Wicked Serenade: a Lost in Oblivion Collection

by Quinn, Cari

  Simon’s throat tightened in reaction and he layered his own sound over Gray’s. Deacon came up the back end with another layer. The room was resonant with the aching whine of guitars and a three-part harmony that couldn’t be manufactured without a million dollar studio.

  Instead the magic was in a dingy laundromat.

  Simon grinned as they tumbled into an acoustic version of “Life is Beautiful”. Deacon leaned back, his gangly legs outstretched as he thumped mercilessly on the body of his acoustic. Gray pulled notes out of his Gibson that didn’t quite blend with the rest. The guitar was gritty and slightly off. Not out of tune, but chords layered over chords.

  How did this Gray guy get his fingers to bend like that? With a nimble gift Simon envied, he climbed the fret board, leaving jagged perfection in his wake. No fucking amp, no electric guitar and he could do that?

  Simon’s voice strengthened to compete against the heavier guitars—his element, his way to shine. Then gentled as the middle of the song soared and he had to reach the higher notes. It felt good to sing again. His throat had been pickled with alcohol too often the last few weeks, but it still didn’t let him down. Thank fuck.

  Nikki Sixx’s dark lyrics suited the mood, and still there was hope even in the Heroin Diaries anthem. Gray strummed so fast, his hand was all but a blur. The Oxford shirt and khakis were hiding one helluva monster rocker.

  Simon tipped his head back and chased him through the chords. His fingers cramped from disuse, but the muscle memory saved him. It was a favored song for them when they were fucking around and didn’t want to play their own music.

  Pretty damn often lately.

  He picked up the end of the song and Deacon’s bass voice growled along with him to the end. The miniscule quirk of Gray’s lips was the only sign he’d enjoyed himself. His hand hung over the belly of his guitar, the veins in his arms tight with how hard they’d played.

  The quiet clap drew everyone’s attention to the girl. She’d faded away in the height of the jam session. Simon wasn’t quite sure how. Obviously he’d been starved for music because women rarely fell off his radar no matter the circumstances.

  She was…pink.

  Pink wavy curls teased the tops of her more-than-a-mouthful sized breasts. Her hair darkened to a violent purple the closer it got to her scalp. Her face held an innocence under the heavy eye makeup. Heart-stopping innocence that lured a man into doing stupid things.

  But his brain shorted out as his gaze dropped to the short and lacy pink skirt over black and gray leggings. Black Docs with pink flames climbed her calves and hugged just below her knees.

  Christ, she had to be roasting. It hadn’t dropped below seventy tonight and the Fluff held onto steam better than a Chinese laundry. But she didn’t look uncomfortable. She was silent and cool as an ice cream cup. And just as tiny and lickable.

  He wouldn’t mind using his tongue as a spoon.

  She flashed him a look, her blue eyes as still as the middle of the ocean off the Monica pier. Too still. Too contained.

  Then she flashed him a wicked smile and winked before her attention skidded toward the door and its jangling bells.

  Simon muffled a groan. Christ, he didn’t need an insta-erection now. She was the kind of trouble he’d end up in jail for if he wasn’t careful. He hoped to hell she was legal or he was going to have to make himself scarce. Miss Pink was exactly the kind of trouble he hooked up with on a nightly basis, though his chicks were old enough to drink. Usually. And it wasn’t smart to fuck a girl that couldn’t be gone by morning.

  Simon tilted his head to find out what had shifted her focus from him to the door. Even knowing he’d never touch her, the slight was a slap.

  Nick. Always fucking Nick. Why did chicks dig his stone-face? Nowadays the bastard rarely smiled, yet he had women lining up to suck him off. Lined up—but not getting much action.

  Because Nick didn’t fucking see them. He was too lost in his own head.

  The room fell silent. The shuffling feet and scraping chairs instantly stilled. The click of a button on a pair of jeans in a dryer was the only sound.

  With a harsh drag of breath, Nick pitched aside his glowing cig—so much for giving up the smokes—in the dispenser by the door and stepped into the laundromat.

  Showtime.

  Three

  Nick: Taste Of Candy

  Gimme one taste

  so I can swallow you down and live on your moan.

  Nick had just walked in the door, and he wanted to walk right back out.

  But he didn’t. Instead he let his gaze bounce from face to face. Simon, sulky pout already in place. Deacon, expression wary. Then the kid he assumed was Gray, who didn’t look younger than them at all, not with eyes that haunted. And closest to the door, a pink-haired chick watched him with unabashed curiosity, the kind that killed cats and mindfucked men into paying attention.

  So was she the drummer or some groupie girlfriend of the guitarist? She almost looked a little too candy-slick to play. If she traded that dark red lipstick for bubble gum gloss and tugged up her low-cut tank top a little, she’d be ready for a nineties-style high school sleepover. A wrist full of bracelets clanged when she shoved her fingers through her hair, which was held back with glittery barrettes. Barrettes, for God’s sake. She was like a living anime doll.

  Nick’s gaze dropped, quite unintentionally. Did anime characters typically have tits like this babe’s? He’d walked in on Simon watching some freaky cartoon porn once or twice. Maybe he’d have to check some out himself. Had to be better than one-handing it under the covers while Deak sawed them off in the bunk above him.

  Without warning, the haunted-eyes guy with the ancient Gibson bobbed to his feet and stuck out a hand in Nick’s general direction. His gaze, however, rested on the watchful pink doll. She was practically small enough to steal.

  Not that Nick intended to try. He had his pick of cash-and-carry chicks, were he so inclined. He wasn’t. Sex wouldn’t cure his latest ailment—the destruction of his goddamn band.

  “Grayson Duffy,” the guitarist said in a voice that sounded as if it had been rubbed with gravel. The hand he held out never jumped, despite Nick not taking it. “You must be Nicky.”

  “Nick, yeah,” Nick replied coolly, cocking an eyebrow at Deak. He just shrugged. Calling him Nicky to outsiders? So that’s how they were playing things now. “Can I call you Gray or do you prefer son?”

  Evidently realizing Nick had forgotten his manners, Gray drew back his arm and wrapped his fingers around the neck of his guitar. “Gray’ll do.”

  Nick slid his gaze toward the pink princess. “She yours?”

  She started to reply, but Gray beat her to the punch. “Yeah, she is. So don’t fuck with her.”

  “Jesus, G.” She scuffed the toe of her boot across the dingy floor like she’d been chastised. Or maybe she was into that submissive crap.

  Nick raised a brow and glanced at Gray with new respect. “Define ‘don’t fuck with her’. What about if you’re there? Because we don’t mind sharing. We’re just that kind of band.” He made a show of walking over to slap Simon on the back, who promptly shoved him away. “This one especially. If you put it in front of him, he’ll nail it. And Pinky over there is just the kind of candy we like, right, Pretty Boy?”

  “Shut the hell up,” Deacon muttered. “Why do you always have to be such a dick?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Nick clutched his chest with mock concern. “I didn’t realize we had to roll out the red carpet. Someone should’ve warned me I was in the presence of rock royalty or something.” He looked back at the woman. Her expressive eyes and blush-prone skin did all the talking her lips didn’t. “How about you?” He stalked toward her, his boots thudding heavily over the cracked linoleum. “Are you offended by my crudeness?” He licked his lips. “Or intrigued?”

  Gray stepped between them and slammed a hand against Nick’s shoulder. “Back the fuck off. Got it? We didn’t come here for this. We
just want to play.” He looked back at the woman, and Nick registered the visible conflict twisting her features. “We don’t need this, Jazz.”

  “Jazz?” The word was out before he could stop himself. “What the hell kind of name’s that?”

  Now it was her turn to sneer, and she did it with a flash of her big blue eyes that would’ve turned him to stone in a second if he hadn’t had a dude’s fist about six inches from his windpipe. Gray hadn’t let him go yet. “Jasmine to you, asshole.”

  Nick laughed and lifted his hands, backing up deliberately from Gray. He couldn’t fault the guy for wanting to protect his woman. Especially this one. She looked like a wild weekend wrapped up in a gauzy layer of purity, the kind he’d happily rip to shreds with his teeth. By Monday morning she’d be walking funny, and he’d be cursing the name he couldn’t scour out of his brain.

  Jazz. It fit her. Quirky. Smoky like a dimly lit club. Insidious like carbon monoxide.

  “Jasmine what?” he asked, keeping his eyes on Gray in case her guard dog decided he didn’t like Nick getting too personal.

  “Edwards.” She rolled her shoulders like a boxer limbering up for a fight and pushed Gray out of her way, going toe-to-toe with Nick. She was a good foot shorter than him, but from her stance she didn’t care. “Look, why don’t we cut the bullshit and get down to it? Show me the kit and we’ll see how this goes.” She bent to remove her boots and socks, then rose and cocked a purple eyebrow. “We don’t have all night.”

  Nick took his time looking down her petite little body. He’d never had a foot fetish before, but he just might start tonight. “You always strip down at a session, darlin’?”

  “This is how I play.” She jiggled her boots impatiently. “Just show me the kit, wiseguy.”

  Finally her words sank in. He’d been so preoccupied by her wet-looking pink toenails that he’d lost the entire thread of the conversation. “The kit?” Great. “So you’re the fucking drummer.”

  Even knowing it was the most likely explanation for her presence, he’d still been holding out hope she was just Gray’s girlfriend. No such luck.

  “Yes, I’m the fucking drummer.” Jazz flashed him an acidic smile. “I presume you’re the fucking guitarist.”

  “One of,” Simon put in, grinning at Nick’s dark look.

  The door swung open and a blonde toting an empty laundry basket stopped dead at the sight of four glowering men and one glowering woman turning in her direction. The laundromat closed at eleven p.m., and usually by this time of night, the place was dead. She was the only one left other than the band and the newcomers, and from the way she hustled to get her clothes out of the dryers and into her basket, she was eager to get gone.

  Nick waited until the woman booked back out to the parking lot with her obviously still wet clothes. He ground his jaw the entire time. The constant motion matched the relentless clenching of Gray’s fist around his guitar as he burned holes in Nick’s skull with his glare. They watched each other like animals circling each other before a tussle over fresh meat. Clearly Gray thought Nick wanted his sweet little pink pussy.

  No can fucking do. Not before when he thought she was just Gray’s piece. Definitely not now when she was vying to be the next Snake and her hands didn’t even look big enough to hold a drumstick. Or anything that throbbed at just the sight of her licking those shiny lips.

  “So, Jazz, you’re a drummer, huh?” No one could ever say Nick wasn’t a master at stating the obvious, but he wasn’t capable of asking anything more pleasant.

  With a cute uptilt to her chin, she nodded. “I am. And a lyricist, and a keyboardist, and a guitarist when I have to be.”

  Nick couldn’t hold back his sneer. “Do you do cook and do laundry too?”

  “Nick—” Deak began, but Nick shook his head.

  “Oh, I know. The feminist movement is in full swing and this one’s marched her flaming boots right out of the kitchen and on stage with us. Boo-fucking-yah. I’m all for it. All I want to know is how you manage to wrap those tiny fingers around a pair of sticks.” He slanted a glance at Gray, who looked ready to eviscerate him with his guitar pick. “Unless you’re well used to manipulating that size.”

  Gray surprised the hell out of him by grinning. “Aww, you wanna see what I have to work with?” Gray grabbed his junk, an unexpectedly obscene gesture from a guy wearing a yuppie shirt that might as well have had an alligator on the pocket. “All you had to was ask nicely,” he added as Simon barked out a laugh.

  Nick silenced Simon’s laughter with a look, though Jazz had yet to stop giggling. The sound reminded him of windchimes, light and airy and completely out of place in that over-sanitized room of clanking machines. He walked over to the door and flipped the sign to closed, then thumbed the lock. Turning back, he gave the four of them a wide, easy smile. “Whaddaya say we put our money on the table right now?”

  Understanding, Simon dragged out the battered drums Snake had left behind from their hiding place. “Sure thing. We’re ready to roll.”

  Jazz’s slick red lips fell open. “That’s your kit? Are you fucking serious? I have a prime Sonor and you expect me to use that?”

  “Why, Ms. Edwards, I’d think a virtuoso such as yourself would understand that the musician makes the instrument, not the other way around.” Nick rubbed his hands together and walked toward the door at the back that led to their basement castle. “Two minutes,” he said before slamming the door behind him.

  The second it was shut, he dropped his head against the peeling white wood. Fucking A, now he’d done it. He hated dueling with other guitarists that weren’t Simon or Deak, which was a good part of the reason he was so resistant to working with new people.

  He wasn’t like the other guys who could sit down and play anywhere. His stage fright didn’t just occur on stage. He’d started smoking years ago in between sets to try to ease his nerves. It had never made sense to him how he could jam so easily with people he knew well and then completely freeze when he was around ones he didn’t. That little flaw was a serious impediment to Oblivion ever making the big time, and he knew it.

  Opportunity didn’t offer second chances. If he choked, he’d take his brothers with him. And that just couldn’t happen.

  Now he had to vet a guitarist and a drummer while feeling like he was auditioning himself. For his own freaking band. The band he’d started because who the hell else would have him but Simon, Deak and Snake? Who else wanted to deal with a lead guitarist who could play with the best of ‘em once the lights obscured the audience and the music drowned out their cheers—or boos, depending—but couldn’t play London-fucking-Bridge when he was one-on-one with someone new?

  Huffing out a breath, Nick shoved open the door that led outside instead of going downstairs to the basement. His big flipping mouth had gotten him into this mess, now he’d have to ante up.

  Except he was out of smokes. He’d even lit up the broken half, he’d been that desperate.

  He jogged to the convenience store next door and motioned toward the red and white cigs behind the counter. “Marbs.”

  The girl working the register didn’t comment on his purchase, though she’d encouraged him in his attempts to quit. They flirted every time he came in to buy his usual Big Gulp of lime soda mixed with orange, and he’d suggested they hang out one night after she got off work. Hang out meaning fuck, which he was reasonably sure she understood. That was probably why she hadn’t said yes yet. She knew he was in a band, and that lowered her interest instead of increased it.

  Tonight he wasn’t after innuendoes and sexy laughter mixed with shy glances under her lashes she thought he didn’t see. He wanted his smokes and the forty ounce beer he grabbed on impulse from the cooler. The guys would be pissed he hadn’t brought anything back for them, but too bad. Their own fault for cozying up to strangers.

  “Hey, Band Boy, how are you?” she asked, ringing up his purchase.

  Slapping down his money, Nick grunted in response to
her usual greeting.

  “Not so good, I guess.” She tapped the cigarettes and sighed. “You were doing so well.”

  “It’s just one night,” he muttered, grabbing his stuff before she could bag it.

  “Hey, Nick, wait—”

  He slammed through the door and kept going.

  Later he’d feel badly for being so abrupt with her. Right now he couldn’t rip open the pack of cigs fast enough. He pulled out the lucky lighter he habitually carried in his back pocket and lit up, then sucked in that first illicit breath of nicotine. It burned on its way down his throat, smoothing out the raw edges that made his fingers shake as he hauled in another drag.

  He flicked away ash and tipped back his head, viewing the churning sky through the lazy curls of smoke. A storm was moving in. He could smell it on the breeze, along with the sweet salt of the ocean and the proof of his own inadequacies veiling the air in front of his face.

  A few more puffs and he tossed aside the cigarette. Crushing it under the heel of his boot, he opened up the forty and downed some, using it to wash the taste of smoke out of his mouth. They’d all smell him the instant he came in the door, but at least he’d ditched the evidence.

  Once he was back in the basement, he shoved the pack between his mattress and box spring, right next to the spare strip of condoms he hid there to try not to be too obvious. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of women over—at least ones who weren’t into group action—due to the lack of privacy, but when he did invite someone over, he liked to give the illusion that he wasn’t an indiscriminate fuck-all. Unlike Simon, who practically had condoms hanging from the ceiling for easy access.

  On his way out, he grabbed his Epiphone. He had a Taylor just like Simon, but he wouldn’t give this impromptu session any more credence by pulling it out. The Taylor was his special guitar. Besides, he’d made it clear that in the right hands, any instrument got the job done.