Chasing Kane (7 page)

“Tough choice?” I teased. “A night out with fun people over staying in your bus reading, or sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya with my cousin?”

Her mouth dropped and she punched my shoulder a little harder than a flirt. “What do you know about him? He can party as hard as we’re about to.”

The good news was, she affirmed we were in for one heck of a night.

“What do I know about him?” I half-scoffed. “We just grew up together, he’s married to my best friend—”

“Georgia is
your
best friend?” She looked shocked for a moment, but it quickly faded. “I guess I can see that,” she said with a shrug.

“Yeah?” I arched an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“I suppose if someone the likes of you would have a
girl
as a best friend, it would have to be a take-no-shit girl like Georgia,” she said with an approving smile, nodding her head. “And you never slept with her?”

“Why does everyone ask that?”

“Bet they don’t ask her,” Nessa challenged, accurately compartmentalizing mine and Georgia’s personalities and lifestyles.

I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “If you
must
know, no. We’ve never slept together. Seen each other through too much shit for that nonsense.”

“Yeah,” Nessa replied wistfully.

Something in her voice made me slow and turn to look at her. Her head was tilted down slightly, just enough for the electric blue swath of hair to hang forward, masking the view of her face from the side.

“What?” I nudged her side, needing to break the cloudy mood looming in her posture if we were going to have
any
kind of night at all. “Missing a boyfriend back home?”

Her spine straightened and she shot me the most deliciously incredulous look. “Nah,” she answered, waving her hand, “I dropped his ass long ago for feeding me the same lines you’re serving up.”

I laughed, glancing at the sky for a moment and shaking my head. Nessa was going to be some work, and I was willing to give myself one night to decide if it was worth the effort for what I’d hoped would be a couple-night fling at best. Maybe some more down the road if we got too pent up on tour—but nothing more.

***

“Come on, big boy, hit one!” Nessa cheered—jeered, really—over a shot of tequila that was a number I lost count of hours ago.

Standing—for certain interpretations of standing—a few paces back from the dartboard, I sloppily brought the feathers of the dart in front of my eye, squinting the other. Though that was an exercise in practice over principle, since I couldn’t see straight anyway, no matter how many eyes I had open.

Squaring my shoulders to the board I tilted back slightly before lurching my weight forward, hurling the unassuming dart toward its target. It missed spectacularly, the dart bouncing off a stone column and landing right in the drink of some girl sitting off to the side of the board.

“Score!” Nessa hollered, raising her strong arms into the air, fists of glory above her head.

The girl, a petite brunette with shoulder-length hair in tight curls looked offended as she wiped what smelled like rum and Coke—probably Diet Coke—off her cheeks and chest. Her friends mimicked her look of disdain until I spoke.

“Sorry, honey.” It rolled off my tongue as practiced as breathing, despite my thick inebriation. I pulled an empty chair next to her and turned it around, straddling it as I sat, facing her. “Let me get that for you.” I took the napkin from her hand and wiped away the last carbonated droplets of my intentional miss off of her collarbone.

“It’s okay,” she managed, trying not to look too offended or embarrassed. Her eyes darted from my face to the table and back again.

I shook my head, taking her hand. “That won’t do. Come, dance with me.”

Curly Sue looked shocked, her face all roses as she stood, her hand tight in mine.

“Lucky bitch,” one of her friends whispered not so quietly as I escorted her away from the table.

I winked at Nessa for the second time tonight as I scooted passed her and onto the tiny, crowded breeding ground of a dance floor.

“Oh, come
on
,” she teased, loud. “Is that the consolation prize for being assaulted by your own drink? A dance with the tattooed wonder? Run, girl, run! It’s all a trick!” She fell into a fit of laughter, signaling to the waitress walking by that she would, in fact, love another shot. She could really put them away—I’d have my work cut out for me if I decided to pursue her.

“Is she a friend of yours?” the girl asked as we secured our tightly bordered real estate on the dance floor.

I took hold of her wrists, placing her hands on my shoulders as mine girdled her tiny waist. “Sort of. Tour mate. What’s your name?”

Her eyes widened as if seeing for the first time. “You
are
that drummer!” She quickly recovered her gaping stare, circling her hips a little deeper at her apparent recognition of me.

“What’s your name?” I asked again, my lips an inch from her ear.

“Kayla.” Her voice was fluttery.

“Hey Kayla, I’m CJ.
That
drummer.”

The smell of sweat off her neck was intoxicating and new—far more than any libation offered by the bar. I spun her around, encouraging her to grind her round ass into me as I sucked in the sweet scent of pheromones from the back of her neck, a pleasure I’d missed over the last few weeks.

Frankie smelled better.

I growled the thought away, grazing the back of Kayla’s ear with my lips. Not kissing, but so close I could taste her. I just needed a few dry runs to get back in the game. That was all. It would be like riding a bike, I told myself.

Kayla turned back around, a smoldering look standing in where her shock and adoration had been previously. “You are
really
good.”

It didn’t matter if she was talking about my music or my moves; she was right on both accounts. I nodded lifting her chin with my index finger and bringing my lips closer to her ear than before. The tiny, soft hairs brushed against my lips. “You have
no
idea.”

Before she could respond, Nessa was at her side, eyeing me with bear trap intensity. “Can I cut in?”

Casting a glance to Kayla, I watched her bedroom eyes shift to indignant shock as I stepped back to allow Nessa into her dance space. Not wanting to be the total ass I risked portraying myself as, I leaned to Kayla once more, talking into her ear.

“I’ll be here all night, hon.”

This was enough, and Kayla bit her bottom lip, quickly falling into step with another intoxicated loner on the dance floor.

“She marched loyally right into your little trap there, didn’t she?” Nessa remarked, placing one hand on my shoulder, using the thumb and forefinger of her other hand to pinch my chin.

“I feel bad.” I chuckled. “It was so easy, like luring a baby deer away from its mother.”

Nessa shook her head. “And the barbarian uses a hunting metaphor. Shocker.”

I held the barbell on my tongue between my teeth, wiggling my eyebrows for a moment as I grabbed a firm hold of her hips, moving easily in time with her in the humid bar.

“Yes,” she said in a bored sigh. “You have your tongue pierced. Is this two-thousand-one?”

I ignored her jab and just kept moving.

As the music blared on and Nessa and I fell into our own grinding beat, I let myself get lost in her own, unique scent. Tequila, sweet flowers, sweat, and the intoxicating aroma of a lead singer. Leads command any stage they grace, literal or social, and Nessa was no different in that way, but was worlds apart from many others I’d known over the years in her approach. She didn’t showboat, and wasn’t ironically standoffish like so many try to be when desperately wanting to appear hip.

She was a quiet storm, like a puppet master vaguely aware of the strings in her hands.

“What’s your cousin’s deal?” Nessa asked the morning after our final performance in the desert.

We were winding back into the Pacific Northwest and had stopped at a roadside diner. Only a few of us were wide awake that early, many of us placing extra orders to take back onto our busses to our sleeping and/or hungover friends. Nessa and I were settled into a quiet booth in the back, surrounded only by black coffee, eggs, and waffles.

“Deal?” I said with a shake of my head and a mouthful of syrup. “Dare I ask
why
you’re asking?”

She leaned forward with a sly grin. “You seem nervous.”

“He makes me nervous. Especially around women.”

Nessa waved her hand. “Oh I know all
that
stuff, remember? His wrap sheet is standard. I just mean, I don’t know … He seems like he’s got
more
.”

“He does seem that way,” I conceded.

Of course there
was
more to CJ. More to all of us on this tour. But, CJ’s road persona was carefully curated and closely guarded—nothing I was willing to dismantle for curious onlookers.

“You know stuff,” she guessed.

“Sure,” I admitted. “He’s my cousin. And not distant once-a-year at Christmas cousin, either. We grew up together.

“Skeletons?”

I shook my head. “Nothing dire. It’s not like he’s got a pregnant wife back home or a legal record containing more than a few bar fights. I believe those ever went on his record, come to think of it.”

She laughed. “You take care of him.”

“He stopped letting me do that long ago.” I took a long sip of my coffee and sat back, waiting for my stomach to make more room for food. I can never get enough of diner breakfasts, no matter how old I get or how many I eat in.

“You look out for him then,” Nessa conceded.

“You were out with him last night, can you blame me?” I chuckled, going in for my third waffle.

In all honesty I was extremely curious what had gone on last night, but given Nessa’s calm demeanor, I guessed she was at least partly spared CJ’s usual tricks.

“He got a girl?”

At this, I sputtered a little on my coffee. “Shouldn’t you be
having
this conversation with a girl?”

Her eyes widened and she sat back, looking satisfied. “He does, then.”

I shook my head slowly. “He does not,” was as much as I’d let go.

Nessa pursed her lips. “There’s somethin’.”

I shrugged, diving back into the last waffle. “What about you? Boyfriend?”

“No one I’d write home about.”

I looked up, catching a satirical glance that made her pass for far older than her late twenties. At least I figured she was in her late twenties—though I wasn’t even going to get into all of that with a woman.

“Fair enough.”

She eyed my plate. “Want some waffle with your syrup? Jesus.”

“My wife trades in sugar, what do you expect from me?” I gave her a grin and a quick wink.

Her eyes lit up. “Ah, so that wink is a Kane family specialty then.”

“Oh,” I sighed deeply, giving her a look of pity, “if CJ gave you
that
then you’re in big,
big
trouble.”

“Why?” she asked, rabid for inside information. “What’s it mean?
You
just gave it to me …”

“Touché.”

“Come
on
,” she pleaded, slapping her hand on the table. “Give me
something
to go with.”

I sighed. “Fine. Wanna know my opinion? If you’re looking for a good time, I can point you in the right direction.” I gestured to CJ standing in the parking lot, smoking a cigarette. I hadn’t seen him do that much so far, but it was none of my business. “But if you’re looking for something,
anything
else …”

“Got it,” she cut me off.

“Besides,” I started, rising from the table and throwing enough money down to cover our breakfasts and tip, “do you even want to get into sleeping with people on the road? This is a long tour—wait.”

She eyed me, curious. “What?”

“This is your first long tour, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Consider the implications … that’s all I’ll say. The busses get smaller the longer we live in them, and if sex is involved—”

Claustrophobic.

“Sex?” she cut me off. “Oh hell no … I just wanted to play with him a little … like a cat with a mouse, or something.”

The determination in her eyes calmed any hesitation I had about her getting mixed up with CJ. There was
something
going on with him, but it was up to him and anyone he came in contact with to figure out.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, giving a quick squeeze as we left the diner. “Just don’t leave his mangled carcass on my doorstep, kay?”

***

“I miss you,” I whispered into the phone when Georgia picked up.

“Already?” she teased. “You’ve just been gone a week.”

I grinned, rolling onto my back, feeling the seductive pull to sleep by the road moving underneath the bus. “You going to come to Oregon?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” she answered, which piqued my interest.

Typically Georgia teased me about any time she may or may not meet me on the road. She’d play like she was too busy or didn’t want to travel a certain distance but, more often than not, she showed up, waiting for me when I arrived in whatever city. A conversation we had weeks and weeks ago lingered in the back of my head.

Ovulating …

Not a word I’d ever thought I’d care too much about until Georgia uttered it in our bed a month before the tour began. A word that signaled the official start of our attempt to make a family.

But, after a week on the road, two performing, I needed her—badly. The good-looking women around me day after day on tour, never mind the ones in the crowd who call my name and flash their perfect breasts—it was driving me crazier earlier than it usually had. Maybe it
was
all the baby talk that was revving up my libido. Good to know some evolutionary things pan out.

I wanted my wife under me, over me, and every way I could get her. So profound was my instant desire that I had to shift, rolling onto my side, my back facing CJ, to avoid any comments about my swelling need. He’d likely never be in this position on the road—having to wait for the woman he loves in order to satisfy any longing he might have.

“Regan?” Her question pulled me back to the present, where I’m painfully aware of Georgia’s absence.