The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos) (6 page)

“It’s beautiful, but it’s the wrong color for my Graphium weiskei.” Her voice still sounded hoarse, but she didn’t have time to sit in bed another day.

Pixie touched an almost black silk that shone an iridescent blue. Perfect if she ever got another request for a beetle.

“Your what?” Lia placed the fabric roll back on the table.

“A butterfly collector for his niece. I looked it up. The common name is purple spotted swallowtail, but he gets pissed off if I call it that. It’s black, pinky-purple, and a weird lime green that might be yellow. It’s hard to tell on my phone.”

“You know some very strange facts, Pix.” Lia wandered off to the vintage cloth section.

Pixie rummaged in a bin containing discounted fabric and found a piece of matte-finish silk that had what looked like lilac splats of paint on it. Perfect for what she needed. She added it to her basket. Maybe she’d bring in the strange green color as part of the underskirt with the black tulle she intended to purchase from the next floor down. Taking the stairs took its toll, leaving Pixie slightly breathless.
Damn this cough
. When she’d measured and had a store employee cut the tulle, Pixie wandered over to the thread section. Making her selections, she wondered how Dred was doing. Was he feeling better than she was?

She opened her phone and reread the message he’d sent her yesterday.

Two more days
til
you feel better. Seven more
til
I do ;-)

Still no idea of how to reply, Pixie dropped the phone back into her purse.

Why had she agreed to go to Toronto? It was so out of character, but when he’d asked her, the idea of him leaving and her not seeing him again for an indeterminable period of time hurt. Not the drop-down-on-your-knees-and-weep kind of hurt, but a low and steady longing beneath her ribs. Words of agreement poured out of her mouth before she had a chance to second-guess them. The surprised look on his face when she asked when she should go was the best part of it. Gone was the rough demeanor of the rock star, replaced by a youthful grin.
That
was the man she had feelings for.

Pixie pulled a spool of black cotton thread and added it to her basket, and noting they had a three-for-the-price-of-two sale, added a navy blue and a white spool too.

“Look what I found.” Lia dropped the leopard-print chiffon into her hand. “You could totally make something cute out of this.”

The sight of it sickened her. It was too close to the leopard-print scarf her stepfather would leave on the coat hook in the trailer to taunt her. He’d wait until her mom was passed out, sleeping off whatever high he’d provided, then he would pull it down and tie it around Pixie’s wrists.

For the briefest moment she was fourteen again, sitting where he’d put her on the silver kitchen stool with the torn red vinyl cushion. She’d struggled at first, shouted for her mom. He’d walked casually to the sofa and put his hands round her mom’s neck.

“You want me to squeeze, or are you going to shut the fuck up?”

She’d quieted immediately, sitting still like a good girl. He’d walked around the stool and used the scarf to tie her hands behind her back.

Pixie shook off the memory and tried to focus on the heavy weight of the basket in her hands, Lia’s distracted chattering, the colorful spools of cotton. But nothing seemed to pull her back from the whirlpool of memories that bombarded her. Like how badly she’d needed to pee, and how uncomfortable the sensation of snot and tears running down her face had been.

She’d felt an odd sense of relief when Arnie had headed to the bathroom and returned with toilet paper. He’d gently cleaned up her face and walked to the kitchen to dispose of the tissue. Even now it struck her as odd to worry about such a small piece of garbage when four days of dishes had been piled up next to the sink, flies buzzing around them in the stifling Florida heat.

Pixie looked back down at the fabric.

“Pix . . .” Lia walked toward her, the floor in the old store creaking underfoot, the sound reminiscent of the trailer when he would walk toward her. Her stomach flipped, as ghostly fingers from the past stroked along her jaw line, and she recalled shouting to her mom, still unconscious.
Wake up. Please, Mommy, wake up.

But she hadn’t. Not when she screamed, and not when his clammy fingers trailed to the top of the button-down sundress her mom had saved her tips in the diner for.

“Let’s see what you’ve been hiding under here.”

“You okay, Pix?” Lia’s voice brought her back to the present.

Pixie put the fabric down on the cutting table. “Sorry, still feel a little sick,” she said, coughing at the end for effect.

They checked out, then stopped at the grocery store on the way home, Lia insistent on cooking dinner for them both, which meant picking up a precooked chicken and readymade side salads. Doing something so normal chased away the chill of seeing the fabric. And it was impossible to stay down around Lia.

“Remember how the oven had never been used when I moved in?” Pixie asked Lia while they were in line to pay for the groceries.

Lia chuckled. “I used it to store my bananas. In my very first apartment, before Grannie helped me out with the condo, I kept my sweaters in my oven through the summer. Extra storage.”

They took a step closer to the checkout counter. Pixie glanced at the display, trying to find her favorite interior design magazine. Her eyes moved over the trash mags. Who read that shit? There was no way Elvis was alive and living in Ohio. The next headline stood out.

DRED ZANDER’S MIAMI VICE

Grainy as the photo was, it was still clear that Dred was grabbing a woman’s ass, pulling her tight against him in a kiss guaranteed to drive any woman wild.

Pixie’s hand shook as she opened the magazine.

It is alleged that the woman is an associate of Zander’s fellow reality show judge, Trent Andrews.

She wasn’t exactly hiding from her past. Not like Harper had. This time she had been the assailant, not the victim, no matter how many times her sponsor told her she wasn’t. But regardless of which title she went with, the facts remained the same. She’d killed a man. The thought made her head spin, as she read more of the article. The bright grocery store lights compounded the headache that was brewing. Reconnecting with anybody from her past was a bad idea, yet the article gave away enough information to make that possible. Her stepdad was equally at fault for the events that night and hopefully the totally fucked-up way it all went down would stop him ever going to the police. She just didn’t want to ever have to deal with him again.

As Pixie glanced through the article one more time, her heart flipped. It didn’t reveal her name, but that meant nothing because as blurry as the photographs were, it was crystal clear that the purple-haired woman Dred Zander was taking on the ride of her life was her.

Dred wandered to his corner of the basement recording studio where all the guitars were stored in three sections. His, Nikan’s, and Elliot’s. Jordan refused to own anything except the bass guitar Maisey had bought him. As a result, Dred had a stash of bass guitars in his section that he
loaned
to Jordan.

He placed his guitar on the bench he used for tuning, and systematically lowered the strings by one half step. E-flat tuning had been his preference for years. Easier on the fingers—not that he was a pussy—and if it was good enough for Slash, it was good enough for him.

He clicked the button on his laptop and got his reference note. In truth, he could find a key without, or he could use a clip-on tuner, but tuning was as natural to him as breathing. It also meant he didn’t have to think about why Pixie hadn’t got back to him.

They’d connected, he was sure of it. The kiss they’d shared at the concert had played over in his mind so many times as he laid in bed on Sunday morning, he’d jerked himself off to hot-as-hell thoughts of how good sex between them would be. And a vague idea was taking root, that perhaps this wasn’t purely about the chase, or burning up the sheets with a woman for a couple of nights of fun. But as much as that didn’t fit with his plans, the idea of backing off didn’t feel great either.

And there he was, thinking about her again. Tuning was mindless work he’d done a thousand times before, so it only took a few minutes to work his way across the strings.

The smell of coffee wafted down to the studio. Nikan was up then. Dred placed the guitar on its stand and wandered back up to the kitchen.

“Morning,” he said to Nikan who was sitting at one of the six stools along the breakfast bar.

“Did you tune mine while you were down there?” Nikan looked up from his laptop.

“No.” Dred laughed and poured a cup of coffee. “Go find yourself some other bitch. Am I interrupting?”

“Was working on this last night.” Nikan pressed a few keys. Long power-chord riffs and harmonized guitars flooded the kitchen.

Dred closed his eyes and let the music surround him. It was good. Hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck good. He started to hum along. There were days when he sounded like he was speaking another language as he tried to pick up a feel for the music they were laying down. But this music was dense.

“That’s some good shit.”

Dred opened his eyes to see Elliott leaning over Nikan’s shoulder. “I agree with Elliot,” he said. “Let’s work on that when we get downstairs.”

Lennon walked past them with a grin, followed by a woman who only needed a pair of those giant wings to look like a Victoria’s Secret model. Actually, forget the wings. They’d only obscure the view of that totally fine ass wrapped in one of those bandage dresses.

The front door closed and Lennon sauntered back into the kitchen.

“You’re the luckiest bastard.” Elliott said, thumping him in the shoulder as he walked by.

Lennon opened the fridge and pulled out the juice. “Better suction than a Dyson. That’s all I’m saying.”

“She also neighed like a fucking horse,” Jordan said, joining them in the kitchen. “Could hear her through the floor.”

“She didn’t neigh.” Lennon laughed.

“Sorry, must have been you then, while you were getting your cock vacuumed.”

Dred choked on his coffee as the guys broke into laughter. It should be a good day in the studio.

“Speaking of cock vacuuming, you still getting yours shake n’ vac’d at the weekend, bro?” Lennon asked him.

“Seriously. Do I ask what your fucking plans are? Pun intended.” Dred shook his head.

“Just asking. Wondered how Pix took the whole magazine cover, that’s all.”

Dred slammed his coffee cup down onto the counter.
Please. No. Not a fucking trash mag already.

“You didn’t see it?” Lennon reached across for Nikan’s laptop and pulled up the website.

Shit. That was one hot pic. Pixie looked killer in that short black dress.
As sexy as he’d remembered her. Thank God he didn’t pick her up and push her against the wall like he’d thought about doing. His cock twitched at the idea.

He scanned the article. They didn’t know her name, but they’d connected her to Trent—shit. Named Second Circle. Dred grabbed the anchor that hung on the leather cord around his neck and pulled on it. Maisey had bought it for him. She thought wearing it might give him a symbol to hold on to to help rein in and diffuse his anger, to hold him down when he wanted to go off and punch the living shit out of something.

“Fuck.”

Pixie must hate it, and it was probably the reason why she hadn’t replied. Yet another reason why pursuing her like this was stupid. What kind of man would subject her to this for a couple weeks of fun?

He yanked his phone out of his pocket and raced up the stairs to his bedroom, slamming the door so hard the artwork on the walls vibrated.

Dred pulled up Pixie’s number and was about to hit dial when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were wild, and he was about to lose his nut over a stupid article. He’d always suffered from a short fuse. The psychologists he’d seen when he was taken into care said it was a result of his upbringing. Call it what you would, he was cursed with a never-ending fight cycle that was exhausting.

He walked to the window and opened it before he sat down on the sofa. The room temperature dropped suddenly. Fucking April. What happened to the start of spring and all that shit? Snowflakes drifted in gently and settled on the wood floor before melting into little drops of water. Their swirling path captivated him as they switched direction randomly. Kind of like his feelings for Pixie.

Phone in hand, he dialed her. It was nearly ten. She might already be at the shop.

“Hello?”

Dred tugged his fingers through his hair, uncertain what to say. “Hey, gorgeous. I was thinking about you.”

There was a pause, which was rarely a good sign.

“You were?” Pixie sounded as uncertain as he felt, but the one thing he knew for sure, talking to her was taking the edge off and bringing him down.

“I haven’t heard from you. Was wondering if I was going to get the chance to see that sweet face of yours over the weekend? And I wondered if you’d seen the cover of
Richter Magazine
.”

“One second.” He heard her mumble something and a door close. “I saw it.”

“I’m sorry. I only just found out. . . . Are you okay with it?”

Another snowflake fluttered into the window, falling slowly, like his heart rate. There was a rare beauty in it, and he wished he had his lyrics notebook with him. The flake wouldn’t survive longer than a couple of seconds in the heat.

He waited for Pixie to show him that whatever they were starting was more resilient.

* * *

Pixie closed the front door to the studio and sat down on the narrow sill of the large glass window that showcased the circular Second Circle Tattoos logo with a heart being eviscerated by a tornado in the middle.

She’d thought about the question a lot since the previous day. Poring over every single line of the article a thousand times, she realized that short of not wanting to advertise her whereabouts to her family, being connected to Dred was not an altogether horrible thing.

Not knowing whether her mom and stepdad were alive or dead didn’t help. But she hadn’t lied to Trent about who she was. Her paycheck was in her real name, Sarah-Jane Travers. All the government agencies knew where she was. The IRS, the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, heck, even her bank. She’d stopped worrying about the police knocking on her door years ago.

So did it matter that she’d appeared in a clinch in the arms of a rock star? “That kind of publicity is not really anything I ever wanted.”

Dred huffed. “Me either. Music was and is my escape. There isn’t anything else I want to do. But I hate the fact my life ends up on magazine covers.”

She could feel his frustration. “It’s a bit surreal, even thinking about it, Dred. I don’t love the idea of being anybody’s front-page news, but I can deal with it.”

She heard Dred exhale slowly.

“I’m sorry it happened, Pix. There should have been no one around us who weren’t our friends and family. I don’t know who took that shot.”

“You don’t think it was Viggo, do you?’ Pixie shuddered at the way he’d treated her.

“I have no idea, but I’m going to get our manager to call the head of security at the arena to see if we can figure out who sold us out. Perhaps there is video footage or something. I’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise.”

“I believe you. And if we’re apologizing, I think I owe you one.” It was only fair.

“Yeah? Why’s that, gorgeous?” His tone was lighter. Brighter than the first half of their conversation.

“I’ve been avoiding you.” She winced at her own words.

“I know. You want to tell me why?”

Gah
.
No.
She didn’t really. “You scare me a little,” she whispered. Pixie stood up and started to pace the sidewalk. Inside the studio, she could see Eric setting up his own station.
Damn.
That was her job. She heard Dred moving around on the other end of the line.

“Well, that certainly wasn’t the effect I was going for,” he said. “Want to tell me why?”

Cujo and Drea walked past her, Cujo’s arm slung lazily over Drea’s shoulder. Drea had reached up to grab his hand. They smiled as they went by. It made her heart sing to see the two of them together, and for a moment she allowed herself to pretend it was her and Dred.

She flashed five fingers at Cujo to let him know she’d be in soon. Cujo smiled before giving Drea a lingering kiss good-bye. Drea walked in the direction of José’s, the café she managed, and Cujo watched her go until she turned the corner.

They had such a passionate relationship. Mentos and Coke was how Cujo once described it, but it was so much more than that. Was it wrong that in spite of everything that had happened to her, she wanted to experience a piece of that soul-consuming love for herself?

“Because I don’t know what you want from me.” It was the truth. And not knowing was driving her crazy. “I’m not good with relationships. Casual sex doesn’t really work for me.” “Disastrous” might be a better word.

Perhaps the fact he was so far away would give them a chance to get to know each other better at a much slower pace.

“You’re a snowflake,” said Dred.

“A what?”

Dred laughed a little. “A snowflake. I don’t know what you and I have, Pix. I can’t even figure it out myself, but as I sat down to call you, I watched these snowflakes come in through the window. And they were so white and so fucking pure, the idea of touching one of them and making it melt was perfect, and yet the idea of spoiling it forever was not.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Pixie whispered.

“I want to make you melt for me so bad it hurts,” Dred said gruffly. “But I want to leave you as perfect as you are. I can’t help but think I’ll be bad for you, Pix.”

His words were heartfelt, and she knew it was up to her to decide to take the next step. “I pick melting,” she said quietly, even though the unspoken meaning scared her witless.

“Then come to me,” he soothed. “I need to see you. And while I really want to feel your skin against mine, if you need time for that, I can deal.”

The idea of Dred naked caused a fire to burn through her, setting her ablaze. “I’m scheduled to close on Saturday, but I can be on the first flight Sunday morning.”

“I’ll book you a ticket when I get off the phone.”

“No,” she replied. “I don’t need you to buy it for me.”

“I know you don’t, but I want to. Think of it as the rock star equivalent of chocolates.”

“Fine, but so you know, this isn’t how it’s always going to go.” There was no need to spend his money on her when she had funds of her own.

“I hear you, Snowflake. See you Sunday.”

Snowflake.
She liked it. “Good-bye, Dred.”

Pixie disconnected and smiled. The tightening in her stomach was a mix of excitement and nerves. Understandable in the circumstances.

Her goofy smile in place, she turned to go back into the shop when a motion caught the corner of her eye. She stopped and watched as a man shifted on the other side of the street. Head down, he turned and walked toward the corner, his back to her. For one second her heart stopped, plummeted, before beating faster. What if it was Arnie? Pixie shook her head. He had a few pounds on Arnie, and less hair. And while the clothes were the same, the slight limp wasn’t. It had been years since she’d seen him outside of her dreams. The man turned to face her just as a delivery truck hurtled down the street, blocking her view.

Yet once the van had passed and the road empty again, the man was no longer there.

* * *

“So I have no choice?” Dred looked out over Runyan Canyon. The L.A. house had all the warmth and personality of a subway station. But the view and the trails that weaved their way around it were something else. Those small pockets of beauty in L.A. were hard to come by, and were usually surrounded on all sides by bloated commercialism and people with overinflated egos.

“We now have a legal request to surrender for a paternity test. If you respond now, the mother has agreed she won’t make it public.” Sam sat on the white leather sofa wearing a burgundy suit. He swirled the solitary ice cube in his single malt like an extra from
Mad Men
.

“Let me think about it,” Dred said, stepping away from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“You can think all you want, Dred, but she has photographs of that night. Compromising ones. Not sex-tape stuff, but clearly the two of you getting it on.”

“Fuck.” Dred pressed his forehead to the glass. This was so not what he needed right now. He couldn’t possibly be a father. Safety was his number-one priority as far as sex was concerned. With the kind of childhood he’d had, he was starting to think that procreating was not for him. In all good consciousness, he couldn’t bring a child into the world and saddle them with the kind of father he’d be. Keeping his anger in check was a daily thing, and a child would only exacerbate his lack of control.