Rock Angel (Rock Angel Series Book 1) (22 page)

“Thanks. I haven’t heard yours yet, but Q’s been raving about you.”

“Yes, you have heard him,” Quinn said. “Dazzle’s on at least three of the CDs in your collection. He’s been a session sideman for years.” Quinn’s gaze shifted to the guitar cases on the floor beside Shan. “You’re not buying one of those cheap pieces of shit, are you?”

“It’s all I can afford until we start gigging,” she said, flushing when Dave chuckled.

Quinn pulled out his wallet. “Get a decent case,” he told her, handing her some bills. “You can owe me for it,” he added as she began to protest. “You shouldn’t fuck with that guitar.”

Shan hesitated, then shrugged and moved toward the counter.

Behind her, she heard Quinn talking to Dave. “All set for our first practice? I think the two of you will be dynamite together, if the chemistry is right.”

Shan glanced back over her shoulder. Dave was looking straight at her. “I look forward to exploring that,” he said, with a little smile.

Later that night, Shan and Quinn were back in his bedroom, fine-tuning the song they’d worked on the night before. After a couple of hours, they had an arrangement they were both pleased with, and they christened it “Echo Flats.”

“I’m done,” Shan announced at about eleven o’clock. Her hair was bundled into a knot and she pulled out the pencil she’d used to anchor it in place. “I have some ideas for lyrics, but let’s work on those tomorrow.” She shook her hair out and struck what she thought was a sexy position, tresses flowing over one shoulder.

Apparently it was, since Quinn reached for a handful of her curls. “Okay,” he said, winding his fingers through the ringlets. “I like that we’re back in the same city. Long-distance composing just doesn’t work.”

“I’m just happy we’re together again.” Her eyes met his. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.” He let go of her hair and stretched out on his back, lacing his hands together behind his head. She waited for a few moments, but he didn’t say anything more.

“I thought about you all the time while you were away,” she confessed. She shifted closer to kiss his cheek, then raised herself up on one arm to gaze down upon him.

He grinned amiably up at her. His hair was loose, spilling over the pillow like a splash of sunshine and his eyes looked blue as a summer sky. She’d never get used to it, how beautiful he was. She hesitated, then lowered her head to kiss him on the mouth.

His lips were pliant, but he didn’t exactly kiss her back and, when she lifted her head, she saw he was no longer smiling. “Angel,” he said softly, “what are you doing?”

His eyes were serious but, deep inside, she could see a glow, like a spark on the verge of flaring. Its promise fanned the warmth inside her. She took a deep breath and rolled on top of him.

She kissed him again and this time he pulled his hands from behind his head. Then his arms were around her, holding her tight, and she kissed him harder, opening her legs so she was astride him. When she felt his erection she arched against it, experiencing a throb deep in the pit of her groin.

He muttered and his hands found her ass, giving it one long, appreciative squeeze. Then he released her ass, took hold of her chin, and turned his face away. Shan’s tongue popped out of his mouth, flailing around like a sperm in search of an egg.

“Shan.” His voice was expressionless.

She pulled her chin out of his grasp and dove toward his chest, burying her face against the little bit of hair visible over the V-neck of his T-shirt. “Look at me, Shan.”

She hesitated for a moment, then raised her head.

“So now you want to fuck,” he said in the same bland tone. He could have been talking about the weather. “Is that it?”

How romantic.
She didn’t know what to say.

“Well?” He raised his eyebrows.

She could feel his erection between her legs, almost painfully hard. She knew he wanted her, no matter what he was saying, and that gave her courage. “Er…make love?”

“Whatever,” he said, still annoyingly expressionless. “You’ve changed your mind, then? We can screw each other’s brains out and, tomorrow, everything goes back to normal. No questions asked, no strings attached. Is that what you have in mind?”

She stared at him, eyes wide.
I love you,
she wanted to cry.
Please, please love me back.
She knew if she uttered a word that’s what she’d say, so instead she said nothing.

He continued to watch her for a beat, then, “Not a fucking chance.”

He twisted and she hit the bed with a thud. Her face burned. “All you have to do is say no. You don’t have to shove me off like I’m contagious.”

He rolled away so he was out of her reach. “Apparently I do. This is the same thing that happened last summer. I had to practically peel you off of me.”

“That was mutual, as I recall, and things are different now!”

“What’s changed?”

“We moved past the friend stage a while ago, but when you went back to school things were put on hold. So now that we’re together again, I thought…” her voice trailed off, because the look on his face was something approaching horror.

“I don’t know what you’ve been thinking,” he said, “but I never had any ideas beyond picking up where we left off and we left off as friends.”

A cold, hard knot was beginning to form in her stomach, displacing the liquid heat that had resided there just moments earlier. “I guess we left off in different places, then.”

“Oh, shit.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t do this to me, Shan. You know how I feel about attachments. I’ve been straight with you from day one.”

“But we have a connection. You said so yourself. I feel like I’ve been in a holding pattern.”

“A holding pattern?” He looked incredulous. “You don’t think I’ve been living like a monk since last summer, do you?”

She winced. “No. I know you better.”

“Good, because I haven’t. I care about you a lot, as a
friend,
but if you’re thinking we’re going to set up house here and live happily ever after, then you’d better think again. You have to stop bringing it up, too. It’ll affect our friendship if you don’t, if it hasn’t already.”

A wave of indignation burst through the pain his words had wrought. “You’re such a dick sometimes, Quinn. When have I ever brought this up before? But it’s there between us all the time. I thought the mature thing to do would be to get it out in the open.”

“Fine,” he said curtly. “It’s out in the open. And I don’t want to hear about it again.”

She scrambled off the bed and headed for the door. She slammed it with satisfying force, but the drama of her exit was cut short when she realized she’d left her guitar behind. She marched back into his room and snatched it up.

“Infant,” she heard him snort as she stormed out once again.

The next morning Shan woke in a foul mood. She was cranky and cross, and her back hurt. Since her futon still wasn’t set up, she’d spent the night in her sleeping bag. She took a long time showering and dressing in capris, flip-flops, and a blue halter top, but eventually her jones kicked in.

She went downstairs to the kitchen and dosed. Denise, Dan, and Ty were at the table, the guys sharing a post-breakfast joint while Denise marked up the Help Wanted section of the
Los Angeles Times
with a yellow highlighter. There was no sign of Quinn.

“There’s some eggs left on the stove,” Denise said. “What was all that racket last night?”

“I almost forgot what it was like listening to the two of you fight all the time,” Ty added. “Let’s try to keep it to a dull roar, okay? At least at bedtime.”

Shan escaped to the front porch, where she stopped dead. Quinn was outside, tinkering with his motorcycle. He glared at her and she retreated back into the house, her nose in the air. A few minutes later, she heard the roar of his engine as he departed.

Dan took Denise out job hunting shortly afterward, brightly annotated
Times
under her arm. A little while later, Ty poked his head into her room. “I’m headed into town. Do you want to come along?”

Shan declined politely, although she was low on shampoo. She was dangerously close to broke. Quinn had offered to cover the rent until they started working, but she’d refused, unwilling to accept his help again. Now, she supposed, it was just as well.

After Ty left, she surveyed her new bedroom. Space in the van had been precious, so Shan had left behind her bureau and most of the few other bits of furniture she owned. All she’d brought was her futon, the stool she used for practicing, and a small bookshelf.

She set about unpacking. She unrolled her futon and made it up with her only set of sheets. She emptied her various bags and boxes, stowing her clothes in the tiny closet under the eaves. She unpacked her library of books and CDs, set up her small boom box, and hung her posters of Dylan and the Dead and her Monet print. She arranged her remaining possessions on top of the bookshelf: her brush, a bottle of sandalwood blend, her jewelry box, a few other odds and ends.

Then she unwrapped a newspaper-swathed bundle. It contained two framed photographs. One was of her mother, which she set on top of the bookshelf. The other was the photograph of her and Quinn. She glowered and stuffed it back in the box, then shoved the box into the closet.

She went downstairs and wandered through the house, which was quiet as a tomb, not even the sound of a passing car to break its silence. She went to the back door to gaze out at the creek.

Coyote Creek, as Quinn had called it, was picturesque against the scrubby hills. A large, flat rock just downstream from the house captured Shan’s attention. There was a folding chair set up on the rock. A big California sycamore growing beside the creek cast some shade over it.

It looked like a nice place to play. She retrieved her guitar and headed downstream.

Hours later she was still there. It turned out to be a fine place for composing, her chords ringing sweet and silvery against the hillside. The music was demulcent for her troubled mind as she worked on the lyrics she’d conceived for “Echo Flats,” and she was so absorbed that she never heard the others when they returned.

Somehow I know I’m home though I’ve only just arrived

The way my feet meet the earth makes my body feel alive

I’ve been looking for a place, the place where I belong

And I think that place is here—I feel strong, strong, strong

Been a force of one forever, always on my own

But here at Echo Flats, I’m finally not alone

“Nice.”

She looked up, startled. Quinn was under the sycamore tree, listening.

“I like it,” he said. “A lot. I can really feel those lyrics.”

She didn’t reply, just kept playing. “I see how they’ve captivated you,” he continued. “I’ve been standing here for ten minutes. You didn’t even hear me come outside.”

She played louder, to drown him out. The notes were jarring in the quiet.

Quinn heaved a deep sigh and climbed onto the rock to sit down beside her chair. She stopped long enough to shoot him an unfriendly look, then began playing again.

He reached out and grabbed the neck of the guitar near the twelfth fret, effectively muting her. “Look, I get it, okay? I’m not stupid, you know, and I’m not completely insensitive, either. I see how it is between us.”

“And how is that?”

“We have this thing,” he said. “An attraction…connection…whatever you want to call it.”

She’d call it love, but she knew better than to say that.

“It’s intense, whatever it is,” he continued, “but you have to take it for what it is and not try to turn it into something more.”

She drew back. “What do you think I’m trying to turn it into?”

“You want a mate,” he told her. “Something stable. A home, probably a wedding someday—all that happily-ever-after jazz, and you want me to be the one to make it happen.”

“I’ve never said anything of the kind.
Never.
”

“You don’t have to say it. I just know, because I know you. And I can understand why that kind of security would be important to you. There’s never been a single solitary thing in your entire life that was safe and lasting, and that you could believe in.”

“There’s you,” she interjected softly, but he only looked sad.

“That isn’t who I am. I’d do almost anything for you, Shan, but I can’t do that. I’d end up hurting you and I couldn’t live with myself if I did. You’ve been hurt enough.”

She turned her face away again. “Why am I here, then?”

He took the hand holding the guitar pick and squeezed. “Because of the music, angel. It’s why we belong together and why I’m going to make damned sure that we stay together.”

“You don’t need me to make music.”

He smiled at her, although his eyes were still solemn. “I do, though. What you and I have—it’s magic. Extraordinary, like Becker and Fagen. Jagger and Richards.” She made a face and he laughed. “Garcia and Hunter?”

She smiled a little, in spite of herself. “Lennon and McCartney, you mean,” she said, the one songwriting team whose greatness they actually agreed upon.

He nodded. “Someday they’ll include Marshall and O’Hara in that lineup. We’re going to make it, the two of us together, and I’m not about to fuck that up just for a piece of ass.”

She lifted her chin. “Is that all it would be?”

“For me it would,” he said. “I mean, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be awesome. If I thought it was something you could handle, I’d do you in a second. For you, though…”

“I get it,” she said. “You’re saying you don’t want anything more than what we have and I couldn’t get by with anything less. You’re my family, Q. The only family I’ve got. So…”

“So we stay right where we are for now.”

She stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘for now’?”

“I mean that we’re friends, and roommates, and bandmates,” he said. “We leave it at that.”

“But you said ‘for now.’ Does that mean things might change?”

“I don’t have a fucking crystal ball,” he said, beginning to look irritated. “Who knows what will happen down the road?”

“But,” she persisted, “do you think that someday…”