She rattled out a slight beat.
"Yeah. Do that again. Faster."
She did so.
"Do it four times in a row."
Angel looked at me oddly, but complied.
"You can hold rhythm," I observed. "And you"re pretty talented at it, from what I can tell..."
"Is that good?"
"It means you might make a decent drummer someday," I chuckled. "If Dylan ever drops dead on us, that could be useful."
We were interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Yo, we"re refueling for the road," Terence called out. "You need anything?"
"Come on in," I called out.
Terence quietly let himself into the room, smiling politely to my girl. "Hiya, Angel. You enjoying yourself?"
"When someone"s here, yeah," she smiled.
Of course, out of everyone around us who would be even remotely civil about Angel being around, it"s my ba.s.sist. I didn"t overlook that fact as I motioned him over.
"Hey man, take a look at this..."
After introducing Terence to her surprisingly rhythmic skills, we took turns giving her instructions for drumming her fingers. I thought better and drug up a pair of pens, and had her rattle out some cadences against a few surfaces.
"Yeah..." Terence nodded thoughtfully. "Your girl"s good. She"ll need training to take it any further than pens on your countertop, but this is actually pretty rad."
"Yeah," I thought aloud. "I definitely agree."
Since we needed to get going, we left her to her devices for the time being. Taking advantage of the pit stop for refueling and supplies before getting back on the road, I took the opportunity to refill the mini-fridge in my room.
I also decided to treat her to a tablet.
She almost didn"t accept it, until I reminded her how much time she"d be alone while I was working with the band on and off the stage. It was a bit of an impulse buy, but I had the cash to blow, and I wanted her happy while I was gone.
Besides. Chances were, she would stop putting out if I didn"t try to make an effort, anyway.
"Well... okay," She whispered to me after unboxing the device. "But seriously, you didn"t have to do this. I"ve got books and everything, I could probably keep myself fulfilled anyway..."
Angel thanked me later that night with a ton of fantastic s.e.x; it culminated in the most incredible b.l.o.w.j.o.b I"d ever felt.
After that gesture, I felt better about dragging her along and leaving her trapped in my small bus suite. Most of our stops had decent wifi, and with some movies and books on the tablet, she"d have something to occupy herself.
We were on the tail end of our tour. RipFest was just a last-minute addition that sold tickets lining our earnings during what would have been a brief lull, while taking an already great lineup and making it better.
But that meant that we were tired.
Tired and volatile.
I know that I should have spent a little more time with them, instead of cooped up in the back of the bus with my little Angel, but I hadn"t antic.i.p.ated that the rest of the band was growing resentful.
"Look who"s here!" Waylon sneered at me when I walked into the practice session one afternoon.
"Sorry I"m late," I replied. "Lost track of time."
"I"ll bet. Guess you"re finally done f.u.c.king your little honey for a few minutes, eh?"
I ignored his remark, knowing that he was just trying to goad me on. I would find a way to stick it to him later, maybe after the tour...but there was no point in fueling him before another big show.
"Let"s just get to it," I grunted.
Terence the ba.s.sist glanced up at me with a slight nod of his head. No matter what, he was always the agreeable, reasonable one.
We practiced for a while, but I wasn"t really feeling it. The rest of the musicians seemed to pick up on it, but I forced myself to go through the motions.
Angel was a distraction.
But not the kind they probably thought.
It had taken her presence for me to realize how grueling and miserable the tour had been. Part of me felt bad that the others didn"t have this that they had to watch me experience this bliss without finding their own way to attain what I suddenly, irreversibly had.
The stress relief helped, that"s for sure.
But she complemented me.
The more I talked to her, the sharper I realized she was...and the more vulnerable. It was this pervasive feeling hidden just out of view. I knew that her forgotten past bothered her, although she tried to keep it out of the way. I also knew that she did her best to leave it well out of sight, but the unanswered questions burned in my bind. Why had she run away from home? How much of her past was lost to the accident, and how much had she chosen to forget...
Didn"t take long to realize she was just as stressed as me...And just as grateful for the endless carnal distractions.
The rest of the band wouldn"t understand.
That was fine by me.
I remembered thinking about the filth that I was drenched in...and how the darkness swallowed me whole, tainting me in its depths.
But when I was with her...
I felt a little lighter.
I didn"t directly understand this intoxicating whirlwind of tension just beneath my skin... not until she brightened her light on me.
I was tired.
I was ready to go home.
I was done.
And I couldn"t wait to take her with me.
20.
Angel "This is our last night on the road," Trent whispered to me one early morning in the dark. We were lying in bed together, cuddling naked. It was swiftly becoming a favorite pastime of mine.
"I"ll bet you"re ready to be done with this."
"Oh, you have no idea..."
I knew what I wanted to ask, but he never made it easy on me.
"So..." I started.
"So," he repeated, a sly smile on his face.
"After tonight...what happens? Do I have to go back to Alabama, or...?"
Trent rolled over, propping up his face with his elbow. "Well, that"s up to you, honestly."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," Trent grinned. "Kind of grown to like having you around for now. You"re just so great in bed," he whispered, kissing my neck as he hand ran up my thigh. It sent a shiver up my spine, even if he was mixing in a little too much arrogance into his words for my taste. "I was sort of thinking you would come back with me."
"What, to your place?"
"That"s right."
I searched his eyes, but there was nothing there to tell me that he was anything less than completely sincere regardless of his inability to be kind for more than a few minutes without making himself sound like an egotistical or insensitive p.r.i.c.k.
Truth be told... I didn"t want to leave him even if I knew I was playing with fire. This thing that we shared, whatever it was, struck me as the flicker of a lightly burning fire. So far, we could pull back from the heat, save ourselves from the inferno in our future. Everything that we did only added fuel to the flames; it built up a glowering blaze that threatened to erupt into wildfire with too much tinder on the pile.
Am I equipped to handle it if I get burned?
I tried to push these thoughts aside, focusing on something true and solid. I needed another stone; I needed something else to take my attention, something to focus on when things grew too wild between us.
I will not be a burning Angel, I thought.
So, I agreed.
Why wouldn"t I have?
It"s not like I really had anywhere else to go, anyway.
The last performance night came and went, surprisingly quicker than I thought. I"d never thought to ask, but apparently the whole band manager and all lived in the same city. That made sense, explaining how they"d come together in the first place.
The tour had been scheduled to end at their hometown, earlier than usual. After they came back into the bus and cleaned up, the driver took us by each home, dropping each member off. As the prospect of rest came, each band member was clearly relieved, if not a bit exhausted.
They even allowed me out of the back of the bus to say their proper goodbyes for now.
I hadn"t heard anything but awful things about Steven, but even he seemed civil, given that the tour was finally over. Although, we clearly weren"t on the best terms after all; he angrily sneered at me when he saw me pop out to head for the bathroom.
Soon, there was just the two of us left, Trent and me, and the bus pulled up to a curb to let us out in a small neighborhood.
Throughout our entire time together, Trent had barely said a word about his place. I guess I came up with my own idea of where a rock star lived... Somewhere cold, industrial, and smelling of the filthy city.
As I stepped out of his car and gazed up the driveway, I realized just how wrong I"d been.
Beachfront.
Honest to G.o.d beachfront!
For such a c.o.c.ky and egotistical guy, he"d been modest in his silence. Here I was, thinking he lived in some rudimentary, dirty old house, but the truth was just completely incredible. Sitting against the water with the ocean to its back, his house put me in awe. A place like this had to cost an absolute fortune...
Once we stepped inside, I realized just how big a star Trent really was... As beautiful as the home was from the driveway, the interior was on a whole different level. I"d never seen a house like this... h.e.l.l, I"d never been in the same county as a house like this!
For the generous den area, a ma.s.sive 81-inch television screen dominated the s.p.a.ce with ample sectional seating for a dozen people or more. One h.e.l.l of an interior designer must have come through at some point, because nothing about Trent exactly screamed tasteful stone paneling or expensive, modern lighting.
A few entire bedrooms on both floors were closed off, collecting dust from disuse. He kept two one for himself, and another as a practice room, with a few instruments around and a sound recording chamber.
I didn"t even know that he could play, but these guitars, drums, and other a.s.sorted instruments were clearly not just for display. As I thought about this, I remembered that his fingers were slightly rougher than the rest of his hands. Once I"d put two and two together, I came to have a deeper appreciation for his talents.
Trent"s small fortress of a kitchen featured top-of-the-line appliances, enough counter s.p.a.ce to feed a full party, and cookery that would make a professional chef weep. For a girl used to a hot plate and a microwave, it was like stepping into heaven.
"HOW," I muttered breathlessly as I took it all in. "HOW CAN YOU AFFORD ALL OF THIS."
"Friend of mine in the industry got it up his a.s.s that he wanted to leave the country. Head somewhere exotic, like Hong Kong or something. I wound up getting a pretty killer deal..." He grinned self-importantly, carefully watching for my reaction.
"Still," I murmured. My hands ran along the sectional couch. It was plush, comfortable, and looked like it had been barely used at all. "This thing probably cost more than I made all year..."
"This is the kind of money you wind up with when you"re smart, negotiate a good contract, and happen to strike it lucky with a few big singles," he shrugged. "It doesn"t hurt that I got a competent lawyer involved at the start... or that we"ve been touring pretty much nonstop."
Trent glanced around for a moment, lost in thought. "I think this is the first time I"ve actually stepped foot in this place in months. That"s kind of strange to think about, now that it"s all over and I can finally kick my feet up..."
"It looks like it. You could probably put most of this stuff back in the boxes, they look so new."
"Yeah, well...material possessions were never really my thing," he shrugged. "Just sort of weigh you down, you know? All I ever really needed was myself."
"For someone who says that, you have a lot of it."