had an interesting groove during concerts, although they rarely spoke much off of it. He figured that was why they worked well together. Their focus was the music, and only the music. No messy interpersonal crap got in the way.
Molly’s husky voice started off as a whisper as she lamented the lover who wouldn’t cut her free, but undermined everything she did. The song wasn’t one of theirs, but one they’d been given by another musician. They were still finding their songwriting legs, with Molly and Ryan and West handling a lot of the melodies and arrangements.
He and Juliet were the more lyrically-focused ones. Their collaborations were how they’d started their flirtation—onstage and occasionally offstage, like the bar interlude Ry had mentioned. Meaningless, but fun.
The audience seemed to eat up their interactions. Juliet knew that, so she was already moving into position to give the crowd another show tonight.
There was no heat between them, no sparks except the kind that came from a beautiful woman moving her perfect ass up against Michael’s while she played the hell out of her Jackson. He glanced back at her as his own fingers rode the strings. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring everything but the sweet curve of her bare shoulder. He turned his head to the side and she turned hers until they were cheek to cheek, and they belted out the chorus together.
Undermine me, baby.
Take me down so deep, take it all away.
Til you’re all I’ve got.
All I’ve fucking got.
He was so wrapped up in his byplay with Juliet, and with Elle rocking out on his other side, that he only remembered it wasn’t Ry behind the kit when Mal’s drums crashed into the song. They were like a Humvee barreling through a wall, altering the song that had come before and reforming it into something new.
They all seemed to stutter for a moment. Michael’s fingers faltered, and Juliet’s tripped. West missed a note on the keyboard, then two, but Ry jumped up beside him and they started hammering on the keys together—Ry one-handed, of course—as if they’d planned on doing just that all along.
Molly’s voice caressed the words, her voice more poignant than ever as she clutched the multicolored scarfs around her mic. It was part of the mystique she was crafting, just like her ethereal, slyly sexual outfit. When she bent to wail into the mic, the crowd screamed with her.
Undermine me, undermine me, undermine me.
And finally, as the drums crescendoed and then leveled out, she purred her bastardized lyrics over and over.
Under me, under me, you’re always under me.
The next song was even more raucous. Their first single, “All Night Long”, was about someone looking for a good time so she didn’t have to face the next day. West had written that one a million years ago, and they’d been playing it since their days in their crappy rehearsal space in Encino. Molly brought a whole new feel to it, winding one of her scarves around her neck as she prowled the stage. Once again, the song didn’t have a ton of drum work, since West had written it to suit his keyboard-heavy style of play and they’d adapted it to fit the band. But when Malachi’s part came, he nailed it, standing up and banging on the skins and the hi-hats with a flair that belied whether or not he was keeping time. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter. He had enough panache to make up for any fumbles.
And from the way the girls were screaming every time he flexed his gleaming muscles in his tank—finally whipping it off somewhere in the middle of song number three—they didn’t seem to mind any hiccups.
Michael let out a deep breath at the end of the next song, “Cascade.” They’d made it almost halfway through their eight-song set, and Mal was getting by. Not perfectly, not always on time, but he was blending with them in a way that even Ry hadn’t quite managed. He had the skill but not as much crazy style. Mal was leaning more on the latter than the former, and damn, was it working.
By the time “Delirious” started, the crowd was right there with them, bouncing and mouthing the lyrics if they didn’t have them memorized. When Molly stopped singing and held the microphone toward the crowd, they sang the words for her as best they could, amid a few enthusiastic choruses of, “We love you, Molly!”
She basked in their adulation, shedding her gauzy wrap