On the Run (Vagabonds #1) Read online

  What had happened while I’d been indulging myself?

  I pulled off the headphones. “Was that okay?”

  Guidry shook his head. “Okay? That’s a fucking wrap, kid.” He looked up at Peter, and I could barely hear him because he wasn’t speaking into the mike. “And she’s humble too. Amazing.”

  “Not for long.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  MOST OF MY recording time was like that—one shot. They liked my “raw” stuff so much, I didn’t have to do much more. There were things I would have liked to try differently, but, as Peter said, we were “on the clock” and we had to make it all count.

  I figured my experience helped me. I was more practiced than my bandmates, so my first tries were like their fifth and sixth times around (or more). But I wanted perfection. So, when I wasn’t in the booth, I was fingering my guitar, practicing silently.

  That was better than dealing with Barbie. She was being a melodrama queen. “Did I sound okay? Oh…I totally sucked. Oh, my God. I need a total redo.”

  Our days were long and grueling, and after the first one, Vicki asked if I wanted to crash at her place. I got my parents’ permission via phone call, but I also had to promise them that Peter would be meeting with them the next week—during the mixing phase. We were so tired when we got to Vicki’s house that first night that we went to bed without changing clothes.

  Fortunately, Vicki and I were close to the same size and I could borrow her clothes. I discovered quickly, though, that her boobs were smaller than mine, so her t-shirts were a little snug. Day two, I asked Vicki on the sly if I could “borrow” one of her mom’s beers from the fridge. We both did. I figured it would make me mellower at the studio, so I’d be practiced and then calm and even better.

  By day three, we were halfway through, just like Peter had wanted…and I took two beers, but I didn’t touch them. I didn’t even think about them because I was intoxicated with a man like I’d never been before, and he took my mind off of everything else.

  Charles James Slavin. Oh, God. What that man did to me…still does to me. You know him better as CJ Slavin or “Siege.” He is the ideal man for me—sexy as hell, masculine, hardcore, but not afraid to show emotion. He’s simple in some ways, complicated in others. We’re different but alike. I’ve always felt like I’m this close to figuring him out—and then he makes me think I know absolutely nothing about him.

  Which is probably closer to the truth.

  So, this guy walked into the studio. He was tall and lanky. A little bit of cute facial hair, like he hadn’t shaved in two or three days. Dark hair, by the way, and longish, but not rock star long—not at that point, anyway. It was just past his chin. Oh…dark eyes. Damn. Eyes that could see into your soul and take you on a journey, leaving you breathless.

  And he dressed the part of a rock god. Okay, well, not necessarily that day.

  When he walked in, I didn’t know if maybe he was there to help Guidry or if he was just there to visit with Peter. I was checking him out because his looks piqued my interest. He looked a few years older than I, but I couldn’t be exactly sure how old. He wore black jeans with a tear over one of the knees and a white wifebeater. He had a few tattoos on his upper left shoulder, the beginnings of what would become a sleeve, but I realized as he began talking that it wasn’t just his looks that had captured my attention. It was also his presence. He had, for lack of a better word, an aura surrounding him that demanded my notice.

  I swallowed. I had a boyfriend. What the hell was I doing drooling over this guy?

  But I was just looking. I knew I had to play it cool. Decker was back home for me, and I was pretty sure there weren’t any beautiful, arresting young women hanging out during his weightlifting camp. Not that girls wouldn’t like watching a guy get all brutal with weights or anything, but I was under the impression that it was a bunch of football jocks, so chances were they were being a bunch of assholes. Definitely not the place I’d want to hang, with or without Decker.

  When the guy spoke to Guidry and Peter, his voice was quiet, and I could tell it was because he didn’t want to make a huge scene. Peter, however, had never had any issues with that. “Girls,” he said, dumping his characteristic insulting way of addressing us, “I want to introduce this young man to you. His name is CJ Slavin and he is the main songwriter, bassist, and backup vocalist for Death Crunch.” Before any of us smart asses could say a word, he continued, “I know you haven’t heard of them yet…but you will.”

  Liz said, “Actually, I have.”

  CJ’s face lit up. “You have?” Holy shit. That voice. Smooth and decadent, like chocolate cheesecake. God, what was it about this guy?

  “Yeah. Didn’t you guys play at the Black Sheep a few months ago?”

  “We did. Did you get a chance to see us?”

  “No. Sorry. School night.”

  CJ looked apologetic, like he should have known. A tiny part of me that I wasn’t about to acknowledge was quite jealous that Liz had already captured this guy’s attention. Oh, and Liz didn’t have a boyfriend. She was fair game. But what the hell was I thinking? No one said this guy was available—

  My insides were most definitely fucked up. This guy had done a number on them and he hadn’t even noticed me yet.

  “We can visit later. Right now,” Peter said, “we have a mission. CJ is my number one songwriter. Liz, you know I think you’re talented, but ‘Dream World’ needs some work. I don’t want you recording it as is.”

  Guidry—who’d been sitting at the board, probably feeling a little like chopped liver—said, “Pete, you guys are wasting my time—and your money—doing this shit when you should be recording.”

  If Peter’s face could have become more expressionless to show his lack of give-of-shit, it would have. “Mr. Guidry, I don’t pay you to think about my process. You are going to be working with our rhythm section on the list of tracks I gave you. CJ is going to be consulting with Kyle and Barbie out there, and you can send one of the girls to get us if and when you need us.”

  Guidry was schooled…and he knew it. “All right. Liz, Kelly, Vicki—you know the drill. Let’s get started.” A last thought but he needed to save face and get the last word in—not that I blamed the guy. “Can you get the hell out of my studio so I can work?”

  CJ looked a little abashed. He obviously knew Guidry. “On it, man.”

  Peter made eye contact with me and said, “Please bring your guitar, Ms. Summers.” He led the way, followed by CJ and me, but it was painfully obvious that there was no Barbie. As usual. And if he blamed me for that shit, I was gonna go ballistic.

  But we sat at a table in a big open space where there were actually a couple of windows. On the wall across, there were concert posters of all types. This space looked like it was used for a little bit of everything, but it led into the area where bands held concerts, so I figured the main use of it was for selling merchandise or signing autographs. I’d never been to this venue before this week (let alone this section of it), though, so I was only guessing.

  “CJ, this is Kyle.”

  “The guitarist you told me about?”

  Peter nodded. “Yes. I’m going to go locate our vocalist and return in a short while.”

  Man, talk about improper foreplay. Peter hadn’t explained shit to me. But that wasn’t going to stop me from making a friend. “Nice to meet you, CJ.”

  “Actually, my friends call me Chuck, Charlie, or Chaz.”

  I grinned. “Chuck?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m still getting used to CJ. Peter says it sounds more like a rock star name…and he’s right.”

  “Yeah, I think he’s right. The only Chuck I can think of is Chuck Berry.”

  “That’s goin’ way back.” He paused. “Hell of a guitarist, though.”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Eh…I leave it to the experts.” Okay, now let me pause here. CJ was a great guitarist, but he didn’t feel an affinity for it. He didn’t feel the dr
aw like I did. His love was words, poetry, weaving a message inside mysterious phrases—and did he have something to say. “I’m a bass guy. I hear you play a mean guitar.”

  I shrugged. “I think I’m pretty decent.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’m gonna put you to the test today. Peter thinks you and your band have it, that mysterious it that gets people noticed. I trust him. He has a thing for picking out winners, and he seems to think he’s hit on the perfect combination with you and your crew. He thinks you’ve got some solid tunes for an album too, but he wants me to help you craft a single.”

  I thought we had decent music already, and there were three songs I’d already pegged as winners, so this was news to me…and hearing something from CJ that I should have heard from Peter just pissed me off. In spite of the fact that I really liked this guy from the first second I’d laid eyes on him, I wasn’t ready to just bow down and accept whatever he said.

  I cocked an eyebrow, trying to keep my cool, but I had a lot on my mind. “Whoa. Wait a sec. First of all, what makes you an expert on the matter?”

  CJ squinted. “Time will tell, I guess. Our first single comes out on the radio next week. Video releases the same time. Peter and the other talking heads seem to think it’s a winner.”

  “Okay. Why didn’t Peter ask me and my band to change it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess he thought you were all busy with other stuff.”

  “Hmm.” I was resentful about the whole matter. “So what are we doing then?”

  Damn. I’d gone and made things awkward between us, but I couldn’t help feeling upset that Peter didn’t have enough faith in us to create something good enough to pull listeners in. CJ muddled through it just the same. “Well, let’s start by having you play a few measures of the song so I can hear it.”

  I nodded. I set my guitar on my lap. It was unplugged, so he was going to have to imagine the way it would sound amplified. He closed his eyes, and I knew he was doing just that.

  After I’d gone through the intro, the first verse, and the chorus, he said, “What you got for a solo?”

  I grinned. “Man, it’s gonna sound like shit unplugged.”

  “No worries.”

  I had to work into it, so I played the last part of the chorus before launching into the solo. When I was done, I said, “Well?”

  He sat quietly, his hands folded as though he were praying, elbows splayed and resting on the table, his lips resting on the tips of his fingers. His eyes were closed. After at least half a minute, he inhaled audibly and then opened his eyes, lifting his head. “Why don’t you try increasing the pitch a little, see what happens?” I frowned, trying to figure out where I’d need to place my hands on the guitar. “Try playing that in D instead of C. Let’s see what that sounds like.”

  “Okay.” It took a little adjusting, because I’d been playing the song one way for so long that it was kind of a retraining. I started out slow, but CJ’s ideas had potential—that I could tell just from the way the song sounded on my tinny, quiet guitar.

  “What about tempo?”

  I laughed. “Believe it or not, I already sped it up once.”

  “What if you try it again?”

  “I could.”

  I was counting beats in my head before starting, and he asked, “How versatile is your drummer? She adapt well?”

  “Hell, yeah. And she can read me really well.”

  “Great.” I started playing the song again. “Yeah, that sounds really good. What do you think?”

  “I think I like it.”

  “Now, your solo…”

  Okay, so that was a soft area, a part of the song I felt needed work. It wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but I knew it was decent. It was a reimagining of the basic melody, just shredded out a little bit—solid, strong, but nothing to write home about. I wasn’t married to the damn thing and welcomed constructive criticism. I looked at CJ.

  “What you’ve got is good, but I think it could be a real showcase for your talent.” How sweet. I looked up from my strings at him and it was as though time froze. It wasn’t just me worshipping the guy—there was something that transpired between us, and if we hadn’t just met each other, I would have sworn our lips were getting ready to collide. I tried to speak but I couldn’t find my breath. He understood me as a musician and it felt as though he could see into my soul.

  I knew then that I should stay away, except he seemed so harmless. But I was drawn to CJ like a moth to a flame. He was light and he was heat, and, like the moth, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t turn away.

  CJ was the flame—and I suspected he might be as dangerous.

  At this moment, though, he played the helpful, sweet, cute songwriter guy ready to pitch in and help.

  I swallowed and he said, “Why don’t you play the verse and chorus before the solo? Close your eyes and imagine the crescendo you’re building to, ‘cause that’s what your solo is—it’s the climax of the song, like a book or a movie. It’s everything the song is building to, and you control it.”

  I nodded, mesmerized by his words, but then I closed my eyes and did as he instructed. At first, I imagined his eyes on me, caressing me without touching me at all, but then I got lost in the music. I did as he’d encouraged me, losing myself in the music, feeling the climb toward something, and in my head I pictured us together, him bringing me to climax, and I played that damn guitar like I never had before. My fingers played what my soul told them to and, when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t even remember what the notes were.

  “Goddamn. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  I felt my eyes grow wide. “Shit. I don’t remember what I played.”

  He held up his iPhone. “No worries. I gotcha. Now you gotta practice.”

  I grinned. “So what should I call you—CJ, Chuck, Charlie, Charles, Chaz?”

  “What do you want to call me?”

  Oh, hell, he shouldn’t have asked me an open-ended question like that, because my mind…well, my mind wanted to run places it shouldn’t. “CJ sounds really cool—and then you can shorten it to Ceej”—which, as you know, sounds like Siege, his now infamous stage nickname—“which sounds bad ass.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “What’s the name of your band again?”

  “Death Crunch.”

  “Then I’m definitely callin’ you Siege.” No way was I going to tell him he’d laid siege to my heart and soul in the process. God, how corny.

  “You got practice to do while I work on the lyrics. I guess I can do that without Barbie.”

  “She’ll show up fashionably late.” I touched the screen of his phone so I could play back the solo and begin committing it to memory. “She’ll fuck them up anyway.”

  CJ grinned. “Not on the recording, she won’t. Not unless she wants to stand in that booth all damn day and night.”

  Barbie? Nah. She would have had to stay away from her mirror too long.

  Shortly after, I was in the booth playing the guitar, laying down the first track. We did our single differently from the way we recorded the rest of the songs. Rhythm came second after listening to the new guitar a few times and adapting, followed by Barbie.

  That morning, our first single “Dream World” was born—and I’d be damned. Peter was right…just as he usually was.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  WE FINISHED OUT the week recording the rest of the songs. I was bummed that there was no more sign of CJ, but we exchanged phone numbers. I didn’t know if he had a girlfriend or not, but I sure as hell had a boyfriend and, as tempting as that boy was, I knew I had to keep my hands to myself. I had Decker at home.

  I also drank a lot more through the rest of the recording process. It made the boredom easier to deal with.

  Peter prepped us for what was to come. We had to work on our image next. We’d be filming a video and also posing for a photo shoot for the album interior (and possibly cover—Peter wanted to see what the studio want
ed first) and then he’d go over the touring schedule with us, first having us play live once or twice locally.

  But first…he had to talk to our parents, a task that had been neglected up to this point.

  It was our last night and we were recording late, because we knew we wouldn’t have to come back if we got the last song done. About one-thirty in the morning, we stumbled out of the studio, exhausted and glad to have that behind us. Looking back, I would have fond memories of our first time through the process, but for now, I was glad to be done.

  We were going to call Vicki’s mom to come pick us up, but Liz offered to give the two of us a ride to her house. Vicki texted her mom and told her not to worry, that we would be home soon. As usual, Liz was quiet, and I, chilling in the passenger seat, turned up the music on her radio. Vicki sat in the back and, in spite of the fact that she’d been drumming all day, she started thumping out a beat on the back of my chair.

  When a commercial came on, Liz turned the radio down and, sitting at a red light, she said, “My mom and dad aren’t gonna let me do this.”

  “This? What? You mean—the band?”

  Liz nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yeah.”

  Vicki leaned over, inserting her head between mine and Liz’s. “What?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

  “You’re not gonna drop out, are you?”

  “No way. This band is my baby. That’s what makes me so angry. My parents have never understood me, never given a shit about what I enjoy doing. They just don’t get it.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it.” That was what Liz did—she thought about things. And she often came up with great solutions. She just needed time to reflect and ponder. When she didn’t have that opportunity to consider everything, she had a hard time making decisions.

  That was all she said about it, but it was enough to make me worry about the future of our band. So, when we got to Vicki’s house and my friend offered me a beer, I accepted. We had imbibed three apiece by the time Vicki’s mom stumbled out of her bedroom, telling us our voices were a little loud for four o’clock in the morning.