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While I helped Kale and Cash do the sound check, I couldn’t help but glance Kin’s way. The first time I’d looked for her she’d still been by the bar talking to Lucy, but now they were front and center. Harris wasn’t with them, but I wasn’t worried because Marcus was standing right there with them, keeping at least a foot between the two girls and the rest of the fans.
I knew how I wanted to start the show tonight. It was going to be a little different, but we hadn’t done a cover song in a few weeks. One of the things I loved so much about Kin was that music and, more specifically, the lyrics to the songs always spoke to her. It was the easiest way to communicate with her.
It had been how I’d first told her I loved her.
So while Cash finished doing what he had to do, I told Kale what was going to happen, and then once Grayson and Sin took the stage I told them too. When I told Cash, he lifted a brow at me, but he was grinning as he nodded his understanding.
Suddenly I felt nervous as hell, something that I hadn’t felt before a show since my very first one at the age of seventeen. Wiping my damp palms on my jeans, I turned to the crowd and took the microphone. The roar of the crowd instantly quietened when I lifted a hand and grinned at everyone.
“Fuck, guys, it’s good to see you all here tonight,” I greeted them. Most of them were our new fan following, but there were always newcomers who had been lucky enough to get in. Thursday nights were great for First Bass’s bank account, but Harris had to be extra careful not to overfill the place or be faced with fines from the fire marshal if he showed up. “Are you ready to rock with us tonight?”
The crowd went wild, but even over the roar I could still hear the “Hell, yeah,” that came from the front row.
I glanced down at Kin and Lucy, both of them grinning and throwing up horns for us. I caught Kin’s gaze and gave her a wicked wink. Her grin turned a little sultry and I knew she was biting into the inside of her bottom lip. Damn, I wanted to kiss her so fucking back.
Shaking the need to taste her lips away, I forced my gaze to the crowd behind her. “We’re gonna start tonight off a little slower. This song is a favorite of someone special and I thought we would spoil her a little tonight.”
Behind me the band started the first chords to the song and I had to wipe my free hand on my jeans again because it was soaked in sweat, but right on cue I sang the first line.
From the first chord that Gray had hit with his guitar, I’d seen the way Kin had reacted. She knew without the words I was singing—singing just for her—that it was “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. It was one of her favorite songs, not just from the band, but of all time. She told me one night when we’d been parked on some back road in my car, fogging up the windows as she kissed me until I was mad with need for her. The song had come on the satellite radio and she’d paused with her hands on my bare chest and started to sing along as she’d let me make love to her.
With that first chorus I saw the way her chin tried to tremble as that same memory flashed in her baby blues, and I wanted to jump down off the stage and wrap her in my arms as I finished the rest of the song, but just as quickly she clenched her jaw and slowly lowered her gaze to her clasped hands in front of her.
She had to know what I was saying with each lyric I sang, had to understand the truth behind it all. I would give up my last breath just to touch her one more time. For her to see me—the real me that she had fallen for just as quickly as I’d fallen for her—and know that when I was with her it was the closest to heaven I could ever hope to be.
My throat tight with emotion, I continued the song, my eyes trapped on her as I silently begged her to look up again. “And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t comin’.” I started the fourth chorus and her head snapped up. The glaze of tears I saw there, that I knew she wouldn’t let fall, sliced into my chest like a fiery sword.
Behind me, the guys were getting into the song. Kale was in the moment with the drums, and Gray was hitting each chord on his Fender like his hands had been made specifically to play that song right in that moment. Sin and Cash were both keeping up, their eyes half closed as they let the music become a part of their souls as they did with every song we performed. But I saw none of that because I was so caught up in Kin’s gaze. So destroyed by how much pain seemed to flood out of her and into me.
I welcomed it. I’d take every ounce of her pain away if I could, if she would just give me the chance. I’d take it all away and replace it with the love I’d never stopped feeling for her. Give her something more, something better.
I’d give her every part of me, including my soul, and this time…
This time I wasn’t going to walk away without her.
The song was coming to a close now, and I covered my heart with my hand as I dropped to my knees so we were on a closer eye level. “And I just want you to know who I am.”
The song ended and the entire club was suddenly so quiet I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. My gaze was still locked on Kin’s and she seemed just as spellbound as I was. There was
a long pause, as if the crowd was just as much in a trance as I was. Then the smallest, sweetest smile lifted Kin’s lips and it was like the trance was broken for me and the hundreds of other people inside First Bass as they started clapping and screaming.
I touched my fingers to my lips and offered her my hand. She hesitated all of a full two seconds before stepping forward and touching her fingers to mine. My heart soaring with a million new possibilities, I was suddenly stoked to finish up that night’s show. The sooner we were done, the sooner I could get Kin alone and we could talk.
I rushed through the first half of the show, barely pausing between songs when I would have normally made it last as long as possible. The crowd always ate it up when I played the ‘cocky bastard rock star.’ The guys didn’t seem to mind, not that I would have cared if they’d had an issue with it.
At one point I saw Harris join the girls, and wrap his arms around Lucy. I’d chanced a glance at Kin then, saw how set her jaw was and nearly stopped mid-song to ask her why she was so upset. I lifted a brow at Harris between the next song and he shrugged, letting me know Kin was fine. With Marcus standing so close to the two girls, I knew they were safe, but I wanted to find out what was going through Kin’s mind right then.
Two songs later, as the pace started getting edgier, the night came to a dead halt when some chick dressed like a reject from an eighties porno jumped on stage and tried to rape my mouth. I went instantly still, lifting my hands away from her to show Kin that I had no part in what was going on.
The chick’s lips didn’t taste bad, but she was too overeager and sloppy. My dick didn’t even twitch when she tried to climb me like a tree just as security rushed the stage and pulled her off me. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I finally got a good look at the mental case who had jumped me.
Ridiculous hair. Indecent outfit. Enough makeup to make Kassa want to hide behind me or Gray because she could have passed for a clown—or worse, a damn mime. My sister had a real fear of clowns and mimes, to the point that she froze up and went nearly catatonic until she was in her safe place. If she had seen that chick right then she might have been running for the nearest exit, screaming her head off.
The crowd didn’t take the interruption very lightly. While some idiots cheered the chick on, the majority of the club was booing and a few even threw their beer bottles at the stage—at the girl.
Shaking my head, I scrubbed my hands over my mouth again, trying to get her taste off my lips and hoping to lighten the mood so that the crowd didn’t go into full-on riot mode. “Yo, bitch, the eighties called. The porn stars want their wardrobe back.”
The booing was cut off as everyone started laughing, including my bandmates.
