by Lisa Gillis
Going into Sash’s room, I wake her, giving her the tea. I wait until some of the drowsiness clears from her eyes and implore, “Take a shower with me…”
My heart pounds when she immediately smiles and brushes against me for a hug as she swings out of bed and stands.
Stealthily, we traipse the hall to the bathroom, and once we’re closed inside, I start the water. I drop my tee shirt, sweatpants, socks, and briefs to the floor, greedily eying her as her clothing mingles with mine.
We step over the side of the tub. After I wet my head, she reaches up, fingering with a feather touch the skin above my brow. “You sure you’re supposed to get that wet?”
I’ve forgotten about the wound on my face and the skin bonding glue, but as I do the math in my head, I realize it’s been three days, and that’s all that had been required to keep it dry. I’m about to tease her and fake a freak-out, like the gash may pop open at any second, when the beauty of her sleek wet body distracts me.
It isn’t normal for either Sladen or Mark to be up and about until mid-morning. Sladen pretty much opens shop when he gets there since few people schedule tattoos before noon. Mark has no morning classes. Hell, I sometimes wonder if he has any classes. He rarely studies that I notice.
So when the bathroom door opening creates a noticeable draft just as Sash and I are getting started. I instinctively swing my body, hoping through the frosty shower curtain her silhouette is hidden, sandwiched between the back shower wall and me.
“Sorry, dude. I’ll just be a sec.” Mark speaks as a steady flow hits the toilet basin. “Hey, you think I can borrow your bike tomorrow? I’ve got to…”
His voice fades to a garble as Sash licks my collarbone and closes her fingers around me. I drop my surprised gaze, and she tips a devilish smile.
“…so I’d owe you, man.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” I answer, fighting a guttural groan as I lean into Sash.
“Thanks!” The toilet flushes, and he apologizes for scorching me. “Oops, sorry, man.
I wait until I see over the shower curtain the room is empty and the door is closed before closing both hands on two of Sash’s finest curves.
“You bad, bad girl… that was so wrong…” I drop my tongue to a slick, wet shoulder. “On so many levels…” I find more to lick.
A combination of a laugh and a groan leaves her lips… And it is in that moment we become public.
“Sash?”
Again, Mark’s presence causes my body to go automatically into shelter mode, and I freeze in place, willing him away, but knowing we aren’t going to get off that easily. Even in that early moment, the inflection in his voice when he says her name alerts me that something is off about the situation.
“You’re fucking him?” The door widens, and he moves back into the room.
“Mark, go. Please.”
“You’re going to mess everything up. Why would you?”
“Please, Mar..?”
“Yeah. Fine.” An accompanying slam rattles the wall.
Sash pushes at me, and I step back, eyeing her face as I try to get a handle on this new development in our fledgling relationship.
“This is why I didn’t want him to know.” She tips her head into the shower spray, then without meeting my eyes, brushes her hands over her face. “I knew he wouldn’t understand.”
“Why?” I’m speaking to her back as she steps onto the fluffy blue bathmat. “Why wouldn’t he understand?”
I’m standing in the tub, the shower still running, watching her run a towel over her lovely limbs and then wrap it around her exquisite torso.
“He just doesn’t. He’s got some issues.” She scoops the clothing from the floor, which had probably been our dead giveaway.
“Why?” I know I’m repeating the interrogative, but she’s brushing off my questions.
She drops the laundry into a corner tote that we use as a hamper, then pivots toward me and takes the two steps between us. Standing on tiptoe, she braces her palms on my shoulders, using them as leverage as she places a quick, yet tender kiss on my lips. So fast, I barely have time to bend enough to meet her halfway.
“I’ll explain everything, okay?” And with that, she exits.
Practice for the next couple of days is grueling. We’d had a couple of jam sessions earlier in the week, but they were short. The band makes up for Sash being sick a couple of days and then her non-date night.
Saturday night’s gig will be at a larger than our norm club about a two hour drive away. As if the neighbors have become accustomed to too many days of peace and quiet in a row, one of them calls the local law enforcement on us around ten thirty Friday night.
As shitty luck would have it, I’m the one who sprints down to the first floor and answers the door. I suffer a mini heart attack when I see uniformed officers on the porch. It is kind of a relief to find they have only come calling for a disturbance of the peace complaint.
I’m not sure why I freaked. I’m eighteen. It’s not as if the police are going to pick me up as a runaway or something. But still it makes me jumpy enough that when we resume practice at a lower decibel with Mark beating his drumsticks on padded heads, I continually mess up.
“Really, Trey? Again?” Sash flings her hands out and her guitar goes silent.
I shrug. Sash’s antics no longer bother me. In fact, I have to control the urge to kiss that “Really” off her lips until she’s saying something I want to hear.
Without dropping the beat, Mark intervenes. “Maybe if he wasn’t staring at your ass he could get it right.”
So far, she hasn’t explained what the deal is with her and Mark. By the way he’s acting, I’m assuming the two of them either went out at one time, or she turned him down. Because he’s seriously being a douche to me. He didn’t even borrow the motorcycle as he’d asked to.
I want to whirl around and smash him with the guitar, but instead I grin as if I don’t interpret that comment as a dick slur. “He’s right.” I lock gazes with Sash. “I was totally staring at your ass.”
Readjusting my fingers on the frets, I move in close to her until my guitar is almost touching hers. With a challenge-accepted spark in her eyes, Sash begins to play again.
Now that we’re official, I’ve slept in her room the last couple of nights, and I can’t wait until when this practice is finished to retire to her room tonight.
My fingers fly across frets and onto strings and Sash is right there with me in perfect sync—as if our axes are banging out more than music.
“That’s it! That’s it, all right!” Sladen moves in to join our jam. Unlike Mark, he couldn’t be happier that Sash and I are together.
Chapter 31
Bottle Boy
Jack clicked the replay icon and settled his headphones more comfortably. There seemed to be only one video uploaded that included the new guitarist of Splynter.
His father had been right. The band was better with the addition, but only because of the talents of this particular guitarist. He didn’t just add to their sound, he brought something unique—a denser rock layer. The beauty of her voice was complimented—even contrasted—beautifully by a heavier beat.
Playing the video again, however, wasn’t giving him a better look at the kid. It was hard to assess his stage presence when he was off to the side and the person videoing seemed only interested in the vocalist.
Stopping the video, he gave up and typed ‘Splynter Guitar Player’ into the search window.
‘Splynter Guitarist Hit By Bottle.’
Clicking on the video, he watched.
Like the other video, the camera had been centered on their singer, but it veered left after a few seconds of the clip. Sure enough, the guitarist buckled to his knees and then he hit the floor. At that point, the focus zoomed in. The singer came into the frame, blocking the inert body from the recording angle when she leaned over him.
Damn kids throwing crap at band members these days. He hoped the kid was al
l right.
“Hey, Jack?” Mariss’ voice drifted into the family room from the kitchen.
“Yeah?”
“June is stuck on her homework. And I wouldn’t bug you about it. I know you did it yesterday… But can you? Please?”
“Sure. Be right there.” He closed the laptop. “But seriously, Mariss. We need to check on that school. She’s in Kindergarten. She shouldn’t have homework.”
“That’s just what they do now.”
Same conversation, every other day since September.
Chapter 32
Emily arrives
FROM: Tristan
SUBJECT: NONE
Remember those Christmas song recordings Pop Pop and JuJu put together? Fun times. Love, T
The dressing room in tonight’s venue is our first clue as to the quality of the establishment. It will be Splynter’s first appearance here, and since we’ve arrived through the back, we haven’t glimpsed yet where we will be playing. But I’m expecting good things based on the total of sold out tickets, the neighborhood that our ratty band van doesn’t belong in, the tiled floor, drywall, and nice furnishings of this room. And the complementary tub of iced drinks we found waiting.
Sladen’s iPod is docked in portable speakers, and we are singing to every song on the current playlist as we drink and dress.
I’m trying to be professional, draw a freaking line between personal relationships and the band to try and get off of Mark’s radar. So I turn away while Sash dresses, deliberately rummaging through my bag until she’s properly covered. Hell that’s not something I’d done before we were a thing. Sash always ripped off her clothing down to her undies in dressing rooms. Still, my effort doesn’t faze him. Anytime his eyes touch me, they’re icy.
An hour later on stage, I’m in my music zone, getting my swerve on. Mark is nothing to me except a beat to synch my chords to. I let down my guard and watch Sash as much as I please. Tonight, instead of faded jeans and some sexy shirt, she’s rocking a red getup. Red jeans, razor cut, and a maroon blouse, which continually falls over one shoulder or the other.
Her heated look seeks me out, and she tips her head in a come-hither motion. I move in closer until our hands are almost brushing as they fly over the frets, like in practice the night before. Stepping back from the mic, she yells, “Do the next chorus with me!”
“You mean sing?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
She gives me a look I know well. One that always gets her, her way, and before I know it, I’m easing into the verse with her.
You’d think being a former rock star’s kid and two other former rock stars’ grandkid I would be no stranger to singing. But I’ve only sung into a mic a few times that I can remember. Once when my parents and I were goofing off in the studio, we all sang some song I was stuck on when I was five. And a few times at my grandparents’ studio, they rounded my cousins and me up for a sing along, which they recorded.
It’s terrifying. I force air through my voice box and regulate my stare beyond the bumps of heads directly in front of us to a neon beer sign across the room.
By the time the chorus winds up and the next verse begins, I’m feeling empowered. My body and soul tingles as if an anointment has occurred. The euphoria is almost sexual, and I wonder if it only feels this great because I’m sharing the mic with Sash.
When the song ends, I back away, and avert my gaze from our band members. I don’t even want to see what Mark makes of that.
We play our last song of the set and after Sash thanks our audience, we wave and file off the stage. There is a twenty-minute lapse before we will play three more songs to wind up the night. After taking a bathroom break, Sladen, Sash, and I debate on whether or not to go into the bar area. Noticing Mark is contributing nothing to this conversation, I look up, and it just happens. I’ll never remember the details.
He begins with some snide remark that ‘I’d screwed up on stage’ and says ‘maybe I should stay behind and practice while they have a drink.’ I hadn’t messed up, and I’m not taking any more of his shit so I come off with a retort.
Sash jumps into the verbal shouting match. When Mark gets into her face screaming, I shove him, and the brawl begins. I take a punch to my left jaw and my ribs and deliver two right back to the asshole before Sladen and Sash manage to get Mark and I separated. Sash jumping in to stop it resulted in the blow to my face. Instead of watching where the next fist was coming from, I was trying to make sure she didn’t get hurt.
“Fuck you, Duplei. Fuck you!” Mark yells.
I almost laugh because he never manages to come up with a clever insult and resorts to dropping the F-bomb.
Several minutes later, we end up in another scuffle as we take stage, and again Sladen drags him off me.
The anger fuels me and I blow the set away. Mark screws up a couple of times but we power through it. We close down with goodbyes, and now that my brain is able to think, I want answers.
I want to know what the hell is between Mark and Sash—past and present—that he is acting this way. My questions are put on hold again.
Standing in the tiny hallway is a well-dressed attractive woman who looks to be in her forties.
“Great show, guys. And girls.” She smiles. After our chorused thanks, she falls into step beside us. “You must be Sash David.”
I notice Sash is suddenly attentive. She shoots a friendly smile, but because I know her body language so well, I feel the cautious wall that shoots up. It’s not more than a passing thought because the next words from the woman’s lips startle me.
“You must be Trey Duplei.”
“That’s me. Today anyway.” Maybe it’s wrong, but I often have fun with these types of comments when making small talk with strangers.
“Forgive me. I’m doing this backwards.” Her short perfectly cut, choppy, brunette layers swing around her chin as she fishes business cards from the wallet holding her cell phone. Passing one to each of us, she goes on. “I’m Emily Dodge. Would you have a minute to speak? I can have a drink while you guys get cleaned up. But I’m used to sweaty rock star meetings if it’s easier to fit me in now.”
She’s used to sweaty rock star meetings?
I had only glanced at the card thrust into my hand, but now I towel perspiration from around my eyelids and look at the colorful bit of cardboard a bit closer.
Outside our dressing room, Sash and I pause, Sladen looks to Sash and remains in the hall with us. Mark mutters something about taking a piss and enters, letting the door fall shut behind him.
Blinking my eyes, I squint at the words once more. If I’m not hallucinating when I read more slowly, then Emily Dodge is an AR for Edge!
“Of course!” Sash is the first to recover poise, and I know she also associated the woman as a scout with the major recording label. “If you’re all about the sweaty musician experience, then please allow us to serve it up.” Shooting one of her Sash smiles—a mixture of taunting and sweet innocence, she invites Emily Dodge inside our dressing room.
The next quarter of an hour is surreal. Emily confirms that she does represent Edge and that she’s been tracking Splynter on a few of the major social sites for a while. She doesn’t say how long a while is. She doesn’t go into too much detail about anything, other than how impressed she is with Splynter and each of us.
“Do you have a demo or a press kit?” Emily seems to have figured out Sash is our unofficial managing member and looks to her.
Sash nods and offers to fetch it. Splynter made a demo sometime back before I was in the picture, but we haven’t made a new one since. Mark by now is keen to be in on this discussion and has moved closer. Luckily, he’s calmed down and is letting Sash do the talking.
“If you don’t mind me saying,” Emily taps the demo against her trendy dress, “Trey is a wonderful addition to your lineup.”
I feel a blush creep up my neck—or maybe it’s the burning heat of the lasers shooting from Mark’s gaze.
I know I’m not imagining the way her eyes have continuously sought me out in the last several minutes.
Emily turns her attention fully on me with a question. “Is Trey Duplei your name, or a stage name?”
The odd feeling of a net dropping over my head—similar to a scene in some of the older stupid cartoons my sisters watch—has me squirming. Does she recognize me? And by me, of course, I mean a young Jack Storm.
Sash’s eyes narrow, and I know our closeness has made her able to read me like the open book she is to me.
Biting the inside of my lip, I use the distraction to calm down. “Why do you ask?”
She grins and resumes tapping her nails on the demo jacket. “It has a ring to it. I like it. Trey Duplei.”
She moves on to other things, and I relax in relief, downing the water I snagged earlier from the selection of drinks before sitting.
Emily gets ready to leave after getting our contact information into her phone. “It was nice meeting you all.” Here she looks from Sash to me. She shakes my hand and holds my gaze for what seems like a longer amount of time. Then with a glance at Mark and Sladen and a quick shake of their hands, she’s out the door.
Several silent seconds pass and then as if counting to ten, Sash jumps up and down, squealing. “Shit! Oh, fuck me damn shit! Edge fuckin’ studio!”
I’m already standing since I’d gotten up when Emily did.
After all, I’m a southern guy, and below the Bible belt, we’re taught since preschool to stand when women stand, to open doors for women and to walk them out.
So when Sash is dancing around, it’s natural somehow when she glides into me, and my arms fold around her frame right before I lift and swing her around. I can’t stop the goofy grin on my face. The emotion bubbling inside me is as much from watching her as it is from a visit from an ARC. She’s giggly and giddy when I balance her on her feet. I rock back on my heels, ignoring Mark’s malevolence and wondering at my actions. These things seem to be coming out of nowhere lately.