Page 49 of Dirty Rock

“I thought you said this place was private?”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t get attention I don’t want you to have. Do as you’re told, Rhett.”

Before I could argue, she’d reached for her door handle and stepped out of her car. She walked around to the front of it and gestured for me to join her with a simple tilt of her head. I put my cap on and tugged on the peak to make it a comfortable fit. When I went to stand in front of her, adjusting the waistband of my black skinny jeans, Julia looked up at me. She reached to tuck the sides of my hair back—I really did need to get the sides shaved again—and the tender gesture and feel of her nails against my scalp made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

Her eyes roamed down to the grey T-shirt I was wearing before she ran her hands down the sleeves of my denim jacket.

“If you keep touching me like this, you’re going to need to take me somewhere with a bed,” I told her quietly.

“I’m not that easy, Sinatra.”

She took my hand in hers and pulled me along. I couldn’t stop looking at the way our fingers entwined—mine, rough and blunt, while hers were delicate and soft. She felt so precious in my hold, and a wave of protectiveness washed over me. There was also a weird stirring in my lower stomach that had nothing to do with desire or sex. Hand holding was an intimacy I’d never stumbled upon before, and I suddenly didn’t know how the fuck to feel about any of it.

We came to a stop in front of a small, black side door when Julia glanced back at me. “Did you ever have a favourite band growing up?”

“Too many to mention.”

“Don’t laugh when you find out who mine were.” She smiled softly, and it lit up my damn heart. Whoever her favourite band were, they were now mine, too.

She pushed through the door, flashed some ID to a big, beefy security man, and we walked through a plastic barrier that acted as some kind of draft excluder. What we saw on the other side was unimaginable. Bright lights flickered across a huge dance floor in the centre of a high-rise warehouse. Neon pinks, greens, yellows, oranges, and blues took over the entire space. Artificial palm trees had been set up around the place to make it seem like we were in the middle of The Caribbean, and on the far right wall ran a huge stage with the simplest of backdrops—a massive white sheet that had neon graffiti across the middle of it.

PEACE. LOVE. UNITY. DANCE. SOUL. MUSIC.

The words were spread out; each one a different colour, and in front of that big, basic backdrop, was a band. Drums. Guitars. Percussion. And about eight different men each sitting around on stools or standing idly as they waited for their turn to play. In the middle was a man who had to be in his fifties, and he was holding a microphone to his mouth as he sang along to Bob Marley’sWaiting in Vain.

There were no more than a couple of hundred people scattered around the place. I glanced over to one of the bars that had been set up like a cart from a market stall. There were signs above several different ones, offering rum, beer, whiskies… the list was endless.

I must have looked how I was feeling because Julia’s victory laugh forced me to blink and glance down at her with parted lips.

“Pretty special, isn’t it?” she said with eyes of magic.

“What is this place?”

“It’s an escape. The real world doesn’t exist here.” She began to lead me forward again. I was growing fond of being led around by this woman.

“I had no idea you were a fan of reggae.”

“That’s because you don’t know a damn thing about me except for the size of my tits, Rhett.”

“34B?”

She glanced back at me and rolled her eyes. “32C.”

“My favourite,” I sighed dreamily.

A few people nodded to Julia as they passed her by, but they didn’t even glance at me or question who I was. That feeling of invisibility was new after so long of feeling like I had a neon sign over my head.

“Julia… baby!” an older man—definitely in his sixties—cried as we approached a bar. He had pure white hair, a slightly darker beard, and he’d definitely eaten one too many home-cooked meals in recent years. His gut hung over his jeans, but Julia embraced him like he was a long lost relative of hers.

“Geoffrey, hey,” Jules cried.

“Lady, I swear you get prettier every time I see you.” He held her arms out, and she swayed her arse in time to the slow rhythm of the song playing. Geoffrey made her twirl, and she did so with effortless grace before he grabbed both her hands again. “Your pops would be so proud.”

Pops?

“Thanks, G,” she said shyly.

“How is Bobby?”

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