Page 19 of Follow the Rhythm
I wanted to argue, but I also didn’t want to end up bonded to an Omega who not only said she never wanted a pack, but whose contempt for me was pretty palpable. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to bond with a virtual stranger, either. I had a lot more I wanted to accomplish before I considered shackling myself to someone else, no matter how enticing they smelled.
“Well, that is a shame because we are very good at sex,” I said nonchalantly, pushing off the counter, and clenching my hands into fists to keep myself from reaching for her.
Jess followed me to the door. “You meanIam very good at sex. You’re… okay.”
I laughed despite myself as I stepped back out into the hallway. “Maybe I can come for your next heat?” I suggested in as offhand a way as I could manage.
“Doubt it,” Jess said with a venomous smile and slammed the door in my face.
It was a good thing I didn’t care about her at all, or that might have hurt my feelings just a little.
Chapter 5 - Kieran
“Stop,” Ellis yelled, cutting off the chord he was playing abruptly and glaring at Grace. I suppressed a groan. “You’ve added in weird syncopation there.”
Grace took a deep breath. “It’s not weird. It fits perfectly with the bassline. Kieran and I worked it out yesterday, which you would know if you’dbeen here.”
It was the fifth interruption by Ellis to call out Grace’s playing. Tempers were fraying.
“Are you not capable of playing the songs as they’re written?” Ellis growled from between clenched teeth.
“You mean this?” Grace reached behind her for the worn-out stack of papers I recognized as Michael’s old tabs, and slammed them down on her snare. I tried not to wince. I knew they were a fucking mess of Michael’s crossed-out ideas and failed experiments. Grace had done her best. “Why don’t you come over and tell me exactly where I’m fucking up?”
“Gladly,” Ellis snarled.
“Stop,” I said, stepping between them. “Take a breath, both of you.”
Grace opened her mouth to retort, then caught my eye. “I’m going to get some air.”
I waited until she stormed out of the rehearsal space - a stage in a warehouse near the label office - before turning on him. He was pacing, as always.
“What the fuck is your problem, mate?” I asked.
“Her! She’s a fucking amateur, botching all the songs.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She’s changing things,” he said petulantly.
“She’s not a robot. You can’t expect her to play the songs just like him.”
Ellis glared at me. “They’re his songs. Our songs.”
“Exactly. Which is why I didn’t even want to do this whole tour. But now that we’re here, you can’t take your shit out on her,” I said.
The tour already felt like purgatory, and it hadn’t even started. When we’d signed the four-album deal with Echelon, it had seemed like a no-brainer. Johnny had certainly made it seem that way.
But no one is ever really prepared for tragedy, and capitalism only waits so long before demanding more.
And now, here we were, touring one last time to “fulfill our contractual obligations” and keep Echelon from releasing the last album. I’d wanted to buy out the option instead, but I couldn’t afford it without Ellis’s help, and he was all too willing to dance to Karen Carlson’s tune.
“It doesn’t bother you? At all?” He stopped pacing for a moment to stare at me with those unsettling eyes. In happier times, I used to take the piss out of him for looking more like a husky than a human.
“It’s better if she plays them different. She’s got her own style. She’s good,” I said.
Ellis sighed and started pacing again. “This is harder than I thought it was going to be.”
I nodded. Being in a rehearsal space without Michael was strange and lonely. I kept expecting him to walk in and apologize for being late. I shoved that feeling down before the grief could surface.
