Nightwish (An Echoes of Eternity Novel Book 1) (11 page)

“You’ve got fire down below,” I shouted to him.

Nolan hit a few chords on his guitar in response, using the whammy bar as though indicating that he felt a strong electrical current between us.

Then I realized that he took that remark in a sexual context. Intense heat pushed into my neck and cheeks.

A woman at the next table over flicked the liquid in a cup below his mid-section, which doused the flames on either side of his legs.

Nolan didn’t even acknowledge the interruption.

I took that as a compliment and almost panicked at the thought of more flaming fireballs erupting from my hands, so I stuck them into my pants pockets. Hopefully, they wouldn’t light me on fire.

He came to a stop before me. His fingers tapped across his guitar strings firmly, manipulating the chords with ease, tapping here and there, lingering on one chord before moving to the next. Then he hit a power chord and held it, stroking the chord, making his guitar whimper.

A few minutes ago, I regarded him as talented and arrogant, eager to gain widespread approval from the crowd. But the way he held his guitar so tenderly, his strings eliciting sounds similar to that of girls squealing with excitement on the playground, reminded me of my childhood: innocent, hopeful, and free.

At a loss for words, but unwilling to let him think I was one of the adoring women surrounding us, I said, “Not bad!” Watching the way his fingers sped across the guitar, my mouth had gone dry. I’d imagined those fingers slipping down the slope of my neck, towards my shoulders, and slipping off…If it hadn’t been so long since I’d last shared an intimate moment with a man, I was confident my overactive sexual fantasies wouldn’t have gotten the best of me.

I glanced behind Nolan’s band members, who looked at each other, alarmed by a guitarist who’d gone rogue on them by aborting their set list to show off, because he’d spent far too long away from his band mates. Looking deeper into their expressions, however, they appeared intimidated by their guitarist, even frustrated that they couldn’t match his talent.

“Kind of leaving them ‘High ‘n’ Dry,’ aren’t you?” I asked the guitarist.

He played a few opening riffs from the song I’d just mentioned, a song by Def Leppard. Then he inched closer, stepping between my legs with smirk, and launched into the opening chords of the Guns N’ Roses song “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

Just as the band was about to launch into the song, the guitarist stopped playing. He stared at me. The crowd erupted with applause: clapping, whistling, and whooping.

It looked like Nolan wanted to pull away and return to his band, but something held his gaze in place, still emitting plenty of sexual energy but also more than a bit of…surprise, as though he hadn’t expected to feel a connection with another human being without saying a word.

By now, I wanted to hear his voice. “You know who I am?” I looked at Brandon and Kendall. “Who we are?” I asked, hoping he’d paid attention to local metal bands in the Chicagoland area.

He nodded.

“You should be in our band, Cocked and Loaded.” It was poor taste to proposition another musician…while he played a gig with his band. But his band members made it more than obvious that Nolan wouldn’t last in their group beyond tonight anyway, so I didn’t feel too guilty. “You interested?”

He smiled as he shifted his gaze from Brandon and Kendall and back to me.

“You do speak, don’t you?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not mandatory, but you might have to sing backup vocals.”

“I prefer action,” he said in a deep, masculine voice. “Not words.”

The reverberation in his tone and his penetrating gaze made my muscles go limp. I drew backwards as though he’d spoken private, affectionate words into my ears, instead of just one confirmatory statement. “We’ll talk after the show.”

He nodded, turned around, and gestured for his band mates to start their next song as he headed for the stage to join them.

I didn’t even need to glance at Kendall or Brandon to know that Nolan’s guitar-work had hypnotized them as well.

“Whoa!” Kendall said, staring at me. She slammed her empty glass onto the table. “Did you feel that chemistry?” A grin made her eyebrows rise. “I mean…holy—”

“Yeah,” I said, cutting off an obscene word, “I got it.”

She wiped a hand across her forehead as though she’d just finished a long-distance run. “That was
so
hot!”

That comment made me think of the heat that built up in my body. Thankfully, it began to subside. But I kept my hands deep in my pockets.

“Nice pick up,” Kendall said and hit Brandon’s shoulder. “Who’d have thought you’ve got it bad for another guy.”

He turned his gaze upon mine. “You two seem to have something, I don’t know, pretty intense.”

I almost smiled at the insinuation. “He knew about our band. Let’s not make it into something it’s not.”

Brandon straightened his chair, clacking the legs against the ground with such ferocity that those sitting at the surrounding tables noticed. “Bullshit. He walked right over to you. Like he couldn’t help it. Like he was powerless to walk away.” He shook his head. “You can’t deny that.” He turned his attention to Kendall. “Am I right?”

She nodded at me with a half-smile. “You know the truth. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

I released a smile and glanced down, acting coy, mostly because I wasn’t used to men flirting with me. Over the past four years, I’d spent so much time and energy with my studies and our band that it left little time for anything else. To have caught the attention of such a gorgeous man made my heart burst with joy. For the briefest moment, he made me forget all of the craziness that happened earlier today. Based on that, I knew one thing: that kind of attraction could either rock my world…or destroy it.

*

After the band ended their set, I stood on the sidewalk outside the bar with Kendall and Brandon, along with about two dozen women in their twenties who chatted about the guitarist in two large clusters, hoping to get a chance to chat with him. (The other band members had left a few minutes ago without any fanfare). For the past twenty minutes, they chatted about his sexiness: muscles and musicianship, piercing blue eyes that harbored unexplored depths, and a grin that promised wicked sins.

Kendall and Brandon talked about achieving our dreams: hitting the mainstream, selling millions of records, and touring the world. And this time, rather than talking about what they hoped to accomplish, they talked as if it was a certainty. Nolan would bring charisma to our shows that had been altogether absent. He would also enhance our stage performances.

While I always believed that our band would make it big, I, too, felt like we were onto something special. Nolan had all the tools to take our band to the next level: worldwide renown. And it would all start when he walked through that door.

I listened to the women outside the bar who adjusted their blouses and skirts in hopes of eliciting the right amount of interest from Nolan. I got the impression that he’d need only to point at one of them, without saying a word, before taking her home.

That sexual potency would draw tons of women to our music. And where women went, men followed! Which meant ticket sales. But on a personal level, I didn’t like it. I had no problem with women dressing a certain way to catch a man’s eye, but I didn’t respect women who threw themselves at men to get them into bed. I felt heat rushing through me again, which frightened me. I had to learn how to control the pressure.

“Okay,” Kendall said, disrupting her conversation with Brandon to address me: “So you’re a Firestarter.” She referred to the movie starring Drew Barrymore, a young girl who had pyrokinetic abilities. “Didn’t see that one coming.”

“Neither did I.” Pulling my hands from my pockets, I examined my fingers, looking for an indication as to why and how fire expelled from them. But since heat built in my hand, I tilted my fingers toward the sidewalk in case they decided to spew fire again.

Brandon shook his head in disbelief. “You two are nuts. That’s Nolan’s thing. He sets up his pants to light up on command. Remember the bassist from Motley Crue? He did the same thing. But no one’s done it in thirty years, so it’s new again. Sure, it’s awesome, but it’s not magic.”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Kendall. She whirled around toward me. “Light Brandon on fire.”

I pretended to find Brandon’s skepticism offensive. I extended my right hand. “Shake my hand.”

He shrugged, laughed, and took my hand. “Jesus,” he shouted, removing his hand and stepping back. “You’re hand feels like you stuck it in an inferno.” He shook his hand and covered it with his other palm.

“Believe her now?” Kendall asked with a grin.

Brandon grimaced. “I don’t know. I sort of believed what you said earlier about witches and stuff, but you’re like The Human Torch,” he said, namechecking the character in Marvel’s comic book and film franchise, The Fantastic Four, who could ignite into fire and fly.

“I hope not,” I said. “Turning into a raging ball of fire would be hell on my wardrobe.”

The entrance door barged open, and Nolan stepped out, his black leather guitar case strap delving into the gulley between his muscular pecs. “Hey,” he said, greeting the women with a slight grin.

The women squealed and crowded around him, practically bouncing up and down like teenyboppers at a boy band concert. “The name is Nolan,” he said, slinking one arm around the waist of a size-four blond with enormous breasts. “You like the show?”

As one, the women let out a bevy of squeals.

“Jesus,” Brandon said with envy. “He snaps his fingers and chicks line up.”

Kendall chuckled. “Only he didn’t snap his fingers.”

I felt more than a bit jealous at the comment. “Better for the band though, right?”

“You know it,” said Kendall. “Brandon, I could introduce you. Just make sure you don’t start crying or pass out like a fan at a Michael Jackson concert.”

As the bandleader, I stepped into the throng, excusing myself until I stood beside Nolan. “Let’s talk.”

He released the blond. “Sorry, girls. I’ve got business to attend to.”

The joy he took from dashing their hopes made me second-guess whether or not we should invite him into our band. He already had a huge ego. If we became successful, I’d be a fool to think that he’d grow more humble. His ego could destroy our foundation…and friendship. I didn’t want to jeopardize that. But at the same time, I knew we couldn’t reach the big time without someone like Nolan. I turned back to Kendall and Brandon.

“Go on,” Brandon said. “Make it official.”

Kendall nodded with a quick smile.

Nolan passed through the women and followed me toward Brandon and Kendall. “Your sound and stage presence would work well in our band.”

“You guys have a hot sound,” Nolan said. “Like nothing on the radio.”

I nodded in agreement. I could name only a handful of popular female-fronted American rock bands. None of them had become successful on Top 40 radio.

Nolan said, “But just because your sound isn’t on the radio…doesn’t mean it won’t be.”

“Dude,” Brandon said, walking over and offering a hand. “That’s what we thought.”

Nolan took it. “You sure know your way around a drum kit.” He nodded at Kendall. “Your rhythm section is tight, and you three can rock a pen and a pad.”

Kendall beamed. “Serena writes most of the lyrics.”

An eyebrow quirked as Nolan turned toward me. “Nice. And you’ve got a smooth delivery…like bourbon over ice. Not like all the chicks who scream their lyrics, trying to prove they belong in a metal band.”

“And I think you’d make a good fit. No audition necessary. What do you say?”

Brandon cleared his throat, a smile flashing across his face.

I hadn’t even considered my comment as sexual in nature, but because Brandon had sex on the brain 24/7, I wasn’t surprised by his immaturity. “So you up for it?” I asked, and even before Brandon started laughing, I tried not to cringe at yet another slip of the tongue.

For his part, Nolan didn’t respond to Brandon’s childishness. “Definitely. I didn’t even have to cut myself loose from the band a few minutes ago. It was a mutual split.”

“Good,” I said. “We’re open to a certain amount of spontaneity. We’re okay with the occasional guitar solo or stretching out a song on stage if we’re feeling it and that sort of thing. But this is a four-piece band. If you want to jerk off on stage all night with your guitar, I’m going to fire you.”

He met my gaze with earnestness. “Glad to hear I get some leeway.”

Given Nolan’s talent and confidence, I had to be explicit with him. If I had any hope of keeping him from acting like the male equivalent of a diva, I needed to keep his ego in check. Even though the trio around me had an equal vote in our decisions, as the bandleader, I retained two votes.

“Good,” I said. “Otherwise, writing and music credits are fairly distributed based upon contribution.”

“That’s fair.”

As the women realized they wouldn’t be getting Nolan’s attention and went home, Brandon said, “Guns N’ Roses or Nirvana: which one will be more popular in twenty years?”