Rock Reclaimed (Rock Revenge Trilogy 2)

A tech handed me my guitar and I looped it on again as I launched into the song, letting out a laugh when a cluster of women near the front tried to sing with me and failed miserably. I cupped my ear and they upped their vocals, making up for their lack of accuracy with enthusiasm. Without thinking, I sidestepped into the guitarist’s sphere—Tony? Ronnie? I wasn’t sure—and we went back to back.

I froze. I didn’t do this shit. But he was jamming hard enough that I found my way and the fans seemed to eat up every bit of our exchange. Me leaning in, still strumming the rhythm section, him leaning back on lead. Reversing and then switching it up and getting in each other’s face. Just laughing and having a goddamn good time.

It wasn’t even about selling a sexed-up image so I could get a song on the radio anymore. This was just having fun.

Something I’d been in short supply of for far too long.

We rolled right into the final one of the night, a cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It was an homage to my brother’s band, as they’d done the song more than a few times. Okay, not so much an homage. Maybe more like a call out. A challenge.

I might not be at your lofty height, but I can still make the girls scream. I can still hit all those high notes you back away from.

A low blow, perhaps. I wasn’t above them, obviously. I was the nobody trying to get the most popular kid to notice me—for good reasons or bad.

That I had no choice if I wanted to keep Jerry off my back was incidental. The method I’d chosen to open that vein again was pure me.

Pure Ian Kagan asshole gene coming through.

Knowing I’d had to make a move would be cold comfort later on tonight, but right now? Right now, it felt fucking amazing to let my voice soar and to think of Simon’s reaction when he found out.

Because he would find out.

All fun came with a price. And my bill would come due soon.

At the end of the set, once the goodbyes were said and the bows were over, we jogged off the stage with the echo of the crowd’s excitement thrumming all around us. I grinned and slapped hands with the other guys, acknowledging—possibly for the first time—that I hadn’t been alone out there. They’d been right with me, helping to make the songs better than I could’ve done on my own.

“Thanks, Ronnie,” I said to the lead guitarist. “You were amazing.”

His grin slid away. “My name is Anthony, fucker.”

I rubbed the cross at my throat as he stalked away, shoving away the other guys who tried to talk to him, shooting me glares of death all the while.

Yeah, looked like I’d be taking a bottle to go.

Instead of going back to the dressing room, I stopped by the refreshment table and snagged a bottle from the back, tucking it in a paper bag that had contained a bundle of leaflets like a proper wino. I grabbed my knapsack and collected my guitar and split without waiting to see if Sabrina was lurking around some corner with her after-show assessment.

I’d worry about what she thought after I woke up from my bender.

Judging from the difficulty I had sneaking out the side exit into the waiting car, the night had been a smashing success. Crying, screaming women pressed their hands—and tits—against the car windows, begging me for innumerable things even I didn’t have the wherewithal to give them. At least not the entire group in one night.

I was only one man.

But I smiled and stuck my arm out the window to sign whatever was presented to me. Arms, posters, napkins. Cleavage. I signed that too. What the hell? I was halfway to drunk. And when a pretty redhead with twin pigtails handed me a joint through the window, I took that as well.

She didn’t like it when the driver picked that moment to roll away, but I did. It’d been a while since I’d smoked and my nerves were jangling like a junkie’s.

“So, you just take whatever’s handed to you and toke up?”

I shrugged. “Don’t appreciate the judgmental tone, mate. I’m paying you just to drive.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re a rockstar, all right.” The driver raised the partition between the front and back.

Handy, since my phone went off. Without looking, I knew who it was.

Time to face the music…again.

“Jerry. Your timing is shit, mate.” The alcohol had made me sloppy. And stupid.

“Oh, is it? So sorry to hear it. Not like you have actual duties to attend to instead of shaking your bum for a bunch of sluts.”