Irresistible Refrain

1 The Present

I woke with my head pounding out a heavy bass throb. I glanced at my watch. Four fucking a.m. I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. The bottle of tequila had obviously been a big mistake. My mouth tasted like sand. I needed a bottled water and at least two extra strength Tylenol.

I climbed out of my bunk, cursing when my toes came into contact with the freezing floor of the tour bus. The force of the winter storm wind rocked the forty-five foot long structure side to side and howled beneath the undercarriage. I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and my lighter before pushing the button to open the pocket door to the front lounge. A woman sat at the banquette with her back to me, but I’d recognize her anywhere.

Lace.

I froze solid. I wondered when she had come on board. It must have been last night while I’d been preoccupied with the twins. Mind quickly running back over the evening’s events, I realized that War had been conspicuously absent from the meet and greet. He must’ve been with her. The familiar jealous burn seared the inside of my chest like battery acid.

Her head turned slightly, eyes the color of expensive whiskey meeting mine. Her face was as captivatingly beautiful as I remembered, framed by honey blond hair that was much longer than it’d been the last time I’d seen her. She was thinner, too. Too thin. Her cheek bones more prominent, her complexion pale, even her wide lips seemed drained of their usual apricot color.

“Bryan.”

That breathy voice of hers shot right to my groin. Even hung over and recently satiated my dick came right to attention. Clamoring after what it could never have. What I could never have.

The woman War loved.

“Lace.” I took my time running my gaze over her. The black long sleeved Tempest t-shirt War had worn on stage last night hung down to mid-thigh on her. Knowing damn well what was underneath that shirt. Remembering the shape, the texture, and the taste of her, my hands started to shake so badly I had to shove them into the back pockets of my jeans so she wouldn’t notice.

Lace gave me a darting sidelong glance while bringing her long shapely legs closer together. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked nervous. I didn’t get it. So what if I was shirtless with my jeans half-buttoned. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen me this way before. I wasn’t gonna cover up for her.

She licked her lips. “Nipple ring’s new,” she observed quietly.

“Yeah, nice of you to notice.” I got my legs going and moved toward her, motioning to the banquette. “Scoot over.” Holding the hem in place over her ass and thighs, she slid toward the window making room for me. I flopped down on the padded two-person bench seat and stared at her profile. “You get in last night?”

“Yeah.” She shifted away from me, just a tad, but enough that I definitely noticed. She twisted her hands so tightly together that her fingertips turned red.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded to know, even though secretly I was glad to see her. My eyes drank her in head to bare toes in a greedy gulp, cataloguing every line and curve. It’d been too long since I’d seen her. “I thought you were with Martin now.” Lace had started up with him right after we’d signed our first record deal. War had been apoplectic. I’d just hidden how I felt like I’d been doing for as long as I could remember. My friendship with War left me with no other choice. “He’d kick your ass if he knew you were here. War’s, too.”

I’d been joking around, but when she turned her head, I sucked in a sharp breath wishing I hadn’t. The left side of her face was a collage of overlapping fading purple and yellow bruises. It was obvious she had been hit hard, multiple times.

I squeezed the side of the table with both hands wishing I could get ahold of Martin’s neck instead.

I was going to kill that mother fucker.

“Yeah, well, as you can see he already took care of that.” A spark of defiance brightened her eyes, giving me a glimpse of the vibrant woman I remembered. “I didn’t stick around to give him the chance to make both sides match.”

“What the hell happened?”

Her shoulders sagged, the momentary flash of sass disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. She was quiet for so long I didn’t think she planned to answer. “It’s not important. Not anymore. It’s over between us.” She had that stubborn tilt to her jaw that I recognized. I wasn’t going to get any more information out of her than she wanted to give.

“Does Martin know it’s over?”

“Oh yeah, I think his fists made that perfectly clear.”

“You mean to tell me that he broke it off with you?” I asked unable to disguise the disbelief in my tone. The guy was an idiot as well as an asshole. What man in his right mind would give up Lace if he had her?

Her eyes slid to her lap. After a brief pause, she nodded. Her sexy lips pressed together into a tight line. “I pawned the engagement ring he gave me for a bus ticket out here,” she confided.

Most women I knew would’ve teared up after all this, but not Lace. She never cried. Strike that. She never cried anymore. When we’d been kids she cried a helluva lot. But the last time had been that horrible night, the night we were supposed to go to the Metallica concert.

“I’m sorry.” I reached over and covered her delicate hand with my own.

“Don’t be,” she returned evenly, slowly sliding her hand out from under mine. “Martin was just another mistake in a long line of them.” She watched me through a gap in the curtain of her gold hair. “What about you, Bullet?” Her eyes took on a mischievous glint. “Or should I say?” She paused and added in an orgasmic sounding breathless moan. “Oh Bullet! Faster! Harder!’” The corner of her mouth lifted with amusement at my expense.

I winced. Shit. She’d heard me in the back bedroom with the twins. I didn’t usually go for multiples. It was too much work, but after getting the brush off from Avery, the beautiful lead guitarist of Brutal Strength, I’d felt as if I had something to prove.

“You know me, Lace.” I watched her face carefully. “I don’t do relationships.” I got up and moved to the refrigerator, pulling out a couple of bottled waters.

“Yeah, that’s not something I’m likely to forget.” Her voice sounded strained. I felt the undercurrent of meaning just beneath the surface of the words we were saying to each other. I swung back around, but her eyes didn’t give anything away. “I’m sorry. I was just messing with you,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hands that I didn’t buy. “What you do with your personal life is none of my business. No offense, ok?”

“None taken,” I replied uneasily. I handed her one of the waters, and she took it before turning away to look out the window. I grabbed the Tylenol bottle from the table and knocked back a couple of tablets while watching her.

We were silent for a while, both lost in our own thoughts. There was tension between us, but it was familiar and not entirely uncomfortable. I had known Lace Lowell practically all my life. I’d never forget our first meeting at the apartment where we lived at the University House. I had been seven. She had been five.

14 years ago

“Get the door Bry.” My mom was cooking in the open galley kitchen, but her voice carried easily across the small space separating it from the living room where I’d been sitting playing my video game.

“Sure, Mom.” The sizzle of the cooking meat and the aroma of garlic and cheese from my favorite flavor of Hamburger Helper filled the apartment. It made my stomach grumble. I dropped the controller onto the soft throw my mom used to make the old couch from Goodwill look nicer and stomped over to the door. “Who is it?” I asked before opening it just like she’d taught me to do.

“Dizzy Lowell,” was the muffled reply.

I grinned. Dizzy was my new best friend, and yeah that was his real name. His mom felt that way a lot before he was born. He sat in the desk in front of me in Miss Harper’s second grade class. We traded Pokemon cards at recess and played this really fun game at lunch where we tried to gross each other out mixing different items from our lunch trays. Today, Dizzy won. He had stuffed his bread roll into his chocolate milk carton and added ketchup. I’d laughed so hard at the face he had made that milk had come out my nose.

“Hey,” he said when I opened the door. His long blond hair was all messed up. My mom would not have let me out of the house with my hair like that. But Dizzy looked like that all the time. His clothes were usually dirty, too. “I had to bring my little sister with me. Is that ok?”

“Sure.” I opened the door wider and watched the little girl follow him inside. Her hair and eyes were the same color as his, and her small hand was fisted in the material of his worn out jeans.

Dizzy stopped in front of our TV. His mouth dropped open. “You have Pokemon!” he shouted.

I nodded. “I told you. My mom says we can play until dinner is ready.”

Dizzy spun around and squatted down in front of his sister. He put his hands on her shoulders. Her bottom lip stuck out and she looked like she wanted to cry. “Lace, don’t be afraid, ok? Bryan’s cool.” He tugged on one of her braids and helped her up on the couch. “Sit here, right next to me.” She watched me with her light brown eyes, but she didn’t move or make a sound the entire time we played. That was weird. I was used to my younger sisters. When they were awake, they were a royal pain in the rear. They got into all my stuff and they never shut up.

“Bry,” my mom called out after we had been playing for a while. Beside me, Lace squeaked and tried to climb behind her brother’s back.

Shoot, I thought. We were just getting to the good part.

“Time to stop.” My mom came in. She was drying her hand on a kitchen towel. Lace started shaking. My mom frowned as she looked at her. “I’m going to wake your sisters from their nap,” she said in a soft voice. “I’ll be right back.”

“Why’s she so scared?” I whispered to Dizzy after she left the room.

“Lace is afraid of grown-ups.” He turned around and touched her back. “Come on. Stop hiding. It’s time to go.”

“Wait,” I said. “Maybe you can stay a little longer. Let me ask my mom.” When my mom came back in the living room, I gave her my best puppy dog eyes. “Can we have five more minutes, please,” I begged. “We’re almost done.”

She leaned over the couch and ruffled my hair. I knew her answer before she said it. Puppy dog eyes worked every time. “Dizzy,” she asked using a soft voice. “Would you and your sister like to stay and eat dinner with us?”

“We can’t.” Dizzy stuck his hands in his pockets and stared down at his dirty sneakers. “My mom wants us in our rooms by six.”

“Maybe Saturday for lunch then?”

“Sure.” Dizzy gave her a big smile before asking to use the restroom. He went to the back and my mom returned to the kitchen. I snuck a peak at Lace. She had her legs pulled up under her chin and her arms wrapped around them. I was the man of the house and my mom told me my job was to take care of the girls. It made me sad to see Lace looking so scared. I wanted to make her smile.

I scooted closer to her. She put her cheek on her knee and watched me. I stuck my tongue out at her and rolled my eyes. Her lips twitched. I put my hand under my arm pit and made the farty sound a couple of times.

She giggled.

Yes. I slid right beside her, happy when she didn’t move away. “I like your eyes,” I said in a soft voice like my mom had used. “They’re pretty.”

She gave me a smile so big I noticed that her top two front teeth were missing. “Are you Printh Charming?” she asked me with a lisp.

“Uh-uh.” As if.

Dizzy came back in the room and grinned at me as he flopped back on the sofa. He must have heard that last bit.

“I am going to marry you someday,” Lace said with a nod like it was a done deal. “When I am growed up and pretty like Cinderella.”

I started to laugh but choked it back when I saw how serious she looked. It seemed so important to her that I found myself agreeing. Even though I knew Dizzy would never let me hear the end of it.

And here we were all these years later and Lace Lowell still had the ability to tie me up in knots. I still wanted to protect and please her. But because of War I was powerless to do either.

Some fucked up fairy tale I was living.

She stared out the one way windows. There was nothing to see. It was dark and we were parked between two buildings with only an occasional flicker of white from blowing snow to break up the monotony of the view.

“What’s Avery Jones like?” she asked turning abruptly to face me.

I tensed, thought a moment, and chose my words carefully. “Helluva guitarist.”

She swallowed. “And?”

“And nothing.” I shrugged. “She’s back with Marcus Anthony now if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Sorry. I saw some pictures.” There was an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there before. “It seemed like she might be important to you.”

I seriously contemplated telling her right then and there that she was the only woman that had ever been important to me when I heard the door slide open behind us.

“Guys it’s four fucking a.m.” Voice gruff with disapproval, War’s appearance brought our intimate predawn reunion to an end. Looking wan and strung out, the lead singer of Tempest shuffled into view wearing a pair of red boxers and scratched his bare chest. “Come on back to bed, babe.” He held out his hand to her while shooting me an irritated glance.

She patted my knee and I took the cue to scoot out of the booth ahead of her so she could exit.

War threw a proprietary arm around her shoulders as soon as her bare feet hit the floor. “Night, Loser.”

“Night, Asshole.”

War gave me the finger before he closed the door.

I stared at it for a long time. Nothing had fucking changed. Twenty thousand people screaming my name during my guitar solo at the Garden, plus two twins, but none of that mattered to me. Not when my best friend had the woman I’d always wanted.