Chapter 2
TWO
Deke
The entire goddamn show, I’m just waiting for June to come out on stage.
And that pisses me the hell off.
I want her gone.
As soon as this show is over, she’s getting the boot. I don’t care if I have to escort her ass off the premises myself. There is no way she’s getting on that tour bus with me tonight and heading to the next stop. That will only be happening over my dead body.
My double vision mocks me as I strum into the seventh song.
Pretty close to dead as we speak, aren’t you, man?
That’s exactly what I feel like standing here in front of an audience of twenty thousand, although there are a few more empty seats than usual.
I feel like a dead man walking. I’m watching myself play this song from the nosebleeds, numb to the cheers and screaming requests for me to play my biggest hit—“Worth Your Wild”.
Hello no. I don’t play it anymore.
I’ll never play it again.
I finish the current song and glance down at the set list taped to the stage.
One more song before June comes out to sing the duet with me.
I’ll admit she’s got a nice voice. One that I know instinctively will complement the lower register of mine.
But that’s all the more reason to not want her performing with me.
I don’t want to give these people what they want.
I don’t want to please anyone. I want to go home and die in peace.
That girl is the opposite of peace.
Knew it as soon as I saw her.
Red hair, green eyes and a body built for sin.
Fuck. Me.
I’m not into younger women and she can’t be more than nineteen or twenty, but this one got me stiffer than a flagpole in January with her superior little attitude.
There’s some soul lurking in her eyes, too.
Some been there done that. Like she’s been through some tough times but still managed to maintain her optimism. Innocence.
That last part is why I’m steering clear.
Well, that and the fact that she’s Sandy’s niece. Sandy, my usual assistant, is one of the only people in this godforsaken world I can tolerate longer than two minutes. I’m not even going to think about fucking his niece.
Great.
Now I’m thinking about it.
Bending her right over the dressing table, red hair wrapped around my fist, that firm little ass hoisted in the air.
Christ. Only forty-two and I’m officially an old pervert.
She needs to go home.
Never mind that whatever alterations she made to my clothes are making this show a lot more bearable than it normally would have been.
There’s a pleasing give in the shoulders of my button down when usually the material must stretch to accommodate the sizeable breadth of my back.
Even the crotch of my jeans is less confining.
What the hell miracle did she work in a matter of hours?
That Reuben sandwich went a long way to soaking up the whiskey, too.
Best one I’ve had in years. Reminded me of the Nashville diner I used to eat breakfast at when I was a young, struggling musician, playing late gigs to nobody.
My guitar sounds better, too, goddammit.
Who is this girl?
I finish the song and there’s no more delaying. The kick of anticipation in my blood is bad news and I ignore it while stepping up to the microphone, blocking the glare of the spotlight with my right hand.
A stagehand rushes out with a second microphone and the crowd reacts.
I take pleasure in letting them down. It’s easier just to let them down than try and stay on top. I’m sick to death of trying to stay on top and failing.
“Thank you, folks. As some of you might have heard, Lorna Paul was going to join me tonight to sing ‘Sweet Venom’, but she got stuck in Mississippi.” The wave of disappointment is deafening, and part of me enjoys it.
The cheers have rung false in my ears for so long, the boos are refreshing.
“We have a friend stepping in on short notice to take Lorna’s place tonight.
Please give a warm welcome to June Bug.”
I’m not prepared for the girl who comes out on stage, waving like she’s done this before.
No, I’m not prepared at all. She was obnoxiously hot in jeans and a white tank top.
While I’ve been on stage, however, they’ve put her in cowboy boots and a strapless denim dress that makes her legs look a mile long and barely covers her ass.
Her tits are just slightly bigger than average.
More than a handful for most men.
Not me. My hands were fashioned for playing guitar.
They’d fit right into my palms.
I catch a nose full of her scent when she reaches me at centerstage. Coconut.
She has all the confidence of a veteran performer.
Outwardly, at least. There’s a pulse hammering at the base of her neck, her fingers trembling as she adjusts the microphone.
I don’t appreciate feeling this lick of excitement on stage.
I’ve been rejecting it for a long time and there’s something about her presence that brings it back.
Resentment bubbles in my gut even as I start to play the opening notes and lean into the mic to sing. “Your cruelty used to turn me on, until you turned it on me…”
There’s a beat between my opening line and I can feel it.
How the audience is preparing to be let down.
This isn’t country star Lorna Paul—to them, this is a substitute.
They don’t want that. I can see that June senses their disappointment, too, though she focuses on me and maintains her smile.
And then, “My cruelty is the price you pay for taking all this lovin’ for free. ”
Yes, indeed, shouts the crowd, primed for the next line.
One lyric.
She wins them with one lyric.
When they hear the easy feminine drawl of June’s voice and the sass she packs into it, their excitement is palpable.
Unfortunately, so is mine.
Without any rehearsal or verbal cues, we turn on the heels of our boots and face each other, leaving the audience the hell out of it.
She saunters up to my microphone like a sexy badass, forsaking her side of the stage, and we deliver the rest of the duet into the same mic, her green eyes dragging me under the surface of some vengeful ocean, my balls tightening in my jeans when she hits the high note and the audience erupts with praise, making her blush, an astonished pink fusing her cheeks.
Gone are the stage lights. The stage manager’s directions become muffled in my ears. Everything is her. Narrowed down to her.
The fullness of her mouth.
The challenge in her eyes.
Jesus Christ. A bead of sweat rolls down my spine.
It takes me a wealth of stubbornness to break the spell when the song ends. I could keep going. I could look at her and listen to her sing all night. What happened to me wanting to get the fuck out of here as soon as the encore is over?
Yeah.
What happened to that?
That is what I want.
Not this reawakening to what I used to feel on stage, provoked by this redhead.
That part of me that used to live for the approval of an audience is dead.
With a thick swallow, I drag my gaze off June, who is still looking up at me even though the song is over, as electrified by the duet as I feel.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please show your appreciation one more time for June Bug,” I say, my voice nothing but a deep scrape. “Not bad, huh?”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she retorts into the mic.
The place goes nuts, whistling and stomping and shouting her name.
June Bug. June Bug.
For the first time in a long time, I look out at the sea of people and see camera phones raised and recording. I’m caught off guard when a bolt of jealousy twists in my midsection, some shocking protective instinct rearing its head.
I don’t want her image on this many phones.
I don’t like the way the men in the audience ogle her legs.
“Thank you,” I push between my teeth, before covering the mic with my hand, so nobody can hear me except for June. “Now get off the stage.”
The joy on her face instantly crumples, but as she whirls around and walks off stage, I don’t allow myself to feel regret. No. The time has passed for regrets.
The time has passed for the spotlight.
I’m done with enjoying any part of this.
No one, especially some young brat, is going to drag me back into the light.