Never Ending (4 page)

Chapter
5

         
I
t didn't take long for things to start moving
again. Danny Blue, it seemed, was not one for sitting around and doing nothing.
No sooner had Slayton agreed to manage Blues Records, using his decades of
business savvy to help us stay in control of the financial side of the
proceedings, than Danny opened up the phone book and dialed what seemed like
every single club promoter, manager, and agent within a hundred miles of the
USC Campus.

          “It's not going
to be easy,” Danny said. “I may have funds, but what I don't have is street
cred. And I can guarantee Roni Taylor and the Dusk Riders have filled up every
available slot already – for all I know, she's put a moratorium on us.”

          “You think she'd
do that?” I leaned in, kissing his shoulder, taking in the intoxicating smell
of his musk.

          “I don't know
what
she'd do,” said Danny. “But I wouldn't put anything past her. I hate that
my father's fallen for her tricks.” He laughed softly. “But that's what he
thinks life is all about, I guess. Getting rich, finding a beautiful woman to
marry, showing her off like a show pony to all of his rich friends with equally
young wives...” The contempt in his voice cut through it like a knife. “I'd
almost feel sorry for her, you know. If she weren't so awful. I can't say my
dad's been the best husband to her. Or father to me.” His eyes grew dark with
pain, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

          It had only
recently hit me just how lucky I was. So many of the kids I'd grown up with –
other celebrity brats come of age among the snapping of paparazzi photographs,
who learned to walk toddling down the red carpet – had family lives that
were...far from ideal, to say the least. Mothers who did cocaine in the family
bathroom, blaming their empty canisters of prescription pills on the
housekeeper. Dads who hired escorts to pleasure them in the family bed. Endless
rotating casts of second-, third-, and fourth wives, and all the therapy bills
that came with it.

          My family seemed
downright normal in comparison. My mother may have been a model, and my father
had been a rock star, but somehow they managed to escape every single
stereotype. If anything, my father said, his rough living in his 20's and 30's
had made him realize just how little he wanted a similar existence for his
daughter – my mother, too, used to the backbiting of the modeling world, had
decided that it was more important for her daughter to grow up with a strong
sense of self than with a plastic-perfect nose or a 32DD bust. And I was
grateful for them – even when their love veered clearly into the territory of
protectiveness. Looking at the darkness in Danny's eyes when he spoke of his
stepmother, I thought, I was even more thankful for them now.

          I couldn't
imagine a viper like Roni Taylor getting anywhere
near
my family.

          Still, viper or
no, she was a force to be contended with, and contend Danny did.

          “Sometimes it's
good to have contacts,” he said to me with a mischievous grin. “The club
manager at Blue Circus remembers me from the time I threw up on his stage.”

          “You were drunk?”
I raised an eyebrow.

          “Not quite,”
Danny laughed. “I was five and had eaten too many white chocolate caramel bars.
A real rocker, I was, as you see. Setting the stage for my later excesses.” He
kissed me. “And the owner of Blue Cabaret in Edinburgh – he remembers me, too.
He gave me a Batman action figure for my fifth birthday. Which, I'm not ashamed
to say, I still possess today.”

          From what I could
hear from Danny's end of the phone conversations, it looked like Danny's
contacts were susceptible to stories about Batman action figures and an excess
of caramel bars. By the end of the second day of phone calls, Danny had booked
us ten tour dates in the US and the UK, all in promotion of our much-vaunted
second album, which Danny promised the club managers would be “even better than
the first.””

          “Now, we've got
to write the bloody thing,” said Danny. “And it's got to be good, too. These
chaps are doing us a favor, risking annoying Roni the way they are. They're
good men and women, but they're also businesspeople. They're betting that the
Never Knights will be a success – one worth getting Blues Enterprises angry
for. So we'd better make sure that they get a return on their investment.”

          “I guess that
means it's time to start rehearsal.”

          “One step ahead
of you, love. I've sent a mass email to the band and booked the basement room
in this hotel –
just
for us. Starting in thirty minutes. We've booked it
for twelve hours. So, if you're feeling at all sleepy...” he squeezed my thigh,
his fingers tracing a line up towards where they met; my mouth parted in a
soft, lazy moan. “You'd better down an entire thermos of coffee. The others are
already on their way.”

          I swallowed down
my fear. What would it be like – all of us together again in the same room? We
hadn't all been together since the Never Knights broke up, and – although my
one-on-one conversations with Kyle, Luc, and Steve had gone some way towards
allaying my fears – I was still worried that the group dynamic would prove
tense, especially with Danny still in the picture.
Danny a permanent part of
the picture
, I thought, not without some trepidation. Now that Blues
Records was taking over control of the band's management, Danny had an
incredible – some might say inordinate – amount of power over the band. It
wasn't
just us
, anymore, just me and Kyle and Luc and Steve, with Danny
as a last-minute, if highly charismatic, replacement. Now, Danny
was
the
band. And I wasn't entirely sure how Luc or Kyle would feel about that.

          Still, I got my
gear ready, and headed into the elevator with Danny.

          “So, my maddening
one,” Danny grinned at me. “Am I right in thinking that we're going to have to
tone it down in front of the others?”

          I nodded. “As far
as Kyle's concerned, he wants to pretend like you and I are not happening.”

          “Well then...”
Danny leaned in, and I could smell the intoxicating aroma of his musk, sending
me weak in the knees. “I'll have to get as much as I can out of you right now,
before we get to the bottom floor.”

          In an instant he
was upon me, pushing me up against the wall, his hands rough and vigorous as
they found their way to my shoulders, my breasts. His tongue was sweet and hot
in my mouth, blending delicacy with force as he opened my mouth wider to the
urgency of his kiss. He pressed my wrists against the wall, holding me down,
his kiss burning with his need. I could feel a familiar, agonizingly welcome
hardness in his groin as he pressed against me.

          Then the elevator
doors opened at the lobby, and we sprang apart.

          “Hey, Neve...”
Luc was looking at his shoes, a thin blush spreading across his cheeks. “Going
down, I take it?”

          “Rehearsal's on
the basement floor, yeah,” said Danny, making room for him in the elevator.

          “Steve texted me.
He's already down there with Kyle.”

          It was my turn to
blush. Certainly, from my rumpled hair and Danny's coy expression, Luc could
guess what we'd been doing in the elevator, even if we'd managed to push apart
by the time he saw us. My stomach sank.
If you're trying to tone things down
with Danny, Neve, you're not off to a great start, are you?

          Luc tried to
smile at me, but I could see the sadness in his enormous, dog-brown eyes. “It's
good to see you, Neve,” he whispered.

          “It's good to see
you too,” I whispered back. And I meant it. A strange, comfortable warmth was
flowing through me – the same feeling I always used to get when eating dinners
at Luc's mother's house. A feeling of safety, of security. Of being loved. It
was a feeling I cherished – and I didn't realize how much I'd missed it until I
savored it again.

          The elevator
doors were open once more, and then we were in the basement.

          “Right,” said
Danny. “Practice time.”

          “Neve!” A loud
voice echoed off the mirrored walls of the rehearsal room. “Somebody's been
away for far too long!”

          Before I could so
much as look up to see who had spoken, Steve's lanky, long arms were tight
around me, rocking me back and forth in a bear hug.

          “Aww...Neve! I've
missed you so much! Without you, I've had nobody to make fun of. Kyle here is
not much to mock – he's
way
too serious for that!”

          Kyle tried to
laugh along with us, but his chuckle soon faded out awkwardly. He stood up –
straight like a mannequin, I thought – and walked towards me, holding out his
hand for a handshake.

          “Neve. Danny.
It's good to see you both again.” His voice was tight and controlled, and he
did not look at either one of us.

          “You too.” My
voice sounded as awkward as I felt.

          “All right, you
bunch of lazybones,” Steve crowed. “Time to get cracking. Let's make some
music.” He began tapping out a beat on the drums.

          We went to our
instruments, Luc picking out a melody on the guitar.

          And then
something happened. Something incredible – something bizarre and yet wonderful.

         
The music.

          The music is
all that matters.

         
Because
the second we started playing, the second Steve's drum beats echoed through us,
the second the guitar started wailing, the second I opened my mouth and let all
my fears, my worries, my insecurities fly away like a bird from my lips,
nothing else was important. Our dramas, our romances – so petty, so ephemeral –
did not matter. My relationship with Danny did not matter. All that mattered
was the gorgeous music we were playing, the music that rocked us through to the
very core of our beings, the music that made us shiver and shudder and shake in
ecstasy.

         
This is what I
want to be doing,
I thought to myself.
This is what I want to be doing
for the rest of my life. And nothing else matters. Nothing but this.
I
wanted to make this music, to give it to others, to celebrate the sound, to
make it my
gift
to everyone I saw, to everyone I knew or everyone had
known, to everyone I loved.

          This was what was
important.

          We were the Never
Knights, and nothing could take that away from us.

          When we finished
playing our first song, everyone was smiling – even Kyle. His golden hair
flopped over his eyes – sparkling with joy – and for the first time, I saw the
pain vanish from his expression. He looked over at me. “Not bad, eh, Neve?”

          His grin was
genuine.

          “Let's give it
another go,” said Luc. “We don't have long until our first performance? Which
is
where
exactly, Danny?”

          “A pretty hot
gig,” said Danny. “March 15. At the monthly Rock the House night Midnight Blue
over in West Hollywood.”

          “March 15?” Steve
looked confused. “That can't be. The Dusk Riders are playing this month's Rock
the House.”

          A slow smile
spread across Danny's lips. “Oh, they are,” he said. “But let's just say the
club manager was
very
excited when I proposed a surprise special
guest...”

Chapter
6

         
M
y heart was beating so fast – faster, it
seemed, than it had ever beaten before in my life. It was ricocheting against
my ribcage, pounding at my chest. My whole body was shaking. My knees were
knocking together; my wrists were trembling; my teeth were chattering. I felt
like I'd been shot with adrenaline, straight through, a jab to the heart. But
it wasn't fear I was feeling – or at least, not fear of the ordinary kind. It
was excitement, plain and simple, the kind of heart-pounding, fist-pumping,
thrill-seeking joy that I thought had been lost forever.

         
We were going
to play a gig. The Never Knights are going to play a gig. The Never Knights are
back – and we're ready for action.

         
I looked
around at the other faces in the green room, shining with joy, costumes and
makeup already on. There was Steve, his long and lanky look transformed with
the help of eyeliner and a leather jacket into devastatingly handsome,
Bowie-style waifish glamour, something of the Gothic about his hollow cheeks
and hungry eyes. There was Luc, with his enormous puppy-dog eyes ringed with
brown liner, his hair slicked back like a 50's rocker, giving him the slightly
anachronistic aura of a Sinatra-style crooner blended with something more
modern – edgier, I thought. But all the edginess in the world couldn't get rid
of the old-fashioned romantic look in his eyes. I smiled as I took him all in.
No matter what he was wearing, or how the makeup artist had attempted to
transform him into a rocker, I thought, Luc always projected an air of
sweetness, of vulnerability, that broke my heart, even when I didn't know why.

          “What is it,
Neve?” Luc caught my gaze. “You okay?”

          “Yeah,” I said,
taking his hand and squeezing it. “I'm okay.”

         
Just feeling
lucky.

          It was so surreal
that I could hardly believe it. A few months ago, the Never Knights were down
and out, completely done for, the band fragmented and broken, our hopes
shattered and trodden into dust. And now here we were, backstage in the green
room at the Rock the House Night at Midnight Blue, preparing to go onstage as a
band – no, as a
team
– once more. And it felt good.

          “Just imagine the
look on Roni's face,” Steve was laughing. “When we go out there after the Dusk
Rider's first set.”

          I grimaced as I
imagined it. It would feel like victory, I was sure – at least, at first. But
would she seek to retaliate?

          The music of the
Dusk Riders droned in through the sound system to the green room, along with
the rush of applause that greeted every single song. I couldn't deny that they
were good – very good, even. Their guitar licks were polished; the rhythms were
tight; the lyrics fit one another like a hand in a glove. But as I listened to
the lead singer – the girl with
my
face –  wail out the final chord to
one of her songs, I looked up at Danny, an encouraged smile spreading across my
face. They were
slick
, maybe – but their music had a polished,
manufactured sound, as if it had been thought up by market researchers in a
laboratory rather than by real artists.      

          “A glam rock band
out of central casting,” Steve said, catching my eye. We both burst into
giggles.

          “What did she put
on the casting notice – people who look edgy, please apply within?”

          “Unconventional
people – five individuals, all unique, yet somehow all the same?” Kyle broke in
with a high, quick laugh.

          Immediately there
was a short, surprised silence. Kyle had been warming up to us, little by
little, but throughout our frenzied week of rehearsals he'd still seemed a
little awkward, a little standoffish, as if he'd been holding back. Now,
however, he was all smiles, grinning from ear to ear as he laughed with Steve, me,
and Luc. Just like old times.

         
But it's not
like old times, is it?

         
I looked
over to where Danny stood by the mirror, a few feet away from the rest of us.
It hadn't been an intentional slight, as far as I knew – even Kyle had been
meticulously polite to him. But our table had only room for four mirrors, and
Danny had chosen to get ready at the other table across the room.

          I hadn't wanted
to say anything – Danny and I were still committed to keeping our relationship
as quiet and discreet as possible, to avoid antagonizing Kyle or Luc. So I'd
let him walk away without giving him a second glance. But as I watched him
smear stage makeup across his chiseled, marble-white cheeks, I couldn't help
but feel a pang of pity.

         
He's still an
outsider, isn't he?

         
To me,
Danny Blue was my boyfriend, the boy who sent me reeling every time he looked
at me, touched me, kissed me. But to the rest of the band, Danny was a strange
interloper, a larger-than-life figure who had sailed in, taken the girl, taken
control of the band's management, and plunged us all into a standoff with Roni
Taylor that none of us had ever wanted – or even imagined was possible. And, as
nice as the guys tried to be to him, one thing was clear.

         
He wasn't one
of them.

         
Danny was
older; he was foreign; he hadn't grown up with the rest of us. He didn't have
the memories, the inside jokes, the secret nicknames, that bonded the rest of
us to one another. I'd never noticed it before – I'd been so wrapped up in my
own relationship with Danny that I'd never seriously though about his
relationship to the rest of the band. But as I looked at his face reflected in
the mirror, his deep blue eyes searing into my heart even from his reflection,
I knew that, beneath that devil-may-care exterior and that blasé English charm,
Danny Blue was lonely.

          I caught his eye
in the mirror, tried to send him a small, subtle smile – something discreet
enough that it would escape the notice of Luc or Kyle. He smiled back at me,
his white teeth glistening in the halogen light of the green room, his stage
makeup only accentuating the delicate contours of his face, and, struck once
more by the sheer force of his beauty, I felt myself gasp involuntarily.

         
Even after all
this time,
I chided myself.
You're like a schoolgirl. You never can get
used to the fact that he's the one who wants you.

         
It still
felt like an aberration, a mistake, an accidental rip in the fabric that held
the universe together – that someone as handsome, as brilliant, as clever as
Danny Blue would want a confused college girl like me.

          “Come on,” Steve
shouted. “Let's go out there and get a look at the Dusk Riders' faces when they
see who is coming up after them.”

          “It's Roni's face
I'm interested in,” murmured Danny darkly.

          “Come on, guys,”
Steve grabbed my hand with his left hand and Luc's with his right. “Let's go
for it. Let's make it happen. Let's give them the best bloody show they've had
in their whole bloody lives – how about it?”

          “Absolutely!”
cried Kyle, joy spreading across his face like a blush.

          “100%” chimed in
Luc.

          “Let's have a
toast!” Steve lifted up his water bottle. “To the Never Knights, back and
better than ever!”

          “To the Never
Knights!” We raised up our water, clinking glasses and spilling the water on
the floor as we crowed, overflowing with joy. “Back and better than ever!”

          We all held hands
as we strode out to the stage, making our way to the front row, where LA's
boldest and most beautiful were rocking out to the Dusk Riders' song. Once, the
sight would have filled me with bitterness – even jealousy. But not now. Now, I
almost felt sorry for them.

          “
Come on,
baby, let me in

          Together we'll
play and together you'll win.”

         
The lead
singer – that
other
Neve – was crooning her way through the song, her
sultry lips puckering around each syllable.

          Then she saw me.

          Her eyes, which
had been languorously lowered, flew wide open in shock. All the color went out
of her painted cheeks. She looked, for all intents and purposes, as if she'd
seen a ghost.

          “You...” she
whispered, under her breath, the words of the song choking in her throat.

          She took a
hesitant step forward, trying desperately to continue singing, but the damage
had already been done. Distracted, she accidentally set her stilettos down
right in the coiled pile of microphone cord, and when she yanked the microphone
to her lips, the coil tightened around her ankle, yanking her right along with
it.

          She fell to the
stage with a resounding
thud.

         
Immediately
the rest of the music stopped – the guitar, the drums, the bass all silent.

          I caught sight of
Roni's face in the crowd. She looked furious – angrier than I'd ever seen her –
her beautiful, proud lips pursed together in an expression of utter rage.

          “Ow...” the girl
was moaning from the stage, rubbing her hands against her head.

          “Just a second,
please!” The manager was striding onto the stage, waving his hands in a vain
and desperate attempt to calm the crowds. “Just give us a moment.” He turned to
me and Danny. “She might have a concussion – you don't think....” He winced.
“You don't think you have enough material for
two
sets, do you?”

          Danny and I
looked at each other and grinned.

          “We've been
writing songs nonstop for the past week and a half,” Danny said.

          “How about you
just go straight up, then...” The manager looked nervous. “When the crowd gets
restless – they get angry. And I don't like them when they're angry.”

          “No problem,”
Danny's grin was wicked. “We're happy to go straight on up.”

          “You ready,
guys?” I turned to Kyle, Luc, and Steve. Their faces were shining, incandescent
with joy – and, I had to admit, the sweat of the nightclub. They looked happier
than I'd ever seen them.

          “Abso – bloody –
lutely!” Luc smiled. “It's been far too long already.”

          “Let's do this!”
cried Steve.

          “Let's go,” Kyle
added.

          Together we strode
onto the stage.

          “Ladies and
gentlemen...” I began, feeling my heart swell with happiness. It had been far
too long since I had spoken those wonderful few words. “We give you...
The
Never Knights
!”