Now
We slip out of the office quickly and quietly to avoid getting caught in more conversations. When we reach the lounge room at the front of the office suite, I turn back to Dex. Going up on my toes, I kiss the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you,” I say, smiling softly.
He gives me a lopsided smile, revealing one dimple. I reach out and trace it with my thumb. A tremor runs through his body, and he closes his eyes.
“For what?” he asks, his voice a rough whisper as he opens his eyes.
I shrug. “For putting up with me and the threats from my overprotective friends. It means a lot to me that you mesh well with them. They’re important to me.”
His eyes light up. I realize with a start what I’m really saying—he’s becoming important to me. It feels like the floor dropped out from under me. How could I have let him worm his way inside, knowing that he could walk away? He might just yet. I turn back to the door and lead him to the elevator with renewed purpose. By the end of this tour, he’ll know the real me, and whether he sticks around after will be up to him.
The trip down to floor twelve is fairly quick. Both of us are quiet, the nervous energy radiating off me, filling up the small space. We step out into the hallway. The wall of solid glass opposite us exposes the downtown landscape beyond. This floor of the building only has one room, and the hall circles around it, closing it off from outside view. The beige carpeting and plain white walls only serve to highlight the view.
I tug Dex’s hand so he’ll follow me to the nearest door. The door opens to reveal the pitch-black space within. I dig my phone out of my purse, then switch on the flashlight app and lead him down a few steps before urging him to sit in a seat.
“Wait here,” I whisper to avoid the echo of my voice. “I’ll go to the control room and turn on some lights.”
The control room sits on this level, just behind the elevator shaft. My heels clack on the concrete floor, echoing around the expansive space. I dig my keys out of my purse and unlock the control room with the master key Nic gave me long ago. I hit the master switch for the lights, and the click echoes loudly as the spotlights turn on, highlighting the stage area below. The black walls and seats absorb most of the light, but there’s still enough that I can see Dex looking around the room from the seat where I left him.
The room consists of a stage, with stadium seating on all four sides. It takes up both the eleventh and twelfth floor of the club and is the main area for shows that attract a lot of members.
I walk out of the control booth and approach him cautiously, building the courage to say what I need to with every step. Inhale, summoning strength and courage to move forward. Exhale, releasing my fears and reservations. My finger twists in the rubber band at my wrist in anticipation.
“We call this the arena,” I say, my voice a little rougher than I hoped it would be. I clear my throat. “They do all sorts of shows here. But only one that I’m involved in.”
I hear the snap of the rubber band as I let go of it, but I don’t feel it. Dex looks at my wrist. His brows draw together as he reaches out and gently takes it into his hands. He turns my hand over, inspecting my wrist.
“Why do you wear this?” he asks.
I hesitate before answering. It’s hard to put into words the things that I’ve never had the urge to explain before.
“It’s supposed to remind me that I can feel something. That I’m alive. It’s not always effective, but it helps sometimes.”
He tugs on my hand until I sit down on his lap. His fingers brush aside hair from my face as he looks me over. “I assume that this isn’t music-related. So what kind of show do you do here?”
“You asked me before about why I train, and I said it was to prepare for all this mess, but it’s not entirely true. They host cage fights here, every third Thursday. I fight here. Men, women, it doesn’t matter. There are a particular set of people who get off on watching fights or being in them. To do it in a place like this, where there are no rules…”
“Is that your thing?” he asks.
“Not the way you’re thinking. I do it to feel something—it’s not sexual. It’s an acceptable outlet for my urges.” I take a deep breath to steel myself. “After… after, Jared…” Fuck, this is harder than I thought it would be. My heart races as I struggle for breath. Dex nods and saves me from explaining more. Tears well in my eyes, blurring my vision. I breathe deep to stop them as I pull his hand down so I can turn away from him. “God, I don’t want to talk about this.” I drop my head back, speaking to the ceiling.
“You don’t have to—” Dex starts.
I shake my head adamantly, cutting him off. “No, you need to know why I do this. Why this place exists. Nic, he gave me this place. Granted, he already had the connections to set it up, from a group he ran in college. So it wasn’t a big leap to give it a permanent location. But I never put money into it. I’m only part owner because he wanted me to know it was for me. I was in a dark place back then.” I snort a petulant laugh. “Still am, if I’m honest. I haven’t always accepted who I am, what I like. He wanted to prove to me that I wasn’t as twisted and sick as I believed myself to be. This place is a sort of therapy. With a flourish only Nic could provide.”
“I don’t think you’re any of those things. I happen to love everything I’ve learned about you,” Dex says, sliding his hand up my thigh and pushing my skirt up with it. “It means a lot to me that you’re willing to show me all this. I know it’s hard to open up sometimes.”
I nod. My skin tingles in the wake of his touch, and I close my eyes, just feeling it. “You have no idea.”
“Probably more than you think,” he mutters.
I open my eyes. “How so?” I ask.
“When I was younger, I was angry at the world. I hurt people. I pushed everyone away. Physically, emotionally. Even with Marcus, I was a dick, but he didn’t care. He would be a dick right back and shrug it off. But that’s only because he understood where it all came from. Even when I wasn’t willing to admit it to myself.” It’s his turn to look away as he swallows heavily. “Audra’s mom. She was my half-brother’s fiancée. I knew she had a thing for me, and when he pissed me off, I texted him from her phone, telling him to meet her. And I made sure we were fucking when he got there.”
“Whoa,” I say, a little more than appalled by that.
He gives me a wilted smile and continues. “At the time, I couldn’t care less. I lied to her and used her as a means to an end. Made her believe I was in love. That was the only time I ever touched her, but the fact that she got pregnant left little room for my brother to forgive her. It wasn’t until Audra came to me that any of that changed. Before she came into my life, I had only a fraction of a soul. All I did was work, eat, fuck, and my art. I was weak. Because pushing people away and being alone is the easy thing to do. Staying around, depending on someone and having them depend on you, that’s the hard stuff. You make me want to work for this, Maddie. You’re the only woman I’ve met that’s made me want to try and stick it out.”
“But you don’t even know all of it,” I argued. “What happens when you don’t agree with—”
“I don’t need to know everything to know you’re worth whatever work I hafta put into it. Did the story I just told you change how you view me?”
I think about it for a second, but the answer is pretty simple. “No, that’s not who you are now.”
“Exactly,” he says a little smugly. He slides his hands up from my hips, cradling the sides of my face. “The past is the past. It molds us into who we are, but it doesn’t define us.”
I might just make you eat those words, I think. But I don’t have the heart to say them out loud. I just shake my head. He needs to see the rest of it.
“Come on,” I say and tug him from his seat. “There’s lots more to see.”
Then
After a month of writing sessions with Asher and Jared, we had come up with twenty-three songs for a possible album. Using my laptop and a microphone, we recorded a demo CD of our top five songs. Jared and I both sang the songs together. My bluesy guitar playing, a little punk inspiration, and our harmonic vocals made something I was so proud of. We had a distinctive sound.
I was on top of the world, especially after giving my boss, Nate, our CD, and his offer to produce an album for us. I was going to get firsthand knowledge on the production side of music, which was a dream come true. I was practically skipping my way through work as the time grew closer. Jared was taking the girls to stay at his parents’ house for a few days. We had our studio time scheduled, starting at noon. It was only half past ten, but soon Asher and Jared would arrive, and we could get to work. It was going to be the longest four days of my life.
I set my Coke down on the desk and moved the desk chair in front of the filing cabinet, then got to work filing the contracts and other various papers Nate had handed me when I walked in. No sooner did I sit than the phone rang. I scooted over and grabbed the receiver and answered. The rest of the guys were in the recording booth, wrapping up with the current rental.
“Barton Creek Recording, this is Maddie speaking. How can I help you?”
And nothing. Just some heavy breathing or sawing on the other end. I tried again.
“Hello?”
I checked the phone. The mute wasn’t on, and the line was in use. Weird. I hung up. It didn’t ring again, so I went back to filing. I lost track of time. Next thing I knew, hands were covering my eyes and familiar lips landed on mine. I kissed him back. When he broke contact, I grinned.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“You better know who it is to kiss him like that,” Jared whispered in my ear.
“Oh, it’s you.” I tried to feign disappointment.
“That’s how we’re going to play this?”
He spun my office chair around to face him. My smile grew bigger when my gaze landed on him. I’d never tire of looking at him. His gorgeous black hair had grown out again to the tops of his ears, even though the sides and back were still kept neat and short. His black stubble was already beginning to show in a five-o’clock shadow. Delicious.
“As long as you’re ready to play? I’m down for anything you got. Bring. It. On.” I licked my lips.
“You’re impossible, woman.” He grabbed my hand, plucking me from the chair. “We’ve got work to do.”
“You’re the one who came into my work looking all dead sexy, kissing me senseless, when we have zero alone time for the next eighty-four hours,” I pouted.
“I will make it up to you,” he said slowly, emphasizing each word with a step as he walked me backward toward the door.
“You better.”
I turned down the hallway and into the large room outside the recording booth. Barton Creek Recording was not a big operation by any stretch of the imagination. We had one recording booth. The studio was built in a beautiful stone-sided building that used to be a small church before the church moved to a larger location. All the outer windows were stained glass with various religious scenes inlaid. The raised dais that once set the stage for a pulpit was walled in to create the recording booth with a large plate glass window facing the large room we were standing in. The small hallway we had come from had several rooms, the tiny kitchen, a couple of offices, a storage room, bathrooms, and the crash pad. The crash pad was just a tiny room with blackout curtains and several cots lining the wall to crash on during long recording sessions.
We mostly rented and produced local bands wanting to record demos. Lately, Nate had been toying with the idea of starting a record label for the ones he actually got in there with and produced, like he was working with us. We were getting star treatment, and I took that to mean good things were headed our way.
I rolled a chair over in front of the three huge panels that made up the soundboard. The walls on either side of us were lined with shelves stacked with various tuners and other things I was only beginning to get a handle on. The manual on this shit was a longer read than the Bible.
I watched Nate in fascination as he switched things on and adjusted dials.
“Do you need me to get anything? Are we all set up?” I nodded to the recording booth where Asher was setting up his drum kit.
“Yeah, here.” He reached into the front pocket of his button-down shirt and pulled out the little notepad he kept there. He ripped out a page and held it out to me. “It’s all on the list.”
That was the way Nate operated, or we operated. He went around and made notes of what he needed and shoved a list at me when he had a moment; I fetched.
After getting everything set up, we played through the twenty-eight songs and voted them down to a final thirteen that would make the cut for the album. Twenty-eight hours in and functioning on two hours of sleep, we were in the process of cleaning up a track and recording the drums. I was sitting next to Nate, listening intently to the beat through the headphones.
“He’s good,” Nate said, picking up one side of my earphones.
“I know,” I replied. “I’m not sure why he wasn’t already picked up by someone. You should hear him let loose—fucking John Bonham, Jr. there.”
Nate nodded and adjusted a dial. Hitting the intercom button, he spoke to Asher. “Take it back three bars. I think I had some interference. You’re doing good, kid.”
Asher nodded, then started again, doing exactly what was asked of him. He was shirtless and sweaty. It wasn’t hot in the recording booth, but drums were hard work. He had a tattoo on the left side of his chest, over his heart, that I hadn’t even known was there before. It looked like crossed drumsticks with a name and date above them. It made me curious as to the story behind that.
I sprang from my seat when Nic walked in with dinner. This was probably the most excited I’d ever been to see him. Plus, I was a little delusional and a lot giddy on endorphins from the lack of sleep. I somehow managed to retrieve the bag of tacos from Nic without chewing his arm off, which was exactly how hungry I was.
“Nic, I love you.”
“I know.” He winked. “It’s why I do what I do.”
“Nate, heads up.” I tossed him a taco. “Tell Asher to take five and come eat.”
He nodded and complied while I laid out the rest of the food on the coffee table. Then I got up and went to the door of the crash pad. I opened it quietly and stepped in. Jared was asleep with his back to the door. I shook him.
“Hey, wake up. It’s been two hours, and the food’s here.”
He hooked an arm around me and pulled me down onto the cot with him. We were lying face-to-face.
“You should sleep with me.” He snuggled into my neck and took a deep breath.
“I wish we could, Jare, but the tracks don’t record themselves. Let me up.” I squirmed to get out of his grasp, but he squeezed me tighter. “Come on. If you keep me here any longer, I’m going to fall asleep, and there’s Torchy’s waiting on us.”
His eyes flew open, and I laughed. Not many could resist the call of a Torchy’s taco. My mouth watered thinking about the barbacoa taco with my name on it out there. I rolled over him, and halfway up, I froze. I could make out the dark shape of a small object on the cot perpendicular to the one Jared and I were on.
“Jared, do you see that?” I asked, pushing off him so he could turn over and look.
I turned on the light and was blinded for a moment before my eyes adjusted, and sure enough, there on the cot was a single red calla lily.
“Shit,” Jared cursed.
“Was that there when you came in here?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I was a fucking zombie when I walked in here.”
“I’ll call Officer Martinez. You go eat.”
“There’s a piece of paper under it.”
“Don’t touch it. Leave it. Officer Martinez will know how to handle it. I want to get out of here and go back in there with the others.”
“Okay.” He sat up in the bed, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Perhaps because I was exhausted, perhaps because the girls were safely away at Jared’s parents’ house, but I didn’t freak out like I normally did. I went to my purse, dug out Officer Martinez’s card, and called him. When he was on his way, I sat down and ate my food.