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“Mena, honey, you okay?”
“So many bubbles, Grip.” She took his hand in hers and kissed each of his big knocked-about knuckles, “You make me dizzy,” each of his broad fingertips. He might not like what she had to say next and she was shocked to realize she loathed the idea of disappointing him.
“We have to come up with a reason for me stepping aside and it can’t be that we’re having sex.” She broke from his one-armed hug and the frame of his legs and put some distance between them, sitting on her shins to face him. “I could lose my job over this.”
“No chance. You tell them I was a total loser dickhead. Tell them I harassed you.”
She’d rather lose everything first. She closed that space between them. “I am not saying that. I am not wrecking your reputation to save mine.” All of this complexity was about not losing her job and not hurting Grip, and keeping her secret so she didn’t hurt him further with her lie. He could never know.
“I don’t have a reputation to be wrecked. No one expects anything great of me.”
He held up a big hand, and she placed hers against it. His palm engulfed hers. “Do you really believe that?”
“Drummer in a rock band.” He shrugged, folding her hand into his.
“One of the most successful in the world.”
“Everyone expects me to be smashing up hotel rooms, doing every drug available and breaking hearts all over, destined to be in and out of rehab, married multiple times, name my kids after fruit, voted most likely to blow it all and end up homeless.”
She shook their joined hands. “No, no.” He’d painted a terrible picture, one he simply did not fit in.
“It’s the baggage that comes with lifestyle, the money and fame. Doesn’t matter if it’s not true. It’s what people think anyway.”
Oh, it mattered, more being sued for bad investment advice. “Not you. No. You are not that man. You never were. You were always the one bailing the Tice boys out. That band would’ve imploded fifteen years ago and a half a dozen times since without you. It would never have survived Jay quitting. You keep them together on stage and off and there’s not a single scandal stuck to you. If you have kids, I can’t see you saddling them with names like Melon or, I don’t know, Lychee. You are rock’s Mr. Nice guy and you have to know that.”
He shook his head; his cheeks had colored. “Nah, that’s Jay. He’s Mr. Nice Guy. Dude doesn’t even have a tatt. I’m just a big clown. I like to keep it light. The band stayed together because none of us knew what else we wanted to do more, and we got lucky. Sure, I crack heads when I have to, but it only works because I’m not family.”
“It works because you know how to read people, how to manage them. You wouldn’t have a legion of fans, water drummers welcoming you to perform with them and kids with issues idolizing you otherwise.” She moved closer to kneel over his outstretched legs. “You think you’re not complicated.” She pushed a hand through his hair. “You are the essence of it. The drummer who could’ve been a concert pianist. Your own band doesn’t even know that, do they?”
He took hold of her arms, his eyes wide, his shoulders tensing. “That’s not. I’m not. How do you know that?”
“Research. Remember we’re careful about who we take on as clients, precisely because we don’t need the drama.” It was shameful how easily that lie came from her lips, but she’d lie a million times to protect Grip from hurt. “There is no circumstance in which I will allow you to take the fall for me. I knew what I was doing when I kissed you. I knew I wanted this to happen. And I came here because I wanted it to happen again.” As much as she tried to tell herself that wasn’t true. “It’s enough that you have to start over. It’s more than I deserve that you’re willing to swallow a,” she stumbled on the word, “lie about why I can’t be your advisor.”
He rubbed her arms as if she was the one who was chilled. “I’m not that good on the piano. I’m a better percussionist.”
She channeled Vera’s style of incredulity. “Is that so?”
“Jesus, Mena, why couldn’t you just say nice things about my dick.”
She leaned toward him, so their foreheads came together. Had no one truly ever loved this man, made him understand his value, not in terms of fame or dollars, but in the everlasting currency of truth and honesty and loyalty? “You are a talented musician, an amazing performer, vital to the success of Lost Property. An intelligent study of people. A generous friend. A perfect lover. Your choice of motor vehicles could do with some work, but you are not going to end up in rehab or homeless, Grip.” They were both breathing hard. “I won’t let that happen.”
He was quiet, his hands unusually still. Had she gone too far, not far enough? She wrapped her arms around him and eased her body closer. She burned with the need to make him understand his own true, enduring worth.
“Do you realize how hard it is to be a successful clown? In history, jesters and fools were the quickest witted, most savvy members of the royal court. In literature, they’re symbolic of common sense and honesty. In tarot, an upright fool means new beginnings, originality, adventure, and a fool reversed means fearlessness, taking risks.”
He shook his head to interrupt, and she put her finger across his mouth. “Clowns are the most versatile members of a circus, the bravest athletes in a rodeo, the most beloved of doctors.” She took her finger away. “You can try to sell yourself short to others, but I’m not buying your act, Mark Grippen.”
His arms tightened around her, and he made a low sound, part lament, part growl, in her ear. “I’m going to have to fuck you now, Mena, because that stuff coming out of your mouth is so hot. That okay?”
“Make me glow, Grip.”
Kissing down her neck, he made it impossible to view her place in the world as anywhere but joined to him, because she loved him for his monster truck and his old Honda and his kids’ program and his electricity on stage and his modesty and humility and oh holy mother of galaxies, what he could do with his big wide hands strumming her body and his talented dick, making her see stars.
If she hadn’t sensed the need in him to say with his body what he couldn’t with his words, the snap of rubber was her warning. He tackled her orgasms as if he owed his life to them, feeding them to her one, two, in close succession, making her tremble and gasp, braced over her, one hand tipping her pelvis, the other working her over possessively in a rhythm that was designed to slay her.
“Too much, honey?” He palmed her breast, squeezed with just the right pressure.
“Never.”
