One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3) Read online

“No party.” Not exactly a lie, even if he’d had the time of his life on his unexpected joy ride with Mena.

  “Then what’s the deal with you? You’ve been MIA all morning,” Abel said.

  “The big three. Tired. Hungry. Bored.”

  Abel shot out of his chair. “Well, fuck. Sorry that planning our future is distracting you from wanking, you limp dick.”

  He gave Abel a scathing look, secretly pleased he’d been the one to resort to the tactics of a high-schooler. “What issues of great and weighty importance did I miss?”

  Abel paced the cement floor of the meeting space. “Why do I bother? I should just make all the decisions and not give a fuck about the rest of you.”

  “Hey,” said Isaac.

  Oscar’s phone, hidden somewhere on him, played a tone and Abel snapped. “Don’t you look at that.”

  Jesus, Abel was tense. Grip didn’t know why but it was headlock time. He tackled Abel when his back was turned. A low move, who cares, wasn’t like he was after a best and fairest award, he just wanted to work out why everything had gone to shit here so fast.

  With Abel’s head tucked under his arm and the guy bent forward and swinging at him, he said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Abel let go a blistering sequence of swear words and landed a kidney punch, making Grip grunt and release him. Maybe his kidneys had been following along because he did know what was going on. “You’re blocked.”

  “I’m not blocked,” Abel shouted in what was the ideal demonstration that he bloody was.

  “You only ever get like this when you can’t write or when something Jay has done crawls up your arse.”

  “Unless he got Evie pregnant against her will, who cares what Jay’s done,” Isaac said.

  Grip rolled his eyes. He couldn’t imagine Evie doing anything against her will or Jay trying to force her to. But even though Abel and Jay had resolved their differences, the thing Abel hadn’t been able to get past was that Jay was the best songwriter they knew, next to Evie of course.

  “Spit it out, Abel. Nothing we can’t figure out,” he said.

  Abel slumped in a chair. He looked defeated from his battered boots up. “I heard his new single.”

  Ah. That’d be what all of this was about then. “It’s good.” Grip sat beside Abel. It’d shock the hair off him if Jay had written a clunker.

  “It’s golden. It’s a sure hit,” Abel said.

  “And now you’re blocked.”

  “I’m not blocked.”

  “You’re blocked,” said Isaac.

  “Constipated,” said Oscar.

  Abel put both hands to his head and curled in on himself. “I’m not blocked. We had to discuss the studio booking, the new merch, the—”

  “We didn’t have to discuss any of that,” Grip said, not unkindly, but this was all bullshit if he couldn’t get Abel to talk it out.

  “So I’m blocked,” Abel said.

  “You couldn’t have just said that two hours ago,” Oscar griped. He had his phone in his hand, so Grip gave him a don’t even think about it glare and that phone disappeared like money.

  “That’s how blocked I am,” Abel said. “I didn’t even see it. I can’t write. Everything I do write is dross. We don’t have enough material for a new album and we’re on the hook for it with the record company.

  “But we have time,” said Isaac.

  “Not enough,” Abel got up and started pacing again.

  “You always pull it off,” Oscar said.

  Grip slapped a foot on the floor in frustration. “You always sit on your arse and expect him to.”

  “He loves it,” Oscar said.

  Abel tore at his hair, making it stand up all over. “I don’t love it. This, me, melting down, is not love, dipshit.”

  He was wrong though. Abel loved all of this, even panicking like he was now that he couldn’t write a new hit and torturing himself that he’d never measure up to Jay. This was just his version of seasonal affective disorder and his brothers were beyond humoring him, but Grip had his back like always. It was how they worked.

  If only he’d figured out how he and Mena worked.

  The four of them hashed it out, brainstormed some new ideas, wrote some hooks, went to the pub for steak sandwiches and then talked some more and when Abel got a glazed look in his eyes and his mouth lost that pinched look and he stopped listening to them as his brain switched gears—ta-dah, problem solved.

  Wasn’t like they had a new song, but they were hovering over the landing pad of one.

  It was late afternoon when Grip got the chance to look at his phone. Nothing there amongst the icons and logos he wanted to see. He even checked email, because the last time he thought Mena had blown him off that’s where she’d been hanging out. But nothing.

  Mena was busy, that’s all. She was in her work mode. She had deadlines and clients and responsibilities that had nothing to do with organizing their next mutual orgasm.

  He hit the gym and after a solid workout and some aggressive lifting, still nothing from her. And later that night, after he’d exhausted himself at his drum kit and shifted to the piano to play all seven minutes of Lionel Yu’s “Fires of the Revolution” till his fingers cramped and his arms ached. Still nothing.

  He was blocked.

  That had to be it. Friday night after eleven, she couldn’t still be working. What was she doing that she couldn’t take five minutes to message had a great time, or even thanks for making the bed, tidying the kitchen and locking up? Yeah, he’d take cookies for basic courtesy over dead air. Which was a low point in his evolution as a human being.

  Fuuuck, what was up with him? He was a good study of people. Could see through the games and fronts. It was a point of pride, earned the hard way, mucking things up over and over and learning to do better and apologize often. He’d known how it was going to be with Evie and Jay before either of them had. If they were ever going traditional and tying the knot, he was a frontrunner for a combo bridesmaid best man—bridesman, bridesbest? Whatever, he was dragging Evie up the aisle and giving all the speeches.

  He didn’t get like this. Confused. Mopey. Needy. Wasn’t normal. He was usually the one doing the ghosting. Especially touring, where he literally disappeared. It was better that way. No expectations. No complications. This shoe on the other foot thing was a raw rub.

  When he’d made the call to give up groupies, one-night stands and random hook-ups, he didn’t count on how crap it would feel if the object of his craving wasn’t reading from the same sheet music.

  But there was nothing about Mena that had said one blistering night and done. She’d agonized about it, then she’d taken him home, not insisted on some bland beige hotel. And she’d been into it, not a reluctant bone in her delicious body. As passion-blasted as it was, it’d also been a deliberate thing. They’d broken the rules knowingly, together.

  And now she was deliberately sidelining him.

  Do not like.

  It was even more ego-smashing the next day. Everything that wasn’t a message from Mena was spam. And Mena was a Mariana Trench of silence. Since he’d not been ready for this, it made him feel like one of those strange transparent fish that lived down in the darkness where the sun never penetrated. He was all globular jelly and neon spikes.

  He trained, lifted. He had brunch with Jay and Evie and he moped about making pacts with himself about not looking at his phone. He could look after he’d changed his drum heads, then after he’d replaced the skin on the bass, then after he untangled leads and cords. He had techs to do this for his onstage gear, but he liked to keep the kit in his music room in good shape himself.

  Hours passed. No Mena.

  He was not in good shape. He was twitchy and hangry and annoyed with himself for being twitchy and hangry and annoyed. He ate a whole box of BBQ Shapes. Then drank a reservoir of water to unglue his tongue. He played “Fires of the Revolution” again and couldn’t think about Mena for a whole seven minutes. He had
food delivered and it helped, but he used an app and that meant looking at his phone and there was nothing happening on his phone that he wanted to know about.

  Enjoyment factor. Zero out of ten.

  By the time he’d sorted through old drumsticks for fan prize packs, he was done with phone watching. He switched it off, shoved it in a drawer and went and sat on his deck with the singular objective of getting comfortably drunk so he wouldn’t care.

  He got hammered.

  He still cared.

  Zero stars.

  He played Minecraft and kept dying in survival mode and losing all his inventory.

  Horrible job.

  If he’d had Mena’s number, he’d be drunk texting like a drunk fool.

  Un-fucking-believable.

  Do not recommend.

  THIRTEEN

  Vera’s idea of exercise on a Sunday morning was to find the nearest coffee shop and order something sweet with her macchiato. Mena gave up trying to drag her along the coast walk and they settled in a café with a view of the sea.

  Vera’s idea of getting Mena to talk was to assume the worst and make Mena correct her. Mena wasn’t falling for it.

  Tucking in to her blueberry hotcakes, Vera said, “You finally got the courage to boff him and he knocked you back.”

  Mena sipped her smoothie and came back with. “Tell me about your new designs. Are you showing in Europe next year?”

  “I see.” Vera waved a fork at her. “He couldn’t get it up for you and all your fantasies were crushed.”

  Mena made a rude noise with her straw and then said, “What are the new season colors going to be?”

  “They’re going to be shades of blush.”

  Ah victory. Vera loved talking about her showings. Mena poked at a piece of mango at the bottom of her glass that was too big to suck up her straw.

  “Blush and smug,” said Vera.

  “Smug is not a color.” Although in fashion, the kind Vera designed, it could be one. Fashion-conscious women would be wearing smug in droves in about two years’ time.

  “It is when you wear it.”

  Oh, blush and smug. Mena pushed her empty glass away defeated. “Do we have to talk about this?” That recalcitrant piece of mango was a bit like her feelings, she couldn’t suck them up and fully digest them.

  “There is nothing that interests me more.”

  “It’s bad enough I will need to be forever grateful for your care package delivered in the nick of time, talking about what happened is another breach of ethics and privacy.”

  Vera stabbed a wandering blueberry and popped it in her mouth. “You are gagging to talk about it.”

  “You’re way off about that.” Mena had spent far too long thinking about all the ways the night with Grip was incredible and all the ways it was incredibly thickheaded of her to let it happen. Just because there was a history, no matter how one-sided. Just because they were obviously attracted to each other. Just because she found Grip impossibly brain-on-fire exciting to be near. Did not mean that she hadn’t fucked up and now she had to deal with it. She simply hadn’t worked out how without screwing over her entire career.

  “You’ve done nothing but alternate between blushing and looking smug since we got here.”

  “It’s a heat rash.”

  Vera looked at her over the top edge of her enormous sunglasses. “I knew you’d gone to bone town with him when you thanked me for the makeup enthusiastically instead of sarcastically. Now I want what I deserve, so give it up, Philomena.”

  Mena wanted to talk about it. She did. She needed to. Where to start? At the point that it was most fantastic. “He remembers me.”

  Vera made a frantic peddling motion with her hands. “Back up.”

  “Yes, we spent a night together.”

  “Smug. It must’ve been good.”

  “It was a disaster because it was amazing.” Mena clenched her hands together in her lap. “He is everything I thought he was fifteen years ago. And everything I hoped he might become. He’s the best lover I’ve ever had. And he remembers me. Well, not me, Philly. Said he regrets not staying in touch, that they clicked. That she’s the reason he didn’t quit the band when it was falling apart.”

  Vera made a clucking sound. “Your concept of disaster could do with some finessing.”

  Mena’d had zero finesse in this, just a driving need to fall into bed with Grip, as if that could reconcile her past self with her current one.

  “I knew what I was doing. I knew this was wrong and I did it anyway. I cruised right past the point of ethical nightmare and straight into the trap of I’m now hopelessly compromised. I have no choice but to resign him as a client.”

  “Which means what? You’ll go down on your knees and confess to the mighty Swire and Yallop that you fucked the client and so you can’t be Grip’s adviser anymore and bugger up your promotion.”

  That would be the least of it. “I might lose my job.”

  Vera took her glasses off and squinted at Mena. “Or?”

  “There is no or.” If she lost her job, she’d have to find another one quickly or sell her renovator’s delight terrace.

  “There’s always an or. Often there’s a both. Like do I go asymmetric on the hem or split it to the thigh, as well as bring back puce. Can’t you have your cake and eat it too?”

  “You mean fuck the client and give him impartial independent financial advice that he pays for without there being any doubt that I’m acting in his and my firm’s best interest? Are you kidding me?”

  Vera waved a hand. “I’m not seeing the problem, unless he didn’t have a good time, and you’ve still got moves, it’s like riding a bike, you don’t just forget how to be a sex goddess. Or he doesn’t like your advice, and you’re not going to give him bad advice, are you?”

  He had a great time. Grip wasn’t someone who kept his feelings hidden. She knew when he was uncomfortable or impatient. He’d been annoyed with her on the beach and respectful of their boundaries at Gate Five, until she’d obliterated them. He’d been like a cat who got the cream the rest of the night. Unless he’d had regrets since. He would think it odd she’d not said goodbye and hadn’t made contact again.

  “Imagine if we kept seeing each other secretly and then broke up and some investment I recommend goes bust. Grip can legitimately complain that I was distracted or working against him, or vengeful and gave him bad advice and sue Swire and Yallop. You can’t sleep with your clients in the finance industry for good reasons, Vera.”

  “No wonder bankers are so boring. If you think Grip would sue you then he’s not who you think he is. He’s an arsehole.”

  “He’s the furthest thing from an arsehole.” He was a honey. He was honest. He did everything with his whole heart. He was loveably enthusiastic, a little goofy, and much more intelligent than he liked to let on. She was lying to herself to think she didn’t know who he was.

  “I’m not going to give him dud advice and he’s not going to sue because we’re not going to keep doing this.”

  “God, when did you become such a stickler for the rules? You’re into each other and it’s no one’s business. What if you told him it had to stay a secret?”

  “That would just make it worse because we’re not some star-crossed second-chance. We were never a first chance.” She shook her head. “We don’t belong in each other’s lives. I do suits and heels and building a secure future, he does band tees and collector’s edition sneakers and he could burn out tomorrow.”

  “You did not just rule out a relationship over clothing choices.”

  Oh, that was Vera’s best think about your life choices, you disgusting bag of blood voice.

  Embarrassed, Mena tried to make eye contact with waitstaff. She needed something to chase the sweetness of the mango away and suck up that mistaken characterization. “It was a bad example. He bangs drums. I calculate risk. He’s a touring rock star. I’m not a groupie anymore. We don’t fit. We hardly know each other, and I’ve
been lying to him the whole time.”

  Vera lifted a finger and two waiters almost collided on their way over. “You’ll trash your whole career over one night with a good guy you don’t know and don’t care about.”

  That was a brilliant summation of her hypocrisy. “When you say it like that, I want to throw myself in the ocean and float away.”

  Vera ordered their regular coffees while Mena brooded. She did care about Grip as a client, as a talented musician. As a lover. It didn’t feel like it was enough. What she wanted and what she needed to do were water and oil.

  “The mistake you made,” Vera said, breaking into her misery, “was not making a weekend of it.”

  “A weekend?”

  “Go out with a big bang. What difference is it going to make to your ethical position and how fucked you are how many times you assume the position and get fucked.”

  It was impossible to suppress a groan. Vera had a point. Whether this was one night or a weekend affair, the effect was the same.

  “What do you want to do, right now?” Vera said.

  Get her hands on Grip, dig her fingers into his muscles and wrap her legs around his hips, get mindless on his kisses. She wanted to ride his tongue and make him swear when he came. And not come up for air for days. “Filthy, filthy things.”

  “Where does the part that you’re two consenting adults come into it?”

  “It would come into it if he weren’t paying me a fee for advice I’m supposed to give him while fully dressed and focused on his financial future, not any place I might have in it. The only way I can limit the damage is agree with him that I resign his account for some other reason.” It would have to be a good one, not to cause suspicion.

  “And then you’d be free to ethically fuck.”

  “I’m not sure it would work like that.” But it could. Maybe. Did she even want it to? Wasn’t this the kind of thing that was hot and heavy for a while and then fell apart the moment you discovered the other person picked their nose in public or never hung up the wet towels.

  Their coffee arrived, and Vera pointed out a woman who was wearing what looked to Mena like an old man’s bathrobe. Vera said was fashion-forward athleisure. Was she being too black and white about Grip? Was there an or that didn’t involve risking everything.