The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos #3)(17)
It was different from their usual style, arguably heading toward heavy rock instead of true metal. He liked it. A lot. But he wondered what the record label would think. Not that he’d change anything about the sound his brothers had created. Fuck that. They’d always agreed the music would come first, the deal second. They’d need Sam to sell it though.
Lyrics started to filter through his head, and he mumbled along to the chorus. He’d been waiting for the right music to go with some lyrics he’d been holding onto for years. He grabbed his notebook. Every time he got a new notebook, he transcribed those lyrics to the front.
Reading them, he was taken back to the night his mom had overdosed in front of him. He still didn’t get how a woman smart enough to name him after a Tolkien prince was so f*cking stupid she OD’d on heroin. Without access to a phone, he’d run out to the street and yelled for help. Six hours later, he’d been taken to his first emergency care foster home.
The ideas from the notebook started to fall into place like lyrical Tetris. Feelings from back then wrapped around him, squeezing him like a vise. He felt suffocated. Choked. Cold. His hands shook at the idea of putting something so deeply personal out there. Jordan would understand, having gone through the same process when he gave them the lyrics for “Dog Boy.” It was simply one more thing to survive.
This was why he needed to focus on his career. He could never go back to that place where there wasn’t enough food or a safe place to sleep. Where he was taken away from his mom, only for her to carry on as if nothing had happened when he was returned to her. She had never seemed overly happy to have him back. Numerous were the nights he’d lain in the spare room of a stranger’s home, wondering if they would hurt him if he fell asleep, or if he’d ever see his mom again.
He glanced at the lyrics, cursing them because they were the reason he couldn’t allow Pixie to distract him from his path, no matter how desperately he wanted her to.
*
“What about this?”
Pixie finished blowing her nose and looked over to the brightly colored silk Lia held up to the window. The color changed from a warm red to a vibrant orange in the light. It was beautiful, but not quite what she was looking for. This fabric store ticked all of the boxes on her thrifty shopper checklist. Great selection and reasonable prices, especially on smaller pieces from the end of rolls, which was great because she rarely needed large pieces of fabric.
“It’s beautiful, but it’s the wrong color for my Graphium weiskei.” Her voice still sounded hoarse, but she didn’t have time to sit in bed another day.
Pixie touched an almost black silk that shone an iridescent blue. Perfect if she ever got another request for a beetle.
“Your what?” Lia placed the fabric roll back on the table.
“A butterfly collector for his niece. I looked it up. The common name is purple spotted swallowtail, but he gets pissed off if I call it that. It’s black, pinky-purple, and a weird lime green that might be yellow. It’s hard to tell on my phone.”
“You know some very strange facts, Pix.” Lia wandered off to the vintage cloth section.
Pixie rummaged in a bin containing discounted fabric and found a piece of matte-finish silk that had what looked like lilac splats of paint on it. Perfect for what she needed. She added it to her basket. Maybe she’d bring in the strange green color as part of the underskirt with the black tulle she intended to purchase from the next floor down. Taking the stairs took its toll, leaving Pixie slightly breathless. Damn this cough. When she’d measured and had a store employee cut the tulle, Pixie wandered over to the thread section. Making her selections, she wondered how Dred was doing. Was he feeling better than she was?
She opened her phone and reread the message he’d sent her yesterday.
Two more days til you feel better. Seven more til I do ;-)
Still no idea of how to reply, Pixie dropped the phone back into her purse.
Why had she agreed to go to Toronto? It was so out of character, but when he’d asked her, the idea of him leaving and her not seeing him again for an indeterminable period of time hurt. Not the drop-down-on-your-knees-and-weep kind of hurt, but a low and steady longing beneath her ribs. Words of agreement poured out of her mouth before she had a chance to second-guess them. The surprised look on his face when she asked when she should go was the best part of it. Gone was the rough demeanor of the rock star, replaced by a youthful grin. That was the man she had feelings for.
Pixie pulled a spool of black cotton thread and added it to her basket, and noting they had a three-for-the-price-of-two sale, added a navy blue and a white spool too.
“Look what I found.” Lia dropped the leopard-print chiffon into her hand. “You could totally make something cute out of this.”
The sight of it sickened her. It was too close to the leopard-print scarf her stepfather would leave on the coat hook in the trailer to taunt her. He’d wait until her mom was passed out, sleeping off whatever high he’d provided, then he would pull it down and tie it around Pixie’s wrists.
For the briefest moment she was fourteen again, sitting where he’d put her on the silver kitchen stool with the torn red vinyl cushion. She’d struggled at first, shouted for her mom. He’d walked casually to the sofa and put his hands round her mom’s neck.
“You want me to squeeze, or are you going to shut the f*ck up?”