Not Quite Juliet: A Club Imperial Novel (Silver Soul Book 1) (21 page)

“I liked him better without the pants,” Lisa said, loudly.

Nadine snorted and I tried to hold my laugh in, but it snuck out as a snort too. This was the Lisa I had been trying to bring out for two years. I gave her a thumbs up and she was bright red, but smiling. What she’d just done was hard for her, but she did it.

“All right, are we done flirting, Sal?” Nick said. “Can we actually get some practice in?”

“Who’s Sal?” Lisa whispered to me.

“They all have stage names,” I answered. “Salvatore Garabaldi is the hot ass you just slapped. They just don’t advertise their real names.”

“So who’s who?” Nadine asked.

“Salvatore Garabaldi, Vatori is on the bass.” I pointed to him and he bowed at us. “Jose Riposte, Ript, on the rhythm guitar.” Ript waved. “Donovan Smith, Van aka Animal, on drums.” Van hit the bass drum twice in greeting. “And Doctor Nicholas Dovadsky as lead vocals.” Nick winked at me. “But I’ll warn you two, no one knows this, and it’s only because you’re here and my friends that you know at all. Keep it under your hats, or I’ll find you and hurt you.”

“Where’s Dave?” Nadine looked around.

“He’ll be here when he feels like rehearsing.” Jose plucked a few strings on the guitar. “Sadly he’s good enough to pick up the song, practice for an hour, and be completely in sync.”

“Is that why we’re holding onto the asshole?” Van asked, tightening a drumhead.

Sal, Nick and Jose looked over at him. Jose sighed. “I guess we are.”

“How are you going to play a new song without him?” Lisa asked. “He’s lead guitar. You can’t do much without him.”

“We fake it,” Sal answered.

Nadine cleared her throat, and my eyes grew wide as I panned over to her. No. No way. She was not going to do this. She looked at me and shrugged. “Got a guitar?”

Oh, shit. She was going to do this.

“You can play?” Jose said.

“I played for thirteen years.” She grinned at me. “And I know your stuff.”

“Our stuff is going in a new direction.” Sal tapped a finger on the edge of his bass.

“Come on.” Van motioned her over. “Let’s see what you got, Dee.”

Jose pulled out an extra guitar and I couldn’t believe my best friend was going to try and keep up with these guys. I knew that while she’d played for thirteen years, she hadn’t touched an instrument in two years. And in music, that may as well as be twenty.

Dee smiled and walked over to where Jose was holding out a guitar. She took the proffered instrument, and slid the strap over her head. I couldn’t sit back. This was too good and too terrifying. Jose and Sal motioned her over to show them something they had written down and Nadine studied it for a minute. She put her fingers on the frets and plucked something through quickly, and they nodded.

“All right,” Nick called. “Let’s charge up and get this show on the road. We have to close this place up early and get out of here. We’ll start with a warm up on ‘Rubber House’. You know that one?” He looked pointedly at Nadine. She smiled, and before Van could call out the beat, she started in on the solo riff that started the song.

I could see Nick’s eyes bulge and the other three exchange the same astonished glances. Van caught her beat and started in on his drums, and Sal was there with the bass line a moment after on cue. Jose slid in underneath all the others to keep the sounds flowing.

Lisa leaned over. “Nadine knows guitar?”

I glanced over. “Nadine can make love to that guitar. She used to play in a band, but gave it up when she got her job.” I smiled. “Listen.”

I sat back. I missed Nadine playing. The old band she’d been in, Ton of Metal, was an all-girl band and as much as they loved it, they all gave up except her. She got the job as a mortgage officer, and finally said the heck with it.

I got the feeling while she publicly said no, she was still picking that thing up and practicing. Especially the way she was currently riffing off the opening riff. Nick was so shocked he nearly missed the lyrics.

“
No other way down, no other way out,

Keeping time when there’s nothing more than a time out

Hide your face, slow your heart

Sleek as an arrow, deadly as a dart

No doors out, fires now to douse

Stuck inside your rubber house—”

He suddenly waved them to a stop. “Hang on, hang on.” He turned and looked at Nadine. “Are you serious? You took Dave’s impossible finger patterns in that song and made them
even worse
?”

Nadine looked at him, then glanced at Jose. “They’re not that bad. There are some classical guitar pieces you’d be better off breaking your fingers to play.”

“You’re kidding me,” Jose said. “I’ve barely been able to play his riffs.”

“Scale ‘em, Dee!” I called, and held up my fingers in a ‘rock on’ demon spread.

“Gauntlet has been thrown.” She shrugged.

“Scale us, please, by all means.” Sal gestured welcomingly to the guitar.

Nadine plucked a few strings to hear the tone through the amplifier. She wiggled her fingers, took a deep breath and then zipped right up the entire guitar in scale, all the way to the top fret on the last string. She looked at me, winked, and busted into a triple-time rendition of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’. I was laughing my ass off. It had been way too much time since I’d heard her play, and she was stealing the show right here with her audience of six.

Nadine ended her run with the ‘Super Mario Brothers’ level victory music. I couldn’t stop laughing and Lisa and I fell against each other as we both guffawed.

“You’re serious,” Jose said.

Nadine nodded. “Thirteen years of classical and rock guitar.”

Nick looked at her, then looked at me, then looked at his band mates. They all nodded, with a look of pleasant surprise. He finally landed back on Nadine. “Let’s do this.”

Lisa and I were treated to an hour of rehearsal, which I had the feeling was suddenly more of a ‘let’s see if we can trip her up’ session. They were failing. She kept pace no problem, and after that first hour, they stopped rehearsing and started working on a new song. Nadine sat down between me and Lisa on the couch while they were working on the song.

“You bitch,” I elbowed her. “You never put that thing down, did you?”

“Hell, no.” She grinned. “My guitar is as much a part of me as my arm.”

Lisa handed her a beer and bottle of cold water. “I think you need both of these.”

“You realize you just played with Silver Soul and totally pushed their boundaries, right?” I turned and looked at her.

She waved her hand. “Feh. Dave is good, but he’s always held the music back because he wasn’t willing to break his fingers for it. Good music hurts.” She held up her hand and two of her fingers were scraped raw with tiny drops of blood on them. “I haven’t enjoyed having my fingers bleed in three or four years.”

“And you call me kinky.” Lisa slapped her arm playfully.

The door behind us slammed open. Nadine, Lisa and I spun around to find Dave stumbling in with a wild-eyed woman following him.

“Nick, you need to handle your bitch.” Dave pointed to the woman.

His bitch? I whipped around to Nick, who looked terrified, mortified and completely confused all at once. He walked around the mike and headed straight for the door where Dave was holding the woman at arm’s length. She looked beyond drunk. Her hair was a greasy mat, her skin was drawn and pale and her eyes were wild, darting everywhere, wide open, and red. From thirty feet away, I could smell the alcohol on her.

Nick grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away from Dave. “What the hell are you doing here? How the hell did you find this place?”

“I always know where you are.” She slurred each word carefully. “I need some help.”

“You need a lot of help, and I’ve told you that a thousand times before.” Nick was angry. I had seen upset just a few days before, but this was angry. Flat out pissed. “Now, what the fuck are you doing here, Casey?”

Casey. Who the hell was this?

“I told you, I need help. I’m out of money.” She clearly wanted to nuzzle him.

He was having none of it and kept her at arm’s length. “I’m sure you are. Did you drink the whole paycheck this time?”

“What do you care?”

Nick’s laugh was bitter. “You come here, asking me for money and then ask me why I care?”

She considered him a moment and shut off the drunkard. She straightened herself up and stared at him. “I need rent money. I’m short.”

Her acting like a drunk was like a light switch. And she was damn good at being on.

“How much is your rent?” The disgust in Nick’s voice was thick.

“Seven hundred.”

He shoved a finger in her face. “Wait here.” He turned and walked towards the couch where he had settled his briefcase. He popped it open and pulled out leather checkbook. He wouldn’t meet my eyes as he stood and walked back over to her. “What’s the name of the rental company?”

“I don’t know. I pay in cash.”

Sal ran over and held up his smartphone. Nick nodded his thanks, and wrote out a check using the information on the screen. He tore it out and held it out to her. “Get your ass straightened out, Casey. This is a free pass. You don’t get another one from me.”

“You’re ever so generous.” Casey reached out to snatch it.

Nick pulled it back. “I’m serious. Just this once. And forget my address, forget my rehearsal space, forget you even knew me.”

She was torn, but I could see those watery, alcohol-consumed eyes wanted the rent check so she could go buy another handle of vodka. Finally she relented with a nod. “Understood. Just this once.” Nick held the check out again, and she took it calmly. She put it in her purse and walked out the door, slamming it as if she were getting back at him for something.

Nick massaged his forehead while Dave stared daggers at him. “Christ, Nick. You sure do know how to pick them. Psychotic drunk, fat whale... all you need is a—”

Nick’s hand shot out and grabbed Dave by the collar. “If you know what’s good for you, you will shut that fat fucking mouth of yours right now. You have no idea what’s going on, and you need to shut the fuck up before I shut you the fuck up.” He tossed him away.

“Asshole!” Dave snapped at him. “Are you kidding me? That crazy bitch attacked me as soon as I got out of the car!”

“It’s not going to be a problem anymore.” Sal walked over and folded his arms. “We’ve been kicked out of the space now anyway.”

“What?” Dave asked.

I didn’t know what the hell to think at that moment. Option A: Did I want to hear more about them losing the space? Option B: Did I want to address the insane bitch Nick had just written a seven hundred dollar check for? It was like a damn ‘choose your own adventure’. For choice A, turn to page seventy-three, for B, turn to thirty one.

B was the better choice, because Nick was walking away from me, toward the empty offices. He looked pissed off, upset, and a little lost. I jumped off the couch and ran after him, catching up just at the door of the office.

“Nick, what was that all about?” I grabbed his arm.

“Let it go.”

“Oh, hell no,” I said. “We nearly had a disaster with the phones. I’m not letting this happen again. Talk to me. Who was she?”

“No one.” He tried to walk away from me again.

“You just wrote a check for her goddamned rent, to her rent company.” I pulled him back again. “That’s not something you do for no one. You paid her off, and that makes me think bad things. Nick, don’t do this. You don’t have to explain, but tell me who she is.”

“Morgan—”

I stomped my foot. “Don’t ‘Morgan’ me. Who the hell is she?”

He looked at me, and there was confusion in his eyes. He looked lost, almost haunted, and I grabbed his hand. He looked down where I entwined our fingers, and he let out a breath. I put my hand behind his head, and pulled him down to me. “Talk to me, Nick.” I kissed his lips, feather soft. “Even if you can’t explain this. Talk to me.”

He leaned his forehead against mine. “Sorry, Morgan. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect her to show up, and have the balls to ask me for money.” He sighed. “She’s just going to drink the rest of the money she doesn’t have to put into the rent.” He straightened and leaned back against the door frame. “Her name is Casey Lind. She’s my ex-fiancée.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Just promise me you’ll explain to me what that was about?”

“Not today,” he said. I heard the tremor in his voice.

“Not today,” I confirmed. “But even you have to admit just writing a woman who is clearly an alcoholic a check for her rent comes off as a bit odd.”

He smirked lightly. “It comes off as a lot odd.”

I exhaled; I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath. “I hope she doesn’t come back here, looking for more.” I wasn’t done with this, not by a long shot, but I knew it wasn’t the right time to force his hand.

“She won’t,” he said. “At least, not here. We’ve been told to vacate. We have to find a new rehearsal space. This is our last rehearsal here.”

“Why? What happened?”

“They sold the property and the new owners are going to take the warehouse down.” He looked back at the huge empty warehouse. “It sucks, really. We’ve been practicing here for three years, six months of those just trying to figure out how to play as band. Now we have to find a new place.”

“Can you practice at your house? Someone else’s?”

“Too loud.” He laughed. “Oh, my God, my neighbors would shit bricks if we practiced in the garage.” He pointed to the cavernous room. “We really need a place like this for the acoustics anyway. So unless you know someone who has a warehouse, we’re out of practice space for a while.”

I held up a finger. “Actually. I might.”

“What?” Nick was clearly taken back.

“Let’s get my phone.” I motioned him to follow me and dug it out once we were back to the couch. Dave threw a nasty look at me and Nick, but I ignored him. I flipped through the contacts and dialed a number. Nick watched me carefully. I waited through a few rings before it was answered.

“Dorn.”

“Hi, Franz. It’s Wisconsin.”

“Well, hello, my dear. Everything okay?”

“Just fine.” I smiled at Nick. “Are you at your love nest?”