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Hailee
“I need your hands on me, Hails. Tell me what I’ve gotta do for you to stop saying no to me,” Dylan said, a look of defeat on his face.
I flopped down onto his couch next to him and reached for the beer in his hand. After I took a sip, I said, “Dude, I’ve been working these hands and arms all day and I’m exhausted. Maybe if you actually book an appointment with me while I’m at work, you’d have more luck.”
I was sympathetic to his cause—Dylan spent his days laying bricks to make ends meet—but eight-hour-plus shifts massaging people exhausted me.
He grabbed his beer back. “I can’t afford an appointment with you. Your boss charges way too much for massages.”
“That’s only because you’re a tight-ass. I mean, the amount of money you spend on beer could fund a couple of massages a week.”
“Are you two arguing over fucking massages again?”
I glanced up at our bandmate Trent as he entered the living room and sat on the end of the couch. “Aren’t we always?”
He grinned and threw me a wink. “Yeah, at least Dylan’s consistent with his shit. You always know what you’re gonna get with him.”
After close to two years playing with these guys, I knew them inside out, and Trent was right—Dylan was consistent in his hounding me for free massages. Just like Trent was consistent with harassing me to help him with his girlfriend dilemmas.
“How’s Pam going? Have you managed to break up with her yet?” I asked him. He’d been dating her for three weeks and had been complaining about her for almost as long.
He grimaced. “Fuck, I can hardly get a word in with her, Hails.”
“So that would be a no, then? You pussied out again?” He was way too nice and always trying to extricate himself from relationships he didn’t want to be in.
“Who was that guy you were talking to last night before Wayne got there? Looked like he was all over you,” Trent said.
“You trying to change the subject?” I asked.
He grinned. It was the grin that always got him out of trouble. Not that he was in trouble now, but it was his way of telling me he didn’t want to continue the conversation about Pam. “You know me too well.”
I decided to let him off the hook this once. Hell, who was I kidding? Trent was always being let off the hook in one way or another. Everyone loved the guy—enough to let him avoid dealing with whatever problem he’d found himself in. “The guy’s name is Devil, but other than that, I don’t know who he is.”
“Gotta say, I was surprised Wayne didn’t take a shot at him,” Dylan said.
Wayne never would.
And that told me everything I needed to know about my relationship with Wayne. It wasn’t that I wanted him to have a go at another man who gave me attention, but I wanted him to at least feel something about it. Anything. Even if he just made a casual remark about it. I wanted him to acknowledge it in some way. We’d been getting closer over the last few weeks, and I had been looking for a sign from him as to whether the relationship might develop into something more permanent. He could have used Devil’s flirting with me as a way to stake his claim, because even though he hadn’t heard our conversation, he had to have seen Devil lean into me while he spoke into my ear. The fact that didn’t bother him bothered me.
But, the thing about Wayne was that he was safe. He was a good guy, and after the shit I’d been through with my last relationship, all I wanted was a good guy who I could trust to do the right thing by me.
“You see yourself with him for the long haul?” Trent asked.
I pushed up off the couch. I didn’t want to talk about Wayne anymore. Looking down at them both, I said, “Are we gonna practise, or not?”
Trent lifted a brow as he stood. “Look who’s changing the subject now.”
I poked my tongue at him. Continuing to change the subject, I said, “Anyone hear from Hollis today? Are we thinking he’s gonna make it tonight?” Hollis had a record of missing band practice, and tonight was a night I didn’t want him to miss. We had new songs to practise.
“He texted me about an hour ago,” Dylan said as we made our way out to his garage for practice. “He should be here in the next half hour. His boss was making him stay late today.”
Hollis was an accountant, which had surprised me when I’d first met him two years ago. I’d put the call out for musicians to form a band with me, and he’d turned up straight from work in his tie, looking way too respectable to be a drummer. However, the minute he got behind his drum kit and ripped his tie off, he’d blown me away with his talent. These days I never saw the tie. Not even when he was wearing it. All I saw was the dirty-as-fuck drummer who could drink all of us under the table while lining women up to screw. Definitely not too respectable to be a drummer.
“Okay, let’s run through these songs,” I said. “Hollis knows them like the back of his hand, so it’ll be good for us to go through them before he gets here, and then he can just jump in.” While he was a dirty guy always looking for his next lay, Hollis surprised me with his ability to tap into his emotions when it came to writing songs. His lyrics were full of deep thoughts and often about love. He wrote most of our band’s music. I helped when he needed it, and sometimes I came up with new material for him to work into a song.
Dylan picked up his guitar. “I forgot to tell you guys that I booked us for a wedding next Saturday.”
Dylan took care of all our bookings and often forgot to tell us about a gig until the week it was on. I glanced at him. “I’ll make you a deal. You start using that online calendar I showed you last week and log our gigs as soon as you get them, and I’ll start considering giving you a massage every now and then.”
