Wicked Beat

Chapter 3

Much to Eric’s delight, the new tour bus had six curtained bunks instead of four, and the mattresses were at least a foot wider. Bliss for someone obscenely tall and forced to sleep in a compartment designed for an average-sized toddler. Being perfect gentlemen—yeah, right—the guys let Rebekah choose her bunk first. She selected the bottom bunk closest to the bathroom where Sed used to sleep on the old bus. Trey immediately claimed the bunk over hers, which had been Eric’s.

“This way I get to be on top of Rebekah night after night after night,” Trey said. He bit his lip and leaned toward her, but didn’t touch her. Her eyelids fluttered, lips parted, and she swayed toward him. Under Trey’s spell already. Son of a bitch. The guy had the uncanny ability of knowing how to seduce anyone. Except Brian.

He’d been trying to get in their lead guitarist’s pants for years. As far as Eric knew, he’d never quite managed it.

Rebekah flushed and giggled like most women did when Trey gave them the slightest notice. If Eric had said that exact same thing to her, she probably would have punched him in the teeth for being a pig.

Eric picked the bunk across the aisle from Rebekah’s. Because he was sick of sleeping in a top bunk, not because he kept replaying her little lesson over and over in his mind. And not because those thoughts were making his dick all tingly with excitement. And definitely not because he might catch a glimpse of her while she slept.

Um, yeah.

Jace tossed his duffel bag into the bunk above Eric’s. “I finally get my own bunk,” he said. In the past, he’d had to take whichever bunk happened to be unoccupied, which changed depending on which band member had claimed the queen-sized bed in the only bedroom for a particular night.

Sed took the bottom bunk across from the bathroom, leaving the bunk above him for Brian, whenever he happened to show up.

“Does this bus have a bedroom?” Trey asked. He slipped the strap of Rebekah’s tank top over her shoulder with one finger. Again, with the flushing and giggling on her part. But her nipples weren’t hard. Not like when Eric had massaged her back. And she wasn’t teaching Trey any lessons. At least, not yet.

“Of course it has a bedroom,” Sed said. He opened the door at the end of the hall. “But now that we each have our own bunk, we don’t have to fight over it.”

Eric turned his attention to Jace, who had this totally annoying, empathetic expression on his beard stubble-covered face. Jace glanced from Trey to Rebekah and then rolled his eyes at Eric. So Jace had figured out that Eric was jonesing over Rebekah. Twerp.

Eric supposed it wasn’t too hard to figure out, but it was easy enough to remedy. If she wanted Trey, what did he care? Trey could have her. Um, yeah.

The group inspected the bedroom, which was slightly smaller than the one on their last bus. This one still had a queen-sized bed, but there was no room for a dresser. Eric shoved Jace in the shoulder and grinned. He pointed at the ceiling. “No hook for your bondage games, Tripod. How will you ever get your jollies off?”

“I’ll save it up for when I get home. Aggie’s dungeon should be finished by the time we finish this leg of the tour.” Jace flushed, as he was wont to do whenever the subject drifted to anything sexual or romantic. Considering the hard-core kink the guy enjoyed, his embarrassment was kind of strange.

Eric was pleased to find that though the bedroom was smaller, the bathroom was larger. You could actually turn around without dislocating your elbow on the wall. The rest was similar to their old bus, except the colors were different throughout. The dining benches, the sofa, and captain chairs had black leather upholstery instead of cream. The carpet was red instead of beige. Black granite countertops. Shiny, black paneling. Black apartment-sized appliances. The curtains that hid the bunks were red. The bedding? Red.

Framing around the bunks? Black.

Everywhere Eric looked: red and black.

“Um, Sed?” Eric scratched behind his ear. “Did you have this thing custom-made in Sinners’ colors?”

“Yeah. It was Jerry’s idea. Cool, huh?”

This nightmare-inducing color palate had been their manager’s idea? Knowing Jerry, he was probably using it in some advertising campaign. “I guess…” Eric shook his head.

“I like it,” Rebekah said. “It looks classy, yet metal.”

“Exactly!” Sed smiled so broadly that both dimples showed. His goofy grin faded into a scowl when his eyes met Eric’s. “Metal,” he said in a low growl.

Eric’s amusement died when Trey leaned into Rebekah’s personal space again. Her cheeks went pink, and she fidgeted with the bangles on her wrist. Maybe if Eric told her that he found her fidgeting absolutely adorable, she’d teach him another lesson. He could use another one. Or a million or two.

“What in the hell?” Brian said from near the bus entrance. He rubbed a hand over his face as he took in the new bus’s décor.

“Brian!” Trey was down the aisle hugging and pounding Brian on the back before Eric could blink.

Eric caught Rebekah’s bewildered expression before she’d managed to hide it with a friendly smile. She followed Trey to be introduced to Brian. Trey was asking his friend a million questions a minute, leaving Rebekah to stand awkwardly waiting for her opening.

Now that Brian was here, maybe Eric had a chance to catch her attention again. Trey didn’t have time for some chick when his best bud, Brian, was within reach.

“Did you have fun in Aruba?” Trey asked. Brian had finally had time to take a real honeymoon with his wife of five months.

“Of course. I was with Myrna,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Why is our logo painted all huge on the outside of the fucking bus?”

“Because our logo is awesome,” Trey said, initiating a fist bump with Brian.

Brian knocked knuckles with Trey, but still looked less than thrilled about their new bus’s paint job. “We’ll have a convoy of groupies following us everywhere we go.”

“So the roadies can sell them T-shirts when we stop at rest areas.”

Sed shrugged.

“And we can auction off the utilization of Trey’s lips for beer money,” Eric added.

Trey’s eyes widened. “Uh, no. What if some whacko wins?”

“Then I’ll hold you down until she gets her money’s worth,” Eric said.

“At a rest area, I’d be more concerned about some lonely truck driver winning,” Rebekah said.

Eric laughed. “Or a sexually frustrated politician.”

Rebekah burst out laughing. “Or a demented circus clown.”

“Or an escaped convict.”

“Are you two finished?” Trey said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Who’s this?” Brian asked, nodding in Rebekah’s direction.

“Our temporary FOH,” Sed explained.

Brian’s jaw dropped. “Our new front of house is a chick?”

“Thanks for noticing.” Rebekah smiled and extended a hand in his direction.

Brian shook it slowly, pinning her with those intense brown eyes of his. When she flushed and lowered her gaze, he shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. He dropped her hand and then turned his attention to Sed. “How did we end up with her as our FOH? I thought Marcus was going to stand in for Dave.” He glanced from one bandmate to the next, looking entirely perplexed.

“I have a degree in audio engineering,” Rebekah assured him. “I graduated in June.”

“As in June of this year?” Brian’s voice cracked at the end.

Trey grabbed Brian’s arm to gain his attention. “Dave’s little sister,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “He trusts her with his trade secrets. No one else. Just her.”

Rebekah lowered her eyes. “Yeah, he gave me thorough instructions on how to set up and run the entire show.” Eric wasn’t sure why she looked so depressed about that. Dave was a wizard at mixing a live show. The audio engineers of other bands would have paid big money to learn his methods, especially for his seamless mixing of a rhythm and lead guitar in a dueling solo.

“But our set list is changing to accommodate the new single,” Brian reminded them. “Totally uncharted territory for us. Piano intro. Bass solo. A vocal duet.” Which frankly made Eric a bit queasy.

He’d be singing vocals live and, at the same time, maintaining the insanely fast drum track of their newest single, “Sever.”

Rebekah brightened at the mention of a new song, her blue eyes flashing with excitement. “I’ll make it sound awesome!” She thrust a fist in the air. “Just you watch.”

Eric grinned at her enthusiasm. Absolutely adorable. But not metal. Like, at all.

“Dave needs to work out the new mix, not some freshly graduated coed. Ummmm,” Brian said. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Reb,” she supplied.

“Reb, I need to have a little meeting with my band.” He swept a hand at them. “Would you excuse us for a minute?” He glanced pointedly over his shoulder toward the exit.

Rebekah’s bottom lip trembled. For a second, Eric thought she was going to burst into tears, and then she straightened her spine.

She nodded curtly. “Of course.”

She started toward the exit. Eric’s first instinct was to follow her and make sure she was okay. Brian had been too hard on her.

Eric figured it was mostly the shock of knowing his complicated sound would be at the mercy of some amateur. Master Sinclair expected perfection in his live sound and so did Sinners’ fans. But he shouldn’t have said those things in front of Rebekah. She glanced over her shoulder with longing and then grabbed the handrail to start her decent of the steps. Eric couldn’t stand to see someone so full of life look so downtrodden.

“Hey, Reb,” Eric called.

She glanced over her shoulder, her pale eyebrows raised in question.

“Would you do me a huge favor?”

She grinned deviously and his heart skipped a beat.

“Depends.”

“Um, could you move my car into storage? Travis can show you where to park it.”

She smiled and nodded eagerly. Eric tossed her his keys and she caught them. She cradled them against her chest and hopped down the stairs with a spring in her step. Eric grinned. He just prayed his stubborn car would start for her.

“Uh oh,” Sed said in his typical, low baritone growl.

“Houston, we have liftoff,” Trey said. He cupped his hands around his mouth and made CB radio scratch noises. “Head in the clouds confirmed. Roger.”

Eric turned his attention to his bandmates who were staring at him with wide grins.

“What?” Eric asked.

“Someone has a little crush,” Sed said.

“Nah.”

“Dude, you let her drive your car,” Trey said. “You don’t let anyone drive your car.”

“Drive is a relative term in the case of that piece of shit.”

Sed chuckled.

“Fuck you, Sed,” Eric grumbled.

Sed just laughed harder.

Eric shook his head. “That isn’t why I let her drive it. I don’t like her, like her.”

Jace choked on a laugh. Eric sent him a look of warning. No one needed to know he had already locked lips with Rebekah. And oh yeah, he’d liked it, liked it.

“She just looked…” Eric sought the right word to explain why he’d broken his no-one-drives-my-car rule. “…sad.”

“If you do like her, and I’m not saying you do, but if you think you might, do not let her walk all over you like the others,” Trey advised.

“I don’t like her,” he insisted. “Besides, she has a thing for you, Trey.”

“Does she?” Trey grinned. “I guess I’ll have to use that to its greatest advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

Trey’s grin widened. “You’ll see.”

“I didn’t call a band meeting to discuss Eric’s nonexistent love life,” Brian interrupted. “How could you guys just hire her without consulting me?”

“You were unreachable,” Sed said.

“That’s bullshit, Sed. You could have called me. This isn’t some trivial decision you make on the fly. Have you even seen her work?”

Sed crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Well, not exactly, but Dave vouched for her. That makes her okay by me.”

“Of course Dave vouched for her. She’s his sister.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Sed asked.

“Find someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. How about that?”

“I think we should give her a chance before we fire her,” Jace said.

Everyone hesitated, still not used to Jace speaking his opinion.

It wasn’t that they didn’t respect it. They just didn’t expect him to voice it so readily. Jace’s woman had somehow managed to break through the impenetrable wall he’d hidden behind since he’d become a member of the band. Aggie should consider a job in top secret military weapons development or something. If she could break through Jace’s defenses, she could break through anything.

“I agree,” Eric said. “I think Reb will do fine. Dave wouldn’t throw her off a cliff without a safety harness.”

“Does Marcus know about this?” Brian asked.

Shit. Wow, look at that new carpet. Very nice. Eric noticed the black flecks in the red for the first time as he stared at it to avoid Brian’s accusatory glare.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Brian sighed. “You know Marcus wants the FOH position. As monitor engineer, he has seniority.”

“I’d agree, except Dave’s coming back,” Sed said. “We’re not giving Dave’s job to Marcus. We owe Dave that. This is just temporary, until he gets back.”

Brian rubbed a hand over his face. “You know I hope you’re right, man, but let’s face facts. Dave’s paralyzed. How likely is it for him to ever return?”

“He can move now,” Jace said. “We saw him a few days ago. He was moving. Wasn’t he, guys?”

Trey nodded slightly. “Yeah. A little.” Trey stared down at his hands and flexed them into tight fists before lifting his head to look at Brian. “We’ve got to give him more time to recover before we do anything hasty.”

“So we’re going to give Rebekah a chance then?” Eric prompted.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Brian said.

“I have a bad feeling about your face, but we still let you hang around,” Eric said.

Brian crossed his arms over his chest, and after a long tense moment, nodded. “Fine. We’ll give her chance. I just hope I won’t be saying, ‘I told you so’ in three days.”

Eric grinned. “Great, I’ll go tell her.”

“Nope, I’m going to tell her,” Trey said and sprinted down the steps.

Eric dashed after him.