Chapter 9
HOLLY
I can’t quite believe I’m here as I stand slightly back and separate from the crowd. This isn’t my usual scene but here I am anyway because I can’t stop thinking about Danny, damn it.
Lights strobe and pulse around the dance floor area, which is off to one side of the bar.
It’s not a big space but there’s a lot of people all packed in tight and standing like it’s a mosh pit despite the stage only being raised a foot or so off the floor.
Bodies move to the beat, eyes glued on the band, arms lifted as if trying to catch the music in their fingers as its blasts around them.
There’s a distinct smell that wafts from the wall of bodies all perspiring under hot lights.
Spilled booze and the sickly-sweet aroma of weed and cherry ChapStick vapes clinging to fabric already sporting pit stains.
Throw in the clash of dozens of different perfumes and colognes and it is a unique smell.
Not bad. But raw and earthy, adding to the almost feral atmosphere as the human mass shifts up and down and side to side as one moving beast.
Like a herd of shuffling, grasping zombies.
It’s an epidemiological nightmare. People squeezed tight, skin on skin, bathing in the veritable cesspit of respiratory particles and bodily fluids sloshing around in the heated atmosphere like a giant Petri dish.
But I switch my doctor brain off and tune in to the beat.
There’s a guy up front in ripped jeans and a black T-shirt featuring a white swan with a green mohawk.
He’s singing about a woman he loves who doesn’t know he exists, and the crowd is singing along, hanging on his every word.
Lead singer Nester Wild, according to my googling.
To one side of him is another guy with an acoustic guitar in skinny jeans that seems like they’re painted on his beanpole legs.
He’s in a plain black tank top and goes by the name West.
The other side of Nester is an of a woman with bright pink pixie-cut hair, a very short, tiered tartan skirt, ripped fishnets over her solid thighs, chunky boots and a white T-shirt that sits tight against her unfettered A cups and lays bare her navel piercing.
She’s making the electric guitar hiss and purr like it’s followed her right out of band-girlfriend hell.
Which is a dumb thought because even though Belle looks like every punk-pixie-dream-girl nightmare and ten times cooler than me on my coolest day, I remind myself that Danny and I are not a thing.
So jealousy is a waste of time and energy.
Unfortunately my brain doesn’t give a shit about that as the grungy vibe of hard rock and easy sex pervades everything, and I wonder why in the hell I decided to torture myself like this.
I’ve just come from fifteen hours in the quiet cleanliness of a hospital where everything is hushed and efficient and smells like Glen 20 to this raucous, festering, sexually charged den of rock.
If this doesn’t scream two worlds – nothing does.
But then I spot him, and I know exactly why.
He’s slightly behind the rest of the band, sitting at the drums, belting the hell out of them.
His eyes are shut, his head dropped back like he’s really riding the beat, and for several moments I forget my insecurities as I feast on the sight of Danny Colton doing what he was clearly made to do.
He’s not wearing a shirt, the tats on his chest and abs and neck practically glowing under the pulse of lights, his skin slick with sweat.
Sweat sprays from his hair as his head snaps up, the droplets caught by the light.
His blue eyes blast open as he leans into a lick and the crowd screams for more.
There’s a lot of women, dressed in not a lot considering it’s freezing outside – a brisk forty-five.
Not in here though. Hence all the skin on display.
Bare arms and lots of leg in skirts and short shorts that flash hints of ass cheeks as well as plunging necklines, and skimpy shirts that cover only what needs to be covered.
And that’s not just the women.
I’m wearing a skirt that comes to my knee.
Also tights and long boots that end halfway up my calves.
I took my jacket off as I entered the warmth of the bar and it’s hanging over my arm, which leaves me in my form-fitting Henley.
It clings to my breasts, the row of buttons that fasten down the middle pulling slightly across my cleavage.
Ordinarily, the V-neck draws attention to my cleavage, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about that when I’d tossed it in my bag this morning along with the skirt and boots. But as I’m probably the most dressed person here, I doubt anyone’s looking.
Damn it… Why did I come?
Because the other night I’d told him I didn’t always look like a bridge troll and with another late start tomorrow and him constantly on my mind, I wanted to prove it to him.
But I wasn’t expecting Danny’s world to be so different.
This isn’t the sparkly world of an arena concert with pyro techniques, backup dancers and big screens that bring the artist closer.
This is the up-close grungy rawness of the bar scene, and I’m intimated in a way I’m pretty sure he was not when he was in my world.
After the other night when Danny had fixed my hot water bottle and massaged my feet, I’d really started to think that maybe he was into me, but now I’m here, I wonder what the hell he sees in me when this is his world.
And he is so in his element here.
I have, literally and figuratively, let my hair down and yet the feeling that I stick out like a sore thumb presses down on me.
I should leave but he is mesmerising to watch, and even though I tell myself to get the hell out, I can’t pull myself away either.
The play of his muscles as he works sticks that are nothing more than a blur makes my nostrils flare.
Or maybe that’s the pheromone funk in the air.
But knowing how those muscles have bunched in my palms, how they’ve flexed over and under and inside me, suspends me in a useless kind of thrall. A thread of something that feels like web silk wraps invisible fingers around my waist and holds me to the spot. I could watch him do this all night.
The drumbeats rise to a crescendo along with the lyrics before they abruptly stop and the crowd breaks into applause. ‘Thank you all,’ Nester says, his mouth pressed to his mic. ‘We’re taking a break for a bit but we’ll be back. Don’t go away.’
The crowd, now released from the clutch of the music, surges forward as the band downs instruments.
The raised platform is mobbed by mostly women and in the melee, someone calls Danny’s name as he scoops up his shirt, wipes it over his forehead and hair then pulls it over his head.
He grins at them as he emerges and gives then a lewd wink, and before I know it I am storming forward, pushing my way through the throng, my pulse an indignant hammer through my head.
Back off, bitches.
Music pumps in over the sound system in lieu of the band as Danny’s gaze lifts and meets mine. His eyes widen a fraction, but then he slow-grins and even though others are vying for his attention, it’s like we’re the only two people in the room.
The rest of the band shuffles off stage, but not Danny.
He strides purposefully in my direction, stepping off the stage with a single-minded focus that makes me shiver.
He’s big and hot as he pushes through everyone, staring at me – just me – as he ignores the grab of hands all around him, the sighing, the screaming.
There’s an intensity to his gaze which makes my pussy – vagina! – quiver. My heart rate picks up as he bears down on me and I swallow, my mouth as dry as the concrete beneath my feet as he finally reaches me, his hands sliding up my arms.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘you’re here.’
I nod helplessly. I’m breathless, and I don’t know what to say. All of my imaginings of him being a drummer in a rock band and it’s nothing like I thought it would be. It’s… more. He’s more. More intense. More raw.
‘Why?’
I’m not bothered by his question because I understand why he asks it. This isn’t my usual scene and we both know it. I must look like a fish out of water, but… I don’t feel it. Not when he looks at me like I belong wherever he is.
‘I wanted to prove to you I could rock something other than a duvet and a pair of scrubs,’ I say and laugh nervously.
His gaze drifts to my cleavage before drifting back again, appreciation making his eyes glow hot. People all around are trying to get his attention but he ignores them as he says, ‘You wanna get out of here?’
I frown. ‘Don’t you have another set?’
‘Not for another twenty minutes.’
He takes my hand then and tugs, and I stick close to him as he drags me through the crowd.
I’m super conscious that all these women reaching for him want him – but he’s chosen me.
I know as they look me up and down, they’re wondering why Danny, the drummer/sex god, is with a woman whose knees aren’t even visible, and I wonder the same.
How does he want me in this stupid fucking skirt?
Suddenly we’re through the crowd then through a door into a long corridor, the noise of the crowd and the interim music instantly muffled.
But still Danny doesn’t stop; he keeps on striding and I keep on following.
We pass an open doorway, and someone calls his name.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of a room where the other band members are hanging, but Danny ignores them, neither turning nor stopping.
I wonder if they know where he’s taking me. And why. I also wonder why I don’t care.
The corridor gets more dimly lit the further we travel, but I notice the glow of the exit sign ahead and realise we’re heading out.
When Danny reaches the door, he pushes down on the bar and drags me through to the alley on the other side, the door clunking shut as he gently guides me backwards until my shoulder blades bump into the wall.