Hitting the Right Notes (4 page)

She loved DaBlazers – they were like family to her. One does not choose family. They were born with the same DNA – rock music. Right now, her family made it clear that she had shamed them, failed them, betrayed them…
No, stop this pity party! He has betrayed you! You tried your best and failed. It’s ok. You have started anew. A. New. Life.

Not tonight!

It seemed that everyone now knew who she was. Everyone took a chance to approach her, talk to her, ask a few questions with a face which said “How come you still have not killed yourself after failing your rock star career?”

They even asked for autographs.
Strange. Who would care to have an autograph of a fallen star?
Darya could feel she was on edge. She thought she was going to explode as she saw Sid walking towards her with a smug smile. He was only a step away from her, his mouth already open, probably for another question about her life in miserable oblivion, when a young man threw himself between her and Sid, looking into her eyes with hope.

“Can I steal you for a dance? I noticed you are tired of talking already.” He smiled with a shy, honest smile and Darya thought for a moment there finally was someone who didn’t know her. She was glad for a chance to avoid Sid’s questions. He wasn’t going to ask anything unique and she had already given all the details about her boring existence to the other band members and some old friends.

“Sure,” she said, though she was not sure about anything. This could be another fan mad at her for quitting years ago, for all she knew. Though he looked young and sincere.

Never trust men!
Darya had to remind herself as his arms wrapped around her waist and relief washed over her. The tension of the past few days was gone. They danced and he spoke no words – just looked at her with his intense eyes.

Beautiful
.

That was all Darya’s mind could think of. Her thoughts seemed slightly clouded as his scent filled the air around them. He smelled a bit sweaty, as everyone usually does after a concert, but his cologne had slightly bitter, earthy and spicy scent, which brought her body to attention. His body radiated heat and comfort – something, that was bound to be very dangerous coming from an attractive young stranger.

“It’s nice to dance in silence,” she finally said without realizing that she simply wanted to hear his voice. It was low and husky – not a musician’s voice, but there was so much care in it.

“I dreamed about this for long,” he whispered in her ear, then, probably seeing confusion spreading on her face he added, “Since you entered the party. You looked like you needed some help there.” He jerked his jaw pointing at the guys of the band so casually as if they were just random guests at the party. That amused Darya. She loved thinking about themselves as normal people not some supernatural beings born to Rock ‘n Roll gods.

“Yeah, side effects of meeting… um… some
old friends
after years of separation. Too many questions. Most of them unpleasant.” She leaned her head onto his chest.

He was much taller and Darya liked feeling petit and protected by his strong arms. She wanted to feel his body, but also end the conversation until it got weird. His heart rose and fell under her touch and that felt soothing.
Almost magical.

“Thank you,” her words came in whisper. She felt strangely at ease in the company of this man. Darya was not used to feeling at ease her protective reflex immediately kicked into high gear. She needed to hurry and run away from him. She could not allow herself let her guard down with anyone, especially around people she didn’t know. He was a great distraction, but still he was a man and all her senses warned her to stay away. That’s what she at least tried to do.

“Hey D,” she felt Sid’s arms wrap around her pushing a bottle of beer into her hands.

“I’ve…um… had enough drinks for tonight.”

“Ouch. Never heard you say that before. Things are worse than the guys told me then. But I’ve got a surprise for you, sis, guess who promised to show up when he heard you are there?” Darya turned in horror to look into Sid’s eyes. Her mind of course imagined the worst and for once she was not mistaken.

She felt all the blood and heat leave her body in a blink of an eye. Darya just stood. The world fell silent around her, the moment froze, people disappeared.

“You can’t mean that…” something in her voice was disturbingly reminiscent of her young 25yearold self, who stood in the middle of their apartment with tears in her eyes and begged Jay not to leave, to give them another chance.

“C’mon Baby D. it’s been long enough, time for the two of you to sort out things. He’s doing pretty well in the industry, you know, mainly producing new bands. Might give you a chance to be back and…”

She could not take it anymore.

“Sid,” her voice was fierce for once and Sid froze. Drake and Ed were standing close enough to turn and stare at them with puzzled looks. “I’ve quit and I’m happy. You might think that I’m a loser – that’s your prerogative. But this world doesn’t have anything for me anymore.”

Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears so loud she thought her ears would explode. Darya was aware as never before that she could never be back to the world of music and would always have to deal with the pain inside her. She needed to put as much distance between her and everyone as possible.

Right now.

Her phone buzzed. For once, Kiara’s timing was perfect. She fished out her phone and hurried to the balcony to talk. She even loved her new life and the business world – however strange and regular it was. She grabbed the beer from Sid’s hand as she rushed out.

“Don’t worry, Mama Kiara, I’ll be back soon and yes, I remember about the meetings in the morning.” Darya was not going back yet, and what she really enjoyed was behaving as an irresponsible teenager, which was pretty close to her true self. She didn’t wait for Kiara’s answer and simply hang on her. She was paying her enough to afford such arrogance from time to time.

Darya didn’t hurry to go back inside. The night was pleasantly breezy. She’d get some air and think about an escape plan before diving back into the sea of rock stars and fans.

As it turned out she was not the only one hiding from the party. Why wasn’t she surprised to find
him
leaning over the railing and staring at her with his intense eyes? Why did her body cherish the feeling of being exposed to him? He felt familiar already after just a dance and at the same time he gave away vibes warning to stay away from him.

“Feels like you might need more rescuing tonight?” her handsome stranger said, making a step towards her. A step closer. Just a tiny bit, but she could already feel his warmth.

Darya smiled and let a daunting thought cross her mind – what if she let herself go crazy and spend the night with the beautiful stranger she had just met…away from Jay, away from rock world, away from her past and present. Just let herself capture this moment.

Darya eyed him considering the thought. There was a touch of shyness in him, but the awe in his eyes reassured her.

“Care to take a night walk in the city?”

Mastering the courage to ask him made her feel like a rock diva again.

Sneaking away from the party with a young stranger felt like an adventure in the making. Darya had always been a pro in performing stunts like that, yet lately most of her efforts had been directed to pissing off business people, which was enough fun to keep her busy, but this felt so much better.

He took her hand, leaned over, and looked into her eyes. No question. No rejection. No fear.

He closed his eyes and Darya’s heart skipped. No, this was not going to happen. She did want to know him better, but she had to remind herself that he was still a stranger, she had met him only half an hour before…how could she…how could he…but he was so close…his breath puffed on her face the fresh and spicy scent filled her. Darya knew she had to pull away, but her body resisted. Another moment and his lips covered hers in a tender caring kiss. He tasted sweet. No alcohol, which made Darya aware how drunk she was.

Was it a good idea to trust herself to a stranger who wasn’t even drunk? Would he forget everything in the morning? His lips caressed hers, his tongue slowly invaded her mouth – not in a kinky possessive way – it was all about tenderness and tiny tingly sensations which spread through her body. This felt so innocent, so young and naïve. And for once she loved it.

“Hi,” he locked her gaze to his immediately as they broke the kiss to breathe. It felt amazingly sweet. “I’m Eric,” a tiny nervous laughter escaped from his lips. “Guess I should’ve introduced before kissing you.”

“It’s fine. I’m D.” She wasn’t ready yet for her full name, just in case. Not that she didn’t trust him, but anonymity could be the theme for the night after the rough day of dealing with her past and current identities. In addition, it secured that no questions could be asked about her past. He seemed not to have a clue about it anyway.
He’s too young
, she thought and that amused her drunken brain.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Darya did think that the best outcome of the night would be just finding a hotel – hopefully not a very cheap one – and simply having mindless, relaxing sex. No strings attached. No more revelations except for the names – or initials in her case…
Keep it simple
– that was the plan for her.

Eric took another moment to drink whatever he found in her eyes, which seemed to startle him. Then he surprised her by taking her hand into his shaking, but warm hand, and brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them even more tenderly than he did her lips.

“How about we go and say hello to the city?” he asked grinning earnestly like a teenage boy.

“Sounds like fun,” she said, even though she had no idea what it meant.

Holding hands with him felt surreal. It had been a while since Darya tried the pure “dating” thing. She had no illusions about relationships any more, being a 40-year-old woman with enough failures on the love side, she knew better than to cherish any hopes. Still it felt good.

There was something really honest about Eric when he talked – he wasn’t acting or trying to be someone he was not. Yet, surprisingly, Darya had a feeling that something much deeper was hidden behind the intensity of those eyes. She was too drunk to think about it, so for her the idea was to simply have fun with as little thinking as possible.

It didn’t work that way – Eric was all about romance and philosophy. He talked how he ended up at the concert, traveling all the way to Wisconsin only because his best friends thought he had been stuck at him for too long.

“Those two think I’m their property – like a puppy or something – they can cuddly and take to walk and drag from a state to another to attend a concert.” Darya laughed. He did look like a sweet puppy and she wouldn’t mind cuddling with him.

And maybe licking his jaw.

The wicked thought shined in her mind, but she pushed it away – he was so sincere in his story that she believed no naughty thoughts could cross that mind. “I love DaBlazers, otherwise, they were not going to carry me out of home. No way.”

“Where are you from?”

He hesitated for a moment and Darya wasn’t sure why. First thought was probably he didn’t want to give away too much of personal details. Which was perfectly fine for her, she wasn’t going to do that either.

“Oakland,” he said finally.

Oh…Coincidence? Might he know who I am then?
Eventually she decided that it was a coincidence that both of them were from the same city and ended up at the concert in a different one. She made sure not to mention where she was from and he didn’t insist.

“It seems there’s some magic in your fingers,” Eric surprised her yet again. How did he manage to jump from one subject to a totally different one and make such sweet innocent comments about her? She didn’t want to discover the mystery behind his sweetness. There was no perfection and whatever he was hidden there had to be as humanly ugly as any other person’s story. Better not to dive into that.

“They could do some more magic,” she said huskily and her “magical” fingers lightly slid up and down his chest, traced his neck and jaw, and then up to his lips and nose. He planted tiny kisses when she touched his lips and that sent thousands tiny sensations through her body.

They walked a bit more and finally arrived to the place he was looking for – a tall building.

“We can go up here.”

“Oh. What are we gonna do there?”
Probably some kinky sex under the open sky. I wouldn’t mind, it’s been a while since I looked at the stars while at it.

If that was what Eric had on his mind, he kept it a secret from her and they went upstairs in silence only his thumb brushing lightly over her fingers, making her so aware of her desires.

It’s been awhile since she felt the endless freedom of walking on a rooftop. Having the city spread in front of her – lights glittering. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and Darya leaned over his body – trusting him against every instinct she had.

“Now it’s time to say hello,” he whispered into her ear. His breath puffed at her skin covering it in goose bumps. That felt beautiful.

“Hello Milwaukee!” he screamed, spreading his arms around. “It’s D. and Eric here. Nice to meet you!”

Darya laughed. It felt cute and fan. “C’mon, say hello.” He pushed her. Then they shouted together.

“Hey Milwaukee! We’re having a blast here. Keep shining below our feet.”

All the tension was gone and life felt so easy sitting on Eric’s lap, wrapped securely in his arms and talking while looking at the stars and the thousands of blazing lights of the city. She let her guard down and it felt perfect.

The most peaceful dawn awoke in front of her.

Sadly, the dawn also meant Kiara calling her to remind of the meeting.

“I’m heading to the hotel right now. Will see you in half an hour,” she told Kiara and her heart sank as she saw disappointment and understanding of the unavoidable farewell filling Eric’s eyes. She leaned over him to cover his lips in a farewell kiss. No words were needed.