Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
JC
George Altman is like someone ordered out of a Ken catalog—Hamptons tan, rare Ferrari, Keto evangelist, and a supermodel girlfriend named Starr who paints his toenails while he reads Variety poolside.
Someone I dislike immediately, on principle.
And he spends the better part of an hour walking me through every gritty beat of his noir film. The one he’s desperate for me to score.
I nod when I’m supposed to and massage his ego.
“Love the atmosphere.”
“Lots of potential."
I don’t know how much time we’ve wasted here, but weirdly, it’s Rhys who saves the day. Rhys, of all people. Mr. Whatever Works, the proud owner of a snazzy vintage Rolex, cuts the meeting short.
“We need to head out.” He taps the bezel. “It’s six thirty.”
I clap George on the back with a fake and hearty “I’ll be in touch,” because that’s generic enough to pretend I truly care.
The reality is, I don’t give a flying fuck about George and his passion project.
I’m only halfway in the room, the other half already at The Savoy, scanning the crowd for one person.
Rhys waits for George to leave before he gives me a look. “Alright. Spill. The film is funded and ready to go. What’s the deal? His man bun? It was kinda lame.”
Ah, sarcasm. Rhys, the master. He knows it’s the fastest way to cut to the chase with me.
But how do I articulate that life in the LA hustle holds zero appeal if Gia’s not at my side?
The thought of wandering the streets and bars again, chasing whatever it is I can never find, depresses me.
And after spending the past six months in Canada with the Gia opportunity, I’m not missing the US political chaos in the slightest.
“It’s a few things,” I admit. “Not in the proper headspace right now.”
After sliding his phone back into his pocket, Rhys asks, “Is it her, the tour, or both?”
Concern pinches his forehead in the middle. I could lie, but he’d call me out before I finished the sentence. We’ve always had twin energy, even though I'm three years older. He knows me like he knows his own shadow.
“Mostly her,” I admit.
“Does she know you’re into her?”
“No.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Maybe. Fuck, I dunno. It’s complicated.
” Meaning, how can Gia look at me—thirteen years older, arguably washed up—and feel any kind of blind, mindless desire?
After the incident in my studio, she practically sprinted out the door, refused my offers to drive her home, and took the bus in a monsoon.
Rhys nods with a thoughtful expression. “Will you be alright?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I wave off diving deeper into the topic he’s hinting at. “No need to worry about that.”
He frowns, not buying it. “Have you told Gia?”
“Fuck, no.” I reach for a handful of complimentary peanuts, crunch nervously, and ask, “Have you said anything to Dani?”
Rhys makes a gesture of zippering his mouth shut. “Anything you’ve told me dies with me. But c’mon. No bullshit between us. What is it about Gia? Why now? Why her band?”
The lights dim, and some shoegazey guitar drone starts moping in the background.
Meanwhile, my mind churns into overdrive.
Every music publication swarmed like piranhas when I killed Read My Rights—What happened?
Will you return? How does the rest of your band feel?
I filtered out the real reasons, and the buzz died down fast when I blamed exhaustion.
Who in their right mind questions a musician over that?
That’s practically page one in the handbook, right after sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
So why Gia?
Question of the day.
And anyone else but Rhys would get a partial answer.
In the long pause, I draw tight circles with my highball glass on the bar. Rhys waits patiently for me to share, and that, frankly, is more disarming. I hate being vulnerable, the powerlessness of it.
Like a bug on its back, belly exposed.
Finally, I say, “I feel like life is passing me by. Every day I lose another chance, you know? Cooped up in a room with directors breathing down my neck. Other musicians telling me what to play. My success feels safe, like I’m phoning it in.
” I work down a swallow and pause. That’s the most honest I’ve been in months, even to myself. “It’s a slow death for me.”
Rhys considers that for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“It’s always been there.” I look at him with a bare open expression. “I just buried it.”
“But how can you be in a band and tour after what happened?”
I meet his steady gaze and realize the lightheadedness I feel is me holding my breath.
Rhys always brings a level of care to his words, and this question gently pokes at my doubts and fears.
And the answer isn’t cut-and-dried. I love being in a band and the magic of playing live, but the tour grind is where the ghosts live.
It’s a dilemma with no simple answer.
And I know Gia wants me to stick around as her permanent guitarist. Her hints haven’t gone unnoticed. God, Gia. She’s made me come alive, made me feel like I have a purpose. There’s so much I want to share with her, but how does this ever work?
I shrug my blazer on. “Should we blast? Dani will read us the riot act if we’re late.”
Rhys handles my usual smooth evasiveness the way he propped up the backstory I constructed about the band falling apart: by playing along.
“Might be nice for you to get in trouble for once.” He elbows me in the ribs, not entirely lovingly.
Fair. I was the one who could sweet-talk my way out when our youthful antics landed us deep in shit.
Rhys, painfully shy, took the brunt of the blame.
And Dad harassed him endlessly for being unfocused and lazy.
One day, he’d had enough. He flipped us all the finger, ditched Canada for Europe, and stayed there for sixteen years.
I never want to feel that abandoned again.
Rhys finishes his drink and signals the bartender for the bill. George dragged us into a trendy hotspot filled with bankers and bureaucrats. Six drinks and Rhys is out two hundred pounds.
But at least he pays for shit.
We head out, brothers in arms, literally, arms slung across each other's shoulders. A spring in my step, one step closer to Gia.
At first glance, the River Room is everything I expected it to be: tastefully decorated and packed with well-heeled guests, the kind who run companies and invest in Bitcoin. Dani’s manning the front lines and frantically waves Rhys over. It’s a big night for both.
“Catch you in a bit, bro,” he says, huge grin as he strides away.
I hang back, cataloging the room. There are two open bars, pouring the good stuff. Waiters weave through the sea of glittering gowns and tuxedos, offering canapes and smiles. Photographers track the room, trying hard to blend in when their cheap shoes and cheaper blazers are a dead giveaway.
I crane my head for any sight of Gia. The real one—not the babe with a wedding veil pinned into her hair and holding a posy of blood-red roses, grinning at me from various banners peppered around the room.
She looks foxy as hell dressed in white fishnets and a babydoll dress, bracketed by her groomsmen, Brady and Tai.
She was a bag of nerves over that photo shoot. But I loved the concept. Told her you need a bride image for The Rock and Roll Bride Tour.
Now, where is my frontwoman?
I shoulder my way through the crowd, and like magic, the throng parts, revealing a woman poured into a column of molten silver that kisses the floor. Her pale back faces me as she chats with a burly, bearded man in a kilt.
Whatever standard operating procedure exists for me stalls out.
That’s not just a dress. That’s a problem.
It throws my breathing off.
And sparks of guilt flicker around my brain.
I need to find Gia. Forget the hot clench of my heart and my eyes burning a path up that dress.
But I can’t stop staring at this tall, slender creature.
Her raven hair is piled high in an elaborate updo, secured with what might be an antique letter opener.
Then she turns, and the whole evening tilts.
The layers in the room become sharper, sweeter.
I’ve seen Gia a hundred ways—onstage, in the studio, barefoot in ripped jeans—but never like this.
Her neckline plunges in a V that stops just shy of indecent, dark eyes made more enormous with a fringe of thick fake lashes.
She’s wearing the shoes I liked, ones I like even more because they turn the sway of her walk into slow, deliberate sin.
And because the curve of her lips is so much closer when she stops in front of me.
“Hey,” she spreads her arms out, “what do you think?”
I don’t know what to do with myself. Speech, apparently, is a lost art. But I want to blow up every bastard tracking her with bald-faced hunger.
Which would, unfortunately, include me.
“I don’t know if a single word exists to describe you in that dress.”
She smiles shyly. Then she leans in to whisper, “It’s all good until I have to pee. So much fabric to deal with.” When I don’t smile back, Gia reaches for my hand, tugging it. “You look stressed. How did your meeting go?”
“Fine,” I say distractedly. “Just another film.”
Her expression turns quizzical. “That’s a prize-winning response.”
What can I say? It used to mean something, my life in Hollywood. But with Dad's stroke, Rhys and Dani settling part-time in Vancouver, and now Gia, sticking close to home is the new black.
I’m struggling to frame this in a way that might make sense to her when a photographer ambushes us from behind a pillar. He aims his camera and snaps away, the bright flashes momentarily blinding me.
The fuck!
I raise my hand and blurt out aggressively, “Hey, buddy. Ask first, please.”
“You’re JC and Gia, right?” the guy asks, his British accent bright and cutting. Eyes alight with paparazzi payout. “How about a kiss?”
My guard immediately goes up.
Sawyer warned me of this.
To keep us under cover.
Without another thought, I grab Gia around the waist, half-dragging her through doors that spill onto a deserted outdoor patio. She struggles to keep up in her heels and a dress not built for sprinting.
“I figured we’d be safe from the pap in here,” she says, a little short-winded from how I rushed us out.
I lead her further into a dark corner where the muddy, mineral smell of the nearby Thames wafts over us. “Not in the UK. They’re intrusive and predatory. One thing you’ll quickly learn is to protect your privacy.”
It sounds like Gia’s about to say something when she slips on the pavers, slick from recent rain.
She wobbles, off-balance, and a soft cry of surprise tears from her throat before I catch her.
Both my arms wrap tight around her frame, and the heat of her body radiates like a furnace through the slippery silk of that dress.
Our gazes collide in the heavy, dark evening.
We breathe in tandem, plumes of our breath co-mingling in the cool air.
Gia laughs, but it sounds tinny and small. “You think I need to be protected?”
My fingers map the shape of her back, acutely aware of how the sensation sends a tiny thrill shooting up my spine.
The move here is to say yes. I volunteer to be her superhero, all day and every day.
George and his film natter left my soul charred and lifeless.
The big-dick energy in the River Room, eager to have their way with Gia, fills me with territorial rage. I can’t think about a film.
I can’t think of anything but her.
I slip my hand into her updo and tilt her chin higher. “Yes, I do,” I say, my voice wavering.
Gia breathes against my mouth, and I feel her in every nerve ending in my body. We’ve veered into dangerous territory, the crackle between us just the right amount of intense. If we were a couple on a TV show, this is where viewers on the couch scream, “Kiss each other!”
And then it finally—finally—happens.
She kisses me, not tentatively, but all in.
Deeply, madly, letting out a moan so suggestive, my brain goes haywire at the sound.
I kiss her back, harder, more desperate.
Her tongue slides into my parted lips, and all my thoughts detonate into nothingness.
Boom, I’m done. Lost in wonderland. A surge of adrenaline rockets through me, and I stumble like a drunk into the stone divider separating us from the garden.
Gia rocks tight against me, like she’s dying for it.
Join the club.
Our kiss has unlocked something in my soul, releasing me from my paralysis.
I devour her with so many different kisses, savage and sweet, the most intense yearning consuming me.
I want to possess every inch of her. Throw her onto the damp grass and lose all my patience. Ravage her until she screams.
“You taste like gin and sin,” she says with a trembling release of breath. Her hand gropes for mine, sliding it up onto her tit, the ready rise of her nipple.
I mutter, “Holy shit,” and squeeze my eyes shut, burning the memory of her aroused flesh into my mind. It feels like my heart is about to fly out of my chest.
This is insane.
She feels so much better than I imagined, and that makes it so much worse.
Not a single prayer exists that I can stop myself.
Mouth hot against hers and wildly turned on by her rising moans, suddenly a voice jingles in the quiet. Gia’s name posed as a question.
Shit!
I pull back sharply, square my shoulders and squint at the backlit figure. My vision swims, and I can’t make out anything in the dark. Our kiss obliterated all my senses.
Gia speaks first, a breathless “Dani?”
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Dani says. “Or we can move the photo op out here.”
The thundering roar in my ears dies, but the devastating effect of Gia pulses like a rocket between my legs. To compensate, I move away from her.
“No,” I say in a too-bright voice, “we were just…”
“Discussing the set list,” Gia finishes, smoothing the front of her mangled dress.
My eyes slowly adjust in the dark, just in time to clock the smile that touches Dani’s lips. She knows exactly what kind of set list we were working out. Inside, the party guests schmooze on, unaware.
“I bet it’ll be a rager,” she says.