Above the Noise (3 page)

“So, am I crazy? Or, do you feel it, too?” He tilted his head.

“Yeah.” It was all I could muster, but admitting just that much sucked the air from my lungs. I wasn’t the sappy, talk about your feelings kind of girl. In my experience, it just made life messier. But there was something about those green eyes and sexy grin that pulled the sap right out of me without even trying. He was so incredibly intense, and, even though it took years for me to build the walls I had around my heart, he’d already knocked away a couple bricks, and something told me he could get through to my whole heart if he really wanted to. Calon may be ready for me, but what if I wasn’t ready for Calon?

“CALON, IF I
have anything else to drink, I can’t be responsible for what happens when we get back to the room.” Becki spun around and leaned back into me. My chest rumbled with a groan, and she looked back at me and grinned, which told me she very well may have been picturing the same thing in her mind that played out in mine.

“Mmm, Becks. You’ll have to control yourself as long as we are sharing a room with those punks.” I nodded in the direction of Manny, Bones, and Spider, who were wallowing in the LA groupie attention that came as soon as the word had spread around the bar about our upcoming tour with Smiling Turkeys. I finished the last of my beer and set the bottle on the bar then laced my hands around Becki’s waist. I clasped them across her belly and rested my head on the top of hers. We swayed to a beat much slower than the one that pounded in the hotel bar. Her clean but sultry scent gave me a buzz no alcohol could touch.

She loved when I called her Becks. And I loved that no one on the planet smelled as good as she did. But I didn’t love that we hadn’t yet had a moment without ‘the punks’ since we’d left Knoxville. It had only been a couple of days, but it felt like a lifetime since we’d been alone. Our regular late nights in her dorm had grown more frequent just before we left Tennessee, so I was hoping for our own room once we finally got to LA and the management company started footing the bill.

“So, do you
want
another beer?” I leaned down and whispered in her ear. As I pulled her closer to me, she laid her head back against my chest and closed her eyes.

“You have to ask?” She spun within the circle of my arms and gripped the sides of my t-shirt, stood on her tip toes, and crashed into my mouth. I bent slightly as I tightened my grip around her waist and lifted her until her feet dangled toward the floor.

“Bartender,” I called, motioning for another beer. Shit, Becki was hot. I tried to convince my dick I wanted to take things slow, but, she was naked in my mind so often, it was hopeless.

It felt like years since Gracie was all I thought about. The connection Becki and I had hit me like a freight train. That first night we met at Mitchell’s, when the two of them snuck into play on our stage before Buzz opened the place, my heart was tugged in a new direction for the first time since the night I kissed Gracie two years before. When Becki introduced herself to me that night, it was like something from her soul reached right inside me. I remember I winked at her and something about her reaction was different than the typical groupies. She said something about being daring and pushing the limits, and I knew she’d be a challenge. So, I decided to accept the challenge.

Each time I saw her, it was like she crawled deeper inside me. The first night I walked Becki home after she and Gracie came to see us play at Sid’s, I felt like a love-struck teenager on his first date. My palms were sweaty, and my heart beat a mile a minute, but something seemed off kilter. I still hadn’t shaken my feelings for Gracie, and, at that moment, both beautiful girls took up space inside my heart. It was just a matter of time before one squeezed the other out.

It had been years since Chloe passed away, four to be exact, and she’d moved from taking up space inside my heart to simply inhabiting the man I’d become. I never wanted her to look down from Heaven and see me as a man-slut musician. I stayed grounded, didn’t do drugs, or fall into the party scene, just played my music, wrote lyrics, and drank a little when I felt like it. As a band, we’d pretty much walked the straight and narrow, and we owed that all to Chloe, my first love.

Over the last three months, my heart bounced all over the fuckin’ place. Gracie caught me off guard when I ran into her at the beginning of the summer. She had me all torn up, and when we started working on her music, all I thought about was taking her face in my hands and kissing her like I did the night we met. But then I’d walk Becki home from one of our shows. Becki and I would spend hours lying across her bed, propped up on pillows, laughing at some ridiculous story one of us told, or standing our ground on some inconsequential argument. Becki and I connected on a very different level, and that intrigued me.

I’d dreamed about Gracie and what we could be together. I was in love with someone that was born inside my head, held captive inside the memory of a single night. Once I could see it was all a fantasy and began to dig down deep to translate my feelings for Becki, my emotions intensified and came at me like a tidal wave.

Becki slammed her beer bottle on the table, which shook me out of my own mind. She stood on her tip toes and looked me in the eye.

“Calon?” She batted her eyelashes at me.

“Becki.”

“We are dancing. Now.”

I chuckled at her bossy nature. “Lead the way, Becks.”

She took my hand and pulled, but lost her grip and flew chest to chest into some drunk muscle-head.
Shit.
My fists clenched. I walked up behind her and held onto her waist.

“Whoa, babe, I got women fallin’ for me all over the place, but you’re a little pushy.”

I could only see the back of her head, but the way she moved it assured me she’d just rolled her eyes at him.

“Falling for you? Passing out
because
of you, maybe. You smell like ass. Ever heard of a shower?” She pushed past him with a grunt. I followed.

The guy made eye contact with me as he passed. “Good luck with that one, dude. She’s a handful.”

I realized then, Becki was going to handle touring with us just fine on her own. I also realized that I wanted her to know I’d protect her. I’d been in enough fist fights to not fear them. But, it appeared she didn’t need my protection, even toe-to-toe with a guy she could fit inside. Both Chloe and Gracie were delicate, almost breakable, because of all they’d been through. Becki wasn’t delicate. I got the sense she’d never had anyone to rely on to protect her, so she learned to do it herself.

She spun in front of me, and I had to catch her when she lost her balance again. “Dance, rock star.”

“I think you’re too drunk to dance,” I teased.

“Oh, really?” She stood perfectly still and brushed her golden-brown hair from her face. She took a deep breath and started to move. She dragged her hands up her body from her hips to the underside of her arms, then her hands went in the air. Those hips moved in small circles. Holy fuck, she was gorgeous and so incredibly sensual. I firmly grasped her hips and pulled her into me. Her head fell back, and I leaned down and kissed her neck. Our bodies were so close I felt like she was climbing inside me, when, in reality, all I could think of was being inside her.

I slid one of my legs between hers, so she was gently perched on my thigh, which wasn’t going to deflate the wood that’d formed behind my zipper, but I was too busy feeling her dance to care. She moved against my leg, and I held her there with my hand on her lower back. She leaned back, and her cropped top slid from her shoulder, baring enough of one of her breasts to catch the admiring eyes of a few of the men around us. I scrambled to cover her back up. In a quick, sharp move I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her into me again, which knocked the wind out of both of us. She looked up at me with her mouth open. Her tongue peeked out at the corner of her mouth then slid across her bottom lip. I wasn’t sure if she was doing it intentionally, but it was hot.

“Let’s get out of here.” She was breathless.

“Lead the way, baby.”

“THANKS FOR WALKING
me home.” Her words slurred a little, and she leaned against my chest with hers.

“You’re welcome, Becki. Are you sure you’re okay?” I’d walked her home before, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t been this drunk any of those times. I didn’t want to assume I was to follow her into the building, but I did want to make sure she didn’t pass out before she got to her room.

“I’m fine.” She hiccupped and shushed me like I was the one making all the noise.

“Listen, let me walk you to your room, or I won’t get any sleep.”

“Deal.” She tried three times to swipe her card through the lock on the exterior door; however, not one of those times did she actually swipe it with the stripe facing the right way.

“Here. Let me.” First try and we were in.

“Wow. Calon Rockstar, you are magic. But Gracie already told me that.” She giggled and tripped into the lobby. “You know, Gracie says you’re pretty good with your lips. Can I try them?” She spun toward me and puckered while fighting to keep her balance.

I laughed at the one-of-a-kind come on. The comment about Gracie broadsided me, though. Reuniting with Gracie had been unbelievable, but it hadn’t turned out the way I’d imagined it would. Her heart belonged to Jake, and mine was left calling out to someone who would never hear it. But, then there was Becki. She intrigued me. She was cocky and forward, which was refreshing and fun. Something pulled me toward her. As much as I wanted to kiss her, I knew she would never remember it, and I wanted her to remember it.

Up until that moment, I’d never heard anyone but Gracie speak about the night we kissed. I had a feeling the guys never mentioned it because of the accident that sent me crashing through the windshield less than an hour after kissing her and stole my memory for so long. And now, the girl I felt drawn to spoke of a kiss that had once kept hope alive that I would someday fall in love again.

“Let’s wait for a night that we haven’t had so much to drink to try out that kiss.” I followed Becki down the long hallway all the while wondering if her kiss could wipe Gracie’s from my mind.

“Damn you, rock stars, always so logical.” She giggled and fell hard against a door that I hoped was hers.

“Let’s get you inside, and then I will leave you alone.” I helped her with the key, and we walked into a room that was nothing less than what I would have expected. There was a brightly colored tapestry draped from the ceiling on one side of the room and what looked like Christmas lights taped to the ceiling above her bed. She had a poster of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s on her closet door, and the quote that ran across the middle seemed like a window into the psyche of this girl I was a little more than fascinated by, ‘You mustn’t give your heart to a wild thing…’

“Could you tuck me in?” She sat down on a bed completely void of covers and pushed her bottom lip out into a pout. She could barely keep her eyes open, let alone sit upright.

I took off her shoes for her, and she fell over onto her pillow. I lifted her legs onto the bed and covered her with a blanket from a pile on the floor. She snuggled in, eyes closed, and with a smile that spread across her face slowly. She hummed a contented sound, then her breathing slowed, and her lips parted a little. She was out. I stayed crouched next to her for a little bit and just watched her sleep. Her hair fell across her pillow like someone had placed each tendril just right. Her bottom lip was full and pouty, and her cheeks a little flushed, probably from everything she’d had to drink.