Fused: Lost in Oblivion 4.5

by Cari Quinn

  “But if she sings with us, they won’t? Some wide-eyed newbie kid off the streets who picks a guitar for fun?” He could feel Molly’s hurt from a few feet away, but he refused to let it affect what he said. What he felt. He’d held his tongue and his ass for too long, and what had it gotten him? A fat lot of nothing.

  “They’ll walk away from the show tonight with something other than the memory of a formerly great front man acting like a spoiled brat instead of a professional musician.”

  Nick pressed his lips together until his jaw ached. And said nothing.

  “They’ll walk away remembering that these songs, Oblivion’s songs, mean something. That the whole is more than the sum of their very flawed parts.” Donovan walked toward Nick in measured steps, his footsteps echoing up the hallway. “You’re wearing that guitar because it’s an essential component of your being. Music is how you relate. How you communicate. You’re angry. Furious. Use it. Make us feel it.” He flashed a thin smile. “And in case you were wondering? I’m not asking. I’m telling you to get your ass out on that stage and do your job.”

  “You know I know all the songs,” Molly said softly. “We play them all the time. You, me, Gray and Jazz have jammed together practically every night for months. The only one I haven’t played with is Deak and—”

  “And Simon,” Nick spat. “Simon, who you somehow think you can replace. You can’t. This is his band too. Ours. We built it out of nothing, and if we go back to that, we’ll go there together.”

  “Nick.” Lila’s quiet censure cut through the haze of rage that cloaked him like a shroud. He shut his eyes and focused on her voice, on the way it reverberated through him like a plucked string. A note without end.

  Make us feel it.

  So that was what they wanted. They wanted him to bleed out on stage. He could do that. He would do it, because if he didn’t purge the insanity taking him over, he was going to do something he regretted. That was why he’d turned to music in the first place all those years ago.

  Oh, at the beginning it had been fun. Something to do with his twin sister. Ricki had been the quicker study on the guitar, and he’d hated trailing behind. Still, he hadn’t begun to catch up until it mattered. Until the music sunk its hooks in him and laid him open for everyone to see.

  Sometimes bleeding felt good.

  The notes he ripped from his guitar were the only thing approaching comfort he’d ever found. He would make sure that stayed true even if everything—and everyone—else faded away.

  Turning, he took a deep breath and walked toward the banquet room. The guitar around his neck might as well have been a noose. A responsibility he didn’t want to fulfill. The idea of walking out on that stage without Simon, without Lila having his back, felt like a loss of epic proportions. The worst kind of lie.

  But he went through the door. He had no choice.

  2

  His talent tore her apart. Right now, everything about the man was ripping holes in her.

  From her perspective in the audience, Lila Shawcross stared up at the stage and fought to keep her feet rooted in place. This was her job, the arena she felt most comfortable in. She’d spent so many happy hours watching shows put on by the bands she managed, as well as ones she was scouting. Even the competition. The best offense was a good defense, and she could eat up some serious yardage in her Jimmy Choos.

  Tonight, the only thing she wanted was to get away.

  And she couldn’t. She couldn’t, because she owed it to Donovan and the members of Oblivion and goddammit, she owed it to herself to stand tall and strong and not allow a moment of weakness—or several weeks of them—to destroy everything she’d fought so hard to construct.

  She clutched her iPad and the envelope she wanted nothing more than to burn. She’d been happy until Simon’s meltdown on stage had splintered apart the fragile happiness she’d carried back with her from New York. The weekend she’d spent with Nick had been too wonderful to be believed, and sure enough, the instant Simon lost his shit onstage, her own personal reality had begun to crack as well. The courier had shoved the envelope into her hand that she couldn’t let go of for a second, as much as she wished she could set the damn thing on fire.

  The images scrolled through her mind. Pictures of Nick’s hand on her ass and his mouth on hers. Laughing into each other’s eyes between the kisses she never should’ve allowed herself. She wasn’t that woman. Love—or sex, or even just pleasure—weren’t part of her world. She’d honed herself into a practical, focused businesswoman and she wouldn’t let anything sway her.

  Especially not a man who’d been caught in other pictures, ones where he was embracing a woman with red hair and the kind of style that fit him. Funky, unique, young. Lila hadn’t been that young in forever, even if chronologically she probably wasn’t much older than the redhead Nick had been hugging in the photos. But she’d been like a flame, bright and glowing, and when she’d blown Nick a kiss goodbye in yet another picture, he’d smiled at her fondly. As a friend or more, it was impossible to tell.

  She shouldn’t care. She couldn’t care. Seeing those pictures had been an unforgettable reminder of everything she had to lose if what she’d begun to find with Nick imploded. Hell, even if it didn’t. She wasn’t supposed to be with him for a million reasons.

  Now she wasn’t.

  She blinked away the film in her eyes and concentrated on the stage. Molly was tentatively singing “Echoes” in her raspy, sexy voice, but she seemed unsure. Not surprising, since she’d never played live with a band the stature of Oblivion before. She kept looking to the others for encouragement or someone to play off of, and that was basically an exercise in futility. Gray was jamming out as if he was in his own world, and Deacon kept surveying the lot of them as if he was making sure no one else was headed for some kind of breakdown. Steady as a sunrise, that was Deacon.

  Jazz was trying to make up for her sister’s lack of showmanship with some of her own, flipping her sticks and whaling on the drums with a ferocity that would’ve impressed Dave Grohl. And Nick clamped a cigarette in his mouth—so much for quitting yet again—as his fingers blazed up and down the frets. He hadn’t cut his blondish-brown hair in a few weeks and the thick strands fell into his face as he bent over his guitar, making it sing.

  No, wrong word. He was making it scream.

  Her heartbeat quickened and her panties went damp. She couldn’t help either involuntary reaction when it came to that man. She knew what those fingers could do, and if she licked her lips, she could almost taste the faint tinge of smoke from his kisses. The embers left behind from Nick Crandall in her life would never be fully extinguished, but she had to try to move on. Too much was at stake.

  And God, if she gave him the benefit of the doubt and she was wrong, he would hurt her worse than anyone else ever had. Maybe it made her a coward or a fool, but she just couldn’t take the chance. Not now when her chest felt so bruised and raw and her eyes swollen from tears she didn’t think she’d ever manage to cry.

  Lila almost didn’t notice when the tenor of the concert started to change. Molly turned to face her sister and something passed between them, something unseen and magical and inexplicable. When Molly turned back to face the so far unimpressed crowd—who were obviously wondering how they’d signed up to watch this faux Oblivion without Simon, the man who defined them—her expression had transformed. Gone was the shy, tentative vocalist who was good, but not spectacular. Pretty, but not beautiful. A serviceable frontwoman, but not a true lead singer.

  In a blink, Molly became a star.

  She grasped the microphone in both hands and flung herself headlong into “Torn to Pieces”, one of the songs off Oblivion’s second album that Simon rarely sung live because of all the high notes. Rafters-high. He’d been suffering for much of their aborted tour, but Molly clearly was in fine vocal form. She could climb high and drop into the lowest of lows with barely a breath between, and she was already matching her movements to the arrange
ment of the song. Head thrown back, she called out to the heavens her agony at being ripped to shreds and fell to her knees to sob out her pain at being cast asunder by someone she loved. This song hadn’t originally been intended to be quite the roof-raiser that it had become tonight. Somehow Oblivion’s version of a ballad had gone from quiet misery to shrieking grief. Not that it mattered. From the excited cheers of the crowd, they were hooked.

  They held their hands up, and she spoon-fed them exactly the experience she wanted them to have. Not just once, but song after song. After a quick conference between Deacon and Nick, they rolled into another song, one that Oblivion rarely played live. “Too Still” was another of Oblivion’s few ballads and one that required a low rumble to carry off the building notes at the beginning. It was mainly a Nick creation, and as such, the guitar work was front and center. Simon had made it work for his voice, but Molly wasn’t even trying to match his seething intensity. She just grabbed on and tore apart the lyrics with both hands as she launched into the kind of wails that Janis Joplin made famous.

  She whirled to Gray and hooked her leg inside his, swaying with him in a manner that seemed to take him aback for a moment before he bent into it, his fingers a blur over the strings. From the corner, Nick sneered and played and smoked, not making the slightest attempt to interact.

  He’d brought out his big guns to try to take her down. To prove that Oblivion simply could not be without Simon Kagan. And he’d failed.

  Molly was no pale imitation of a singer. She was the real fucking deal.

  Lila’s fingers clamped around her iPad as the phone she’d set on vibrate in her jacket pocket went to constant buzz. A new story was being written. Not about Oblivion’s destruction, but about its rebirth in a brand new incarnation.

  About the woman who wasn’t going to be simply a stand-in come tomorrow morning. She was going to be getting offers of her own, and Lila would be damned if she lost out her chance to nab her first.

  She might suck in the love department, but when it came to business? Cue the goddamn Jaws soundtrack, because this shark was out for new blood.

  When Lila was sure they were about to close out the show, Molly hopped up on Jazz’s riser and tipped her head to her sister. Molly grabbed one of Jazz’s drumsticks and together, the sisters began the slow, Latin-style intro to the 1994 live version one of the most famous songs ever. They didn’t have the bongos or maracas used during the Hell Freezes Over tour, but they made it work. Lila had heard them sing it together at the band house the night she’d come over to talk to Nick, and the harmonies they could pull off with Gray and Nick as ballast were amazing. Deacon’s rich baritone would only add another layer to the song they’d chosen to end with.

  Deak had a quick conference with Gray, then nodded to Nick, who’d ground out his cigarette in the can of soda near one of the surviving amps. Guess he didn’t think he could get his Joe Walsh on with his cig practically burned down to ashes on his lips.

  They launched into the signature guitar strumming that started off this slower, more stripped down version of “Hotel California”, Gray and Nick creating a harmony of their own. Jazz grabbed Molly’s drumstick and playfully shoved her off the riser before resuming the steady ascent into the song. Deak shot a grin at Gray as he slid in between him and Nick, offering the perfect low-key backdrop so the vocals could take center stage.

  So Molly could take center stage with her sinuous, husky voice.

  She wound the cord to her mic around her wrist as she rhapsodized about a time she hadn’t even come close to living through. Molly hadn’t even hit twenty-years-old yet, never mind lived through the seventies. But somehow she made an updated version of the 70s classic her own, honoring the original while adding a certain quality that belonged solely to her. Seductive. Teasing. Knowing.

  One hundred percent aware of her power, in a way Lila simultaneously admired and envied.

  Molly moved to the edge of the stage and sang directly to different members of the audience, bending forward so that the long hair she’d loosened from its ponytail draped like gold silk ribbons. Her outfit of jeans and a tight top might as well have been a flowing skirt and scarves. Effortlessly enchanting, she glided around her borrowed band members, sliding through them, touching, leaning, making them all a part of the smoke and mirrors effect she’d created. For all anyone knew, they were at a show at an intimate bar somewhere, not a stuffy country club. This was Molly McIntire’s milieu, and she owned it.

  She owned all of them.

  Gray and Nick dueled on the guitars as they played out the classic riffs that had made up the song’s signature, and Molly slipped back to join her sister as the guys brought down the house. Literally. The two of them ended up on their knees in the center of the stage, fingers moving faster than the speed of Lila’s heart, their heads tipped close. Light to dark, dark to light. Sweat gleaming under the lights that bounced and swung, revealing the shadows under the glare.

  Nick had gone somewhere else in his head. Lila could see it from the fierce concentration on his face as he played and in the iron grip he had on his guitar. Music was his savior. Always would be. No matter who harmed him, he would always have that place of respite.

  Then his gaze zeroed in on hers, piercing her in the center of the audience as surely as if he’d impaled her with a knife. Accusation and confusion and hurt—oh God, the hurt—burned in a face that could’ve been carved by Greek gods, then set ablaze by a vengeful demon. Everything in his head and his gut was on display, so that she wondered how she didn’t turn to ash just from the ferocity of his anger.

  Donovan had requested Nick use everything he was feeling. God, was he ever delivering. And if Nick took her down in his rampage, well, too bad.

  Collateral damage, right? She’d been that before.

  The curtain swished down as the song tapered off. There would be no encores here. No need for them. Because after a moment of hushed silence, the slow beat of hands clapping began to rise, growing louder and louder until Lila couldn’t breathe for the sound exploding all around her. The buzz at her hip was relentless, and her heart was racing like a stampeding locomotive. She was still wrapped up with the man she’d last seen on his knees, though his rage and skill had been nearly enough to topple her where she stood.

  Now she needed to do her job. She couldn’t run again. Couldn’t turn away from Donovan as he marched through the crowd, nudging aside the people who stood between them as if they were insignificant. His smile never wavered, nor did the intensity of his stare.

  If he didn’t know about her and Nick, he had damn good suspicions. Which meant she’d have to pull off the acting job of her life while she was on the verge of breaking down all over again, just from the magnitude of what she’d witnessed.

  How had she watched him for all those months and not felt everything he was feeling? Not lived each moment with him? Perhaps she was doomed to be forever connected to him now, even if she managed to sever their link.

  That would be her punishment for glimpsing bliss, if only for an instant.

  “The hallway,” Donovan said in an undertone, gripping her elbow to steer her through the crowd.

  She nodded, her face impassive, her shoulders steel. She wouldn’t crack or chip. He would never know what she was going through.

  No one would.

  When they finally made it through the doors and into the relative quiet of the back corridor, Lila slipped away from him to gain much needed distance. If she was going down, she would do it standing. Somehow Nick could still exude power while on his knees, but she would fucking swing for the fences.

  “You’re going to lock down Molly McIntire before she leaves this club,” Donovan said.

  Lila exhaled. Maybe he wouldn’t press the issue now. All she wanted was a night to herself to process what she’d seen. To figure out how she would shut off her emotions again after she’d finally, finally opened up.

  Tomorrow, she would be back to normal. She would be strong
enough so that he couldn’t break her. So no one could. Not her husband, not Donovan, not Nick.

  And especially not her own needs, which might as well have been a noose, cutting off all her air.

  “Of course. She’ll sign with Ripper Records. I have no doubt. She’s already approached me, in fact, and I told her the time wasn’t right.”

  “You told her what?” Donovan rarely got angry, and he wasn’t a textbook definition of it now. But his jaw had gone to granite, and those shrewd eyes had turned glacial. “Why would you do that?”

  “She’s a kid. I didn’t think she had anything except bravado and a desire to ride on her sister’s coattails—”

  “You haven’t been paying attention, Lila, and that isn’t like you. But that’s because you’ve been occupied by other…pursuits.” Donovan reached for the envelope still tucked under her arm.

  Stunned, she let him take it. “Donovan—”

  “It’s going to stop,” he said quietly as he tapped the envelope on the back of his other hand. “Isn’t it?”

  God, he knew. No supposition now. He knew. He must’ve seen the pictures. Had he sent them? As a warning, or worse? If he fired her, she would certainly have no question why.

  Bad enough she had a million other questions.

  How many other people knew about her and Nick? Were their pictures about to be plastered on every tabloid across the country? All the magazines and press she’d used to create her own spin, turned against her. Missiles to tear her apart.

  To make sure her husband had enough ammunition to leave her with nothing.

  She started to reply. Yes, of course, it was going to stop. It had to. Not only because her divorce settlement was in jeopardy, but obviously so was her job. And for what? She’d been with a cheater before. She’d loved her husband once, early on. In the days before she’d understood she’d been bought as surely as the cars Martin collected like candy. She’d thought they were a unit and building a life. Instead, he’d been running around behind her back, “letting off steam” with the women who weren’t hesitant about giving him everything he wanted in bed—and elsewhere.