Always Read online

  “Right. You met him?”

  Justine gave up trying to play it cool, since there was no one in the store to witness her losing her shit. “Yes! It was… oh my God, Emily, he was amazing!”

  “Amazing. Really.”

  “Shut up. You just don’t get him.”

  “And you do?”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?” Justine snapped.

  “Zipping my lips,” Emily said. “Proceed. With lots of details, please.”

  “So he came to see our show on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Your show?”

  “Well, no, not exactly. He came to see Primal, this shitty band we opened for. And he didn’t come to see Primal, Ash did. He’s friends with the lead singer, Mick, which I don’t get at all, because Mick is so—”

  “Wait. You met Ash Thoren, too?”

  Justine sighed. Even Emily, the fine arts painter who didn’t own a TV, knew who Ash Thoren was. He was hard to miss. “Yes.”

  “Is he—?”

  “Yes, he’s tall and blond and hot and all the stuff you see online. Whatever. Emily, pay attention. He brought Dillon with him!”

  “Right, right. Okay, so you finally met this Dillon guy. And then what?”

  “And… he was amazing! So smart and interesting and Emily, he liked me! He saw me sing and he said I was the best thing in the band and—“

  “I’ve been telling you you’re the best thing in your band for two years.”

  “Yeah, but this is Dillon Pierce.”

  “And no one knows who he is except you. Figures you’d go all obsessive about some random, anonymous guy in a band and completely ignore Ash Thoren. Even I’m hot for Ash Thoren and I don’t do golden rock gods.”

  “Plenty of people know who Dillon is. He’s a genius.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “He is. And guess what?”

  “Do I want to hear this? Did you keep your clothes on? Please tell me you kept your clothes on.”

  “Ughhh, Emily. Of course I did. My clothes were pretty tiny to start with, but they all stayed on. All we did was talk.”

  Emily snorted in laughter.

  “I’m serious! We talked. He asked me to come see his show tomorrow and then come back stage afterward.”

  “Justine…” Emily sighed. “Seriously? Backstage passes like some sad little groupie? Don’t be that girl.”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. We talked about music all night. My band, his latest album… music. That’s all.” Justine bit her lip to avoid spilling the beans about the kiss, the one she felt down to her feet and all through her hair. The one she could still feel.

  “Still, he’s a rocker. They’re all the same.”

  “Em—“

  “Were there girls there?”

  Justine was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she bit out between clenched teeth.

  “Did he leave with them?”

  “Well, they left with the band. And he went with them.”

  “Then one of them probably gave him a blow job that night.”

  “Emily—“

  “Juss, you are so smart. You know how to handle these rock guys, you always have. I just don’t want to see you romanticize this guy and lose your head over him. Because you know it won’t go anywhere.”

  “He liked me. It wasn’t about sex.” What Justine didn’t say was that it wasn’t just about sex, because sex had definitely been in the mix. There was the music connection, but there was also that other connection, the one fueling the brief, incendiary kiss at midnight. She knew she wasn’t the only one who felt it.

  “Be careful. It sounds like you’re in way too deep already with this guy.”

  “I just met him.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve had a crush on him for ages.”

  “You can’t have a crush on someone you don’t know.”

  “Sure you can. Anyway, maybe you didn’t have a crush on him, but you certainly had a crush on his brain. Now it sounds like you might be sold on the rest of him, too.”

  Justine ran her thumbnail along the groove between the glass top and the metal edge of the counter, saying nothing. There was nothing to say, really, because all of it was true. Emily always told her the truth, even when she didn’t want to hear it. The truth was she did have a crush on Dillon’s brain. She’d listened to the last Outlaw Rovers record obsessively, absorbing every lyric, every guitar lick, every nuance of the production, feeling inexplicably connected to the vision behind the music. Now she had met him in the flesh, and she was feeling just as connected to the man as she was to his music. It was definitely dangerous territory.

  “I won’t deny he’s cute.”

  “Cute?”

  “Gorgeous. Hot.”

  Emily blew out her breath. “Justine.”

  “But… I’m a big girl. I can handle myself just fine. I’m going to see the show and then we’ll hang out. He’s so talented and smart, Em. He said stuff about music that hit home with me. That’s all I’m going for.”

  Liar, she whispered to herself.

  “If you say so. Just call me, and not in a week. I want to hear all about your new musical guru.”

  “’Kay. Love you, babe.”

  “Love you, too. And call mom. She was whining.”

  Justine laughed. “Will do.”

  As she ended the call, she wondered just how she’d manage to be as tough and professional as she just convinced Emily she was.

  She was late, of course. Traffic out of Hollywood was brutal and she had to park in the lot farthest from The Greek. By the time she got to the ticket window, the opening act was on. Forcing a nonchalance she didn’t feel, she gave her name to the man at the Will Call window. He turned away to consult a list on a clipboard and Justine gripped the counter until her knuckles turned white.

  There was every chance he’d forgotten to put her on the list. Maybe Dillon made the same offer every night to every girl in every club. She hadn’t felt like just any girl, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t. She was braced for the worst and subsequently felt nearly weak with relief when the ticket agent turned back and slid a ticket and a backstage pass under the glass. He pointed at the laminated map of the theater to show her where to go after the show before she turned away, rushing towards the entrance.

  Because of her late arrival, she was stuck near the back, miles away from the stage. It was a great venue, though and the audience was on fire, so amped up and ready. The opening act had just finished and the crowd was in a state of humming anticipation. Every crew member who came out on stage to adjust equipment was greeted with shouts and applause. Justine wondered what it must feel like, all these people who’d come just to see you, who knew your songs and loved your performance. What would that love feel like from the stage? She wondered if she’d ever know. She couldn’t imagine this kind of crowd excitement for a Failsafe show.

  When the lights went out and a low, rumbling drum line kicked in, the audience went crazy. The rhythm filled the darkness, until each molecule of air felt like it was vibrating. She could feel the pulse along the tiny hairs on her arms and in the soles of her feet. A long, high guitar note wailed into the darkness and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Dillon.

  The lights exploded around the stage in a flash of blinding white, illuminating the band, Ash at center stage. All around Justine, the crowd went crazy. Dillon was to Ash’s right, where he always stood, head down, eyes on his guitar.

  They sounded great. As they settled into the song, the harmonies were tight, the beat energetic, and Ash owned the crowd. The same charisma that made him the center of attention in the bar on New Year’s Eve made him impossible to look away from on stage. Plenty of people had stage presence, but few could back it up with Ash’s astounding vocal talents. He was a throwback to an earlier era, when rock stars knew how to be rock stars. Onstage, he channeled Jim Morrison, Marc Bolan, and Robert Plant, oozing sex and power, with a dash of Freddie Mercury’s audacity and flash thrown in. Ash was no em
o boy, strumming his acoustic and singing sensitive songs about longing and love. He growled, he shrieked, he stalked and strutted. During the charged hour of his performance, he was a god, and the audience worshipped.

  It was easy to see how Dillon so often faded into the background in Outlaw Rovers. With Ash commanding the stage, most people looked no further. But Justine wasn’t most people and after she’d recovered from the initial impact of Ash’s performance, her attention shifted to Dillon and stayed there for the rest of the show.

  When he launched into the opening chords of Soul of Rust, her favorite off the new album, all the people and distance between her and the stage seemed to melt away. It felt like the song was just hers, speaking to her in that intimate way it did every time she listened to it. And that was Dillon. His lyrics, his music, his soul.

  For nearly an hour she stood transfixed, not laughing or dancing, barely even moving. She was glad she’d come alone tonight. There was no one between her and this music.

  After the show, she pushed through the edges of the crowd, heading against the flow of people streaming toward the exit. Next to the steel door with the unassuming “Stage Door” sign taped to it, a monstrously large man was perched on a too-small wooden stool, arms crossed in a preemptive refusal of entrance to anyone who might approach. A smile and a wave of her backstage pass got her a disinterested once-over and he shifted just enough to open the door for her. With a murmured “thanks” she slipped inside.

  The hallway was packed with people. Stagehand types with credentials on lanyards around their necks rushed back and forth while assorted visitors and hangers-on leaned against the walls, sipping beers, chatting and laughing. Nobody looked in her direction. The hallway extended a good thirty feet, with several rooms opening off it and another hallway branching off to the right at the end. She had no idea where to find Dillon in the tangle of rooms and people. Without a better plan, she pretended she knew exactly what she was doing and headed down the hallway, looking surreptitiously to either side for any glimpse of him.

  She caught a glimpse of Rocky, hard to miss with all the ink and metal, leaning against the wall, talking to some girl. She raised a hand and smiled, wondering if he’d remember their brief meeting at all. He did, smiling in the same disarming, friendly way he had at the bar.

  “Hey,” he called out. “It’s Justine, right?”

  “Yeah, Justine. And you’re Rocky.”

  “Got me,” he said with another smile. “And this is…” He looked at the girl next to him, his expression going blank.

  She blinked at him. Her mascara had smudged under her eyes and her mouth was slightly slack. She was wasted, maybe that’s why she didn’t take offense when Rocky forgot her name.

  “Stephanie,” she said.

  “Right, this is Stephanie.”

  Justine forced a smile, ignoring the faintly hostile stare the girl sent back. She was used to territorial backstage girls. It didn’t bother her because they always failed to realize there was no competition. Justine might have been a girl hanging out backstage, but she was no groupie. She would never be one, and she had little respect for the fame-whoring girls who would do literally anything to ingratiate themselves with a bunch of rockers who usually couldn’t tell one from another.

  She turned back to Rocky. “Hey, have you seen Dillon?” she asked, as casually as she could manage. “He asked me to come back and meet him.”

  Rocky’s friendly smile slipped slightly and he glanced away. “Um, he’s around here somewhere.”

  “Well, where’s the green room? I’ll start there.”

  “It’s at the end of the hall, but I don’t think he’s in there. I saw him with Ash a little while ago.”

  “Um, okay. I guess I’ll keep an eye out for him then,” Justine said, knowing Rocky was deflecting, but not clear why. Maybe he thought she was bullshitting about Dillon inviting her and thought she was another desperate fangirl. “It was nice seeing you again.”

  “You too,” Rocky said, now sounding sincere and looking straight at her. “And I didn’t get a chance to tell you the other night, but you freaking killed it at your show.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Seriously. Your voice, it’s epic.”

  Now Justine’s smile was genuine. “Thank you. I’m glad you guys had a good time. I guess I’ll see you?”

  “Yeah, I hope so. See you around.”

  She left him with the openly-glaring Stephanie and kept moving down the hall. A large room opened off to the right that appeared to be the green room. Although it was full of people laughing and drinking, none of them were Dillon. Rounding the corner at the end of the hall, she found herself at the dressing rooms. The first door had Rocky and JD’s name taped to it and further down, she spotted one labeled for Ash and Dillon. That door was closed and a twenty-something hipster on his phone seemed to be standing guard.

  “You need something?” he asked when Justine stopped at the door.

  “Yeah, I’m here to see Dillon. He asked me to come back.” She lifted her backstage pass as proof.

  “Hang on,” he said into his phone before turning back to her. “I think there’s two in there already. You can go in if you want, but you might have to wait.”

  “Wait for what?” she asked as he reached in front of her to open the door.

  The first thing she saw as the door swung open was Ash, his long, lithe body sprawled in an armchair, his head tipped back, and a girl’s head in his lap, bobbing energetically up and down. Justine flushed with embarrassment and was about to take a step back when the door opened wider, revealing Dillon leaning against the far wall, eyes closed, another girl plastered up against him. He held a beer in one hand and the other rested loosely on her hip. She was kissing his neck and her hand was on his thigh. She looked seconds away from dropping to her knees to do for him what her friend was already doing for Ash.

  “Just hang in the corner or something,” the guy at the door said, waving her in.

  “That’s okay,” Justine snapped. “I think I’m in the wrong place.”

  As soon as she spoke, Dillon’s eyes opened and his head whipped up. When he registered Justine, standing still as stone in the doorway, he pushed the girl back. She stumbled and laughed.

  “Justine—” he started, but she held up a hand to cut him off.

  “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  Now Ash had opened his eyes. “Hey, it’s you! Come on in!” he slurred. The girl working him over never paused. Justine felt sick.

  “Not my kind of party,” she muttered, then turned away from the scene and marched back down the hall the way she’d come.

  She knew—she knew—what these guys were like. They were all the same. They wanted one thing and girls were just a means to that end. She knew it, but there was still a lead weight of disappointment settling in her chest. Her face was flushed with anger and embarrassment. She felt stupid for thinking she might have been anything more than another hot girl backstage or that Dillon Pierce, despite his talent, was any different than the others.

  As she pushed past the people crowding the hall, she thought she heard Rocky call out to her, but she didn’t look to see. She didn’t stop until she was through the stage door, down the long sidewalk, and through the steel gate leading to the front parking lot. She took a few unsteady steps and then remembered her car was parked in one of the remote lots, a good half mile away. Closing her eyes and pressing her palms to her face, she tried to calm down and let go of her anger. It didn’t work

  The steel gate clanged behind her. “Justine, wait.”

  Justine spun around to face Dillon. He was breathing hard from sprinting after her.

  “That is not what I came here for!” She stabbed a finger towards the backstage entrance. “I’m not some fucking groupie who’s happy to wait in line just to give you a blow job!”

  He held up both hands as he moved closer. “I know that. I know you’re not. And that’s not what I wanted from you when I
asked you here.”

  “Right. I forgot. You wanted to talk about music.”

  “Yes, I did.” He stepped closer, into the pool of light from the streetlight behind her. His eyes were wide, his pupils tiny pinpricks, and he was still breathing hard, harder than he should have been from just chasing after her.

  He’s lit, Justine thought miserably. Could the night become any more of a cliché?

  “So where were we going to fit in the rock and roll? Before the sex but after the drugs?”

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I was hanging out with Ash after the show and things got a little crazy. You know how it is.”

  She laughed, short and humorless. “Yeah, I know how it is.”

  “Listen, I still want to hang out with you.”

  “I’m not waiting around until the coke wears off and the girls go home—”

  “Not tonight,” he cut her off. “It’s too crazy back there and I meant it when I said I want to talk to you. I do. But not here, like this.”

  Justine looked down at her feet while she thought about it. She was a smart girl and the smart thing to do would be to turn around and go home. But she also knew she and Dillon had something. Music, for sure. Maybe something else, too. It was the “something else” that made her nervous. She was attracted to him, she couldn’t lie to herself about it. But she didn’t want him like this, like that girl in his dressing room had him, and not if it wasn’t going to matter to him.

  When she raised her head to look at him again, he was still standing there, waiting patiently. She had to give him credit for that much. He’d spent half an hour chatting to her in a bar one night. He didn’t necessarily owe her anything. He seemed genuine, in his way. So when he said he wanted to talk to her and not just sleep with her, she wanted to believe him, in spite of her better instincts.

  “Alright,” she sighed, already wondering if she was making a huge mistake. She could almost hear Emily’s voice in her head.

  “Come over to my place tomorrow? We’ll hang out, listen to music—”

  “Dillon, look. I want to, I do. But I’m not…” She waved a hand back over his shoulder to indicate the back stage party they’d left behind. “Let’s be clear. I have no interest in becoming that for you.”