Page 74 of Just What She Needed

"You barely even knew her, Dad. Get real."

"What I had with her was real, but I ended up sacrificing it for you. I lost someone special so I could sit here in this bloody apartment waiting for you to make the time to see me."

"It's not me you needed to see, it was Mom."

"Never gonna happen, Sienna." He picked up her purse from the floor next to the couch and tossed it to her. "You're old enough to know that there are very few people I trust, given what I do for a living. There are too many people who would be more than happy to take advantage of me for one reason or another. I just never thought you'd be one of them."

"Oh, yeah?" She tossed her head. "How do you figure I took advantage of you?"

"You have to ask?" He stared at her, eyes wide with disbelief. "You manipulated my feelings, Sienna. You played on my love for you."

"So what?" She slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. "It didn't work, did it? So why does it matter?"

Rhys shook his head. "It matters because I do love you, but it's going to take a while before I can believe anything you say again."

Her shrug was nonchalant. "Okay. But you know what? Part of it worked. You’re not tied down to that Rhett bitch anymore, so there's that. Too bad, Dad. But if mom and I aren't happy then you can't be happy either."

27

If you want to get a sensual thunderbolt, then you have got to be cocked, locked, and ready to rock, Doc.—Ted Nugent

Feet dangling above the steep decline below Drew Cooper's Laurel Canyon house, Rhys propped his arms on the crossbar of the wooden deck and took a drink from the bottle of Sam Adams. There was an unopened bottle next to him on the redwood boards, but that was it. Two beers and no more. Without conscious thought, his hand moved down and rubbed his now-tight abdominals. Since he'd been staying with Drew he'd gotten back into his workout routine, thanks to the rhythm guitarist's well-stocked home gym. The slight but definite belly that had grown in Chicago was now gone. Rhys took some shit from the others in the band when he first got to L.A. and endured their joking comments about how he needed to lay off the Chicago-style pizza. He laughed along with them but didn't bother to correct their assumption that he'd been eating too much. In fact, he'd been eating less because he substituted copious amounts of Scotch whisky for food. If he'd known his time in Chicago would turn into such a clusterfuck he'd have bought stock in Diageo, the company that owned Johnnie Walker, before returning. At least he would have made a bit of dough from all that booze he knocked back.

A warm California breeze stirred his hair, and he sighed, more at peace in that moment than he'd been in months. If there was a better time to be in California besides mid-September, he didn't know when it might be. Dusk was falling, but the pleasant warmth of the day still lingered without any of the humidity that made high summer such hell. The breeze blew again, caressing his bare chest, and he thought it might be nice to just stay where he was all night.

The rattle of the sliding glass doors behind him announced Drew's presence even before he snorted out a quick laugh.

"Here I go and spend hundreds of dollars on outdoor furniture, and you sit on the floor."

"Half tamed, that's me." Rhys lifted the Sam Adams to his mouth again as Drew sat down beside him, the green bottle of Heineken in his hand barely visible in the growing darkness. "Nice out here, though. What I can't understand is why it always smells like oranges when you don't have any orange trees. Do your neighbors?"

"Not that I know of. Maybe the city sends drone planes over at night to spray citrus air freshener."

Rhys chuckled. "I can think of other things they could spray to mellow everyone out."

"No shit, man."

They sat and drank in companionable silence as night officially fell. After a while, Drew spoke up again.

"I think we're sounding tight."

"Mm-hm." Rhys nodded, knowing Drew referred to Illicit's ongoing rehearsals. "I'm not happy with the setlist, though. Yeah, we need to play the new stuff, but I think we've cut out too much of the stuff we're known for."

"We, hell." Even though it was too dark see Drew's face, his disgust came through loud and clear in his tone. "Who died and made Ross our Grand Exalted Leader? Struttin' around cutting and slashing the setlist without even talking about it with the rest of us. I think it's time we pulled him down off that high horse he's riding."

Rhys repressed a sigh. That's all they needed, tensions running high right before the start of a world tour. "Maybe coax him down, hey? I don't want him going all beserker on us right now."

"No, it's cool," Drew replied. "I think David and I will just have to remind him that we formed Illicit Biscuit with him when we were in school at Arkansas State, and it's not his band."

Irritation tightened his shoulders. "And it doesn't belong to just the three of you, either, you know."

"I didn't say it did." Drew sounded surprised.

"I know you didn't. Sorry to snap like that."

"No problem." A soft hissing noise came from Drew's vicinity as he opened another Heineken. "But what's up with you, man? You've been touchy as hell since you got here."

Rhys remembered his second Sam Adams and groped around in the darkness until his hand brushed against it. Another bout of groping produced the bottle opener, and he pried the cap loose.