“Just singin’ and dancin’ in the raaaaain…” I finished the song with a flourish, knocking over beer cans and smashing more glass under my boots.
“You’re dead, fucker,” someone snarled behind me.
I whirled around to see Frankie Dowd—his nose sporting a white bandage—had arrived. He was aiming a real goddamn police-issue Taser at a beautiful beast of a man in a black T-shirt with tattoos snaking up his arms. The musician in a beanie stood between them.
Frankie lunged. The huge tatted guy moved with a fighter’s agility and knocked the Taser out of Frankie’s grasp then gripped him by the shirt and drove him through the crowd. They went down in a heap on the carpet beside my impromptu stage.
River and Chance diverted their focus from me to the two guys tearing at each other on the floor. They pried them apart and then Frankie ripped out of Chance’s grip, breathing hard, clothes disheveled.
“Fuck this guy,” Frankie screamed, the white bandages now red with new blood. “You are so dead.” He grabbed a broken beer bottle off my table and leveled it at the tatted guy. “I’m going to kill you, motherfucker!”
River and Chance tried to talk Frankie down, but Frankie kept them at bay with a few swipes of the bottle, then slashed at the big guy. The crowd gasped as he opened a cut on his forearm.
The tatted guy didn’t even flinch. He slowly glanced at the blood leaking down his arm, then back to Frankie. A promise of violence rumbled in his voice. “That was a mistake.”
Tension hung in the air like power lines, connecting everyone in the room to the same humming anticipation. And though Tall, Dark, and Psychotic was certifiably hot, him being stabbed would put a serious damper on the party. Him killing Frankie would be slightly worse.
Neither one of them deserved the imminent violence and danger, but I could take it. In that moment, with the shadows of yesterday’s nightmares coursing through my veins, I wanted it.
I jumped off the table, putting myself between them. I tore open my coat and the shirt beneath, baring my chest to Frankie.
“Right here,” I hissed, tapping the skin over my heart. “Put it right here. Go on. Do it. Do it.”
The crowd froze like a still frame in a movie. Frankie’s eyes were wide with shock as I silently dared him to stab me, curious to know if he’d actually do it.
The musician put a hand on my arm, his voice low and soothing. “Hey, man. Come on. Hey…”
His comforting touch and the soft cadence of his voice infiltrated my racing thoughts. I let him pull me back while River relieved Frankie of the broken bottle.
I guess tonight’s not the night…
Murmurs began all around, and I felt a hundred pairs of eyes on me. Shock mixed with pity as they stared at the crazy guy with a death wish. I pulled my coat closed and reached for a smoke, smiling wide, all sunshine and rainbows. Because fuck them and their pity.
“Anyone got a light?”
Chance’s jaw unhinged stupidly. “What the fuck…? Get out. You three.” He jabbed a finger at me, the musician, and the tattooed beast in black. “Get out of my house.”
I put a hand on my chest and turned to the musician, horribly affronted. “Rude, right?”
He burst out laughing, surprising even himself, and then convulsed harder, pulling me in as if it were contagious.
“Get out!” Chance thundered.
We turned and ran for the door, both laughing like idiots while Frankie screamed impotent threats behind us. We raced down the front steps, and the musician stumbled and crashed hard on the front lawn. I followed, and we lay on our backs, laughing between wheezing breaths.
“I don’t believe we’ve officially met.” I offered my hand. “Holden Parish.”
“Miller Stratton.”
We shook and then a menacing sex-on-a-stick shadow fell over us.
“And who’s the Brute Squad?”
Miller clutched his sides, barely able to speak. “R-Ronan Wentz.”
I thrust my hand straight up. “A pleasure.”
Ronan crossed his arms, one of which had blood smeared down to his wrist. “Crazy bastards.”
“How did you do that?” I asked Miller, wiping my eyes.
“Do what?”
“Play and sing like you did. Like…a fucking miracle.”
He shook his head though I could see my words had touched him. “Nah. Everyone’s heard that song. It’s a million years old.”
“They’ve heard the song, but you put your soul out there. That’s not something people hear every day.”
Chance slammed open the front door. “I said, get the fuck off my property!”
He charged down the stairs toward us, River following after, his expression still hard and carefully composed.
I did that. I sucked his smile away like the vampire I am…
A blonde girl brought Miller’s guitar case to him, and then it was time to go. He and Ronan and I raced for the refuge of James and his mafia-looking sedan.
“Good evening, James,” I said. “Would you be so kind as to remove my friends and me from the immediate area?”
James didn’t ask questions but did as I asked, which is what I loved best about him. That, and he drove like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction.
“Home, sir?” he asked, calmly weaving the sedan down darkened streets at break-neck speeds.
“Fuck no.” I turned to my new companions. “Thoughts, gentlemen?”
Miller and Ronan exchanged glances, and then the big guy nodded once.
“My place,” Miller said. “The Lighthouse Apartments.”
James navigated tree-lined streets to a poorer neighborhood called the Cliffs. It was a ten-minute drive. He made it in five, then parked the car in a crappy parking lot with cracked pavement and carports made of aluminum siding.
“Cozy,”
