Hunter's Desire

by Meg Ripley

  “Let’s do another shot each,” I suggested to Mark; when I looked at him, I saw that he was definitely taking in the same information I was, with the same impact.

  “What’s your name? I don’t think I’ve seen you behind the bar here before,” Mark called out, leaning closer to the bartender. The woman grinned.

  “Sophie,” she told him and then glanced at me to make sure I’d also heard. “How about it? Another round?”

  “Just the shots,” I told her. “And can I get a bottle of water to go with it?” Sophie nodded and turned to start pouring our shots. When she walked to one of the other ice bins to grab my bottle of water for me, I got confirmation on her ass: it was as close to perfect as any ass on any woman I’d seen in at least a week—at least in person. Mark let out a low, quiet whistle next to me; obviously, he’d seen it too.

  When Sophie came back with our shots and my water, she raised a dark eyebrow and leaned in close, looking at Mark. “Don’t think I didn’t hear you just then,” she told him.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Mark countered, grinning. Sophie held his gaze for a moment and her lips twisted in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile; it was that man-eater look that you see in women who know just how good they are, just how strong they are, just how little they need you. Sophie leaned in a little closer to Mark’s ear; I leaned away, feeling like there was something about to happen that I wanted to be out of range for. I watched as she brought two fingers up to her bright red lips, and barely managed to keep from snickering until after she’d whistled—high and loud—right in his ear. Mark’s head jerked back and he clamped his hand over the ear, but the damage was clearly already done. I caught sight of Sophie’s grin as she turned to help the next customer and laughed my ass off.

  “Serves you right,” I told Mark when he scowled at me. “Gotta learn to be more discreet, man.” I picked up the full shot glass in front of me and gestured for Mark to do the same; we knocked back the Jameson and I took another gulp of beer before fishing my pack of Pall Malls out of my pocket. Respects was one of a handful of bars and clubs in the tri-county area where you could still smoke inside—that was a big part of why Molly Riot had made the place one of our haunts. I shook a cigarette out, lit it, and handed the pack over to Mark to help himself as I looked around the club. The dance floor was starting to fill up a little bit more after the post-show slump, and there were some cute girls out there—but as Sophie walked past me, on her way to the back to grab a new bottle of Jack, I thought to myself that it was one thing to be cute—another to be as confidently, carelessly gorgeous as she was.

  “We’re back in the studio on Monday, right?” I tore my attention off the pretty new bartender and back onto Mark. You’re here to chill with him, not to ogle the staff, I reminded myself.

  “Yeah. Jules and Fran have finished up, so he’s free to start working.” Mark shook his head, sighing with exaggerated frustration at the delay that Jules’ side project with his girlfriend had caused; really it wasn’t that big of a deal, considering the band had spent that time rehearsing new material and getting it where we wanted it—including Jules. We weren’t hurting for money, and if we’d gone into the studio a month or two earlier we’d have just been dicking around; it was better to get that out of the way before we were spending thousands a day to do it.

  “As long as we don’t have to take another break,” Mark said glumly. “I’m tired of start-and-stop.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Last time we took a break you spent the week getting laid with what—five different girls? What are you complaining about?” Mark shrugged.

  “I just feel like things are changing,” he said. He drank down the rest of his beer and set the tallboy aside.

  “Of course they are,” I agreed. “That doesn’t mean they’re bad—and it’s not like Jules is the only factor. Things started changing when we got Alex’s ass into rehab and I didn’t see you complaining then.”

  “Yeah, but they’re changing faster and faster,” Mark insisted. “No one hangs out anymore.”

  “‘All my rowdy friends have settled down…’” I crooned. “Nick and Liv threw a party like two weeks ago that lasted a day and a half! They just aren’t going out as often. Can you blame them? If I had a steady lay to go home to and someone I gave a shit about besides the band, I wouldn’t go out as much either.”

  “Whatever,” Mark said. He took a deep breath and then grinned. “I’m just being a morose bastard tonight. I’m gonna use the men’s.” He stubbed out his cigarette and slid off of his bar stool. “Patio?” Mark nodded in that direction and I shrugged; the karaoke outside was starting to get good—in the sense that the people who were going up were progressively drunker. It might be enough to get Mark out of his bitter mood.

  “I’ll grab us a couple of beers and meet you out there,” I said. I hoped that Sophie would be the one to serve them to me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Let’s do it again,” Alex said, looking from Jack in the control room to the rest of us.

  “Fuck,” Nick said, bending over and plucking his pack of cigarettes off the little side table he’d left them on.

  “I think we’ve almost got it, guys,” Jack said over the intercom. “It’s just missing that little thing—that flavor.” I scrubbed at my face and grabbed the beer I’d almost forgotten about to take a gulp of it. Even though we had hundreds of thousands of dollars at our disposal, the band had decided to stick with recording in Miami; it was where we’d gotten our sound together, and it was where we all wanted to be. Ron, our manager, had tried to tempt us to go to New York or LA or even Toronto, but none of the paired-off guys in the band wanted to spend weeks away from their girls, and we had all always done better in our own environment. We’d flown Jack in after going over show reels for about two weeks; he’d worked with Kill Kill, Bacchus, and Minute Music Militia, who we all loved, and his ideas for the album based on the demos we’d put out there were the most like what we wanted to do.

  “Mark, think you can tighten up that part in the last verse? You’re losing the punch on the snare,” Alex said. Mark rolled his eyes a bit but sat back from his kit, examining the head on his snare. I took another sip of my beer and went through the bass run quietly, trying to see if there was a better way to play it—a faster chord change or a quicker progression. For a minute, everyone took a break, examining their instruments, and I could feel the ripples of tension in the room. Mark was having a good day, but Alex was right: the snare bit at the end of the last verse just wasn’t coming through like it should.

  We’d agreed that we’d work on the live recordings first, just to get a baseline and to get an idea of the shape of the album, and then move onto individual parts. For once, Alex was actually inviting contributions—songs—from the rest of us; we’d started out in rehearsals with about fifty songs between the five of us, which we’d narrowed down to about twenty. If we couldn’t pick and choose at the end of the recording process, it was going to be a monster of an album. But we all had a couple of tracks we’d put forward—which was different from the previous few albums, where almost all of the songs were written by Alex and Nick, with the rest of us filling in parts.

  I had a good shot at getting at least two out of four of my songs on the finished album, and I figured Jules had maybe three that were worth recording and including. Mark only had one that made the cut, but he’d only put in three, and he’d admitted the other two just weren’t there yet—maybe the next album. The rest either Nick and Alex had written together or separately; still, it wasn’t a bad ratio of songs for a finished album, and I had to figure that some of that had to do with Jules going off with his girlfriend to record a side project. The last thing anyone in the band wanted was to split up—together we were fucking magic, and if Jules’ work with Fran had lit a fire under Alex’s and Nick’s asses to pull more of the rest of our stuff into the loop, I wasn’t going to be a shrinking violet about it.

  Once everyone had settled in,
we went back to work, playing through the song again. Mark nailed the last verse, but Jules flubbed one of the bits in the bridge. “Take a break,” Jack suggested. “Come back in ten.”

  I grabbed my phone, my beer, and my cigarettes and headed outside the studio; technically it didn’t matter where I smoked, since we’d booked the complex for the duration of the recording and we’d paid a deposit for cleaning specifically so we could smoke inside, but I wanted the air and the mega-watt South Florida sun in my face for a little bit. I sat down in the grass after I made sure there weren’t any ants, and lit up, unlocking my phone and opening Facebook while I lit up. The notifications told me I had five event invitations: Heather Brooks—who I only knew from tenth grade French—was throwing some kind of makeup party. Decline. Jonny had an event going on in Downtown Ft. Lauderdale the next weekend at Stache—that one I tapped ‘interested’ since it was a pretty good-looking show and I could always pregame a bit to save myself on the overpriced drinks the club served. A friend of a friend whose name was actually Jessica but who had decided to go by “Jezebel” after abandoning her husband and two-year-old son to try and become a famous BDSM performer had invited me to yet another fetish party at yet another strip club out in Plantation; I declined and then went to her profile page and took her off my friends list altogether. Going back to my events, there were two left: a pool party at my friend Hannah’s house in two weeks with a luau theme and a show up in Lake Worth at Propaganda, featuring Atreides, Jackal 5, Kingsroad and Heatkeeper; I accepted both invites and closed out the app.

  “Yo, Dan! Break’s over, man,” Nick said from the door.

  “Give me two seconds, I need to finish this,” I told him, waving the cigarette butt in his direction. I thought about Sophie, not for the first time since I’d seen her at Respects; as I took a last drag of my cig and stubbed it out, I wondered if she went to any local shows. Probably not—she’d get her fill of bands working at the club. I went back into the studio and pushed her out of my head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Propaganda was fucking packed; I had to wait an extra five minutes at the bar to get my Jack and coke—and Kelsey the bartender knew me, and knew I tipped more than decent. But Mark was with me, and Nick and Olivia had even agreed to come out; Olivia had an article due about Atreides anyway, and thought she could get some good pictures at the show. It was so damned hot it felt like the walls were sweating, but of course Nick—a few feet away from me—looked like he might as well have been in a walk-in fridge, and Mark somehow managed to make “sweaty and red-faced” look like a legitimate fashion choice.

  I looked around the packed club while Heatkeeper set up, not at anything in particular but just to keep from getting bored; most of the people I saw were regulars—Lake Worth people, who practically lived at the club because it was a dependable place to go, and only a few blocks from their homes. It was about forty minutes away from my place in Deerfield, but Mark had already said we could crash at his brother’s place in Delray.

  As I was looking around, I spotted her. Sophie had her hair down instead of in pigtails, but her face in profile—and the deep, mermaid-green color of her hair—was instantly recognizable. She must have gotten her hair cut or something, because it looked shorter than it had when it was up, and it was half-plastered to her face with sweat; but she looked hot as hell in a tight, pink, old school Middle Class Brats tee shirt, a black and white plaid miniskirt and a pair of suspenders. I couldn’t see what kind of shoes she had on, but I didn’t care; just the sight of her, the shirt starting to go a little transparent from sweat, her tits straining the front of it, the skirt barely—barely—covering the curve of her ass, was enough to almost make me forget I was at Prop for a show. She was smoking a cigarette, pressed up against the bar, talking to Benny from Jackal 5; I looked around to make sure that Mark was busy, and slowly made my way in her direction.

  “No, you are not going to get Mel to make one of your specials for Ricky,” Sophie was telling Benny when I finally got within hearing distance. She flicked the ash off the end of her cigarette and shook her head. “The last time you came up with a special drink for him he spewed Jaeger and schnapps all over my fucking kitchen floor and I had to clean it up.”

  “Make him clean it up this time,” Benny said with a shrug. Sophie rolled her eyes and turned to look around. I hadn’t realized how short she was, the week before at Respects; up close, without the bar between us, she was something like half a foot shorter than me.

  “If he spews in my kitchen tonight I’m going to make you clean it up,” Sophie told Benny. Benny caught sight of me and grinned.

  “Danny boy!” I smiled at him. Sophie turned to find out who Benny was talking to and her eyebrows went up at the sight of me. I gave her a quick grin and set my drink down to fish my cigarettes out of my pocket.

  “Fucking packed in here,” I said, shaking my head. “You guys still play that cover of The Cranberries, Benny?”

  “Of course we do,” Benny said, shaking his head at me. “It brings down the fucking house—we can’t take it off the set list.”

  “Benny wants to feed Ricky some disgusting combination of alcohol to see what happens,” Sophie explained to me, clucking her tongue against her teeth. “Tell him no—since he apparently won’t listen to me, and I’ve heard all about how much he admires you.”

  “You admire me, Benny?” I put my hand over my heart, leaving the cigarette dangling out of the cover of my mouth for a second before I lit it.

  “She heard me wrong,” Benny said matter-of-factly. “I told her I admire your cock.” I rolled my eyes.

  “In fairness, it is nicer than yours,” I pointed out. “You ever get that enlargement surgery?”

  “Hey, hey, it’s not the size that counts,” Benny said, smirking.

  “It counts when you don’t know what to do with it,” Sophie countered. I almost choked on a drag of smoke and raised my hand for her to high-five me.

  “You here for Atreides?” I nodded to Benny’s question, more than happy to abandon the topic of dicks for the time being. I’d been in a band with Nelson from Atreides before joining up with Molly Riot, and even though I didn’t have any real desire to work with him on anything, he was one of the most talented keyboard players I’d ever met. “Sophie’s sister Jess is the new bass player,” Benny explained, nodding in Sophie’s direction.

  “What happened to Chris?” Benny shrugged.

  “Family drama out in Cali. You know how it goes.” I nodded.

  “I’m going to run to the ladies’,” Sophie said, slipping away from the bar after stubbing out her cigarette. “Make sure Benny doesn’t order something disgusting for Ricky, will you?”

  “Why’s she so worried about what Ricky drinks?” I settled in at the bar, glancing at the little stage to check on the progress that Heatkeeper was making. They were starting in on sound check; Tom strummed a quick progression and looked over at the sound booth.

  “Ricky’s dating her sister, they crash at her place usually on show nights,” Benny said. “So, of course Ricky gets sloppy fucking drunk and pukes everywhere.”

  “And you’re helping him? Not very friendly.” I flicked ash off of my cigarette and gestured to Kelsey that I wanted another one.

  “It’s hilarious. Before the puking he gets all apologetic about being so drunk—hell, he apologizes for shit other people are doing.” I snorted, shaking my head.

  “You seem pretty knowledgeable about Sophie,” I said, leaning in a bit closer to Benny. “What’s her deal?” Benny shrugged.

  “She’s un-pull-able,” he told me. “You should know that right off the bat. Even for pretty boys like you and Nicky.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Nicky’s the next thing to engaged anyway,” I said. “He ain’t pulling anyone.”

  “I’m just saying: she’s unattainable.” I raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Why?” Benny shrugged again.

  “Maybe she’s into chicks? Who knows? All I know i
s I’ve been trying for like two years and her legs are as closed as ever.”

  “Two years? You need to move on, son.”

  “Oh, I’m not living the monk life,” Benny said, waving that idea aside. “Just whenever I see her, you know? Or I’ll text her sometimes. Funny as shit, hot as a five-alarm fire, completely un-pull-able.”

  “For you, at least,” I said. Kelsey brought me another drink, and I sipped. Heatkeeper was almost done checking sound.

  “For anyone,” Benny insisted. “I’m telling you, man: she just doesn’t fuck anyone.”

  “Is she asexual or something?”

  “Nah, she flirts, and Jess tells me she does fuck—just no one anyone knows.” Benny knocked back a shot of something clear—tequila or vodka I thought—and chased it with a sip of beer. “She’s sure as shit not fucking anyone in the scene.”

  Sophie came back and we started talking about something else—the sound guy, Dave, or something to do with what was going on down at Revolution in Ft. Lauderdale, anything but the woman in front of us. I thought about what Benny had said about Sophie, trying to wrap my head around it; obviously, she was in the scene—even if I hadn’t seen her at shows until that night—but she wasn’t hooking up with anyone in the scene. That was smart; but it didn’t leave a lot of hope for me to convince her to hang out sometime. Of course, it didn’t leave a lot of hope for Mark, either. You don’t even know if he remembers her, I reminded myself as Heatkeeper started to play. I pretended to almost ignore Sophie, not in some kind of strategy, but because I didn’t want to make it obvious that I wasn’t paying 100% of my attention to the band on the stage. She sang along with a little over half the songs the band played, and I couldn’t help occasionally glancing over to see her tits shaking and jiggling inside her shirt as she danced around.