She lifted her skirt and poked out one foot. Her insanely high pumps were dove gray, the color of the chiffon skirt. “I don’t think I’ll be running any marathons in these.”
“Not running, but it will be a marathon. At least make yourself a little sandwich. You’ll want something in your stomach to absorb whatever you pour in there.”
There was wisdom in this. Georgie stuck a fork in a roll and pried it open, stuffing it with sliced meats and cheeses. “Does Xan drink a lot?”
“It’s part of the job. He’s a rock star. He has to be photographed whilst partying. He will thus party like a rock star for the photographers.”
“Is he an alcoholic?” She stuffed the roll sandwich in her mouth.
“No.” Boris frowned at the sandwich he was meticulously constructing. “No more so than anyone else. Alcohol isn’t his dysfunction. That’s more than you can say for the rest of the band, though Tryp has been better lately. Marriage has been good for him, at least for the last two weeks. Did you know that he married a roadie?”
Georgie forced the dry sandwich bite down her throat. “He mentioned something about getting married.”
Boris applied a thin layer of mustard to the cap of his sandwich before pressing it on top of the turkey and cheddar. “All the musicians’ contracts have an ironclad no-fraternization clause, especially after Tryp hooked up with Lynda, our previous backup singer, last year. What a disaster. And then, we have one female roadie, Elfie, the pyrotechnics technician, and Tryp married her. The other roadies are livid that a muso poached one of their own, and Jonas and Xan are ready to rip his lungs out for fishing off the company pier. If he wasn’t such a good drummer, and if she wasn’t such a dangerous pyromaniac, Xan and Jonas might have fired them both.”
“That’s unusual.” Georgie ate more of her sandwich.
“I’ll say, and did you know—”
While Xan was in the shower, Georgie munched the sandwich and crunchy things while Boris gossiped about the band members.
When Tryp had met the pyromaniac roadie, he had changed within a couple weeks from being a stoner who would someday climb out a rehab window and be found dead the next day in a strip club bathroom to mere mischief-loving prankster. Wagers were flying thick and fast on the day that he would fall off the wagon and Elfie would shove a spark-spewing fountain of fire up his ass.
Rade and Grayson were doing their level best to keep Tryp’s dealers in fur coats and sports cars because full employment for the narcotic-purveying population was evidently a major precept of their wasted manifesto. Boris rattled off the chemical compounds that they had been caught with, and even Georgie, who had once been a moneyed teenager among moneyed teenagers, hadn’t heard of a lot of them. What in the hell was zombie dust?
Something was going on with Cadell, but no one knew what, something even more than the smartphone and tablet that he never looked up from.
Fascinating, Georgie mused, metaphorically stroking her chin while she ate. Boris gossiped about everyone with the notable and complete exception of Xan, even though Boris was in a position to know more about Xan than about any of the others.
Fascinating.
Xan returned a while later with wet hair and wearing slim jeans, making his long legs look longer, and a snug black tee shirt.
Boris took one look at him and exclaimed, “Why do you torture me so?”
Xan raised one eyebrow. “Beg pardon?”
His hoarse voice cracked when he spoke even that little bit.
“This,” Boris said, waving his hands over Xan. “A black tee shirt. How prosaic. Do you even look at the clothes I buy for you? And where did you get that horrid thing?”
Xan sipped from his flask. “Your last batch is excessively stylish. I can’t do ruffles.”
“Why not? What do you know about fashion?”
Xan’s blank, slightly bored expression was the antithesis of his rant at the two stoned musicians at that afternoon’s band meeting. “Absolutely nothing. But I’m not a poof, and I shan’t wear ruffles.”
“They’re designer!” Boris wailed.
“Are you going to blow out my hair, or shall I go out like this?”
“Don’t you threaten me, young man. I will shave it all off. I will do it, too.” Boris gestured to the chair and plugged in his blow dryer. “You will break my heart one of these days, Xan Valentine. My heart!”
Georgie couldn’t hear the rest of Boris’s rant above the roar of the hair dryer, but his lips didn’t stop moving the whole time.
Xan faced the mirror, a half smile lurking on his face, and he watched Georgie while Boris tended to his hair.
She watched Xan, too, remembering his performance and the way he prowled the stage and filled the whole arena with his presence. The black tee shirt clung to his broad shoulders and rounded biceps, and Georgie thought it was an excellent choice, almost as nice as the way his jeans fit tightly on his slim hips and tight waist.
ENCORE
Georgie
A short limo picked them up at the back entrance that night. Yvonne sat in the front passenger seat and didn’t seem surprised when Georgie climbed in.
Adrien, Alex’s security guy, was driving. He winked at her through the rearview mirror.
During the short drive through the night to a club, Yvonne briefed Xan on other celebrities who were scheduled to be at the club and with whom Xan would be taking photographs.
Georgie watched Xan, trying to judge where he was on the scale of Alex to Xan. His strong arm rested on the back of the seat, and one of his legs splayed to the side, a casual, aggressive stance, one that was not appropriate for the hereditary Duke of Valentinois. Yet, a calmness had settled over him, a serenity, that Georgie associated with Alex, not with the hyperactive rock star.
He reached across the seat, and his fingers slid through hers, holding on.
Yes, that was Alex.
He took a swig from his flask, grimacing at what he swallowed.
A little liquid courage might be in order. “Can I have a sip?”
Alex’s smile bore a hint of mischief. “Of course.”
She took the flask from him, wary. Some of the other guys in Killer Valentine might have flasks spiked with pharmaceuticals, but surely Xan wouldn’t.
Surely it would be all right.
An insulated sheath wrapped the flask, but warmth seeped through the neoprene as if the flask in Georgie’s hand was hot inside.
She sniffed, and whatever was in there didn’t smell alcoholic. When she sipped, warmth, sweetness, and a tangy nip spread over her tongue, not alcoholic at all.
She handed it back to him. “What is that?”
His smile had widened, showing his white teeth. He could still barely speak, but he ground out, “Earl Grey with lemon and honey.”
She cracked up. “Some wild and crazy rock star, you are.”
He gestured to his throat, grinning. “Whiskey before and during the show to cut any phlegm and crap. Tea, afterwards.”
She was still laughing when the car ground to a stop under the awning of a club. Adrien hopped out and ran around the car to open her door. Georgie glanced at Alex, who watched the lights beyond her.
Her door swung open, and the glittering lights around the door infiltrated the car, falling on Alex.
He glanced at her, and the flashing lights sparkled in his dark eyes. “Let’s go.”
Georgie stepped out of the car, touching Adrien’s hand for balance, and Xan bounded out beside her, waving to the crowd. The chilly night air washed over her bare arms and shoulders, and goosebumps tightened her skin.
The mob swelled and roared like a wave ready to crash over the car and them.
Georgie kept her eyes on the actual red carpeting under her gray shoes and the embroidered hem of her skirt while Xan waved. Her arm lifted, and Xan had wrapped his hand around her elbow and was guiding her toward the front door.
Inside, smoke filmed the air, and Xan coughed while he reached for his flask and swigged tea. Loud
music slammed through the air like the speakers were tight against Georgie’s head.
Black-suited men rushed around them, hustling them up a back staircase to the VIP area above.
They settled on a couch in the wide loft. Georgie peeked over the edge of the balcony at the thick crowd swarming around the stage. A band rocked there. The lead singer braced herself with a mic stand and was swinging her head to the thumping beat, her pink hair whipping through the air.
Georgie had been listening to Killer Valentine for two nights, and this band was not quite together on the downbeats, and all that could really be said about the guitarists is that they were fast and loud.
A waitress came around to take their order, wine for Georgie since she wasn’t driving and whiskey for Xan.
Georgie looked around, noting a couple actors whom she recognized on a couch at the other end of the area. “So, was that the end of it?”
“We’ll stay for a while, have a few drinks, and have our pictures taken while we are having a spectacular time.”
“Both of us?” she asked, glancing over the balcony at all the people down there, so many people, all of them with cell phones, which meant cameras.
Xan nodded.
Official pictures with Xan and ten thousand uploaded pics lurked out there. The internet was forever. “I can’t.”
“You’ll be fine. You look beautiful, but a different kind of beautiful, not like you usually are.”
She swiveled back to him and grinned. “Wow. That was smooth. How long did it take you to figure out how to say that and not be insulting?”
“I worked on it in the car,” he admitted. “There is a live band down there, and the club may want a few pictures with them.”
“I can duck those, right?”
“Most likely. If you consider it, however, having a few pictures with me all over the country might be a good tactic. It will surely take whoever is after you a while to find those pictures, and by then the tour will have moved on, and eventually, you’ll be in Atlanta. If someone were to recognize you, these pictures will all be false leads. We’ll make sure the last few point north or west.”
Georgie felt her eyebrows rise. “That’s true.”
He reached over and took her hand. “I know it’s not a night out like we had last week, but this is as close as I can come. Let’s have some fun.”
“For the photographers?”
He shrugged. “The photographer is tied up for half an hour.”
She smiled at him. “Okay.”
“Dance?”
“If you aren’t exhausted.”
“I’ve recovered. A spot of tea, and I’m fine.”
He handed her wine glass to her and led her to the small dance floor over in a corner of the VIP area where a dozen other people were also dancing. Alex sipped from his flask which he had somehow shoved in the back pocket of his form-fitting jeans.
When he drank again and made a motion that she should do the same from her glass, she asked, “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“Just letting you catch up.” He dragged her into his arms. Her high heels compensated for almost six inches of the eight-inch difference in their heights, and he could press his forehead to hers without bending down too much. A trace of whiskey still tinged his breath. He whispered, “This is an early evening for me. I told you that I wanted to fuck and be friends. We’ve been friends all day.”
She had been starting to wonder about that. “Good point.”
She wound her arms around his neck.
“God, you’re sexy.” The set of his jaw became harder, and his hands tightened on her waist. His fingers barely dug into her hips. “I should call the car right now.”
“I thought you had to take pictures with the band.”
“Right. Let’s get that the hell over with.” He tugged his phone from his jeans pocket and thumb tapped it. Without backing away from Georgie, still pressing his long, lean body to hers, he said, “Yvonne, how can we wrap this up early?”
His deeply hoarse voice still sounded like it hurt. Killer Valentine had the next day off, but then concerts were scheduled back-to-back for the next five days. She couldn’t imagine how Xan’s voice was going to survive that.
And then there was next week.
And the week after that.
Xan listened and hung up. “We’ll take the snaps with the band in five minutes.”
His hand drifted lower on her back though it remained just barely in the respectable region above the waistband of her underwear.
One slow song later, when Georgie could barely breathe with his body pressed against hers, his legs brushing her knees and thighs through her diaphanous skirt, a woman tapped Xan on the shoulder and led them down another roped-off area behind the club’s stage. At the end of the next song, the band leaped off the stage and ran over to them.
Georgie stood back while Xan met and greeted the band members, all of whom affected nonchalance and then grinned hugely for the pictures.
They got chummier and chummier as Xan talked, and they asked good questions about music, Georgie noticed. When they started talking about arrangements, Xan held out his arm, inviting her over.
“Joy, here,” Xan said, indicating her, “is a pianist, though not with Killer Valentine.”
Joy? Oh, because Georgie was incognito. Good idea. Spread the disinformation.
The band members all shook her hand, three girls and two guys. “Nice to meet you,” and so forth.
“So who’s your band?” the lead singer asked Georgie, her pink hair curling around her face.
“I’m not in a band,” Georgie demurred.
Xan rubbed her shoulder. “Joy accompanies me occasionally.”
“She could use our keyboards,” the pink-headed singer said. “So you could sing something, even though you left your guitar at the hotel.”
“Oh, I can’t,” Georgie said, but Xan stiffened beside her. Energy twitched through his body, and he glanced at the stage.
“Give us a moment,” he told the other band. They slunk away to twiddle with their amps or microphones.
Beyond the small stage, most of the club crowd was wearing black, and their clapping and stomping vibrated the cement under her feet and buffeted her like a high wind. They chanted, “Play more now!” like a huge, mindless swarm of human-ant hybrids.
Xan whispered, “You can do this.”
“No fucking way.”
He ran his fingertips down her bare arms to her hands. “We’ll just do ‘Alwaysland.’ Play it like Rachmaninoff.”
The battering air shook Georgie. “Not a chance in backwater Hell, Xan.”
“You can do this.”
“This isn’t like Rae’s wedding with a couple of dozen people sitting around supper tables. Thousands of people are out there, screaming.”
“Well, hundreds, perhaps. Not thousands. What are you afraid of?”
Being exposed and rejection and failure and judgement and the crazed mob tearing people apart like they were zombies and Russians dragging her off the stage and freezing up and not being able to even start and them laughing and them raging and them booing and them hating. “Everything!”
Xan wrapped both his arms around her shuddering body and walked her backward until a wall chilled her back. “Stop.”
His voice might have been wrecked, but his tone dropped until every vibration of his voice resonated in Georgie’s bones even more than the rioting crowd just yards away.
“Stop,” he said. “Just watch me. I’ll sing to you. The crowd will disappear.”
“No, they won’t. Besides,” she argued, “you shouldn’t sing. You’ve almost lost your voice. You shouldn’t even talk!”
He shook his head, and the laser-sharp focus in his eyes made her stop talking. He said, “I must do everything, at every opportunity, to bring people to Killer Valentine. Every last damn thing. And so I need to sing tonight for this audience of twenty-somethings who like hard rock. They’re our primary demogra
phic. I must go out there and convert them into fans or Killer Valentine will die.”
“I can’t, Xan. I can’t.”
“You can. I’ve seen you do it, and you’re brilliant. I don’t have the time and privacy to set you at a piano and convince you again. Listen to my voice.” His large, hardened hands held hers. “Listen to me. It’s just you and me out there. None of them matter. Even with all the chaos around us, you and I are the whole world. I will hold you and keep you safe until we emerge on the other side.”
She peeked around his shoulder at the mob of prospective Killer Valentine fans out there, and she rested her temple against his arm.
Performing at Rae’s wedding hadn’t destroyed her. Xan had held her with just his eyes, and she had been all right.
“Do this for me,” he said, “even though it frightens you.”
Resolve took hold in her chest.
Her voice shook when she asked, “Promise?”
“I promise that I will keep you safe.”
She pulled back and looked up at him.
His dark eyes consoled her, and he said, “Come with me.”
He led her by the hand to the back of the stage and waved the pink-haired lead singer over to them. “Mindy? Could you set the keyboards to a grand piano sound?”
“Sure!” Mindy chirped and gestured to her keyboard player. “Kristin, are you on it?”
Kristin trotted onto the stage and fiddled with the electronics while Xan and Georgie waited. Beyond the piano, beyond the stage lights like dozens of suns hanging in the dark club, the crowd seethed like clashing armies.
Just the piano, Georgie told herself. Just look at the piano.
And Alex.
She glanced up. He had already pulled the tie off his ponytail, and his hair swung around his shoulders. When he looked at the lighting battens and the stage, he was calculating, she could see, but the hunger in his dark eyes belied any rational thought.
Not Alex.
Xan.
She trusted Alex to hold her until she was safely on the other side.
She drew his head closer to her lips and whispered, “When you sang in Paris, who was that?”
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