A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (33 page)

Rip swaggered back out and took a seat behind his drums. His solo was epic, rapid, pounding and punishing. “Did you hear that, Madison Square Garden?” he shouted after he was done. Madison Square Garden responded with a wave of fresh screams and cheers.

Dylan was on a roll, and didn’t give the audience members a chance to catch their breaths before saying, “He plays those strings like he knows a language the rest of us are dying to learn, and the bastard is always in a good mood. Let me hear some noise for Tank Stanfield.”

Tank re-entered the spotlight, his fingers already flying with a guitar solo that stretched on and on. As the solo faded, he kept playing a quiet, easy background as Dylan leaned into the microphone once more.

“And you all know our newest member, the woman who’s been saving my ass personally and professionally since the day I met her. We’re so lucky to have her with us on bass guitar—Melody Hopkins.”

Melody began her bass solo. Halfway through her riff, she changed the tune, and the crowd grew impossibly loud as they recognized the music. She grinned and gave Dylan a challenging look. Behind her, the rest of the band joined in as they began to play their hit single.

Dylan grinned back at her, strummed his guitar, put his mouth against the microphone, and sang.

“You walked into the club that night

Bourbon on the lips you used

To kiss the one who owns you

Then you became my muse.”

The fun was infectious and the audience couldn’t get enough; neither could the band. They were energized by the roar of the crowd, and Melody knew they were all excited at the prospect of more songs like this, more concerts like this, a bright future filled with music and promise.

Dylan kept singing:

“
You didn’t know a simple glance

Would change your life forever

I didn’t know an angry slap

Would change mine for the better.”

Melody pretended to glare at Dylan as he sang the angry slap verse; the audience howled in response. The concert where he’d kissed her and she’d slapped him had become legendary in the Dust and Bones fan community. Guys in the audience held up signs reading
Slap ME, Melody
!

“You think you’ve got a choice to make

But if it’s offered, why don’t you take?

You want it to be easy but…

If it’s easy, it ain’t love

If it’s easy, it ain’t love

If it’s easy, it ain’t love.”

The chorus repeated several times, and the band had arranged an anthem version to perform live. Melody launched into her extended part with gusto, but the others didn’t kick into their pre-planned rendition. The crowd seemed to draw a collective breath—maybe something had gone wrong?—and their screams died down to a hush. Then the band stopped playing entirely, and Melody froze. She glanced over her shoulder to see what had happened.

Her heart stopped.

Dylan Bennett was on his knees. His hands were open to her, cradling a ring in his palms. The band was thick platinum, as opposed to a more traditional, dainty ring that she’d have to take off every time she picked up a guitar.
This
ring would become part of her hand, become an extension of her body and soul. Rather than having a diamond or other jewel that would similarly get in the way of her playing, the ring was unadorned, save for tiny musical scales which had been etched into the platinum. She recognized the notes to the chorus of the song they’d written together, the one that they had paused in the middle of, right here, right now:
If it’s easy, it ain’t love.

“You know what you fucking mean to me,” he said into the microphone. “I want to make beautiful music with you for the rest of my life.”

Through the tears that were streaming down her cheeks and fanning out around her ever-widening smile, Melody laughed. “Cheesy, Bennett,” she teased, feeling as though her heart were about to burst. She had never imagined this day would come—and certainly not that it would come so soon—but she had never been so happy in her life. Here, on stage, singing their song...it was a perfect moment, despite the fact that it was a public proposal, and Melody preferred to keep such things private.

“You like me cheesy,” he argued. “Is that a yes?”

“You just had to do it right here in front of everyone, huh? But it’s a yes,” she said, loud and proud into her microphone. Dylan stood, and was by her side in an instant. The ring was on her finger, and Dylan’s mouth was on hers, hard and familiar. The guys picked up the song again and began to harmonize the chorus. The audience joined in, filling the Garden with joyous echoes of their song:

“If it’s easy, it ain’t love

If it’s easy, it ain’t love

If it’s easy, it ain’t love.”

“It’s definitely love,” Dylan whispered against her ear.

“I concur,” Melody said.

It was the one thing they would never argue about.

The Loft was quiet. Rip was surfing the net, and Tank was reading a book. Jesper was pretty sure he and his girl had broken up, though he hadn’t mentioned anything about it. Dylan and Melody were out of town—they had flown back east to spend Christmas with Hop’s relatives. The image of Dylan meeting Craig Hopkins’ extended family brought a smile to Tank’s lips.

Hop was a family man at heart. The band had gotten to know him a lot better since Melody had become a permanent member of Dust and Bones, and they had begun to see beyond his gruff exterior. Hop was exactly the kind of father that Tank wished he could have been; it made his ever-present guilt boil over and scald his insides, burning him with a desire for
more
.

You can do better. You can be better. You deserve better.

Did he, though?

“Man, that proposal stunt got us a lot of new female fans,” Rip announced.

“It wasn’t a stunt,” Jesper chided. “Genuine emotion.”

Rip chuckled. “Whatever it was, we’ve got everyone from Beliebers to Goth chicks jumping ship and boarding ours. The pussy parade starts behind me.”

Tank tried to be excited, but he just felt hollow. He’d felt this way for years, of course, but it had always been easy enough to ignore it. Now, it seemed, he couldn’t do that anymore.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Jesper noted, shooting Tank a calculating glance.

Tank shrugged. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” He wondered if he should try talking about it with Jesper, who was a freakishly good listener...but the idea of putting his heart on display was terrifying. Melody had told him it was never too late, but Tank was afraid she was wrong about that.

His phone buzzed, interrupting his morose thoughts. The name on the Caller ID screen read
Charity.
So not her real name. She was an occasional New York based fuck buddy of his—she drifted in and out of his life as her relationships dictated, always returning to him when another romance of hers fell through. He took her back every time because, though he’d never admit it aloud, he liked having a warm body in his bed that belonged to a woman he actually knew. Even if it was only her body he knew and not, say, her real name.

Was this what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life? Waiting around for Charity to break up with her flavor of the month and shack up with him for the weekend?

He ignored the call, and instead opened up his photo album. He navigated to a folder labeled ‘Home,’ which was where he stored the sorts of pictures he didn’t let himself look at very often. It was filled with snapshots of a backyard wedding, baby’s first Christmas, and his wife. Technically
ex
-wife.

Fuck that.
Tank Stanfield wasn’t a pushover. He wasn’t one to sit idly by and just let life happen to him—he went out and made his own destiny. If it was too late, it was too late, but he had to find out for sure.

Tank was going to stand and fight for what was his. And God help his ex-wife if she thought she was getting away this time.