EIGHT #2
“I’m so glad,” she said. She shuffled her feet, not quite meeting my eyes. “There’s talk of a party after at Summerlin. A ton of people are coming…the guys from our opening act . You should come. I mean, if you want. If you’re allowed.”
I wasn’t. We weren’t permitted to socialize with our fares, but the desire to protect her was fierce and neither company policy nor my stringent rules about the routine could change that.
Her friend, Lola, emerged from the back door again. “ Kacey. You can’t make us late again, sweetie. I’m serious.”
“I gotta go.” Kacey reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’ll see you after?”
She hurried to join her band, and I tried to imagine this girl playing electric guitar on stage in front of a screaming audience. She seemed ready to crack in two, and aside from her friend with the two-tone hair, it seemed like she had not one fucking person in the world to help hold her together.
I wiped my hand on my uniform pants pocket as if I could wipe away her touch and the feelings that came with it, but I could still feel her soft skin against mine.
I slid behind the wheel to wait out the show. The line of limos behind mine grew, and I’d bet Trevor was among them, still not having learned to take off his damn jacket while waiting in the heat.
Unlike last night’s monotony, I spent this night with my nerves jangling, hoping Kacey was okay, and being pissed at myself for caring. Every muffled swell of the crowd made me flinch and I half-expected Hugo to bust out of the back door with her in his arms again.
After two hours, my nervousness settled into a dull pang in the pit of my stomach.
A homeless man shuffled up to me, asking me for some spare change.
I handed him the crumpled one-hundred-dollar bill Jimmy Ray had given me.
The homeless man’s eyes were wreathed in a bone-deep weariness.
They widened as he offered me a gap-toothed smile of profound relief before slinking back into the night.
Best hundred bucks I ever spent.
It was close to eleven when the show ended. Through the alley that led to the street, I saw a stream of concert-goers file out. I put my jacket back on and waited at the limo door for the band to emerge.
An hour later, I was still waiting, sweating in my jacket like a Trevor.
Finally, the door burst open, out staggered Rapid Confession and the guys from their opening act.
All of them drunk and loud and laughing with a post-show high.
I searched for Kacey. She was in her concert outfit now: skin-tight black leather pants, and a low-cut black halter-top that revealed a valley of smooth skin between the soft curve of her breasts.
Tattoos on her arms were stark against her pale skin, her hair was still piled messily on her head, tendrils falling loose to frame her face.
Kacey looked worn out from the show—sweaty and disheveled and drunk.
The drummer from the opener had an arm slung around her neck.
They both staggered and weaved. As Kacey climbed none-too-gracefully into the limo, her eyes met mine, glazed with liquor.
She flashed me a watery smile before disappearing inside.
Jimmy and the other band’s manager crammed in last, without a glance my way. I shut the door behind them, bottling up the cacophony of laughter and loud talk.
On the drive to Summerlin, my eyes kept straying to the rear-view mirror and twice I barely avoided rear-ending the car in front of me. But as long as the partition was down, I kept trying to catch a glimpse of Kacey, to make sure she was all right.
Why do you care? She’s a rock star. This is what they do.
But I did care. She’d drunk herself into oblivion last night and gotten almost as wasted again tonight. She told me at lunch today she was scared, but of what? The party scene? Or something more? And why, in the space of twenty-four hours, had her fears become so important to me?
I screeched into the circular drive of the pink palace in Summerlin. This time lights were blazing in every window. When I opened the passenger door, a great tangle of staggering bodies and laughter spilled out. I hazarded a guess the limo mini bar was raided down to the ice cubes.
The drummer from the opening act was all over Kacey, and as the group moved toward the house, I watched her try to shove him away.
“Get off,” she said, and staggered back. The guy laughed and said something I couldn’t hear. He went at her again, an arm snaking around her waist to yank her to him.
“No,” she said, her voice muffled against the guy’s chest as he pinned her close. His head bent, mouth on her neck and his other hand sliding down to her breast. “Ryan… Stop…”
“Hey!” Kacey’s friend Lola pulled away from her guy and started wobbling toward Kacey to help.
I was faster.
I grabbed the drummer by his shoulder and shoved him off Kacey so hard, he tripped on his heels and landed on his ass.
“She said stop , asshole,” I said. The drummer scrambled to his feet, his expression morphing from confusion to shock to anger. I stared him down, and when Kacey fell into me, her face buried against my jacket, my arm went around her.
“Who the fuck are you?” The drummer’s lip curled in a sneer. “The driver… ”
“Okay, okay,” Jimmy Ray said, moving between us. “Let’s all calm down. We’re all friends here…”
“The hell we are,” I said, not taking my eyes from Ryan. My one arm held Kacey tight, the other balled into a fist at my side. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and it felt fucking good…and reckless. I wasn’t a violent guy but if this bastard wanted a fight, I’d give it to him.
The band members, with some prompting from Jimmy, moved toward the house. Ryan was too drunk to fight, and I think he knew it. He flipped me the bird and let himself be pulled away by his mates. Lola remained behind.
“We’re all good?” Jimmy asked. “You okay, kitten?”
Kacey moved away from my arm but stayed close, holding onto the cuff of my jacket. She gave a stiff smile. “Sure, Jimmy. I’m great.”
“Screw that,” Lola said, glaring at her manager. “If Ryan touches her again, I’ll chop his dick off. Get rid of them, Jimmy. Find another opening act.”
I liked this Lola.
Kacey waved a hand. “No, no, it’s not a big deal. It’s okay…”
“No, it’s not okay,” I said.
Jimmy rubbed his chin. “This has to be a big thing? Right now? I got a hundred people coming to this party…”
Even as he spoke, other cars were arriving, cabs and limos—a steady stream of people. If I didn’t move the limo soon, it was going to get boxed in.
I looked down at Kacey. She was drunk, and if I let her go inside that house, she’d only get drunker. Or pass out. Ryan might decide to take what he wanted anyway, and in a house that size, with a party raging, who would know?
Keep to the routine, I thought, even as my hands moved on their own.
I took Kacey’s face and tilted it gently, making her look at me.
Her broad mouth trembled under red lipstick.
Dark makeup pulled her eyes into long blue sapphires, pale blue with a darker ring around the iris.
I hadn’t noticed that before . Beautiful. She didn’t belong here.
“You want to leave?” I asked.
Her eyes held mine, liquor dimming the shine I’d seen in them during our lunch. But her voice was steady when she answered, “Yeah, I do.”
I smiled at her, strangely proud. “Done.”
Her glassy eyes widened in surprise, then with a gust of whiskey-soaked breath, she wilted against me. “It’s all good, Jimmy,” she murmured. “Jonah…He’s so good to me.”
I walked her to the front seat of the limo and helped her in. Her head lolled against the headrest, her eyes closed, and I buckled the seatbelt on her to keep her safe.
“Pack her a bag?” I said to Lola, shutting the door.
She narrowed her eyes at me, sizing me up, then nodded and went into the house.
Jimmy looked after her, then swung around back to me. “Pack a bag?”
“She’s staying with me a few days,” I said.
He blew air out his cheeks wetly. “We’re outta here on Tuesday.” He was drunk as hell too but trying to hold onto some authority. “I got twenty-five more cities lined up and she’s under contract. Just so you know the score.”
“I know it,” I said, my voice stony. I pulled up all of my six feet, towering over him. “She’s taking a break from this scene.”
And then what? the voice of caution asked me. I ignored it.
“A break. Yeah, okay.” Jimmy lit a smoke and jabbed the two fingers that held it at me. “I know where you work. You want to keep your job, you take care of her.”
“Better than you have,” I said.
“You think you’re special to her? Her hero?” He snorted a laugh. “Take a number, buddy.”
He retreated into the house that was rapidly filling up. Lola came back with a duffel bag and a small leather backpack. I took them and walked to the trunk.
“What’s the deal here?” Lola asked. “Are you two…?”
“No.” I tossed the bags in the trunk. “She needs some time away. Obviously.”
“So she stays a few days on your couch, and then rejoins us before we leave Vegas?”
“That’s the plan.” I slammed the trunk lid. “If you’re worried whether or not she’s safe with me, she is. I swear on my life I would never hurt her, okay?”
Lola nodded slowly. “Okay, fine. This could be good. It wouldn’t kill Kacey to stay sober for forty-eight consecutive hours.
I love her to pieces, but she’s a fucking flake.
This is our big break. It’s my big break, and if she can keep her shit together long enough, she’d see that it’s her big break too. ”
I doubt it. I moved to the driver’s side.
“I’m going to call her,” Lola told me, following. “To make sure she’s all right.”
“I would hope so,” I replied, and slammed the door.
You can’t peel out in a limousine, but I came close, and the pink palace faded out of my rear view.
I drove back to A-1 to return the limo, hustling Kacey through the garage into my truck.
By some miracle no one saw us. Back at my apartment, it was last night all over again, except that Kacey didn’t smell of puke and smoke.
The scent of her perfume, her sweat and a tinge of whiskey permeated the air as I helped her out of the truck.
This time, she wasn’t out cold, but swimming in inebriation—sometimes deep under and hardly able to keep her feet, sometimes coming up for air to walk with me.
Twice she threw her arms around my neck and murmured in my ear how grateful she was I’d saved her.
My skin broke out in gooseflesh and my groin tightened as I went to lay her down in my bed.
“Jonah,” she sighed, still clinging to me, trying to pull me down on the bed with her. “You’re so good to me. The last good man on earth.”
“Kacey, wait…”
I tried to gently pry her arms from my neck, but she was tenacious.
Her lips brushed my skin above my uniform collar.
Warm, wet kisses under my ear, working up until her teeth grazed my earlobe, and I had to clench my teeth.
She licked and teased, her mouth a gravitational pull and I was being sucked in, ready to collapse over her, into her.
My hands wanted the softness of her skin and hair, the full curve of her breasts under my palm…
“Kacey,” I said. “We can’t…”
“We can,” she whispered against my cheek.
Her mouth moved along my jaw, her lips blazing a trail across skin that hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in more than a year.
Her hands tangled in my hair, little breathy noises of want issuing from her throat.
Her mouth had almost found mine when a pungent waft of whiskey filled my nose, bringing me around like a slap.
What the hell are you doing?
I pulled away before her lips found mine and disentangled myself from her embrace.
“You’re no fun,” she murmured, and then stretched her arms over her head, her fingers splayed on the wooden bedframe. Her breasts pushed against the flimsy, glittery material of her black halter-top. “Don’t be like that. Come to bed, baby.”
Reality doused me like a bucket of ice water.
I could be anyone right now.
“You need to sleep it off,” I snapped. I unzipped the duffel that Lola had packed for her and dug around until I found a T-shirt and pair of soft shorts. I laid them out on the bed and started for the door.
No sooner had I shut off the light then her voice carried to me, small and fragile in the dark.
“Wait. Jonah…?”
I stopped but didn’t turn, my shoulders sagging. “Yeah?”
“Stay. The ceiling…It’s spinning…”
Don’t do it.
I did. Drawn in .
I turned and moved slowly back to the bed. The only light came from the street outside, a white light casting a silvery glow over the bed and through her hair that had fallen from its knot. She held out her hand. I took it and sat beside her.
Kacey sidled up close to me, pressed her cheek against my thigh and wrapped her arm around my knees. “Where am I?” Her voice was slurred a little, growing weak as sleep took her. “Where am I, Jonah?”
“You’re safe, Kacey,” I murmured. I held her for a little while, then helped her change into her comfortable clothes—taking care to keep my eyes averted as much as possible from her body, pale and smooth and stretched out before me.
I pulled up the covers. And because I thought she wouldn’t remember this in the morning, I stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Then I went out, closing the door softly behind me.