Lost Angeles (9 page)

Finally he answers, “Everything and nothing.”

And fuck me for asking.

I sigh and hold my cup out, because apparently all I’m getting out of Roman right now is a refill.

It’s funny, the things you notice when people think you aren’t looking. Reille Reece flits past the main stage, taking up a seat at one of the tables on the ground floor, just past the light where it’s harder to be seen. She spreads out there, neat stacks of papers on the table, laptop open. Phone to her ear, she works there for the better part of two hours, ignoring the music from the stage, disregarding all interruptions.

At the soonest possible opportunity, I’m marching my ass down there for a little tête-à-tête. Since arriving at Scion, ostensibly for rehearsal, I’ve been shoved in and out of various outfits, most of which would do a streetwalker proud. I don’t even get a dressing room, just three pairs of Spanx and a perfect view of all the things on the other side of the curtain. For the most part, I can ignore the jabs and pokes and admonitions to stand up straight, keeping my eyes on the redhead in the shadows.

So close. And yet
so far…

But I figure she’ll be there when I’m done, at least until a lackey hits the dance floor. The woman is wearing a nude dress so tight that it hampers her walk, her too-tall heels creating a metronome beat, a pretty
prestissimo
that doesn’t faze the trio onstage. She skids to a halt at the corner of the table, drawing Reille’s attention as her hip bangs against the edge. There’s a moment of confusion, then a simple, two-word warning.

“He’s coming.”

After that, it’s a mad scramble to tuck away papers and files and folders, and then both women are gone, exiting stage left even as His Royal Majesty enters stage right. He strides into the space, his nose to the air like a bloodhound. It would almost be funny, except Xaine looks far from entertained. He’s in a pair of his signature leather pants and a silk button-down, except there are no actual buttons on the dang thing. Bare-chested and scowling…

Dark Prince Apocalypse
.

Xaine pulls to a halt below the stage, unperturbed by my state of undress. “Hey there, Fuzzy Bunny. They treating you right?”

It takes a second, but then I realize Xaine means me.
I
am the Fuzzy Bunny. “Sure. Bottled water. Catered lunch. Et cetera.” I wave a hand at the nearby table, which is set up with a coffee service, sodas, blood packs, pre-made salads, sushi, and fruit. He gives me the briefest of nods, gaze already drifting out over the darkened auditorium when I tack on, “Thanks for all the… um… welcome gifts?”

Not sure what I’m expecting by way of a reaction, but it’s certainly not the tiny crinkle of amusement at the corner of those famously-blue eyes. “So did you eat
all
the things?”

“Yeah,” I say, wincing a little when the stylist stabs my hip with a pin. “Twenty pies, five dicks, and a sausage basket… I made a night of it.”

There it is, then: the smirk. The one he wears onstage, in videos, in photoshoots. It’s his trademark half-fang grin, one I’ve seen on TV hundreds of times and in thousands of pictures. Seeing it in person is a little surreal.

“Sounds like my kind of party,” he says, the whole of his attention now on me, on the outfit, on the stylists. “What have they got you dressed in?”

“Given the amount of leather and the number of times I’ve been stuck by a pin,” I say, offering him a slightly sardonic smile, “I’m going to go with fetwear?”

“Also sounds like my kind of party, except for the fact that you’re more covered up than a nun.”

“I’m not sure what nuns you’ve met that wear leather pants…” I let that trail off, just to see what he’s going to say.

Right on cue, he hits me with, “The ones in my kind of church.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “And this is why I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

Xaine reaches out a hand and starts flicking through the rack of clothes like a little kid stuck in a department store. “Says who?”

Affecting boredom is harder than it looks. “Everyone, and with good reason, probably.”

“Newsflash, Bunny, I’m hardly a stranger. You’ve known me your whole life.”

A smooth gambit, I’ll give him that. “Almost everyone has. You’re famously immortal. In any case, it was nice meeting you.”

That recaptures his attention, but good. Xaine’s head cocks to the side, one brow arching in surprise. Abandoning the clothes, he moves toward me. The sound of his shoes on the stage is hollow, loud, and steady.

Allargando.

“Did you just dismiss me?” Before I have a chance to answer, he narrows his eyes and leans in a little to ask, “
Who
says fuzzy bunnies shouldn’t talk to strangers, anyway? Enquiring minds want to know.”

I make a show of plucking at the fabric of my shirt. “My parents, my roommate, Jax Trace, every PSA ever.”

Whatever remains of Xaine’s humor fizzles away. “Jax… Trace. As in Genesis Records’ Jax Trace?” He holds out a hand. “About yay-high, ass for a chin, enough hair gel to function as a motorcycle helmet Jax Trace?” When I nod, he adds, “How do you know him?”

A half-shrug. “I do my research.”

“Meaning you hit up Google.” Sounds like a joke, but Xaine’s still eying me like I might have spygear hidden under my Spanx.

“Yup.” Then I slant him a sidelong glance. “A wealth of information there, but even the internet can’t tell me why you and Ms. Reece called it quits.”

His expression goes black at that. “You’re right, you shouldn’t talk.”

No qualification there, and he stares me down, waiting for me to flinch or balk, but like I told Jax Trace, I can do this
all day
.

“The slutty ones are quieter,” I only offer up. “Or so I hear.”

He snorts. “Not in my experience.”

“So what exactly
was
your experience?” I drill him a little, then add, “Enquiring minds want to know.”

His eyes narrow. “I don’t give a shit if you work for the tabloids, but at least pretend like you don’t, all right?”

I grin at that. “First I’m a spy, then I’m a reporter. Which is it, Sherlock?”

“So you’re telling me you’re just nosy?”

“That’s for me to know and you to wonder about,” I tell him. “But I’m willing to trade secrets if you are.”

“Oh, yeah? And what do you know that I’d give two shits about, exactly?”

“I’m sure you’ve got at least one question you’d like answered.” I probably shouldn’t goad him. Scratch that, I definitely shouldn’t goad him, but as long as Reille continues to play possum with me, Xaine’s my only option.

Not that he would appreciate me phrasing it like that.

He snaps his fingers at the wardrobe people, and they skitter off the stage like cockroaches when the lights go on. In a three-count, we’re alone, and only then does Xaine fire off with, “Ok, I’ll bite. Answer for an answer, until someone chickens out, and I get to start. How do you know Jax Trace?”

“He gave me a ride to my audition,” I answer.

“Because he moonlights as a cabbie?”

“Because he’s my guardian angel.” Over the top of Xaine’s impossibly rude noise, I say, “That was a two-fer.”

“Two-fer, my ass,” he sputters. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“Yes, I did. My turn. How long has Reille worked at Scion?”

That seems to flummox him for a moment, and he has to visibly count back to answer. “Six months. Why do you give a shit?”

“Is that an official question?” My palms sweat, but I keep the lighthearted tone firmly in place.

He smiles a little; it’s not the smirk from earlier, but the look of a predator sighting his prey. “It sure as fuck is.”

“She reminds me of someone I met a while back,” I say, controlling my breath the way I do when I sing, letting it out in carefully measured increments. “Trying to see if our timelines overlap.”

“Look, Apple Pie—”

“The name is Lourdes,” I interrupt. “Not ‘Apple Pie’ and not “Fuzzy Bunny.’”

“Whatever,” he says. “You still smell like the farm, and Reille is a SoCal girl, born and bred. There is less than a one tenth of one percent of a chance that you met up with her before.”

Shows what you know.

But I only say, “I grew up in a record store that my family owned, not on a farm.”

“Color me impressed,” he says, but with no little bit of grinning sarcasm. “That where you learned to sing covers?”

“Not your turn.” I hold up a finger, forestalling any more questions. “Why is Reille still working here? It’s obvious it’s over and just as obvious that she has zero interest in interacting with you. So it’s not like she’s trying to get you back by hanging around.”

“We’ve all got bills to pay,
Lore
, and Reille has really expensive taste in shoes.” Xaine folds his arms over his chest. “And she might hate my guts, but my mark’s still on her. We only broke it off because she couldn’t keep a cork in it.”

“And by ‘it,’ you mean—”

“Jeezus,
Lore
,” he says, the smirk back in full effect. “Do I really have to explain the birds and bees here?”

“Who was she cheating on you with?”

“None of your damn business.” Xaine gives me the side-eye. “Besides which, it’s my turn. Where,
exactly
, do you think you know her from?”

Choosing my words carefully, I say, “We were in the hospital together.”

He flinches at that, like I dinged his armor. “Last month? She didn’t mention you.” The corner of his lip twitches as he corrects, “Not that she’s mentioned much.”

“It wasn’t last month,” I tell him. “It was last year. She… got out before I did. I hadn’t seen her since. I’m not even sure it’s her.”

Neither of us say anything for a moment, bringing a natural end to our little game of Twenty Questions. The stylists have dispersed, so I’m technically standing there of my own volition. With a half-hitching shrug, I give Xaine one last smile and turn away, ducking toward my own clothes. I hear him make a noise behind me, the hollow sound of his boots following me.

“Look,” he says, “if you’re here to do Trace’s dirt-digging, I don’t care, so long as you show up to work and sing your ass off.” Whatever patience he possesses visibly wanes.

“I’m not Jax’s spy.” I wave him off, tucking my hands behind me and unfastening the leather top they pinned me into. “You don’t have to worry.”

His baby blues catch on my face. “I’m not worried.”

“Good,” I say, ducking to the side, fishing around for the invisible zipper holding the skintight pants in place. “Then I guess I’ll see you ’round.”

Before I know it, he’s right beside me, hands hitched into the waist of the pants. The sound of the zipper is the next thing I hear.

“Quit trying to get rid of me,” he says cheerfully, so close that his breath moves the tiny hairs at my temple.

Then I really am like a bunny, caught in the clutches of something bigger, stronger,
older
than I’ll ever be. My heart skips a single beat at the realization, and Xaine hears it; I know he does, because that laser-gaze of his goes straight to my jugular.

“Official question,
Lore
.”

Frozen in place, I hesitate, Jess’s warnings buzzing around in my head. “Okay, go ahead.”

“On a scale of one to take-me-now, how turned on are you?”

The second the question processes, I laugh, right in the face of the world’s biggest rock star. “Wow, you are…so arrogant.”

That garners me the full smirk and a swift release from his grasp. “So I don’t even rank on the scale? That’s depressing. Or hey, maybe you play for the other team?”

Still grinning, I tell him, “I’m not into girls. I’ve just been told that I shouldn’t take candy from strangers.”

“Trust me,
Lore
, I hadn’t even gotten to the candy part yet.” Wandering over to the table, he picks up one of the blood packs and contemplates it for half a second before tossing it back on the pile.

He can’t hold still, not for a second. Now that the game is done, he’s off and running, looking for the next thing, which turns out to be one of three acoustic guitars the trio left behind. He sits cross-legged and is already pulling a song out of it as I push the leathers down my legs, tracking the chord progressions. I can’t help but follow along, the notes registering like I’m sight-reading the sheet music.

Over the gentle strains of the melody—one I still don’t recognize—Xaine lifts his eyebrows at me in unspoken invitation. He’s done talking, apparently. Done with the questions and the half-answers from someone he barely knows, someone whose name he’s apparently incapable of using correctly. But he’s not kicking me off the stage. Nope. This is a new game. A new version of “I double-dog dare you.” Even with Jess’s warnings pinballing around my headspace, it’s surreal to see him, to
hear
him, this guy I’ve listened to on the radio and MTV and YouTube and my iPod, plucking a tune out of that guitar like a busker on a street corner or in a subway station.

Maybe that’s why I dig the quarter out of my discarded pants pocket and toss it at him.

When Xaine shifts the guitar just slightly, the coin lands in the space between his thighs with a tiny
plink!
And he keeps right on playing, the tempo slow and even. A ballad, for sure, even if he doesn’t sing many of those.