Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (76 page)

The first verse was ending when she felt it.

A buzz of energy swirled around her, its warmth sinking like sunshine on a spring day into her limbs, relaxing her vocal cords, and drawing the song from her lungs.

In her version of her father’s cover, instead of playing the bridge, she’d substituted a rest and hummed what had originally been a lyric line. The variation had come about spontaneously late one night before the documentary clip when Gage was drilling the song into her. At the time, the truth was her inexperience caused problems with the chord change. It worked with the song as the verse was sung as a man, and substituting woman in the lyrics broke the smoothness of the melody. Jax had been enthusiastic about keeping it that way through recording. Jax had flown in, arriving in time for rehearsal and had after one listen to Gage humming along with her encouraged that version for tonight’s performance.

The second she reached that part, and she and Gage began the hum, she experienced confusion. It was a few seconds before she realized the vague distortion she was picking up was the audience humming it! Thousands of voices carried to the starry heavens above and tapered off as Gage picked up the instrumental, the drums pattered again, and she was off to the chorus.

When the song ended and the accolades began, the energy rivaled an electrical storm. A breeze blew her hair about her face, and the fine hairs of her neck stood. The rush was like nothing she’d ever felt. No moment in her life equaled it. No synthetic substance in her limited experience had induced near the level of pleasure. In fact, if this flash in time was a drug, she’d be strung out as surely as anyone with chemical addictions.

She turned to Gage for his reaction, but he wasn’t there. It was then she saw he was hanging back and she had center stage to herself.

“Thank you.” The screams and whistles continued. Her gratuitous words and humble bow of her head came naturally. “Thank you. You’re great!”

She looked behind to Gage again and saw him give a polite wave toward the crowd as he exited. Landon was already gone. With a last ‘thank you,’ she reached for her necklace, holding it as she sprinted offstage.

A floating sensation combined with the world whirling around. Gage was smiling up into her face. Laughing, she braced her hands on his shoulders. “That was incredible!” she breathed as he gave her one last whirl and set her on her feet.

“Told you!” He grinned.

“Scarla! You were amazing. You
are
amazing!” Arms snaked around her waist and neck, and her eyes widened taking in the fact that Colt was here.

Just beyond the wall that hid them, the crowd was still wild as if coaxing an encore. But of course, she had none… this time. With that thought, she realized she was accepting a fate that had always been inevitable.

Ivy moved in for a hug, and when Colt backed off, Scarlette caught his brief, subtle movement. A caress down Ivy’s bare back and the pocket of her jeans.

As a group, they herded down the stairs and into a tent that she soon found was Fire Flight’s lounging area while they waited for their set to begin.

Her senses remained attuned to any interaction between her best friend and Gage’s best friend. Surely, in a moment of delirium she had imagined what she’d seen.

“Is Bradley with you?” Sipping the drink Gage had put in her hand, Scarlette tried to sound casual as she grilled Ivy.

“He’s on location, as usual.” Ivy twisted a wry smile.

Colt and Gage were within earshot, and Scarlette was sure she didn’t imagine the ripple across Colt’s expression when hearing the name of Ivy’s on-again, off-again live-in lover.

“You rocked it, Scarla!” Like Colt, Seth still mostly referred to her as Scarla as that’s how she’d been introduced and known to them initially. Recognizing the teen’s voice, she turned in time to connect a high five and then a fist bump with his outstretched hand.

Directly behind Seth, his mother strolled in his wake. Caroline wore a knockout sexy rocker chick dress—and wore it well. At times like this, it was impossible to believe she was the mother of a teenager. She came directly to Scarlette and enfolded her in a hug. “You blew them away, girl!”

During the next hour, while they waited for Fire Flight to take the stage, Scarlette noticed after an initial hello, Caroline and Ivy stayed on opposite sides of the room. Colt greeted his son and soon disappeared, presumably to his dressing room.

Jax stopped by with a bottle of champagne and praises, but explained he had to catch a plane directly back to The States. She was flattered he’d come personally, as busy as she knew he was. Over the last couple of weeks, she had figured out she’d accidentally filtered Jewelstone emails so that they never landed in her inbox. This is why she hadn’t known of her song charting.

Gage seemed to be having a good time reconnecting with his old bandmates, and she even caught him laughing it up with the new guitarist who had taken Colt’s place so Colt could move into Gage’s place. She hung out for a bit, but after almost an hour of having to juggle between Ivy and Caroline, she whispered to Gage that she was retiring to her own dressing room until Fire Flight’s show.

It wasn’t until much later in the wee hours of the morning when all hell broke loose.

“Hey.” Gage pulled her along
with him and she followed his lead when he began to dance. Only a casual, fraternal hand rested on her waist.

“Hey.” She smiled, knowing she had been wearing a goofy grin all evening. Sometimes, like now, it widened.

Fire Flight’s after-show party had thus far been insane. And she didn’t mind secretly adopting it as her own proxy after-show party. The private lounge on one of the top floors of the hotel had a magical view of the city lights, and mutually, they steered toward a window, looking out as they danced.

“We’ve got a room here. If that’s cool.”

Their rooms with Rattler were booked in a hotel a half hour away.

She nodded, enjoying the thump of her heart. Celebrating privately with Gage would be the perfect end to the best night of her life. “How did you manage that?”

“Fire Flight always books a whole floor so it can be locked off. This usually leaves extra rooms. I asked Ben if I could have one.”

“What about Jimal?”

“No threesomes tonight.”

“Tonight?” Mockingly, she arched her brows.

“Ever.” The word was a firm growl.

It was easy to agree to a night in a room together away from Rattler, especially with him looking at her like that. She never gave another thought to her bodyguard. She was learning. Jimal would do whatever it was bodyguards did when their clients decided on a whim to hookup and bang their brains out all night.

They danced some more. Had a few more drinks. And then she looked for Ivy to say goodbye. When her friend was nowhere to be found, she retrieved the champagne she had stashed with the bartender. Gage seemed to be in the same dilemma with finding Colt. Caroline had completely opted out of the party, probably making sure her teen was safe in a room instead of sneaking into his father’s band’s party.

Clutching her liquid celebratory gift by the box handle, she made her way to the door as Gage said his goodbyes and shook Ben’s hand with a grateful smile.

“Should we have left together?” She worried as they traversed the hall toward the elevator.

G
age restrained his fingers from massaging the worried furrow between her brows. “If Ben even gave it a second thought, I’m sure he assumes I’m walking you to the lobby to meet your car.” They stopped, and he reached for the button that would summon the elevator. “Do you still think about it a lot? What others will think? Besides Rattler. I know they’re douches.”

Swinging the weight of the champagne box, she considered. “I don’t think so. But Gage…” She looked up at him, and his breath stopped when he read the solemn seriousness of her features. “I don’t want to make a decision while we are on tour. This is like a different world. Almost a non-reality. I want to wait to think about everything when we’re back in our world. The one we have to live in.”

‘Decision about
us
. Think about
us
.’ He mentally filled in the ‘us’ she was careful not to say. He could accept that. At least she was no longer shaking her head an emphatic no any time a hint of the subject of the two of them was broached.

The elevator waited, and they stepped in. He slid the card into the security slot, and brushed a thumb along her bottom lip when the doors had safely closed.

When the doors slid open on Fire Flight’s floor, he paused, checking the room numbers, and then indicated a hallway with his chin. Jimal trailed a respectful distance behind. Gage took advantage of the empty hall and reached for her hand, but immediately dropped it when raised voices carried down the passageway.

“I don’t care anymore!” The woman’s screech bounced around the corner.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Colt. That was definitely Colt.

Gage exchanged a look with Scarlette, and their steps slowed, unwilling to intrude on whatever was going on down the hallway that bisected this main one.

“Yeah, you do. You’re playing dumb. You always have. It’s easier for you that way.” The woman again, and when Scarlette’s chin popped up, her eyes meeting his again, he knew she had recognized that voice too. Caroline.

The panel eyelevel on the wall indicated their room number was in the line of fire. He stopped before the intersection of the hallways, and when Scar silently did too, he knew she comprehended the dilemma.

“Caro, I haven’t ever… You and me, we’ve never…”

“You know what I’ve never? I’ve never told you there
wasn’t
anyone when there
was
! Which is what you did
that
night. When that
clearly
wasn’t the case!”

“What night is she talking about?” A third voice piped up.

Scarlette somehow stumbled over her own stationary feet and caught the wall. His hand shot out, catching her as well, and he understood. His head was reeling as well, recognizing the third voice.

“What night are you talking about?” A repeat of the question by the third party, seemingly directed this time at Caroline.

And the inquisitor?

Ivy
.

“Tell her!” Caroline bit out. “I’m out of here, soon as I can get Seth up and packed. And I’m done, Colt.
Done
. I’m moving back home to Carlsbad. Seth is old enough to choose where he wants to live.”

“Caroline…”

“I’ll respect his choice. You’re a decent dad, even if you’re a shitty son of a bitch." Caroline’s voice was growing closer with every word.

Unconsciously, he had moved closer. What he saw was Caroline, arms crossed over her chest, her head down sprinting away from Colt and Ivy, and toward him and Scarlett.

Colt swung his attention from Ivy to Caroline until Ivy gave him a push and a nod toward his baby mama. Colt hesitated only a second more and then ran, his long legs intercepting Caroline in no time.

Gage grabbed a bottle
of water—his third—from the mini fridge and twisted the top. What he really wanted was anything alcoholic. But he’d had his two drinks at the Fire Flight after party. And the third drink, his max in any social situation, he was saving for that rose champagne Scarlette had been lugging around all night. He eyed the bottle, now chilling in the room’s ice bucket. Would she want to carry on with their celebration plans when she returned?