Rock Angel (Rock Angel Series Book 1) (26 page)

He regarded her warmly. “I like you, too. What did you think, that I’d stop liking you because I made love to you?”

“No, but…” She paused, then shrugged. “It’s fine. We’re good. You’re a nice guy, Dave.”

“Well, you’re a nice girl.” He winked, blew her a kiss, and then he was out the door.

She heard him go down the hall into the bathroom. She knew he was right; they’d be okay, but she still felt edgy and anxious. When her eyes went to the clock, she saw it was past noon and she realized she was late for her ’done. She sat up, unwinding the blankets from around herself, and heard the bathroom door open.

“Oh,” she heard Dave say. “Morning.”

A pause and then, “Afternoon.”

Quinn’s voice.

Shan gasped and fell back on the bed, flinging the blankets over her head.

When she finally got up, she peeked timidly into the hall. She saw it was empty and made a beeline for the bathroom. She scrubbed herself from head to toe, but she still felt dirty.

She went back to her room and dressed in capris and a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt, then regarded her bed. It was a rumpled mess mottled with suspicious stains. She pulled the sheets off, stuffing them into her wicker laundry basket. She wasn’t going to the Laundromat until Friday when Ty went and this was her only set, so she’d have to borrow some from Denise. She turned toward the open door and stopped.

Quinn was standing there, watching her.

“Oh…hi,” she said.

He didn’t reply right away. They regarded each other silently for a few moments.

Eventually he spoke. “So Dave stayed here last night.” It wasn’t a question.

“Um…yes,” she stammered. “We were up late, playing. I mean, practicing. He’s teaching me some new stuff.”

“I gathered as much. Did he teach you to suck it?” he inquired. “Suck it good?”

The blood slammed to her face. For a moment she couldn’t respond.

He cocked his head. “Well?”

She found her voice. “What’s it to you? I don’t comment on the multitudes of bar sluts you date, or whatever you call what you do with them.”

He didn’t respond right away, just regarded her with glacial eyes, and she noticed a white line around his mouth. He was clenching his teeth so hard it must hurt.

When Quinn spoke, his voice shook. “Fuck you,” he said, then vanished from the doorway.

Shan began to tremble.

Practice was torturous that day. Quinn was silent and withdrawn and glared at Shan sullenly, assuming an injured air whenever she spoke to him. “Julie’s gone?” she heard Ty ask him.

“Yup,” Quinn said without looking at him. “Flew out last night.”

“Good thing.” Dave chuckled. “You were becoming the Invisible Man.”

Quinn didn’t respond and remained uncharacteristically quiet. During a break he drifted outside. Shan followed and found him sitting under the sycamore tree, smoking a cigarette and gazing out over the creek bed. “Are you still mad at me?” she asked him.

“I’m not mad,” he said, staring at the water. “I just don’t have anything to say.”

“I’ve noticed,” she said tartly. “You’re not even criticizing my playing, for once. I thought you were so committed to not letting anything personal interfere with the band.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job,” she said. “You won’t even look at me.”

“No, I won’t,” he agreed. “That’s because the fucking sight of you is making me sick.”

His words impaled her. She stared at him, frozen.

Quinn blew out a lungful of smoke. “I wish you’d go back inside and leave me the fuck alone, Shan. I really wish you’d do that.”

Shan backed away, her eyes wide, then retreated into the house. When he came back inside, his face was completely blank. During the last hour of practice, he didn’t look at her. Not once.

When they were done, she approached him. “Can we talk now?” she asked. Ty had a date and had departed speedily, and Dan was disassembling his kit in preparation for a gig the next day.

“Nope,” Quinn said, busying himself winding chord.

Dave came back inside after loading his guitars and amp into his car. “Want to go for a bite?” he said to Shan.

She occasionally had dinner with Dave after practice, but tonight it didn’t seem like a good idea. Her eyes were on Quinn, watching as his fingers wound the cable tight. Too tight.

“Maybe not tonight…” she began.

“Well, did you want to hang out?” he asked. “I can go get a pizza and bring it back.”

Quinn stopped winding, standing stock still with the cable in his hands. He seemed coiled, ready to spring. “I changed my mind,” Shan said quickly. “Let’s go out for Chinese.” She took Dave’s arm and pushed him toward the door.

“Again? That’s what we had last night.”

“Indian, then,” she said, almost shoving him out the front door.

“Do you want to bring your guitar? We could go to my place and play for a while,” Quinn heard Dave ask as they got into his car. He lifted his head and glared after them with such murderous rage that Dan stopped breaking down the drums in midmotion.

“Man, you don’t look good,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Quinn said, the muscles in his throat tightening convulsively.

“No, you’re not,” Dan corrected him. “I know that look. You’d better chill out, dude.”

Quinn stared at him mutely for a moment. A bit of rational faculty seemed to be seeping through his fury. “A drink would help,” he said, dropping the cables.

Dan followed him into the kitchen. Denise was at the kitchen table reading a copy of
LA Weekly
, where she’d recently landed a part-time job as a contributing photographer. She looked up with a smile that faded when she saw the look on Quinn’s face. Quinn took out a bottle of tequila and sat down at the table, while Dan fetched a couple of shot glasses. When he turned back, he saw that Quinn was gulping the tequila from the bottle as if it were ginger ale.

Denise wrinkled her nose. “Quinn, don’t you want a glass?”

“This is fine,” Quinn replied, raising the bottle again.

Denise began to speak, but Dan placed a finger over his lips. “Why don’t you go watch TV, sweet stuff?” He gave her a little nudge and Denise acquiesced, taking the newspaper and withdrawing to the other room with a mystified expression.

When Quinn lowered the bottle, Dan slipped it out of his hand. “You know better than to guzzle Cuervo like that,” he admonished. “Here, try a little of this.” He sparked up a joint.

Quinn took three big hits before handing the joint back to Dan. They passed it back and forth, smoking silently until it was a smoldering roach.

Dan dropped it into an ashtray and examined Quinn, who now looked more fucked up than pissed off. “Want to talk about it?” Quinn stared at him blankly. Dan snorted. “Oh, please, dude. You look like you got run over by a freight train, just because your
roommate
is dating someone.”

“Not dating him,” Quinn corrected him sharply. “She’s fucking him.”

“I know.” Dan grimaced. “I heard. But that’s the main reason people date, in order to find somebody to fuck.
You
of all people ought to know that.”

“I’m going to kill that motherfucker,” Quinn said. “I’m going to reach down his throat and rip his balls out through his mouth.”

“Don’t talk crazy, man. This isn’t about Dazz. It’s got nothing to do with him.”

“It sure as shit does. That douche bag is doing my girl.”

“She’s not
your
girl,” Dan said, “and that’s nobody’s fault but your own. It’s a wonder she didn’t hook up with somebody a long time ago.”

“But why now, after all this time?”

“Maybe two weeks of having your little fuck friend shoved in her face was more than she could take. And how do you think she likes watching you leave with a different girl after every gig?”

Quinn stared at Dan coldly for a minute, then, “You might be right. Not about the band broads. She knows they don’t mean anything, but Julie might have got to her. She doesn’t mean anything to me either, though. None of them do, really.”

“Except for Shan, maybe?” Dan prompted.

Quinn rubbed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Except for Shan.” He removed his hand from his eyes. “Gimme another drink.”

Dan poured a couple of shots and slid one across the table. “Here’s to you, man. It takes a lot for you to admit that. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

Quinn drained the shot glass and set it on the table. “Do me another one, Danny.” Dan refilled and Quinn downed it. Now his expression was one of abject misery.

“What’s your problem now?” Dan asked.

“Now that douche bag has her and I didn’t want to lose her.” Quinn was beginning to slur his words.

“You haven’t,” Dan said. “You won’t. You can shoot Dazz right out of the saddle. You’re the one she wants. You know that. Shit, everybody knows that. Just tell her you love her.”

“I can’t,” Quinn said. “Not yet. Gimme ’nother shot.”

Dan poured. Tequila sloshed over the sides of the glasses. They gulped the shots and Dan let forth a copious, fiery tequila belch. “Why can’t you fucking tell her?”

“Because if I do,” Quinn said, swaying a little in his chair, “I’ll have to make some kind of fucking commitment to her. She won’t be happy any other way and I’m not ready for it.”

Dan gave him a look of supreme disgust. “You’re a stupid, stubborn fuck,” he observed. “You have an awesome girl that you’re crazy about. She’s crazy about you, too. Shit, she worships you. Some guys would give their left ball to have what you’ve got, but
you’re
whining about it.”

“But I like having a lot of
different
women. How do you expect me to settle for only one?”

Dan snorted drunkenly. “It’s not like you aren’t hot for her. You’ve been after her like a stag in rut ever since the first time you laid eyes on her.”

“I know,” Quinn said. “I can’t help it. She’s fucking hot, and she looks at me like I’m king of the world. Besides, you’re right. She’s awesome. My awesome girl. But she’s so young. Eighteen. Christ, she’s a baby.”

“Bullshit. Shan is hardly your average eighteen-year-old. She’s been on her own for years. And she’s been around the block—we all found that out last night.”

Quinn’s face twisted. “Don’t talk about it.”

“When she comes home, you should fuck her,” Dan advised. “Just fuck her, for Chrisssake. You might find out she’s enough for you.”

“You know why I don’t?” Quinn snagged the bottle away from Dan. “It’s because I know that when I get into that luscious little pussy of hers”—he held up his hand, his fingers forming a round
O
—“
then I’ll never fucking get out again
.” He snapped his fingers together, his hand clenching into a tight fist. “
Zap!
Just like a fuckin’ noose.”

He tilted the bottle to his face and took a long swallow, then set it down and stared into space. “I know it’s going to happen, sooner or later, and that’ll be that. I’m trying to put it off as long as I can. I figure there’s time, since she’s so young.”

“Maybe not as much time as you thought,” Dan said, “now that Dazzling Dave is in the picture. How is it that you didn’t see this coming? She’s exactly his type. More his than yours.”

Quinn scowled. “Guys hit on Shan all the time. I figured she’d turn him down, and I wanted Dazz because he’s perfect for the band. He’s absolutely the best rhythm guitar player I know, and I knew his style would mate well with Shan’s.”

Dan snorted. “I guess it mated better than you expected.”

“Could you shut the fuck up about it, please? I can’t stand to think of him touching her.” Quinn grabbed the bottle again and gulped at the dregs. When it was empty he pushed it aside and buried his face in his arms. He stayed that way for some time and, when he raised his head, his eyes had taken on a fuzzy dreaminess. “She’s so beautiful,” he said.

“She is,” Dan agreed.

“And she has a great feel to her. The softest skin, just like velvet. The only thing softer is her hair. All those crazy curls. They don’t look soft, do they? But they are. Soft as down. And those lips,” he continued, swaying a little. “I have
dreams
about those sexy…fucking…lips.” He pitched forward, his head landing on the table with a thud.

Dan struggled to his feet and staggered around the table. He lifted Quinn’s head and squinted into his face, then smacked his cheek. “Q? Wake up, dude.” No response. He gave him a good shake, catching the edge of the table as he stumbled and almost fell over himself. “Come on, man. You want to spend the night in the kitchen?”

Quinn mumbled inaudibly. Dan hauled him to his feet. Supporting Quinn’s long, sagging frame against his own less than steady one, he struggled to relocate him to the living room.

Denise looked up from the recliner where she was cozily wrapped in a blanket watching television, her eyes widening as she watched her fiancé careen across the room and collapse on the couch with Quinn braced in his arms. They landed in a heap and didn’t move again.

When Shan came downstairs the next morning, only Dan was snoring on the couch. She went in search of Quinn, encountering Denise in the kitchen. “Have you seen Q?”

“He was up and out early,” Denise said. “Be glad you missed him. He looked mean as a rattlesnake. He must have a godawful hangover.” She didn’t speak again until Shan took her methadone, got some coffee, and sat down at the table. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, come on,” Denise said. “It’s about time you found a man, and Dave is
cute!
He’s nice, too, and a guitar player, so you have a lot in common. Who cares what Quinn thinks?”

“I do,” Shan replied. “He was so weird at practice, then I found him passed out on the couch when I got home last night. Q never gets drunk like that.”

“So what? You’ve wasted enough time on him. I’m glad to see you’re finally moving on.”

“I’m not, really.” Shan sighed. “I can’t believe I even did this.”

“Neither can I,” Denise admitted, “and neither can Quinn, judging from his state last night. Why did you? I mean, after all this time.”

Shan lowered her eyes. “We snorted some coke,” she said after a moment.