Chasing Charlotte by Marissa T. Nolan (25)

As we expected, Natasha didn’t show up for the concert. Walt was pumped full of cold medicine. He was also fucking enraged.

“Where the fuck is she?”

I held up both hands and tried to calm him down. “It’s okay, Walt. We have it under control.”

“Under control?” His voice hit a note that wasn’t even in Natasha’s range. “Your partner isn’t here to sing, and you think you have things under fucking control?” He raged on for a while, but I tuned him out. There was nothing either of us could do about it. When he finally burnt himself out, gasping and coughing, I gave him a slightly sanitised version of what had happened Friday morning. That got him going again.

I let him yell at me, but my mind was somewhere else. With someone else. And then that someone walked into the green room, and my heart stopped.

She’d cut her hair.

Not all of it, but probably a good eight or ten inches. Now, it hung just past her shoulders in thick, soft curls that framed her heart-shaped face. Every part of me ached to touch those dark curls. To wrap them around my hands and hold her in my arms and make everything all right again.

She was carrying four pairs of leather pants. Tyler hopped off his stool and crossed the room to take them from her.

“Hey, spider,” he said.

Charlotte smiled up at him. “Hi.” She handed him the stack of trousers. “You guys all ready?” She looked around the room as Tyler tossed a pair of pants at Dan, then at Joey. He pressed the third pair against my chest and gave me a meaningful stare. “Where’s Natasha?”

“Not coming,” I said, and Charlotte finally looked at me.

“What?” She blinked. “Are you serious?”

I nodded. “Yep. She’s gone. Out. Over.” I could feel four pairs of eyes on me. Walt was hacking up a lung in the corner of the room. “We’re just a four-piece again.” I took a deep breath. “Unless you’re willing to sing.”

She stared at me. “I can’t,” she breathed.

“Sure you can,” Tyler said. He unzipped his jeans, and Charlotte raised her eyes to the ceiling, her cheeks turning pink. “Sorry, spider.” He pulled on his new leathers. Dan looked at Joey and shrugged, then did the same. Joey rolled his eyes and followed their lead.

“I don’t know what you expect from me,” Charlotte said, still staring at the ceiling. “I don’t have Natasha’s range.”

“Yeah, we know,” Dan said. “You can look down now, spider.”

Charlotte slowly lowered her gaze, then stared at each of us in turn. Walt was trying to say something, but his voice had gone. Dan raised an eyebrow at him.

“You dying over there, Walt?” Walt waved a hand wildly and gasped his way out of the room. Dan shrugged and eyed Charlotte. “You have the pipes to sing half our catalogue, spider. And most of the new shit that this fucker wrote.” He jerked a thumb at me, and Charlotte’s gaze flicked to me before returning to Dan.

“Doesn’t mean you gotta sing the whole time,” Joey said, dropping down onto the couch. It wasn’t in much better shape than the one in the rehearsal space. “We’ll do the first set without a female lead.” He sounded happier than he’d been in two years.

“We’ll bring you in after intermission,” Tyler said. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall, studying her. “It’s only about a dozen songs.” He nodded to Dan, who handed Charlotte the playlist we’d chosen for her. She stared down at it. “We’ll give you a break between them, if you need it.”

Charlotte was shaking her head. “I can’t,” she said again. “I... I don’t have anything to wear.”

I’d been ready for this.

Without looking away from her, I snapped my fingers, and Tyler grabbed a hanger from a hook next to the mirror. He dropped it over my fingers, and I held it up for Charlotte to inspect. It was a black body-contouring dress, cut low at the neck and high at the leg, and it was studded with tiny rhinestones. I knew it would fit her; it had been in the closet back at the house, and Arthur hadn’t been wrong yet.

Charlotte stared at the dress, and another blush rose in her cheeks.

“Any other objections?” Tyler asked, and grinned.

She slowly shook her head, and I handed her the dress. She clutched it to her chest and gazed up at me. My eyes hadn’t left her face since she’d walked in.

“Please, Charlotte,” I said softly. “Sing with me tonight.” She bit her lip and turned on her heel, ducking out of the room. I took a slow, deep breath.

“Well, that went about as well as expected,” Dan said drily.

I glared at him, then pulled off my jeans and tugged on my new leathers. They were surprisingly comfortable. Of course, after three hours on stage, I might not be singing the same tune.

No pun intended.

“You bring your Les Paul, Tyler?” I asked, zipping them up and slipping into my boots again.

He nodded. “Yep. Just say when, Romeo.” I flipped him off, and he laughed. Joey snorted. There was a roar from the stadium, and Walt stuck his head in to the room.

“You’re on,” he gasped. “Get your fucking asses out here, you twats.”

As we filed out of the green room, I looked down at Walt.

“She’ll sing,” I said, and he coughed and raised his eyebrows. “Second set.”

“You sure?” God, he sounded like shit. The man should have been in bed.

I nodded and spoke over my shoulder as I pushed past him. “Of course I’m sure.” I was half sure. Maybe a quarter.

Okay, I wasn’t sure at all.

If the crowd had been smaller, I might have felt guilty about Natasha’s absence. As it was, I was just relieved. We broke for twenty and headed back into the green room. I was still outside the room when I heard Tyler whistle, and Joey’s soft ‘holy shit’. I bumped into Dan, who was blocking the doorway.

“What the fuck are you guys –” I stared into the room. Charlotte was standing next to the mirror in that black dress, tiny stars twinkling in it. They matched the ones in her eyes. Her creamy skin almost glowed against the velvet. Arthur had an uncanny knack for this shit. Apparently.

Still had no idea how he did that.

Charlotte smiled shyly at us. “Does it look okay?”

“Okay?” Tyler echoed. He grinned and swept her up in a hug. “You look fucking amazing, spider.”

I swallowed tightly. The mark I’d given her was gone, covered with make-up. I wanted nothing more than to go over to her and wipe it away. To remind us both that she was mine. To show the whole fucking world that she was mine.

“You really do,” Dan said, pushing past Joey, who was standing there with his mouth open. I tapped my fingers under his jaw, slamming it shut.

“If you say so.” She turned and looked over her shoulder, into the mirror. “My ass is huge.”

Tyler laughed, and Dan grinned. I fought back a blush.

“It’s perfect,” Tyler said, and looked over at me, smirking. I narrowed my eyes at him. We had the same taste in women, and if he thought he was getting a shot at Charlotte just because I’d fucked things up, he was dead fucking wrong.

I leaned against the counter next to her. “You ready for this, doll?”

She lifted her dark blue eyes to me, and the sadness in them made me want to pull her against me.

“I’m ready,” she whispered. “Kyle, I –”

I snapped my fingers at the guys. “Out,” I said. “All of you.”

“Aw, man.” Joey sulked, and Tyler punched him in the shoulder.

“Let’s give the fucker a minute, yeah?” Dan said, looking pointedly at Joey. He pushed Joey ahead of him.

Tyler flashed me a grin. “Try not to get that pretty face of yours slapped, huh, Romeo?” he said.

“Fuck you, Tyler.”

He threw his head back and laughed as he followed Dan and Joey out of the room. I turned to face Charlotte, but she looked away from me.

“Charlie, please look at me.” She didn’t. Instead, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “What you saw yesterday... it wasn’t what you think.” I clenched my teeth together, remembering the fury inside me when I’d kicked Natasha out of my room. Cursing and yelling at her as I followed her down the stairs. Slamming the door in her face, shutting that poisonous bitch out of my life. “I was waiting for you, the way I do every morning. You’re the only one I want.”

Charlotte opened her eyes, but she still wasn’t looking at me. I grabbed her hand. “Please, Charlie. You have to believe me.” I love you. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t find the strength to say them. She glanced down at my hands around hers, and did a double-take.

“Kyle...?”

She lifted my left hand and stared at my webbed heart tattoo for a long time before brushing her fingers over it, as if that light touch would wipe the ink away. But it was there for good. Forever. The way she was in my heart. The way I wanted her in my life.

She raised her eyes to mine, and there was a knock at the door.

“Show time, man,” Tyler said, sticking his head through the doorway. “You two ready?”

I raised my eyebrows at Charlotte. “You ready, doll?” I asked. She gave me a small smile and nodded. “Then let’s rock this joint.”

She was good. Really good. Amateur or not, she brought the house down. I think they liked her better than Natasha.

Or maybe I was just projecting.

We started her on You’re My World, letting her sing a capella for the first eight bars, with only Dan’s beat to start her off steady, just as we’d done in rehearsal. Tyler came in with his Strat, and Joey was a fucking trooper, despite his bitching about love songs. A handful of new songs later, Charlotte was still going strong.

She sang our older stuff beautifully, too. She knew more about our music than I’d realised, and I was seeing a side of her I’d never had the chance to appreciate before this. She didn’t even need a break, although I offered her one during Tyler’s solo on Fortune For Miles. She knew the harmony for Smoking Whispers, and when she sang backup on She Thinks I Don’t Care, I felt like my heart would break all over again.

When they called us back for an encore, she was on fire with A Taste of More and Falling For You. But there was one more song we needed to play, and it wasn’t on her list.

Tyler had brought a tall stool onto the stage when we’d come out for the encore, and I led Charlotte to it. She perched on it and looked up at me curiously. I smiled down at her and snapped my fingers at Dan. He started the song with that warm, wet line we’d practised at the Madhouse just a few days earlier.

Tyler had changed guitars, and the humbucker pickup on his Les Paul was giving it the perfect sound. Even Joey cooperated, and I was pretty fucking thankful for that. I have to admit, I was a little nervous, but I’d practised this song backwards and forwards since writing it.

It was my song for her.

The Web Around My Heart.

I took her hand in mine. I wanted her to feel every word. Know that they were all true, even if I couldn’t say them without music to give me the voice.

Her eyes widened as I sang. As I looked into her eyes and told her exactly how I felt.

The expression on her face was worth everything. Every ache. Every pain. Every misstep.

As the guys took the instrumental bridge, I reached out and brushed my fingers against her throat. With my thumb, I wiped away the make-up that was hiding her mark.

My mark.

By the time I’d reached the outro, her eyes were bright with tears. I wasn’t doing so well in that department, either.

I leaned in and kissed her, and her mouth was soft and yielding under mine. I wasn’t focused on Dan’s steady rhythm, or Tyler’s warm guitar, or Joey’s smooth bass line, or the roars and applause of the crowd. All I knew was that my own heart was beating in perfect time with hers. I lifted my head and whispered into her ear.

“I love you, Charlie.”

The whole stadium screamed and cheered as we kissed again, but I don’t think either of us heard it.