Rock Hardest (Bad Boy Bandmates & Babies)

I hadn’t needed to go home and change after work. I was already dressed fine enough for the show. DreamTime didn’t have a dress-code, per se. My skintight jeans, band shirt and leather jacket had been given a pass from my first day working there. If anything, they were considered cool.

Within seconds of sitting down at the bar, I threw my light jacket on the back of the chair. Sometimes Seattle could get cool and rainy at night. So, I was wearing the most clothes I’d worn in weeks, although I still had my short shorts on.

I didn’t really like showing myself off. It was just when it got too hot, I didn’t really notice or care.

“What can I get ya?” the barkeep asked.

“Guinness, in a bottle.”

So cliché, but I genuinely Guinness.

Not from drinking it at my father’s knee (a bad stereotype about the Irish), but from when I began to enjoy drinking as an adult.

The fact that I was also Irish was just a pure coincidence when it came to my choice in beer. But it was one that someone always pointed out to me whenever I went out for drinks. Usually, that observation was followed by an approximation of an Irish accent so bad it might be considered a hate crime.

I’d never even been to Ireland. I could get a passport because of my dad, but that was my only genuine connection. My mom was American and so was I, for all anyone knew or cared. I had fire-red hair and an elfin figure, and I topped out at five-two in high heels, notwithstanding.

I opened my sketchpad back up and continued to draw while waiting for Jake. Pausing now and then to look out the window and see if he was heading in, I could see the Space Needle out the window, far off.

It wasn’t like Jake to be late, but there was a first time for everything. I checked my phone again, assuming the time must have been wrong. The time gods were clearly lying, and Jake was an innocent victim of their cruel games. I tried to convince myself of that, but it didn’t work.

Usually, I could believe fifty impossible things before breakfast. Whimsey was my bread and butter, working at DreamTime. Flights of fancy were never too far beyond me. But Jake being late? It just seemed all too human.

Nursing my bottle of Guinness (I’m not an animal), I waited, mostly trying to decide if I should go to the show without Jake or not. There were likely to be tickets at the door.

I saw three guys who looked like they were in a band walking up to the bar and took another swig. Then I found out they were Loki’s Laugh, when several people around me started murmuring it to each other.

I guessed they had decided to grab a drink before the concert, same as I had. Jake was going to be so mad that he was late and missed this.

When I saw the lead guitarist, I had to do a double take. My eyes focused on him as if he was a plate of food and I had been starving for years.

As he sat down on a bar stool, there was an actual record-scratch noise in my head. And there was nothing in my mind except for the smolder of his gaze.

He was older than me, maybe late twenties. His chocolate brown eyes seemed hardened with experience, as if he’d seen things no one ever should, especially not so young.

The scar on his face, just under his eye, like a tear, spoke silent volumes, marking the border between before and after.

I chugged some Guinness, my throat suddenly dry. The feeling was palpable, crackling like electricity in the space between us. It was a few feet in physical terms, but it seemed much closer than that, the rest of the world seeming to fall away.

It was strange, and a little scary, but it also felt exactly right. It was like we were being drawn together.

And it was like we had a magical connection. If there was anyone who knew about that from fairytales, it was me. Usually, they involved cravat-wearing dragons, and princesses playing volleyball, but it still counted.

It also didn’t mean it wasn’t real. I wasn’t sure if I believed in fairytales, or in love at first sight, for that matter, but I believed in my own five senses and what they were telling me.

There was a stirring down below, like none I’d felt before.

I may have been a virgin, but I had had all the usual desires. My vibrator had been my trustworthy companion since sophomore year of high school, when a friend and I had figured out how to order them discreetly online.

Suddenly, hungrily, I wondered what it would be like, losing my virginity to this hot guitarist and member of Loki’s Laugh.