JAX: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

Chapter Seven

Liliana

"Okay, I see you," I told my father, then hung up the phone, shaking my head.

He was in the van. I could not believe he still had that thing.

I was on the sidewalk outside of the airport, hysterically laughing at a van.

My father forced the sticky driver's side door open and emerged to find me nearly weeping with laughter. I wiped my eyes and try to explain, then dissolved into a fit of giggles again. "That's, that's the van…" was all I managed to say.

"Sure is," he growled, patting the battered old relic from the 80s with a fondness he usually reserved for guitars, and only occasionally, me. "She still purrs like a kitten too."

"That's the van you picked me up in." I was shaking my head at the symmetry of it all, wishing I had a notebook out so I could write it down.

But my dad didn't get it. "Yup," he rumbled, picking up my suitcase. "You wanna get going?"

"Sure, Dad." I nodded, my chest deflating slightly. He didn't remember picking me up from Graham's house in this van. The start of our wild adventure together. Or if he did remember, he wasn't sentimental about it like I was.

Stop it, Lily.
I settled back in the cracked vinyl seat and tried to compose my thoughts.

But the noise from the radio won't let me think. My father has always kept the radio in the van perpetually on "scan." It was an irritating habit of his, left over from the days when he was an itinerant roadie, picking up jobs here and there. He liked to scan for the bands he'd worked for, then shout and crow about them while I nodded in mute, uncomprehending approval. This was going back to my very early childhood. Back before he got tagged by a friend of his to load amps for Annie Blue's comeback show and saved the day by recognizing that her amp stack was hooked up backwards.

"We headed to a hotel?" I asked my dad between bursts of static.

"A hotel? No, why in the hell would we do that?" My dad swore and I stiffened, before I realized he was trying to shove his way into a left turn lane at the last minute. When we were on the road, the guys called him Captain Rageball because every time he drove, the slightest thing would set him off.

"Erm, last I knew, you and Annie lived at the Chateau Marmont," I ventured.

"Oh yeah, forgot to tell you, Lil…" He'd been forgetting to tell me a lot of things, it seemed. "Annie and me, we're starting a studio. She wanted it in her own space, so we got our own place."

For a moment, the only noise in the van was the staticky radio changing stations and my own shocked exhalation.

"You bought a house?" I gasped. I couldn't keep the shock out of my voice. "First you tell me you're getting married, now you tell me you’ve bought honest-to-God real estate?"

My dad shot me a shy look as the radio switched stations again. I swear we had already run through the dial ten times. "Guess I'm growin' up, Lil Bit. Took a while, huh?"

I felt a rush of affection for my big, bearded dad and reached out my hand. His huge ham hocks swallowed mine entirely, the way they always had. "My father, the family man," I teased. "Do you 'putter around' in the garage? Wait… have you joined a golf club too?"

"Smartass," my dad growled, letting go of my hand. "You sound like Jax."

The station switched again. As if summoned like a genie from a bottle, the thumping bass of "Cocky" blared out of the speakers.

I froze in my seat, my body flashing between ice-cold water flowing in my veins and hot nausea swimming in my stomach. This song was following me, I swear it was.

"Heard that enough for one lifetime," my father snapped, punching the on/off switch. Uncharacteristic silence flooded the van, the better for me to hear the wild beating of my own heart.

Oblivious to my torture, my dad kept talking. "I don't think Jaxson was ready for that song to blow up like it did. His mother's tryin' to help him, but he's such an arrogant ass-face sometimes you just want to shake the little shit…"

"Truer words were never spoken," I muttered. I'd have liked to shake him myself, but I was afraid my fingers would close around his throat and I wouldn't be able to stop myself from killing him.

My dad turned off the main highway and we began to wind up the hilly roads, gaining elevation. I drummed my fingers on my thighs, alternating between excitement and dread, when he finally turned off the road and onto a long, winding drive.

"This is your place?" I couldn't keep the shock out of my voice.

My dad threw the van in park and leaned back. "Yup," he drawled, looking at the massive, ornate mansion like it surprised him. "Like I said, Annie wanted studio space of her own and all that."

"You could fit about seventeen studios in there," I said dryly. The white mansion gleamed in the harsh California sun and the vast, green lawn rolled out like a carpet, the kind I'd describe as "verdant and lush" in one of my books. It smelled crisp and freshly mowed, which surprised me. Annie and Nails were not known for their fastidiousness, either in parenting or in life.

A lot changed in the year since I left,
I thought as my dad grabbed my bags and we started up the curved, manicured walkway.

That's when I smelled the distinct, wafting scent of pot smoke. I could see cigarette butts dotting the sides of the walk.

When my dad pushed the front door open, I realized not much had changed at all.

The usual suspects slumped in beaten up couches completely at odds with the ornate surroundings. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. The house was new and unfamiliar, but the people? The people felt like home. Lying around, shouting, laughing, the gentle strum of an acoustic guitar as someone somewhere made music, these were the sounds I had cherished once.

Everyone was here for my arrival. Bash was in the corner, his hands drumming relentlessly on his thighs, even as the rest of him was silent. He spied us first, which was no surprise. "Holy shit, it's Bit!" he crowed. "What the hell took you so long, Nails? We've been waiting!"

"Nothing took long," my dad growled. "You need to relax."

I laughed at the familiar refrain. Bash wouldn't know relaxation if it cracked him over the head. The lead drum tech bounded over and slammed his body into mine—his approximation of a hug. I coughed behind my hand and inhaled sharply to get my breath back. "How are you, Bash?" I asked.

"Good, good, good." He nodded his head, swaying his body to the music only he could hear. "Gotta show you the studio space, Bit. It's great. We're totally working night and day."

"Well, you are." Diggs came up for his hug, the twisted ruin of his face scrunched up into his broken smile. "Hey Lily," he said softly.

I sighed in contentment at the familiar feel of his hugs. I'll never forget the first time I met Diggs, how I'd shrunk away from the terrible scarring that marred his face. A fall off the rigging hadn't been enough to scare him away from working for Annie, and though he didn't climb much these days, he was still loyal to her. He was, without a doubt, the nicest person I had ever met. Always ready for a handshake or a hug, Diggs would have made an incredible father if only the right woman was able to look past his scars. He seemed to have a surplus of love, and right now, he was pouring it out on me.

"Your dad tells me you're writing books now!" he said. "I went online and found the one he knew about. You have such a talent, Bit."

The idea of Diggs—who I regarded as a second Dad—reading my steamy stories made me blush. "You read my book?" I squeaked.

"We all did," Greg Fingers chuckled, coming in for a brief hug.

"I didn't," my dad growled. "Not all the way. Sorry, Liliana. I bailed at the first sex scene."

"I'm really glad you did." I blushed. I was torn between delight and utter horror.

"Guys don't really talk like that, you know," Greg pointed out lazily. I wondered how stoned he was already.

"It's fantasy," I corrected him.

"You
want
guys to talk like that?" Crusty Pete was hanging in the background and I was grateful. His odor was nearly overpowering the smell of the pot.

"It'd be nice," I shot back, which earned me an appreciative laugh. I beamed, feeling incredible to be back here with them, my wayward band of rogue uncles, the guys who were never sure if they should be my friends or my role models. For a moment, I forgot why I ever left.

"Liliana's here? Why didn't you come get me?"

When I turned and saw Annie Blue's electric eyes, I suddenly remembered exactly why I had left. Her eyes were so much like Jaxson's that I felt a pit open up in my stomach.

"There's my new daughter," she cooed, hugging me close. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my dad beaming with pride.

"Hey, Annie," I swallowed. Hugs were not Annie's typical plan of action with me. But when I stepped back and took in her swishing skirts and earth-toned shawl, I realized what was going on.

This was another reinvention.

Annie Blue, rock star, goddess, and soon to be my stepmother. She'd reinvented herself a million times in her thirty-plus years in the industry. The wayward daughter of folk singer Randall Blue, she shocked the world by showing up as the lead in the punk girl-band UltraViolet. Her father publicly disowned her after she pulled one too many onstage stunts for his liking. I guess he figured the Blue name was sullied by her going topless onstage and crowd surfing in a schoolgirl's skirt with nothing underneath.

One brief stint in rehab later, she broke up UltraViolet and started a solo career, packing stadiums full of screaming fans desperate for a glimpse. She could sing like no one else, a honeyed scream with a three-octave range, and she toured relentlessly for almost a decade, taking her band of roadies around the world five different times.

Now, at forty-eight years old and still as gorgeous as ever, she was playing the part of elder queen, appearing as a guest on several pop records including the girl band Soundwave.

Now, I figured, I was looking at the Earth Mother stage of her career. Her typically dyed, white-blonde hair was shot through with lowlights and an honest-to-God gray hair or two. Her face was un-madeup and dangling earrings jangled at her jaw. She looked like she had put on a few pounds too, softening her beautiful face.

She looked… happy.

My dad slid an arm around her waist. Was it really because of him?

When Nails Nesbit met Annie Blue, it was truly the case of the immovable object meeting the unstoppable force. He was her roadie, her staff member, someone who should be properly deferential about the whole thing, especially since he came on right in the middle of her tour. But my father's general “fuck-you" attitude toward authority must have appealed to her somehow, because Annie soon appointed him her own personal tech. And then appointed him to her be her bedmate too.

By the time I arrived on the scene, Annie and my father had been driving each other crazy for ten whole years, but Dad assured me it was nothing important. "Just keeping each other company, that's all," he rumbled one night when I confronted him in the tour bus three weeks in. "Ladies get lonely."

They'd been on-again, off-again my whole life. What had changed?

"Your room is at the end of the hall, second to last door on the right," Annie grinned at me. "I'm glad you're here, Liliana."

"Me too." I was surprised by how much I meant it.

"Bash, why don't you help her with her bags?"

"No, I got it." I waved him away.

"Bit, that suitcase is bigger than you," Bash chuckled, reaching for the handle.

"I got it through the airport by myself," I said, bristling. It was one thing to feel the comfort of being back with the guys. It was another to have them close back around me with their suffocating love. I had a life of my own now and my hard fought independence would wither and die if I started letting them do everything again.

"Listen, I'm jetlagged as hell. I need a nap before I can deal with you all." I said it as jokingly as I could.

"I've made reservations for dinner tonight, to talk about the plan," Annie said, sweet as sugar.

I nodded and grabbed my bag, making for the big, sweeping staircase. I lugged my back up the steps, mindful of the eyes on me and tried valiantly to make it look like I wasn't struggling. I thought I succeeded, unless they were all just humoring me, which was probably more the case.

The staircase twisted around, leaving me off in the lofted hallway of the second floor. The hall curved around a balcony straight out of Evita, with full sight of the first floor below. I dragged my suitcase down the length of it, until it finally turned a corner and went out of sight of the people below. Gratefully, I dropped the pretense of carrying the case and gave it a kick that sent it sliding the rest of the way.

The second door from the end opened to a spare bedroom. I chuckled ruefully at the mishmash of broken-down Ikea furniture in the ornate room. I had more luxurious accommodations back in my shoebox in New York. The built-in bookshelves were lined with spiral notebooks and scattered guitar picks. The fireplace had an amp shoved into it. I wondered who had been crashing here up until today.