My hands were clutching his shoulders. I started to try to push but I realized I couldn’t. I couldn’t push and keep control of my tears and my terror and my shaky belief in the fact that what I was doing was right. Not al at the same time.
So I just held on.
“Let me go, Mace.”
He didn’t let me go.
Instead he spoke.
And what he said with the background soundtrack of the repeating end notes of a soul-destroying rock song changed my f**king life.
“I can’t be the star in your sky when you’re the only star left shining in mine.”
This time, my breath took the Concord out of retirement and shot to Paris.
That was right before the gunshots rang out.
And the gunshots rang out just seconds before Mace and I went down, Mace’s big, hard body landing on mine like a dead weight to the sickening, discordant sound of the strings of a crashing guitar.
Chapter Nine
Sex Wax
Jet
I was smiling at Daisy, stil high from Stel a and The Gypsies’ “Ghostriders” which always lasted at least ten minutes (if not more) and, no matter how many times we heard it (which was every time we saw them play), they made it fresh, ful of energy and it always brought the house down.
But tonight, it was more. The band was on fire and that fire blazed through the crowd, white-hot. It was enough to make us forget our troubles, the danger again confronting us and just enjoy some good ol’ rock ‘n’ rol .
Daisy grinned back at me and shouted, “Yippee kay yay!”
So, of course, I shouted it right back at her.
Over Daisy’s shoulder, I saw Annette and Roxie doing a high five then they bumped h*ps and, seeing that, I giggled.
It was great being a Rock Chick.
Only thing better was being Eddie’s Woman.
Lucky for me, I was both.
My eyes slid through the crowd, looking for Eddie (not finding him, by the way) and coming to stop on Tex.
Like he had been al night, Tex was sitting at a stool, his back to the bar. But now, his narrowed eyes were locked on something as if that something was something he did not like.
Since there were a lot of things Tex didn’t like, I didn’t think much of this.
Then, to my surprise, I heard the first notes of Pearl Jam’s “Black” coming from Stel a’s guitar.
Good God.
I felt as wel as heard the tremor of surprise go through the crowd and my stunned body slowly turned. On my way around, I saw that Indy, Al y, Roxie, Daisy, Ava and Annette were no longer Post-“Ghostriders” high. They were al staring, mouths wide open, at the stage.
The Gypsies never did an encore.
As in… never.
When my eyes hit Stel a, I instantly became transfixed.