Strings (27 page)

“
Jillian, Jillian,
Jillian,” we chant.

“
Put me down, you
assholes.” Jillian pretends like she’s mad, but her giggles give
her away. She’s kinda cute when she lets her guard down.

We set her on her feet, and suddenly, I’m
very self-conscious in my slut bikini and thong. I back into Shades
and lay my arms on top of his.

“
Told you everything would
work out, Lucky Letty,” he whispers into my hair. “You should
listen to me more often.”

“
Let’s hear what he has to
say before we get too ahead of ourselves.” But I know as well as he
does he was right all along. I didn’t trust in The Rock—or our
strings—as I should have.

He takes off his disgusting pinstripe jacket
and tosses it around my shoulders, then resumes his position behind
me. The coat smells like Shades—pine and musk and hot, sweaty man
who’s gonna get the fucking of his life in a couple hours. God,
honey’s already dripping down the inside of my thigh from just
thinking about it.

I turn to Jillian. “Why didn’t you tell us
who he was?” I nod to Mr. Johnson.

She scoffs. “No way in hell I was telling
anyone anything. If you’d known, you’d have made a mess of things
for sure. You guys didn’t need the pressure with everything else
going on.” She pauses and glances at Rax. “And you showing up when
you did worked out perfectly. How did you get out of the hospital,
anyway?”

Rax grins slyly. “Made a deal with one of
the nurses. Said I’d give her the orgasm of a lifetime if she let
me go.”

Toombs snaps his gaze to Rax. “So, it went
well.”

“
Don’t know. She’s
supposed to meet us at the bus in fifteen. Maybe she’ll bring
friends.” Rax shrugs.

Toombs tenses. He steps away from the group
to the side of the room farthest from Jinx.

I’m still not sure what’s up with the
Rax-Toombs two-for-one prize package, but I hope Jinx doesn’t get
in the middle of it. I pull her over and sling an arm around
her.

“
Can we get back to
business, children?” Jillian’s voice gets snappy. “We have a lot to
negotiate, but the short of it is, Megaphonia wants to sign
you.”

Johnson steps up and raises a finger. “As a
five-piece. I’ve heard the music from your respective bands, and
it’s good. But the show you put on tonight was epic. I don’t know
what you did or how you did it, but the blend of the two bands is
bigger and better than your separate sounds. You have just the ‘It
Factor’ I’ve been looking for—the perfect blend of modern music
with ’70s soul. Great hooks, great voice, great beats. And having
two massive fan bases doesn’t hurt. Only thing you have to do now
is write an album together and come up with a name for the new
band.”

“
What’s wrong with Killer
Dixon?” Rax demands.

I turn on him. “What’s wrong with Cherry
Buzz Float?”

“
That’s a stupid girly
name.”

“
And you’re a cocksucker.
Your point?”

Jillian holds her hands
between us. “Okay, kids. No more fighting. We’ve had quite enough
of that. We’ll think of a brand new name that everyone agrees
on,
capisce
?” She
faces Johnson. “They’re really not normally this bad.”

I love how Jillian lies for us. It’s
touching.

The guy shrugs. “Truth is, I don’t care if
you get along or not. Do whatever you gotta do to figure out your
process. Group dynamics don’t concern me. I’m only interested in
making money for Megaphonia.”

Well, at least he’s honest. I can respect
that.

“
We’ll make you plenty of
money,” Rax says.

Johnson meets his eyes. “I hope so.” He
pauses and then looks at Jillian. “I’ve got an early morning, so
I’m gonna shove off. I’ll email you details tomorrow, and we’ll set
up a meeting in LA with the other executives.”

“
Sounds great,” she says
and walks him to the door.

The stage crew brings in pieces of Jinx’s
drum kit and loads them into cases.

Johnson lays a hand on the knob and turns to
us. “Congratulations. I’ll be in touch.”

“
Thanks,” I say as he and
Jillian disappear into the darkness.

“
Holy fuckin’ shit.” Rax’s
grin might as well go ahead and eat the rest of his face. It’s
halfway there. He slaps Toombs’s hand, then Shades’s. “We finally
made it.”

“
Yeah, with a little help
from two badass chicks,” I add, high-fiving Jinx.

Rax snorts. “Chicks are only good for two
things: banging and…I don’t know what else.”

“
Rocking your fucking nuts
off.” I punch Rax’s shoulder.

“
All right, all right.
You
may
have a
point, Squirt.”

“
The next time you call me
that, I’ll skewer your nuts with Jinx’s drumstick and feed ’em to
you. Raw.” I drill him with a hard stare and cut my eyes to Toombs,
hoping Rax picks up on the underlying threat. Now that I don’t have
to worry about Kate, I have no qualms about spilling the details of
our night together.

Rax holds up his hands in surrender. “Okay,
if I can’t call you Squirt, how about we name the band The
Squirts?”

“
What, so people can say
we’re a load of shit?” Shades says. “Let’s not give anyone
unnecessary ammunition.”

“
How about Killer Buzz
Float?” Jinx’s voice is so soft, I almost miss what she
says.

All movement in the room stops. Curious,
thoughtful glances pinball between us.

“
Killer Buzz Float,”
Toombs says as if taking the name for a test drive to see if he
likes it.

Rax nods slowly. Shades half-smiles.

“
It’s appropriately
stupid, and blends our two band names well,” I say. “Our existing
fans will appreciate it. I vote yes.”

“
I’m in.” Toombs stares at
Jinx, who bites her fingernail.

“
It’ll do,” Rax
says.

“
Hell yeah,” Shades chimes
in.

Jinx straightens and smiles a little.
“Killer Buzz Float it is.”

Toombs lifts his hand to her, and she slaps
it gently. An explosion of smacks follow as the rest of us get in
on the action.

“
We should celebrate,” Rax
says.

“
Round of drinks?” Shades
asks. “You buying?”

I love that he’s as broke as I am and
begging booze off his friends.

Rax rubs his stomach. “If I never see
another bottle of liquor in my life, it’ll be too soon. I was
thinking more like hitting the strip club.”

“
You said you had a nurse
waiting for you on the bus,” I remind him.

“
Fuck her.” Rax
scowls.

“
I thought that was the
point.”

“
No, I want me some rack
of Lola tonight. Toombs, you with me?”

The drummer-turned-badass-guitarist sneaks a
peek at Jinx, who buries her attention in a spot on the floor.
“Yeah, I guess,” he says.

Jinx’s face scrunches a little under the
curtain of her hair. Damn it. She really does like Toombs.

Something’s gonna have to give between Rax
and Toombs. I can see them both heading in opposite directions, and
I sure as shit don’t want to live through another band blowup like
we had with Kate.

Fucking Kate. Good riddance, bitch. She got
what was coming to her: nothing.

“
I guess everyone’s going
their own way, then?” Jillian says as she walks over.

“
You’re welcome to come to
the club with me and Toombs.” Rax slaps Toombs on the
shoulder.

Jillian’s eyes narrow. “I could go for some
tits and ass. I’m in.”

Five jaws drop with a collective creak.

No. Jillian’s not—

No way.

“
You’re a muff muncher, J?
Really?”

She laughs and shrugs. “You didn’t think it
was odd that I live by myself in the middle of nowhere, never hang
around with guys aside from these dickheads,”—she swats Rax’s
ass—“and I love hockey? Come on.”

“
I think I’m in love.” Rax
grabs Jillian around the waist and spins her. “Let’s go,
bitch.”

“
I’m coming too,” Jinx
says.

Way to go, Jinx. I flash her a secret smile.
Even better, Toombs stares at her like a starving man before his
last meal. Now, if he could just get rid of Rax for a while. Maybe
Lola will be a good distraction. I cross my fingers for Jinx.

Jillian waves a hand at the equipment.
“Leave your stuff here. Management said we can pick it up in the
morning when we settle our bill.”

Bill? Maybe that means we’ll finally get
some money we don’t have to spend on diesel or food. Fuck, my life
just got real. In so many ways.

I squeeze Shades’s hand. “We’ll meet you
guys at the club. I need to go back to the bus and change.”

Jinx nods at me and covers a smile as she
follows Toombs, Rax, and Jillian out the door.

I turn to Shades. Beautiful Shades. He’s
still wearing his sunglasses from the gig. I snatch them off. “I
guess you’re pretty pleased with yourself, huh, handsome?”

“
Why’s that?” His grin
primes my nubbin for an explosion. The Letty tap is open for
business. With him around, when is it not?

“
I get the feeling you
like proving me wrong.”

He touches my hair, and I nuzzle his palm.
His face is flushed, his shirt still a little damp from playing. He
stares at me. I could stand here with him, basking in this moment
forever.

“
No. I like proving you
right,” he says.

I drown in the green pools of his eyes. “No
idea what you mean by that, but okay.” It could be I’m suffering
from interference in frontal brain function. Oddly, ninety percent
of the shutdown is due to the Shades factor, and not the record
deal of a lifetime. Go fucking figure.

He nudges a knee between my legs and inches
closer. “You never stopped believing in yourself when you had every
reason to quit. You stood up to overwhelming odds and beat the shit
out of the system using your biggest, strongest weapon: your voice.
You thought you didn’t have it in you, but I knew you did. I never
doubted you, Letty. I never doubted us.”

I stare into those penetrating emeralds and
let go of the emotion. Because what can you say to faith like that?
Not a goddamn thing.

“
Fuck you, Todd Armstrong,
for making me cry.” I swipe at the tears. He guides me to his
chest. “How come I never cried until I met you? You have some kind
of emotional disruptor beam embedded in your cock? Should I notify
the government? I gotta know if I’m inadvertently harboring a
secret weapon in my furburger when we have sex. In case of a
misfire or—”

He cuts off my rambling
rant with a kiss that doesn’t turn me on. It drags me kicking and
screaming to the heights of Mt. Lovemore where lust is an
afterthought and the invisible strings of separate lifetimes weave
together a new tapestry of perfect, unbreakable knots. This kiss
shapes the future of our lives together. This kiss dares me to
try
thinking
about anyone else.

When his tongue makes a slow, agonizing
retreat, our lips part, and my eyes flutter open. Shades is gone.
Some other guy stands above me, arms strong around my back, just
like his namesake. Todd Armstrong loves me.

“
I love you too.” I’m
breathless and sweaty, despite the cold and the bikini. He’s warm
and hard, and hotter than a porn queen at a Boy Scouts reunion,
despite the ridiculous suit. “And my monkey is jonesing for a
Shades-flavored banana.”

He reaches in his nasty
pants pocket and pulls out a wad of dollar bills. “Quickie on the
bus, then off to celebrate with
our
band afterward? I have thirty-two bucks left,
pussycat. They’re all yours.”

“
Keep your money. Never
know when you might get a hankerin’ for another dildo.”

“
With you in the driver’s
seat, there’s no telling where this ride’s taking us.”

I pause on our way to the door. “So, you’re
not opposed to another leisurely stroll up the Hershey Highway? Be
still my beating heart.”

He stops me, spreads open the coat wide
enough to cover what he’s doing. He wiggles a finger over the lip
of my bikini bottom and plunges it into my slick pussy. I gasp, and
my chest heaves under the influence of surging adrenaline.

Leaning close enough for me to count his
whiskers, he mines my vag for oil and says softly, “You do what you
gotta do, and so will I. We’re heading to the bus. When we get
there, I need you humping my face. Breathing is optional. Orgasms
are mandatory. You don’t leave until you squirt at least twice.
Understand?”

I try in vain to catch my breath. “We may be
in for a long night.”

The corner of his mouth twitches into a
smile, and he slows his strokes. “I hope so.”

I rest my arms on his shoulders and press my
clit against his palm. Two of his fingers lodge deep inside me. The
friction of their calculated movement lures more juice from the
factory. “Shades?” I breathe his name like a breeze against his
ear.

He turns his lips into mine, presses his
forehead to my wet hair, and gazes at me like a cunning lion.
“Letty?”

“
I think we should make a
pact to christen every stage Killer Buzz Float plays on. For
luck.”

“
Damn, girl. You move me.
You got yourself a deal.” He tweaks my clit with his thumb and
pulls out. “But you don’t need luck. I got plenty for the both of
us.”