Staged (Exodus End 3)

A guy like him? What kind of guy did she think he was?

“He’s actually pretty cool when he doesn’t drink,” Dare said. “But judging by the size of the party in there, that condition’s not going to last long.”

“I don’t have to drink to have a good time,” Steve said.

“But it helps.” Dare shifted away from the railing and turned to the glass doors that led back to the good time inside. “It was nice talking with you, Roux. If you or any of your bandmates need to vent, I’m told I’m a pretty good listener.”

She beamed. “You’re a real class act, Dare Mills,” she said, toasting him with her half-finished glass of water.

Unlike your friend here remained unspoken, but Steve felt the insinuation clear to his bones.

Dare opened the patio door, and the blare of an old Aerosmith song punctuated his return to the party. Steve would have bet his favorite drum set that the guitarist would seek out his little brother, Trey, within the next few minutes and then leave the party early. Dare was predictable that way. It was not a trait Steve shared with him.

He turned to Roux, who was admiring the city lights of the New York City skyline. “I’ll miss this while we’re in Europe,” she said.

“Not if you’re doing it right,” he said with a laugh. He’d made so many plans with Zach regarding what they’d do at each stop along the tour—hadn’t been much sightseeing in those plans. Steve stared down into his glass of water—was he seriously drinking water just to get in this chick’s pants—his mouth set in a hard line. Technically, it wasn’t her fault that Zach’s band had been kicked off the tour prematurely. That was all on Sam.

“I’m sorry I called you an asshole,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ve been called a lot worse.”

“I’m the only one of my friends who doesn’t drink, so I’m always the designated driver, and drunks are really fucking annoying when you’re sober.”

“Never noticed that.”

“You’re probably one of the drunks, then.”

He chuckled. “True. Is there a reason you don’t drink? Or do you just not like it?”

She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to decide if he was worthy of knowing her secrets. “My father was an alcoholic.”

“I see.” He felt there was a lot more to the story than that, but he didn’t press her. “How did you get into music?”

Her body relaxed slightly. “My foster mother was a music teacher.”

Foster mother? There was definitely more to the alcoholic father story, then.

“So she introduced you to music?” He moved closer to Roux at the railing until their arms touched—a little test of her receptiveness to him—and she produced a little shudder. When she didn’t move away, he knew he wasn’t the only one feeling the attraction between them.

“Not just me,” Roux said. “All of us.”

“All of who?”

“My bandmates. Mama Ramona raised us all. Gave the gift of music to as many of us that would take it.”

“You grew up with your bandmates?”

“For the most part. We’re foster sisters. I didn’t start living with them until I was twelve. Lily—she’s our drummer—was Mama’s first foster daughter. Mama’s had twelve of us in her care at one time or another. I guess that would be thirteen now. I think a new little one moved in a few weeks ago. I’ve lost track now that we moved from Boston.”

Boston? She didn’t have an accent that he could detect.

“You don’t seem bitter about your family situation at all,” he said, watching her face and the genuine love that shone in her eyes as she spoke of Mama Ramona.

“Why would I be bitter? That woman took me in, showed me love, taught me how to believe in my dreams, how to make a future for myself, gave me the gift—and curse . . .” She laughed, the soft sound making him want her even more. “. . . of a dozen sisters. On top of it all, she taught me how to play the piano.”

“So what happened to your real parents?” he asked, genuinely interested.

“It’s not a fun story,” she said, her hand fiddling with something dangling from her bracelet. After a moment, she released what he assumed was a charm of some sort and pressed her wrist out of view behind her back. “Aren’t we supposed to be celebrating tonight?”

“If you don’t want to talk about it—”

She shrugged. “Telling the story doesn’t bother me. It bothers the people I tell.”

“I think I can handle it.” He leaned against the railing, expecting to hear a story of abandonment. As her focus shifted inward, the flash of pain that crossed her face and the unexpected tug at his heart made him wonder if he could handle seeing her hurt.

Three

Roux didn’t want to like Steve. Lust him? She was okay with that. She could appreciate his gorgeous face, the deep and expressive brown eyes, and the lean, muscular body without taking their attraction any farther. But liking him as a person made him all that much harder for her to resist. And she absolutely refused to sleep around with anyone on this tour. This was her job—unbelievable as that still was to her—and business and pleasure should never mix. So maybe she shouldn’t let him see her heart, because if he saw it—damaged as it was—and he accepted it, she knew she wouldn’t be able to walk away from the lust between them. So she’d be perfectly okay with him deciding her past was too fucked up for him to handle. Maybe that was why she was so willing to share the details she usually kept to herself.

Without speaking, Roux tugged the bodice of her dress down to expose the inner curve of her breast. His eyes widened, and he licked his lips, taking an eyeful without apology. She knew the exact moment his gaze found the puckered round scar just to the right of her breastbone, because he stiffened, and his eyes lifted to meet hers.

“Is that . . . ?”

“My father gave me that the night he shot my entire family and then turned the gun on himself.”

“Your father? Your father shot you?”

He lifted his finger toward the scar, the only external reminder of all her other scars. Ones that ran so deep, she’d never forget. But she didn’t want to forget what had happened that night, and she would never forgive the drunk who’d taken everything from her. Steve’s finger hovered an inch from her skin, but he didn’t touch her, not with his flesh. She could feel his soul reaching out to hers, however, as they stared into each other’s eyes.

“He shot my mother first. He always got paranoid when he was drunk, thought she was fooling around on him. I was upstairs in my room, but I could hear her down in the kitchen screaming that she was leaving for real this time and that she was taking the kids with her. He told her that she’d never leave him. He wouldn’t allow her to take his kids from him. When she tried to run upstairs, he shot her in the back.”

“God.”

“I heard his footsteps on the stairs. Panicked, I hid in

my closet. Instead of trying to stop him, I hid. My little sister was running down the hall to my room for protection when he shot her in the face. She was eight.” Roux could have provided more details, but the cruelty of her father’s actions was gruesome enough without sharing the full reality of his crimes.

“Roux, I don’t know what to say.”

She could feel him pulling away from her, shielding himself from the dark corners of her past, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop herself from telling him the rest.

“My baby brother was in his crib. Not quite two years old. He was screaming in terror; the sound of gunfire had woken him. My father silenced him next, and then he came for me. He was as angry as he was insane by the time he grabbed my ankle and dragged me out of the closet. Maybe that’s why he shot me in the chest instead of in the head. I was still conscious when he put the gun in his mouth and finished what he started.” Lost in memories, she could feel the rain of his hot blood over her face followed by the heaviness of his arm across her hips. She didn’t remember what had happened next or how she’d survived. She’d been unconscious when the police arrived.

Steve covered his mouth with one hand and swallowed. Did her story make him sick? Good. Let it fester in him the way it had festered in her until she’d found an outlet for her anguish. She wasn’t sure she would have ever moved on without music in her life. The classical piano she’d been introduced to first had soothed her aching soul. The angry rock she’d later discovered had become an outlet for her rage. The closeness of her bandmates and the pasts that tried to destroy each of them in a different way had finally given her the ability to look to her future instead of being crippled by her past.

Words tumbled from her lips, each delivered to push the rock god before her farther away.

“The bullet meant to end me grazed my heart and lodged in a rib in my back. I still don’t know why I’m alive. The doctors said it was a miracle. The bullet missed the major blood vessels behind my heart by a fraction of an inch.” She showed him her bracelet that had a bullet dangling from it like a charm. The only thing lucky about it was that it hadn’t killed her, but it had given her strength for years. If she could survive being shot point blank in the chest by her own father, she could survive anything. “A truly amazing surgeon took this out. They were afraid the bullet would work free and end me long after the bastard who put it there was cold in his grave, so they risked the surgery.”