Trouble's Brewing (Stirring Up Trouble Trilogy 2)

I marched right up to him and poked him in his chest with my finger. Looking up the three inches into his eyes, I snarled, “You promised me!”

“No,” Ian said, holding up one hand and tucking his guitar under the other arm to protect it. “I didn’t promise you the spot. I just said that we probably wouldn’t find anyone else.”

I finally understood the appeal of guitar smashing. “You said I could jam with you guys today!”

“Listen, Jen.” He kept his hand up in what was supposed to be a calming gesture. “I talked it over with the other guys, and they think having a chick in our band will ruin our image. The Armpit Hostages is all about guys.”

I rolled my eyes. He’d been enamored with that crappy name since the beginning. “Armpits aren’t hot.” You idiot! I’d truly hit rock bottom begging for a spot in a band with such a repugnant name. “They’re stinky and smelly. And Mom warned you about calling girls chicks.”

“Not to mention the fact that you’d be totally unreliable, Jen.” He used the rational voice I hated. “We can’t have our drummer popping off in the middle of a show.”

How dare he! “It’s not fair to use that against me, Ian. You know it’s not my fault. And yesterday, you were prepared to take that chance.” I could fake nausea and run from the stage. I wouldn’t actually just disappear.

He shrugged. “That was before we found Leo.”

“Leo?” I’d never met anybody named Leo before. It wasn’t something your mother chose, unless she was in love with Leo Dicaprio. Leo was a name you chose to call yourself if you wanted to be cool. He was probably Leonard. Leonard was not cool.

“Dylan found him. He’s great.”

I crossed my arms over my chest as I looked over at the guy. Dylan and Derek were obviously distracting him so Ian could run interference with me. Leo had a broader, more mature frame than the other guys. From the back, I’d have guessed he was older. He turned as if feeling my gaze.

Oh, yeah. He looked good from the front too. Masculine was the word that came to mind. Dangerous. The slight shadow on his jaw indicated that unlike my brother, Leo had to shave every day. He wasn’t high school hot. He was college hot. My pulse jumped despite my dislike for the guy.

I took a step in his direction, determined to get to the bottom of this. How had he shown up out of the blue at just the right time to steal my drummer gig?

His eyes met mine and I froze in mid step. His blue eyes held a flash of green glow in their depths. Just like the glow in my green eyes.

Leo wasn’t just another drummer. He was another genie.

My first thought was to tell my brother and have him toss Leo out on his rear end. Ian couldn’t see the telltale glow in Leo’s eyes because Ian wasn’t a genie. Despite being a jerk about the Armpit Hostages, Ian would do anything to protect me. But before I could make a move, Leo walked over to me. He held out his hand to shake mine as if being all polite.

I took his hand and heat shot through me. Was that a jolt of genie power? I probably shouldn’t have touched him. Hopefully our contact hadn’t set off any alarms at the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E. headquarters. I knew next to nothing about safeguards against genie fraternization.

In a disturbingly deep voice, he murmured, “Give me a chance. Meet me in the backyard after practice. I’ll explain everything.” Then he looked me straight in the eyes and the glow expanded as he said, “It’s life or death.”

I knew I was being a fool to let him distract me, but somehow I couldn’t help it. This guy hadn't risked going to the house of a female genie just to play alternative rock in my brother's band. I couldn't imagine what had brought him here, and I was dying to know. “One chance,” I answered noting that he was even taller than Ian. Then I turned on my heel and left the garage, the snide remarks of Dylan and Austin reaching my ears as I left. Too bad my running shoes made stomping out an impossibility.

Yeah, he’d gotten rid of me all right. I suddenly had much bigger problems than my egotistical brother dicking me over with his band.

If the Oversight Committee caught wind of a male genie coming within one-hundred yards of me, one or both of us could be zapped to the other realm for all eternity. Which was why I’d never seen a male genie.

The Oversight Committee was the entire justice system rolled into one. They were the police, the judges, and the jury. Mom said their workload had increased twenty-fold in the last year.

My brothers weren’t genies. God help us if they had those kind of powers. Neither one of them had ever managed to follow the rules. In my family, the genies ran in the female line and skipped a generation. My grandmother was a genie, and my mother wasn’t. Mom worked for the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E. though, as well as being my mentor. She’d been Grandma’s assistant and quickly worked her way up.

In a family like Leo’s, genies were male. They didn’t skip a generation either. Traditionally, male genies had been volatile, dangerous, and explosive. There was a lot of infighting. A teenage guy with a genie’s powers rebelling against his powerful genie father…Well, you could see how problems arose.

Female genies were supposedly moody and volatile as well. Since I had the red hair and the temper to go with my family’s Scots-Irish descent, I was watched closely. The Oversight Committee was convinced that I was going to be trouble due to my mixed heritage.

If anyone found out that Leo was here, I’d be so screwed. Female and male genies were forbidden from interacting. Too much power in one place, and if they bred, well, no one knew what the result would be.

Mom said male genies exuded sexuality and preyed on that weakness in females. I’d thought she was exaggerating, but now I was not so sure. A raw energy had surrounded the guy in the garage.

Life or death, he’d said. I didn’t necessarily believe it, but I couldn’t be sure. Mom kept a lot from me. Something could be going on that I’d want to know about. Until now, I’d only had Mom and Grandma. The part of me that was frustrated with being protected all the time couldn’t send Leo away without finding out what he wanted to say.

I checked the kitchen clock as I opened the fridge to pull out some orange juice. It was already 5:30, and Mom wouldn’t let them practice past 7:00. I poured a big glass and took a gulp. I could work off some tension on my drums. Luckily they were still in the game room. I hadn’t dragged them out to the garage yet. I’d thought I could talk the guys into helping me carry them, but no point now. Apparently I couldn’t get them to take me seriously at all.

I climbed the stairs to the bonus room over the garage. With a grin, I thought about the guys down below trying to play their music while my drum beats permeated into the space. Their practice was not going to go well.

I’d worked up a sweat by the time the clock on the digital receiver read 7:00. I definitely felt much more mellow. Setting my drumsticks on the table, I took another sip of orange juice.

Well, Leo. Let’s see what you have to say.

I took the stairs two at a time and rushed out the front door. After glancing around to see that the guys were already leaving, I ignored them and walked around the other side of the house to the backyard.

Through the dim landscaping lighting, I saw Leo sitting in our tree house, his legs dangling over the side. He looked much bigger than he had in the garage.

“Make yourself right at home, why don’t you?” I snapped.

He shrugged. “It looked like a good place to talk.”

Ian and I had begged for that tree house for years. Maybe I hadn’t been up there lately but I didn’t like this intrusion. I climbed the rungs of the ladder and crawled through the hatch. Standing in front of this rare creature with arms crossed, I said, “What do you think you’re doing? Why did you show up here? At my house?”

He nodded toward the house. “Your mother isn’t home yet, is she?”

“Any minute now. Why? What do you know about my mother?”

“I know she works for the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E., and I know she’d recognize me for what I am.”

I tapped my foot impatiently. “What are you doing here? What do you want with my mother?”

“Not your mother. You. My dad’s in trouble, and I need your help.” His deep voice made my brother’s seem prepubescent.

“I don’t even know your dad. How could I possibly help?” Not that I wanted to.

“Would you sit down, please? And listen?”

With a grunt, I folded my legs and sat on the wooden slats. “I’m listening.” The cold from the wood immediately permeated my jeans and made me wish I’d grabbed a coat.

Better prepared in his leather jacket, Leo turned to face me. “My father is on trial with the Oversight Committee. In two weeks, he’ll be banished to the other realm for crimes he didn’t commit.”

Banishment to the other realm was irreversible. Leo would never be able to communicate with his father again. From what I knew about the trials, his father didn’t have much chance of being found not guilty. My dad could rant for weeks about the lack of civil rights for genies. “What crimes?”

“The last five people my father granted wishes to have all had their lottery tickets cloned. Half the winnings went to someone else.”

I nodded. When people asked for a million bucks, or more frequently, a billion, we delivered winning lottery tickets to them. My mother’s office handled most of the deliveries. In the past we’d used a lot of inheritances or forgotten stock certificates, but with a lottery in every state, we’d started going with the lottery angle.