“Point shoved.” He breaks out in a ghost of a smirk at my response and I know he’s let my comment go. “It’s not my place to say anything, Vince. If the topic arises, if he tells me about it, then maybe … but as of right now he doesn’t even know that I know….”

“True,” he muses as we hear laughter. I look over to see Rocket’s arm slung over Hawkin’s shoulder, their heads thrown back.

They approach the table and Hawkin looks at me and then back to Vince. “You guys okay?”

“We good here, Q?” Vince asks me with a knowing smile on his face.

“We’re good.” I nod, our chat affirming that he most definitely has Hawke’s back.

“Well hot damn! I think Trixie needs to show up and deal us a hand! What do you say, Giz? You in?” Vince asks as Gizmo walks out the back door.

“Who in the hell is this Trixie?” Gizmo asks as he takes a seat.

When he bends over to get the bottle opener for his beer, Vince leans over and whispers into my ear. “He has no clue you’re Trixie. We’ve been telling him she’s another piece that Hawke and me are playing with on the side.” When I frown at him, he just continues with Hawke snickering over his shoulder. “He’s the one who pulls all the pranks on us on tour, so we like to fuck with him when we can … so …”

My eyes widen as I realize he’s asking me to carry on their charade, and I can’t help but laugh at poor, poor Gizmo. I glance back and forth between Hawke and Vince, their eyes begging me, and hell, I’ve had enough to drink, why not.

“Hey, Giz?” I angle my head over to him sitting beside me. “You haven’t met my twin yet?”

“Trixie’s your twin?” he says, the pitch of his voice escalating and his eyes lighting up.

Turning my body toward him, I lick my tongue seductively over my bottom lip, push my chest out, and rub my legs up against his. “Yeah,” I say breathlessly, my fingertip tracing a line down his throat. “We’re kind of kinky and like to play together—tag team a man or two when we find the right ones. We’re a lot to handle, Trix and me.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he flicks his eyes over my shoulder to the guys who I cannot believe are not bursting out in laughter. “We’re identical except for one minor detail. Most men can’t figure it out after searching our bodies for hours. Do you think you could?” I lean in close and whisper in his ear, “Hmm. You’re pretty damn sexy. I really think Trix would like you. She loves tattoos. Loves looking up at a man covered in them while she’s sucking him off.”

His breath hitches, and I hope to God Vince and Hawkin were being honest about him being the prankster on tour or else I’m going to feel like shit about this next part.

“You want to join us sometime?” I whisper as he nods eagerly, his breath coming quicker now. “Mm-kay, well, the only requirement is that you’re packing some heat,” I say, my voice still seductive as silk as I slide my hand down his chest to the waist of his pants. I cup him softly through his jeans, suddenly feeling the weight of the guys’ eyes as I play their game for them. “Whoa!” I say as I lean back and withdraw my hand.

“What?” he says, looking at the guys and then back, expectancy in his voice.

“I’m not sure if I’d even be able to feel you stick it in,” I deadpan as the guys behind me erupt into laughter. Hawkin falls off his chair and knocks over his bowl of candy he’s laughing so hard, Rocket spits out the beer he was drinking, and Vince pounds the table in his laughter, the poker chips rattling with each thump.

“Ah, man … fuck you, guys!” Gizmo says, shoving back out of his chair, the sounds scraping across the patio.

“I’m sorry,” I say through my own laughter. “They put me up to it.”

“Dude, paybacks are a bitch,” Hawkin says as he pulls himself off the ground, still laughing, and pats Giz on the back.

“Okay, okay,” Giz says and shrugs Hawke’s hand off him in annoyance. He looks at the four of us in our uncontrollable fits of laugher, and I can see him fighting off his own smile before lifting his hands in surrender. “I deserved that after the shit I pulled last tour.” And I don’t know what he did, but obviously he’s conceding to it so it must have been pretty bad.

Hawkin pulls my chair backward at an angle so my feet lift off the ground and he looks upside down at my face. “That was fucking perfect, Trixie,” he murmurs, flashing me a megawatt grin before closing the distance and kissing me backward, his chin to my nose.

And holy shit after the day we’ve had, this little taste of him makes me want to take him upstairs right now and get the rest of him.

“You taste good,” he whispers, unshaven cheek scraping along mine.

“Hmm, I taste even better somewhere else.”

I love the groan he emits at my comment, but it’s short lived when Gizmo slaps him hard on the back so that he almost drops my chair. “What the fuck, dude?” Hawke yells.

“I’ve got the feeling, man.”

“It’s about damn time! Been forever since one of us has.” Rocket slams his hand on the table, startling me. “Let’s get on it!”



Chapter 22


HAWKIN

The rhythm owns my soul.

Rock and Vince are playing off the beat that Gizmo’s pounding out like it’s a song we’ve practiced time and again. My lips are stretched in a wide grin as I bob my head, fingers drumming on my leg, because we haven’t just jammed for the sake of jamming in forever and the music we’re making off the cuff right now is fucking killer.

Just like the good old days.

I adjust the soundboard to make sure we’re recording this just in case we link notes we want to keep for anything new. We’ve had some killer shit come out of jam sessions before. Quinlan’s sitting on the arm of the couch, head angled to the side, eyes steadfast on mine, and a smile on those sexy-ass lips of hers. Goddamn, the music’s calling me, but hell if that sleepy smile and those bedroom eyes don’t have me wanting to say fuck the music for the first time ever in my life.

With my guitar in my hand, I walk over to her, needing one taste to tide me over a little bit longer. A thrill shoots through me, tightens my sac, at the sight of her sitting up a little taller when she notices my approach. I take the back of the body of my guitar and place it against her back and pull her into me. Her tits pressed against my chest, her nipples so hard it’s impossible not to notice the feel of them, make me doubt my decision about the music when I could be fucking her instead.

Damn. I have a serious weakness for this woman.

When I look into her eyes, I try to read what’s there but we’ve either had too much to drink for me to comprehend it or she’s guarding what she feels. Regardless, I notice and love the way her breathing changes the minute I touch her like this. It tells me she feels whatever this is too.

I press my lips to hers and sample what I plan on taking later. Damn if the warmth of her tongue, the taste of her beer, the softness of her lips doesn’t have me swearing as she pulls away from me and against my guitar still pressed to her back.

I release her, and she falls to the couch behind her. And I can’t help but glance down to her tits, her legs, and what’s in between before flashing her a smirk and looping the strap over my neck. Ideas of just what I can do with my favored instrument and my hot woman later flash through my head as I walk over and plug my guitar into the amp.

Fuck. I just might have to cut this jam short with that image floating in my head.

I close my eyes, feel the music for a minute—the beat, the rhythm, the notes—before I can jump in. My body rocks to it instinctively as I find my chords to join the guys. And it’s easy enough to do because we’ve been playing together for so long that I know where Vince is going to go with his riff and how to come in when it starts to fade some. Gizmo leads me into the jam, and Rocket rolls in right after me.

I concentrate, fingers moving to hit those first notes in synch with the guys, and I open my eyes for a moment to glance over at Vince to make sure he’s good with where I took it on my side. He nods his head as he chimes back in. Knowing we’re in sync, I close my eyes again, let my head hang down, and allow the world around me to slip away with each passing note as I become a part of the music that has saved and comforted me most of my life.

Losing myself in the music, I let go all of my anger from the fucked-up phone calls tonight from Hunter begging for money to probably get his next fix. The beat erases my past, bit by bit, memory by memory, sadness by sadness until all that’s left is the here and the now: my best friends around me, Quinlan watching me, the music cleansing me from responsibilities I never asked for.

“You built me up. You tore me down. Left me to wear your poisoned crown …” The lyrics I’ve been toying with come without warning, and I’m so in my own head that I don’t even realize I’ve said them aloud until I notice Rocket slow down his pace to keep with what I’ve belted out. I keep my head down, trying to avoid feeling vulnerable as I sing the words that come to mind and tell my story, but it’s no use. Putting my thoughts to words then penning words to paper before turning them into lyrics is equivalent to cutting open my soul to expose the dirty, dark, bloody secrets I hold close. Every fucking one of them.

And yet I continue the temporary purge of my misgivings.

“I am not weak. I am not strong. Just a man left walking in a world where you made sure I don’t belong.” My voice breaks on the last word, and I squeeze my eyes shut as my fingers still on the guitar. The room falls silent around me, Gizmo’s labored breathing from drumming the only sound of life.

“Holy fucking shit, dude!” Rocket says, surprise and admiration lacing through his voice. “Was that the shit you’ve been working on? Just … wow!”

He says something else that I don’t catch because I’m so busy trying to come to grips with the things I just said, the feelings I just scraped from the scars on my soul that now feel open and raw. The things everyone around me knows about already. But coming out this way, through the emotion of a song, is so much more real than a monotone blow by blow.

I sucked at school but I remember learning that Orwell said good writing is like a windowpane. Too bad my lyrics are more like tempered glass, reflecting how I’m so broken and shattered, the shards never falling because they’re being held up by invisible strings. Someday though all the pieces are going to come popping out one by one, till all that’s left is a gaping hole surrounded by irreparable shatters.

I feel hollow now, afraid to look up, afraid to keep my head down because more memories might come that I don’t want to think about. I feel more vulnerable than I have in a long fucking time and I know for a fact it has to do with Quinlan. I’ve let her in when I usually keep everyone at arm’s length unless it’s for that quick rocking in the sheets before I roll them out the door.

The realization hits me that maybe now after hearing my from-the-heart lyrics she’ll realize who I am, what I come from, and that I’m not enough for someone like her. Yes, I’ve told her about my past but something about music reinforces the damage within me.

The thought hits me hard because hell yes, we’re fucking good together but at the same time, she’s got her shit together, her life together, while my number one hits don’t mean shit when my life’s shadowed daily by the next phone call from Westbrook, the next request from Hunter, the continual demise of my mom.

When I pull myself from my thoughts and find the wherewithal to raise my head, Vince is making sure the recording is there and then I see him flick the switch turning the soundboard off. Rocket and Giz are nowhere to be found. He meets my eyes with a nod of his head, a shift of his eyes over to where Quinlan sits behind me, and then walks toward the door.

I track his movement, too chickenshit and embarrassed to meet her eyes just yet. Vince stops with his hand on the door and says, “You did good, man. Let’s hope it feels as good for you to get out as it did for us to hear.”

All I give him is a single nod in acknowledgement as I fiddle with the strap on my guitar before he closes the door. Sighing softly, I turn around on my stool, eyes still focused on my fingers as I rein in the needy bullshit I don’t want to deal with right now. Hell, right now? Who am I kidding? How about never want to deal with.

And I feel awkward for the first time ever with her but I know it’s only the mixture of alcohol and exhaustion and shit with Hunter that’s making me feel this way.