by Maggie Marr
Johnny opened his eyes and his gaze traveled up my legs and over my suit. A look that once would have caused a simmering heat to pour through my body now left me cold and unimpressed. Johnny was the reason that I would never date a rock star again.
“Tash! Babe, strip off the monkey suit and hop in.” Johnny’s smile was lush and filled with carnal pleasure.
“Can’t,” I said, glad my sunglasses were covering my eyes. I couldn’t hide the irritation I felt about having to come to my ex-boyfriend’s house to beg for money. “I’m on my way in to the office.” The thought of saying the next few words caused a heaviness to pull at my chest. But I said them anyway. I had to. “I stopped because I need some help.”
With a one swift stroke Johnny pushed the brunette who was still holding the bottle of Veuve from his lap and stood up. I kept my gaze locked on Johnny’s face. I’d already seen everything that was on offer as far as his nakedness was concerned. While he was a stunning man—well-kept and well-muscled—his physique, his charm, his charisma did nothing for me anymore.
Water dripped down his torso. “You know I’d do anything to help you, Tash. What do you need?”
My eyes flickered past him and toward the view that spread out behind his palatial pad. When we’d first met he’d been slumming in an apartment just off the strip with seven other musicians. With my father’s musical know-how and his ability to pick a hit, Johnny had come a long way.
“It’s a private conversation.” Not that the girls bouncing in the water like sea nymphs had any interest in me, a woman in a suit, or what I had to say. I couldn’t risk any of them hearing about what I needed, or why. He reached for a towel and pulled it around his hips. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”
Johnny padded barefoot past the kitchen and toward his study. Platinum records lined one wall, each one a testament to his success and his longevity. He dropped onto a leather sofa. “Sit,” Johnny said. “You look serious.”
I sighed. “It is serious.” I paced in front of his desk, unwilling or unable to actually ask for Johnny’s help. It was beyond humbling to have to go to an ex-boyfriend to save my business, but at this point I would do anything to save Left Coast Records.
“Tasha, it can’t be that bad. It’s me you’re talking to, babe, tell me what you need.”
I blurted it out. “I need two million dollars in cash.”
Johnny sat back against the couch. He rubbed his hand across his chin. “Your uncle cleaned out the coffers.” It was a statement, not a question.
I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together.
“We don’t know for certain,” I said. “Yet.”
“It’s a hard one not to believe.” Johnny stood and walked to his desk. He opened the giant mahogany cabinet behind his desk chair and spun a dial.
My heart hammered in my chest. Really? This was all it took? Nothing more? He pulled out a leather case from the safe and flipped it open. “Two million will be enough?” he asked. His gaze met mine for an instant and I nodded. He grabbed a pen and scribbled across the surface. With one swift rip he pulled out the check.
“I … I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He walked around the desk and handed me the check. “Without you and your dad, I’d be slumming in Hollywood or locked up in jail. This”—he nodded his head toward the room—“is because of you and your dad.”
“Thank you.” My bottom lip quivered. I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been until this very moment. Now I could feel the fear and the panic that coursed through me at the very thought of losing Left Coast—that I couldn’t save the business I had been groomed to run. Until a few minutes ago I might have lost it.
“I meant what I said a long time ago.” He moved closer to me and, once upon a time, his very nearness would have caused a flame in me to light into a blaze. “I will always be here for you. I will always love you.”
“You know it’s not the same for me, not anymore.” My eyes flickered up through my eyelashes and I locked eyes with him. “We just—”
“… want different things,” Johnny said. “I know.” He smiled. “Look at you. You’re dressed in a suit on the way to the office and I’m drinking Veuve in the pool with twelve naked girls. I get it. I finally get it, but just because what we want is so different doesn’t mean my feelings for you have changed.”
I nodded. Once upon a time when I was younger, so much younger, I’d thought, I’d hoped, I’d even believed that once Johnny got the rock star lifestyle out of his system he would be mine. That we would want the same things. Family. A quiet existence that included children and friends and music, lots and lots of music. I’d been wrong. This existence for Johnny wasn’t a lifestyle, this existence was simply who he was, to his core. A hedonist who needed pleasurable delights. And while I eventually accepted that about Johnny, and even understood it, I’d broken my heart. I couldn’t be a participant in Johnny’s life and survive.
“Tash, I’d do anything to help you.”
A hopeful feeling unfurled in my chest. Johnny had been one of Daddy’s biggest finds. It was hard for me to admit, but Johnny could be the answer to all my problems. I pushed my pride away; I didn’t want to ask, but I needed to. “Then stay with Left Coast.”
Surprise washed across Johnny’s face for an instant, and then vanished. “Babe, I’m with Left Coast, you know that.”
“I hear things.” I looked into his eyes. “About bigger deals and a different label.”
“Tash, babe, Left Coast is my home. It’s where I got my start. I’m not planning on leaving.”
My heart quivered. Johnny was so good at telling me all the right things, the things he knew I wanted to hear. Often his actions were so different than the words that slid easily from his lips. I wasn’t in a position to call him on what I suspected might be a partial lie. Johnny’s managers were shopping him to other labels. I knew they were, but I was holding a check for two million dollars that he’d given me without even blinking.
“I’ll pay you back,” I said.
“I know you will.” He tilted his head and his gaze searched my face. A longing, a deep love, and even a desire traced over his features. “Okay.” He took a step back. “I gotta party and you gotta make deals.” He said it as a reminder to himself as to why our love affair had ended and my attraction to him had died.
“I brought you something,” I said. A small smile lifted on my face.
Johnny followed me out the front door to my car and I opened the trunk. I pulled out the rectangular package wrapped in a blanket.
“What the hell?” He opened the blanket and looked inside. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Think of it as collateral,” I said.
“Un-fucking-real.” Johnny smiled. “Only in L.A. You’re driving around with a Picasso in the trunk of your car.”
Rhett
I’d entered the recording studio that afternoon hopped up on adrenaline. I was recording one of my songs. A song I’d written and arranged and, to my way of thinking, a song that would be a solid hit. The band loved it. They were amped up, too, when we arrived. All I needed to do was to belt out the tune with the pipes that God gave me.
Ten hours later, after singing the same tune over and over and over again, I was tired. Frustration rolled through my chest. I let loose a high note on the final bit and the strain in my voice was evident not only with the soreness in my throat, but in the sound that came through the headphones on my ears.
The tune died away and I looked through the glass toward the sound engineer and Terrell D., the producer that Left Coast had hired for my album.
“That was good man, really good,” he said with the fixed smile that had been on his face at the end of every damn take. “Now I want you to try it a little more breathy.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Breathy?” I asked. Fuck breathy. This tune wasn’t going to get any better on the fiftieth take than it had been on the first. What the hell wa
s Terrell trying to prove?
“Terrell, man, I think you got a hit in at least one of those two hundred takes.”
The microphone clicked.
“Funny, man. Just one more time. More breath.”
I reined in the temper that flashed through me. In the last two hours Terrell had said “one more time” twenty times over. My pipes were feeling worn, but I definitely wasn’t about to tell him that. I had eight more songs to get finished and it wouldn’t help my career if my producer thought my voice was weak.
“Right man, one more take.”
Through my headphones I could hear the playback start again, followed by the intro. I began to sing. Breathy. What the fuck was breathy? Halfway through the second verse a sliver of light came through the door behind Terrell. My eyes widened. All long auburn hair and lush curves, Tasha Jones walked into the studio. Terrell wrapped her in a hug and the two of them said something I couldn’t hear. My gut tightened with her presence. I continued to sing, but a heat built in my chest. It was a need to prove, or be noticed, or some fucking thing, that really I hadn’t had with women since I was fifteen-fucking-years old. I ignored the rough feeling in my throat and pushed, pushed the sound and the notes, and the heat of my voice.
They both turned to me as I hit the last note. Surprise lit Tasha’s face and Terrell looked pretty damn pleased. As the strains of the final note trailed off into the space of the studio, Terrell pressed the mic button.
“Man,” he said. “That was it! That was just exactly it. Nice job!”
I nodded and grabbed the water bottle beside me. My throat was rough and ragged and I took long drinks of water trying to cool my pipes. Damn. Had I pushed it too far? I usually did my set when we were on the road and then I’d be done until the next night. I didn’t sing and sing and sing for eight, ten, twelve hours.
“That’s it for tonight,” Terrell said. He turned back to Tasha and they continued to talk. Her gaze flickered past Terrell, whose back was to me, and those damned bright blue eyes locked with mine. She was too fucking beautiful to endure. And so poised. The girl’s face didn’t show much. I thought I saw a tiny flicker of something, like interest. The same look I’d seen at the wedding, but then it was gone. Vanished, as though I’d been imagining that Tasha Jones wanted me. I usually didn’t have to wonder about the ladies because they were obvious with their desires. They slipped past security and slid under my arm. They left notes and panties on the back of my bike. I didn’t have to work for women, or at least hadn’t since I’d been singing.
I walked out of the studio and into the main room. The recording engineer, Mikey, high-fived me and nodded. “Nice job,” he said. He stood and grabbed his jacket. “See you guys tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Fucking tomorrow. What could I do to get my voice ready for tomorrow? I turned to Tasha, who stood there with her head tilted. Her gaze examined my face. Had she seen it? My fear about my voice?
The band filed out, saying goodbye to Tasha and giving high fives to Terrell.
Terrell grabbed his jacket and his car keys. “Tasha, I’m going to head out. Want to chat in the morning? Before we’re back in here?”
“Of course,” Tasha said. She hugged Terrell and he slipped out of the studio.
We were alone. “Do you have some time?” Tasha asked.
“What’d you have in mind?” I asked. I let a slow gaze roll up over Tasha’s body. Her high-heeled black boots and tight jeans hugged those fine curves. She had on a loose-fitting shirt with a neck that showed some cleavage. Damn. I’d like to slip my hands up over those curves and press my lips to that round cherry mouth of hers. After all those hours in the studio I wanted some ass and my dick was on a hair trigger.
“Perhaps something different than you do,” Tasha said.
Suddenly, I felt like an ass. She was the president of the studio and I was gazing at her like a raw piece of meat. She was immune, completely immune, to bad-boy musicians. Of course she was. She’d grown up in their midst and had probably seen every trick and heard every line. She’d even dated Johnny Tucker, and he was the baddest bad boy in rock and roll.
But there was a heat between us. Even if she had just remained like an ice princess, I could feel this connection with Tasha. Maybe she simply put out a vibe that musicians understood? But this seemed deeper than that, richer in some way. I knew women. I’d been raised in a house full of them. While her face and her words and her tone told me to stay the hell back, her body, something in the cock of her hip and the electricity that charged out from her, told me a completely different story.
“It’s business,” Tasha said.
“I got time,” I said. I slid my leather jacket over my shoulders. “And I know a place.”
*
She’d followed me in her little two-seater hot shot car. I couldn’t convince her that we should just take my bike. I wanted to feel the press of her hands wrapped around my chest and her tight little thighs snug against me and those breasts I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off pressed into my back. She’d declined my offer of transport and, instead, followed me to the tiny little shack of a place on Sunset.
I opened the front door to the bright lights, white tile, and red booths that lined the wall.
“I’ve never been here,” Tasha said. There was surprise in her voice.
“Late night spot,” I said. I nodded toward Trudy, the waitress behind the counter. We took good care of her when me and the band piled in after a night out.
“Hey, Rhett,” she said as I turned up my coffee cup.
“Coffee?” I asked Tasha. She nodded and I turned over her cup. “Hey, Trudy. You have any pie left?”
“We got an apple that was held back. Somebody ordered it for today and never showed. Want me to cut you a slice?”
I glanced over at Tasha and a smile crossed her lips. A smile that could melt even my hard heart.
“Only if you put ice cream on it,” Tasha said.
“I can even warm it up and then put ice cream on it,” Trudy said as she poured the coffee.
“My kind of girl. Thank you, Trudy, we’ll take two slices of pie.”
Trudy walked back toward the kitchen and Tasha wrapped her hands around the coffee mug. She watched me, a hint of surprise on her face. “Don’t let it get out that this is your late-night lifestyle. Apple pie and coffee? You’ll ruin your image.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I settled back into my seat and stretched my arm out over the back of the booth. “You gotta have something other than the babes and the booze.”
Her eyebrows crinkled and she tilted her head. She looked at me and gave me a small nod. “Good you know that now,” she said and set her coffee cup onto the table. “Because things get crazy when the album hits.”
A jolt of excitement rushed through me. When my album hit. My first fucking album. Mine. Based on my voice, my music, my writing ability—mine. Satisfaction oozed through me. Finally I had something that was mine. This wouldn’t be based on the Legend name. Dad hadn’t gotten me this record deal. Granted, I had my sister Amanda to thank for bringing Billie to one of my shows.
Sister? Had I just thought of Amanda as my sister? What the hell? I might as well surrender to the fact, because Amanda was a dog digging for a bone and she wasn’t going to let me or my siblings rest until we allowed her to fold us into her weird-ass idea of a Brady-bunch family.
“What’d you think of the song?” I asked.
Trudy set down two pieces of hot apple pie covered in vanilla ice cream. The warm rich scent reminded me how long it’d been since I’d eaten.
“Thank you, Trudy,” I said. She nodded and walked toward another group on the far side of the cafe.
Tasha still hadn’t answered my question. She picked up a spoon and cut into her pie. She looked at me. “I think you’ve got some amazing talent,” she said. “If your pipes hold out.”
My chest felt as though she’d thumped me in my solar plexus. A tingle crept up my back and my hunger slid f
rom my belly. She’d heard it. She could see the strain. I’d thought I’d covered it pretty well, but I guessed with Tasha’s thousands upon thousands of hours listening to artists record she could see and hear the cracks. But no matter what she thought she knew, or what I knew to be true, was I going to admit anything to the president of my label? But no matter how fucking hot she was, or how badly I wanted to wrap those thighs around me, my voice felt as if someone had ripped open my throat.
“Nothing wrong with my pipes,” I said. The gravel deep in my throat sounded like I’d just smoked ten packs of cigarettes in one night.
“You need to trade in the coffee for hot tea with lemon and throw away the cigarettes.”
I crinkled my brows and let a cool you-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about smile spread across my face. I took a bite of the pie. I’m certain the pie was as awesome as it always was, but I couldn’t taste it after what Tasha had said about my voice.
“What are you talking about? You heard that last take, didn’t you? It rocked Terrell’s world.”
“It was an awesome take, but it also shot your voice. You’re going to need at least a week to recover.” Her gaze held knowledge. “And a week is expensive.”
“Fuck that,” I said. I cleared my throat, trying to brush away the pain that was making it difficult to speak. “I’ll be ready tomorrow.”
“No,” Tasha said. “You won’t. I already rescheduled the studio time on the drive over here from the studio.”
“What the fuck?” I said. Anger clawed through me. I needed to get this album out, get it released. This music was clamoring around in my brain like a monkey in a cage.
“Seriously?” Her expression warned me.
Trudy stopped at our table. “How’s the pie?”
“I love it,” Tasha said in that voice that put everyone at ease. Everyone but me. “Trudy,” she asked, “could we get a cup of hot tea with lemon and honey?”