27
If you want to get a sensual thunderbolt, then you have got to be cocked, locked, and ready to rock, Doc.—Ted Nugent
Feet dangling above the steep decline below Drew Cooper's Laurel Canyon house, Rhys propped his arms on the crossbar of the wooden deck and took a drink from the bottle of Sam Adams. There was an unopened bottle next to him on the redwood boards, but that was it.
Two beers and no more. Without conscious thought, his hand moved down and rubbed his now-tight abdominals.
Since he'd been staying with Drew he'd gotten back into his workout routine, thanks to the rhythm guitarist's well-stocked home gym.
The slight but definite belly that had grown in Chicago was now gone.
Rhys took some shit from the others in the band when he first got to L.A.
and endured their joking comments about how he needed to lay off the Chicago-style pizza.
He laughed along with them but didn't bother to correct their assumption that he'd been eating too much.
In fact, he'd been eating less because he substituted copious amounts of Scotch whisky for food.
If he'd known his time in Chicago would turn into such a clusterfuck he'd have bought stock in Diageo, the company that owned Johnnie Walker, before returning.
At least he would have made a bit of dough from all that booze he knocked back.
A warm California breeze stirred his hair, and he sighed, more at peace in that moment than he'd been in months.
If there was a better time to be in California besides mid-September, he didn't know when it might be.
Dusk was falling, but the pleasant warmth of the day still lingered without any of the humidity that made high summer such hell.
The breeze blew again, caressing his bare chest, and he thought it might be nice to just stay where he was all night.
The rattle of the sliding glass doors behind him announced Drew's presence even before he snorted out a quick laugh.
"Here I go and spend hundreds of dollars on outdoor furniture, and you sit on the floor."
"Half tamed, that's me." Rhys lifted the Sam Adams to his mouth again as Drew sat down beside him, the green bottle of Heineken in his hand barely visible in the growing darkness.
"Nice out here, though. What I can't understand is why it always smells like oranges when you don't have any orange trees. Do your neighbors?"
"Not that I know of. Maybe the city sends drone planes over at night to spray citrus air freshener."
Rhys chuckled. "I can think of other things they could spray to mellow everyone out."
"No shit, man."
They sat and drank in companionable silence as night officially fell. After a while, Drew spoke up again.
"I think we're sounding tight."
"Mm-hm." Rhys nodded, knowing Drew referred to Illicit's ongoing rehearsals. "I'm not happy with the setlist, though. Yeah, we need to play the new stuff, but I think we've cut out too much of the stuff we're known for."
"We, hell." Even though it was too dark see Drew's face, his disgust came through loud and clear in his tone.
"Who died and made Ross our Grand Exalted Leader?
Struttin' around cutting and slashing the setlist without even talking about it with the rest of us.
I think it's time we pulled him down off that high horse he's riding. "
Rhys repressed a sigh. That's all they needed, tensions running high right before the start of a world tour. "Maybe coax him down, hey? I don't want him going all beserker on us right now."
"No, it's cool," Drew replied. "I think David and I will just have to remind him that we formed Illicit Biscuit with him when we were in school at Arkansas State, and it's not his band."
Irritation tightened his shoulders. "And it doesn't belong to just the three of you, either, you know."
"I didn't say it did." Drew sounded surprised.
"I know you didn't. Sorry to snap like that."
"No problem." A soft hissing noise came from Drew's vicinity as he opened another Heineken. "But what's up with you, man? You've been touchy as hell since you got here."
Rhys remembered his second Sam Adams and groped around in the darkness until his hand brushed against it. Another bout of groping produced the bottle opener, and he pried the cap loose.
"I had a shit summer. It's taken a while to get over it."
"Yeah? You were back in Chicago, right? What happened to Dallas?"
Even lukewarm the beer felt good going down his throat, and he drank for a minute or two before replying.
"Sienna happened. When I was there for her high school graduation, she told me she wanted to spend the summer with me before she went off to university. Said I never spent any time with her, and I owed it to her. But she refused to go to Dallas, so I ended up back in Chicago."
"Hey, still. Must've been nice to see your kid all summer long."
"Would've been if any of that had been true." He realized he was almost chugging the beer and forced himself to dial it back. "I saw her all of six times, and even then she was bored out of her skull and couldn't wait to get back to her friends."
Drew drummed his heels against the support pole under where he sat. "Then what the hell, man?"
"Hayley, that's what. When she got divorced, she decided she wanted me back. I let her know in no uncertain terms that was never going to happen, but you know Hayley."
Drew's only answer was a rude noise, and Rhys had to grin.
"The bad part is that she told Sienna, and apparently made it sound like it was a done deal. She even brought her to New York the day after we played Boston."
"New York." Drew sounded uncertain. "Was that when...? Wait, I remember. We played Boston, and then we had a night off before three shows at MSG. Yeah." The drumming of his heels came to a sudden stop. "Oh, fuck. You had Hellcat with you in New York, didn't you?"
"Got it in one. Sienna lost her shit when she saw Rhett.
I mean, she completely flipped out. I guess I should have seen that was why she wanted me in Chicago for the summer, but I couldn't believe my own kid would manipulate me like that.
At the time I just thought it was seeing me with someone else.
She's never met any of the women I've dated. "
"None of them? Not even Shannon?"
Rhys laughed in surprise. "Fuck no, definitely not Shannon. You know as well as I do she was a psycho bitch."
Drew's soft laughter joined in. "Yeah, but you didn't know that going in."
"I sure as hell did," Rhys corrected him.
"But I didn't care because she was fun. Until she wasn't." He finished his beer and rolled the bottle between his palms. "But that wasn't why Sienna pressured me into moving.
" He felt rather than saw Drew's head turn toward him question.
"She thought if I was in Chicago then I'd fall lovingly into Hayley's waiting arms, and all would be well.
I didn't find out about all that until the night before I came out here, and I kind of let Sienna have it.
Now she's not speaking to me. And there you have it.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Fucked Up Edition. "
"Bad shit, man. I'm sorry. Uh, how old was Sienna when you and Hayley split up? She wasn't walking yet, was she?"
"Yeah, but just barely. And I guess that's what confuses me most about all this. There's no way she has any memories of when her mother and I were married. And we're hardly able to be civil around one another when we do have to interact."
"Maybe that's why she wants you back together. Especially if Hayley's putting ideas in her head."
"Why? She doesn't have happy memories to draw from. Hell, I was fourteen when my parents divorced, and I never wanted them back together. Even though I do have good memories of my childhood, I saw how much happier they were apart."
"Maybe that's it." Drew resumed drumming his heels on the post. "Sienna's never seen you happy with anyone else. Maybe part of her thinks you were just waiting around for her mom to divorce ol' Stick-Up-His-Ass."
Rhys lay back on the rough boards of the deck with his hands laced behind his head. "Never thought of that. I suppose that was one part of why she freaked out when she saw Rhett."
"Speaking of, how's Hellcat dealing with all this baby-mama drama?"
Rhys tried to make his tone light and unaffected. "Wouldn't know. I haven't spoken to her in several months."
"Oh." The simple word spoke volumes. "Sorry, dude. At the risk of having to turn in my Man Card, can I just say I thought y'all were great together?"
"At the risk of having to set my Man Card on fire, can I just say you were right?" He couldn't repress a heavy sigh. "I really thought maybe she and I would...Well, that's over now, anyway."
"If it was me, I'd call her."
"Doubt she'd answer. She knew what Sienna was up to.
I don't know if she knew Sienna wanted Hayley and me back together, but she knew the kid was trying to break us up.
She kind of hinted around at it before I left Dallas, and I wasn't cool about it.
Then when I got to Chicago, she said there really wasn't any point in maintaining contact since we were so far apart and wouldn't see each other, and she called it quits. "
"Shit, Rhys." Drew turned to face him. "What'd you say?"
"I was too busy throwing my phone against the wall to say anything. I'm sure she thinks I'm insane."
"That's too bad, man. I mean that. It's hard to find a woman who can handle who we are and what we do. They're one in a million."
"No." Rhys forced the words through the constriction in his throat. "She wasn't one in a million. She was once in a lifetime."
"If that's the case, then I'd sure as fuck fight a little harder for her. But that's just me. You gotta do what you gotta do." Drew got to his feet. "I'm getting a little cool out here. Gonna head inside. You coming?"
"No," Rhys said. "I think I'll stay out here a while and look at the stars."
Drew laughed. "You can't see any stars out here."
"Maybe not. But if I close my eyes, I can pretend I see them."