CHAPTER FOUR
Margo groaned. What was that ringing?
And that couldn’t be her tongue in her mouth. Had she used a sock as a gag? They didn’t usually use gags during their playtime. And surely not a sock.
She rolled over and reached for Simon.
Gone.
As usual.
She sighed and dragged the pillow under her cheek. And still the ringing didn’t stop. “Shut up,” she mumbled into the pillow.
It didn’t.
As the room became solid and not just a lovely sea of cushiony goodness, the ringing became chimes. Supposedly soothing chimes. It was why she’d chosen them to wake up to. Never seemed to live up to the hype. It was more like a gong and a hammer as far as she was concerned.
She inched over the lake-sized bed and fumbled her phone onto the bed.
“Oh, fuck.” She sat up. The chimes had been going off for a long damn time. She flicked her thumb over the bottom and saw two text messages waiting for her. One from Deacon, one from Gray.
Coming in today?
“Dammit,” she muttered and stepped off the bed and instantly off the ledge of the dais. “Fuck!” With her ankle singing, she stumbled into the bathroom to the sink. She turned the taps on and leaned forward to shove her mouth under the stream and hissed when her breasts hit marble.
Naked. Okay…
She’d gone to bed in a shirt.
At least she was pretty sure she had. But Simon was a damn furnace, so she lost most of her clothes in the night more than half the time. But that was usually followed by a snuggle up to his perfect, smooth back. She dragged her toothbrush out of the thrice re-glued mug with the fat orange cat claiming he loved Boston.
When she stood, she simply stared.
Her toothbrush fell to the counter. Purple marker was scrawled over her chest. She straightened her arm. And there too. “What the hell?”
It was backwards, but the words were easy to read. On her chest anyway. Mine.
On each breast. Then there was a faint daisy on one nipple and a heart on the other one.
When the hell had he done that? She’d actually slept through it? Or had they been playing in the night? Most of the evening was fuzzy. Sore muscles told her she’d definitely had some fun last night, and it had definitely been her plan when she’d left the girls at the club.
Seducing Simon was still pretty new for her. She usually took her cues from him. Since they almost always included naked time, it wasn’t difficult to get what she wanted. Last night, she’d definitely gone with the naked sneak attack.
Maybe she’d never gotten a shirt back on.
But she had. Her brow smoothed as snatches of memory came forward. Yeah. She’d gotten dressed because they’d had another fight.
Wonderful.
She could guess the topic. It never seemed to change.
She sighed and put that aside as she loaded her toothbrush to scrub out the vile after-effects of champagne. Definitely not for her. Deacon and Harper had brought wine into the inner circle, but she always stopped at a glass or two. A bottle of good champagne? No, that had been a bad idea.
She’d had a healthy amount of bourbon and had never felt this bad the day after. Healthy, as in Simon’s championship drinking belt level of bourbon.
Nope. No champagne for her again.
She looked down at her arm. I heart you. Have a good day, VG. And heart was literally a heart, all filled in purple.
Yeah, that wasn’t coming off in the shower.
She laughed. Yeah, she loved her stupid boyfriend, too. She went back into their bedroom and grabbed her phone. She texted back Gray and Deacon that she was on her way and turned on the taps to the shower.
She shot back a text and a photo of her daisified breast. She got a text back instantly.
SK: Does this mean I have to go take a dick pic?
MR: Please don’t.
SK: C’mon, my dick is awesome.
MR: Covered in baby powder and leather bits? I think not.
SK: No fair. You obviously have some voodoo going on. Can you see into the future? Do we have babies?
MR: Fur babies only.
SK: Awesome.
Margo laughed. Oh, the text conversations they had.
MR: Was I really drunk enough that you could draw on me?
SK: More like hungover enough. I couldn’t find paper this morning.
MR: I <3 you too.
SK: Aww, yisssss.
MR: Idiot.
SK: Your idiot.
MR: Yes, my idiot.
SK: Do you have to scrub it off?
MR: It better not be a Sharpie marker.
SK: Nah. Grape-scented Crayola.
MR: You are not to be trusted.
SK: Hey, not a Sharpie, right?
MR: Don’t think that gets you points. Retribution will be mine.
SK: Heh. Can’t wait. They’re calling me to go pose or some shit.
MR: Have a good day.
SK: We’re doing a practice tonight at the Fluff. Meet me there after wk?
Surprised, she paused her fingers over her keyboard. Should he be practicing already? Sure, he’d been sitting in on a few. It was good to see him with a guitar in his hands again. For far too long, he’d shut off from music completely. She didn’t want to dissuade him. It was far too easy to do lately.
She nibbled on her lower lip and typed back.
MR: Yes. Definitely.
SK: Cool. Cya tonight, beautiful.
MR: I’ll be there. XO
Margo curled her fingers around her phone and tapped it against her lips. She opened her music app and put on the session she’d done with Gray and Deacon the day before, synched up with the Bluetooth speakers in the shower, and stepped inside. It was an instrumental piece they were doing for a movie soundtrack.
It was the same musical director that had used “The Becoming”. He’d been disappointed that the band wasn’t available for a song, but the instrumentals were the next best thing. Playing to car chases, and sweeping cinematography was a helluva lot more exciting than what she did at the Philharmonic. As amazing as her conductor was, creating was what drove her lately.
She hurried through her shower, thankful that Jazz had convinced her to go to the spa with her. It cut down on her shower time. Hurt like a bitch to wax, but she and Simon both liked the effect.
Ten minutes later, she was out the door and down the hall. She got a notification from the car app she used and headed for the front entrance to their apartment building. Simon kept pressuring her to let him get her a car, but she couldn’t quite let him. It was expensive to drive a car in Los Angeles, but it was also a necessity. There was public transit, but it didn’t exactly go in the areas that she had to go. At least when she had to go to Ripper Records’ studio.
She got into the back of he car and nodded to the driver.
She did miss driving, but letting Simon buy her one more thing didn’t sit right. He already paid for the apartment and barely let her pay for a utility. Intellectually, she knew it was stupid. Simon was wealthier than anyone she knew, including her parents. Modeling had been a lucrative venture for him.
She’d shamelessly researched how much male models made. And while it wasn’t as much as the women—hello, equality for one thing in the world—but it was still a ridiculous amount. Especially with his celebrity status. And the contract with Audi alone was enough to put all of Gray and Jazz’s future children into Ivy League colleges.
Hearing Simon on the phone with his agent was startling enough to leave her breathless more than half the time.
Stefan knew exactly what he was doing and Simon was certainly his gravy train. The fact that Simon didn’t care that she knew all of his business was scary and amazing in its own right.
But it didn’t stop her from feeling like she was taking advantage of his generosity.
The symphony didn’t pay all that bad, but it was LA and whatever she made was swallowed by the cost of living. Even if Simon barely let her pay for a thing, she still had to take care of the Boston house.
She swallowed.
The Boston house.
That was what they’d fought over. She played with the strap of her purse. If she sublet it, she could actually put away some money. It was in a really good neighborhood and would bring in a good income, but she couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on calling a real estate agent.
She couldn’t help but wonder what day he’d finally tell her he was tired of her. That she wasn’t enough for him with his fabulous life of travel. He was a natural born flirt. Easy with just about any woman, no matter her looks or size. She was proof that those things didn’t matter to him.
But one day he’d need that variety again. She’d watched him go through women for years. What made her so different?
The steel and glass building came into view. Donovan Lewis had his finger in many pies, and the huge high-rise he owned served as more evidence. She sighed and opened the door when the driver pulled up.
“Thank you.”
“Regular pick-up, Ms. Reece?”
“Yes, please.”
“You got it. Have a good day.”
She waved and got out. She signed in at the front desk and took the elevator to the studio floor. It was time to get into work mode. She felt naked without her case, but they’d locked their instruments into the studio yesterday. She loved all the different musician rooms. Donovan had named all of them after UK bands.
Gray and Deacon were working in there at all hours. They’d tried to convince Nick to come in and collaborate, but he was being a bear about it.
Not the band as far as he was concerned, so he didn’t want any part of it.
Stubborn man. It was the band. Mostly. She couldn’t fault him though. He was just being loyal to Simon, but the idiot was also dying to get into the studio. She saw it on Nick’s face each time they asked. As well as each time he’d said no.
Jazz wasn’t quite ready to be away from the new baby so it was just them and a studio drummer from Donovan’s stable of musicians. The studio made up one floor with a maze of rooms that shouldn’t belong in a corporate building. Luc Moreau from The Grunge had been sitting in for another layer of sound. Gray could have easily done both guitar parts—even Deacon—but they both liked to play off people. The jam vibe worked well for them in regards to writing and she was fascinated by the entire process.
That Deacon and Gray had both invited her into the project left her awestruck.
She had the studio chops, but that it hadn’t even occurred to them to use anyone else had been the amazing part. The symphony had been her life for so long, but it never felt like a family. Not like it did with Oblivion. Not like it did when she picked up her bow and created her own music.
She’d never get over that part. And the more she did it, the more she wanted to keep on working with them, and not the symphony. Music stuffed her head all the time now. Before it had been other people’s music. Yes, the greats deserved to be on her mind, but there was so much more room to explore. And Deacon and Gray let her do that.
They encouraged it.
She picked up her step as she made her way through the maze of studios. They were working in The Clash room. One of her favorites. The walls were papered with huge concert photos on one wall. All of them overlapping into a masterpiece.
She didn’t know who the artist was, but whoever it was, he or she was definitely a fan of music and the live culture. She smoothed her hand over the door, also peppered with the collage of work. Gray was behind the glass and Deacon was manning the board. His huge arms, both in width and length, dominated the space. He wore a racerback tank and a fine sheen of sweat was already beading along his shoulders.
They must have been at it for a while. The guitars were gritty and sweeping at the same time. An action sequence was up on the wall. Both Deacon and Gray’s attention seemed to be focused on the visual aspect, making it match up musically as the scene went from dark tunnels and alleyways to a wide open expanse of blinding daylight.
Her fingers itched for her Starfish. The urge to chase Gray’s guitar with a sweeping chord progression crawled up her back. When the screen went black, she slipped in the door to the booth. She didn’t even remember picking up her violin.
She’d wanted in on the action so very much.
“Finally.” Gray flipped back overlong bangs. “Not like you to be late, Margo.”
“Sorry. A friend got engaged last night and I was dragged out to celebrate.” She pushed her hair back. Even that hurt to do. “Much celebrating.”
Gray’s eyebrows shot up. “You?”
“I know. A true rarity.”
“No shit.” Gray kicked over a rolling stool. “So, I hear we’re practicing tonight? Is Simon ready for that?”
She frowned. “Yeah, he texted me this morning.” She still wasn’t sure what to think about that. “He sort of skipped out while I was still sleeping.” She brushed her fingers absently over the marker heart that hadn’t quite washed off.
“Nick made it sound like it was a little more than the usual jam session.”
She honestly hadn’t known he was thinking about doing that. Again—them passing each other in hallways. She blew out a breath. “He and Jerry have been doing pretty well from what I gather. He doesn’t like me to be there when he’s in a session.”
Gray rested his forearm against the battered black Les Paul. “I’m glad he found him.”
“Yeah, me too. It certainly helped his cranky—” She cut herself off. She shouldn’t be complaining about Simon. Things between them were private.
Gray gave her a rueful smile. “It’s okay. That shoulder injury I got last winter drove me insane. I’d be even crankier if I broke my hand. In fact, I’d probably go nuts.”
“Or learn to play with your feet, you crazy bastard.” Deacon leaned against the doorjamb with his arms crossed.
Gray laughed and swiped his hand through his hair. “Truth.”
“If he’s ready to try, we’re ready to try,” Deacon said with an easy smile.
“He’s nervous.” Her skin crawled even saying it, but she didn’t have anyone to talk to about these things. Her schedule had been too busy for more than a few conversations with Lila. And her sister was off in Cabo with her friends. Not that she’d ever really confided in Juliet about things with the band. They’d never really had that kind of relationship.
Lila truly had been the closest thing to a friend other than Siobhan. The girls from the symphony were fun in small doses, but she rarely did more than listen to them chatter. And last night certainly showed that they were interested in talking about all things relationship related, but that really wasn’t her style.
At least not without a lot of help from an adult beverage.
Gray idly strummed out a melody he often used to warm up. “We don’t want to put pressure on him. It’s still too soon.”
“These have been the longest months of Simon’s life. We have a huge whiteboard calendar in the kitchen with a countdown.”
Deacon’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, like that’s no pressure.”
She smoothed her thumb over the phoenix feather along her wrist. “He misses you guys.”
“We’re still here,” Deacon said.
She looked down at her tattoo. The gold and fire with the fragile edge of the feather was exactly how she felt. Huge and overwhelming, with her in the center of the chaos. “It’s hard to be around music. He’s getting better.” She huffed out a little laugh. “I hear him singing in the shower again.”
“That’s good.” Gray met her gaze. “How are you guys doing?”
She shrugged. All they both did was work lately. “Our schedules are crazy.”
“I hear that,” Deacon muttered. “Between having Alexa and Harper going back to work, things have been hectic.”
“Jazz rules the house with an iron fist.” Gray grinned. “I figured she’d be a softie, but she’s got a crazy schedule set for the kids. She helps out with Alexa too—it’s amazing. She was born to be a mom. And so freaking organized. She’s sort of terrifying.”
Margo grinned. “So doesn’t surprise me.”
“Shocked the shit out of me,” Gray said. “I mean, I knew she’d be awesome at it. But I think I was figuring more of an earth mother vibe when she went crazy with the food. Jazz and Harper are up all night creating recipes. Usually with a fussy baby on their shoulder.”
Deacon shook his head. “The kids won’t be eating solid food for months.” He yawned hugely. “Unless I find a way to put something in Lexi’s formula, because man, I miss sleep.”
“Sleep’s overrated,” Gray said.
“That’s only because you don’t know how to shut it off and sleep, man.” Deacon scraped his hair back. “I like my California King bed. And really like getting into it with my wife.”
“They’re excited.” Margo knew how it felt to be excited about something. It was why she rushed to the studio every day even when she had hours of practice ahead of her for the symphony.
“Well, it’s paying off. Harper’s got backers interested in doing a line of baby food.” Deacon shook his head. “My wife, the entrepreneur.”
“Our wives,” Gray corrected.
“Indeed,” Deacon said in agreement.
Everyone was getting more and more settled outside of the band. It eased her mind and scared her at the same time. Simon really needed the time to heal and figure out his voice, but the longer they were away from each other, the harder it would be to gel again. Was that the urgency he was feeling?
Maybe that was why he was so restless.
Deacon stood up straight. “Well, I’ve been cleaning up what we did yesterday.”
Relief flooded her. Work. She understood work and didn’t have to worry about it. The studio was her place. Trying to read into Simon’s kaleidoscope of moods was exhausting. “Yeah, I think I want to add in another layer from the scene I saw you doing when I walked in.”
Deacon nodded. “Then let’s get to it.”
She settled her violin against her jaw and waited for the screen to come alive again.
“Go for it.” Gray curled his long fingers around the frets.
She lifted her bow and raced over the strings. Gray didn’t disappoint. He followed her lead and the projector flicked to life. As the cars roared out of the tunnel and along the straightaway, all the notes that had been buzzing in her head exploded out of the strings.
They were truly the only thing in her life that spoke for her without artifice.
They raced, their notes clashed when the crash exploded on the bridge and the screen went black.
“Fuck, yes.” Deacon’s voice boomed through the room.
Margo grinned over her shoulder. Fuck, yes was right.
“Just listen,” Deacon said.
The magic of Deacon’s composition soared into the room. Her strings from the day before layered on the faster chords that she and Gray had just created. A few filters to give it an epic edge got her heart racing. It matched the excitement on the screen and she leaned into the turns with the actor on the screen.
When it ended, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Simon says that’s how you drive.”
She shot Gray a narrow-eyed stare.
Gray held up his hands. “That’s just what he told me.”
“He wishes he could drive the Audi like I can.”
Deacon and Gray both laughed.
“Ready for more?” Deacon asked.
She nodded and lifted the guard to her chin. “Definitely.”