Exclusive Access (Rock Arrangement, #3) Read online

  The band, seemingly resigned, began their practice. The juju in the room hung heavy, and after about five minutes I left and went back to the car, spending the rest of practice cleaning it out as meticulously as I could without a vacuum cleaner. But you'd be surprised what you can do with your own two hands.

  When I drove Carter home after practice, Kent didn't follow us as usual, but there was something different. Carter sat slumped in his seat, staring out the window, but it wasn't his normal rebellious moodiness. I could sense something was different, and I was sure it had something to do with Kent's proclamation that he had to come up with a second hit album in the next month.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him as I pulled the car into the garage.

  Carter turned and flashed me a smile. “I'm fine,” he said. “I'm just trying to figure out what kind of theme the next album should have.”

  I chewed on my lips. “Can I help you at all?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “You could help by letting me drink a beer. Just one.”

  I didn't know what to do. We sat in the garage, staring at each other for a long moment before I sighed. The forced sobriety wasn't doing it. Maybe I could get him to open up to me a bit more if he were more relaxed. I had to figure out some way to help him, even though I knew from experience that it was always a bad idea to try to fix an addict.

  So. How do you make an addict see he needs to fix himself? Or is that the same thing?

  I was just tired. Tired of fighting Carter, tired of fighting Kent, and tired of dealing with the constant tension in the household. “Fine,” I said. “One beer. And I get one too.”

  Carter laughed and dropped his jaw in a mockery of shock. “Oh my, Mrs. Girlfriend, you having a beer? I do declare, my delicate sensibilities may not survive such a sight.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I used to tend bar. I've seen more liquor flow past me than you could ever drink in your life.”

  “That sounds like a challenge.”

  I smacked him on the arm. “One beer,” I said. “And we are not going out to get it.”

  “Awwwwww.”

  “No. We are going to get a six pack, and if you don't behave yourself I'm pouring the other four down the drain.”

  The pained look on his face was almost worth it.

  I took him to the corner convenience store and let him pick out the beer he wanted. To my surprise, it was Pabst.

  “What are you, a hipster?” I said as he hefted it out of the refrigerator.

  “Nope,” he said, “just used to drinking really bad beer for years.” He smiled. “Come on, it takes a while to climb to the top of the heap, and you don't have a bunch of money while you do it. Shit, I remember back when we were sleeping on people's floors when we went touring around the state. That was some crazy times. So yeah, you end up drinking a lot of bad beer and smoking the really bad cigarettes.”

  I laughed. “That sounds like my circle of friends, except they never managed to climb to the top of the heap.”

  “Oh?” he said as he handed the Pabst to me and I took it to the check out. “You hung out with musicians before now?”

  I hadn't shared my sordid past with him. The most Carter really knew about me was that Rose and I were both from Oklahoma, and we had a huge family. His principal concern up until this afternoon had been giving me the slip and getting as blasted as possible under my nose without me knowing.

  “I have. I used to date a wannabe rocker, actually.”

  Carter whooped. “Holy shit, seriously?”

  I made a face. “Dated isn't really the word, I guess.” I tried to avoid the clerk's eyes. I could feel her staring at me, and from the corner of my vision I could see her switching back and forth between me and Carter, as though trying to place us, or trying to memorize what we were saying so that she could post it on some gossip blog later. I bit my lips as Carter poked me in my side.

  “Shacked up,” he said. “You mean you shacked up with a wannabe rocker.”

  I rolled my eyes as I slipped the credit card through the machine and signed. “Yes,” I said. “If you must know.” I grabbed the beer and cast the cashier a fleeting smile before making a beeline for the door. I wanted to get out of public before we talked any more about this, but Carter wasn't taking the hint.

  “Oh my god, Rebecca,” he howled, “You have a type!”

  I shot him a sharp glance as we pushed through the doors and into the late afternoon sun. “What do you mean by that?” I snapped.

  He held up his hands. “I meant you have a thing for rockers. Well, two of them. Your old boyfriend, and me.”

  “But we're not really dating,” I said.

  “Doesn't change the fact that you have now had two rocker boyfriends.” He was grinning as if this were a huge joke. “I'm glad you left that guy for me. I'm way better.”

  He was really getting on my nerves. I unlocked the car and shoved the beer in the back seat. “Yeah, you are way better,” I said. “We're not even dating and you don't cheat on me. That's way more than Jason ever did.” I yanked open the driver's side door and got in, trying not to think about Jason and how stupid he was and how much I hated him.

  The car dipped as Carter got in on the other side. “Whoah, whoah,” he said. “What's this all about?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “It's nothing. Forget it.”

  But for the first time he seemed genuinely interested in me. Not just to try to seduce me into letting him drink and take a million drugs, but actually interested in the mean lady who kept him from his numnums. “No, what's going on? I want to hear about this.”

  I shook my head again and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Brakes screeched and a horn blared in my ear. I stomped on the brakes and squealed. A large SUV that I hadn't even seen was stopped inches from the driver's side door. I hadn't even seen them.

  The guy driving leaned out of the window and yelled at me, but I turned my head away and gunned it, turning onto the street and racing away. My hands were shaking.

  “Jesus, Rebecca,” Carter said. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.”

  Weirdly I almost felt like crying. I hadn't told anyone, not even Rose, what had happened in San Diego. “It's nothing,” I said again.

  He leaned back in his seat. “Doesn't seem like nothing,” he muttered.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I drove back to the house without really paying attention to what I was doing. I didn't want to talk to Carter about Jason. I didn't want to talk to anyone about Jason. On the other hand, this was the first time Carter had exhibited that almost sweet attitude that I'd noticed when we'd met. He really was a nice guy, if self-centered. If talking about my stupid problems got him out of his little masturbatory world, would it be worth it?

  For the second time that night I found myself pulling into the garage, and I sighed. “I'll tell you,” I said, “but you might have to get me drunk first.”

  Carter's eyes gleamed. “Finally,” he said, “a job I can do.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ten minutes later we were in Carter's room, cracking open our six pack while he pulled out a guitar and a notebook. His room was a mess—the sort of room I'd expect of a teenage boy—but it wasn't my place to clean it. And besides, the terrible tension between us had eased somehow. I sat down on Carter's bed—a futon on the floor covered in a messy pile of sheets and blankets—kicked off my shoes and took a swig of beer.

  “So how does this whole songwriting thing go?” I asked Carter as he sat down in the only chair in the room, a broken down office chair that had probably seen the last of its useful life during the dotcom crash. He smiled at me and fiddled with the pegs on his guitar.

  “You don't know?” he said. “Didn't your rock boyfriend show you?”

  I shook my head. “He wasn't a very good lyricist.”

  “Not like me,” Carter grinned.

  “Nope,” I said. “Not like you.”

  He flipped a hand. “Oh, stop, R
ebecca, you're going to give me a big head.”

  “Give you one?”

  Now he flipped the bird. “Watch and learn, Mrs. Girlfriend. You will be amazed. But first, I need a good story to inspire me. So tell me about your rock boyfriend.”

  I looked down at the beer in my hand. “I don't want to.”

  “Yes you do,” he said. “Get it off your chest. It'll make you feel better.”

  Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I sighed, and slammed the entire beer. It sluiced down my throat like a burning, bubbling stream of lava, and I nearly puked it back up when I was done. Carter was staring at me, impressed.

  I let out a huge belch. He grinned at that.

  “Damn, girl,” he said.

  I leaned over the side of the futon and grabbed the next beer in the six pack. “So,” I said, “I met Jason in college.”

  “Jason,” Carter said. “A douchebag name. I hate him already.”

  I glared at him. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

  He mimed zipping his lips shut. His fingers drifted down to the strings of his guitar and he began to idly pluck out a little melody. Guitar was like breathing to him—he just did it naturally.

  I took a deep breath. “I met Jason in college. He was really into his music back then, like really passionate about it, you know? I thought that was really sexy. And he was a bad boy, the sort you want to bring home to your parents just to give them minor heart attacks.”

  “Ha!” Carter said. “My dad couldn't have cared less if I brought home a bad boy. Or girl.”

  That was kind of sad. “Yeah. But my family is really big and we're all really close. I told you Rose and I grew up in Oklahoma, right? Our family is definitely very blue collar, but upstanding? Kind of? It's hard to say. I mean, my dad's blue collar, my mom went to college while she was raising us. And it was a really good environment, really stable and loving and you could, you know, launch yourself in any direction from a place like that.”

  Carter gave me a sympathetic look. “Hard to rebel against that sort of thing,” he said.

  I nodded. “Very.” My eyes narrowed. “But also hard to rebel if people don't care, too, I bet.”

  His lips thinned, then spread into a smile with very little humor. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn't say no one cared.” And without him telling me, I knew he was talking about Kent. But he didn't offer any more information, so I plunged ahead.

  “So anyway, I was really into this bad boy who wasn't really a bad boy because what kind of bad boy goes to college? Real bad boys are all slinging drugs or doing illegal shit, not majoring in guitar at a nice little Midwestern college. But I was dumb and we got together and when he decided to move out here to Cali I came with him. I wasn't super employable and the economy is so bad it doesn't even matter any more. I got my bartending license and I supported him while he was trying to get his band off the ground.”

  “How were they?” Carter asked.

  My lips twisted. “Like a bag of cats getting dropped on a set of bagpipes,” I said. The words just came out, vicious and surprising, and I gasped, clapping my hand over my mouth.

  Carter just laughed. “Are you sure your feelings about this Jason douche aren't coloring your perception.”

  I thought about it. The beer was starting to hit me. “Fine,” I said. “Not that bad. But nothing special. Nothing like you guys.”

  He snorted at that. “Right. We're special.”

  “You are,” I insisted. “I know that your dad was a manager in the industry and that you probably had some strings to pull getting up to the top, but you guys... I've listened to your rehearsals remember? There's something really amazing there.”

  Carter perked up. “You think so?”

  I nodded.

  “Hmm,” he said. “I guess. We have good chemistry, when we're not yelling at each other.”

  I smiled. “Like my mom says, you guys get along like a house on fire. Destructive, but the light is brilliant.”

  Carter's hand on the guitar stilled. “You really think so?”

  Jeez, didn't he read his own reviews. “Yes, I do.”

  “Hmm,” he said again, then quirked a smile. “Very well. Continue your tale of woe.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I spent the last four years supporting Jason's music career. At first it was fine. He worked hard and the band worked hard, and even though we didn't have a lot of money coming in we were okay. It was... nice.” The sex was good. Or at least, I had thought so at the time. Now that I knew what a real rocker could do, Jason paled in comparison. Perhaps that wasn't fair to Jason, but goddamn Kent was so good, it was like they were from different planets. “And then he started cheating on me.”

  Carter frowned, but didn't say anything. I stared down into my can of beer. “I know, I know,” I said. “It's fucked up that I stayed with him while he was cheating on me, but I was all alone in this new city and I didn't want to just throw it away because of an indiscretion. He was a bad boy, right? A rocker. So I put up with it, and every time he got caught he'd apologize and say he'd never do it again and I'd believe him like an idiot. But that wasn't the bad part.”

  Carter let out a bark of disbelief. “How was that not the bad part?” he said.

  I sighed. “While he was sleeping around, he'd tell the girls that I was always cheating on him. And when his friends asked him about it, he told them I was cheating on him, so it was just this mutual thing we did, supposedly. I didn't find this out until later. And that's not the worst of it, because he started telling people that I was a drug addict and I stole money and shit from people, and to watch their stuff whenever I was around.”

  Carter's eyes were huge. “And?”

  I laughed, but it was so bitter that I had to wash it down with more Pabst. “Well? I wasn't a drug addict. He was. He did crazy drugs, awful shit you could buy on the internet and the stuff you could buy on the street. He told everyone I stole things, and then stole those things himself... And I didn't know everyone thought I was a thief and an addict. And I think he told people he'd pay them back for the shit I supposedly stole, and we never had any money, no matter how hard I worked...and they all did drugs and drank like crazy and it was such a fucking mess and I always thought it would get better but it never did...”

  I bit my lip. “And finally he stole something someone really gave a shit about. Jewelry or something. And I was the one who got confronted about it, and that's when I found out that all my friends thought I was an addict and a liar and a thief and a cheater, except it was Jason who was all that shit, and they all believed him because he'd been selling them this bullshit for years. It just...none of them believed me.”

  Tears stung behind my eyes, and I angrily blinked them away as I took a shaky breath. “So yeah. That's the story. I had to sell my car because someone was going to press charges against me for theft and I used the money to pay them off, except I didn't even take it, and Jason just...he just dumped me. Like once everyone turned on me he realized I wasn't useful to him any more and that was just...it. So I got on a bus and came to LA and moved in with Rose...and a week afterward I was somehow a fake girlfriend to a real rocker.” I tried to laugh, because it was so absurd, but it came out sort of strangled and sad.

  I was so absorbed in my misery that I didn't even notice Carter had stood up and walked over to where I was sitting. When the futon dipped I jumped, but all he did was slip his arm around me and give me a tight hug. The gesture was so sweet it almost undid me and I had to dig my fingernails into the flesh of my palm to keep from crying.

  “Rebecca,” Carter said, “that sucks.”

  I laughed, and it was stronger this time, though a bit watery. “Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

  “But I'm glad you shared this with me. I hope you feel a little better.”

  I inhaled deeply and found that I did feel slightly better. Leaning into Carter's warmth helped. I let my head fall on his shoulder, and he put his cheek against my hair. It was swe
et and comforting. I hadn't felt that in a long time.

  For a long few minutes we were both quiet, until Carter said suddenly, “Rebecca?”

  I lifted my head and looked him in the eyes. He was smiling. “Yeah?”

  “I'm going to write this next album for you.”

  I blinked. “What do you mean?”

  His grin grew. “The first album was loneliness. This one will be about vengeance.”

  I sucked air between my teeth. “Really?” Then second thoughts swooped in. “No. No, that would be a bad idea.”

  “Why? Get your revenge on him. I'll write it for you. It'll reach him and even if no one else knows about it, he'll know it's about him. It's my thanks for your help.”

  “Help?” I snorted. “I don't feel like I've been helping you at all.”

  “Well, I'm not good at accepting help, let's just put it that way. Let me do this. It's a perfect counterpoint to the first album. Vengeance. Something cruel and really wicked. Ooooh, I'm getting tingles. Hang on, I have to write something...”

  He leaped up and grabbed his guitar, pulling it into his lap. His fingers danced over the strings, fiddled on the frets, and something dark and strange poured out.

  “Yes,” he muttered. Leaning down, he grabbed his notebook and began to scribble in it before pausing and looking up. “Rebecca? Can you pass me a beer?” A casual question between friends and for a moment I tensed. Was he just doing this to get his hands on that alcohol?

  No, stop it, I told myself. Just try to trust him. You can't change him unless he wants to. And one beer isn't going to kill him. We only have four left anyway. Three after I get to the next one. I broke one off from the six pack and handed it to him.

  I felt as though my faith in him was validated when he took it and didn't even open it, just set it on the desk next to him, and returned to his scribbling. Then he picked up his guitar again and continued with the queer, haunting melody he'd begun.

  If I hadn't met Kent first, I could have definitely gone all wet in my panties for Carter. The boy was a genius...