Rocking Hard: Volume 1

by Sol Crafter, Diana Sheridan, Talya Andor, Lacie J. Archer, Angel Propps

  Jonn looked at Bailey.

  "What?" Bailey asked, defensively.

  Jonn's mouth pinched, but he didn't say anything until he and Tor had herded Bailey into the hallway.

  "If you don't tone it down, it's going to ruin our public image," Jonn warned him. "Think how awkward that was for the radio hosts. Tor covered, but Jack and Carly aren't stupid. If we're lucky, they won't dissect that little back-biting comment of yours now that we're gone. But word gets around. People will stop booking us for promo gigs like this if word gets around you're difficult to work with."

  Bailey's entire face felt like it was tightening up, clenching like a fist.

  "Understand?" Jonn pressed.

  "I understand just fine," Bailey spat, turning and stalking off down the hallway. He hurried around the corner, pulling his phone out and starting to open a text. He meant to send a text to Gunner, intending to ask for a truce, but his fingers stalled when he heard voices continue around the corner.

  "Ease off him," Tor said, sounding low but firm.

  "Are you going to be responsible for him, then?" Jonn asked bluntly.

  Bailey held his breath, phone clutched in his hands.

  "I already am," Tor replied.

  Bailey's brow contracted in a frown. He pressed his lips together and puzzled over that remark. He was so used to Tor picking up the pieces for him, but this sounded like something more—something serious. Why would Tor consider himself responsible for Bailey like that?

  That was tantamount to commitment—and Bailey had to know why.

  Bailey could be accused of many things, and density was one of them. However, even he was capable of completing a puzzle when all of the pieces had been laid out for him, and placed in near enough proximity that the overall picture became clear. He wasn't stupid; he simply didn't think in logical trains of thought. Bailey was a creative type and he followed his gut.

  It was more than just the quiet departure of the girl from Fresno, leaving Tor's life forever when he was locked in a spate of creativity with Bailey. Once Bailey started poking at the reasons that Tor might have expressed such a commitment to Jonn, it opened Bailey's eyes to a lot of other things, too.

  Tor was the one person who always looked out for Bailey, stood up for him, and picked up the shattered pieces of Bailey from whatever flaming wreckage of a relationship he'd emerged. The situation with Gunner, while more problematic for the band as a whole, was only one in a string of incidents dating back to high school, when Bailey and Tor had first embarked on the quest that would become Courage Wolf.

  It was in the way that Tor looked at him, then away. The telling nature of Tor's regard was buried in the way Tor reacted when Bailey teased him about being bisexual—specifically, in expressing an interest in men that could be construed as an interest in Bailey. He'd always wondered about that, as well as Tor's pointed refusal to be in the same room when Bailey dressed or undressed during all the years they'd lived crammed elbow to elbow in tour buses and shared dressing rooms.

  "Tor likes me," Bailey concluded in a burst of realization as someone handed him a latte.

  "If he didn't, he'd never put up with you," Nora replied, patting his shoulder and moving on.

  Bailey inhaled, tucking his chin and glancing around as he curled his fingers around the warmth of the latte. It probably wasn't a good idea to talk himself through his personal situation when he was getting ready for a television stage performance. It had been a while since they'd done Saturday Night Live, and it was an improvement over the morning talk show circuit by leaps and bounds.

  He nibbled on his bottom lip and looked around, his eyes finding Tor, who only suffered enough makeup to be allowed onstage before he escaped the chair. Tor was leaning against the wall, thumbs hooked in his pockets, head bent as he stood exchanging quiet words with Sasha and one of the sound technicians.

  Once, long ago, Bailey had considered the merits of Tor's relative attractiveness and pronounced him fuckable, but promptly quashed the realization. They had connected instantly as friends, and when they'd begun making music together, Bailey had put a premium on that over getting into Tor's pants. Tor hadn't been 'out' at the time, anyhow; he'd been dating a girl, and Bailey had been dating her friend.

  Since then, one or the other had been dating, in between going through the rigors of coming out, and the inevitable adjustment period from straight people in their lives. The window of opportunity, such as it were, had long since passed. Or so Bailey thought.

  His fresh realization had him looking at Tor with new eyes.

  Tor had a lean, lanky body, and height that neared Bailey's own impressive inches. He had sandy blond hair that was razored in layers around his face and was long enough to pull back in a ponytail. He never let it loose—because of the guitar, he always said. He couldn't have it falling in his face while he was playing. He had high cheekbones, a heart-shaped face with a pointed chin, and a full bottom lip that encouraged fantasies of sucking on it. In short, he was fantastically good looking, and between that and his sense of humor and long, sensitive fingers suitable for playing guitar, and the way he basically catered to Bailey's every whim, he was the whole package, so to speak.

  Bailey watched those long, fine-boned fingers shaping gestures in mid-air as Tor talked to Sasha, then blinked as they fell against his thighs. He dragged his eyes up and found Tor looking at him, brows pinched in a quizzical frown.

  "Hey," Bailey said weakly, acknowledging that he'd just been caught out. He lifted a hand in a limp wave.

  Tor continued to look questioning but waved back.

  Bailey's makeup artist hissed and wrenched his face back toward her with one hand, holding him by the jaw. "Stay still," she ordered. "You go on in five, and I'm pretty sure you don't want a solid bar of blush going from your mouth to your ear."

  Bailey blanched and held still.

  By the time a producer came to corral them and herd them toward the stage, Bailey was rising from his chair to join his bandmates—at least, Tor and Sasha. Gunner was standing further out toward the wings. Bailey hadn't yet made overtures to attempt to mend things between them, but it was on his list. He was waiting for the right moment.

  He sidled up to Tor. "You look good tonight," Bailey complimented him.

  "Oh?" Tor responded, giving him a sidewise look and tugging at his ear. "Have I suddenly become a mirror?"

  Bailey snorted. "What? I'm not allowed to hand out compliments, now?"

  "Only if you want me to be suspicious of your sincerity," Tor said, flashing him a boyish grin.

  Bailey responded with his middle finger.

  Tor scuffed a foot at his ankle, and shot back "You wish," before he turned to head for the stage as indicated.

  For a moment, Bailey had allowed himself to forget his nerves. They were performing two songs tonight, their new single and one of the most popular songs from their previous albums, and for a nightmarish instant, as he stared out at the dim faces beyond the bright, hot lights, he was stricken with terror that he'd mix up the lyrics somehow. It was bad enough that he'd gone an extra bridge for the first live performance of 'Gold Star.'

  Despite his jitters, though, the performance went flawlessly, and it fueled him into a revved-up rendition of their old hit. He bounced around stage, gestured suggestively to Tor, and even hung an arm off him at one point. Tor returned the grin from beneath sweaty bangs. It was like the magic was back—all four of them, working perfectly together.

  After that, Bailey could even hug Gunner. They hit up a club afterward, and Bailey trooped back to the VIP section without a second thought, following Tor and searching for his cigarettes. It might be a good night to apologize, but prying Gunner away from his female attention was the last thing Bailey wanted to do that evening.

  "You look relaxed," Tor remarked as Bailey sprawled next to him on the couch. "And you haven't even had a drink, yet."

  "I've had a weight lifted off my shoulders," Bailey replied, happy to be cryptic for n
ow. And my eyes opened, he added to himself with a secretive smile.

  "Spill it," Tor said, reaching out to accept the mixed drink a server brought for him. "You've got feathers sticking out of your mouth."

  Bailey actually stroked the corners of his mouth before he wrinkled his nose and smacked Tor. "I wouldn't eat canaries," he protested. "Why does everyone keep comparing me to a cat?"

  "You really want me to answer that?" Tor responded, both brows raised.

  "I guess not," Bailey acknowledged. He accepted his own drink and paced himself, taking sips and craning his head to look at all the people on the club floor. Gunner always seemed to find himself a knot of admiring women, wherever he went.

  The thought didn't bother him the way he'd thought it would.

  When Bailey turned from looking over the floor to return his attention to Tor, he found Tor's eyes on him. He sidled closer, because there was no way he could make himself heard over the staccato beats coming from the enormous speakers nearby. To him, the look was confirmation, and an invitation besides.

  "Hey," Bailey said, putting his lips to Tor's ear. "I think we could be good together."

  Tor turned a puzzled look on him. "We already are?" He said it like a question, sounding confused over what Bailey had considered an unmistakable offer.

  "No, I mean …" Bailey flipped his hand up and around in a complicated gesture that couldn't possibly be mistaken to mean sex.

  Tor grinned at him from short range. "You really are hard up, aren't you, Bailey?"

  "But, I want to …" Bailey protested.

  "Calm down, I'll go clubbing with you tomorrow—your favorite one, not this upscale poser's joint. We'll find you somebody to shake your junk out of this funk," Tor told him.

  "You shake me out of funks," Bailey said.

  "Your sexual funk," Tor specified.

  "Don't imply that my sex is funky, ever again," Bailey told him, arching a brow and sitting up straighter. It put a few inches of space between them, and, all things considered, that might have been what Bailey needed at the moment. He drained half his drink and swirled the glass around, making the ice clink inside of it.

  "Baby, if it's not funky, maybe you're not into it enough," Tor replied, wiggling his own brows up and down.

  Bailey made a rude noise and drank the rest of his drink, abandoning his rather half-assed seduction attempt for the night. He'd barely finished his first, and Tor was treating him like he was already drunk, or out of his head. This was a bust, but he was down, not out.

  *~*~*

  It wasn't long after that when Bailey was granted his second attempt. They went to their studio late one evening to film an acceptance speech for an Internet award that their fans had won them.

  It took several takes; they were giddy over the high at hearing the projected results. It had been such a short time since their single, and they'd been out of the public eye while producing their album, so news of the award had come as the best kind of surprise.

  At last, the cameraman packed up, and Sasha and Gunner bumped fists with them and left.

  Bailey was tentatively ready to believe that things were going to be okay between them. He and Gunner had stopped ignoring each other, for the most part, which was the first step to a wordless truce. Soon they'd be joking like nothing had ever happened, with only a few twitches or backsliding, and eventually they could both move on and be friends again. It wasn't the way most people worked out their problems, he knew, but it worked for him and Gunner.

  "It's the right time for us," Bailey said, repeating his line from the acceptance speech. He'd messed it up a couple of times when Sasha had poked him or Tor had been grinning too widely in his field of vision. Now he delivered it practically into Tor's ear, sliding an arm around him and attempting to steer him toward the bar that was installed at the far end of the studio.

  Tor eeled his way out of the half-embrace and swaggered to the bar under his own power, casting a puzzled glance over his shoulder. He pulled two glasses off the rack and began making drinks.

  "Let's party, Tor," Bailey wheedled. "We deserve to celebrate."

  Tor turned with a glass in each hand and gave him an oblique look. "We are," he said mildly, passing one of the drinks over.

  "Together," Bailey said, leveling his most smoldering look on Tor. There was no mistaking the invitation of a sex god.

  The look that Bailey got in return told him that Tor was somehow immune to Bailey's sex-god aura. "We are celebrating together," he replied. He tipped his glass to clink against the rim of Bailey's. "Toast?"

  "Kanpai," Bailey replied distractedly and his brows pinched together. "You suck."

  Now Tor shifted from his imperturbable expression to look offended. "Excuse you," he replied. "If you listened in on any of my conversations you'd agree with Sasha that the problem lately is a distinct lack of sucking."

  Bailey pursed his lips, but couldn't give in to a laugh, even though he was amused. It would be giving ground, letting Tor shift gears. "Come on, Tor," Bailey coaxed. "I know you're not oblivious."

  "And I know you," Tor replied, making Bailey raise his brows in a pretense of innocence. "Get over it, down that drink, and let's go have some good, clean fun."

  Bailey rolled his lips together and shook his head. "If it's clean, then we're not doing it right," he said.

  Now Tor laughed and tossed his own drink back. "Come on," he said. "I promised to take you to a club, right? You can cash that offer in, now."

  Bailey put his glass to his lips and tilted his head back, drinking quickly, with no finesse. He wiped a drip away from his mouth, gasped hoarsely, and handed the glass back over. "All right," he replied, mollified. "You've got a deal."

  Dancing, drinks, and getting loose in one of their kinds of clubs was exactly what Bailey hoped for, to facilitate an atmosphere that was favorable for the turn that he intended their evening to take. Tor drove him to their favorite club in his gorgeous dark silver Camaro, and by way of thanks, Bailey didn't critique him on how woefully unsuitable his outfit was for clubbing.

  He got in the first two items on his list—dancing and drinking—before realizing he was slugging back two for every half of a cocktail that Tor got through. Worse, someone recognized him as Courage Wolf's singer, compared him to another high-profile gay singer, and drunk Bailey was too charged up to remember he shouldn't take a swing at him.

  Tor got them out of trouble by the simple expedient of grabbing Bailey and towing him out of the club. The night didn't end in jail, at least, but Bailey was almost certain that he puked on Tor's shoes somewhere between the Camaro and his bathroom. The worst part was, he couldn't promise himself it wouldn't happen again.

  And he'd failed to make Tor realize how awesome they could be together.

  *~*~*

  Bailey woke the next morning with a scummy taste in his mouth and the unhappy sense that he'd done something stupid that he couldn't quite remember. Unfortunately for someone in his position, that was what VidTube was for. Sasha, being the supreme dick that he was, sent Bailey a morning wake-up call in the form of an e-mail with embedded video.

  "What the hell were you trying to do?" Sasha asked him when he got him on the phone moments after Bailey's 'fuck off' reply e-mail.

  "Uh, get laid?" Bailey said, neglecting to mention that it had been Tor he'd set his sights on.

  "With what, the Mating Dance of the Drunken Punch?" Sasha replied, and cracked up.

  "Funny," Bailey said, palming his face and shutting his laptop. He was never going to be able to show his face in that bar, ever again. "You're funny. You should leave the jokes to me and Tor."

  It turned out that would be his last visit to the club; it was Bailey's last bender, even, before he and his band hit the road and began the first leg of their long-awaited tour. When they were younger and touring with less money, they had toured with all four of them piled into a single bus, four bunk beds stacked across two walls. Bailey fought hard for at least two buses, this time, g
iven that they were making more money—and they weren't nineteen and broke anymore—and won the concession.

  The fact that the other three played rock paper scissors for the 'honor' of riding in Bailey's bus was only slightly insulting.

  "Not like I asked you to move in with me, or anything like that," Bailey grumbled, tossing his carry-on at the kitchen bench seat with unnecessary force. "And there's two rooms."

  "It's nothing personal, don't be like that," Tor told him with a faint grin. He squeezed past Bailey carrying his own bags. "You've just got more, ah, everything than the rest of us put together."

  "Are you saying I don't know how to pack?" Bailey demanded, his voice rising an octave. "Because I didn't bring the other six pieces that come with my matched luggage, you know!"

  "Oh, I'm all too aware," Tor said fervently. "At some point or another, I think I've carried all sixteen of them and I know what they all look like."

  "And I don't leave all my makeup and hair products over the counter," Bailey continued as though Tor hadn't even spoken. "Gunner uses a lot all on his own, you know. Did you guys think his hair looks like that naturally?"

  "Pretty sure not, given that I was used to waking up to the smell of burning hair and you'd still be drooling on your pillow underneath me," Tor replied cheerfully.

  "I think if I was underneath you at any point, I'd remember," Bailey said, putting on his sultry voice.

  "You know what I mean," Tor said steadily, but the tips of his ears went red. "The bunk under mine."

  "Uh-huh," Bailey said. "And according to prison rules, that means …"

  "Don't be an idiot," Tor interrupted. "If you were my prison bitch, you'd be the one carrying all of your crap onto the bus. And mine, too."

  Bailey turned wide eyes on him. "I might break something," he said, trying frantically to think of what he might possibly be able to break that would prevent him from singing. "Fingers. I have to be able to hold my microphone, you know."

  "That's the thinnest excuse yet," Tor said, but when he shook his head in an attempt to convey disappointment, he just looked amused, instead.