TWENTY
Grip stumbled off-stage, heat steaming from his body, skin glossed with sweat. It’d been an indulgence to close the show on a ratshit, held together with gaffer tape and glue, upright piano, and he’d played it literally to pieces. The backboard had fallen off and the damper pedal broke. He’d thumped it so hard, one of the casters shot straight through the toe-block, and it’d lurched to one side.
He’d played through it all, lucky jeans on, shirt off, effortless, first to stunned silence and then as the rest of the band and all the other artists performing in the charity concert finale joined in, to whistles, screams and thunderous stadium-shaking applause.
It wasn’t Beethoven but it was his and he’d fucking loved every minute of it. He was fully alive again, straight in his head again, as if he’d finally sweated the deceit and disappointment of Philomena Grady out of his system for good.
One of the boys was probably going to take a swing at him. They’d walked this though, but since this was a hastily thrown-together gig, there wasn’t a proper rehearsal, and no one had heard him play. They’d all heard him now and he wasn’t going to silence that part of himself again.
Evie got to him first, from her spot at the side of the stage where she’d stood to watch Jay perform and to see Layla Flowers sing one of her new songs.
“You sneaky weasel.” The punch she threw at his bicep slid off harmlessly. “Where did that come from?”
He shrugged, tamed his smile, trying to come off way cooler than he felt. “I’m a deep guy. I have hidden, you know, depths.” And wings on his feet to soar above them.
“They’re not hidden now. Knew you played, but that,” she shook her head, “that was wildfire. Abel is going to rip you a new one.”
Abel had never been interested in using a piano and Grip had never pushed the idea until this concert had come up, giving him the perfect excuse to indulge his whim. In the rush to get organized, no one had much cared and the change-up had seemed like something fun to do for one night when the stakes were so low.
It didn’t feel like a whim now, a piece of unexpected mayhem for the diehard fans. It felt solid, a gap filled, a break mended.
By the time Abel forced his way through, Grip had given up any semblance of trying to be nonchalant. They stared at each other. Abel’s what-the-fuck look made Grip laugh.
“Yeah, I know. Crushed it,” he said, using the T-shirt he’d tucked in the back of his jeans to wipe his face.”
“Fuck,” Abel said. He turned to Evie and said it again, looked at Grip and said it third time. “Are you high? What did you take? Was that some one night only random mastery, or could you always do that, do it again?”
“I wouldn’t want to do it every night. Might run out of old piano stock. They have to be the right kind of hanging in there to oblige by falling apart.” Florence had warned him to be gentle with the upright. Never mind. Nothing she couldn’t repair, so he could break it again. And he wanted to do it again, not every performance, he was drummer first and always, but now and then for kicks, for feeling fucking fantastic, and for the fans.
“I can’t believe you held that back all this time. We have to record it,” Abel said.
“You have to write for it first.” He’d played a mash-up medley of songs from all of the performers; riffs the audience could recognize interspersed with his favorite classics. They couldn’t record that.
“Fucking dark horse,” Abel muttered. “All this fucking time.”
He got swept up then. Isaac and Oscar rumbling him. Layla Flowers, musicians and techs and managers he’s known for years seeking him out to express surprise, congratulate him, want the gory details. He didn’t give them that, but he partied, drank a bit too much, let loose after two weeks of walking around with thunderclouds over his head and a piano’s worth of weight on his shoulders.
He got hit on more that night than he could remember ever being hit on and it was tempting to give a beautiful woman the nod, sneak in a quickie in an empty corridor or take her home and make a night of it. Maybe that’s what he needed to do, get back on the horse, fuck for fun and forget about falling in love.
It was late and he’d stopped drinking, stopped pretending he was over Mena, when someone let a bunch of groupies in, party girls, full of clever tricks and giggles. They made him realize what he’d lost and found and lost all over again. He was on his way out when he saw her. Killer curves, black leather and lace, pale skin and midnight hair. She stood apart from the others, watching him, waiting. Different, the same. Unmistakable.
Extraordinary.
Philomena.
The disappointment inside him hadn’t burned out, it built a protective firewall around his heart. He looked through her and kept moving, but she put herself in his path.
“Grip, please.”
She said it hesitantly and he focused on her, saw the flickering of her eyes, the way she tugged at the tiny skirt she wore over fishnets and thigh-high heeled boots. She sounded like hesitance and remorse. She should be nervous. She looked like sin and he was seduced all over again.
“Stay a moment.”
He had nothing to say to her, and it hurt to look at her, but he couldn’t get his feet moving.
“You didn’t answer my calls, my messages. I didn’t know how else to reach you.”
Whatever she had to say, it was too late. It was too late after day one. “Christ. You lie about who you are and then
