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Jesus, there had to be an after with her or he was going to lose his mind.
To end the show, Michael changed things up and told Ry they were going to skip “Exile” and do something else. His buddy shook his head at him, but he quickly told the others. As Michael tore into the first chords of “In The Air Tonight”, Mal tipped his head. The band hadn’t practiced the song together, and a few of the members of the group weren’t familiar with it, judging from their what the fuck expressions. Luckily, Molly had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of songs from the eighties onward, though she wasn’t particularly thrilled at the unplanned set change. But between the two of them and Mal and Elle—who was a seventies and eighties fiend—West, Ry and Juliet soon caught up.
They ended up making the song something completely different than the original anyway. Something theirs that fit the insane energy of the night. Channeling the vibe from the audience, feeding on it. Bringing down the house even though they were just the opening act.
Fuck that. They weren’t going to just be the opening act for long. Soon, they’d have their own arenas. Their own crowds to chant and cheer and cry.
Just like his redhead was doing. Not the cheering or crying part, or even the chanting. She was singing along, her fingers laced together as if she were praying. Swaying with them. With him, as he leaned toward her as if she were the moon and he was the tide. Her pull was magnetic and inexplicable. He didn’t want to fight it.
He’d been waiting for this moment all his life too, just like the lyrics of the song.
They brought the house down with Mal’s frenetic drumming and the slashing guitars that bled out into only Molly’s voice reaching for the rafters. And the audience went wild.
Pushing forward, they all linked arms and took their bows while Molly hammed it up and blew kisses to her adoring subjects. Mal hung back, tapping his black wrapped drumsticks against his thigh. Michael gave his brother a second to decide to join them on his own. When he didn’t, Michael stepped back and grabbed Mal’s hand.
It was ice cold. Forget nerves. The guy must be made out of steel.
Michael lifted their joined hands and basked in the waves of applause and stomping feet. And he searched for his redhead, desperate to locate her one more time.
He found her—just in time to see her being pulled up the nearest aisle by her girlfriends. She glanced back and the strobing lights bisected her face like the Joker’s. Light and dark, known and unknown.
Fuck, she wasn’t just some beautiful girl at a concert.
So much for the mystery of why he’d been so drawn to her. She wasn’t random at all. In the chaos his life had become, he must’ve been seeking something—someone—familiar.
She was the absolute
worst person for him to get involved with for a million reasons.
“Chloe,” he murmured.
Chapter 8
Chloe Adams.
Her name followed him through a quick shower and change. He grabbed a Foo Fighters shirt and a fresh pair of jeans, stuffing his feet into a different pair of boots. These were shitkickers with steel toes, perfect for fending off the spike heels of clumsy drunk girls. He grabbed his watch, shoving it back on his wrist, and beelined for the mini bar to swig back a quarter of a bottle of the whisky he’d had specially stocked.
“Priming the pump already?” Ry walked into Michael’s bedroom carting a pair of black trousers and a white button-down shirt. So far he’d spent almost as much time in Michael’s room as he did his own, though their suite was so huge they barely even had to see each other. “You know they aren’t going to let you into the Foundation Room like that, right?”
Michael smirked around the mouth of his bottle. “Let’s see them try to stop me.”
Ry shook his head. “Dude, you’re feeling it tonight. Just don’t get arrested, all right?”
Still carrying the bottle, Michael went to the nightstand and rooted through the top drawer. “Nah, I have something else in mind.” He pulled out a strip of his preferred brand of Magnum condoms and stuffed them in his back pocket.
Ry’s eyebrow climbed toward his hairline. “So much for your supposed abstinence program, huh?”
“When did I say that?”
“You didn’t, but considering you claimed to be such a good boy, so misunderstood by the masses…”
“Hey, safety first. I am a good boy.” He flashed a grin at his buddy and checked his phone. “Get a move on. I need to get upstairs.”
“Hot date?”
“You could say that.” More like he needed to find Chloe, then they’d go from there.
Obviously he had hopes for how the night would go, and the half dozen condoms he’d just shoved in his pocket were proof. But even if things didn’t progress that way, he had to find her. To hear her voice, watch her laugh, feel her rub up against him.
