Rock Me Deep (23 page)

Drezden was right. She didn't like that twenty minutes we stole.

Marching up to us, our manager jerked her head towards the door. “Hurry up and get in the bus, Drez.” It was a simple command. Looking upwards, I spotted the casual shrug Drezden gave her. It was quick, his long legs pacing him out of the hotel.

“Brenda,” I started, fingers crushing my guitar case.
What do I even say?

She was already walking away. “We'll talk in the car.”

“I—the car?” My feet quit on me, leaving me standing in the lobby. I was alone for a brief moment before I hurried out into the parking lot with my bag bouncing behind me.

The whole lot had been blocked off by cars and orange cones, my tour bus waiting by the curb. Security had created a wall across the pavement, keeping the milling crowd at bay.

We'd clearly caused a hiccup in the schedule. Otherwise, they'd never have brought the bus to the hotel. This was an easy target for fans to swarm us.

Brenda was hovering near the bus steps, I jogged towards her with my bag dragging behind me. "Hey! What do you mean we'll talk in the car?"

She peeked up at me from her phone. “You're riding with me for a bit.”

“No, she isn't,” Drez said. He was standing in the bus, staring down on us. I saw the look in his eyes I knew all too well. It was the same look he'd given Brenda when she'd pleaded with him to let me get promo photos taken.

He doesn't like hiccups in his plans, and his plan was to ride with me.

Snatching up my bag, Brenda laughed. “Oh yes, she is.” I covered my mouth, amazed at the way she shoved the luggage into him hard enough to make him stumble back on the stairs. Behind him, I spotted Porter and Colt. Their faces shifted from amusement to discomfort when they saw me.

What are they thinking?
Chewing my bottom lip just made it rawer.
They know about last night, about Drez and me. Are they angry, disgusted? What?

Drezden pushed the bag behind him, moving to follow after Brenda as she returned to my side. “I said she isn't! Why does she need to go with you?”

“Drez, man, calm down,” Colt muttered. The lanky man gripped Drez's upper arm, but the singer shoved him off.

Like a wall, Brenda blocked me from the group's eyes. “One, you guys keep complaining about food on the bus. I'm going to get some shopping done. And two...” She never blinked as she stared me down, even if her words were meant for all of us. “Lola and I need to talk.”

Warily, I fiddled with my messy hair under all the attention.  She made me cringe, made me shrink. Brenda was too much like an intimidating mother. I'd left home to get
away
from tactics like this.

Swallowing down the acid that rose, I reminded myself that Brenda was
not
one of my parents. “What if I don't want to go with you?”

She only gripped her hips at my question, but it was a silent snarl in my ears. “Believe me,” she said, and amazingly, I noticed something akin to sympathy in her soft brown eyes, “You
want
to come with me, Lola.”

It wasn't much of a stand-off. Brushing past her, I walked towards the bus. Drez's green eyes welled with satisfaction the closer I got to him. It pained me to destroy his assumption that he'd won. Standing on the bottom step, I handed him my guitar, whispering into his ear. “I'm riding with her, Drez. I think it might smooth over some of what we've done if I can talk to her privately.”

His grimace was as chilling as arctic snow. Wordlessly, he curled his warmth around me, lips connecting with mine and flooding my brain with whiteout.

Thumbing my chin, Drezden stared at me with mild frustration. My ears were still ringing when he sighed. “Fine. Give me your phone.”

Everything moved sluggishly. I saw the way Colt and Porter were staring at us, saw how Drez pointedly ignored them. Somehow my phone was in my palm, then in Drez's fingers. “Are you giving me your number?” I asked, blushing over such a normal thing.
It's because it's so normal. People usually do that before they—well.

His nod was quick. “Call me if anything happens.”

“Like what?” Taking back my phone, I held it tight and enjoyed the warmth he'd left on its surface.

He squeezed the edge of the door. Every tendon in his arm flexed beautifully. “It doesn't matter what. If you need to call me, for any reason you can come up with, just do it.”

I didn't notice I was smiling until my face ached. The moment was shattered by Colt, his shaved head pressing in close beside Drez's. “Hey, you want my number too? I might not get
as
lonely as Drez, but I do love hearing a woman's voice.”

“Hey, whoa,” Porter scoffed. His beefy shoulders squeezed into the doorway of the bus, shoving the singer out further. “I thought you only liked when
I
called you, man! Fuck this, you trying to make me jealous?”

“Who'd try to make
you
jealous?” Colt snapped, waving a hand side to side. He hit Drez's nose in the process, ignoring the man's grunt as he kept talking over him and at Porter. “Have you even brushed your teeth yet this morning?”

“That hurts, man.” The bassist frowned as deep as he could, eyes shutting. “Right in the heart. Damn.”

The ball of fear that had been hatching in me like a rotten egg... it dissipated.
They're trying to make me laugh, aren't they?
These guys, these ridiculously talented guys, they wanted me to see they weren't angry at me. Whatever had happened last night, they were doing their best to show me nothing had changed between all of us.

Brenda tugged me backwards, clearly exasperated. “Could you guys not make us even more late? Get on the bus, get going. We'll meet up with you later.”

Shrugging her off, I flashed my band a smile and waved. “See you all after!”

“Make sure she buys some fruit!” Porter shouted, so close to Drez's ear that the singer grimaced.

In a smooth motion, Drez knocked the bassist back into the bus. Then he nodded at me. “Remember what I said.” His hand reached down, patting his pocket.

In answer, I tapped where my phone was tucked away. Did he think it was possible for me to forget what he'd said? As far as I was concerned, I'd never forget a single word Drezden Halifax told me.

Not now.

Not ever.

****

T
he wind felt wonderful as we sped down the highway. The silence in the car, however, did not. Brenda had commandeered a hatchback. I didn't ask her who she'd taken it from, and she didn't offer the info.

Now, as we tore down the asphalt with every window open and the breeze screaming in our ears, I waited for her to say... something.
For someone so insistent on getting me alone to talk, she's been patiently biting her tongue.

Abruptly, the windows went up. The noise was suctioned away; I missed it dearly. It was all that had been keeping things from becoming fully awkward.

Not looking at me, she said, “So. What the hell were you thinking last night?”

“Excuse me?” I squinted at her stoic profile as she watched the road.
Alright. No warm-up. She wants to jump right in.

“You know what I'm talking about, Lola.”

Of course I knew. But with such a blunt question, how could I answer? I'd been running through the steps all day. I barely understood my decision myself, how could I explain it to her?

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Licking my lips didn't make speaking any easier. “I don't know if 'thinking' is the right word.”

“Well, at least
you
said it first.”

I tightened my lips. “I mean; I
did
think about it. For a while I thought about it. I didn't... last night didn't happen because I wasn't thinking. It happened because I let out my—”
My what? Urges? Desires?
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Brenda was keen to assist me. “Hormones?”

Every bit of skin welled up and became pink. “No! Would you give me a break?”

“I
am
giving you a break.” She changed lanes fast, pushing me deeper into my seat. “It might not seem like it, but this whole thing—Lola, I'm going easy on you.”

“This is you being easy?” Scratching my scalp, I forced a tiny smile. “Tell me why you're so pissed off.”

“I'm sorry, was it not obvious?” Brenda sped up, making me expect police sirens any second. “I thought you were smart. Did you not think for one minute about how badly this could go? About how easy it would be for you two to mess up and tear this band apart?”

My brows merged together. “That's all I've thought about since the start.” She shot me a sideways look, then eyed the road again. “Brenda, I really did consider all of that. Yeah, I'm not stupid, I
know
bands get ruined by members dating.”

“Dating!” Her burst of laughter was acrid. “You guys aren't even—are you serious? You and Drez had a drunken fling, that's all it was.”

Squirming in my seat, I folded my arms.
No. It was more than that. He kissed me this morning in front of everyone. He wants more than a one-night stand.

And so do I.

My brooding silence stretched until Brenda cracked first. I finally caught a hint of her exhaustion. “Sorry. That came out wrong. Let me ask you this. Knowing how this could freak out the fans, how it could make crazy people crazier, would you consider letting me hide this?”

The question burned down into my belly. It made me forget I hadn't eaten that morning. In the side-mirror, I rubbed my neck where the soft bruises left by Drezden still lingered.
Could
this be hidden? Did I want it to be?

My hand fell from my throat. “I won't pretend nothing happened.”

Her huff of air was full of bitter amusement. “I suspected as much. He said something similar this morning.”

“Wait, he? Drezden?” Blinking, I watched as she pulled off the highway and down a curved exit ramp. The large, white Super Mart building rose up before us.

Gliding into a parking space, Brenda pulled two pairs of sunglasses from her fat purse. One of them was offered my way as she said, “I think you're both going to regret this. But at least you're in agreement about wanting the same thing. That's something. Put these on.”

The dark glasses hid away the puffy skin under my eyes. “Drezden really said he didn't want to hide us away?” The knowledge pushed my heart into my ribs.

“He told me he wanted the whole world to know.” She must have seen my smile, because she met it with a worried frown. “I'm not going to lie. I think this whole thing between you two is going to go badly.” Shaking her head, she slid her glasses into place. Her voice was soft as she exited the car, talking more to herself than me. “I swear, this band gives me nothing but trouble. I should never have taken them on.”

I wasn't listening. I was busy wandering in my head, relishing what Brenda had told me.

Drezden Halifax wanted the
world
to know about us.

My heart was racing to prove it could beat faster, harder, and longer than any other heart in existence. I wanted everyone to know about me and the singer. In the grocery store, I fought off the insane desire to run up to a counter and scream about it through the intercom. Drezden was mine, mine, mine.

And I was his.

Most of the shopping went by in a daze. Brenda, ever the organizer, had a list. We filled a cart to the brim with everything from coffee to cereal to the fruit Porter had demanded. It seemed like a lot of stuff, but thinking about the three men, it might have been too little.

With our sunglasses on and being just the two of us, Brenda was convinced no one would recognize me; I was too new to the band, she was just the manager. Without a tour bus in the parking lot or security swarming, no one batted an eye our way.

A familiar voice crackled out of a television stuck in the far wall of the store. I knew those gritty lyrics too well to ignore them. On the screen, a news channel was playing shots from Four and a Half Headstones and the tour. At first, my reaction was blushing glee. There I was—on stage!

Then the feed switched, showing police on another scene. I stopped in my tracks to stare. There, split lipped and haggard, was a man I'd managed to forget existed.

Johnny Muse.

He was being led away in cuffs, his teeth stained red as he shouted. I'd never seen him so upset, so... broken. The time between being kicked out of the band and now, a time that felt so short to me, had left a lifetime of ruin on the former guitar player's face.

He glared at the camera as he was shoved into a police car. It was a split second, his green eyes burning into me. They were
seeing me,
even if I knew that was impossible. I started to shiver.

“Lola?” Brenda stood next to me, sunglasses hiding her expression. I didn't need to respond, she'd seen the television. Even in my grim fog, I could feel the distress wafting from her. “Oh, son of a—is he really getting air time over this?” The phone was in her hand, long nails stabbing the buttons.

My fingers ached when I squeezed them together. Something about being confronted with Johnny's sky-dive into destruction was scaring me.
This is what's happened to him since Drezden kicked him out.
I swallowed around the sand in my throat.
I've replaced him. Does he know that, has he seen me on stage, playing with his former friends?

I was being worshiped in the media. He was being destroyed.

In my soul, I was sure Johnny Muse loathed me.

“Hey.” Brenda flicked her cellphone shut. “Hey, Lola. Snap out of it. You okay?”

My head moved neither up or down. I didn't know if I was okay or not. “It's weird to see him like that. Why did he get arrested? What happened, when was that?”

We both heard her phone buzzing in her purse; she didn't move to retrieve it. “I'd say you should check the internet for once, but honestly? I'd rather you didn't see what people were saying about you and Drezden.” My mouth twisted at her comment, but she only pressed on with a groan. “This band is going to kill me from stress. Johnny sort of... after he got kicked out so unceremoniously, he tried to get in touch with me. He called me from prison—”