Chapter 1 Way Back When #2
“Yes,” Jace said with much less outrage than she’d intended.
“Which way to the stage?” Paloma asked.
Her mouth dry and her power of speech suddenly offline, Jace silently pointed toward the door on the right side of the building.
“Fantastic! Catch you after the show.” With that, Paloma swanned past her toward the side entrance, leaving Jace in her wake to marvel.
“Hey,” the driver called out, breaking Jace out of her trance. “She left her gear in the cab, and she said you’d pay her fare.”
“Where did you pick her up?” Jace asked.
“Ann Arbor.”
Jace’s ire flared anew. Flipping the cabbie a few twenties and grabbing the guitar case out of the trunk, she hustled to the stage door, swearing all the way.
A few minutes later, Jace was at the sound board at the back of the room, the PA mic in her hand.
As the last notes of the Motown classic “Detroit Dancing Days” by Melodee and the Makers faded from the speakers overhead, she called out in her most commanding Voice of God tone: “Ladies and gentlemen—and everyone else—please welcome PALOMA DORALLE!”
The stage lights brightened, and the house went dark.
Paloma strode on, a black-and-white Stratocaster across her hips.
The audience applauded as she plugged in and checked with Jerome and Richie before stepping up to the mic stand, her eyes like green ice in the stage lights.
She chuckled as she took in the crowd, then wrapped her fingers around the mic and brought it close to her lips.
“Okay, kids, let’s play!”
With that, there was a rumble of guitar chords on top of a pulsing bass line echoing the beat of the drums leading into her opening number, “You Better Get Going.” Paloma looked up from under her bangs and sang, her voice somewhere between a come-on and a snarl.
Why don’t you love me?
Is it my hair?
Why don’t you love me?
Can’t stand my stare?
You have to love me ’cuz I told you to.
Love me now! Love me now! Love me now! LOVE ME NOW!
Half the audience chanted the lyrics along with Paloma, with the rest bouncing to the beat as she launched into the second verse:
You want to love me.
I know I’m hot.
You’re scared to love me—
We might get caught.
I want your love, girl. I need it, too.
Love me now! Love me now! Love me now! LOVE ME NOW!
The band ripped into the instrumental verse. Her Strat bucked like a bronco as her guitar solo surged forward, and she bit her lower lip, her head tipping back as the music possessed her.
Even though Jace was standing well away from the stage, the aural blast from the columns of speakers—and the sizzling curve of Paloma’s mouth as she sang the final verse—made her body buzz.
Just love me, girl,
Dissolve in my touch.
You are so, so sweet, girl,
And I don’t bite…much.
You’ll love what I can do. So why don’t you
Love me now? Love me now! Love me now! LOVE ME NOW!
The song screamed to a close, and the audience whistled and whooped.
Paloma acknowledged the applause with a gap-toothed smile that struck Jace like a lightning bolt.
From the first number through her entire set list and as her second encore concluded, Jace was in her thrall.
It wasn’t simply that Paloma was arrestingly lovely from every angle, which was a documentable fact.
It was the effortless certainty of her playing, the soul-incinerating power of her vocal delivery, the deceptively simple lyrics that burrowed into Jace’s brain and gut: what lazy rock journalists would call “star power.”
Jace found talent sexy. And Paloma was incredibly talented.
A couple of moments before two a.m., sweat-soaked and giddy, Paloma raised a hand and waved to the crowd.
“Stay safe so you can see us again,” she commanded.
“Now get the fuck outta here!” The house lights went up, flooding the darkness and breaking the spell.
As patrons filed out, Paloma cruised into the wings where Jace was waiting with bottles of water.
“Guys, great show,” Jace said. “The best one I’ve seen you do so far.”
“Thanks,” Jerome said, passing a bottle of water to Richie then taking one for himself.
“Do you really think so?” Paloma asked without any of the bravado from her performance. “I totally fucked up the intro to ‘Sell Myself.’ It was embarrassing.”
“No one noticed,” Jace assured her with a hand on her forearm. “The show was amazing. You were amazing.”
“Thanks,” Paloma said, smiling and relaxing slightly. She handed her guitar to Jerome. “Could you put this away for me? I gotta go to the bathroom.”
“So do I,” Jace said.
“Make it fast,” Jerome said, walking toward the instrument cases. “I gotta take a piss.”
The two women walked farther backstage to the two-stall unisex restroom reserved for talent and crew, Jace following Paloma in. Paloma paused next to the sink, her green-eyed gaze meeting Jace’s blue-eyed stare. Jace locked the door.
“Hey, babe,” Paloma said, then kissed her hard and deep.
Paloma had a height advantage, along with impressive guitarist biceps, that made Jace feel damn near dainty in her arms. Paloma’s fingers knotted in Jace’s hair as she pressed into her, barely letting Jace come up for air long enough to moan before she went back for more.
Breaking away, Paloma nipped Jace’s earlobe.
“Want to help me get out of these sweaty clothes?” she whispered, her breath hot against Jace’s neck.
“Sure,” Jace said, her eyes narrowing as she ran her hand up under Paloma’s shirt. She smirked. “No bra?”
Paloma smirked back. “I left it at your place.”
Jace spun them around and pressed Paloma up against the door jamb, pushing her soggy tee up and out of the way to taste the tang of her skin as she kissed a line down to her navel. “Christ, Jace,” Paloma hissed as Jace’s finger trailed up between her legs.
There was a sudden pounding on the other side of the door. “Hey, you two done yet? I told you, I gotta take a piss.”
Startled, Jace jumped backward. “Coming!” she yelled.
“Almost, anyway,” Paloma whispered, stifling a giggle. Jace clapped a hand over her own mouth to keep from laughing.
“Hurry up!” Jerome yelled back through the door.
Jace turned on the tap at the sink to give them a few extra seconds to tuck in their shirttails and grab a last smooch before opening the door.
“All yours,” Paloma said innocently as they walked past the bassist on the way to the bar.
Jace and Paloma hung out with a smattering of friends and staff for another hour, even though Mo had already tossed out all their drinks and locked up the liquor cabinet to close the bar.
They purposefully stayed away from each other; they’d only been dating since Jace saw Paloma play in Ann Arbor a few weeks earlier, and they weren’t ready to go public quite yet.
A little after three a.m., Richie tapped on Paloma’s shoulder to say, “We need to get to my cousin’s. You ready?”
“Your cousin’s?” Paloma asked.
Richie nodded. “Yeah, he said the three of us can crash in his basement tonight. Two sofas, one shag carpet. The carpet is a lot more comfortable than the sofas, so you can have that, Paloma.”
Paloma shot Jace a “SAVE ME!” look.
“Sounds like a lot of testosterone,” Jace said, casually placing her cup of water on the bar. “Paloma, you can stay with me if you want. My apartment has to smell better than Richie’s cousin’s carpet—no offense, Richie.”
Thank you, Paloma mouthed.
Shortly thereafter, the ladies were tangled up in each other on Jace’s futon at her studio apartment in Hamtramck.
Finally alone, they were able to finish what they’d started in the Artemis backstage bathroom.
Where they’d been frantic and feral before, now they could take their time.
They were still in the discovery stage of their dating relationship, and Jace took careful notes whenever her fingers or tongue earned a languid growl from this spectacular woman, who was as tall and raw-boned as Jace was short and square-shouldered.
And when Paloma kneeled at the foot of the futon and pulled Jace toward her to nuzzle her inner thighs, Jace thanked whatever god was listening for making this possible.
Later, lying in the red glow of her clock radio, Jace felt boneless and sated. Paloma rested her head on Jace’s bare chest, humming as Jace idly stroked her hair.
“That’s pretty,” Jace said. “Is it a new song?”
“It could be,” Paloma said, snuggling closer. “Maybe it’ll be our song one day.”
Jace breathed deep, catching notes of Paloma’s lemony shampoo.
Our song, she thought. So this is what having a girlfriend is like.
Jace had been the dateless wonder in high school, making clumsy passes at girls who inevitably were straight, closeted, or put off by the weird girl who’d bore them to tears after five minutes of yammering on and on about the LPs she’d discovered in the bargain bin at Harmony House.
Once she got to college, she found people just as eager as she was to go to Goodwill and yard sales to dig through crates of records and talk until dawn about the legends of underground rock and roll: all guys, sadly.
Sabine had done her best to set Jace up with some of her younger lady friends, but nothing clicked.
Then Paloma had spotted her in the crowd at that tiny venue near the University of Michigan campus with a smile like a homing beacon, and, after listening to Jace sputter through her pitch for playing the Artemis, squeezed her forearm and asked if she could stay for a drink.
After that, everything clicked and seemed like it could keep on clicking, as long as Jace didn’t blow it now with the proposition she was about to make.
“So, wanna tell me why you were so late tonight?” Jace began.
Paloma chuckled. “Didn’t Jerome tell you? I was record shopping.”
“More like shopping for a new crew,” Jace said. “You were in Ann Arbor checking out other bands, weren’t you?”
“Busted.” Paloma sat up, pulling the sheet around her. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, and I’m really sorry I didn’t have the cab fare. It’s just that we’re all sharing a car on this trip, and I didn’t want the guys to know what I was doing. I feel awful.”
Jace sat up next to her. “Jerome and Richie are okay musicians, but I agree that you need better. You deserve so much better.” She looked into Paloma’s eyes, shining in the light of a streetlamp streaking through the bedroom window.
“Your career is about to break wide open. I’ve seen enough other bands to know this is the time.
You’ve got the songs. Your sound is totally your own.
And, babe, you’ve got a look that people remember. ”
Paloma pointed to the gap between her teeth. “Because I look like a hick.”
Jace grabbed her hand. “Because you look like you take no bullshit and won’t let anyone tell you who you’re supposed to be. That’s the essence of the Detroit sound right now. You’re the one to introduce it to the rest of the world, and I want to help you do that.”
“How?”
Jace took a deep breath. “I want to be your business manager.”
Paloma snorted. “I have no business to manage. I don’t even know where my next gig will be.”
“That’s why you need me,” Jace said. “You focus on making the music. I’ll focus on getting you gigs, doing publicity…and breaking the news to Jerome and Richie that they’re being replaced.”
“You’d do that?” Paloma asked. “Not just talk to the guys, but the other stuff, too?”
“Absolutely. I don’t want anything, or anyone, to hold you back.”
Paloma was quiet for a moment. “Do you really think I’m that good?”
It was as if Paloma had asked if water was wet. “Of course! Hasn’t anyone else told you that?”
“I mean, yeah,” she hedged, looking down at her lap. “Sometimes it’s hard to know if people are lying to you to get something for themselves.”
Jace laughed. “You saw that audience tonight. Do you think that crowd was jumping on top of one another and screaming their lungs out to trick you?” She guided Paloma’s face upward, catching a glimpse of her self-doubt.
“Trust me. You’re that good. You’re cover-of-Rolling-Stone good. Sold-out-world-tour good.”
She was rewarded by an unbridled smile. “Get-on-Late-Show-with-David-Letterman good? That’s where all the real talent goes.”
“Yes!” Jace said with a sideways hug. “Don’t doubt yourself.”
“I’ll try,” Paloma said, her shoulders relaxing. “Look, this all sounds amazing, but I need to think about it, okay?”
“I get that.” Jace looked at the clock. “Let’s get some sleep, and we can talk about it in the morning.” She lay down with her arm outstretched, pulling Paloma close to her again.
“So, if you become my manager, what happens to this?” Paloma asked, motioning between the two of them. “What happens to us?”
Us. Hearing Paloma say that tiny word was like an answered prayer.
“Well, we can have professional ‘us’ and personal ‘us,’ ” Jace replied, concealing her delight. “We’ll make it all work.”
“Because I like personal ‘us,’ ” Paloma said. “A lot.”
“Me too,” Jace said as their lips met. Then Paloma let out an enormous yawn and settled into Jace’s arms, looking completely at peace. Jace was about to drift off as well when Paloma rolled on her side, half asleep, and said, “I would love to be on Letterman someday.”
Jace spooned her. “I promise to make it happen for you. For us.”