by Nicole Fox
Then she looked away for a moment, reconsidering her words.
“Okay, maybe a little. She was competent.
“You guys were on the road to being besties, and you know it,” said Jess, flashing her a smile.
“Fuck off,” said Mia, grabbing an ice cube from the bin and whipping it at Jess, who deftly dodged it.
“Seriously, though,” said Jess, turning his attention back to me, “you think she’s gonna be okay at Buck’s? I mean, she seemed like a thorough girl, but I got the impression that she didn’t really know what she was getting herself into.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “If she thinks that Buck’s is going to be an easy payday, then she’s as wrong as it gets. And I’m worried that she’s going to find out the hard way.”
“Maybe we can all keep an eye on her,” said Jess. “We have her number, so maybe if we check in and let her know that she can tell us anything, she’ll keep us posted if anything shitty happens over there.”
I nodded, agreeing with the plan. But deep down, I felt like if anything did go down, it was going to happen fast. And soon.
I made a vow to check on her that night, to make sure Buck didn’t try the kind of bullshit I knew he was capable of.
The evening went by quickly, and by the time 2:00 a.m. rolled around, I was ready to head over to make sure Roxy was doing all right. This would be about the time she’d be getting off work, so at the very least I could make sure that she got to her car safe and sound.
As I headed out the front door and made my way to my bike, I couldn’t help but notice the strange protective instinct that Roxy had brought out in me. Most girls didn’t have this kind of effect on me, and I didn’t really know what to make of it.
I put this out of my mind, having more pressing concerns to deal with, namely, making sure Roxy was safe.
I hopped on my bike, revved the engine, and took off towards the lot behind Boozehounds where her car would likely be parked. Moments later, I parked my bike at the entrance to the route leading to lot. There was some activity down there, and I stopped to get a better look.
Sure enough, it was Roxy, the bulky figure of Buck looming over her.
“Get off me!” she shouted, struggling against his grip.
“You want this fucking job or what?” he roared.
Then he pulled his hand back and brought it down onto Roxy’s face, a hard “crack” sounding out.
That was all I needed to see.
Rage boiled up inside me so hard and fast that red started to rush in from the corners of my eyes. I gunned the engine of the bike and tore down the narrow path leading to the parking lot, the surprised eyes of both Buck and Roxy shooting up towards me, their figures illuminated by my bike’s headlights.
I drove until I was only a few feet away, and once I was close, I pulled a hard turn to the right, sending a spray of gravel into Buck’s face. He threw his arm up, trying to block the hail of pebbles as they hit him. Once he was distracted, I slammed the brakes, popped the kickstand, and jumped off.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I yelled out, my voice booming.
“Damn, Zaney!” shouted back Buck. “What the hell?”
“Get behind me,” I said to Roxy.
She nodded and rushed away from Buck, putting me and the bike between her and him.
“This isn’t any of your fucking business, Zane,” said Buck. “Girl’s my employee now, not yours.”
“You think that means I’m just gonna let you hit her?” I said. “You’re out of your damn mind, Buck.”
“Whatever, asshole,” he said. “Let me show you what you get for sticking your goddamn nose into other people’s business.”
With that, Buck turned his hateful glare towards me and broke out into a lunge. He pulled his fist back and drove it hard into my chest, his knuckles driving into my pecs. The blow hurt like hell and I staggered back, but luckily he didn’t hit anything too vital, though I could already tell his punch was going to leave a hell of a bruise.
I squared my shoulders and raised my fists, ready to make the counterpunch. With a quick one-two-three of jabs, I hit Buck again and again, knocking him back on his feet and sending him reeling into Roxy’s car.
“You fucking … fucking …” he said, trying to collect his breath from the flurry of punches.
Then, with incredible speed, he reached down and grabbed a handful of rocks and flung them at my face. I was able to cover my face in time, the rocks bouncing off of my forearm, some of them slamming into my bike behind me with little metallic “pings.”
I’d scrapped with enough dirty fighters to know just what Buck had in mind next. He rushed towards me again, ready to go for the throat. But just as he would’ve reached me, I stepped to the side and drove my elbow down, the point of the bone hitting him right in the spine and dropping him right where he stood.
“Ahh, fuck …” he moaned, now sprawled out onto the rocks.
I knew he wouldn’t be down for long.
“Get on the bike,” I said to Roxy.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Roxy jumped onto the back half of the bike and I jumped onto the front. Taking one last glance at Buck as he writhed in the gravel, I gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot as fast as I could.
Soon we were back on the city streets. Roxy held me hard, her arms wrapped around my body. I could feel her heart thud from the fight, and I knew we needed to get somewhere safe—and fast.
I sped down the length of Manhattan, soon arriving at the Hell’s Kitchen loft where I lived. I pulled into my usual spot and cut the engine.
“You okay?” I asked Roxy.
She nodded slowly, her eyes still wide. I could tell that she was totally shaken up.
I propped the kickstand, took Roxy’s hand, and led her off the bike. We made our way up the stairs to my second-floor apartment, and soon both of us stepped over the threshold of my modern, spacious loft apartment.
Roxy let go of me and staggered over to one of the couches in the recess of the center of the living room.
I let her get comfortable as I grabbed her a glass of water from the kitchen.
“Here,” I said, handing it to her. “Drink this.”
She took it and brought down a long sip.
After a few moments, she seemed to have calmed down a good bit.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Buck’s a real prick,” I said. “Too bad you had to find out the hard way.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not that. The thing I can’t believe is that I knew he was a prick. I could tell right from the beginning that there was something off about him, something that told me I shouldn’t trust him. But he gave me exactly what I wanted, and I got so wrapped up in everything that I ignored my gut. Goddamn, I’m stupid.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “Buck’s got a way of throwing down some superficial fucking charm when he’s trying to get what he wants. But it’s only a matter of time before he shows his true nature.”
She nodded.
“I’m done with that asshole, but something tells me he’s not done with me.”
She was probably right about that—Buck was a real vindictive kind of asshole.
“And when I started the shift he had me fill out all the paperwork. Which means—”
“—he’s got your address and everything else,” I finished.
“Yep,” she said.
“Good point. You can stay here for the time being,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of space, and we can grab your things from your apartment in the morning.”
She let out a pitiful little laugh.
“I don’t even have an apartment,” she said. “I’ve been staying on my friend’s couch. I was hoping to use the bonus that Buck promised me to get my own place. Now I’m back to being broke and unemployed.”
I considered the idea of offering her job back. But that wasn�
�t something to talk about right then and there.
“Just don’t worry about having a place to stay,” I said. “Just relax and try to put all that shit out of your head. Buck can’t hurt you now.”
A small smile formed on her lips, probably the first one all evening.
“You know what?” she said, sitting up a little straighter. “I could really use a drink.”
“That I can do,” I said. “Sit tight.”
I jumped back to the kitchen and made us a couple of vodka sodas. When I came back, Roxy was squatted in front of my record collection, flipping through what I had.
“Damn,” she said. “Some good stuff here.”
“Glad it all meets your approval,” I said with a playful, sardonic tone.
“And some shit I wouldn’t expect from a guy like you. Bach? Shostakovich? Chopin? Never really pegged you as the ‘piano concerto’ type.”
“Glad to surprise you,” I said, handing her the drink.
She took a long sip, letting the booze linger on her tongue before bringing it down in a hard swallow. Then she placed her drink on top of one of my speakers and pulled out the record.
“The Clash,” she said, a small smile forming on her face as she held the record. “I love this one.”
“Then what’re you waiting for?” I asked. “Put it on.”
An eager expression flashed across her features for a brief moment, like she had just been told she could have the toy she’d been eyeing. Carefully, as she should, Roxy slipped the record out of the case and put it on the player. Moments later, the opening riff of “London Calling” filled the air.
“Oldie but a goodie,” she said, setting down the case and taking a seat on the nearby couch.
“Agreed,” I said.
The two of us polished off our drinks and I made us a new pair. The booze was starting to get me a little fuzzy in the head, but I was more than okay with that. My little tiff with Buck had been a pain in the ass that I didn’t want to deal with, and something to take the edge off sounded just right. And luckily, Roxy liked to unwind the same way I did—with some booze and some tunes.
Drinks in hand, I took a seat on the couch next to Roxy.
“So,” I said, sitting back and getting comfortable. “What is it that got you into all this?”
Roxy looked at me, confused. “Um, Buck tried to pull some shit, you saved me, then brought me back here.”
“OK, Miss Literal-as-Shit,” I said with a smirk. “I don’t mean tonight—I mean … all this. Why choose the life of a struggling musician?”
“Does anyone really choose to struggle?” she asked.
I let out a snort of a laugh through my nose. I guessed she had me there.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me put it this way: This can be a rough life. No guarantees of success, hours suck, and even getting people to listen to your music’s hard as hell.”
‘“Don’t I know it,” she said, another grin playing on her sexy face.
Damn, she was really giving me a run for my money with the sass tonight.
“I get what you’re saying, though,” she said. “But you’re in the same situation I am—you’re a musician. When you know that this is what you’re supposed to do, you don’t really get a say in the matter, you know? You’re just pulled in that direction and all you can do is go along with it.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said, thinking over her words. “Almost like a curse or something. No other life seems like it’ll work for you.”
She nodded.
“But you didn’t come out of the womb playing guitar,” I said.
“You never know,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“I guess I’m learning more and more about you by the day,” I said.
“But, ah, as far as where I learned, I just kind of picked it up.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Well, not exactly like that,” she said. “My dad … wasn’t really around when I was little. Barely saw the old man when I was growing up. So, instead of a single dad, my mom brought a string of dudes into my life, guys who mostly didn’t stick around very long. Most of them were artists of some kind, but most were musicians.”
“And some of them were real assholes,” she said, shaking her head. “But some of them weren’t. One of them, Kyle, this scrawny dude with long blond hair who always wore this leather jacket that was way too big for his body, was always playing The Clash. And I loved it. I was just a kid, but I knew there was something special to those guys.”
“So, one day, he caught me listening in while he played along to the record on his guitar. When he spotted me this big grin spread across his face, and he told me to quit creeping and come on over. So I did, and without saying a word, he handed me the guitar and told me he was gonna teach me how to play.”
“It was just simple stuff to start—he had to press down on my fingertips to get me to fret the strings—but I learned fast, and when he turned on the amp and the distortion and got me to pound out my first power chord, the sound just blasting through the little bedroom, that was it. I knew that there wasn’t anything else I could’ve been put on this earth to do.”
She sat back and took a long sip of her drink.
“Okay, tough guy,” she said. “Now it’s your turn. You’re out of your mind if you think that I’m gonna be the only one spilling my guts.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
Then I pointed over to my drumsticks, the pair that’d been almost totally covered with electrical tape, the ones I played with when I had a really good feeling about a show.
“Opposite story as you,” I said. “Had a dad, but no mom—she died when I was little. Never knew her, but from the pictures that my dad showed me, she was about as pretty as they come. So, just me and Pops. And he was an ornery old fuck—the type who barely said anything other than a grunt unless he absolutely had to.”
“He was a mechanic and just about all his time was spent either at his job or at one of the dive bars around town where we grew up on Long Island. But whenever he had a free minute, he and his boys would get together in our garage and play. They liked to jam out to Zeppelin, Cream, some Van Halen here and there. And holy hell was my old man a beast on the drums.”
“It took me a while to figure out why he was such a closed-mouth dude, and it was because he let his drums do the talking. I’d stand in the doorway to the garage, watching them play, and my dad seemed to me more like a force of nature than a normal man, like he was tapping into some primal energies or something.”
“So I figured that if I was going to get close to the old man, drums were gonna be how it was gonna happen. One day when he was practicing I asked him if he could show me some stuff, and surprisingly, he was all about it. I sat on his lap and he walked me through the basics. I picked it up in a snap—guess it’s in the blood.”
“He taught me off and on for years, and by the time I was a teenager I was one of the best damn drummers on Long Island. I played with just about every local band I could, getting experience in every genre there was, from jazz to funk to rock to everything else. I thought I was gonna make it big, and that my pops would be there to watch all proud-like when it happened.”
I couldn’t believe how easily I was talking to Roxy. I was laying out on her the sort of shit that I’d told to maybe two or three other people in my life. But I went on.
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “One day, when I was sixteen, never found out where to or why, but my pops up and left. I just came home and he’d sold everything we owned and left a note under a bag of money telling me sorry and good luck. That was that. And with the bag he left me a pair of drumsticks—those drumsticks. I think that was his way of telling me to stick with it. I dunno. So, after bumming around from couch to couch for a while, I fell in with my MC, bought my first bike, and that was that.”
Roxy and I sat in silence for a while, sipping our drinks. When I looked down at my legs on the couch, I saw that we’d,
over the course of our conversation, moved closer and closer to one another, our bodies just about touching.
What happened next happened so quickly that I felt like I didn’t have the slightest bit of control over it. I took Roxy’s chin into my hand and planted a hard kiss right on her lips.
Chapter 16
Roxy
Zane’s kiss managed to take me by surprise and be totally expected all at once. I fell into it right away, the hard pressure of his lips on mine seizing my senses and making me powerless to his touch. He pulled me close and I let him, our bodies becoming intertwined as we kissed more and more, longer and harder.