Rock Angel (Rock Angel Series Book 1) (38 page)

Shan could see that Quinn was edgy as the tour commenced. Their first album had been successful beyond her dreams, but it would really be its follow-up that would define whether they’d emerge as a full-blown force in music or be relegated to the discount rack along with the rest of the one-hit wonders. The curse of the second album was a well-known phenomenon and they were all tense as the debut drew near.

They were back on the same bus with driver Fred who, surprisingly, took a shine to Sugaree. He invited her into his curtained driver compartment, a place none of the rest of them were permitted to enter, where she rode shotgun, ears streaming in the breeze and tail wagging from side to side. Dave had grumbled at the dog’s inclusion in their number, but her presence had such a positive impact upon Fred’s mood that his complaints died.

They kicked off with a headliner in San Diego, then moved on to Phoenix and Albuquerque. Next the band traveled to Morrison, Colorado, for a festival at Red Rocks where they appeared alongside Tori Amos, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains. They played Omaha, Topeka, and St. Louis, shared a bill with Cowboy Junkies in Lexington, Kentucky, and in mid-February headed for North Carolina to connect with Valentine, whom they were accompanying on the southeast leg of their US tour.

The two bands joined forces in Charlotte, where they performed before an enormous crowd, more than ten thousand people at a huge outdoor pavilion. The members of Quinntessence were greeted graciously by the headliners and Shan was thrilled to be appearing with one of her personal idols, Carole Grayson. She was tongue-tied each time they spoke, but there were few opportunities for conversation since each band traveled in an insular fashion with little crossover.

They sometimes fraternized after the bigger concerts, when Valentine would put out a sumptuous backstage spread for the press. “How come we don’t get food like this when we headline?” Dan asked Quinn after the Atlanta show, helping himself to a hefty portion of smoked salmon and crème fraïche on endive. Shan accepted a caviar canapé, grimacing when the unfamiliar flavor hit her palate. She looked around for a place to dispose of it.

“Because then we’d have to pay for it,” Quinn said, taking the canapé from Shan’s hand and munching it. “You want to blow our profits on fancy hors d’oeuvres?”

“Particularly when we’re happy to share, yes?” Shan looked around just in time to see Jerrika James lay her hand on Quinn’s bicep.

During the odd occasions when the bands mingled, Jerri and Quinn always seemed to find a lot to talk about. These conversations, accompanied by what seemed to Shan to be an inordinate amount of physical contact, had become a source of painful anxiety for her. Jerrika James was exactly Quinn’s flavor: tall, blond, and gorgeous. She was incredibly talented to boot, rock star royalty, and there was an unmistakable sexual vibe between them.

Shan could tell the attraction hadn’t been consummated yet. Quinn’s rules regarding women were basically unchanged. He confined his liaisons to hookups, casual encounters with nameless groupies who could be unceremoniously evicted once he was finished with them. Jerrika James would be something different, she knew, but she wasn’t sure exactly what form that difference would take.

Her distress over the flirtation was briefly eclipsed when
Quinntessence: Odyssey
was released in February and became an overnight smash, selling nearly a million copies during the first week of its release. The single “Wanderlust” debuted at number forty-two, then leap-frogged into the top ten. When it landed at number six, the label launched its preplanned follow-up, a hard-rocking piece titled “Chasing the Dream.” This one did even better, debuting in the top twenty, moving up quickly, and coming to rest at number four.

Shan’s head was spinning. The critics were raving,
Rolling Stone
lauding them as one of the most talented American bands in decades.
Spin
concurred, stating that the enormous promise displayed in
Innocence
was achieved, even surpassed, by
Odyssey
. Shan was often singled out, her dense and slashing guitar solos and soulful vocals earning near universal acclaim, but the rest of the band received enormous praise as well, especially Quinn, widely acknowledged as the musical pulse behind Quinntessence.

On the twenty-fifth of February Lorraine paid them a surprise visit. They were in Little Rock and the show had sold out to standing room only. For the first time, Shan was beginning to believe it wasn’t just Valentine drawing the crowds. “Nice job tonight,” Lorraine said. “During ‘The Only Perfect One’ you had the whole audience on their feet, Shan.”

Quinn winked at Shan. “I always said that was your best tune.” He’d been dog-in-the-mangerish about
“
Perfect One,” refusing to include it on the first album despite the band’s unanimous opinion that it was their very best song. It didn’t fit
Innocence
’s concept, he insisted at the time, but blended perfectly with the quest theme that unified
Odyssey
.

“Apparently the fans agree,” Lorraine remarked.

Something in her tone caught Quinn’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Lorraine said, “that the advance copies of
Billboard
are in. Now, you know “Perfect One” has been getting some airplay.”

“Right,” Quinn said, “mostly on the college stations.”

“Not just the colleges,” Lorraine said, “because, as of this week, it’s on the chart.”

“Really?” Shan’s eyes widened. “There wasn’t any promotion, was there?”

“None,” Lorraine said, “but it came in at number forty-three.”

As they watched, the song zoomed up the chart. Album sales exploded, peaking at number two right behind Nirvana’s
Nevermind.
The money, which had been coming in a respectable stream, turned into a flood and suddenly Quinntessence was hotter than Jesus.

On the night they played New Orleans, Lorraine called with the news that “The Only Perfect One
”
was the number one hit in the country. The members of Quinntessence went wild, whooping and howling, leaping about in jubilation. Ty hugged her and Dave planted a big, wet kiss on her lips, but Shan pulled away to search the backstage throng for Quinn, wanting to share the moment with him.

She found him on the bus where he appeared to be celebrating already, drinking a bottle of champagne and smoking a joint with Dan, Jerrika James, and Curtis Strong, Valentine’s drummer. Quinn was in the midst of giving Jerri a shotgun, leaning close to breathe the pot smoke into her mouth. Their lips were less than an inch apart.

When he finished, he settled back on the couch, his eyes lighting up when he caught sight of Shan. His lips immediately spread in a beatific smile that faded when she withdrew and hurried away without joining the celebration or saying a single word.

“To Quinntessence,” Ty said two hours later. “The only really perfect band!” He had a groupie on his lap and a flute of champagne in his hand.

They were still celebrating, now at the bar of their riverfront hotel. They’d ordered a bottle of Cristal which everyone was drinking except Shan, who’d gotten carded despite her rock-star status. She clinked her glass of ginger ale along with the others, but Quinn took it out of her hand and raised his own flute to her mouth.

“You’re breaking a rule,” she said, “since this is technically a gig.”

“The gig’s over. And it’s a good time for this rule to be broken,” he said, feeding her a long tipple. The champagne was delicious, but all her attention was focused between her shoulder blades where Quinn’s hand was resting on the bare skin exposed by her skimpy top, a square of lace secured by three cotton ties across her back.

Quinn dumped the ginger ale into a potted plant and kept her glass filled with Cristal. Soon she had a pleasant buzz and so, she suspected, did he. He’d followed her when she left the bus, been glued to her side ever since, and now was in one of his tactile moods, tucking a loose curl behind her ear, resting his hand on her lower back while they stood at the bar, once even lifting her hand to his mouth to drop a trail of kisses over her fingertips.

Before long she was starting to feel drunk. “I need some air,” she said to Quinn, and he led her outside to a terrace overlooking the Mississippi.

She leaned her arms against the railing and lifted her face to the light wind coming off the river. It danced around her, causing her gauzy hippie skirt to flutter in the breeze. There was a steamboat chugging by and she could hear the sound of it churning through the water over the strains of the jazz playing inside the hotel.

“I’m having a flashback,” she said, “to New Year’s Eve at Disneyland. This is just like that, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” he said. “That was a just an illusion, a really good imitation of New Orleans. This is the real thing. I told you we’d get here.”

She nodded, turning to look at him over her shoulder. The combined acts of nodding and turning made her slightly dizzy and she swayed, so he put a hand on her waist to hold her steady. “I’m getting bombed,” she confessed, “from all the champagne you’ve been plying me with.”

“You’re entitled, tonight.” The breeze was ruffling his hair and his eyes glimmered, the giveaway that he’d had a little too much to drink himself. He looked so happy with his wide smile, eyes sparkling in the moonlight, and her heart swelled with love for him. “We have a lot to celebrate, angel. All our dreams are coming true.”

Not all of them
, she thought, and suddenly she felt like crying.

As always, he saw. His smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, turning away, but he pulled her into his arms. “You know you can’t fool me. Tell me what it is, Shan.”

She felt the tears burning her eyes.
I’m drunker than I thought
, she realized and swallowed them, but they caught in her throat and, when she spoke, her voice was ragged. “Sometimes I think I’ll never be really, truly happy, Q. That I’m not meant to be. I feel like I’ll never have the things that really matter and, without them, all the rest are just—trappings. Illusions, like you said.”

His arms constricted around her. “Don’t say that. How can you even think that? You’re going to have the best of everything, angel.”

“But I’ve never really cared about that.” She pressed her face against his chest, so her words were muffled. “I know it’s important to you, the money and the fame and all that stuff. I understand that, I do, but those aren’t the things that matter to me. All I want is…a home. A family, maybe. Someplace where I belong.” She thought of her mother and a dry sob caught in her throat. “I feel so alone sometimes.”

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe because he was holding her so tightly, impossibly close. “You aren’t alone,” he said. “You’ll never be. You have me.”

Usually she found comfort in his embrace. This time, his touch was painful, a bare fragment of what she needed and was becoming increasingly certain she would never have. “But I don’t,” she whispered. “I’ve never had you, really. It would be easier if I didn’t love you so much,” she added, almost to herself, “but I do and it hurts. It hurts a lot, sometimes.”

He was silent for a long time and, when she looked up at him, she saw his face was stricken. Every trace of the joy that she’d seen there was wiped away, obliterated, and she experienced a wave of remorse that made her hurt even more.

So much for the celebration,
she noted. “Look, it’s nothing. I’m drunk, so I’m maudlin. I just need to get some sleep, Q. I’ll see you in the morning.” She forced a smile and gave him a peck on the cheek but he didn’t reply, just watched silently as she disappeared inside the hotel.

Quinn stood on the terrace for a long time, gazing out over the river with a troubled visage. When he went back inside he avoided the others, instead making his way through the hotel and out the front entrance, then across the street to the lot where the bus was parked.

He climbed on board, went directly to the bar, and poured himself a neat Tanqueray. He tossed it back and poured another, a double this time, and snagged a pack of cigarettes off the condom table. It was nearly empty, containing only a nice, fat joint.

“That’ll do,” he muttered, flopping down on the couch and lighting up, closing his eyes as he took a deep, mind-numbing hit.

“Just who I was looking for.”

His eyes flew open. It was Jerrika James, picking her way up the steps into the bus, stepping carefully in her high heels. “I had the same thought,” she said, gesturing at the joint in his hand, “but it seems one of my bandmates has cleaned out the stash. May I join you?”

“Sure.” He held out the joint and she sat close, too close, her thigh nudging his.

The invitation she’d been transmitting was overt, one he was clearly intended to notice. He had, of course. A guy would have to be dead not to notice Jerrika James. He passed the joint to her and she caught his hand, bringing it to her mouth. Her lips pressed against his fingers as she inhaled, casting him a smoky glance from beneath shadowed lids.

Then the ruby lips parted in sultry smile. “Alone at last, hey?” She took the joint and dropped it into an ashtray, then twined her fingers through his.

He looked at her, smoking hot with her white-blond hair, long legs, and creamy, copious set artfully displayed in a low-cut leather corselet. Teenage boys everywhere jerked off over her image in
Rolling Stone
and
Creem
, on MTV. She was a rock ’n’ roll fantasy come true, the real deal right here for the taking.

But he shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it, Jerri.”

She drew back, startled. “Do—what?”

“You,” he said bluntly. “I know we’ve been heading in that direction, you and me, but I can’t. I’m…I’m
involved,
you see,” he added, realizing that he had never before made such a pronouncement. The words, though unfamiliar, felt fine, right. Overdue.

Jerrika looked flummoxed. “Since when?”

“A long time,” he said. “Longer than I even knew.” He lifted her fingers, still entwined with his, to his mouth and placed a respectful, apologetic kiss on the back of her hand.