Chapter Five
For once, Sarge was actually grateful that Lita needed to be bailed out. The Old News drummer had wasted no time since returning from tour to raise some hell, being tossed into Manhattan Central Booking her first night back on a drunk and disorderly charge. While her one phone call should have been to James, Lita had called Sarge’s cell phone instead. But if Sarge knew Lita—and you didn’t spend years with someone on a tour bus without seeing their worst—she’d called Sarge with the express purpose of getting a rise out of their manager.
Sarge, however, didn’t have the desire to go a round with James by not alerting him to Lita’s latest antics, so there he stood, after an hour on the train. Outside Central Booking, waiting for James to show up and bail out Lita.
Again.
From his vantage point, he could see three separate Santa Clauses ringing bells for donations to the Salvation Army and wondered why they couldn’t at least attempt to appear like the real deal, finding their own damn blocks to work.
Taking potshots at charities now, are we? God, he was in a shitty mood. The back of Sarge’s neck itched; his winter clothes felt too tight. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine, even though the temperature sat squarely at thirty-five degrees. And while he wanted Lita’s latest stunt to be the reason for his irritable state, it had more to do with her calling from jail before he could…relieve himself this morning.
Honestly, he should be dead by now. Killed off from an unusual case of purple testicles. He’d slammed back into Jasmine’s apartment, all but salivating with the need to take out his villainous erection and stroke it to the memory of Jasmine’s sexy waist shuddering as she climaxed for his fingers…and his phone had rung. If he hadn’t had one fist propped on the entry table while he unzipped his jeans with the opposite hand, he wouldn’t even have seen Central Booking pop up on the screen of his phone, where he’d left it by the door. But he had. And he’d known if he missed the call, his pain-in-the-ass bandmate would be shit out of luck.
So with an agonized shout at the ceiling, he’d abandoned his quest for self-love and answered.
Now? He couldn’t blink without his dick getting hard.
Jasmine. God. The way she’d popped those hips back and slid forward, choking his fingers with her tight—he’d known it would be—pussy. The way her lower lip pouted every time he talked dirty in her ear, as if she didn’t understand why she liked it so much. At least, he prayed like hell she liked it, because he didn’t appear to be capable of keeping the words locked inside, the way he always did until it came time to write songs. Although didn’t it make perfect sense that Jasmine would call forward the words, since his songs were about her?
Sarge leaned back against the gray limestone building, mentally berating James for not being his usual early self. He wanted to get back to Hook. Tomorrow night, he would meet his niece for the first time. Spend some clearly much-needed time with his sister. Tonight he would go back to Jasmine’s and hope she hadn’t already put his possessions on the curb. Oh, and also hope she’d let him fuck the stuffing out of her. He couldn’t forget about that.
As if he could. He had a near-decadelong obsession with a woman—no end in sight…yet—and a punishing, uncompromising need to get deep, deep inside her where he hoped to lay the obsession to rest. If there was a stern voice in his head telling him on repeat that his heart would be set on fire like Jimi Hendrix’s guitar once all was said and done? He was beyond listening. Distance hadn’t worked. So he would eliminate every speck of daylight between them and attempt to grind his infatuation into dust.
Sarge pushed off the wall when he saw James approaching, looking as though he wanted to tear down the city with his bare hands. “Hey, man.”
“Is she still in holding? Have you gone in yet?”
“Not yet.” When James tried to bypass him into the building, Sarge stepped into his path, ceasing his progress with a hand to the chest. “I waited out here for a reason. You need to cool off before you see her.”
James shook him off and stepped back, tugging on the sleeves of his trench coat with meticulous movements. “Trust me, I’m feeling positively chilly.”
Sarge noticed a photographer across the street taking pictures of them and turned his back, indicating that James should do the same. Not that it would be anything new when gossip blogs broke the news that once again, Lita Regina had ended up behind bars for the night. “It doesn’t matter if I trust you. It matters that Lita expects you to go in there and throw your weight around like an asshole. You do it every time.” Sarge shook his head. “She loves it.”
For once, James actually looked interested in something, one dark eyebrow dipping behind his aviator sunglasses. “Why would she love it?”
“So she can be angry at you instead of herself,” Sarge near-shouted, jabbing the freezing air with a finger. “Shit. You know what else? I’m done playing referee for you two. You’re both reasonably intelligent people—you can figure each other out without my help. I’ve hit my limit.”
James took off his sunglasses with a casual sweep of his hand, removing a square of material from his coat pocket to clean the lenses. When he was finished with the task, he replaced them over his eyes and nodded once at Sarge. “Your sister wasn’t quite as enamored by the prodigal son’s return as you’d hoped, I take it?”
“Oh, just fuck right off.” Sarge bypassed James on his way toward the entrance. Yeah, he was well aware that he was taking out his piss-poor mood on James, but someone could ask his rock-hard balls if he cared. Until he got back to Hook and got his own family situation—and the Jasmine situation—under control, he didn’t have the capacity to focus on much else.
The two men showed identification and signed in at the glass enclosure just beyond the entrance vestibule. James spoke in a curt tone with the officer as he completed the bail transaction. After funds and paperwork had exchanged hands, they were escorted by a female officer to a beige waiting area where Sarge dropped into an orange plastic seat and James began to pace.
It was a familiar position for them.
Sarge reached over and picked up the nearest magazine from a stack on the wobbly side table, but closed the rag immediately when his face popped up on the fourth page under speculation that the band was breaking up, piggybacked by an article about his recent hookup with a reality show star he’d never met in his life.
Neat.
Sarge realized James had stopped his nervous laps around the room, and was now standing with his buffed loafers pointing in his direction. “What?”
“I’m waiting to hear what happened with your sister.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re in a waiting room.”
A muscle ticked in the band manager’s cheek. “You’re not acting like your usual self. Something must have happened, and I’m your manager. So.”
Sarge lifted his hands and let them drop to his bent knees. “You just want me to distract you until they release Lita.”
“Partly.”
Sarge had no choice but to laugh, but it faded fast. He and James got along fine in their silent agreement not to discuss feelings, but in an artistic profession, shit tended to come out in the wash, whether in song lyrics or after a particularly sloppy night out on the road. It didn’t matter how succinct he made his explanation, James would see everything. Same way Sarge saw what was taking place between James and Lita. But hell, Sarge needed a distraction from thinking about Jasmine—about everything—so he’d talk. Anything to get him through another ten minutes without wondering what the night would bring.
“My sister didn’t want me to stay,” Sarge began. “She had a rough breakup with the father of my niece. Doesn’t want her daughter to get attached to me since I’ll only leave again.”
“Right.” James sat back in his chair, thumb tapping on his thigh. “Where are you staying?”
Sarge stared hard at the cinder-block wall when he answered. “With Jasmine.”
His manager was silent for a tick. “The Jasmine? Jasmine Taveras?”
Hearing her name felt like rolling around in burning cinders. “I liked you better as guy who doesn’t give a shit.”
James started to say something else, but the metal door on the opposite side of the room swung open to reveal Lita. Barely reaching the escorting officer’s shoulder, she had both hands shoved into her ripped jeans, a red-and-black-checkered beanie pulled just above huge, apprehensive green eyes, which were firmly trained on James. “Um.” She shifted in her boots. “I’m with the band?”
In an effort to keep from pissing off James, since the poor fucker had stopped breathing beside him, Sarge didn’t voice the other half of the band’s inside joke. Lita’s innocent, kid-sister appearance had gotten her stopped at security more than once at Old News shows. She looked incapable of lifting a pair of drumsticks, let alone whaling on a kit like a legend. Once, before a show in Amsterdam, she’d told the venue’s head of security she was “with the band,” to which he’d replied in a deadpan tone, “The Spice Girls broke up fifteen years ago.”
Now, even though Lita wasn’t looking at Sarge, he knew she expected the rejoinder, but how the situation was handled needed to be James’s call this time. Too often, Sarge had played good cop, and clearly, it hadn’t done a damn thing to keep Lita from diving back into self-destructive waters.
Thinking of his fingers thrusting into Jasmine’s addictive heat that morning, Sarge wondered if he’d jumped headfirst into self-destruction himself.
Finally, Lita turned her attention to him, arms crossing over her middle. “You were supposed to come alone, Sergeant.”
Sarge shrugged, but sighed when he couldn’t pull off being callous when it came to Lita, even though she’d used the nickname she knew he couldn’t stand. “You were supposed to stay out of trouble.”
“Maybe this is just a surprise band reunion and you’re both on hidden camera.” She elbowed the stone-faced guard to her right. “Smile.”
“Lita,” James started in a warning tone, but when the drummer’s gaze turned hopeful, Sarge could all but feel the shift in his manager’s demeanor. “I…uh. Brought you some aspirin.”
Lita’s expression turned dumbfounded as James approached, producing a bottle of water and aspirin out of his deep coat pockets. When Lita only watched him with suspicion, he lifted her hand, placed the tiny white pills inside, and closed her fist around the medicine. “What are you doing?”
The sound of James clearing his throat bounced off the walls, making it sound louder. “I assume since you drank your weight in whiskey and attempted to scale the Chrysler Building last night, you likely have a headache.”
Trying not to be obvious, Sarge patted the air in the universal sign of take it down a notch, man. James showed no sign of acknowledgment, but he handed Lita the water bottle. The drummer stared down at it like a foreign object. “Wait. What’s going on here? You’re supposed to be listing every way I fail at life by now.”
James’s wince was almost imperceptible. “Yes, well. I’m not going to do that.” He took a deep breath and laid a hand on Lita’s shoulder, touching her for the first time that Sarge had ever witnessed. “I’m just…I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
And this is why you never give unsolicited advice, Sarge thought, as Lita tensed, moisture gathering in her widened eyes. James frowned down at the drummer, as baffled by her reaction as Sarge. Maybe four years wasn’t enough time to get to know someone, because he certainly didn’t expect Lita to haul back and throw the water bottle across the room, where it exploded against the cinder block. No sooner were her hands free than she shoved an unmovable James, backing toward the exit like a terrified cat.
“Look, thanks for bailing me out, but this is where we part ways.” Lita split a look between them. “It wasn’t a good day to try something new.”
James stepped forward, hands fisted at his sides. “Lita—”
“No.” She shook her head, warding him off with a hand. “I’m out of here. Stop following me. Stop checking up on me. I don’t need you.”
When the manager only fell into silence, Sarge made a last-ditch effort to calm the drummer by giving her a reassuring smile. “Hey. I hear the Spice Girls broke up fifteen years ago.”
“Too little, too late,” Lita called as the metal door slammed behind her.
The look James gave Sarge was pure murder as the manager stormed past and went after Lita, leaving Sarge alone in the waiting room with the escorting officer.
“Hey, man. Can I get a picture with you?”
On the upside, his hard-on was only a sweet memory. But something told him it would be back in full effect as soon as he breached the Lincoln Tunnel exit into New Jersey.
Jasmine sat on the factory roof, her sandwich forgotten on the cinder-block ledge beside her. From her vantage point, she could see Manhattan. And if she closed her eyes really tight and blocked out the mechanical hum from the factory beneath, she could feel the whir of yellow cabs soaring down Broadway. See the white steam curling out of crisscrossed grates midavenue. Hear the new wave of young city dwellers laughing, breathing hot air into their hands as they convened over paper coffee cups.
From the time her parents had moved their family from the Dominican Republic to Hook during high school, she’d pictured herself flitting across the electric backdrop of Manhattan. Reading the newspaper on her balcony, going on outrageous dates just to tell the tale the following morning. Getting a callback about her demo tape and being whisked away into a life of limousines, parties, and photo shoots.
If you don’t dream big, what’s the point of dreaming at all? She’d said those exact words countless times. Written them in yearbooks…and yeah, she’d even said them to Sarge. The problem with dreaming, though, was that when it came time to do? That’s when shit got real. That’s when rejection letters—or oftentimes no response at all—started popping the little dream balloons one by one, until the ground at her feet was littered with useless scraps of rubber. Jasmine could still hear the dial tone in her ear, feel her last hope slip away. Not marketable. Not current enough. Not now.
When it had come time to face facts, that her window of opportunity had closed and it was time to start behaving like an adult, Jasmine had bitten the bullet and applied for a position at the factory, much to the quiet disappointment of everyone with whom she’d attended high school. That first day on the assembly line had been a tough pill to swallow. But she’d put her head down, gotten to work…and hadn’t lifted it since.
The warning bell pealed, telling workers that lunchtime was ending in ten minutes. Realizing she hadn’t even taken a bite of her sandwich, Jasmine made a grab for it, but was distracted when her cell phone rang.
Los Angeles area code? It had to be Sarge. And oh Lord, some very important lady muscles went tight at the prospect of hearing that voice in her ear, right where it had been this morning. With a blown-out breath, she answered. “Hi.”
“Hey, Jas.” Instead of the gruff, seductive tone she’d been expecting, he sounded out of breath. Stressed. “You busy?”
“I’m on my break.” She set the sandwich back down. “Is everything okay?”
He hummed a noncommittal sound, but she could hear booted footsteps moving in the background. “Depends on your definition of okay, I guess.”
“I’m going to need you to stop being vague.”
His gust of rich laughter hit her ear, making her shiver. “Fair enough. I, uh…” Was he running? “I noticed you didn’t have any Christmas decorations up in the apartment, so I stopped on my way back from the city, thinking I’d grab some, right?” More pounding footsteps. “But it turns out someone filmed that little scuffle with your date at the Third Shift last night and it’s all over the Web. I’ve got a few photographers giving me a workout, trying to get a statement. Are you eating lunch?”
During the course of Sarge’s explanation, Jasmine had stood up, staring in the direction of Manhattan as if she could pinpoint his location. “You’re running away from paparazzi…and asking me about lunch?”
“You left without eating breakfast and I feel responsible.”
A hot flutter wound through Jasmine’s middle, a secret smile curling her lips. “Are you in need of some assistance, Naughty Prince?”
His growl crawled down the line. “You been looking me up, baby?”
Good God. How could be make her stomach dip with a single gruff question? “I’m not that far out of the loop,” Jasmine murmured. In a small town like Hook, people tended to talk about their homegrown hero. She’d always laughed it off, remembering the young man he’d been, not equating him with the rock god everyone described him as. Now everything about him was coming through a fresh perspective. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
When he spoke, his voice echoed, as if he’d entered a small space. “Listen, I don’t think I can get back on the same train.” His heavy sigh tugged something inside her chest. “If you can get out of work, I’m in a Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom just out of Newark.”
“You’re not serious.”
“There’s Christmas decorations in it for you,” he coaxed.
That gave her pause. He was only supposed to spend one night. Now he wanted to decorate with her? Bad idea. Bad. On cue, the end-of-lunch bell gave a deafening peal, forcing her to make a call. “I’ll tell the floor manager I’m feeling sick,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Funny.”