While We Waited (The Reed Brothers #8) (13 page)

I wait to hear their enthusiastic responses. The hat starts to move around the room, and people drop cash into it. I see Jason clear it out and stuff the money in his pocket, and then start it moving again.

I settle on the edge of a stool and balance the guitar on my lap. I pluck at it.

“I can’t believe Finny Vasquez is playing my fucking guitar!” the owner of the instrument crows.

I grin and start to play. I have a new song I just wrote, so I might as well try it out, right? I suddenly clap my hands over the strings and stop.

“My sister Peck just had a baby boy two months ago,” I say into the mic. “This one is for her.”

I start to play again.

Sometimes when I see my sister with her baby boy, I watch them together. Her eyes fill with so much love and joy that it makes me ache. I never had that. Not for a moment. Not until I met Marta did I know the definition of unconditional love.

In the first minute,

I wondered how you could be so perfect.

In the second minute,

I wondered how you could be so small.

In the third minute,

I wondered how you could be so fragile.

In the fourth minute,

I wondered how you could be so bald.

In the fifth minute,

I watched you breathe.

In the sixth minute,

I watched you cry.

In the seventh minute,

I watched you stretch.

In the eighth minute,

I watched you love.

You were born knowing

That you were loved.

You were born knowing

That you were adored.

You were born knowing

That you would be cared for.

And in that moment,

Her dreams came true,

Because she was loved by you.

I repeat the beginning and the chorus a couple of times, and by the time I’m done, I’ve upset myself a little, because
I
wasn’t born knowing I was loved. In fact, it was just the opposite. I was born knowing I was hated.

You were born knowing

That were you loved.

You were born knowing

That you were adored.

You were born knowing

That you would be cared for.

And in that moment,

Her dreams came true,

Because…she…was loved by…you.

My voice goes quiet and I wait. The audience blinks at me and then they start to clap. A few women at the front wipe their eyes and someone else proposes marriage.

I pull a felt-tip pen out of my pocket and hold it over the guitar, silently asking the owner with my eyes if he’d like for me to sign it. He pumps his fist and shouts, “Hell yes!” So I sign it with a flourish. I stuff my Sharpie back in my jeans pocket and hand him his guitar.

He tries to hug me, but Jason gets between us. The guitar owner holds up his hands like he’s surrendering to the cops.

Jason leads me off the stage and we walk back to the bar, I can’t stay here now that everyone knows who I am. I’m aware of it, and so is Jason. He’s hyper-aware of it, if the way he’s clutching my arm is any indication. “We need to get out of here,” he says.

And that is when things go ridiculously bad.

Tag

I stand with my foot against the wall and cross my arms in front of my chest. God, she’s beautiful. Music comes out of her mouth and straight from her fingertips into the guitar and it’s like it’s shooting directly from her soul into mine.

She sings of babies. And babies should be laughter and light and goodness, but what I don’t think most people realize is that she’s singing about loss. She’s singing about her own life, and all the things she missed.

My gut clenches at the look on her face.

I left my own son at home with my sister Wren. He’s only a few days old, but Wren wanted to sit and hold him, so she asked me to come and check on Fin at the bar. Honestly, I smell a set-up, but it’s a trap I’d give just about anything to fall into.

Finny signs the guitar with a flourish, and I wait for her to clear the stage.

I see the crowd of people surround them, and I watch Jason as he tries to get between them and her. But he’s only one man.

I guess when you’re a famous rock star this happens, but I never expected it to happen quite so fast. I push my way into the crowd, and Jason sees me and yells, “Get on her other side!”

I nod and shove through the throng. Finny curses as someone grabs the arm of her shirt and rips. I see the flash of her pink bra as the seams render, and my vision goes hazy with rage.

I spin the guy who just tried to strip her down to face me and punch him in the throat. He goes down like a stone, so I step over him and go for another. I take a sudden punch to my own jaw that makes my teeth snap together, and then I see that it’s a woman. I can’t hit a woman.

The club owner and his security are trying to help too, and they push the rest of the crowd back. Fin is on the floor, and I realize that I’m lying on top of her.

“Umm,” she says, “Tag…”

“What?” I can barely get my breath, much less speak.

“You’re kind of squishing me.”

I lift myself up on my elbows and look down at her face. “Sorry.”

Then I realize how we’re lying. Her legs are spread, and I’m resting between them.

“Shit,” I say. “Sorry.” I scramble to get off of her.

She laughs and pulls me back down. “I kind of liked it,” she says with a giggle.

Heat creeps up my face as my dick gets hard. Crap. Didn’t mean for that to happen.

“Well, you
do
like me,” she says close to my ear. She laughs. “I thought you were immune to me by now.”

I’ll never be immune to this woman. “Stop it.”

She laughs. “I’m not the one pressing his dick into my soft parts, Tag,” she says.

This time, I do scramble to get up. Her eyes linger on my dick. “Impressive,” she murmurs. I hold out a hand to her and she takes it. I pull her up to stand beside me. She’s so tiny that she barely comes up to my shoulder.

I reach over to adjust her shirt, but it’s ripped all the way to her neckline. You can see her bra. I reach over my head and pull my shirt off the way guys do, ruck it up in my fingers, and slip it over her head.

“Thanks,” she says. She lifts the neck of my shirt to her nose and takes a deep breath. “You smell really good.” Suddenly, she looks around. “Where’s Jason?”

She searches frantically until she finds him lying on the floor. She rushes over to him. “What happened?” she cries.

“I think that fucker broke my wrist,” he says as he clutches his arm to his chest. He winces and she sinks down beside him.

“I’m so sorry,” I hear her say.

“It’s not your fault he was an asshole.” He lays his head back against the wall and winces. “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

She nods and helps him get up. “Should I call Norma?”

He nods. “If we don’t, she’ll never let me live it down. I’ll be sleeping on the couch for a month.”

Fin pulls his phone out of his pocket and gives him shit about finally getting to be close to his dick. He growls at her playfully, and ruffles her hair with his good hand.

By the time we get outside, Norma is there waiting at the curb with the car. “I can drive,” Jason says.

“Get in the fucking car, Jason,” Norma says as she holds the door open. She kisses Fin quickly and looks at me like she’s wondering who I am and why I’m shirtless. She jerks a thumb toward me. “He’s hot, Finny,” she says. “Nice catch.”

I see Fin mouth
I know, right?

“Can you take her home?” Jason asks me.

“Of course,” I rush to say. He looks fearful, so I try to reassure him. “We’re only a few blocks from home.”

“Don’t let anything happen to her.”

“I promise.” I try to assure him, but he’s still worried, I can tell. I think he truly cares about her.

“Can I go with you?” she asks him. “Please?” She’s talking to Jason, not to me.

“Go home, Finny. I can’t protect you tonight.”

“I’ll call you later, sweetie,” Norma says. “I promise.”

“You swear it?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Jason says.

“Well, don’t die,” Fin says. “I’d feel terrible. It would take me minutes to find Norma a better man.”

Norma laughs and gets in the car. I watch as their taillights fade into the distance.

“Thanks for helping,” she says quietly.

My breath makes little puffs in the cold night air. “You’re welcome.”

“So, what were you doing there?”

“Oh, shit.” I thump the palm of my hand against my forehead. “I came to get you. They’ve been calling you for hours but you weren’t answering.”

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and scrolls through the texts.

“I totally forgot we go on tour tomorrow,” she says on a groan.

I nod. I didn’t forget. Wren says it’s going to be a short tour, but we’ll all be gone.

She starts walking quickly toward her apartment, her heels clicking on the concrete. She jams her hands into her pockets and I follow her.

“Finny,” I say, after we get in the elevator at her apartment building.

“What?” She looks everywhere but at me.

“I thought we were going to go visit your mom this morning, but when I woke up you were gone. Did you change your mind?”

She shakes her head. “No. I went.”

“By yourself?”

She nods.

“You were supposed to take me with you,” I remind her.

She takes in a deep breath and lets it out. “She’s fucking crazy, Tag. Totally mental. Like, locked-up-so-she-can’t-kill-anybody mental. I don’t like to take people to see that.”

She’s acting like this is new information for me. I already met her mom. I know what she’s dealing with. “Was she okay today?”

She shakes her head. “No. She was herself.” Her voice is quiet and I can barely hear her. She lays her head back against the wall of the elevator and closes her eyes.

Suddenly she opens them and looks at my bare chest. “Tag, can I tell you something?”

I cross my arms, because she’s appraising my chest like she wants to have me for dinner. “I guess.”

“You’re fucking hot,” she says. She licks her full lips, and I find myself going hard again.

Then the elevator dings, the doors open, and she steps out. I take a second and try to collect my wits, because they’re scattered like a pocketful of dimes strewn around the floor. She reaches back and holds the door open.

“Bring your fine self inside,” she says. She grins at me.

I wonder what she’s like when she’s not hiding her pain behind her sexuality. I suppose I won’t have a chance to find out.

Finny

When I don’t know what to do or how to comport myself, I flirt. It’s how I’ve always gotten by. And watching Tag’s face turn red, it’s totally working. He’s thinking more about kissing me than he is about my crazy mother.

I step into the living room and stop short. All four of my sisters are here.

Peck’s sitting with her baby on her knee, and her husband Sam is next to her on the sofa.

My sister Star is sitting in her new husband’s lap.

Wren and Lark are sharing an armchair, and Emilio and Marta are standing by the kitchen counter. “Where the hell have you been?” Emilio demands.

I look around at them all. “Dancing,” I say slowly. “Why? What’s up?” I go and get a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Why didn’t you answer our calls, mija?” Marta asks.

I shrug. “I couldn’t hear the phone over the music.”

Suddenly, Emilio notices that Tag isn’t wearing a shirt. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say. I sit down on the arm of the couch. Tag goes and gets a shirt, and he’s still pulling it over his head as he walks back into the room. As his most magnificent six-pack disappears, I see a streak of red, raw, angry skin disappear beneath the fabric. Was he hurt? I’ll find out when the interrogation is over. “Where’s the rugrat?”

Wren jerks her thumb toward Tag’s room. “He’s asleep.”

Benji sleeps in tiny sprints, I’ve learned.

“His name is Benji,” Tag reminds me.

“Benjamin Taggert the Third,” my sisters all say in unison. Then they laugh when Tag scowls at them.

“Why are you wearing his shirt?” Emilio asks me again. He’s not going to take no for an answer.

“Hers got torn off by an overzealous fan,” Tag blurts out.

I mouth the word
traitor
at Tag. “It was nothing–”

“Jason is on the way to the hospital,” Tag goes on to say. If he was two steps closer to me, I’d kick Tag in the nuts. “He was hurt. His wife picked him up.”