As they reached the edge of the pool, Sally said, “Everybody, this is Nell.” Then she waved a hand toward the women in the pool, pointing them out in turn. “Kimmy, with the piercings, is our drum tech. Ruby is our monitor engineer. I did her hair — isn’t it pretty? And Trish is the tour accountant.”
“Come on in,” said Trish, with a trace of an English accent in her voice. “The water’s lovely.” Nell stepped into the pool and sat down on one of the higher steps, keeping her freshly-inked shoulder well out of the water.
Sally wriggled out of her overall shorts and t-shirt, revealing a shimmering metallic Wonder Woman bikini that did an impressive job of lifting and supporting and enhancing her spectacular curves. A sparkling gem twinkled in her pierced belly button. “I love that this place has a pool!” She made her way to the deep end, where she dove in and swam the length of the pool to the shallow end to join the other women. Smidgettes?
“So, you’re dating Easy?” Ruby asked, almost at once. “Actually dating him, not just casual fucking?”
“Ruby!” Trish exclaimed, with a we don’t ask that kind of question look.
Nell shrugged. “I don’t mind. We are exclusively dating each other, but it’s just a fun time. I mean, I don’t have any illusions. I don’t expect it to last.”
“Why not?” Crys asked, from the deck of the pool. Nell hadn’t seen her approach. The others made space for her and she eased her way into a sitting position in the water, adjusting her maternity tankini — black with pink polka dots — over her belly.
Because nothing lasts, Nell thought. Got to grab life while it’s good. A shiver ran over her spine and she pushed away the thought of things ending with Eamonn. It wasn’t reasonable to feel tragic about the inevitable; he was there for a good time, nothing more, and so was she. “Our lives are too different,” she said. “There’s nothing practical keeping us together. Why would someone like him keep someone like me around?”
Sally laughed. “You’d make a fantastic bodyguard, for starters. I saw how you split up that fight. But I agree, not all relationships need to be one-way tickets to the wedding zone — ugh — no offense, Crys!”
“We wouldn’t be in such a drama about it if this unexpected blessing hadn’t come along.” Crys gave her belly a pat and rub, as if cuddling or comforting the little one inside it. “I thought we’d have at least a year to plan and get used to each other, but now I’m trying to decide if I want my wedding pictures to have a baby bump or an infant in them, and I’m running out of time.”
“You know I think before is best,” Trish said. “You won’t be much in the mood for a party once the baby comes.”
“But who wants to look like a white whale getting married?” Ruby wrinkled her nose, then covered her mouth with a hand as she realized how that sounded. “You totally don’t look like a whale, Crys, truly!”
“Didn’t Erva say her sister got married after her baby was born and leaked milk through her gown?” Kimmy looked around. “Where is Erva, anyway?”
“Having a nap,” said Sally. “She was on the bus that broke down yesterday; they were really late getting in. Erva’s one of the lighting crew,” she explained in an aside to Nell.
Crys sighed, swishing her hands back and forth in the water, watching the ripples. “Do you think I could find a dress that would even fit me like this?”
“Honestly, honey, you won’t have to find a dress. Just decide what you want, and Blade’ll fly in a designer to create something beautiful and unique for you,” Sally assured her. “You know I’ve got connections, rising stars who’d drop anything to work on a wedding dress for the Smidge guitarist’s bride-to-be. I can see you in something delicate and lacy — maybe Tasha Antrova?”
As the talk of designers and dresses swirled around her, Nell tuned out, thinking instead about Sally saying she’d make a fantastic bodyguard. It’s true; I would. She’d enjoyed taking charge of Eamonn in the airport, scanning the space around them, prepared for anything. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to travel with a rock band, wearing a t-shirt that said SECURITY instead of business casual blouses or taekwondo whites. She’d sleep on tour buses and in hotels with pools, travel the world, and no two days would ever be the same.
But then reality reasserted itself. That’s ridiculous. She’d never cope with the lack of routine. She needed her tidy apartment with its cactus on the table and rank certificates on the wall. And what about her training? This was supposed to be her year, her serious run at getting her red letters. Taking a shot at the World Champion title would take a phenomenal effort, but she’d never been more fit and had already talked to Master Simran about the coaching and strategy she’d need for it, assuming she could get a good enough job to pay for the extra training and travel. There was definitely no room in that picture for rambling around with rock stars in an unpredictable way.
“How much longer do I have to keep this plastic covering on my tattoo?” she asked Trish quietly, figuring the accountant would know since she had such a huge back piece.
Trish peered at the wrapping on Nell’s shoulder. “Nice lettering. Ghostflower’s work?”
“You know her?”
“I know of her, enough to recognize her style, and I’ve met her a couple of times at after-parties and such. I like my traditional ink, but she does beautiful blackwork and watercolor work. Anyway, I had mine done before these waterproof wraps were a thing, but three to five days is what I’ve heard. You don’t have too much seepage so you could probably take it off soon-ish.”
“Mum wants me to make things legal at the courthouse and keep it quiet so she can tell her friends we got married before anything happened,” Crys was saying to the others. “But I do want a wedding.”
“Your mother’s a trip,” Sally replied, her voice kind, as she put a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder.
Kimmy leaned toward them, obviously horrified at the thought. “You deserve a proper romantic wedding, Crys,” she said firmly. “Whenever it happens.”
All this talk of weddings… Nell tried not to roll her eyes. She’d never been able to understand why people wanted such a show, such a circus of silly outfits and public promises. What was the point? Commitment was commitment, and you either had it or you didn’t — to a person, to a job, to a goal. An exchange of rings and flowery words wouldn’t hold someone who didn’t want to be there.
The man Nell and Eamonn had met on the way in, the one who’d said he didn’t want to get involved, came over to the side of the pool. “You want to get dressed for dinner, Ruby?” he asked. “It’s almost six.”
“Coming, sweet man,” Ruby said, getting out of the water at once.
“Thanks, Trick,” Kimmy added. “We were talking and lost track of time.”
The others chimed in with their thanks too. They all stood, dripping, splashing, and helped Crys to her feet before leaving the pool to find their towels. “The dining room’s in there,” Sally told Nell, pointing to a pair of French doors, just as a man in a white dress shirt and tie — a waiter? — opened them from inside. “We eat at six, so hurry down as soon as you’re dressed.”
Eamonn was back in their room when Nell got there. “Hey, lovely,” he said when she walked in. His voice lilted with happiness, his face full of light and joy despite the stitches in his lip and the bruise developing in dramatic shades of purple and blue around his left eye. “How was the pool?”
“Nice, refreshing. How was…?” She wasn’t sure quite what to call it. A writing session? A reunion? Bonding?
He grinned. “Amazing. They’re so talented. We could have gone on and on. ‘Reaching for Starlight’ has so much potential, I can’t even believe it. My words, Nell! And then I told them I’d started a little doodle about getting tattooed the other day, so we worked on that one a bit too. Getting inked today, gonna be okay / Scratch of the needle, love that feeling…” He sang under his breath, so pleased with the world.
Again, she could feel him slipping away from her, back into the rock star life he’d come from.
She peeled off her wet bathing suit and dashed into the shower, rinsing off as quickly as she could. Dinner’s at six, and punctuality is an element of discipline. If she focused on that, there’d be no time to think too much about the future.
But as she hurried out of the shower, drying herself as she went, she walked slap into him — or maybe he deliberately placed himself in her path and wrapped his arms around her when they collided. “I was having fun, but I missed you,” he said into her ear.
Every particle of air in the room went dry and developed a static charge.
She felt acutely naked, wrapped only in an unsecured and slipping towel, pressed against the fully dressed length of him. She could feel the metal ridges of his rings against the bare skin of her back, the denim of his jeans rough against her thighs below the edge of the towel.
I have to get dressed, she tried to say, but it came out as, “Umm...” He smells so good. For a moment, she nuzzled against him, inhaling and reveling in the contact and contrasts as his hands caressed her back then slid down inside the towel to cup her buttocks and play at the top of the cleft there.
He bent his head to lick and nip at the tender skin of her neck, just below one ear. “Nell,” he said on a breath that was almost a growl, “do you want me?”
“But… dinner…” she managed to choke out, though everything in her was crying yes.
“You don’t think I can make you come in under five minutes?” he asked with a wanton chuckle, his voice thick with urgency, his breath warm on her ear. “Because I totally can. And we’ll still get to dinner on time. You up for it?”
“Yes. Oh, yes!”
“Good.” With a quick tug, he had the towel on the floor, and in the next moment her back was against the nearest wall and he was on his knees in front of her, gazing up at her like she was something glorious and delicious and perfect, the rising sun and doughnuts and a really awesome song all in one.
Without breaking eye contact, he raised one of her legs to hook over his shoulder, stroking her inner thigh with teasing fingers — it should have been awkward, too intimate, too much, but he’d already proved to her how good he was with his tongue, and all she could think of was the pleasure he would give her. Until now, she’d never fully understood the line in Rocky Horror Picture Show about shivering with anticipation.
“I was kind of afraid you wouldn’t like the rocker side of me so much.” He ran the knuckles of his other hand lightly over her most sensitive flesh, spreading the slippery wetness around, using his rings to make her gasp. “Doesn’t seem to be a problem, does it? Fuck me, you’re lovely.” Then he took a firm grip of her hips and leaned in like he was eating an ice cream cone, licking and sucking until she moaned and squirmed and was utterly dependent on the wall to stay upright. And it wasn’t five minutes, wasn’t even two minutes before she came right to the edge of a whole galaxy of swirling bliss, teetering on the precipice, left frustrated and wanting as he pulled away. “Hold on,” he murmured, “hold on,” and she didn’t know if he was talking to her or to himself as he surged to his feet, fumbling to open his pants with fingers made clumsy by urgency.
I’d help, but if I let go of this wall, my legs won’t hold me. The thought fused in her brain and didn’t translate to her mouth. “Eamonn, Eamonn,” she heard herself saying.
Then his cock was jutting free of his pants and he was ripping open a condom packet, every passing second unbearable until he lifted her up and gasped, “Legs around my waist, Nella-bella. I want to do you against the wall until we both see stars.” He pushed into her, filling her, big and hot and hard, as his mouth sought hers in a deep, wet kiss that demanded her total surrender. It barely took a couple of thrusts before the bliss she’d felt before swirled around her again, and this time it spiraled up to consume them both in an infinite ocean of starry darkness.
They slid down the wall together — had his knees buckled? — and ended up in a sated heap on the floor. “Wow,” she sighed. “That was so amazing, I wanted it to go on forever…”
“I could get used to the idea of forever with you,” he said against her skin, softly enough that she couldn’t be sure of what she’d heard.
Those words were still echoing in Nell’s mind as she and Eamonn entered the dining room. I could get used to the idea of forever with you. Had he really said it? No such thing as a forever partner, she reminded herself, but I’d sure like to keep him for a while.
It was still a few minutes before six — as he’d promised, they’d made it on time — but the dining room was nearly full. The dozen round tables were elegantly set with crisp white linens and silver bowls of roses, contrasting sharply with the pierced and tattooed crew who filled the chairs, not fancy at all in their jeans and crew shirts, some with shaved heads and others with bandanas or ponytails. A gradual hush fell over the room as one after the other, they noticed Eamonn, until all eyes were on him as he made his way over to the table where the band sat, with two vacant chairs clearly saved for him and Nell. Acknowledging with an ironic grin that he was the cause of the silence, he waved a greeting to the crew before turning away to take his seat at the table. “Well, they’ve all realized I’m here, now,” he said in an undertone to Nell as he pulled out the chair next to Sally and gestured for her to sit. He was about to lower himself into the remaining vacant seat when the dark-haired man on the other side of him stood and held out a hand to shake. He didn’t have quite the same rock-and-roll air as the others — he looked almost preppy in a soft blue Henley and jeans that were neither ripped nor tight.
“Hi, I’m Rhys Davies. Stage name’s Risk,” said the man, with a tentative but friendly smile. The replacement bassist. Amy’s friend.
For a split second, Nell could see Eamonn’s reflexive desire to retreat into his usual armor and shield of being an ass, to refuse the offered hand and respond with something offensive or sardonic. But then he took a breath and reached out, shaking Rhys’s hand firmly, if briefly. “Easy Yarrow,” he said.
“I know.” Then Rhys reddened. “I mean—”
“It’s okay,” Eamonn said. “This is my girlfriend Nell.” So Rhys reached across and shook her hand too.
I think you know my friend Amy, Nell wanted to say, but it didn’t seem to be the right moment with the entire room watching them. “Nice to meet you. Let’s sit?” she suggested. They did, at which point the hum of conversation picked back up in the rest of the room. The show was over.
That explained the staring and silence, at any rate. It wasn’t just that Easy was back; the crew had known his replacement was present and must have been waiting for a confrontation, some kind of dramatic scene. There’d been enough drama earlier that Nell felt glad neither man seemed inclined to give anyone more to gossip about.
“So, does the crew always eat with the band?” she asked Sally, mostly to make conversation and draw attention away from the two bassists sitting side by side.
Sally shook her head. “Depends where we are, but usually, no. Since we booked out the whole place, though, Rancho Rosal offered us a nice rate on meals for everyone. Saves us from having to bring in other food for the crew, keeps their kitchen staff and servers working, and it would be silly for a handful of people to sit in here eating with linens and silverware while everyone else was out in the courtyard with takeout boxes.”
“Our crew gets taken care of, one way or another,” Angel added from across the table. “Some of them tell stories about other tours where they were just handed their per diem money and had to fend for themselves at whatever truck stop or gas station they passed through, even getting left behind if they weren’t back in time, but Phil — our road manager — always has a plan to make sure everyone eats properly and gets on the buses before they roll. And then Sally is basically everybody’s big sister, and Jed was an ER nurse before he came to us so he’s in charge of… well, you saw hi
m fix Easy up.”
“It’s like a big road family,” Dice put in. “Every family’s got a few skeletons and hard-to-handle relatives, but we make it work.”
Nell thought of Donnie. That’s some skeleton. But families dealt with all kinds of things, didn’t they? She could see why Eamonn had missed them.
The table fell silent again as one of the servers came around, placing a basket of breadsticks on the table and then cups of soup in front of everyone — some kind of spicy corn chowder.
Rhys was watching all of them with an amused look on his face. “Maybe we should just talk about the elephant in the room, huh? One band doesn’t need two bassists.”
“Later,” Angel said, in a firm tone that didn’t allow for argument. “We’ll talk upstairs after this.” It was very much a not in front of the children sort of thing, but Nell thought he was right — it wasn’t a conversation to have with listening ears around, even their crew. If she had questions about staffing or who got what teaching hours at the dojang, she wouldn’t ask about it in front of the students either, no matter how much she cared about them or wanted them to succeed.
Dinner after that was pleasant but not exactly comfortable. Crys kept looking anxiously from Rhys to Eamonn and sometimes over at Angel, and even with Blade’s arm around her, she seemed tense. Sally made bright conversation about Time Rock and the band that was set to share the stage with Smidge — Gumdrop Conspiracy had been at their peak in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Their glory days were already fading before Nell had reached high school; Crys, who had to be almost a decade younger, looked blank at the mention of them although she nodded when Sally mentioned their big hits “Sugar All Around” and “Green-Eyed Annie,” both of which had been extensively sampled and covered by newer bands. Dice drummed on the edge of the table and said he didn’t think one joint rehearsal session would be enough.
Rock God in Exile (Smidge Book 2) Page 26