I tried not to glance at Lotus too much. I noted her location in an old worn-out leather recliner in the corner. It was impossible not to be ultra-aware of her in the small studio. Her every low-key movement drew my attention and unleashed her pineapple scent.
She was comfortable with my brothers and accustomed to being at Outside. I remembered her talking about working here. In fact, I remembered everything she’d said, and how she felt, smelled, tasted.
Fucking hell. My cock went rock hard again as I watched her shift her shapely sun-bronzed legs underneath her. I imagined running my tongue over every single inch of her warm, slightly salty skin. That had been on my agenda before Saber’s phone call.
My own brother with Lotus.
In love with her. Her with him.
Fuck me.
“Journey.”
“Huh?” I shifted my gaze to Saber.
“You ready to play, dude?”
“Born ready,” I said. Music was what it had always been to me, a refuge from the world. The only place where I could be myself, apart from Lotus.
At my words, Saber tilted his head reflectively.
Shit. That was a phrase I’d used growing up when asked about my music. It was everything then, and it was all I had now.
“Okay, you know ‘Bored to Death’?” he asked.
Blink-182.
“Sure.” I nodded. “Awesome song.” And off a fucking amazing album, but the title was a dig.
Saber gave me a long look, just in case I was unclear. But I wasn’t. The dig was a power play, a dick move by him.
But it was a shit move on my part not telling everyone who I was. It was easier to hide from them than I thought it would be.
But I guess when you’re hiding from yourself, how can anyone else ever be expected to find you?
But I was mostly just winging this whole deal, risking discovery and a lot of fucking drama because of that woman in the corner.
Seeing Lotus in the audience in LA and realizing who she was had knocked me out of the tired loop I’d been continually cycling around. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t be here. I would have continued in that loop, continued wandering on.
At that thought, I had the sudden urge to jot that line down. But I filed it away instead for later. I was here, back in a town I’d vowed never to return to.
Only Ash knew me, and that anonymity bought me some time to sort this out with her. One step at a time. See what happens. That was my loose plan.
“I’ll start us out.” Saber poised his pick over the strings of his Paul Reed Smith SE 245 electric guitar with a gig-bag charcoal-burst pattern. “Give me the beat, Shield.”
Sweet instrument. Only Lotus being in the room had kept me from noting it until now.
“You got it.” Shield clacked his sticks together.
Saber sang while playing the introductory chords. I let him have the lead on guitar.
Frankly, I needed a moment to absorb the fact that my older brother sounded the way he did on the microphone, raspy and real. When we were young, I’d heard him humming along to shit on the radio, but never amplified like this.
He was better than good. Better than he sounded on the demo file Ash had forwarded to me.
Listening to it on the drive from LA had been rough. I hadn’t really been all that impressed by the overall sound, but I was now. However, impressed or not, I wasn’t going to continue letting him have the lead. I grabbed it on his next line, harmonizing with him and going crazy on my guitar.
He stumbled on his next line, and I felt a check of my own inside. The synchronicity between the two of us, vocally and musically, was radical.
Saber righted himself smoothly. I stomped my footboard, elevating the sound, getting a little chime on a couple of chords, then really going to town on the chorus. When his eyes widened, I started showing off because I could. He was good on his guitar, but I was better.
Lotus leaned forward, her interest palpable. She’d always shared my love for rock music. It spoke for us, voiced our pain.
Her pain was different. She had abandonment issues because of her mother. I had a lot of anger because of my asshole, overbearing old man who never accepted or even attempted to understand me.
But pain was pain, and music was my only solace. Both were my companions wherever I roamed.
Watching me closely, Saber kicked up his fingering