Nell rolled her eyes. “Amy. She called you, didn’t she? Or… Johnny did? For some ridiculous reason, no one thinks I can take care of myself when it comes to men.”
Rhys shrugged. “Both called, separately. They did ask me to look out for you if you showed up here. This rock star world can be a hard place, and your friends don’t want you getting hurt.”
They got their tea and coffee, and Rhys loaded a plate with scrambled eggs and waffles. “Should we go sit with Easy and Dice?” Nell asked, seeing that the two were sitting at an empty table together.
Rhys gave her a thoughtful look. “You know, let’s just sit over here for a bit. We can join them later.”
He wants to talk. “Okay. You might as well unload whatever’s on your mind.” She sat down at the unoccupied table nearest them. Letting him get the words out now is probably easier in the long run than trying to avoid the conversation.
He seemed a bit uncomfortable as he sat down next to her. Cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t even say anything if Amy hadn’t asked me about Easy and to watch out for you. But Amy’s my friend and she cares about you, so — here we are.”
“And I’m an adult woman with a relatively lethal physical skill set and no romantic illusions. What’s the concern?”
Rhys inched his chair away from her a little, maybe even unconsciously, and raised his hands in an I didn’t mean to offend you gesture. “You know Easy parties pretty hard, right?”
Seriously? “I’ve heard about the drugs and the groupies, but the worst he’s done around me is have a few drinks, and never to the point where it goes from fun to gross. So…”
“All I really have is gossip,” Rhys said. “It’s a whole other story, but I met the other guys right around the time Easy got kicked out, so I don’t know him first-hand. Maybe he’s changed from what he was, or the stories I’ve heard were exaggerated. I just hate to see anyone get their heart broken.”
“Someone acknowledging that I actually have a heart — that’s a novelty,” Nell said, with a bit more bitterness bleeding into her words than she’d intended. “Pretty sure it’s shatterproof, though.”
The actor gave her a long look, cynical but kind. “Shatterproof heart, huh? Well, if you’re just here for a good time and some mattress fun…”
His words hit a conversational lull in the dining room and carried.
Eamonn turned, plainly having heard. His eyes met hers.
Flipping hell. Nell scrambled for something to say that would defuse the moment, some way to deflect Rhys’s comment, and came up blank. It couldn’t be done. She’d never meant for there to be more than sex between her and Eamonn, but somehow, that wall had fallen — brushing him off as nothing but mattress fun would be cruel, and worse, it would be a lie. Time to live your values, Miss Whelan, she told herself. Integrity’s worth nothing if you bail out when it gets hard. “He’s more than that,” she said, her voice firm and clear. “So much more.” When feelings get involved, they leave a mess. But there it is. She stood up and walked out of the dining room, abandoning her tea, because she couldn’t deal for another moment with what she’d just admitted to herself in front of everyone. Feeling rattled, she compounded her embarrassment by bowing at the door as though she were leaving a dojang, not a dining room. Oh, craptastic. She fled.
Eamonn caught up to Nell in the courtyard. “You forgot your tea,” he said, holding the mug out — still hot and three-quarters full. She could see a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth.
“I abandoned my tea,” she clarified, but took it from him anyway. “Thank you.”
“So… you’ve caught feelings for me after all, Nella-bella?” His eyes were bright with intensity, blue as the sky and the pool.
She grimaced, feeling the heat of a blush wash over her. “I wasn’t planning on it, but yeah.”
“Is that so awful?” He held out his arms, cautiously, ready to hold her if she wanted to be held but letting her make that choice.
“No! I just — feelings are messy. I don’t see how we fit into each other’s life. I don’t want to get hurt. And yet…” She took a big sip of her tea, clinging to the mug with both hands, fighting an urge to throw herself into his embrace and use ridiculous words like mine and always. “I’ve only known you a couple of weeks, but I don’t want it to end.”
“It didn’t take weeks for me, or days, or even hours. I could swear I was struck by lightning the first moment I saw you in the Frog and Ball, sipping your Frosty Peach and reading your book. I felt like I’d been given the biggest gift in the world when you walked into the photocopier room at Wildforest. I won’t hurt your heart, lovely. We’ll find a way to make it work.”
“Yeah, that’s just chemistry.”
“Hey, if you can call it something more, so can I.” He gazed down at her with his eyes full of… something that was too much to put a name to at that moment. “Maybe it’s too soon to say I’m falling—”
“Please don’t. I like you more than I thought possible — more than I like most people, honestly. Let me get used to that idea for a while before you push it further, okay?”
“So… you’re not telling me never?”
“Go slow for me,” she said softly.
He bit his lip, nodded. “I can do that. And you? Believe in me. Believe my feelings for you are real and my intentions are good.” For a moment, there was something raw and almost pure in his face. Then, almost as if he knew it was bordering on too much for her, he arched one eyebrow and a flirty, dirty smile spread across his face. “Also, you can acknowledge that I’m the best lover you’ll have in this lifetime, gorgeous.”
After one split second of astonishment, she collapsed into laughter, to the point that he reached out to steady her tea mug before she spilled it. “Oh, you—”
“It wasn’t that funny,” he said after a minute, as she was still gasping with small snorts of disproportionate humor.
“No,” she said, wiping her eyes and straightening herself out, “I’m laughing because it’s too damn true.” And because laughing was close kin to crying, and his sense of humor clicked with something inside her and made her want to believe, and fall with him, and have it all. “I—”
Then Angel came crashing out of the dining room into the courtyard, on his phone, saying, “I’m sorry, what was that? I think I didn’t hear you clearly. You want us to perform with a local Gumdrop Conspiracy tribute band tomorrow? … Yes, I do have some concerns. … I’m wondering about their experience and professionalism, whether they’ve played a festival before, whether one rehearsal is enough for them to sync with us. … Well, it’s not what we signed on for, and I’m not seeing the benefit to us in risking—”
Nell swallowed the words she wasn’t sure she wanted to say anyway, as Eamonn turned toward Angel with a silent what’s going on gesture.
Angel waved at them to wait while he wrapped up his phone call. “Look, we’ll be happy to cover a Gumdrop Conspiracy song as a memorial for Giery during our set, and express our concern and best wishes for Redwell, but— … That’s right, we’re completely willing to go do our set solo if necessary. … Yes, I’d appreciate that. Looking at other options would be great. Thanks, let me know.” He ended the call and sighed.
“Gumdrop Conspiracy tribute band?” Eamonn asked.
“That was the organizer’s thought — it’s fantastic exposure for the band, I’m guessing the festival gets to pay them next to nothing, and we get stuck on stage with an unknown quantity who may or may not even know our songs. Well, they’re ‘looking at other options’ now, so we’ll see. And coming right after this morning’s disaster of a radio show…”
“Do you want to tell us what happened with that?” Nell asked, when Angel trailed off into grim recollection, staring into the depths of the swimming pool as though he’d like to drown someone in it.
“All the interviewer wanted to talk about was drugs. He started out with Giery’s car crash and death and how
drugs and partying were involved, and kept going at us about our history, needling Blade especially with hurtful questions, wanting to know if he was afraid of ending up like that. Blade lost it when the dude implied that Crys was getting cold feet about marrying him because of his past heroin use and asked if he was ashamed of his unborn child growing up knowing his father was an addict. It was pretty much chaos after that. None of the questions at any point were about music or performing.”
“Well, shit,” Eamonn said, though he didn’t seem surprised. “It’s not uncommon,” he explained in an undertone to Nell. “Unfortunately, ‘poke at Blade until he loses his shit’ is a popular game in some corners of the media.” His phone buzzed, and he glanced down at it, then looked puzzled. “Huh. Mom just texted ‘Cavalry is coming.’ Weird.”
Angel shrugged, with a no clue look on his face.
Eamonn typed something, then his phone buzzed again. “She says, ‘Stay where you are.’ No explanation. I hate it when she’s cryptic.” But he smiled affectionately all the same as he put the phone back in his pocket. “I guess I’ll have to wait and see.”
“Well, we’re not going anywhere this afternoon unless Time Rock gets us a new match in time to use our rehearsal slot,” Angel said. “No sense in dragging our asses over there if it’s just us. Maybe Mama Mandy is planning a visit.”
As they stood there, a coffee mug rocketed into the swimming pool and Blade stomped by them, glowering, his combat boots scraping on the tiles of the pool deck. Jed followed, saying, “Hey, man. Breathe, okay? They’ve said much worse before.”
The sound of a door opening on the upper level caught Nell’s attention. Crys shuffled out to the stairs and made her way down, barefoot and clearly fresh out of bed in a matching sleep set and robe printed with candy hearts, with a concerned Erva hovering behind her. Pregnancy looks flipping uncomfortable and exhausting, Nell thought, watching the younger woman struggle down the steps at a painfully slow top speed to get to her fiancé.
The two met as Crys reached the bottom of the stairs, and the tough, angry guitarist melted into his woman’s embrace, the fury bleeding out of him. They could barely make out his words, muffled against her, but it sounded like, “Know it’s not true, but I don’t like them talking about you that way.”
“Let’s just get married,” Crys suggested softly. Her words were only meant for Blade, but she spoke clearly enough that the sound carried. “I don’t need a fancy dress or a big event; I don’t need anything but you. Let’s just do it here, this weekend. Surely we can find a priest — or a judge or something?”
“I thought she wanted a wedding,” Nell said, but neither Eamonn nor Angel had been part of that conversation.
Angel shrugged, though an affectionate smile showed how much he cared for his friends. “They’ll figure it out, now that he’s calmed down. At least it was only a coffee cup in the pool — back before he met her, there would have been a big mess.”
“Learning self-control is a process,” Nell agreed.
Eamonn looked thoughtful. “You said she wanted a wedding.” He took a deep breath and strode over to Blade and Crys. “You know, Blade, if a lady wants a proper wedding, she should have one.”
Blade shot a hard glance at him, then turned his attention back to Crys, his expression softening. “Fuck. Yeah. You want a white dress and flowers and cake, sweetheart?”
Crys’s eyes met Nell’s, torn between two wishes — the young woman obviously loved Blade and was more than willing to get married without any of the usual attendant fuss, but there was a little gleam of longing in her face for something more memorable than just signing legal papers in front of a judge. And it didn’t seem fair to have to give that up, if one wanted it. “These things are not mutually exclusive,” Nell said firmly, and everyone turned to look at her. “Think about it. Shouldn’t be that hard to scare up a cake and a bouquet, even at short notice. And even a dress.”
“Really?” Crys asked, her whole expression lighting up. “I absolutely want to get married this weekend — now that we’ve decided, I want it more than anything — but it would be nice to feel like a bride.”
“Anything you want,” Blade said.
It struck Nell that she’d pretty much just volunteered herself as wedding coordinator. Flipping hell. I don’t even like weddings. But… “Okay. Crys, let’s talk to Sally and we’ll take it from there.”
Crys hugged her.
Angel’s phone rang.
The sound of a vehicle reached them from out front, followed by voices.
And then the gate opened and Amanda Joy Yarrow entered the courtyard in a blaze of magenta feathers, followed by a group of instantly recognizable older men.
The Bad Luck Opals.
A bizarre flutter of panic and excitement washed over Nell. She hadn’t cared in the slightest about meeting Smidge — they were famous, sure, and she’d heard their music on occasion, but she wasn’t a fan in whatever way those things were measured. She’d listen to Kamasi Washington or Cécile McLorin Salvant ahead of a rock band any day. But the Bad Luck Opals were something else, shooting her straight back to her teenage years, with posters on her walls and in her locker like every other girl. Mad Gilbert may have been her first love, but she’d had intense enough crushes on the Opals too.
It was almost unfair how much the same they looked, though silver threads streaked their hair and character lines creased their smiles and the corners of their eyes. Joel Bonamour had cut his hair short since those days, but the guitarist still had a flirty, soulful look and eyes that could melt hearts and panties. Drummer Rudy Matchett’s hair was more Morgan Freeman than Jimi Hendrix now, bassist Troy Turgen tipped a fedora over what was probably a receding hairline or bald spot, and keyboardist Carl Arascain’s once-fiery red mop had faded to thinning strawberry. Front man Keith Zamarron still rocked a full mane of long dark hair, as he always had, and his face still looked full of wicked fun as he grinned around at their surprise. There’s something familiar about him, Nell thought, but she couldn’t place it. Maybe it’s just memory. I stared at their posters enough, back then.
“Yes,” Angel was saying into his phone. “They’re here now. They just arrived at our hotel. … No, totally unexpected, we didn’t arrange it. … Huge honor indeed, I’m aware they’ve never been willing to play Time Rock, and I — … Of course we know some of their songs, not an issue at all. We’ll be ready for tomorrow. … Thanks.”
Eamonn showed no restraint at all in racing over to his mom and wrapping her in a hug before shaking hands with the Opals, who greeted him with kindness, saying things like “Nice to see you again, buddy,” and “Well, you’ve grown up some since we last had you backstage.”
Zamarron clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder and said, “Been following your career, Easy. Was a little worried last year, but it looks like things are good, yeah? You know you can call any time if you need anything — you don’t need to wait for Mandy to ask us.”
Angel joined them, letting Eamonn make the introductions, shaking hands and saying what an honor it was to meet them. Blade drifted over to join them, still holding Crys’s hand, looking awed in the presence of rock royalty. “It’s so cool to have a discography that spans over three decades,” he muttered.
“You guys’ll get there,” Zamarron said kindly.
“I understand from the festival organizers that you’ve stepped in to fill the gap left by Gumdrop Conspiracy’s tragedy,” Angel said. “That’s incredibly kind, especially when you’ve never been willing to play Time Rock before.”
Zamarron shrugged. “Time Rock doesn’t give guarantees about a match-up. Not all younger bands are… professional.”
Matchett chuckled. “What Zam means is he’s always been afraid we’d get paired with some hopeless, unrehearsed, drug-addled mess. Our time is too valuable to come out here for that.”
“It’s a good thing you lot aren’t on that road anymore,” Bonamour added. It wasn’t c
lear whether he meant their own band history or having to perform with the rolling disaster that Gumdrop Conspiracy had become.
“Anyway, I’m told there’s a rehearsal space booked for us at the venue this afternoon,” Zamarron said. “D’you know anything about the security situation and crowds before we head up there?”
Angel shook his head. “Not sure, to be honest. This is our first run at Time Rock too. But we could just jam here instead — got the whole place to ourselves. Would that suit better?”
The Opals nodded, looking at each other to group-confirm the plan.
“I like it. I’ll have someone bring our instruments over.” Then Zamarron cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “Now, any chance us weary travelers could get some coffee while we wait for those instruments to arrive?”
He looks so familiar, Nell thought again — and it clicked. He was dark where Eamonn was fair, but the eyebrows were identical. Flipping hell.
Fortunately, Eamonn had already moved to lead the way to the coffee station in the reception area, and Zamarron’s arm was around his shoulder, the other men following. But Nell’s eyes met Mandy’s, and the older woman froze for a fraction of a moment before slowly approaching. She must know. And she saw that I… saw it. But Eamonn?
“So nice to see you again, honey,” Mandy said, and quite unexpectedly wrapped Nell in a hug.
After everyone had been supplied with their beverage of choice and the Bad Luck Opals’ instruments had arrived, the two bands sequestered themselves in a conference room next to the dining room to figure out their set lists and practice together.
Mandy Yarrow unwound her giant feather boa to expose a sequined vest and tailored white satin capris. “Is there somewhere I can put this? Feathers are fun for making an entrance, but a bit inconvenient after that.”
“Come up and put it in our room,” Nell offered. So Mandy followed her up the stairs and into room 20 to deposit her armful of magenta feathers on top of the dresser.
Rock God in Exile (Smidge Book 2) Page 28