Jet (Marked Men, #2)(45)

“Why do I think that you didn’t need either of those things to get laid when you were their age?”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and went back to the mixing board. She followed me and continued to sip on the beer while she hovered over my shoulder. Now that they had such an attractive audience, the boys weren’t messing around and they ripped into the track that they had been screwing up royally with renewed vigor and enthusiasm.

“Because I didn’t. I learned to play guitar because I wanted to write songs. I joined a band because I had things I wanted to say, and jumping around screaming punk-rock lyrics suited me at the time.”

She put her hand on the back of my neck and I shivered a little at the chill, because they were cold from holding on to the beer can.

“And now, you scream and yell heavy-metal songs because you’re mad about your dad and your mom all the time, and it suits you.” She said it as a statement of fact and it made me shiver again, because she was so dead-on. “I can listen, too, Jet. Maybe you can tell me why you’re so angry, and I can help.”

I flicked a couple of switches and played with some of the dials to tone down the guitar. “Maybe when you’re ready to talk to me about those not-so-smart choices, we can have an all-out sharefest.”

My anger had been with me so long, lived in such a dark place inside me, that I didn’t know what would happen if I brought it out into the light. I was scared it was going to have the power to cover everything and burn my entire world to ash. Those cold fingers moved from the back of my neck to my shoulder and she gave it a squeeze.

We stood that way for the next three songs. She just watched as I gave the guys instruction and tried to build the best track of each song I could. At one point, she handed the beer back to me and before I realized it, we had the entire album cut and it was almost midnight. The guys were keyed up and wanted to go out. All earlier arguments had been put to rest because they knew, just like I did, that we had just produced a killer album that would no doubt lead them to getting signed.

I wanted to get Ayden alone and ask her to get naked—except for those glasses—so I declined the invite and tried to shoo them out the door. She stayed put and went about cleaning up the mess that five guys, beer, and pizza had made. I was about to shut the door and lock it when Jorge paused, and walked back to where I was standing. He stuck out his hand and shook it like he meant it.

“You really are an amazing musician, Jet. No one else would have been able to do what you just did.”

I nodded at the compliment.

“And that girl . . .” He blew out a low whistle. “I would be writing songs about her every chance I got, bro. So whatever you’re doing, keep it up, because I totally want to be you when I grow up.”

I snorted and flipped him off. When I walked back into the recording room, Ayden went into the studio and was running her finger along one of the necks of my electric guitars I stored there. She was so perfect, so right, that something flipped upside down in my chest and it made it hard for me to breathe for a second. When she turned back around, her eyes were serious and there was something working there.

“Jet, I had no idea you had all of this going on.”

“What do you mean?”

She waved a hand around the studio and strummed the guitar, making a shrill sound.

“The studio, the way you were with those guys. I had no clue you were like some kind of rock god. The way you made those boys sound, I mean you know how much I hate that music, but you made it into something so beautiful.”

I normally shrugged when people complimented what I could do, but if it made her see something more in me, I wasn’t going to brush it off so lightly.

“It’s what I love to do.”

“It’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s what you were born to do.”

“It is.” All that whiskey and mystery, all the things that made Ayden so much more than all the rest, swirled around and flashed at me. I still couldn’t figure her out but when she grinned at me and hooked her arms around my neck and asked if I was ready to go, the only answer I could give her was “Hell, yeah.”





Chapter 9

Ayden

I was running late, which wasn’t like me. But now that I wasn’t spending my nights alone and Jet had a thing for waking me up with his hands and mouth in places that made me blush to think about, it was becoming much more common.

I hadn’t heard from Asa in two days and while everyone was still on edge from the attempted breakin (which I knew was somehow tied to my brother), I hadn’t seen the familiar stranger lurking around anymore. Things were just going along as normal, and I had a sinking feeling that keeping things with Jet on a manageable level was going to be a challenge. The man and the musician in him had layers upon layers that I had never stopped to notice before, and now that I knew that the reality of him so surpassed the fantasy of him, I could feel myself falling into a place I had no intention of going.

Everything he did, he did with an intensity and focus that I had never realized he possessed. He was driven and apparently very much in demand. His phone rang at all hours of the day and night, and he was always running off to set this or that show up, or handle this or that crisis for a band.

There was something going on with his own band that had him keyed up and on edge. He didn’t want to talk about it, but from what I had pieced together, the other guys wanted him to get on board with some kind of tour, and they were annoyed that he just wouldn’t agree. There were also the calls that left him moody and surly for hours on end, and when I asked about those, he would just shrug and change the subject. Since I wasn’t ready to have him pull apart my past, I figured it was best to just let it go. Only it hurt to see the way he struggled with whatever was going on. It also shocked me how much I wanted to be able to help him.