Crush (12 page)

“What’s that noise?” she asked, mildly alarmed.

“I expect it’s the stomping of thirty-thousand fans.” Lucas ran his hands along her back and discovered that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “They do that, when the band is late taking the stage.”

“You have to get up there.” She pulled her shirt back into place and tried to get off of him.

Lucas held her tight. “Only if you come with me. You can come on stage and sing backup.”

“I have a voice like a wooden bell. Lucas, I’d rather stay here with Kitty Kincaid.”

“As would I, given the state you’ve worked me into. But I can’t disappoint the people who’ve been disappointed once already.”

A muffled roar reached them in the dressing room. “The band must be taking the stage,” Lucas said.

“Go!” Miranda urged. “There might be a riot if you don’t show.”

“Boston Police are out there in force,” he told her. “The crowd will behave. Come up with me.”

“What if the audience gets so excited, they create another crush?”

“My security team reconfigured the first twenty rows of the Arena,” he said. “The first row is thirty feet from the stage. No one is getting crushed tonight.”

A muted rift from an electric guitar reached their ears. “That’s ‘Snatched,
’
” Miranda said. “Is that Feast?”

Lucas nodded. “There’s about forty-five seconds of his posturing and playing before I’m to come in on bass with vocals. Bloody shame Feast will have to take over. The poor git couldn’t carry a tune even if it were tattooed on the palm of his hand.”

Miranda slithered out of his grasp and grabbed his hand. She dragged him onto his feet. “Come on!” She took his bass by the neck. The thing was heavier than it looked and she had to hold it with both hands to keep from banging it onto the tabletop.

“Are you coming up with me?”

“Yes,” she grumbled. She opened the door and pushed him through it, handing him his bass as he went. She dove into the corner, got her book, grabbed her coat and stuck the book in one of the pockets. “Just in case,” she said sheepishly.

* * *

Every time Lucas took the microphone, frenzied screaming drowned out the first few bars of his song. From her perch just inside the backstage area, Miranda plainly saw that every woman in the Arena wanted Lucas, and every man wanted to be him.

Handsome athletes peopled Miranda’s everyday world, but she’d never seen a man as beautiful as Lucas. His beauty was ancient, borne of his Celtic ancestry, wild but not uncivilized. The warmth of his voice and the passion in his eyes tempered the intensity of his features. His was a face capable of brutal honesty, yet incapable of cruelty. His sort of beauty had only existed in the overblown romance novels she secretly read, yet there it was, singing and playing before her.

She was surprised at how thrilling it was to watch him perform. It wasn’t overtly exciting, like watching a sudden death overtime in the Super Bowl. Lucas’s performance was…stimulating. His music was a sensuous, consuming accompaniment to the sight of him in his black leather pants and tight white T-shirt. The muscles of his arms and chest flexed and his long hair flew as his fingertips danced over the strings of his instrument. Miranda dared to imagine how it would feel to have those strong, agile fingers artfully dancing over her.

She glanced at the audience and saw that she wasn’t the only woman with thoughts of artful dancing. Women pushed at sawhorses and security guards, hoping to get close enough to the stage to pitch bras and panties at Lucas. Most of the undergarments fell short and gathered at the base of the stage, but one inspired fan, a young black woman with a shaved head, managed to slingshot a red G-string high above security. To the cheers of the overexcited crowd, the thing landed on Lucas’s microphone stand and dangled there. He laughed mid-lyric, but didn’t miss a beat of his song.

Miranda wondered what he would do with the G-string. Would he ignore it? Or would he use it to further play up a crowd that he already had in the palm of his hand?

Lucas didn’t have to do anything with it. Len Feast sidled up to him and snagged the lacy undergarment with the end of his guitar. He took it to the other side of the stage, where he put it on over his tattered khaki cargo pants. The crowd went crazy as Feast, his twig and berries bulging from the tight confines of the ill-fitting G-string, strutted back over to Lucas. Not to be outdone, Lucas broke out of the song to say, “And this is why you should always put your name in your knickers. Glad to get those back, Feast?”

Laughing, Feast curled two fingers toward Lucas in what Americans interpreted as the “V” for victory sign.

“Lucas is so cool,” Miranda overheard one of her fellow backstage guests say.

Miranda wasn’t a part of the core group of Karmic Echo wives and girlfriends who stood right inside the wings, bobbing and weaving to songs they must have heard ten million times. They all looked alike, as if they’d been engineered in the same genetics lab. They were all tall, thanks to five-inch-and-higher heels, and had massive volumes of hair crispy with styling spray. Their mouths were shellacked in lip gloss, and one woman had on so much eye makeup, her eyes looked like cigarette burns. The women were all built like pencils with marbles—
big
marbles—attached, and even though they wore clothes, they still managed to look naked. Their backstage credentials hung around their necks just as Miranda’s did, but Miranda was the only one who was repeatedly asked to show her pass.

She didn’t care. How could she, when Lucas sought her gaze every time he looked into the wings? The other women might have been sexy and desirable with their shirts opened low and their skirts hiked high, but it was Miranda who caught Lucas’s notice each time he peeped into the wings.

* * *

The band and their significant, and insignificant, others gathered in Lucas’s dressing room after the concert. Some of the band had already opened the champagne and were lounging about the dressing room by the time Lucas and Miranda joined them. Lucas proudly introduced Miranda.

“That’s Garrison Coe, the best drummer since Keith Moon,” he said. A tall, blue-eyed man with a goatee tipped his knit cap at Miranda. “And that lot is ‘Wet’ Willie Weingart, who plays second guitar and keyboards.”

Wet Willie, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, said something that to Miranda sounded like, “Goona funna gow meedya.”

“You, too,” Miranda said with pleasant uncertainty as she laid her coat on the stool beside Wet Willie.

“And last, I give you lead guitarist Len Feast,” Lucas said.

Feast stared at her for a long, silent moment. “Have you hired a new housekeeper on, Fletch?” he finally asked.

If the rest of the band thought Feast’s comment was funny, they didn’t show it. If anything, they became too quiet. Lucas gave Feast a stiff smile as he went to the bar and took up one of the fluffy white towels stacked there. Miranda tried to remain close to him, but he made a beeline for the bathroom. “A quick shower is in order for me, love,” he told her. “The boys will keep you amused.”

Lucas left Miranda to fend for herself, as much as he hated doing it. If she couldn’t hold her own against Feast, then she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.

Miranda bit the inside of her lower lip to stop herself from calling after him. After a two and a half hour set followed by a forty-five minute encore, Lucas was drenched with sweat and in dire need of a wash and rinse. The whole band could use it, from what Miranda saw. Feast, whose saturated T-shirt lay in a wet heap on the floor, lounged on the sofa in only his pants and his recently acquired G-string. A very pretty woman with green eyes, blonde hair and the shortest miniskirt Miranda had ever seen lay half sprawled over him.

“So,” Feast started. “Lucas says you’re a writer.”

“I’m a reporter.” Miranda wanted to put her coat on, to better facilitate a fast getaway, but Wet Willie was now wearing it and rifling through her pockets.

“What do you report on?” Feast grabbed a bottle of Cristal by the neck and took a noisy swig of it.

“Sports.” Miranda narrowed her eyes. She didn’t care for the demanding tone of his questions.

He snickered. “What does a bird like you know about sports?”

He’d struck her most sensitive spot, and Miranda returned fire. “I know that the English aren’t particularly good at too many of them.”

Feast didn’t respond immediately. When he did, he got personal. “I’ve always found Americans to be rude and insulting and too bloody stupid to know that they’re being so.”

“I find the English to be pretentious, overbearing, self-righteous, supercilious blowhards,” Miranda responded prettily.

Feast sat upright, rolling the woman off of him. “Americans are frivolous and gaudy.”

Miranda took a step toward him. “Your accent is prissy.”

“Your accent is obscene.”

“English football is a sport for bloodthirsty hooligans,” Miranda said.

“American football is for head-banging morons.”

“The monarchy is obsolete,” Miranda spat.

Feast shot to his feet. “Your president is a fool.”

Miranda’s path cleared as she made her way toward Feast. “America, for better or for worse, gives the world the promise of possibility.”

“You gave the world Happy Meals and Levis!”

With stealthy calm, Miranda went in for the kill. “You gave the world the Spice Girls.”

An audible wince resounded through the room. Feast stomped toward the bar and was pouring himself a short whiskey when he noticed the book poking from Wet Willie’s pocket. He took it, read the front cover, and laughed.

“That’s mine,” Miranda told him.

Feast leaped out of her reach. “Finders keepers.”

“Give it back,” she demanded.

“You didn’t say the magic word.” He held the book behind his back.

Miranda held out her hand. “Give it back
now
.”

“Make me.”

Those two words had gotten Miranda into countless scrapes during her grade school years, and the words had the same effect on her as an adult. Taking a page from Blind Rage’s book, she lunged at Feast when he rounded the bar. She grappled with him for the paperback while the band egged them on. Feast’s woman ran to the bathroom door and pounded on it with both fists. “Your new maid is killing Len!” she wailed through a thick Italian accent.

“I’m all right, Izzy!” Feast yelled. He impishly transferred the book from hand to hand, holding it well out of Miranda’s reach as she tugged on his arms. She hooked her heel behind his ankle and tripped him to the carpet, and he brought Miranda down with him. His hand slipped as he tried to brace her fall, and he struck her across the cheek with the book. Miranda, who was only mad before, got pissed.

Lucas heard Feast’s shouts and Izzy’s banging on the door the instant he turned off the shower. After hastily swathing a towel about his hips, he sprinted from the bathroom and parted the circle of fight fans to see Miranda and Feast on the floor. Miranda had him in an iron headlock, and Feast’s face was the color of an overripe raspberry.

“I leave the room for five minutes and a Wrestle Royale breaks out between my girl and my best friend?” Lucas railed as he separated them. “Honestly, Feast.”

Feast’s normal color was slow to return. “She started it!”

“No, I didn’t.” Miranda panted for breath and used the back of her hand to touch her nose to make sure it wasn’t bleeding. “
He
started it.”

“Anyone but you two, tell me what happened,” Lucas ordered.

Feast’s blonde stepped forward. “Your servant—”

“You’re hardly an impartial witness, Isabella,” Lucas said. “And Miranda is not my housekeeper, maid or servant.” He shook his head, amazed that he’d never noticed Isabella’s intellectual shortcomings.

“Feast took her book,” Garrison said from his corner far out of the fray. “Then he hit her with it.”

A storm brewed on Lucas’s face. He tugged Feast to his feet and slammed him against the nearest wall, to Isabella’s screams.

“It was an accident,” Feast insisted as his band mates scattered.

Miranda grabbed Lucas’s arm. “It really was an accident. He was teasing me. I overreacted. We were just playing around, right Feast? Mr. Feast?”

Lucas held him a moment longer before releasing him with a little push. “You’ll go too far one of these days, mate.” He cupped Miranda’s face. She seemed none the worse for the experience. Unlike Feast, she actually looked like she had enjoyed the scrape. “I’ll dress and then I’ll take you home.”

“Izzy’s got a friend in, Fletch,” Feast said. Miranda followed his line of sight toward the bar, where a buxom redhead sucked on a maraschino cherry. “Come back to the hotel with us. You’re well overdue for a some good fun.”

Miranda, convinced that her spine was telescoping, made an effort to stand taller.

“I have other plans, Feast,” Lucas said sharply.

“What?” Feast said, shrugging a shoulder. “You and Yoko have tickets for a midnight mumblety-peg tournament?”

“Give Miranda her coat, Wet.” Lucas fixed his dark gaze on Feast. “We’ll be leaving soon.”

“Look at yourself, Fletch,” Feast demanded. “You’re a love-struck poof! You’re supposed to be our dark, brooding god of sex, not bloody Hugh Grant pining after Divine Brown!”

Lucas’s knuckles cracked as his hands fisted at his sides. He fixed a cold stare on his oldest friend. “Don’t make any plans for tomorrow. You and I need to talk.”

“Agreed.” Feast shot a withering look at Miranda.

Lucas left her alone again, to get dressed. Miranda half hoped for another round with Feast, but he disappointed her by collecting Isabella and her redheaded friend and leaving. Garrison tugged Miranda’s coat from Wet Willie, and helped her into it. The coat was damp and warm, evidence as to the origin of Wet’s nickname.

“I didn’t mean to cause a fight,” Miranda said. “I’m sorry I disrupted your band.”

Garrison returned her book to her. “Lucas has to smash Feast’s face in a’ least once every couple ‘a years. Feast needs it. ‘E never got his arse kicked in enough at Oxford, the spoiled wanker.”

“Feast went to Oxford?” Miranda was surprised.