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

  “You asked me my priorities and they are one, don’t fuck this up, and two,” he drummed his index fingers on the tabletop, “see one.”

  “Oh, that’s clear. Clarity. Good to have clarity.” Caroline said, her eyes going wide. “We’ll need to, ah, drill down on what you ah, mean by, ah, don’t. Fuck.”

  Oh shit. He said, “Are you okay?” at the same time as Mena, said, “Caroline?” and Caroline said, “Oh motherfuck, not now.”

  Grip almost laughed at her choice of swearword. Hospital, did she need a hospital? While Mena helped Caroline stand, he went to the window. By some miracle, his truck was still in the loading zone. “Do you need a ride?”

  “I need to get to a spa, fuck it,” Caroline snapped. “I’m supposed to get a week at a spa. My babies always come late. I’ve got an induction scheduled. But thank you, Mark, you don’t need to worry. Uhhh. Right, that was, ahh, that was. Oh.” She looked down at her lap. “Yes, yes. A ride would be good.”

  No prizes for guessing it’s not easy for a woman in the early stages of labor and a fitted dress, wearing stilettos, to climb into a truck. There’s another reason he had to get rid of it. The ways in which it was impractical, if crazy fun, were endless. It took the tow-truck driver who’d arrived and Mena to help him get Caroline into the back seat, but after that it was smooth sailing through city traffic. Not even Uber drivers messed with a monster truck.

  From the back Caroline cursed her husband, thanked Grip for the ride, laughing about how they’d all panicked, and said she probably could’ve driven herself. Then she worked her phone, rearranging her calendar with her assistant and calling her doctor, her “shithead” of a husband, her mother and God knows who else.

  From beside him in the front seat, Mena said quietly, “Wanker.”

  Hmm. He’d figured in all the fuss with the towie and getting Caroline into the back seat, Mena might not have seen his number plates. He’d never envisaged showing anyone his bad investments, only talking about them on paper. He shrugged. If Mena had any illusion he was a sophisticated guy under the bad language, and the tatts, and the sexual harassment, they were fucked now. “What else would you call a guy who drives wheels like this?”

  The light ahead went red and he had to stop. He turned to look at Mena, curious about whether what came out of her mouth and her expression would be in sync.

  She kept looking out the windscreen at the traffic jammed in the intersection. Cool blondes with untouchable vibes were never his thing. The fact a dirtbag like him made her blush must’ve messed with her head.

  “Ahh. I hate my husband,” Caroline said. “I hate his stupid penis so much.”

  When Grip had decided to play ambulance, he hadn’t thought through the fact he might need to help deliver a baby in the back seat. He gunned it on the green.

  He didn’t have to work with Mena. He liked Caroline a lot. She could swear like a trouper and was focused even while in obvious discomfort, getting him to sign a shirt for her stepson before they’d pulled away from S&Y. There was nothing stopping him from waiting until she was back in the office. It was only three months. He was the one in control here. He could tell Mena he’d wait, that she didn’t need to worry about crafting his investment profile and assessing his opportunity costs, whatever that meant.

  He could try to curb his spending habits in the meantime. So what if he made another bad investment with the escape room experience, it wouldn’t be the first lemon he’d bought into. That honor went to a horse called Ignite the Sky who’d finished last in every start. The only thing ignitable about that horse was his farts.

  Since nothing had come out of Mena’s mouth other than concern for Caroline, he said, “I see,” as he maneuvered around a delivery van, and then stopped on an orange light. “It’s that bad.” As soon as Caroline was being taken care of, he’d tell Mena thanks but no thanks. If he was going to get through this, it had to be with someone who had a sense of humor.

  Mena whipped her head around. “I can’t tell whether it’s hilariously ironic and a comment on society or just the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.” She laughed and this time he could see it was genuine amusement that made her eyes shine. “Whatever that number plate cost you, it was worth it.”

  Turns out when a smart, put-together, cool blonde in the front seat of your monster truck is honestly amused by your weird-arse social commentary she was, after all, his thing.

  THREE

  “Caroline had another girl,” Mena told Vera over sidecars at Hubert’s, the city’s new hip bar and restaurant on Friday night. “She’s making Rod get a vasectomy.”

  “I’d make a joke about having five kids to a man called Rod,” Vera said, waving the bartender over, “but I’ve been styling a Vogue shoot all week and it’s sapped my ability to be crude unless it’s about fashion assistants who think they can rearrange my look book. The only thing I want to hear about is whether you have a grip on, you know—Mark, the drummer god, Grippen.”

  Mena didn’t know what to say about Grip. She’d done nothing productive over the last two days but wait for news from Caroline, think about Grip and flatten the battery of her favorite vibrator. Her date was a bust and that was her fault. She was too busy living in another moment. One where all her wild adolescent fantasies had come true. “Tell me about the shoot.”

  Her oldest friend gave her a look that likely scared the pants off every model and photographer in the city. It was the same look she’d perfected when they were groupies and fresh meat tried to muscle in on their strategy to get backstage or onto a tour bus. It’d been effective then and it was devastating now. Likely the reason Vera now had her own groupies in the fashion industry, a harbor-front mansion, a devoted husband and a lover who liked each other, and the grudging respect of her parents who had prayed for their only daughter to stop being a slut and become a doctor like a good Chinese girl was supposed to.

  “I’m not scared of you,” Mena tipped her chin to the bartender who’d backed up, “but he is.”

  “You with the cute arse, get back over here and pour me another sidecar,” Vera muttered. “Just tell me what Grip’s like now. Assume he still has the superhero hands and the stop-a-heart smile. I could google him but that would make it like a work thing and I feel the need for a good story to go along with my reminiscing. Please tell me he’s still worth objectifying?”

  “That’s my problem,” Mena said. She waved at the bartender. He pantomimed a who me, pointing at his chest, which made Mena roll her eyes. “Cute arse thinks he’s a comedian.”

  “Ugh, try-hard men. If you tell me Grip is one of those I might cry into my next drink, if I ever get one.”

  “He’s not. He stayed real and he’s funny and the whole reason he needs advice is because he’s conscious that he could blow it all.”

  “Funny, how?” Vera gestured to the bartender who was flirting with two women further along the bar.

  “Not like that. He might’ve looked down my top, but he wasn’t sleazy or self-aggrandizing or in any way demanding like a regular client. It was almost like he was nervous, until Caroline’s water broke and then he was all action. Beyond that I don’t know anything about him anymore other than that he makes my girl parts sit up and pay close attention.”

  Vera spun on her stool to look Mena up and down. “What were you wearing that he could look down your top? Not this corporate frump thing you’re doing now?”

  Mena ran a hand over the front of her suit. She wore a navy sheath dress and its matching coat. The neckline skimmed her collarbones. “I like this dress. It’s not frumpy.” It was classy, work appropriate. Just because Vera’s work was fashion didn’t mean everyone could wear a lime-green jumpsuit with leopard-print trim and look fabulous.

  “It’s everywoman and unmemorable,” Vera pronounced, directing Mena’s attention to two other women in the bar wearing the same coat-dress style.

  “I had a silk shirt on and we were under the meeting room table.”

&n
bsp; “Now it’s getting interesting.” Vera thumped on the bar top. “I need a drink.”

  They got their sidecars and Mena told Vera about how recognizing Grip had turning her into a stumbling inarticulate schoolgirl who was virtually panting when their eyes met under the table.

  “I thought about not washing my hand because he touched it when he passed my phone.” That last bit was made up to make Vera laugh but it wasn’t far from wrong. “I was never as uncool as I was when I realized MG Holdings wasn’t some second-generation family business rich guy. In my head I know it’s impossible that Grip would remember me, let alone recognize me, but my head wasn’t the entity in control and my libido isn’t likely to make good investment decisions. All I could think about was what if he knows it’s me, what if he remembers and I’m the one who blows it.”

  “Better make sure he can only look down your top and not down your back.”

  Mena closed her eyes. On the last day she’d spent with Grip fifteen years ago, he’d drawn on her hip with a marker. Before she’d even properly sobered up, she’d borrowed money from Vera and had that drawing turned into a tattoo. She’d never regretted it until now.

  “The real problem is that I’m obviously conflicted,” she said.

  “About whether to fuck him again? How is that even a question if you’re hot for each other.”

  Mena sighed. In their groupie life, she and Vera had been proud of not caring what other people thought of them. Vera hadn’t changed. She’d conquered the lead guitarists on her fuck list and the fashion industry. If you googled Vera Ellen Chan, you could find photos of her at seventeen wearing her underwear and hanging out with some of the world’s greatest guitarists. Her disreputable past only served to enhance her star quality and boost her career.

  If someone called Vera a slut, it was a badge Vera would wear proudly. It was different for Mena. To get to play with other people’s money you had to have a squeaky-clean reputation. If anyone even suggested Mena was once a skanky groupie, it could end her career.

  The double standard wasn’t fair, but she’d always known that’s the way it would be and had protected herself with a different look and name. If you googled Mena Grady, the worst you’d find is that one theater production she’d done where she played Ophelia in Hamlet. Other than Vera, it was unlikely anyone would even remember a goth girl called Philly who was a favorite among groupies for her ability to recite famous album-liner notes. Faultlessly.

  Her good memory was still an asset, she just used it to remember company fundamentals and market statistics now.

  “It might be fine for models and photographers and whoever to have orgies in your industry, it’s not in mine. You can’t have an intimate relationship with a client, and you have to disclose any prior association that might affect the quality of your advice.”

  “Holy fuck. You mean you have to tell your bosses that you once slept with Grip. That makes no sense. Especially if he doesn’t remember it.”

  “I know, but the point is I remember it.” In full living, high-definition color, word perfect. “The ethical thing to do is to resign him as a client.”

  “And then what?”

  Then it would get awkward, because questions would get asked and Mena would need to be at least semi-truthful and Caroline would need to speak to Grip about the reason for changing his account leadership and then it would be stupidly embarrassing when Grip admitted he’d never met Mena before, let alone spent a week with her. The upshot of all that was her partnership inexplicably failing to happen after years of striving for it.

  “He asked if we’d met before,” she said, with a shiver. “It spooked me big time.”

  “Fuck me dead. He does remember you?”

  Mena shook her head. “I don’t think so. I had an intense reaction to him, and I think it confused him as much as it did me. I think he was reacting to me trying not to react to him.”

  “That sounds boringly sensible. What if he does remember you?”

  “We were alone after we dropped Caroline at the hospital. He’s not shy. He would’ve said something.”

  “Like, how about it for old time’s sake, babe.”

  Mena rolled her eyes. “Exactly like that, because he was so turned on by the confused uptight frump vibe I was giving out.”

  Vera snorted into her now empty glass. “What did you talk about? We didn’t target these guys for the quality of their conversation. We just wanted to party hard with them.”

  It’d been all about the sexual thrills back then. The guys they’d targeted had been hot and talented, not necessarily making bank; some of them, like Grip, had been in up-and-coming bands working to break out and that struggle was heroic and romantic and they’d both thought of themselves as potential muses. The reality was that no one was looking for career advice from chicks they’d plucked from the audience, and conversation had been a bonus round.

  Half the after-parties Mena and Vera had gone to were boring affairs where tired musicians drank too much, spent too long on the phone lying to their significant others, did drugs and fell asleep. They’d been both ignored and left to their own devices, and expected to entertain, by dancing or making people laugh, had their phones confiscated and had to sign scary sounding non-disclosure agreements, but the music was always excellent, the food free, the booze endless and the bragging rights supreme.

  They’d been high on their own audacity and skill at the game before anyone ever asked them to strip or get on their knees.

  Occasionally one of the musos on their list would be needy and sweet or just an excellent lay who knew how to give as much as they took in the bedroom. Some of those guys were married. Most had girlfriend. Some were egomaniac assholes. Some made you believe they really did care about you and stayed in touch.

  Vera had hooked up with the lead singer of Slash Burn for their whole Australian tour. It was like a committed relationship for fifteen nights and then he’d never bothered to say goodbye. Just got on his private plane and went to the next city in the next country. He’d looked her up years later and apologized and she’d charged him a small fortune to style him for a shoot. They were Facebook friends now.

  Being a good groupie wasn’t all about looks and a willingness to give blowjobs. It took skill to get invited to stay longer than it took to make your conquest come. And if you knew what you were doing that might only take ten minutes, which included being shown out by security.

  You had to know how to appeal to a musician’s ego. You had to know how to engage them, even if that was just listening to them brag about themselves or tell you their problems. That meant learning everything there was to know about them and their band.

  Successful groupies were sexy encyclopedias who had no needs of their own, apart from getting to hang with their idols.

  It was a lot like the work Mena did now, with an excellent salary and without the music and the sex. Who knew being a groupie would be good training for running a multiclient investment portfolio?

  But it had all been different with Grip.

  He’d been in a class of his own. He’d been upfront with Mena. Promised her a good meal and a bed beside him for the night or a taxi home, which was already a lot better than a narrow bunk on a parked bus or a lounge in a room full of other people. He’d shown her a good time partying with his band and then bought her room service in his shabby hotel room before they’d even done more than hold hands and sit close. He’d asked permission to kiss her, even when it was obvious that and more was what she was there for.

  It had been the softest thing anyone on or off her list had ever done for her. That simple can I kiss you, the wait while she answered, before he’d yanked her close and kissed her senseless.

  They’d spent hours making out and having sex, but they’d spent longer talking. He’d told her how difficult it was to stay neutral when the Tice brothers, his bandmates, fought amongst themselves and how much his parents had sacrificed to give him music lessons and his guilt at not being
able to pay them back.

  “I feel like I’m on a treadmill going nowhere,” he’d said.

  As the sun rose, he admitted he was thinking about quitting because he couldn’t see how he’d ever be able to make a decent living with the band without having to keep his second and third jobs. And that he was worried about how he’d cope if Jay, the only other non-Tice family member, left the band.

  Mena let him talk and didn’t try to solve his problems for him, then he’d kissed her into a stupor and woke her up again by asking her questions about her life. That was another first. She’d told him about her disapproving mother and her horrible café job and how she didn’t know what she was doing with her life. And then she admitted he was the top of her list. That having scored him, she’d made a promise to herself to go back to uni, finish her degree and get a proper job.

  She could still replay their conversation in her head.

  “I don’t really want to go back,” she’d said. It would be hard. She’d have to keep her shitty café job and carry HECs debt for years.

  “So don’t do it.”

  “I can’t do this forever.” She didn’t want to be broke and scared and running on bravado for the rest of her life. She wanted normal. She wanted secure but it was impossible to admit that out loud. “And everyone isn’t kind like you.”

  He’d frowned at that. “I’m not being kind, I’m—”

  “Most of the men I sleep with don’t bother asking about me.”

  “That’s—”

  “What this is. A good time, not a long time. This is the ultimate in hooking up but it’s not real life.”

  “It’s my real life,” he’d said.

  “Even knowing you might quit?”

  He’d rolled her over then, so they faced each other. Both of them on the verge of quitting who they were to become something different. “Do you think I should quit?” he’d asked.

  “Not if you’re doing what you love.”

  “I don’t always love it.”