Devil's Angels Boxed Set: Bikers and Alpha Bad Boy Erotic Romance (39 page)

The screams chorus again, drowning him out. He laughs and steps away from the mic, but when the voices die down and he steps forward again, there is a fierce spark in his eye. The energy in the room ratchets skywards.

“One thing to ask, you, though." His eyes twinkle mischievously. “Are you all ready to go?” Everyone claps, cheers.

“Are you ready?” he repeats. The eager crowd screams. He stomps a black-booted foot on the stage and yells his question one more time.

“Are you ready?!” he bellows. Everyone roars. I roar, my voice joining the throng, as loud as I can, until I feel like one of them. My shell slips off, the fog dissipates. I am clear-headed. I am present. I am here, I am Now.

Garret looks down at the front row, straight at me. Our eyes come together for the briefest of seconds as music erupts from the speakers. The drumbeat explodes, pounds, and I can feel it in every tingling nerve ending. Garret’s eyes close as he throws his head back and howls the first long note of the night, losing himself in the atmosphere, losing himself alongside them and us and me.

***

I don’t know how long we have stood and screamed and sang and clapped and cheered and simply
felt.
The whole bar is an orgy of intermingling emotion and Garret is at the center of it. He plays with the electricity that arcs in between every person, toys with us, makes us beg and plead for the highs and weep with the lows. The tension rises and breaks exactly how he wants it to. We are all at his mercy, none more so than me.

The music peaks, wails, and dies. For one split second, in the silence between songs, Garret looks straight at me. His eyes are a piercing green and they are locked on me without any doubt or hesitation. He winks once, quickly--so quickly that I can’t be sure if it was real—then, with a tiny flick of his fingers, throws something small and red towards me.

The neon triangle soars through the thrumming space between us, slicing a slow arc over the heads of the crowd. I raise a hand unthinkingly and snag it. I look down at the pick. Its corners press into my palm, small divots wrinkling the flesh.

The pick is a piece of him, an extension of his touch and his voice and the charges rippling from his skin.
He gave it to me.
On either side of me, I see jealous eyes peeing from the crowd. A pair of girls whisper to each other and cast malevolent glares in my direction. Envy is spewing from the pursed corners of their lips.

I stroke the plastic where it is warm from Garret’s touch.
He gave it to me!
I shriek internally.
Me! Of all people!
My face is flushed with heat and I open and close my mouth fruitlessly, nothing emerging.

The pick feels alive in my grasp.
He could have given it to anyone,
I say to myself.
But he gave it to me.
It feels like I am holding onto him. My chest stirs and murmurs. It vibrates and dances and churns with the music, rising and falling and circling the room.

Garret jumps straight up into the air as the drumbeat crashes out from the speakers and the crunching static of the guitar resumes. I watch his sweaty body flex and move.

The pick anchors me and it plunges me deeper at the same time. I am touching it and so I am touching him and he is touching me too. He is grabbing me through it, caressing me, moving me.

Me. He gave it to me.

***

I stumble out of the bar afterwards, drunk on every thread of the experience. Sarah pulls me around from person to person to person. We are chatting and laughing with everyone. In comparison to my normal state of fogginess, everything looks sharp and clear and colorful. I am humming along the strings of emotion and I feel linked to every person around me. The strongest connection, though, is to Garret, who had disappeared backstage not long after the show ended. Even when he is out of sight, though, I can feel his presence tugging on me.

A mohawked man in a motorcycle jacket invites us to an after party at a bar downtown. “It’s gonna be sick, man,” he tells Sarah and me. “Are y’all down?”

I blurt out, “Is Garret going to be there?”

The man reads my eager expression and laughs. “Oh, definitely. It’s his party,” he says.

Sarah and I look at each other, laugh, and shriek. “Let’s go!” Sarah yells. We pile in a taxi and take off into the night, still buzzing on the clarity of everything. I haven’t thought about anything important in hours. 

CHAPTER FOUR

We clamber out of the taxi and into the club, laughing loudly. Sarah’s friend Joey guides the whole crew inside, weaving between tables and crowds on the dance floor, until we all find seats at the bar. Drinks are ordered and quickly consumed.

The blur of euphoria I am experiencing feels so different from the blunted fog lenses through which I normally see the world. I can pick out the details of everything around me – every smiling tooth, every clink of a glass, is so definite and real.
This is what it feels like to be alive.
I keep thinking that, over and over again, and every time that I wonder why I feel so present tonight, my thoughts arrive at the same conclusion: Garret.

The performance had been symbiotic, sexual. It felt more intimate than anything I had ever done in my life and yet I am not even sure if he saw me at all. Every roll of his tongue, every lilt in his voice, had sent tingles coursing down my spine and quivers of ecstasy roiling deep between my legs. He hadn’t come within twenty feet of me and yet he owned me completely. I shudder to think of what it would be like to talk to him. To touch him. To kiss him. The pick in my hand is still warm.

“You okay, girl?” Sarah leans over my shoulder and asks. “You’re daydreaming in lala land. Earth to Jodie!”

I smile and clear my head. “Totally fine,” I promise. “Better than ever.” The second part is true, but any thoughts of Garret carry an edge of recklessness that make me worry about losing control of myself and my life. I am in such a precarious position, in every sense of the word. A force of nature like him would destroy that.

My thumb strokes slowly over the smooth plastic.

“So then how about some shots?” Sarah asks me. She turns to the rest of the group. “Shots, anybody?” They all chorus in agreement.

“I’ll be right back,” I say. “Going to the bathroom. Don’t wait for me.” I push back from the bar and rise unsteadily to my feet, slightly drunker than I thought. The bar is one of those New York City establishments that evolved recessed roots farther back into its building as it got older, so the bathroom is down a long hallway lined with couches, dark and well away from the noise.

I stumble down to the door, swing it open and walk inside the one-person room. I lock the door behind me. Splashing some water on my face, I take a deep breath and savor the first moment of silence I have had all night. It feels good to breathe slowly, fully, feel the air swish in and out of my lungs. The alcohol charging through my system has started to subside somewhat, although my surroundings still retain a peculiar tilt if I spin my head too quickly.

When I look in the mirror above the sink, I see a stranger looking back. My lipstick is thick and red, my hair has been weaved and slicked into a complex braid, and the shadow over my eyes is alluringly dark. What I notice more than the makeup, though, is the expression on my face – I look happy. The smile is genuine. My eyes sparkle with a sense of life that has been missing for years and I want to laugh out loud at the sight of it.

I rinse my hands and exit. As I walk out, the buckle of my heel catches on the door frame and pops open. My shoe falls off. Exhaling a irritated snort, I pick up the offending article and tiptoe over to a red plush couch against one wall of the dim hallway.

I plop down on the furniture and start fiddling with my shoe, trying to coax the leather strap back into the buckle frame. Right as I have almost pushed it through, someone drops onto the couch next to me, causing the strap to fall out of my hands. I look up to see who it is, annoyed at their carelessness. My heart freezes.

It is Garret.

“Man, I’m fucking exhausted,” he says. “Those shows really take a lot out of me. I feel like I just ran a marathon.”

My heart starts thumping in my chest. I can feel the pulse all over my body. Even the soles of my feet are throbbing.
Boom. Boom.
The rush of blood in my ears is louder than anything else in the room, even the distant wail of music and conversation from the bar.

He looks at me and starts to introduce himself. “Hey, I’m Garret – wait, I recognize you. Were you at the show tonight? You definitely were. You were in the front row. I remember you. You seemed like you were having a great time,” he laughs. “At least, I hope so.”

I find my voice, though it comes out shy and trembling. “Yeah, I was. It was amazing, incredible. Everything was incredible. You were incredible.” I blush, thinking I must sound like a stupid groupie, like those girls in my class today.

He cocks his head to the side and grins, the same grin that had stretched across his face right before the first song. It isn’t quite a cocky smile, but something emanates from it, some sense of poise and comfort, that puts me a little more at ease, although a spark of anxiety still races over my skin. I exhale and deflate a tiny bit.

“Thank you very much,” he says. His voice is tamer now than when he was on stage, although I can still hear the potential for flight in it. He is a panther at rest. “That’s very sweet of you to say.” He grins again.

“Hey, wait a sec… You took my pick!” he teases. “Stole it right out of my hands, if I remember correctly?” He chuckles as panic sweeps across my face.

“I did not!” I start to stammer indignantly. I can feel myself blushing.

“Did too!” he interrupts. “That’s my lucky pick, too. You better give that back, you punk.”

I fish through my purse and grab the pick between my fingertips. “Here,” I say, handing it to him. His fingers brush mine as he takes it from me. When he closes his hand over mine, a spark of static electricity zaps us. We recoil. I am mortified, but he is laughing again.

“First you steal my pick, then you shock me!” he yells. “I don’t know if I should keep talking to you, Miss …?” He arches an eyebrow.

“Jodie,” I mumble. “My name is Jodie.”

He rolls the name around in his mouth, as if he is tasting it. “Jodie,” he repeats. “I like that. Nice to meet you, Jodie.” He offers a hand to shake, half-mockingly. I bite my lip and reach out, but he jerks his away before I can touch him.

Garret eyes me warily. “You’re not gonna shock me again, are you, Jodie?” Tension draws lines down his jaw, but then he breaks into a smile.

“I’m just kidding,” he says. He grabs my hand and squeezes softly. “It’s nice to meet you, Jodie.”

The sensation of the skin-on-skin contact is almost too much for my heightened awareness tonight. It is like I can feel every individual nerve mingling with his. His fingers are smooth and strong. They look experienced, flexible, exploratory. I want him to touch me with them.

I shake my head to clear out the rogue thoughts.

A blond girl totters down the hall in high heels, her tanned legs gleaming in the fluorescent lights overhead. Men turn to watch her as she walks past them. She doesn’t look at any of them, however.

Instead, she beelines for Garret. When she nears him, she speaks in a lusty murmur. “Garret, I loved your show tonight. You were
so
good.” She drags out her words, flicking her tongue around every syllable. Ample breasts spill from her tight leopard print dress. The sheen on her lips is blinding.

“Thanks so much, babe,” Garret says. “Have a great night.” He smiles, but I could swear something is missing from his grin – some weight, some depth. A certain degree of sincerity is absent from his pinpricked dimples.

The girl leans forward and plants a soft kiss on his cheek, then stands upright and strides away. She glances back once as she departs.

I sit still and quiet throughout the encounter, my hands folded in my lap. I don’t know what to do here but recede. It would be rude to walk away. I can’t walk away. But Garret, who seconds before had felt so real, so present, so next to me, now seems distant and unreachable.

My thoughts spiral downward. With girls like that throwing themselves at him, how can I compete?
You can’t
, a voice in my head declares.
You just can’t.

I start to finagle a departure, some excuse to get me away. I can’t sit here and pretend that I have any chance with this rock star. I don’t. I can’t.

“Ugh,” Garret says, turning back towards me. “Can’t stand that girl. She’s a soulless one, that’s for damn sure. Real trash on the inside.” Disgust wrinkles his upper lip.

I want to laugh out loud. Is he serious? He must be messing with me. There is no way he is turning down that specimen. I mean, I’d probably sleep with her if she asked! She was stunning! No, he must be joking.

“You’re kidding, right?” I blurt. The words escape my mouth before I can stop them.

Garret laughs. “What do you mean?” he asks.

I stumble over myself. “I mean… she’s beautiful,” I say.

Garret leans forward and looks me straight in the eyes. A heat pulses from his pupils – a beat, a hum, a musical intensity that rings with something inside me.

“I’ve got a theory on relationships,” he explains. “It’s kind of stupid, but it makes sense to me. When you get around the person you’re meant to be around, in a romantic sense, the two of you make a kind of music, you know?”
Boom, boom
, his eyes pulse. The green irises dance and wave.

He goes on. “It’s like the two of you are…how do I say this?
Playing
each other, like instruments. When you’re with just anybody, you can touch and talk and do all that surface stuff, of course, but it isn’t the same as when you’re with that one person. When it’s right – when it’s meant to be, as cheesy as that sounds – there’s another layer to it.”

I follow along, my head nodding subtly. I am stunned by what he is saying.

“It’s like the difference between just sound and actual music, I think,” he continues. “You can hit the guitar strings, but that’s not a song. That’s not art. When it’s right – when it’s meant to be – it’s music between the two of you. You’re each other’s instrument. It’s art.”

Garret blinks and the intensity dissipates. He leans back, laughs, and runs a self-conscious hand through his hair. I inhale deeply.

“Sorry to get all serious on you,” he apologizes, embarrassed. “Didn’t mean to subject you to all my mushy-gushy shit.”

“Of course not!” I object. I gnaw on my lip again. The image of Garret I had in my mind – the hard-partying rock star, the skirt chaser, the booze hound and drug aficionado – is cracking. I don’t know what to believe about him. He looks the part, ensconced in a rugged leather jacket and tight jeans that rise and fall with every twitch of his muscles. But the words coming out of his mouth belong to someone different. They belong to someone …
real.

He scrutinizes me. His eyes are searching for something in my face. I stare back, mind churning, wondering who he really is. I can’t tell what he is looking for.
What is it?
I want to ask, but I can’t work up the courage. I am still wavering between disgust and curiosity. I am trying to hate him, but he is making it all too difficult.

He locks onto something. It seems to satisfy him, as he sighs and smiles wanly. “Anyways, like I said, not trying to make you think I’m some crazy psycho dude,” he says.

He cuts himself off. “I’m rambling. We can talk about something else. Tell me about you.”

I laugh, but his gaze is brimming with sincerity. He is listening – actually listening, not just waiting for his turn to speak. There is a receptiveness to him, an aura that envelops me and opens me up.

“Well, there isn’t very much that’s interesting…” I start to say, but he stops me.

“That’s bullshit,” he says. “Look at you. You’re sitting here, having a conversation with a perfect stranger about the nature of love and music and art. Now look around you.” I glance around the dim hallway. A few people lie slumped on couches, passed out drunk. A clump of girls emerge from the bathroom, silent and ghostly with their faces lit by the eerie glow of cell phone screens. Compared to Garret, everyone is closed off and dazed. They all look so sad to me.