Play - Scott Kylie. Страница 31

“Oh my god, is that the David Ferris?” Ev stood atop one of the boxes we’d been sitting on. Her husband just shook his head and held out his arms, eyes amused. She launched herself at him and with no difficulty at all, David caught her. Her legs went around him and their mouths fused.

“Get a room,” groaned Ben.

Mal handed me his drumsticks. “A memento of your first Stage Dive concert.”

Someone laughed, but I didn’t care. I held the sticks tight to my chest. “I’ll treasure them always.”

“She heard us play last night.” Jimmy hung back from the group, arms crossed. His good mood was apparently gone.

“That was acoustic,” said Mal. “And I’m not going to give my love a set of flimsy fucking brushes, am I? Only long, hard, phallic shaped things will do for a girl of her appetites.”

“I heard about you two.” Carefully, David set his wife back down, keeping an arm around her.

My head snapped up. “What?”

“Ooh, what happened?” asked Lena, ears practically perking up, puppy style.

“They broke the bed.” The look on Ev’s face—-hell, we were never going to live this down. “Can you believe that?”

“Of course we broke the bed. They’re just lucky we didn’t break the building,” announced Mal proudly, taking a bow.

David shook his head. “You two do anything interesting and I get Lauren calling at the crack of fucking dawn to tell my wife. Move already.”

“Anne likes it there,” said Mal. “No rush.”

“You got shit security. People get to know you’re in the area, you’ll have no privacy. And how fucking small are those apartments?”

“Relax, Davie. We’ll think about it. You guys, all so addicted to your mansions and fancy livin’. Why, Anne and I could live in a cardboard box and we wouldn’t even notice, our love is so epic. Isn’t that right, pumpkin?”

“Um, yes?”

“See?” Mal crowed. “She’s insanely psycho crazy about me. Material things mean nothing in the face of such worshipful adoration.”

David just shook his head.

“Whatever.” Ben ran a hand over his short hair. “I’m starving. We finding somewhere to eat and drink?”

“YES.” That was Lizzy. A very loud and determined-sounding Lizzy.

The bass player’s eyes moved over her with sudden interest. A slow, salacious smile curled his lips. “Well, okay then.”

Red alert. So not okay. My baby sister was not hooking up with a player who had to have eight or more years on her. If I wanted to be stupid with my heart, that was on me. I’d let Lizzy get hurt over my dead body.

“Don’t you have to get back to school, Liz?” I asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

“I thought you had an assignment to do?” I communicated much with my eyes.

She ignored it all. “Nope.”

“Lizzy.” I forced her name out through gritted teeth.

“Ladies, ladies,” Mal said, sensing the rising hostilities. “We got a problem here?”

A woman who’d been hanging with the record company executives approached, her high-heeled boots tapping across the floor. Her smile was tentative. The woman was gorgeous, breasts about a billion times the size of mine (granted, not hard to do) and blond hair in a cool pixie cut. “Mal?”

He turned and his entire face lit up at the sight of the girl. My insides knotted. Yes, fine. I might have been a bit jealous.

“Ainslie, when did you arrive? Looking good.” He sounded super happy. They hugged. Then they hugged some more. The girl giggled and sighed, pressing herself against him. Holy shit, was that bitch actually feeling up my fake boyfriend in front of me? She was practically humping his leg. Given the dynamic between the two, there could be no doubting what their relationship was about. I’d finally met one of Mal’s fuck buddies. It had to happen. Surprise was stupid and I had no real right to hurt feelings. Pity that didn’t make the pain disappear.

I could feel the other women’s eyes on me, boring holes into my skull. No way was I returning their stares. Mal had obviously found someone to scratch his itch. Meanwhile, my face was heating up. The entire scene was fucking horrible and embarrassing.

“Hey, Mal,” said Lizzy, interrupting the lovers’ reunion. “Should we invite Anne’s friend Reece along to eat? He often does stuff with us on Sundays.”

Oh the wonderful loyal little shit stirrer. I appreciated the thought, but her intentions were misplaced. I didn’t need protecting.

“I think Reece said he’d be busy,” I said.

My sister played the wide-eyed innocent so well. “No, really? Why don’t you give him a call and check, Anne?”

I shook my head. “Maybe another–”

“Fuck no, Lizzy. I mean, I don’t think there’ll be room.” Mal’s arms remained around the woman. Then he noticed the faces of his friends, the disapproving and the curious both. For a moment he looked confused, blinking, his forehead creased. Then he stepped back from her, shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. Talk about compromised. Our fake relationship had entirely slipped his mind. His Chucks shifted restlessly.

Also, apparently the thought of making Reece jealous no longer appealed to him. But I hadn’t wanted to call Reece either. I’d been perfectly happy as things were. Either way, right now, it didn’t much matter. This woman had changed everything.

Ainslie put a hand on his arm. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s cool,” I said, not on the verge of tears. The air was just really dusty in the old building. “Why don’t you go for a drink with your friend and catch up?”

“I thought we were gonna do something,” he said.

“Yeah, but …”

Eyes guarded, Mal looked at me. Then he looked right through me. I wasn’t even there. Whatever he was thinking, it didn’t show on his face. It couldn’t be easy for someone who was used to getting what they wanted when they wanted it to back down from an obvious offer of sex. Let’s be honest, his impulse control was limited at best.

“I’m sorry, you are?” Ainslie asked. Perfectly polite, I couldn’t fault the woman’s manners.

“Ainslie, this is Mal’s new girlfriend, Anne. Anne, this is Ainslie.” Fucking great, even Ev knew her. This one was a regular. What had happened to never seeing him with the same woman twice?

“Girlfriend?” Ainslie laughed uncertainly, eyes darting around the group. No one laughed with her. Christ on a crutch, this was awkward.

Mal stepped closer. “I was just saying hi to a friend. What’s the big deal?”

“There isn’t one. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, there obviously is or you wouldn’t be looking at me like that,” he said, his tone fierce and pissed off. Like I was inconveniencing him or something.

“You need to not talk to me in that tone of voice,” I said. “Especially not in front of other people. Go out with your friend, have a nice time. We can discuss this later.”

“We can, huh?”

“Yes.”

Ainslie took a big step back. Poor woman.

But Mal looked around the group, pissed and confused. A vein looked about ready to pop in his neck. “Fuck it.”

He turned and strode back toward the stage, barking an order for sticks at one of the roadies. Soon the pounding of drums once again filled the warehouse. Everyone was looking somewhere else. What a clusterfuck.

Davie looked to Jimmy. His brother nodded, wandering off also in the direction of the stage. Ben followed while Ainslie just sort of drifted off back to the record company people.

“Crap, I forgot.” Ev grabbed at her head dramatically as if struck by a sudden thought. “We women all have to go meet Lauren. Girl’s night out.”

“You do?” asked David.

“Yep.” She gave him a piercing look. “We’re starting early.”

He got the drift. “Right. Yeah.”

I don’t remember much about us leaving. Between Ev and Lizzy, I was hustled out of there damn fast to a big black Escalade waiting outside. The beefy, bald man standing beside it was strangely familiar.