Dude, I was just talking to the lady.”

  “Find a different lady,” Bran growls, and the guy nearly falls off his stool and stumbles back to his table.

  “He was kind of cute,” I say, watching him fill the others in. “What if I was planning on taking him home?”

  Bran shakes his head. “Not gonna happen on my watch.”

  I turn to him. “So now you’re my protector?”

  “Lilah cares about you, so I’m going to do what I can,” he says with a slow nod and a deadly serious look in those intense eyes.

  I suddenly see why Lilah went through the hell she did to be with him.

  “Okay,” I say with a nod. “Thank you.”

  The waitress drops our plates on the bar in front of us and sets one on Lilah’s other side. “Thanks, Carol,” Lilah says as Bran comes around the bar and hikes himself onto the stool.

  We eat and with the first bite, I see what Lilah was talking about. I never realized a burger could be more than a burger, but this is a little slice of heaven on a plate.

  The image of taking a bite of Tro’s room service burger in Miami flashes through my head and a cold sweat breaks down my back. I don’t even remember what that one tasted like. My mind was on Tro’s half-naked body and what it was about to do to mine.

  I shake the memory off as Lilah says, “Good, right?”

  I can’t even stop eating to answer.

  I’m licking every last morsel off my fingers when Carol comes for our dishes. Lilah reaches for her guitar and Bran mutes the TV and sets a beer mug on the bar in front of us. He slips a ten in from his pocket to get the tipping started. There are more people now than when we came in, but just barely, so I get what he was saying about the payday.

  “Play me one of your new ones,” I say as she begins strumming.

  She does and I close my eyes and listen. Lilah’s every bit the singer I am, but her real talent is in finding combinations in her head that totally work, but don’t seem like they should. After the first, she does another that I haven’t heard, but then segues directly from that into one of our oldest, and I can’t help but to sing along.

  The guys in the corner all start shoving each other and pointing. By the next song, one of our subway favorites, some of them are out of their seats and standing near the bar.

  “You’re no fucking exchange student,” Greg says, and he’s clearly drunker than he was half an hour ago.

  “No entiendo,” I say, pulling one of the only things I ever learned in Spanish class from the recesses of my mind.

  Bran is out on his feet. “If you’re here to tip the ladies, then be my guest. Otherwise…”

  He doesn’t even need to finish before the kid is backing off. “Christ, man. I’m just want to know if she’s really Lucky?”

  At his use of Tro’s nick name, acid rolls up my throat from my stomach. “Don’t call me that.”

  He turns toward his buddies. “It’s fucking her! I told you!”

  Bran takes an annoyed breath, then gets in the guy’s face. “You want to sit and listen, you’ll have a story to tell all your college buddies. You want to make a scene, you’ll get your ass tossed. Up to you.”

  “It’s really her, though?” he asks, squinting past Bran at me. “I’m right, right?”

  “That depends,” he answers. “Can you behave yourself?”

  Greg nods emphatically.

  “What do you have in your pocket?” Bran asks.

  He pulls a wad of cash from his pocket and a twenty falls to the bar. Bran scoops it up and slips it into our jar. “Perfect. Now sit down and listen.”

  The guy and his friends go back to their table. Lilah plays another of our oldies and we sing. When we’ve run through most of our old repertoire, she starts on the song Tro wrote—the one he made me sing onstage when we played San Francisco.

  I feel my throat constrict and I can’t sing.

  “Go ahead,” she coaxes.

  I shake my head and am surprised to feel tears sting the corners of my eyes. I don’t cry. Ever.

  But after everything with Billie, the thought of Tro, how he showed me a side of himself that I’d never even guessed at, makes something deep in my chest ache. It turns out nothing in that life was real. But, in my heart, I wanted Tro to be.

  Chapter 27

  Tro

  The stage under my feet shakes with the thunder of the crowd as the last notes of our encore echo through the cavernous space.

  I pump a fist in the air. “We love you, Rome!”

  Another roar goes up as the stage lights are doused for the final time this tour. Tomorrow afternoon, we film a video in Pompeii, and the next morning we’re on a plane home.

  That is if Grim doesn’t kill me in my sleep tonight. Which I’m pretty sure he’s been plotting since I put him in the hospital.

  He’s got two black eyes and three stitches across his left cheek. He’s wearing them like a badge of honor. The doctor said with his concussion he shouldn’t be playing, but he is. All night he’s cut me glances and I know what that fucker’s thinking. Him dying on stage would be his final fuck you.

  We pile off the stage and I don’t even have to make an excuse tonight. No one’s spoken to me since Zurich. Grim and Jamie gather up the sound guys and they’re talking about where they want to start the party as we spill out into the night. They all load in the car and Jamie sends me a plea in his gaze. He’s like Switzerland, trying to be neutral, but I know he’s pissed.

  I turn and head up the sidewalk, happy for the walk.

  “You’re a fucking pussy!” he yells as the car speeds past me, but there’s none of Grim’s malice when he says it.

  I don’t turn around. Or slow down. He might be right, but I really don’t give a shit. Better a pussy than an asshole, which is what I’ve been for the last few years.

  When I get to the hotel, I head straight to my room and close the door. I find my guitar in the corner and my fingers run automatically over the strings in the song that’s imprinted on my brain. I tweak the few notes tying the bridge to the chorus, then jot them down along with the last line of lyrics. As I look it over, I have the sudden, overpowering need to play it for Lucky.

  I open Skype and stare at the yellow status circle next to Lucky’s name. She’s blown off my texts. She doesn’t want to hear from me. Me blowing up her Skype isn’t going to change that.

  I set my phone down and play the new song straight through for first time.

  “The beast isn’t content to admire from afar.

  It dwells deep inside, the child of obsession.

  The taking begins, insidious and perverse.

  Suffocating me with enduring possession.

  “The living façade that others despise.

  Ravaging my soul, watching through my eyes.

  The lower I am, the higher its rise,

  nestled in pillows feathered with lies.”

  This song’s not my normal thing—slower and more ballady than what my fans want. But it’s more my song than anything
else I’ve ever written. I twist through the rest of the lyrics from the birth of the beast through its evolution, and as I sing of its demise, I wonder how I’m supposed to survive without it to hide behind. With the beast banished, what’s left?

  But that’s what the last three months have been about: trying to find the guy behind the beast—the guy deep inside me who Lucky seems to see when she looks at me. I’m not sure if that guy even exists, but if he does, that’s who I want to be—someone who might be worth Lucky’s time.

  The guys come back somewhere around four, bringing the party with them. I ignore the noise and keep playing until I have it perfect. Somewhere around six, everything outside my door but the music finally goes quiet.

  I get up and survey the destruction in the suite. There are several unwrapped women passed out on the couches, and a few of the crew scattered on them and the floor. Grim and Jamie aren’t among them, so they must be in their rooms.

  I click off Jamie’s iPod and head back to my room. I flop onto the bed and close my eyes.

  When I open them, it’s because my phone is vibrating. I jerk awake and look at it. Every fucking time, I can’t help hoping for Lucky.

  It’s never her.

  This time, it’s our video guy, texting with a change in time. He says he’s over at the site and the weather and lighting will be better if we push filming back an hour. Says he’ll switch the car he’s sending for us to one. I look at the time and find it’s after eleven.

  Got it, I text back, then close the screen. It opens to Skype, the last app I had open before I crashed. And Lucky’s status circle is green. I do the math in my head and figure it’s got to be three in the morning where she’s at. For a long time, I just stare at the green circle, feeling it tug at me the way it always does.

  I promised myself I’d give her space if that’s what she needed. But I feel my resolve wavering.

  Chapter 28

  Shiloh

  Bran brought Lilah and me back to her place after closing. That was at two. They slipped into her room a little while later and the apartment’s been quiet for the last hour.

  But I can’t sleep.

  I’ve always thought the ever-present danger on the streets of San Francisco had taught me to read people, but I guess my internal danger meter only works for thugs and rapists. I never saw Billie’s scam.

  Phillip called tonight while we were playing. I saw the message on our way home. He took the decision out of my hands and reported Billie to the cops. I honestly think I’m more pissed at myself than Billie for letting her make a fool out of me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hope she rots in jail.

  I sit up and lean against the wall. There’s a full moon outside the picture window that looks toward nothing but a brick wall across the street. I stare out the window and try to figure out what comes next. Lilah says I can stay here as long as I need to, but sooner or later Children and Family Services is going to find out I’m not living with Billie anymore and force me back to the group home. I haven’t lived there since I left for The Voice, and I’m not sure I’m equipped to survive there anymore. I’m softer now than when I left. I feel like I’ve lost my street edge. The shit with Billie was bad, but there are real, hardened criminals in the system who will figure out how to get what they want from me if I’m not careful.

  Through the wall next to me, I hear a rustle of sheets and then the creak of bedsprings. There’s a whisper, then the low rumble of Bran’s reply. Lilah obviously waited until she thought I was asleep to wake her man for some playtime.

  I get up and tiptoe to the window, away from the wall, hoping to give them some privacy, but there’s nowhere in this tiny apartment I can go that I don’t hear them, all soft whispers and low moans as he loves her.

  And it makes me think of Tro.

  I hate that with everything else going on in my life right now, I still spend hours watching the status circle next to his Skype avatar change from green to yellow and back, but I can’t help it. It’s the only connection I have to him. I slip my phone off the charger and open the app.

  And there he is.

  As always, the big green circle indicating he’s online makes my heart jump. He’s here. Right now. And so am I. We’re here together, but so very, very far apart. I haven’t found the courage to type in a message. I can’t even think of what I’d say. He’s off doing Europe. The last thing he wants is to hear from the stupid little girl he rejected before he left.

  I read through our message thread from before he left for the hundredth time and a tear dampens the corner of my eye. How can he seem so different when it’s just me? I know who he is. I always have. Celebrities and royalty. That’s who he’s been fucking for the last two months. He said I could have whatever I wanted from him when he got back, but out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

  I click it over to my music app, because I’m not going to cry over him. I press in my earbuds and choose a playlist from before the tour started—one that has nothing Tro ever sent or played for me on it, then crank the volume to block the sounds from the bedroom. I’m just losing myself in some classic shit when there’s an alert. I look at the lit screen of my phone and see it’s Skype.

  I’ve got three Skype contacts: Billie, who I doubt has the balls to contact me after what she did; Lilah, who’s pinned between the mattress and two-hundred-thirty pounds of ex-marine right now, and Tro.

  When I open the app, there’s a new message indicator next to Tro’s name on my list. I pull up our convo thread and see a new video message loading.

  My heart is slamming against my ribs as it finishes loading and opens. Tro is sitting on the floor, his back against a white wall and his guitar in his lap.

  “Been working on something,” he says into the camera, and God, he looks tired. His scruff is on the long side, so it’s been a while since he trimmed it, and his dark hair is all over the place, but his eyes are clear. He’s sober. “Thinking maybe it should be the opening track of my first solo studio album. See what you think.”

  There’s nothing twisted or complicated about the melody. It’s simple and pure and straightforward. But as he begins to sing, I realize it’s because the lyrics stand on their own and he didn’t want the meaning to get lost in too much glitz.

  I listen to him sing about the death of the beast and the rise of the heart…how life isn’t a battle, but a dance. When the video ends, his status circle is still green.

  My fingers hover over the screen for a moment, and then I start to type. I read my message over twice before sending it.

  What do the guys think about you going solo?

  The alert for a Skype video call sends my stomach into a freefall. I pull my earbuds out and find it’s quiet in the bedroom next door now.

  I open the bedroom door and skitter through the family room, stepping out into the hall. I leave the door open just a crack so I can get back in and skip down the first flight of stairs, sitting in the landing away from people’s doors. My finger shakes as it taps the icon to answer. The next second, Tro Gunnison’s incredible face fills my screen.

  “Isn’t it, like, three in the morning there?” he asks.

  I go for annoyed so he won’t see how nervous I am. “Yep. So why the hell are you calling me in the middle of the night.”

  “Because you responded to my video message, which meant you were awake.”

  “Maybe you woke me.”

  He gives a slow nod. “If I did, I’m not sorry.”

  I shake off the goose bumps. “What do you want, Tro?”

  “Your opinion. Seriously,” he adds when he must notice my face screw into a frown.

  “You didn’t answer my question. What do the guys think about you going solo?’

  His expression goes solemn and he turns his head as he scratches the top of it. That’s when I notice the split on the corner of his lower lip. “I don’t think it will surprise anyone at this point.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask cautiously.

 
“Grim doesn’t think my heart’s in it anymore,” he says, his eyes finding mine again through the screen. “Thinks I’m distracted.”

  “He did that to you?” I ask, tapping my lip with a finger.

  He nods. “And being the asshole I am, I gave it back tenfold.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Tro looks away again. “Got a concussion. The doc told him not to play, but I think he’s hoping he’ll die onstage and they’ll arrest me for his murder. His final fuck you, you know?”

  “Wow,” I say, my stomach sinking to my toes. Grim mostly ignored me when we were touring, so I never really got a feel for him, but… “I thought you guys were tight.”

  He shrugs and locks me in his gaze as if we were in the same room instead of half a world apart. “Things change.”

  I pull my eyes away because, even through the cyber, there’s something untamed in his gaze that unnerves me. “So when will you start recording this solo album, do you think?”

  “Not for a while. My manager needs to hammer out some contract details, and I need to pull some material together. But I really need some downtime first, so I’m heading home to Austin to kick back for a few weeks before I worry about the rest of it.” He shrugs like he’s not talking about his whole world turning upside down. “Whatever.”

  “When do you get home?”

  “Tuesday,” he answers, and his gaze grows even more intense. “I really want to see you, Lucky. It’s been a rough couple of months, not knowing where we stand.”

  I huff a derisive laugh. “You knew exactly where I stood that last night in Miami.”

  “I did,” he says with an almost nod. “But I don’t now. You were pissed last I saw you, and you haven’t answered any of my messages.”

  Everything in me is completely at odds. I ache for him in places I don’t want to, but I’m still so pissed. “I have to be the only girl in history to try to get into your pants that you shut down,” I hiss through a tight jaw.