Rock Chick 06 Reckoning (28 page)

Effing… bloody…
hell
.

* * * * *

I’d managed to put everything to the back of my head and the last set, if possible, was better than the first three.

We’d started the set easing the crowd into the vibe by doing America’s “Ventura Boulevard”. We could burn the house down with chest-thumping rock ‘n’ rol but between Floyd, Buzz, Leo and me, we could also sing a powerful harmony and, even if I said so myself, our “Ventura Boulevard” was sweet.

We fol owed that with two more of Buzz and Leo’s new songs. When I introduced the songs the crowd shouted their approval so loud, they missed the first thirty seconds of the first song because their cheers were drowning out the music.

I got a warm fuzzy feeling watching the crowd’s approval wash over Buzz and Leo. My two boys glanced at each other, their faces an obvious mixture of the panic and thril I’d been feeling al day. But, with them, I could see the thril part was definitely winning.

Then we were done messing around. It was time to rock and we slid back into the theme of the night (Mace was just going to have to shoot me) with REO Speedwagon’s

“Ridin’ the Storm Out”, Mol y Hatchett’s “Flirtin’ with Disaster”, The Doobie Brothers’ “Dangerous” and final y

“Ghostriders”.

We were closing out the song. The crowd knew it and they were frenzied, hands up in the air, bodies swaying, catcal s piercing the air.

And it was then, riding the high of a great show, heart racing, blood pumping (thankful y), skin tingling, lips in a permanent happy grin, that I saw him.

A scruffy man wearing a beat-up army jacket over a tshirt, hair a mess, hands in the pockets of his jacket, he was making his way with determination toward Jet.

Through my buzz, two things hit me.

It was a warm end of May evening and jackets weren’t al owed.

Effing Monk!

Duke was again working the front of the stage but he didn’t see the guy and he had his back to me so I couldn’t catch his eye.

There were Hot Bunch men in range, in fact, the guy pushed right by Vance who was looking in the opposite direction.

Like last night, Lee was on the stage with the band. I kept playing but twisted my torso to look at Lee. I tried to catch his eye but he was on alert, not paying attention to me, his eyes were scanning the crowd.

Getting desperate, I twisted back around and tried to get Vance’s attention but, for some reason, he turned and pushed in the other direction, away from the Rock Chicks.

Ef it, there was nothing for it.

My eyes glued on the guy, I went to the mic and tried to offer a warning by saying “Jet…” but just as I uttered her name, I watched in horror as a pocket of people opened behind Jet.

The guy had easy access.

Effing, holy, hel !

He made it to Jet in a couple of steps, his hand started to come out of his pocket and it was then I freaked.

“
Jet!
” I screamed into the mic.

Her eyes were already on me but there was no time to warn her, the man was right behind her.

I whipped the guitar off, dropped it to the stage with a loud crash of the strings, ran to the edge and executed a stage dive, jumping off and aiming my body at the bad guy.

I vaguely heard the crowd give a shout of approval at my stage dive just as I hit the guy, ful body.

“What the –?” he shouted, caught unaware, with one hand out, one hand stil in his jacket. His free arm went around me, he staggered when my weight hit him, one two, three steps and then we both went down, him on his back, me on top.

Unfortunately, we careened into others and they went down with us.

It was al arms and legs and bodies and what seemed like a mil ion feet, most of them kicking, as we rol ed into others and took them al down.

I stayed focused and struggled with the guy, trying to get a firm hold on his wrists. He was strong and he was wiry and, even though not exactly young, he stil was a guy, so I found this a difficult task.

I heard Floyd’s voice asking for calm but I ignored it, too busy grunting and wrestling with the bad guy.

“Jesus, girl, what the fuck’s the matter with you?” he asked, on the defense, wrestling back and also grunting.

For some reason, I shouted, “You’re wearing a jacket!”

“So?” he shouted back.

“Jackets… are… not…
allowed!
” I yel ed right before an arm sliced around my waist and lifted me clean off him.

I struggled, twisting around to see Vance had hold of me.

He set me on my feet in front of his body but he kept me close with the arm around my waist.

Since he was a member of the Hot Bunch, I quit struggling, pointed at the guy stil on the floor and shouted,

“
Get him!
”

Vance’s eyebrows went up and he asked, “Get who?”

“The guy with the jacket,” I yel ed.

Vance’s gaze shifted to the guy on the floor and mine went with it. I saw Luke was now there, hand extended to the guy, he pul ed him to his feet.

“You okay, Ray?” Luke asked and my body froze.

“She’s fuckin’ loco,” “Ray” answered, brushing off his jeans and straightening his jacket, his eyes on me.

I stared, noting distractedly the Rock Chicks had arrived and with them a goodly number of the crowd al were and with them a goodly number of the crowd al were pressing in and watching.

“You know him?” I asked Luke.

“He’s my Dad,” Jet answered.

Oh dear.

“Oh,” I mumbled, feeling stupid.

“You okay, Dad?” Jet asked, moving toward him.

“Yeah, but it’s a miracle,” he replied to Jet and then glared at me. “What’s the matter with you? You jumped on me! From the stage!”

I felt the need to defend myself. “You’re wearing a jacket!”

“What’s the fuckin’ deal with the jacket?” Ray snapped at Luke who had his eyes on Vance behind me and his mouth cocked in a sexy half-grin.

Then Luke’s eyes dropped to mine. “Since Ray’s not likely to murder his own daughter, or any of her friends, we figured it was okay to let him in with his jacket.”

“Oh,” I repeated and looked at Ray. “Um, sorry about that,” I muttered.

“You’re loco,” Ray told me, I bit my lip and sliced an apologetic look to Jet who, thankful y, appeared to be fighting a grin.

“Can’t be too safe,” Vance said from behind me but I could swear he sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

I twisted in his arm and watched his mouth twitch.

Shitsofuckit!

My eyes caught on Shirleen and Daisy, who were sandwiching Dixon Jones, al of them on the edge of the crowd, al of them looking at me. Shirleen and Daisy were smiling. Dixon Jones again looked confused.

My effing stupid shitty luck!

“I’m not usual y like this,” I told Dixon.

Dixon’s body lurched like he was in a trance and my words snapped him out of it.

I noticed the band pushing in close, Vance’s arm dropped from around my waist and I took a step away.

“Holy shit, Stel a Bel a. We’re cal ing you Ramba from now on! You the wo-man!” Pong yel ed.

“Guess we don’t need Mace as muscle anymore,” Leo noted. “We got Stel a.”

“Next time, pick a girl to jump on,” Hugo advised.

I rol ed my eyes to the ceiling.

“One thing you can say, Stel a Gunn,” Dixon remarked, now
his
mouth was twitching. “You’re pure, fuckin’ rock ‘n’

rol .”

I didn’t know if that was good, or bad.

Since pure rock ‘n’ rol , to me, was a positive thing, I decided to take that as good.

I tossed my hair and smiled at him.

His eyes shifted to my hair and watched it move then they came back to mine and he lost the fight with his smile and it went wide.

“Show’s over,” Mace, al of a sudden there, announced.

“Fuckin’ A but
what
a show!” Tex boomed, also al of a sudden there. He got close to me and dropped a huge hand to top of my head. “Girl, you are
the shit!
You can burn through Mol y Hatchett
and
take care of business. Fuckin’

A!” he repeated, taking his hand from my head then, not done, boomed, “God
damn!
” Then, obviously in the throes of a Rock Moment, he turned to the crowd and shouted,

“Do we love The Gypsies?”

The crowd, mostly watching in bewilderment (I’d never done a stage dive to end a show so they were uncertain at the state of affairs), gave a feeble cheer.

“Fuck that!” Tex roared, throwing his arm up to punch the air. “
Do we love The Gypsies?
”

Catching on, the crowd cheered back, stronger now.

There was some scattered applause that started to grow then grow some more, a few shouted “Yippee kay yay” and then the chants of “Gypsies” began.

Oh dear.

“Awesome,” Pong breathed from beside me, his eyes moving over the chanting crowd.

Mace’s hand tagged mine. I looked up at him and knew in an instant he was done.

“We’re outta here,” he declared, proving me right and started shoving his way through the crowd, pul ing me along with him.

As we went, people pressed in. Wound up by the show, its bizarre ending and Tex, they were in a tizzy. So much so, I felt hands on me. People were grabbing at my t-shirt, trying to tag my belt loops, I felt fingers slide through my hair and I watched the same thing happening to Mace.

They were closing in, caught in the moment, making it hard for even Mace to shove his way through.

I felt fear begin to seize me, scared sil y at a new threat.

My fans, rocked by the show, reading the papers, knowing the danger, wound up by Tex, al of that pushing them to the brink. I feared they’d tear us to shreds.

Mace stopped, turned, bent, put his shoulder in my bel y and then I was going up. I ended bent double over his shoulder, his arm wrapped around the backs of my thighs.

Using his other arm and shoulder to push his way through the crowd, people went flying as I saw the flash of cameras coming one right after the other.

Beautiful.

I wondered if those pictures would make front page too.

Luke, Lee, Vance, Hector, Eddie and Duke al moved in to flank us and Mace didn’t stop until we hit the backstage door. With my head lifted, I watched the Hot Bunch close ranks behind us, stopping the crowd, right before the door closed behind Mace and me.

That was how we made our dramatic exit.

Mace put me down in front of the backdoor to the club and shoved it open. Darius materialized from the shadows, did a chin lift, a scan of the area and vaporized into the shadows again.

Mace pushed me in the passenger seat of one of the four black Explorers parked in the al ey. He got in the driver’s side and we took off.

I held myself stiff, wondering at his mood which, figuring this was Mace, was probably not happy.

I glanced to the side and saw he was smiling ful on, white teeth and al .

“Why are you smiling?” I asked.

He looked at me then back at the road, his smile not wavering.

Then he answered, “I’ve decided I like your set list, Kitten.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he said then expanded on his answer. “Not one fuckin’ song you played tonight had anything to do with the word ‘black’.”

Shitsofuckit!

I total y forgot!

Stella

The minute we got back to my place, Mace took Juno out for a bathroom break.

I took the fastest shower in history.

I did
not
need to be naked with Mace in the house.

Further, Mace and I needed to talk.

It was time. No more effing around.

It was three o’clock in the morning and I was exhausted, coasting on fumes from the high of the gig not to mention my ridiculous, gig-ending stage dive, a memory which I knew would be cringe-worthy for the rest of my effing life.

But Mace and I stil needed to talk and we were going to do it.

I jumped out of the shower, toweled down, wrapped the towel around my hair, put on my robe and hightailed it out of the bathroom just as I heard Juno and Mace return.

Mace was activating the alarm when I left the bathroom. I ignored him and moved quickly toward my dresser, seeing to priorities (as in, getting dressed). I had a pair of sky-blue lace hipsters in my hand when I heard him approach. I was about to bend over and put them on when I saw his hand come around me, he snatched the panties from my fingers and tossed them on my chair.

I whirled around. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t need to ask. I knew what he was doing.

He grinned, his hand coming up to yank the towel from my hair.

I planted my hands on my hips and tossed my head to get my hair out of my face as he threw the towel in the direction of my panties.

“Mace, what are you doing?” I repeated.

“Gonna fuck you, babe.”

Oh dear.

He had that look about him, that look I liked, that look that turned me on.

That look that said he was, indeed, gonna fuck me.

Nope.

Unh-unh.

No way.

I stood my ground, hands on hips.

“No, you’re not. We have to talk. We have a lot of talking to do and we’re going to do it. Now.”

Mace moved around me and I had to pivot to stay facing him.

Suddenly, he stopped and then started walking forward.