Over the Hills and Far Away (NOLA's Own #1) (48 page)

“Thanks for the ego boost,” I said dryly.

“Well, obviously you need one,” she snapped.

“Wow. That’s impressive, Kenna,” said Danielle.

“I told you she was amazin’,” drawled Phil as he walked up, dangling a giggling three-year-old by her ankle. “Where should I put this?”

“My guess would be on her feet,” Danielle replied.

Phil plucked Camille up into his arms for a squeeze, and he set her down, so she could go tearing through the yard again. Standing behind me, he draped his arms over my shoulders. Danielle beamed.

The guys started showing up. Flipper brought a girl. Either she was his best friend, or she was his date. It wasn’t too clear what their relationship was, other than it was obvious they were quite close. Her name was Vivian, and she was just as pierced as he was. She looked like a cute punctured little pixie with her short brown hair and hazel eyes.

X showed up with two very young girls. They turned out to be his sister, Erika, and her best friend, Becca. Erika looked a lot like her brother, only dark blonde rather than a flaming redhead. It was obvious that the girls were both in love with Phil, making moon eyes at him from across the patio.

Martin showed up with several cases of beer and the cutest chubbiest baby I’d ever seen. I witnessed my man go all gooey-eyed as he snatched up his nephew, who immediately latched on to Phil’s sideburns with a drooling happy smile. Phil didn’t seem to mind.

Oh shit…he
loves
kids. He probably wants children.

Personally, I wasn’t too partial to kids. It was never something I’d wasted much time thinking about, except when I was trying to escape them.

But I had to admit that the sight of him holding his fat little nephew did something to me that I’d much rather ignore for the moment. My heart squeezed, and for a split second, I could see him holding a little fat red-haired girl.

When Jason and Sheri showed up, X threw his arms in the air and shouted, “Jam session!”

Danielle took one look at Sheri and rolled her eyes. I guessed I could understand Danielle’s train of thought.

Sheri really was a beautiful young woman who dressed cheap. She was wearing an extremely tiny jean skirt and a strappy white tank top that barely contained her enormous tits along with wedge sandals that made her awesome legs look a mile long. She had the potential to be an absolute knockout. She just put all the goods out on display.

Sheri had spent the last six years as a glorified groupie but one with a title—Road Manager. However, she also had been the recipient of every one of the guys’ cocks in some orifice at some point, so maybe she dressed the way she felt.

Phil had yet to say anything to me about the fact that she’d provided him with oral gratification. He’d only assured me that they were just friends.

Just forget about it. It’s not important anyway.

Phil leaned down. “We’re gonna play for a bit. Do you mind?”

I grinned. “Hell no!”

He smiled, his warm eyes sparkling, and he pressed his lips to mine. “We’ll set up, and then I’ll show you my room, yeah?”

I busted out laughing. “Seriously? Are you trying to sneak me off for a make-out session?”

He bit his lip and winked.

One more kiss, and he and the guys disappeared around the side of the house. I noticed Erika and Becca followed behind them.

Poor Phil. I think he’s about to be sexually harassed by minors.

Sheri came up to us and took a brave deep breath…and then everything got resolved. Even Lili, who had previously been told about the whole apology thing by Alys, laid aside all animosity toward the busty blonde and agreed to start over with her.

About ten minutes later, the guys came back with a few amps, guitars, and a bass. For the first time, I noticed a screen on the other side of the patio. Flipper pulled it aside to reveal an ancient-looking drum kit.

“Aw, she’s still so cute,” he sighed. “Come look at her, Viv!”

Vivian was speaking with Danielle. They’d obviously met before. Vivian smiled and walked over to Flipper, who wrapped his arm around her waist.

“Are they together?” whispered Lili. “I don’t get it.”

“She’s his cousin,” whispered Sheri. “They’re really close.”

The look on Lili’s face showed that she was grossed out. “
How
close?”

Sheri just shrugged.

“I wonder what they’ll be playing,” said Alys.

I noticed X kept glancing her way, and she pointedly ignored it. I wondered why because she’d always had a thing for him, but I understood that it was easier to deny it than to accept it, so I was not judging.

Phil caught me checking him out while they set up, and he smiled all sexy at me.

A few minutes later, he sauntered over, taking my hand. “If you ladies will follow me…”

Alys and Lili stood up, and X followed us inside. Heading through the enormous living room, complete with a massive television, we trailed Phil to the right down a hallway and then hung a left to a stairway to the second floor. On the landing, we turned left and headed back down a short hall to a bedroom.

Phil fucking Deveraux’s teenage bedroom was forever frozen in 1997. Wallpapered in posters of heavy metal bands with a few nudies from
Playboy
here and there, it was a young man’s cave. There was a large bed, a writing desk under the window looked out over the backyard, and a squishy-looking armchair and a futon graced the space.

Lili zeroed in on a large corkboard littered with photos. “Oh. My. God! Is this you guys?” She was staring at a picture of four teenage boys, looking thin and gangly in their Metallica and Megadeth T-shirts.

Looking over her head from behind, Phil had to stoop to see it. “Ha-ha! Yeah, it is.”

“Holy shit!” she squeaked, jabbing a finger at Phil’s sixteen-year-old self. “That’s you?”

“Yep.” He grinned.

“You were a runt!” she crowed.

“There was a time when Flipper and I were the same height, yeah,” he admitted warmly.

Lili dissolved into hysterics. Alys sat down on the bed, crossing her legs, and she pulled a spliff out of her purse. X plopped down next to her, invading a little of her personal space.

Lili walked around the room, looking at all the crap on his walls. She stopped at some medieval-looking swords, too.

Dork.

I turned my attention back to the corkboard. A picture caught my eye. It was an old one from the ’80s by the looks of it. It was somewhat hidden beneath a few other photos, and I scooched those to the side.

I gasped.

Little Philip Deveraux and his Baby Girl, Christmas 1981.

This one was a close-up of our faces. I was smiling so hard that my eyes were scrunched up, and his face was pressed right up against mine. In a flash, my eyelids prickled and burned with emotion. It stunned me that this old photograph was tacked to his corkboard.

Phil rested his hands on my waist, and then he slid them around to pull my back flush to his front, holding me tight. His mouth pressed a burning kiss to the side of my neck.

“I told you, I never forgot you, Baby Girl,” he whispered.

“Damn, Phil,” I breathed. Warmth, sweet and golden, bled from my heart and seeped through my veins, pulsing its way through all of me.

“Hey, lovebirds, you gonna hit this?” X choked out, holding in his hit.

The spell woven between us broke, and we reentered the real world. Phil led me to the armchair and pulled me down onto his lap, and then the five of us cashed the joint.

“We should head back,” said X. “They’ll start to wonder where we are.”

When we all got up to leave, Phil held me back. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

“Yeah, okay,” drawled Lili.

Alys effectively shoved Lili out the door, and X followed behind Alys like a lovesick puppy.

Phil stepped forward and softly shut the door. Then, he turned and leaned his back against it. He just stood there, watching me, his eyes burning into me.

I cleared my throat. “We are
not
having se—”

Faster than it should have been possible for a man his size to move, he grabbed me and tossed me onto the bed, pinning me beneath him. His mouth crushed down on mine, his fingers spearing through my hair, and he ground himself between my legs.

Fuck it. I can’t say no to sex with Phil. There’s no way.

Releasing my mouth, he pressed his Third Eye to mine, breathing harshly.

“My whole life,” he panted. “My
whole life
, I’ve searched for you, waited for you, hoped and prayed I’d find you one day.” He sweetly kissed me once more. “I love you so much, Kenna, my wonderful, beautiful Baby Girl.”

“Please…you’re going to make me cry,” I whispered, swallowing thickly around the hard lump in my throat. “D-don’t make me cry here.”

“Where would you rather I make you cry then?” he asked softly between pressing kisses all over my face and lips.

I giggled. I couldn’t help it. He was just so cute that my eyeballs dried out.

Ten minutes later, we were back downstairs. The guys were tuning up their instruments and plugging in amps and microphones. A few more people had shown up—Tim, their manager, some neighbors, and a few old-school friends of the guys.

After Phil introduced me to everyone, he pulled me in for a quick kiss. “Two things.”

“Yeah?”

“One, any requests? We’re playing classic shit tonight. Dad’s friends don’t really listen to our, um…style of music.”

“‘Friends’ by Zeppelin.”

“
Oof.
I might need tighter pants to pull that off,” he said with a grin.

“And two?”

“Keep those little girls the hell away from me. They scare the shit out of me.”

That cracked me up.

Whacking my ass none too lightly, he joined the guys, and I headed over to Alys, Lili, Sheri, and Vivian to sit and watch the show.

“How fucking cool is this?” I asked my two best friends. “A private show from our favorite band!”

Jason threw an acoustic around his shoulders, and Flipper busted out some bongos. Then, they all sat on some stools.

Phil had a tambourine in his hands. “All right, guys,” he said into the mic. “One, two…”

Jason began the intro to “Friends,” and we started tapping our feet. I couldn’t imagine what this was going to sound like, but then Phil opened his mouth…and
Robert Plant
came out. Phil smiled, looked right at me, and winked.

My jaw dropped. Alys and Lili had identical looks on their faces. I covered my mouth to keep myself from screaming. Instead, I jumped up and started dancing. Lili and Alys joined me, and we were like a bunch of dirty hippies stomping our feet. Danielle came up and started dancing with us, too, and we all sang along with Phil and Jason.

Motherfucker can wail just like Robert Plant! No nut-huggers necessary! Holy shit!

Jason had a fantastic voice, too, doing the backup vocals. X and Flipper looked to be in heaven while performing Zeppelin. At the end of the song, we cheered and applauded, and Alys did her special ear-piercing whistle.

Phil laughed. “I guess it’s a Led night then.”

Up next was “The Song Remains the Same,” and it was fantastic.
Alys and I were in complete audio bliss, considering Zeppelin was
our
band, the one band we wished we had seen in concert. We wrapped our arms around each other’s waists and sang every word.

“Black Dog,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,”—which made me think of Mom—“Gallows Pole,” “Immigrant Song,” and “The Lemon Song” followed.

Oh my gods above!
If I’d thought I was in love before, it was
nothing
compared to how I felt about him now.

This
was NOLA’s Junk—just four dudes who fucking loved to jam out. And Phil could
dance
, moving his sexy bubble ass all over the place. He looked to be having the time of his life. I loved it when he would look right at me and sing to me personally.

I get to go home with that! I’ve totally had sex with that!
my head screamed at me.

“Pretty awesome, right?” asked Sheri, positively glowing.

I realized that the woman truly loved them, loved
each
of them, and loved their music just as much as we did—perhaps even more so, considering
she
had upped and left whatever life she once had behind and followed them around the world.

I hadn’t been willing to do that, and a twinge of shame zipped through a region of my heart.

“Oh my God! Who knew?” crowed Lili.

Sheri just smiled.
She
had known, and I had to admit that I was a smidgen jealous. She had had a front-row seat to the evolution of NOLA’s Junk.

Phil laughed into the mic again. “I think the food’s ready,” he told everyone.

Indeed, Louis was waving a large set of tongs in the air.

People were heading over to the barbeque feast, but Phil came over to me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“What did you think? Did we pull it off?” he asked, his voice once more deep and warm, chocolate-sounding.

I playfully smacked him on the chest. “I never knew you could retract your testicles on cue!”

Danielle choked on a healthy swig of beer.