Simon Kagan stumbled against the brick wall behind him. The silk screen flags from all the concerts they’d been to stopped him from cutting the shit out of his back. He bounced his skull against the wall. Cold and solid, the brick jarred his brain and the flicker of pain helped snap him into the now. Through the quick sting of tears, a flash of coherence cut through the fog for the first time in months.

He tugged at the thin silver bracelet on his arm. The worn snake’s head fell into the grooves of his wrist where it had rested since Oblivion started ten years ago. The one remaining emerald chip glinted up at him from the eye of the pounded silver. His other bracelet, the banged up infinity symbol his mother had always worn, clanged against the snake head eating its own tail. Two of the few constants in his life.

He was rhapsodizing about a damn bracelet. Hallmark and Lifetime should just fuck in his head and get it over with. Maybe make romantic comedy babies.

He blinked away the last of the sluggish edges from the pint of vodka he’d had for dinner. It was easier to glide on the cool indifference of booze. Easier wasn’t going to get them through this intact. Easy would splinter this tinder box apart.

Fuck easy.

Maybe Deacon’s news would finally jerk Nick out of his safe little bubble of depression. Once upon a time Nick had been their constant well of creativity and all Simon had to do was sit across from him with a legal pad and the songs came. Sometimes faster than the ink could hit the page, and sometimes painfully slow scrawls, but the words always flowed.

How long had it been since a song had come together between them? He could count the months instead of the days.

Across from Deak, Nick sat on the sofa. Misery had carved grooves into his defiant face. His shoulders were stiff, and his straight spine would do Sister Mary Catherine proud.

The nun across the street at Saint Vincent’s was forever praying for their souls. At least that’s what he hoped she was doing when she crossed herself when they walked by.

At this point Simon’s soul didn’t need saving, just his sanity.

His brain was jumbled with words, drenched in alcohol to quiet them. It was all he could do to keep his shit together lately. Nick had always been the one to streamline the crap in his head and make it work.

He missed his best friend and the jam sessions. He missed the insults over chord progressions. Music had cemented their friendship, but now it was a wall between them.

Simon knew his strength was fine-tuning a song and finding the perfect blend of tone and inflection. He was the voice. The guitar was an instrument to write and the cool factor couldn’t be denied, but the mic had always been his best fit. And if he had to give up co-lead guitar he’d do it. Anything to save this clusterfuck of a band they’d become.

Deacon had been just as stifled, but he’d found an outlet. And Simon couldn’t blame him. Drinking and hiding had never been Deak’s style. He was the single moving force in the band. Leaving Nick alone to obsess was what got them into this mess. Snake’s addiction was a symptom of the cancer eating Oblivion alive. Nick was just too blind to realize it.

Deacon’s earnest eyes and fingers digging into his knees made Simon click in again. He’d missed something.

Simon scrubbed his palms down his thighs then sat next to Nick. They needed to discuss this like a band, not a bunch of nancy bitches that couldn’t face hard truths.

“Gray’s been playing for a good ten years. He’s a little younger than us, but his talent is solid. Even better, that drummer I mentioned?” Deacon pushed back a hank of hair behind his ear. “I’ve met her. She can play damn near any instrument, but this girl on the skins is a sight to see.”

Nick’s mouth dropped open. “A chick?”

Deacon held up a hand. “Yes, she’s a girl, but she’s a genius.”

“If she’s such a genius, then what’s she doing playing the Rhino?”

Simon tugged a rubber band from his wrist and tied back the top of his hair. He wasn’t sure about dragging a chick into the band either, but a drummer was a drummer. She would be behind the kit and out of the way. There was damn well enough drama at the front of the stage.

“Same as you,” Deak said, an edge to his normally even voice. “She’s just as talented and just as hungry to make it out of the shitboxes we play in. Between Gray and Jazz, we’d have a tight band.”

“You get this temporary, right? Snake will be back once he’s out of rehab.”

Deacon barely missed a beat. “Sure. If you meet them and they don’t gel, then we’ll walk away and figure something else out.”

Nick paused, his gaze cool. “Are you going to walk with them?”

Simon popped up from the couch. “Fuck off, Nick. No one is going anywhere.”

“I don’t know.” Deak’s low reply echoed in the room, and for an instant, Simon only stared at Nick.

I don’t know? After all they’d been through, Deak was ready to pack it in?

Simon expected Nick to blast Deak’s ears off for that one. But Nick just kept his eyes on Simon, as if somehow this was his fault for not reining Deak in.

Simon smothered a sigh. Hell if he liked taking on the heavy role in the group, but sometimes there was no choice. Like right now. “What the fuck, man?”

Deak scraped his hair back, leaving his angular face naked. There was strain along with dark circles under his eyes. “I can’t do this much longer. All we do is fight. You haven’t written a damn thing with Nick in weeks.”

“Months,” Simon said before he could shut his damn mouth. Fucking vodka.

Nick flinched and rose. “So a few bad months and you’re going to walk?”

“No.” Deak stood. “I’m just saying we need to do something. I don’t want to walk, but I am not going to live in this fucking basement for the rest of my life.” He paced the length of the living room, his long, muscular body tense as a guitar string. “I’m twenty-four years old and still eating Ramen noodles as a basic food group. I hustle pool three times a week just for beer money. I want more than shilling at the pier for loose change or begging for a set at the Rhino. I want to be in the band that gets the prime Friday night gigs in the best clubs on the Strip. I’m sick of waiting.”

“And he’s too good to hide away in this shithole,” Simon said quietly. Deacon was a damn good composer and he’d been content with that role in the band. Maybe they’d taken advantage of that. If Deak could make something out of the chaos that he and Nick came up with, there had to be words and notes burning in Deacon’s head same as the rest of them.

“I didn’t realize you were so fuckin’ unhappy, Deak.”

“Never said I was unhappy,” Deak replied, his gaze level on Nick. “Just saying the band has options that we’ve been ignoring. I have options.”

Nick slumped back against the sagging couch. “Then fucking walk.”

Deacon stopped in front of him. “I don’t want to. I want you to meet Gray and Jazz. There’s something there, man. I can’t define it. But it’s like we’ve been waiting to meet them.”

“You sound like you’ve already asked them to join. Since when did this become your band? I thought it was ours.”

Deacon loomed over Nick, his jaw and fists tight. Simon dropped his arms to his sides and widened his stance. Looked like fists were going to fly one way or another tonight. “We need fresh blood. Obviously we’re missing something. Hell, even just jamming with someone else might get the spark back. If you and Gray don’t hit it off, we walk away.”

“What about hitting it off with the drummer? That’s what we actually need, not another damn guitarist.”

A smile curved Deak’s mouth. “Don’t think you’ll have a problem with her, bud.”

Nick grunted. “And all of us will walk if I do?”

Simon hated the quiet nerves in Nick’s voice. Simon sat back down beside his best friend. “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. All musicians jam out and talk. We’ve been staring at these brick walls way too much. We gotta do something to shake things up.”

Nick tipped his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each hard swallow. Stubble and tired eyes told Simon more than words. Nick was as fried as the rest of them.

This was their Hail Mary to save the band. Nick had to see that.

Nick nodded and stood, then grabbed his jacket. “Set it up,” he said over his shoulder. He was already on his way out.

Simon crossed his arms in a jangle of beads and silver. “Where are you going?”

“Gotta walk.” The door slammed behind Nick.

Simon was halfway to his feet when Deacon clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Let him go. We sprang a lot on him.”

“I just hope he keeps an open mind.” Yeah, right. Fat chance of that happening.

“An optimist to the last, aren’t you?”

“Me? Hell no.” Simon jammed his hands into his hair, pushing the tie out to dig his fingers into the base of his skull. “I need a fucking shower.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Fuck off.”

Deacon’s lips slid into his usual wry smile. “I only speak truth, brother. You smell like a gym bag soaked in vodka.”

Simon sniffed at his pit. “Close enough.” Maybe a shower would sober him up. Or maybe he should just bring the bottle in with him and finish off the night in a blissful blackout.

“Don’t be long. I’m going to call Gray, see if he can meet us upstairs in the laundromat. He works overnights but he should be around now. I don’t think he starts until midnight.”

Simon sighed. There went the idea of oblivion, his kind rather than the band’s. He peered up at Deacon. He was only four inches taller, but damn if he made Simon feel like a midget. “You had this little meet and greet planned.”

Deak shrugged. “I’m going stir crazy, man.”

“All right. I’ll meet you upstairs in twenty.”

Deak dug his phone out of his pocket and headed up the stairs two at a time to the Fluff and Fold’s main floor. Simon staggered down the hall to the small bathroom they all shared. Shaving kits hung on nails along the far wall. He grabbed his red leather bag with the peeling skull and unearthed his electric and the mini-bottle of vodka he stashed in there for emergencies. Without the adrenaline rush, he was cruising for a crash. A nip would put him back to rights. He stripped down and blasted cold water first.

With a yelp, he tipped his face up to the punishing needle spray before switching to hot. With a layer of skin gone and the worst of his beard buzzed off, he felt a little more human. He padded to his extra-long twin mattress on top of a couple pallets he’d stolen from the vending guy that serviced the Fluff. It served as a makeshift alcove for his stacks of black jeans. Being the same size since twenty helped keep wardrobe costs down. He snapped out a pair of bootcuts and tugged them on over damp flesh.

The Fluff was as hot as a damn sauna so he opted for a red tank instead of a t-shirt. He stuffed his feet into red and black shitkickers and grabbed his acoustic. Simon followed the voices topside and stopped at the vending machine on his way.

He smacked a dented panel above the money slot and kneed a spot on the side of the ancient red and white monstrosity. A Diet Coke clunked out the bottom shoot.

“One for me too!”

Simon repeated the process, and this time a regular Coke shot out. He took that one for himself and tossed Deacon the diet. “You gotta keep that girlish figure.”

Deacon rolled his eyes and popped the top. There was nothing small about Deacon and he seemed to be growing in muscle mass every day.

“I thought I heard voices.”

“College kids finishing up a wash. They busted the dryer.” Deacon sighed and downed his soda in long greedy pulls.

Deacon’s Jack-of-All-Trades abilities were the reason they stayed at the Laundromat on the cheap. The widow Martine took pity on them and used Deacon’s skills as payment. Win-win for all of them.

The doors were propped open to give some semblance of a breeze, but as usual the circulation was about as good as every third washer along the wall. Simon dropped into one of the squat orange retro chairs that made up the small waiting area at the back of the room. Amps were hidden under old milk crates both for theft reasons and the sly practice space it made. Snake’s kit was still crammed next to two laundry carts with busted wheels.

Luckily Mrs. Martine didn’t check out the corners of her establishment too often, or she might’ve questioned having musical equipment stashed everywhere. Or maybe not. She was pretty cool.

The DW kick drum lay on its side and a fine layer of dust and grime coated the skins. The cherry lacquer had worn off in spots, probably due to the high humidity down here. Good for his voice, not so good for the drums. They should pack up Snake’s kit, but no one seemed to have the heart to put it into storage.

Simon twisted his chair to block out the empty spot that had eaten away at all of them. Snake hadn’t gone in rehab willingly—it was either that or jail. The fact that their drummer would have a needle in his arm immediately after the ninety days were up was an unspoken fact.

All in all, it was a depressing practice space. No wonder they were less than enthused about working. A year ago, it hadn’t mattered where they were—the pier, the beach, the dank basement—all they’d wanted to do was play.

What the hell had happened to them?

When had it come to this?

He absently tuned and strummed until his ancient Taylor gave its usual glossy reverberating notes. It had been his first big purchase in high school. He’d taken his meager savings and bought a top of the line twelve string acoustic. Every song he’d ever written started on the fired maple guitar.

Each scratch and nick told a story. And every story had been pieced together with someone from this band. There was no way they could let the band go. Too much had happened within their circle to let it go so easily.

Deacon sat next to him, the wide bodied black Takamine filling his lap. In companionable silence, they fell into step. A favored warm-up song echoed in the airy space. The light picking eased the tension in his shoulders. Hard-edged rock was their preference, but tonight felt mellow and a little busted up like the peeling wallpaper that matched the orange bucket chairs. The Fluff wasn’t in the best shape, but it kept going.

So would they.

Simon hummed a few bars as they circled around to the beginning of the song again. The lonely Bad Company lyrics were scratchy and pure without a warm-up or artifice. He closed his eyes and the room disappeared.

Instead, he imagined a smoky bar with hushed tables and the light murmur of patrons. The song slipped through the room, his voice strengthening with each verse. Deacon’s deeper voice added a little polish to the song. The song might be older than the both of them, but no one wrote songs like Bad Company anymore. Instead of ending the song, he let his fingers strum through another soft melody. Deacon’s strong bass voice harmonized with his own as “Drift Away” pushed away the ambient street noise and the ever tumbling dryers.

When Simon opened his eyes again. he found a stranger standing in the center of the Fluff and Fold. He didn’t stop playing—and neither did Deak—they just eyed the newcomer and strummed on.

So that was Gray. He matched his name. Glowering and silent as the San Francisco skyline in October, he made Simon feel positively chipper. He dressed like a fucking Boy Scout. Was that an Oxford shirt? Jesus.

The tall guy could have been eighteen or twenty-five. His face was ageless with a clean shaven jaw and distant fog-colored eyes, and his cheekbones were as sharp as his own. A tuft of longish dark spikes on top of his head tapered to super short hair in back. Instead of the pretty boy label Simon got slapped with all too often, the kid was just plain serious. Broody serious. The kind that got laid.

A lot.

The only outward show of nerves was Gray’s tight fist on the handle of his battered guitar case. Stickers from guitar manufacturers, bands, and clubs layered the ancient black hardshell case. It was a song itself. Simon’s fingers itched for paper for the first time in ages.

A lonely man with a story to tell.

Then again, wasn’t that all of them? Lonely in different ways. Different stories, different melodies. Somehow still the same song.

Without a word, the kid sat down and popped open his case. The gleaming Gibson was well-oiled and polished with a glassy sheen on the front and a nicked to shit back. Even if Simon didn’t trust Deak’s word that the kid could play, the scuff marks and worn finger grooves proved that guitar had seen a lot of action. Gray cradled it like a woman, stroking his hand over the rounded parts then gliding along the neck. The clunk of Gray’s belt buckle against the base made Simon smile.

Nothing was sweeter than a well-loved instrument.

Well, besides exceptional pussy. But that was a different animal all-together.

Without a word, Gray’s fingers walked the length of the fret and he picked up the old song Simon and Deak were still playing but added a quick pickup to the bass line. The kid’s fingers were nimble and impressive. He stopped to tune quickly and found the heart of the melody with a rich, sad pang.

Simon’s throat tightened in reaction and he layered his own sound over Gray’s. Deacon came up the back end with another layer. The room was resonant with the aching whine of guitars and a three-part harmony that couldn’t be manufactured without a million dollar studio.

Instead the magic was in a dingy laundromat.

Simon grinned as they tumbled into an acoustic version of “Life is Beautiful”. Deacon leaned back, his gangly legs outstretched as he thumped mercilessly on the body of his acoustic. Gray pulled notes out of his Gibson that didn’t quite blend with the rest. The guitar was gritty and slightly off. Not out of tune, but chords layered over chords.

How did this Gray guy get his fingers to bend like that? With a nimble gift Simon envied, he climbed the fret board, leaving jagged perfection in his wake. No fucking amp, no electric guitar and he could do that?

Simon’s voice strengthened to compete against the heavier guitars—his element, his way to shine. Then gentled as the middle of the song soared and he had to reach the higher notes. It felt good to sing again. His throat had been pickled with alcohol too often the last few weeks, but it still didn’t let him down. Thank fuck.

Nikki Sixx’s dark lyrics suited the mood, and still there was hope even in the Heroin Diaries anthem. Gray strummed so fast, his hand was all but a blur. The Oxford shirt and khakis were hiding one helluva monster rocker.

Simon tipped his head back and chased him through the chords. His fingers cramped from disuse, but the muscle memory saved him. It was a favored song for them when they were fucking around and didn’t want to play their own music.

Pretty damn often lately.

He picked up the end of the song and Deacon’s bass voice growled along with him to the end. The miniscule quirk of Gray’s lips was the only sign he’d enjoyed himself. His hand hung over the belly of his guitar, the veins in his arms tight with how hard they’d played.

The quiet clap drew everyone’s attention to the girl. She’d faded away in the height of the jam session. Simon wasn’t quite sure how. Obviously he’d been starved for music because women rarely fell off his radar no matter the circumstances.

She was…pink.

Pink wavy curls teased the tops of her more-than-a-mouthful sized breasts. Her hair darkened to a violent purple the closer it got to her scalp. Her face held an innocence under the heavy eye makeup. Heart-stopping innocence that lured a man into doing stupid things.

But his brain shorted out as his gaze dropped to the short and lacy pink skirt over black and gray leggings. Black Docs with pink flames climbed her calves and hugged just below her knees.

Christ, she had to be roasting. It hadn’t dropped below seventy tonight and the Fluff held onto steam better than a Chinese laundry. But she didn’t look uncomfortable. She was silent and cool as an ice cream cup. And just as tiny and lickable.

He wouldn’t mind using his tongue as a spoon.

She flashed him a look, her blue eyes as still as the middle of the ocean off the Monica pier. Too still. Too contained.

Then she flashed him a wicked smile and winked before her attention skidded toward the door and its jangling bells.

Simon muffled a groan. Christ, he didn’t need an insta-erection now. She was the kind of trouble he’d end up in jail for if he wasn’t careful. He hoped to hell she was legal or he was going to have to make himself scarce. Miss Pink was exactly the kind of trouble he hooked up with on a nightly basis, though his chicks were old enough to drink. Usually. And it wasn’t smart to fuck a girl that couldn’t be gone by morning.

Simon tilted his head to find out what had shifted her focus from him to the door. Even knowing he’d never touch her, the slight was a slap.

Nick. Always fucking Nick. Why did chicks dig his stone-face? Nowadays the bastard rarely smiled, yet he had women lining up to suck him off. Lined up—but not getting much action.

Because Nick didn’t fucking see them. He was too lost in his own head.

The room fell silent. The shuffling feet and scraping chairs instantly stilled. The click of a button on a pair of jeans in a dryer was the only sound.

With a harsh drag of breath, Nick pitched aside his glowing cig—so much for giving up the smokes—in the dispenser by the door and stepped into the laundromat.

Showtime.