In the Absence of You (3 page)

Ha. Me, the singer of a famous rock band stalking a coffeehouse waitress.

She swings her hips in ways no girl does. She’s so blatant about it. I love it. Zoe—is so Zoe. She’s my Zoe. Should be.

But she’s not here.

Her Facebook wall shows her out with friends. She’s got a bright smile on her face, and in one picture there’s a guy hanging over her shoulder. I hate it hard. I click “I don’t like this post.” Then I report it as abusive.

Bo tells me she’s moving on with her life, that she’s over me and won’t be seeking me out again. He tells me I need to do the same.

I am too. Hell, I move on with my life at least five days a week. If we don’t have a show with a meet-n-greet, there’s always a waitress or a receptionist I can hang out with. Yeah, I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t skimp on moving on.

When’s Nadia going back to L.A.?
I text to Bo.

Dude. Go to sleep,
is his immediate reply.
She’s not going to be your spy on Zoe anyway.

Just asking,
I clarify.

Move. Fucking. On.

I drop the phone and press my lips together. They tremble. Who the fuck knew girls could create holes in a guy’s chest? It’s like a crater in there, a fucking big, empty crater with just some remnant smoke showing that it used to hold more.

I feel like writing lyrics about volcanoes and lava and craters. I think I will. That should kill some time. I grab my phone again, pull up my notes app, and start jotting.

AISHE

S
ometimes, I feel like a fan.
The music isn’t the main reason I feel that way. It’s seeing the guys up there when they give it their all, becoming larger than life.

We’re at a medium-sized club in Florida. The audience packs the room, probably exceeding capacity, and for a second, I consider the fire hazard. At least there are two emergency exits, one on each side of the stage.

Clown Irruption’s light show is too big for a venue this size. Emil always wants it up even though the effects of the spotlights bleed way past the stage, bouncing through the room and igniting everything with random colors and white light.

My sales booth and I are crammed into a corner by the sound desk. No one’s buying merchandise during the concert, so I hand the money box to Troll at front-of-house and gesture for his house assistant to look after my booth. He gives me the thumbs-up.

I make my way through the crowd, squeeze close enough to the stage to find myself in the front rows of the mosh pit. I glimpse Shandor behind Troy, where he’s doubling as drum tech until they hire a new guy. Even though he’s busy, he glues his stare on me in warning before returning to his task.

I never openly disobey him. I can’t even look at it as disobedience, because he’s not my husband, not my brother, or my father. If I follow his demands, it’s because I believe that he’s right.

Bathed in a deep yellow light, Emil is singing the first song he’s ever co-produced with Bo, the band’s songwriter. He shakes his mane side to side, hair flinging droplets of sweat around him. Bright like the sun, it agrees with the exhilaration on his face.

He rocks his hips, grabbing the microphone with both hands and closing his eyes as he sings about being the entertainer. How he’ll do anything for the scream of the audience, how he was made for this. I believe him when he throws his head back, unhooking the mic and tipping it above his head. Happy, contagious Emil screams out his husky joy over his calling in life.

Calmly, Bo glances at him, a subtle glitter in his eyes, while Troy does triple beats on his drums, slamming harder, louder with each chorus. He’s in jeans only, torso moist with sweat after three fast-paced songs off their set list down already. Elias bounces the bass against his crotch during the bridge of the song, causing Bo to flash him a wolfish smirk.

My heart speeds into triple beats with Troy’s drums. God, these guys. Their response to this new tune makes me think of the one that shot them to fame, “Fuck You,” Bo’s frustrated eulogy to Nadia before they became a couple.

I’m suddenly conscious of the crowd around me. Everyone is dancing. How do they do that? I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my life, but it’s a feat to launch a whole floor into the ecstatic, screaming, energetic mess boiling around me right now.

Sometimes it’s surreal to me that I can experience this with the band. My imagination transports me into a future where moments like these have become memories. They hit me straight in the diaphragm, forcing my eyes shut with the bliss that I was a part of this, that I was there when a great band was in the process of becoming legendary. Because I have no doubt they will be.

Everyone loses it around me, smiling, chanting along to a song they don’t know because it’s the first time Clown Irruption plays it live. I’m being bumped from all sides, life is perfect, and I’m grinning so big, the blood of my ancestors rushing through my veins, affording the disquiet I crave.

I start jumping to the beat as Emil slides to his knees at the edge of the stage. He laughs into the microphone—Emil is a god, yelling,
“Hey! Hey! What’s up? You’ve come to the right place! I’m here to entertain—and if you’re bored when I’m done, I’ll shoot a bullet through my head for your—

Enter—

Tain—

Ment!”

On the third chorus, the crowd gets it and shouts the last words out with him. On the fourth chorus, the music disappears. I tense and swing to Troll, but find him laughing behind the sound booth. The guys lift their hands from their instruments, not playing, just screaming the chorus with Emil and enjoying the wall of feedback from the sixteen-hundred-strong audience.

I
woot,
my voice meshing with the others’.

Nadia’s at a table to the right of the stage. Bo exchanges a flirty wink with her, but then my attention pulls back to Emil.

Goodness. Emil.

He’s arched up in his kneeled position when the music resumes again, an onslaught of sound after the club-wide a
cappella performance we just experienced. His hips thrust forward like a bullfighter, like a lover, his package bulging with excitement. A heated sting hits my abdomen at the sight. I wonder if everyone notices that detail, or if I’m just abnormally tuned in.

It’s hard to take my eyes off of him nowadays. When he flirted with me the other night— Yeah.

Unsettling.

Still, to mingle with foreigners like Emil, from way up north in Santa Land, should be the safest way to go if I want to try out my option number three. I remind myself of how the snow puts those guys on ice and gives them a bleak strain of love compared to the hot-blooded crazy of my race.

In the midst of my euphoria, fear tickles, reminding me of what happened to my great-aunt. She gave it all. Lost it all. Succumbed to the misery of a love that was never hers.

Emil lowers his face, targeting me as I suppress the memory of my aunt’s lifeless body. Life comes. Life goes. It’s what we’re taught.

Aunt Dika’s beloved was a Romani though, and Emil is a handsome, lovable non-Romani. Emil could never feel what we feel. Emil’s love would not crush me if I owned it, because when ice hits hot water, does it not turn lukewarm?

His features stretch in a dazzling smile, his body emanating the joy I feel whenever I’m around him. Shandor’s glare follows me too, but I ignore him and slant up on my stiletto toes. Raise both hands to my mouth. Then I throw him a kiss with the tips of all ten fingers.

Emil sees me and laughs softly into the mic as the music ebbs on the last note. Used to his antics, the band doesn’t react when he lowers on his hands and crawls forward on the stage until his face peeks over the edge.

The audience roars, and between their response and Emil’s eyes, my determination blazes. I’m not waiting. I’m not leaving this opportunity to some fan, because he’s never been closer to becoming my prize.

I press forward past whooping ticket payers. Emil’s stare remains on me, inviting me forward, and I leap the last few feet until I’m inches away, my face even with his. I grab the stage with my hands, letting my eyes burn freely with my people’s fervor. It’s arousal, desire, need, and everything that’s red, and I can’t help it and I don’t fucking care. All I know is Emil’s here and I’ve got air in my lungs to live and breathe and not fear.

Santa Land
, I think as he leans down to find my mouth.

Harmless,
I think as soft lips meet mine for the first time.

Crazy,
I think when he feels so much better than I hoped.

EMIL

Gypsies are well-known
in Sweden. Back when, people hated them, considered them thieves of property, money, trinkets, and good folks’ hearts. They were prosecuted as a race, put away, even castrated so they couldn’t have children, but when enlightened times set in, Sweden gave them monetary compensation.

To us stationary Swedes, it seemed most of them bought Mercedes and luxurious campers to continue their nomadic lifestyle. Some grumbled about it, while most of us thought the compensation was theirs to do with as they wanted.

I recall them as exotic birds resting their wings in my hometown of Skala during the month of May. Their women were stunning and exotic with long, dark hair snaking over their shoulders and down to their waists. Their skirts got my dick hard: long and old-fashioned, they looked like they were made to be lifted by someone. Like me.

Almost no matter their age, I wanted a peek under those skirts. I’d fondle, give a lap or two at warm skin, for sure. What horny teenager wouldn’t dream of a taste? The opportunity never presented itself.

Each year, the Gypsies stayed for a few weeks before they moved on to wherever their souls took them next. I never even exchanged looks with their women until Aishe entered our tour bus.

Fuck.

The high from the club got to me, and Aishe was there, hot as a bonfire and with those gorgeous black eyes staring me down from the audience. She’s crazy gorgeous. The least I could do was get us a separate hotel room from my regular setup with Troy.

Her cousin is
pissed
off—you don’t even want to know. I’m aware I’ll have to watch my back tomorrow, because if the Gypsy stories are true, I could be stabbed in the nearest alley after what I’m about to do.

Decades-deep tales about her people, myth and reality combined, makes me stall for a second, but then her chest heaves so exquisitely, like she’s Zorro’s Lolita.

Of course there’s no backing down now. I press her against me harder than I do with a groupie. Her skin feels so soft it’s buttery, moist and dry at once, absorbing my fingers when I dig into her.

I picture her in one of those medieval blouses with drawstrings at the top. I’d pay money to untie one and get the first view of her tits that way. They’d spill out over a super-loose neckline. I’d make her top fall down her body so fast it’d be like a dream.

She’s wearing a Clown Irruption T-shirt. My face smiles back at me from its center, but I crumble it in my fist when I drag the fabric over her head. She gasps—gasps the way girls don’t gasp until I press inside of them.

Holy. Shit.

For a second, my brain flickers on. Reminds me that I’m in over my head.
You’re about to sleep with a Gypsy. You’re sealing your own death warrant.

It’s bullshit. Maybe a hundred years ago, it might have been true. But these are modern times, and this is Aishe, a member of our crew.

Right now, all that matters is that Aishe and I both want this more than anything. It’s need, a biological urge to procreate, and there’s nothing stopping us.

I grab her neck to make sure she doesn’t run. There’s no sign of it, but I’d lose my shit if she did.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I hum against her throat.

“I can’t wait to prove you right,” she murmurs. I thread my fingers through her locks. They’re so long they envelop all of her in a thick, pitch-black curtain that’s captivating as hell.

“Have you thrown a spell on me?” I tease, clamping around her waist and dragging her pants down together with her G-string.

“Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” she teases back, a plump smile lighting her face.

“Shit. Look at you.” I stare at the narrow, unassuming slit that throws my hormones into mutiny. “A believer in baldness, huh?” My voice is literally cracking.

“Boldness and baldness, I guess,” she whispers, biting her lip.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

I stop thinking. I attach myself to her mouth, hike her around my waist, and carry her to the bed. I flop down over her, grinding my bulge against her while we kiss, and she moans—she moans like she means it, not like we’re playing games–and God, I dig it so hard.

Aishe’s hands circle my face, touching our lips while our tongues meet. It’s wet, hot, giving me a preview of how it will be when her pussy takes me, and I grunt out my approval. “You know what you want, don’t you?”

She devours me with shining irises as I toss my clothes away. I curl her hand around my dick and feel her grasp tighten, making my eyes fall shut with pleasure. She gives me a small pull, back and forth, and it’s all I need.

It makes her laugh quietly when I push her into the mattress. I want to claim what I crave, and she doesn’t slow me down. There’s so much smooth skin and thick locks fanning over these sheets.

So many reasons why I shouldn’t be above her, why I shouldn’t sink into her and lose myself in silky heat. She’s my employee, she’s Shandor’s cousin, and I’m using her like I use everyone else.