by Cari Quinn
Her breath caught. “See what?”
“You pregnant.” He tossed her another of those mind-erasing grins and shoved his way into the foyer.
“Hey Nick,” he called out. “Give us a hand.”
She stopped in the doorway, her arms going lax. First they were going to share a bed. Now he wanted to see her pregnant.
God, she was simply going to burst from happiness if he didn’t stop saying stuff like that. And best of all? He seemed like he was just talking off the top of his head.
Hell yeah, we’re living together.
Hell yeah, we’re going to have babies.
Hell yeah, I’m going to make you my princess bride and we’ll ride off on golden steers—
“Yo, gimme that.” Nick grabbed the stand out of her hands and headed into the living room. “You planning on being a permanent fixture here until we go back? Well, more than you already are?”
“Nah, I’m not camping out here.” She booty-bumped the door shut. “I just figured since you guys are collaborating, and the three of us are too, that I could kind of be the bridge between the two groups until we get our weekend all together before we head into the studio. Deak and Simon are fine with it. The club shows have been going well—” She broke off, thinking of the awkward show with Gray at Rave. But since that night, he’d seemed fine. Mostly. “Anyway, they want your input on the stuff we’ve been coming up with.”
“Yeah, Vapor and I have had a few breakthroughs too. Lo and fucking behold.” The doorbell rang and Nick’s smile turned lascivious as he strode past her to the door she’d just closed. “Hold that thought.”
“Well hello there—” Nick began, his voice low and suggestive.
After that tone, she definitely hadn’t expected to see a hulking bald tattooed man in the doorway. From Gray’s chuckle behind her, neither had he.
“Switching teams, man?”
“Shut the hell up.” Nick opened the door wider, allowing Jazz to get a better look at the visitor’s face.
Her stomach wobbled. This was not good.
Gray’s hand landed on her shoulder an instant before Nick spoke again. “Snake, what are you doing here?”
“Now is that any way to say hello to your old buddy?” Snake muscled his way into the foyer and gave Nick a hug that Nick returned with little enthusiasm.
“And look at this, my replacements are here too. It’s like old fucking home week.” Snake swaggered across the hall and stuck his hand out at Gray, ignoring Jazz completely. “What’s up, man? Greg, isn’t it?”
“Gray,” he responded, clamping his palm that much tighter on Jazz’s shoulder. “You remember Jazz.”
Snake acted as if Gray hadn’t spoken. Jazz shifted, moving more securely into the circle of Gray’s arm. Not for protection, but because he’d tensed like a wild animal on the verge of leaping for the kill.
“Where is Tori?” Nick asked, bracing his arm on the open door. “How the hell did you find out where we’re staying?”
“Tori’s waiting in the car. She accidentally let it slip about the cabin’s location and I offered to give her a ride here, seeing as we’re old friends and all. Guess you guys had a little hot tub soiree type thing the other night?” Snake circled his finger. “She just thinks you’re the hottest thing ever. Which kind of sucks for me, since we’ve been hitting it since that party backstage last year. Guess a current Oblivion guitarist is worth more than a has-been Oblivion drummer.”
Nick shot Jazz a look. Jazz flung one at Gray, who stared at Snake as if he were the same sort of creature that he’d taken his name from.
“Okay, so you’ve got a thing for Tori. Works for me. She neglected to inform me that you two were acquainted.” From Nick’s thin smile, he’d be sharing his displeasure about that fact with her soon enough. “If you want to take her and go, by all means.”
“Really, man? That’s where we’re at after all this time?” Snake shook his head and glanced at Gray. “You ever have a friend you’ve known since you were kids, one you’d give your goddamn life for, sell you out for the flavor of the month? Fucking blows.”
“Yeah, I know what it’s like to have a friend I’d give my life for.” Gray tightened his embrace on Jazz. “You’re looking at her.”
Jazz’s heart squeezed and she glanced up at Gray, unable to suppress her smile. But he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was locked on Snake, who was glaring at Nick.
“That’s not what happened and you know it. I had your back long after Simon and Deacon turned theirs. I fought to keep you in the band. You promised me you’d keep clean and you broke those promises time after time.”
“Speaking of promises, I ran into someone else you guys know recently.” Snake walked over to the door and closed it, leaning a beefy shoulder against the wood as if he expected someone to try to forcibly shove him out.
No one moved.
Jazz figured the guys were as shell-shocked as she was. This was just supposed to be a relaxing night hanging out. She’d hoped to continue the good streak they were on, and now they had this sneering giant of a dude causing shit.
Nick pushed a hand through his hair, his frustration leaking through. “Yeah? Who?”
“Not sure you know her, Nicky boy, but my man Gray over there sure does.”
Jazz went cold. She didn’t look at Gray but she didn’t need to. The rigidity of the arm around her shoulders told her everything she needed to know.
What was coming next wouldn’t be good.
“About five-six, long blonde hair, blue eyes. Fucking stacked—”
“Mind your manners, asshole.” Gray stepped in front of Jazz as if Snake had thrown an actual punch her way rather than a metaphorical one. She didn’t even think she was his intended target, just a casualty of his war with Nick, Deacon and Simon. Oblivion would always be their band, and he’d never stop seeing her and Gray as outsiders.
But at least before she’d had Gray on her side. Always. Right now, despite his solid frame blocking her view of Snake, she felt very much alone.
“Gray.” She nudged him back but he didn’t move. So she sidestepped him and slapped her best I’m fine smile on, the one that had served her well from facing her first foster mother at twelve to looking Mrs. Duffy in the eye at sixteen after her oldest son had tried to rape her.
She would never break in front of anyone.
“No, you shouldn’t have to listen to his obnoxious BS. He came here just to start trouble. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s—”
“Oh no? I saw you get in her car, fuckwit. Sweet black vintage Mustang, tricked out rims. She waved something at you, and you took it like the greedy bastard you are.” His smile turned lethal. “See, thing is, bud, we travel in the same circles. Carson kids never manage to make it too far out of the hood, do they?”
“I’m not from fucking Carson.” The disdain in Gray’s voice turned the chill in her bones to ice. “Try about twenty miles north, asshole.”
“Oh, right. You’re the suburban rich kid who started slumming with the cute little foster kid who’s so good at shaking her…sticks.” Snake smiled and narrowed his eyes on Jazz. “You like to play with powder too, sweetness? Is that what they teach you up north?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Gray went flying at Snake so fast that Jazz barely had time to get out of the way.
Stunned, she stumbled into the side table near the door, righting it and herself in time to hear Nick heave a sigh of epic proportions before he waded into the fray. Gray had the surprise advantage because he’d attacked Snake with a damn near flying tackle, but Snake outweighed him by a good forty pounds and was now showing that by shoving his meaty fists into Gray’s ribs. Nick muscled his way between them, finally managing to separate them just as Jazz grabbed the frosted hurricane lamp on the table and swung it, nearly hitting Nick in the face.
“Hey, watch it,” Nick yelled, ducking just in time.
“Sorry. So sorry.”
She would’ve dashed aroun
d him and taken a cheap shot at Snake while Nick had a hand on his chest, but the blood blooming on Gray’s white T-shirt snagged her attention before she could. She dropped the lamp on the table and rushed at Gray, dragging him back with her into the living room.
“Where are you hurt? Where did he hit you?” Even as the questions burst from her lips she saw the source of his bleeding. His nose gushed like a fire hydrant, the thick red liquid pouring out so fast that she choked out a cry.
“Get him out of here,” she screamed at Nick.
“Fuckin’ nosebleed, huh?” Snake called from behind them, his disgust palpable. “I barely touched the bastard’s pretty face. Goddamn cokehead.”
The words drove nails into her back, striking soft tissue that gave way from the pressure. She clutched Gray’s shirt tighter and pushed him down on the couch, blocking them out. Snake was just throwing taunts. More nasty shit like the stuff he’d tossed out a few minutes ago. All he wanted to do was hurt them.
It wasn’t real.
None of this was real.
She fell to her knees in front of Gray and dragged off her shirt, beyond caring about the catcalls coming from the front hall. Nick’s voice rang out, loud and sharp, as he tried to force Snake to leave. Snake jeered about “pretty white tits” and she didn’t so much as flinch. Nor did she cringe when he mentioned tabloids and headlines and singing his little heart out.
None of it made one iota of difference right now.
With trembling hands, she pressed the material to Gray’s nose and instructed him to lean back, her voice gentle in direct counterpoint to the harshness that surrounded them.
Only Gray mattered.
* § *
He woke up in his bed. Not his bed at their apartment, but the bed at the cabin. Soft, dryer-fresh sheets tickled his chin and he smiled, remembering how his mom had always tucked him in when he was sick. The smile faded as the pain in his ribs kicked in, followed swiftly by the sting in his nose. Sting was a kind word for the brushfire incinerating his sinuses.
Sweet bloody hell.
“You’re awake.”
That voice did not belong to his mother. Or Jazz.
He opened one eye and groaned as the back of an iPad came into view. No. Jazz loved him. She wouldn’t send the first horsewoman of the Apocalypse to his bedside unannounced.
“Doesn’t look too bad.” Cool fingers pressed on his jaw, tilting his face this way and that. “Not broken. Can one sprain one’s nose?”
“Maybe one can, but I doubt he did,” Nick said from behind her. “He barely took a hit. On the other hand, I took a knee to the goddamn balls—”
“God forbid your best days would be behind you in that arena. Fear not, I’m sure you’ll live to mindlessly bang again.” Lila sat on the edge of Gray’s bed and shook back her wheat-colored hair. “Grayson, I didn’t expect you to be my problem child.”
It shouldn’t have made him smile, especially since he was riding the knife’s edge of pain and he had no clue where Jazz was. “You were saving that role for Nick, huh?”
“Saving it? The boy was born for that role.”
“I’m not anyone’s child, problem or otherwise.” Nick strode out of the room and slammed the door, causing Lila’s lips to twitch.
The instant he was gone, however, her polite mask fell away. “How deep are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t fucking play games with me, Duffy. Jazz called and told me what Snake was insinuating. Poor girl’s still naïve enough to believe he’s just trying to start trouble for Oblivion, but we know better, don’t we?”
At Gray’s silence, she stood and loomed over the bed like a vicious angel of mercy. “I don’t like nasty surprises, and you’ve already given me too many of them. She’ll be back in a few minutes from the store. Either you tell me now or you tell me in front of your little sweetheart, but rest assured, your secrets will be mine.”
He coughed and directed his attention at the window. Dawn was breaking in the distance, casting a milky grayish pall over the room. He must’ve slept the night away.
And this question wasn’t going to get any easier if he put it off.
Swallowing hard, he darted a glance at the closed door. “It’s not a big deal,” he began.
“My husband has been addicted to OxyContin for seven years. He’s what you call a functional drug user. That’s what he calls it. I don’t believe such a thing exists.”
“You have a husband?” He’d never really thought much about her personal life, but she wasn’t much older than they were. Not that they weren’t old enough to be married. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“When did you get married?”
“Seven years ago.” She tapped her flawless French manicure on her iPad. “Now if we can—”
“Wait, you married your husband even though he was a druggie?”
“It happens. Jazz would marry you, and you qualify.”
He flushed and hated himself for it. “She doesn’t see me that way.”
“No, her rose-coloreds are pretty much welded to her face. There’s also a part of her that gets off on saving the bad boy. She’s not nearly as innocent as you’ve convinced yourself. Otherwise she wouldn’t have snuck over here to seduce you the same day I told her to steer clear.”
“Water?” Gray croaked.
Sighing, she plucked a cup off the nightstand. He drained the mug and handed it back then threw his arm over his face, earning a stitch in his bruised ribs for his trouble. That fucker Snake had hands like ham hocks.
“I owe some people some money,” he said finally, once it became obvious that Lila would wait until the end of time for him to come clean.
He’d emptied his savings and given the cash to Cricket as a down payment on the half he’d promised to get them in short order. She’d seemed pleased, and he hadn’t gotten any threatening phone calls since.
He’d also kept Jazz at his side every moment that he could.
“How much money?”
He named a ballpark estimate of his remaining debt and Lila hissed out a breath. “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want to get hurt?”
“I’ve got it under control.”
“You’re not seriously going to sit—I’m sorry, lay—there and tell me you’re handling this. If Snake knows the kind of company you keep, so do other people. That’s not even mentioning your dealer. How long before she contacts a tabloid and sells the story to make up for all the cash you’re not giving her? And that’s if they don’t extract their payment from your flesh first.” She shoved his leg. “Or worse, your hands. They might not heal correctly. And what about Jazz? Are you ready for her to have to watch her back every time she walks out the door? Like right now. She’s parked at some corner drugstore, blithely picking up some Tylenol, and someone could be waiting outside, about to pounce—”
“Stop it.” Gray shot upright in bed and fisted his hands in his hair. “Don’t fucking do this to me.”
He’d already been having nightmares about that very possibility. The only thing that made them go away was turning to Jazz in the night and draining all of his fear into making love to her, over and over. Reassuring himself that his beautiful girl was whole and strong and his, and no one would ever hurt her again.
Least of all him.
“I didn’t do it. You did it.” Lila dropped down on the bed and flicked her finger across her iPad screen before turning the tablet toward him. Jazz beamed out of the photo, her eyes brighter than the sky on a summer day. Smile blinding. “Look at her and tell me you could live with yourself if she paid the price for your sins.”
He grabbed the iPad and scrolled to the next picture. It was another of Jazz, this one at their concert at Red Rocks. She sat behind her kit, her head thrown back. The pink and blue spotlights picked up the gold dust on her skin. The irony wasn’t lost on him. She’d always sparkled. A jewel in a morass of rocks.
His island of safety in the ce
nter of a world covered in landmines.
“I won’t let this touch her,” he whispered, knowing he already had. He’d not only let it touch her, he’d invited it into their bed.
“It already is. If it affects you, it affects her.” She took back her iPad and tapped the screen. “I’m transferring the sum you mentioned into your account. I want you to pay every penny to the spinecrackers you owe. Understand me?”
His hand went lax on the sheets. “But—”
“I don’t want a Hallmark moment about this. You’re a commodity I want to protect, as is Jasmine. But make no mistake. If I find out you didn’t pay every red cent of this advance on your future income to those you’re indebted to, or if you don’t keep your fucking nose clean, you will not only be cut off, you’ll be out of the band. End of story. I have no use for drug addicts.” She rose. “If Jasmine is smart, neither will she.”
The door squeaked open and Jazz poked her head in. “I heard my name.”
Gray’s shoulders relaxed, the tension that had gripped him easing away at the sight of his girl’s tremulous smile. “Of course you did. You’re my favorite subject. Get in here.”
She slipped inside the room and waved a small white bag. “I brought you a couple of kinds of pain pills. Hopefully something will work.” She set the bag down on the nightstand and bit her lip, her gaze pingponging from Lila to Gray and back again. “Are you okay? How are you feeling?” She moved forward to fuss with the sheets. “Your color’s better at least and—”
“Baby, stop.” He gripped her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth. “You’ve done enough. You need some sleep.”
“How do you know I haven’t slept?”
“Because he knows you.” Lila patted her shoulder and walked to the door. “Thanks for calling me. I know it must not have been easy.”
Jazz sank on the edge of the bed. “No, it really wasn’t.” She sent Gray a look under her lashes. “But Snake obviously intends to cause problems. Better we deal with them now.”
“True enough. A wise woman faces an enemy head-on.” Lila pivoted to face them once more. “Your work sabbatical is ending a couple of days early. From your shows and the material you’re producing, it appears that you’ve made considerable progress, which is what this was all about. Bring your songs and yourselves to Ripper Records at ten a.m. tomorrow.”