Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
JC
I slosh more red wine into my glass, a full-on vacation pour. Try to drown out the noise of the damn question that’s been doing laps in my head since the photo shoot.
What is my problem?
Plant any random woman in front of me, and I can reach the end goal without even trying hard. And who cares if I fail, because none of them matter.
None of them, Gia.
“Yo, bro.” Brady swaggers up to me in a tight pair of lime-green shorts. Every detail on display. “You have a sec?”
I, we, have fifteen minutes. Possibly less if our opening act, a humorless trio from Belgium called The Shoppe Girls, continues to mutilate the crowd into submission with ear-splitting basslines and toneless singing. Nothing better than having to warm up a catatonic audience.
“Sure,” I say. “What’s up?”
He bites into a celery stick, chewing with his mouth open. “Nothing. A one-on-one.”
We’re backstage at the Zénith, a concert hall famous for sitting smack in the middle of a forest, in the heart of Paris.
Tai’s lurking near the craft service table, stuffing his face with artisan crackers.
Gia took off for the bathroom. Brady steers us to the sectional in the corner and I take a seat, like I’m expected to.
He pours his tanned, long limbs across the scuffed burgundy leather and waits, not pushing an agenda despite clearly having one.
When he finally says, “This stays between us, K?” it’s with all the verve of a kid at spy school practicing clandestine delivery.
I arch a brow. “Depends on what this is.”
He flicks a glance at Tai. I get the sense that they flipped a coin to decide who would handle this discussion. “You know we’re super grateful you stepped in, right?”
“Glad it’s all worked out.”
“What are your plans after?”
“More films. Session work.” Jesus, not even an ounce of interest in my voice. Might as well have a vacation in hell waiting for me. “Why?”
Brady finishes his celery, all humor leaving his eyes when they skate across mine. “Just hear me out.”
I take a long pull of wine. Here it comes, epic lecture about to drop.
“You know Tai and I go way back with Gia?” Brady waits for my dutiful nod before continuing. “We’ve never seen her tied in knots like this over someone.”
I smile politely. “And you’re… worried?”
“Thing is, there’s no middle ground for her. It’s either super-stardom or living in a cardboard box under a bridge. And she will burn both ends of every candle to achieve her dreams.”
“Admirable quality,” I say. “And rare.”
“I know, dude. She’s bona fide. A ripper. And this is her life. Our life,” he stresses, in case the context has gone over my head. “And your life, as you said, you slide right back into whatever you were doing before.”
My brows shoot up. “Are you saying I have no skin in the game?”
He squirms, as if he’d rather be celibate than answer.
“More like, we’re worried about the JC effect on Gia.
All this…” His hand sweeps left to right, indicating our dressing room packed with Bordeaux wine and real cheese, because it’s France.
And because it’s not a dive bar with a bowl of Cheetos and warm cans of Pepsi.
“It's because of you. And until we work up to that level of success on our own, it will disappear just as quickly.”
Patience wearing thin, I cut to the chase. “What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is…” He glances over his shoulder, tracking if Gia has returned. In the clear, he swivels back to face me, voice dropping low. “I get it. She’s hot. Every guy wants a piece. I tried, and no dice. Props to you.”
He flashes a congenial grin. Not a jealous bone in his player body, while I’d contemplate violence if any guy made a move on Gia. Because something more than a friendship has shimmered between us from day one—a specific tension of two people destined for each other.
I take another sip of wine, bracing for the but I know is coming.
“But if her heart gets dragged through the gutter,” he says, “we have to live with Devastation City.”
“You think I’d play her like that? Cut and run?”
“Not on purpose.” Full dramatic pause. “I think she’s in over her head and clueless to a world without you in it.”
I give him a long, evaluating stare. My falling hard was a gravitational inevitability I didn’t see coming. But Gia clueless? Like gently failing is how she’ll be remembered.
“Flattered you think her place in the world has anything to do with me,” I say. “She did fine before I came along.”
“And Europe did fine until the Black Plague hit,” he flips back.
Ouch. Gia’s storming through my blood, and Brady just made it clear I’m a walking virus. Hell of a pep talk before a gig. No point trying to hide my exasperation when it’s written all over my face.
“What do you want? Give it to me straight.”
We eye each other with clear mutual discomfort. There is very rarely an occasion when a woman’s male friends sit you down for a talk and it’s a good thing.
“I don’t want her to get hurt, okay? I don’t want her to get so wrapped up in you that she forgets us.
I don’t want her to land in Vancouver, dark and crazy.
She’s all claws when she wants something bad.
” He rubs his face, leaving glitter streaks across one cheek.
“And you, my friend, are either faking it that you don’t see how far gone she is, or hand you the trophy right now for Best Actor in an Unaware Performance. ”
I fight the temptation to laugh. Brady, with so many layers of realization. In less time than it takes to scramble an egg, he exposes my six months of comprehensive Gia pining for the C-level shitty performance it was.
“And if you think you’re fooling anyone, bro, guess again. Freaking obvs-city on the bus the other night.” Brady rubs his thumb and index finger together. “You both owe us scratch.”
He scans my pupils, I’m certain, to call out my nonexistent contacts. Let him stare all he wants. I’ve learned over thirty-three years that life is a never-ending series of compromises. They want me to behave in a certain way. And I won’t act in the way they want.
Brady and Tai don’t understand that I can’t go backwards.
The door crashes open, and Gia struts in with so much skin on display in her excuse of a dress that my mouth goes dry. Her hot stare steadies on Brady before it flips to me. Not even three seconds, and she's picked up that our man-huddle involves her.
So why not throw it in our faces?
“Is Brady your new boyfriend?” Gia slides next to me, plucks the wine glass out of my hand, and guzzles the remains.
“Turns out, JC’s more of a three-way guy,” Brady says with a wide grin.
Gia laughs. “You wish.” She sets down the empty glass, then says, “Dibs,” and hooks an arm around my neck, tugging tight and tilting my mouth higher. Her lips crash against mine in a kiss of electric fire, her tongue, hot and slick, sliding into my open mouth.
It singes every nerve in my body.
She kisses and teases until my huffs of surprise melt into sighs. The scream in my head urges me to cup her ass and grind us together, but as her possessive kiss turns devastating, I can barely hold on to anything other than the desire to be inside her.
“Alright, alright. Time out,” Brady says. “Point made. I’m getting a boner.”
Gia tears her mouth off mine. My anticipation is already showing, more than a little aching.
“Uhm...” It’s the one word my mouth can shape. Not a single coherent sentence to add to this conversation.
Brady stands. Something in his expression tells me I’m being pitied. “Bro, you are going bankrupt on this tour. Better write us a blank check and call it a day.”
He ambles to join Tai at the craft table, while Gia curls into my warmth, like she’s a cat and I’m her favorite sleep pad.
“You ready to light Paris on fire?”
“They know.” I aim that husky warning directly at her sly smile.
“Duh.” She twirls a lock of my hair around her finger, unraveling me with every slow, delicate coil. “I just kissed you.”
“Is that cool?”
“I want everyone to know what we’ve both known all along.”
Gia’s gaze sharpens, holding mine like a challenge.
I scan her face, searching for any sign of weakness, but her confidence is diamond-cut, sealed with heated determination.
It finally hits me. I’ve been too casual and careful, leaving Gia no choice but to take the lead.
It’s time to kick things up a notch. Easier said than done, though, all this thinking and action, when I’m still trying to remember how to breathe.
Gia strokes my earlobe, the tiny gold hoop studded within it, and her touch creates this urgency that radiates a hot tingle.
I want to take care.
Touch her how she deserves to be touched.
Not some random tour bus takedown.
I suppose that and the audience roaring their delight when we walk out into the spotlights minutes later distract me. Then I feel it. A disturbance in the air. That instinctive pull to scan the front row for her familiar face.
Boom. Biggest fear realized.
Panic presses hard against my chest. I make my way stage left to grab my Les Paul from our guitar tech. Slinging the guitar over my shoulder, my hands tremble, unable, unwilling to make eye contact with space beyond my immediate periphery.
I draw a breath and then release it.
Strum the opening chords of “Blackest Nights.”
When I look up, Gia’s gaze is locked on the front row.
On Amber.
My entire body feels encased in stone, trapped in some surreal world where I can pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. A reminder that nothing is ever over. It sits in the dark, like a box at the foot of the stairs, ready to take you down when you least expect it.
My old bandmates, Heath and Ari, warned me—Don’t shit where you eat.
Brilliant advice, in retrospect. Emphatically ignored. About to bite me in the ass for the second time, I’m certain.
Gia greets the audience with a hearty, “Bon Soir, Paris!” and the place goes nuts. A shoutout in the local language, guaranteed to spike the energy. Meanwhile, I’m tracking the darkest place on stage to hide out.
Because Amber is looking right at me.
Right through me.
My fingers fumble the B chord I’ve played a million times, and I don’t feel ridiculously nervous for no reason.
Because right after that…
Gia tracks her gaze all the way to me.