Caught in the Glow (The Glower Chronicles Book 1) (12 page)

“I guess not,” I said. It’d been other things I’d been afraid I’d lose if I kept going. I stood up. “Is everyone back already?” It’d only been ten minutes.

Colin shook his head, his smile fading. “I just wanted to tell you I’m leaving.”

“Well, if you’re taking a walk, I’ll walk with you.”

“No,” he said. “I mean really leaving. We’re not getting anything decent done today.”

My gut twisted. “You’ve hardly been here an hour,” I said. “If you take off on people again and again, then—”

I hesitated, and he folded his arms over his chest. “Then?”

“Then maybe they stop showing up at all,” I said quietly.

His mouth flattened. He glanced behind him, checked that the sound out of the room was switched off, and then jerked the door shut with a click of the lock.

“Maybe I don’t want them showing up,” he said. “Maybe what I need is a better band.”

I didn’t think he’d have cared whether they heard him say that if he’d really meant it, but it seemed unwise to point that out. “This isn’t really about them, though, is it?” I said. “You’re pissed off because of that conversation with your parents.”

“It’s the band too,” Colin said with a twitch of his hand toward the live room. “The song isn’t
right
yet. I can hear it. It’s not
there.
But they all want to just lay it down with what we have and move on.”

“It’s not as if you’re carving it into stone,” I said. “You can always leave it as a rough cut and go back to it later when you’ve got a better idea of the shape of the album. People do that all the time. My dad sometimes re-recorded songs from scratch at the end of a session. It’s no big deal.”

Colin paused. “I guess,” he said. “I’ve never... The first album, we basically produced it ourselves. I didn’t have a label breathing down my neck.”

“Well, it’s still your music,” I said. “You still get a say. I don’t know exactly what’s in your contract, but unless your manager is a total incompetent, the label can’t just release whatever they want. And they’ll
want
you to be happy, because happy musicians give better PR. Do you really think they’d be putting up with the crap you’ve been pulling otherwise?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking suddenly sheepish. It was kind of an adorable look on him. My pulse fluttered.

“Probably not,” he admitted. He drew in a breath and released it slowly. I could see the tension easing out of his muscles beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt. But he lingered, as if he were dreading going back out. His gaze wandered around the room and back to me.

“Is that why you do this job?” he asked. “Because of your dad? Trying to save us unstable creative types from our self-destructive impulses?”

My smile tasted bittersweet. “That’s part of it.” You could claim that technically Dad’s death was all of it. The only reason I could fill this job was because of him, because I’d been there as the Glower stole the last of his soul. I didn’t know how any person could see something like that and not want to do everything in their power to stop it from happening to anyone ever again.

“I’m sorry,” Colin said. “I know I’ve been making the job more difficult for you.”

I smiled more easily at that. “It’s always difficult,” I said. “And this one
has
come with occasional perks...”

I couldn’t suppress the giddy feeling that tickled through me seeing the way his amber eyes brightened as I walked up to him, the way his lips quirked up. I didn’t
want
to suppress it. It was better to think about this, about the living boy in front of me, than about those long dead and gone. I set my hands carefully on Colin’s chest, just above his stomach, and tipped my head to catch his gaze again.

“You know,” I said, “that half hour break isn’t up yet, and you’ve spent most of it stressing out. I think you need to clear your head.”

His grin curved higher. “I don’t suppose you have some suggestions for how I could manage that?”

“Maybe one or two.” Being this close to him only made me more dizzy, but in a good way. And there were things I hadn’t gotten to do yesterday before we’d been interrupted.

I slid my hands to the bottom of his shirt and tugged it up. Colin helped me peel it off, watching me with hungry curiosity. Waiting to see what I would do next. I splayed my fingers against his bare skin, feeling the muscles tremor beneath my touch, breathing in piney aftershave and a salty-sweet smell that might have been soap or shampoo or just him. I thought about yesterday afternoon in the trailer.

Turnabout was fair play. I was at the perfect height to kiss his collarbone. I trailed my lips along it across the center of his chest, tasting the soft skin over hard bone, while I traced the silky firm planes of his abdomen with my hands. Colin made a rough noise in his throat. He brought his hands to my head, twining his fingers in my hair. Not directing, just following. His fingertips sent pleasant shivers through my scalp with each caress.

I bent my head to one of his small nipples, grazed it with my lips, and was rewarded with a ragged inhale. With a smile I suspected looked rather wicked, I closed my mouth around it, testing the pattern of his breath with the delicate scrap of my teeth, a slide of my tongue. Then I traveled across the wispy hairs of his sternum to repeat my experiment on the opposite side.

“Avery,” Colin muttered, his grip on my hair tightening, and offered an inarticulate sound when I pursed my mouth around the other nipple. I savored the feel of the nub against my tongue, the taste of his skin, that same salty-sweetness.

“Good?” I murmured, echoing his question from yesterday, and he groaned.

“You know what would be even better?” he said, and let go of my hair to catch my waist. As I raised my head, he spun us around, lifting me at the same time to brace my back against the wall. Our bodies conformed together, his hips holding mine in place. Then his mouth was crushing mine.

I kissed him back just as hard, my fingers intertwining behind his neck. His tongue licked into my mouth and out again, and mine chased after, mingling with his. His hands ran over my sides and under my shirt. He broke the connection of our lips just long enough to yank the shirt up and off. Then he was kissing me again, deep and needy. Every nerve in my body was singing. I didn’t know which I liked better, this fierceness or yesterday’s tenderness. I just knew I didn’t want it to stop.

My thighs tightened around his as he eased me off the wall, steadying me with a hand on my hip as the other found the clasp of my bra. With a practiced ease I didn’t let myself dwell on, he unhooked it and tugged it off too. We pressed against the wall again, bare against each other from head to waist. He shifted his weight, and the feel of his skin grazing my breasts made me whimper.

He kept his right hand on my thigh, thumb massaging in a loose semicircle, as the left slipped between us. His fingers traced around my breast teasingly, closer and closer to the point that was begging for contact. Then he snagged the nipple between his fingers, rolling it gently. I arched against him, moaning, and he clutched me tighter to him. To the hard length I could feel through his jeans and my leggings, flush against the core of me.

Colin released my lips to nibble down the side of my throat, trading hands to fondle my other breast. I grasped the hair at the top of his neck and tugged the way I had accidentally the first time we’d kissed. His hips jerked against mine with an electrifying pressure.

“Avery,” he said against my shoulder. “Avery.” As if he’d lost all capacity for speech except my name. A laugh escaped me, transforming into a gasp as he rolled his hips against me again. The room spun around us. His thumb ran along the waist of my leggings, hooking inside it by the small of my back.

“Can I...? Can we...?” he rasped, so desperate and wanting it stole my breath. I nodded, my head bowed to his, and he leaned in to capture my mouth with another kiss as he eased the clinging fabric down over my panties.

That was when the speaker near the ceiling crackled on.

“We’re reconvening in the live room to discuss a plan for the rest of the morning,” the producer’s voice hummed out. “Ready to join us, Colin?”

Colin’s hand stilled on my rear, and I tipped my head against the wall with a cringe. Thank God for soundproofed walls. Colin nuzzled his face against the side of my neck with a hoarse breath.

“We really need to pick our locations better,” he said, and the laugh that comment provoked softened my disappointment. I dropped my feet to the floor as he tugged my leggings back up.

“Or our timing,” I pointed out, letting my fingers trail down his chest one last time before I bent to pick up our discarded clothes. “Is your head clear?”

He chuckled as he walked to the intercom. “Of band drama, yeah. Now it’s full of you.”

“Well, go put that energy into your performance,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He shot me a look that seemed oddly startled before he pressed the talk button. “I’ll be out in a jiff,” he said. I wondered what the rest of the band had made of our disappearance, and then decided it didn’t matter. Because Colin was ambling back toward me, taking his tee from me and balling it in his hand as he leaned close for one more kiss.

“You’ll be watching?” he said.

“The whole time.” As Sterling had ordered. I watched Colin even now, as I reassembled my own outfit. Taking in the hesitation in his glance toward the door after he’d pulled on his shirt. The hint of tension creeping back into the set of his jaw. We’d been so close just a minute ago, and already I was losing him.

I stepped toward him, touching his arm. “Colin,” I said, and he looked at me. “You’re amazing. So this album is going to be amazing. Remember that, all right?”

11.

“S
o what’s good here?” Mom said, and I tried not to stare as emergent rock star Colin Ryder gave my mother ordering tips across the ivory restaurant tablecloth. I was still somewhat bewildered by this turn of events. Mom had called me while we were driving home, and as I’d been telling her I wasn’t sure when we could get together next, Colin had pointed out that he and I did need to eat dinner, and somehow that had ended with us arriving at a posh downtown establishment that had required Colin pull a blazer out of the car trunk to be allowed in—though I suspected he’d had to slip the maître de a sizeable tip to overlook the jeans.

I wouldn’t have pictured him hanging out in a place with polished silverware and vested wait staff, but he’d said this was one of his favorite restaurants. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to impress me or Mom, or maybe both of us.

Apparently Mom was already impressed. “Are you going for a similar sound with the new album?” she asked Colin after the waiter had taken our orders and glided off. “I thought your first was wonderful—there was an energy in it that too few new acts manage to capture these days.”

Colin grinned. “I’m honored to hear that. I know anyone who took the name Harmen has got to have good taste.”

“Oh.” Mom flushed a little, fidgeting with her fork. But before I could get out the words to change the subject, she brushed aside her feathered bangs and glanced up at him again. “You’re familiar with Roy’s work?”

“Sure,” Colin said. “My uncle was a big fan—he’s the one who gave me my first guitar and started teaching me to play. And I try to listen to anyone whose music was respected, regardless of the decade. If you don’t know your history, you end up writing the same stuff everyone’s already heard.”

A small smile crept across Mom’s face. “Roy used to say something a lot like that.”

“Hey,” Colin said, “he toured with the Stones once or twice, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Mom said, her smile brightening. “That was before we were even married—I was so worried they’d think I wasn’t ‘cool’ enough, the girlfriend tagging along and cramping his style—I wasn’t used to the life yet. If that kind of tour doesn’t prepare you for it, nothing will.”

Within a few minutes, he had her laughing as she told tales of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ backstage exploits, some of which Dad had gotten himself wrapped up in too. Some of which
I’d
never heard about. By the time we’d finished our appetizers, Colin had gotten it out of Mom that Dad had been close buddies with Eddie Vedder until an argument over pizza toppings, that she’d once helped Dad flee a hotel where his band had trashed the room, and that I’d conducted my first drum performance on his lap at age three as he guided my hands through the motions. Mom paused there, dapping a shrimp in the last bit of cocktail sauce, still smiling even though her eyes had gone misty.

“There were a lot of good times,” she said. “Can you excuse me for a minute? I think I’ll use the facilities before the main course comes out.”

Colin leaned back in his chair as he watched her go, and then glanced at me with a grin. “Your mom’s awesome,” he said.

I laughed. “I’m almost as surprised as you are.” Which wasn’t entirely true—I had always thought she was pretty awesome—but this was a side I hadn’t seen before. Maybe I shouldn’t have always been so careful about bringing up Dad. Maybe it was good for her to remember the times before everything had gone wrong. I hesitated, studying Colin before venturing, “Unlike your parents?”

“Ah, yeah. Like I told you before, they just don’t get music.” His tone was casual, but he shifted straighter, a stiffness creeping into his posture. “If it hadn’t been for my uncle... They thought all the lessons and practice were a waste of time. If I’d listened to them, I never would have tried to get into Rushfield.”

“That must be hard,” I said. Even though I didn’t play anymore, I couldn’t imagine loving music as much as I did and not being able to talk about it with Mom. “But now that you’ve proven it’s not a waste...?”

“They figure I got lucky. All they really look at is the cash that came with the deal.”

Like Joel had said. I must have grimaced, because Colin made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It’s fine. When you’ve always been struggling to make ends meet, it’s hard not to focus on the money. I get it. Hell, for the first few months after “Burning Starlight” took off, I had panic attacks about spending the earnings on anything that didn’t seem ‘necessary.’ I don’t mind sending some back home. The house needed work. They needed a break from stressing. I
want
them to be comfortable. I just...” He stopped, and for a moment I thought he was going to leave it there. He rubbed his mouth, contemplating the tabletop. Then he looked at me again. “It’s like somehow I stopped being their son. Or even a person. As far as they’re concerned, I’m an ATM.”