Southern Rocker Boy (Southern Rockers Book 1) (11 page)

I landed in the makeup chair with a thud. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore,” I said.

She walked up behind me, running her hands over my shoulders in a friendly massage. “That much is obvious.” We looked at each other through the reflection in the glass for long minutes before she said, “Tell me something. Why do the hot guys always want the crazy girls?”

I didn’t know if I’d color Lacy with that particular paintbrush. “What makes you think she’s crazy?”

Jacinda knelt down until her breath was against my ear. “Because she could have you in a second and she hasn’t jumped all over that opportunity.”

I turned to face her. Her face was even lovelier up close. “She’s not available,” was all I said.

Jacinda grinned. “Duh,” she said. Her eyes fell to my lips. “But I am.”

I said nothing. After a beat, her lips covered mine. It was a nice kiss. Her lips were soft. Her breath was sweet. But when she pulled away, there was nothing about it that made me pull her back.

Three months ago I would have taken her into my lap, undressed her slowly and possessed her fully. That was the man I was then. A hot night of sex with a beautiful woman, no strings attached? That used to be the best part of my weekend.

Now it was being in this club, working hard on the music, singing with a girl who belonged to someone else.

What the fuck had happened to me?

I pulled Jacinda back into my arms and kissed her, not because I wanted to but because I needed to. I needed to resurrect that old Jonah Riley. The pathetic, grief-stricken, love-smitten shell of a man in his place was never what I signed up to be. I was a man who took control of his own destiny, who took what he wanted just because he wanted it.

Jacinda was a willing partner. She straddled my hips in the chair as she wound her arms around me like a coiled snake. I slid my hand up her side until I cupped her full breast in one hand. It made me think of Lacy, and how she was barreling across Austin to her man’s bed.
He could touch her like this
, I thought.

And I couldn’t.

“When do you get off?” I muttered against her mouth.

“About a half-hour after you take me home,” she smiled.

The blinding sun woke me up the next morning. It pierced through the thin curtains across from the strange double bed I was in, a bed I had shared with a naked brunette who still slept peacefully beside me. There were beer bottles on the nightstand, which explained the pounding ache in my head. I scooted into a sitting position, rubbing my temples with my fingers. What the fuck had I done?

Before I could ease out of bed, Jacinda uncoiled her catlike body and reached for me. “Mornin’, cowboy.”

She crawled up my body to deliver a soft kiss on my lips. The sheet fell away from her supple, naked body. I shuddered as my traitorous body responded. She deepened the kiss as she pulled me down on top of her. She surrounded me like a cloud. “Mmm,” she murmured. “That was the best night I’ve had in a long, long while. Tell me you don’t have to leave yet.”

“I should,” I said. I didn’t even know what time it was, but I knew it would take a
Silkwood
shower to wash all the regret and the shame away.

I had become the man I loathed. A player, using any willing female to fill his bed and meet his needs.

My Daddy was probably spinning in his grave.

Her hand slipped under the sheet to caress me. I hated the way my body responded to her touch. I couldn’t deny the effect she had on me. Her mouth attempted to silence every protest in deep, slow kisses.

“Jacinda,” I said as I pulled back. “We can’t do this.”

She wrapped her legs around my waist. “Tell that to the chick you didn’t fuck all night.”

“You’re a sexy woman,” I agreed. “It’s been a great night.”

Her dark eyes scanned mine. “But…?”

“My heart isn’t mine to give away,” I told her, taking a page out of Lacy’s handbook. It seemed fitting, since she was the one it belonged to.

Jacinda chuckled. “I’m not asking for your heart, handsome. I just want to rent your body every once and awhile. Where’s the downside in that?”

Regretfully I pulled away. “That’s not the kind of man I am. Not anymore.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wow. Okay.” She rolled away, snatching a shirt from a chair beside the bed. I watched her dress. She was clearly pissed, but there was nothing I could do about that. The night before had been fun, but it had been a mistake.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and reached for my jeans. I stuffed myself into the clothes from the night before. I glanced at my watch. It was eleven-thirty. I didn’t even have time to head home to shower. We rode in silence back to the parking lot of Southern Nights, where I had left my truck. My heart sank when I realized that Lacy had just parked her car beside it, and was gathering her belongings to go into the club.

Our eyes met through the windshield. She glanced at Jacinda before she slammed her car door and raced inside.

Jacinda turned toward me. “So that’s it,” she said when she surveyed my face. “You’re in love with the ice princess.”

“You don’t know her,” I told her.

“No, baby.
You
don’t know her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She sighed. “Nothing,” she said.

I wasn’t so easily dismissed. “What, Jacinda?”

“This isn’t the first time she’s worked here,” she said, as if confiding a great secret. “The last time things got a little… complicated.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s not my story,” she tried to say.

“But you’re dying to tell it,” I pointed out.

She sighed. “Gay tried to pair her up with her star talent, this really hot singer who was poised to take Austin by storm.”

“And?”

“She torpedoed him, Jonah. She couldn’t bear that he was more famous than she was.”

“What did she do?”

“She got knocked up.”

My heart stopped. “She has a kid?”

Jacinda nodded. “That’s why she can’t work but four nights a week. She has to be home to take care of her son.”

“Her son?” I echoed.

“Cody,” she confirmed.

“Wait,” I said, holding my hand to my head, trying to absorb this new information. “She’s not with anyone?”

“Not anymore,” Jacinda said. “Tony had to skip the country altogether, otherwise she would have been able to ride his fame all the way to Hollywood. And that’s where he was headed before she had her little accident. She blew it for him. She blew it for herself,” she added.

“So she’s alone,” I repeated, as the pieces fell together in my head.

“If you can call living with your mom ‘alone,’” she chuckled. I glared at her.

“Sounds like she doesn’t have a choice if the boy’s father took a powder.”

“Please,” she sneered. “He wasn’t even sure the baby was his. She just sprang it on him at the worst possible moment. It wasn’t like he was trying for a baby. He never wanted a kid. He wanted to be a star.” She screwed her face into a snarl. “That’s over now. Except for her.”

I stared at her for a long minute. There was history there that she wasn’t sharing, but it was easy to read from the look on her face. “Did you seduce me out of spite, Jacinda?”

Her eyes met mine. “Did you sleep with me because you couldn’t fuck her?” I couldn’t answer. I didn’t have to. “So we both got what we wanted last night, cowboy.” She reached down and unlocked my side of the car. Wordlessly I stepped out. The door had barely closed before she squealed out of the parking lot.

Lacy was in the dressing room when I walked in. Our eyes met in the mirror. “I guess you need the shower,” she said as she glanced over my rumpled clothes.

She looked hurt. Her eyes were haunted. I knew I had broken her heart without even trying to. “Yeah,” I answered her as I shut the door behind me. “But first, we need to talk.”

“What’s there to say?” she wanted to know. “I told you I was unavailable. You found someone else. You’re only human.”

“You let me believe you were taken,” I said.

“I am,” she insisted.

“Just tell me one thing,” I said. “How old is Cody?”

Her eyes searched mine. I knew that she was contemplating another lie. Finally she said, “He’s three.”

Her eyes watered when she talked about him. My heart softened and I sat in the chair across from her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I already told you. I keep my personal life away from the stage.”

“Because of what happened with Tony?”

She was out of the chair like a shot. I grabbed her wrist to prevent her from running away. “Talk to me, Lacy.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she grumbled. “What’s done is done.”

I stood to face her, her wrist still in my hand. She was wooden as I tried to pull her into my arms. Her eyes sparked like flint rock as she stared up at me. “You might want that shower now, Jonah. You stink of skank.”

She wrenched her arm from me and stalked from the dressing room. With a sigh I peeled off the shirt and tore off the jeans. I baptized myself in about ten minutes of scalding hot water before I reemerged. I met her on the stage within twenty minutes. That she had already started was no surprise. That Gay had joined her, sitting at an old piano that was brand new to the stage, was.

“What’s going on?” I asked them both. Only Gay answered.

“You didn’t think I’d let y’all have all the fun, did you?” she grinned. “The only thing missing from last night’s performance was a piano.” She showed off her prowess, running her fingers over different scales.

Gay had set up the list. We’d start with “
Me and Bobby McGee
,” then we’d sing the ballad, “
Need You Now
,” before I took the stage with “
Night Moves
.” We would end on “
Join Together
,” done “exactly like you did it last night,” she told Lacy.

Lacy nodded obediently. It was like a fire had gone out. I felt like even more of a shit.

It was Gay, and not Lacy, who drove the rehearsals all afternoon. If I thought Lacy had been a slave-driver, I had no idea what Gaynell Hollis could do. “I didn’t even know you played,” I told her between songs.

“Oh yeah, the whole family is musical. Well, except maybe for Ty,” she grinned. “But me and our kids? All we wanted was a stage to perform. So I started the hottest one in Austin,” she concluded with a wink.

I nodded. I could certainly see her passion for it. And she was smart. I knew she could put us together and make us shine for our VIP guests due a little after four that afternoon.

Jasper and Ariel arrived fashionably late, courtesy of the complimentary limo that Gay had sent for them. They got a private performance before the doors even opened, which was more nerve-wracking than playing for a packed crowd. But Jasper and Ariel wanted to get the feel of our band without the intrusion of the audience.

So they sat at a table front row center as we took our positions on the stage. It was Jacinda, not Gay, who introduced us. The minute she did, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Southern Nights is proud to present our very own Blaze, featuring Jonah Riley on lead guitar!”

I glanced at Lacy, who remained stoic as she sat on her stool.

There was no applause when we launched into our first song. Gay tore it up on the piano and Lacy’s vocals were flawless. I didn’t do too shabby myself, but our audience of two remained absolutely still through all four songs.

When I sang my song, I concentrated mostly on Ariel, who watched me out of the corner of her eye while she texted on her phone.

By the time Lacy did the call and response part of our final song, our two VIP guests couldn’t be bothered. It took the other crew in the club to bring that part to life. When we were done we all took our bows in time to see Jasper escort Ariel upstairs to Gay’s office.

My heart sank. Had we blown it?

Had I blown it?

Gay motioned that we should stay behind as she headed upstairs. I turned to Lacy, who said nothing as she headed backstage. I joined her in the dressing room.

“You think they liked it?” I finally asked when I could bear the silence no longer.

She shrugged. “I guess we’ll know shortly. If Gay doesn’t pull our show, I think we did all right.”

I sprawled on the sofa while she refreshed her makeup. “So you’ve worked for Gay before,” I mentioned casually.

She leaned toward the mirror to touch up her eyeliner. “You could say that.”

“Is that why you fight her on everything?”

She spun the chair around to look at me. “I fight her on everything because regardless of what you think, she’s not always right. And she doesn’t own me, I don’t care how many checks she shoves down my throat.”

I sat up. “I’m not trying to cause trouble, Lacy.”

“Then drop it,” she snapped.

“I want to help,” I said softly.

She glared at me for one hard moment before she finally said, “Then play your ass off. That’s all I need from you, Jonah.”

She slipped out of the chair and slammed out of the dressing room.

I sighed as I sat back against the couch. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. When the door opened again I thought it might have been Lacy, and worried it might be Jacinda. Instead it was another faceless crew member.

“Gay needs you upstairs,” he said.

When I opened up her office door, I found Jasper and Ariel sitting in the chairs opposite Gay. Both seemed fairly unimpressed by Gay’s hometown hospitality, and even less impressed by the farm boy playing guitar god. But Gay waved me in anyway. “Jonah, please come in.”

I pulled up another chair next to Ariel, who barely spared me a glance.

“Jasper likes what he saw today,” she informed me. “And both of them would like you to be a part of the video. They want to shoot here in a few weeks, if you’re available.”

I thought about the offer in Jasper’s initial proposal. Like I could afford to miss it. I nodded.

“Good,” she said.

Jasper leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, as he put his hands in his lap. “You have a lot of raw potential, Jonah. If you’ll let us, we can mold you into the next superstar.”

“I’m willing to learn whatever you want to teach me,” I said to the white-haired gentlemen. Despite his poised sophistication, I got the feeling he was one slick character.

But he was one slick character promising me a shit-ton of money that could pull my family out of the poor house.

“Good. Why don’t you escort Ariel back to the hotel while I talk business with your manager?”

I nodded and stood. Ariel had to finish her text before she joined me. She walked in front of me like I was a queen she should follow. “Keep her safe, Jonah,” Gay cautioned.

And just like that I was a security guard again. I shadowed the petite bleached blonde toward the limo, using my body to barricade anyone who may have wanted to approach.

Some fans had gotten wind of her being in the club and were waiting outside. I put my arm around her and rushed her to the car. She slipped inside and I followed.