Chapter 6

“Come on, sweet stuff, time to strut” Dax pulls me from the booth

“Don’t you mean strum?” I ask laughing

He stops and looks at me with a smirk on his face, “You don’t strum little bird, I do.” He continues to drag me up to the stage.

“No need to drag me.” He lets me go, and I fix my clothes while grumbling about his and his brother's nick name. At first, it was cute, but then it stuck, and after a while, a grown arse woman doesn’t want to be called ‘Little Bird’.

The crowd claps and whoops as Dax gets situated with his guitar, and I approach one of the lead mics. I take a look around, getting a feel for the room.

We have a good mix of men and women tonight, which is nice. Lately, Modus Grace has been a bit of a ladies band, so the mixture tonight is good for me. Ladies can be pretty possessive while drunk, even though they have no clue whether Dax is single or not. It’s remarkable what some people do.

A couple of men wink at me, and loads of ladies are biting their lips giving Dax lustful eyes as he addresses our audience for the evening, introducing the band.

Dax has deemed me a special guest this evening, and his Songbird, not even remotely better than little bird, I roll my eyes.

Andy drops a beat on the drums as Dax introduces her; Andy is gorgeous, has fire engine red hair, the right side is shaved and rocks it. She’s small but feisty. Men fall over themselves for her as much as they do to Stace.

Justin plays a little diddy on the piano and synthesiser; he looks like a rough biker, long unkempt hair tied up into a top knot and a long shaggy beard; he is all muscle and tatts and loves to show them off. I don’t think Justin owns a t-shirt or even a shirt, for that matter. If he could play nude, he would. He does during rehearsal, and I’m not complaining.

Jack strums a couple of cords on his Bass Guitar. Jack can give Dax a run for his money with the ladies; he has that whole surfie look minus the actual surfing going on; there is no doubt he is hot, blond sandy hair to his shoulders, ocean blue eyes and a golden tan. Yummy. 

And then we have Dax, lead vocals and lead guitarist. They’re currently looking for a second guitarist for the band and a female vocalist, they keep asking, but I keep turning them down. I don’t need Dean to know where I am all the time. I know they’re not interested in going big, but I’m sure one day someone is going to walk in on one of their performances and sign them with an offer they can’t refuse.

Andy leads us into the song and the crowd cheers. The best part about music is it allows us all just let go. It’s a release I love, but I loathe the attention while singing. A catch-22 if ever there was one.

Tonight, I’m not going to worry about anything. I’m going to let myself flow with the music. I’m taking Dax’s bet and running with it.

By the third song, everyone is up dancing. Stacie cried over the soft version of White Rabbit.

Our Duet of ‘Forget Me Too’.

“Alright, everyone, it’s time to say so long to our Songbird Lilly. Give her some love!” Dax kisses my cheek as the crowd yells and claps. I leave with a wave and a bow and walk off the stage as the band continues with their gig, flowing into one of their original songs, Sinners.

I head straight for the bar; Joe already has still water with lemon waiting for me. I take it with a smile, “Thanks, Joe.”

“Your good, you know. You should go for it and take the gig with these guys.”

“Dax been in your ear again?”

He shrugs, “Can you blame him? You can belt out more than just a little ditty baby girl.”

“You know why.”

He holds his hands up, “It’s why I don’t push too hard. It doesn’t stop me from telling you this. Don’t let that SOB hold you back.”

Someone slaps me on the arse, and I almost laugh, thinking it’s Stace or Mel, but by the look on Joe’s face, it’s an unwelcome arsehole.

The guy keeps his hand on my arse and takes the stool next to me, “Kindly get your hand off my arse.”

“Don’t be like that babe, you have a fucking fine behind” he chuckles at his stupid rhyme 

“Do you often go around touching women without their permission?” I ask as I stir my water with a straw, I take a sip, and he watches as my lips wrap around the straw.

“Babe, you are in a bar. It’s fucking inevitable, especially with an arse like that.”

“So, that’s a, yes?”

He shrugs noncommittedly; that’s all I needed to know. I place my glass of water down, careful not to slam it down and smash the glass all over the bar. I grab his hand on my arse by his wrist and stand into him as I turn, twisting his arm up behind his back; with my other arm, I use my forearm to put pressure on his neck, thrusting him up against the wall face first, “What the fuck!”

“Don’t ever put your hand on a woman without her permission arsehole” I hold the pressure of his arm against his back but remove my other arm to dig into his pocket, getting his ID, “Take a picture, Joe, this guy is out.”

“You can’t do that bitch”, he hisses against the wall

“I can. I own the joint”

“Fuck”, he mutters; a couple of men come up behind me

“Hey bitch, let go of my friend.”

“Oh, your friends have joined the party, how lovely”, I murmur in his ear. I look over my shoulder, “Hi fellas, you better take your friend home before he gets into more trouble.”

The big guy spits on the floor, luckily missing my very expensive and favourite boots, “You sing like a pretty bird, but I’ll fuck you up before I let you do any more harm to my boy.”

“You’ll do what now?” a lovely handsome man comes to my rescue.

“Joe?” I nod at him.

“On it,” he says in a clipped tone. He’s pissed.

“Move!” The mouthy guy says, moving closer, so he and Mr Handsome are almost chest to chest, “This has nothing to do with you, bruh, we’re just here to get this little bitch off, my friend.”

“No can do. Bruh. If you want her, you going to have to get through me first”, another handsome man stands with him and then our bouncers arrive.

“Geez, Tiny, what took you?”

“Sorry, Boss”, he smiles at me sheepishly

“Boss?” the mouthy dick who spat at me asks

“Yeah, you and your friends are out. Never show your faces here again.”, Tiny takes the handsy arsehole from me. I turn back to the bar and sip my lemon water, allowing the dickheads to argue amongst themselves; the bouncers know what to do. I let the arguing flow over me. I don’t have the time or the patience for this shit.

I made a vow to myself when I initially started getting back on my feet that no man will ever touch me without my permission. To ensure that I could stop a man from touching me, I had to learn how to fight, and that’s precisely what I did.

“You alright, baby girl?” He looks me over for any cuts or bruises, trying and failing to be inconspicuous.

“I’m good, Joe. I guess MMA training finally paid off.”

“It sure did, honey. I’ve got some drinks heading to your table,” Joe tells me and winks. I nod and make my way over to our table, putting the incident behind me—no need for a couple of sloppy arseholes to ruin my night.

“Oh my god, that was the best night out we’ve had in ages!” Stacie cries: I nod in agreement. We’ve been dancing up a storm with total abandon tonight. Thankfully Joe was thoughtful enough to bring us some water now and then, but damn I feel absolutely, positively drunk.  

“I mean, I haven’t seen you this pickled since”, she pauses for a moment, “I don’t know.” She shrugs, laughing.

“Pickled?” I laugh

“Pickled, zooted, mortaled, shit faced…. Wasted. What are the kids calling it these days?”

“Drunk.” I slur. What the hell did she just say zooted? I shake my head, “We have to do this more often. Shame Mel had to leave so soon.”

“Yeah”, Stace frowns. “You know she’s never told me her story, and I would never push for it either, so don’t give me that look. But it must not have been good. Mel only gets skittish whenever a guy asks her out. For a moment, I wondered if she’s thought about, you know, becoming a lesbian.” I look at her, stunned. I can’t believe she just said that.

“Stacie! Jesus, look, it was bad, unbelievably bad. We all get through shit in our own way and in our own time. She’ll get there; just give her some space and patience.” I know she doesn’t know what it’s like to come back from this kind of trauma. Not many people can pick themselves up and jump in the sack with someone. Hell, it took me two years to get there.

She nods, “I can do that. I would never pester her. Mel’s a sweet girl and fragile as fuck.”, she yawns hugely, “Let’s get out of here. I’m exhausted.”

“Same, it’s been a long arse day.”

As I get up to leave, some idiot runs right into me, which leaves me wearing all of the beer and some sickly sweet-smelling cocktails, he was carrying.

“SHIT!” I exclaim, turning back to the table and picking up several napkins as I’m padding myself down quickly, hoping that the alcohol won’t ruin my top. I realise in my drunken haze that it doesn’t matter cause it’s a Modus Grace tank, and I can just go in the back and get a new one. I drop the napkins onto the table. Staring at the ceiling, I close my eyes and count to ten, but I get as far as five and start to confuse the damn numbers, fucking shots, too many shots.

The clumsy douche bag starts to apologise profusely, “I’m so, so sorry, you came out of nowhere.”

Like I’m to blame, I turn to him angrily. “Well, if you looked where you were going, the incident would never have ….” I stop; the douche bag is drop-dead gorgeous. Wow, he is far taller than me, maybe 6,4. I let my eyes cruise down his body which looks toned of his white t-shirt has anything to say, and it’s yelling at me right now; the t-shirt is stretched out to nearly its limit. He has shoulder-length brown/blonde hair, striking hazel eyes and full lips. W-O-W is an understatement.

He narrows those lovely hazel eyes at me. “You should have looked before you got up”, he accuses, he continues ranting at me, but for some senseless reason, I’m smiling mindlessly at him, not listening to a word he’s saying. How can someone be this good looking?

His eyes seem familiar, but if we had met, I’m sure I would remember him.

Eventually, he stops rambling and returns my stupid smile with an even goofier dazzling one of his own. Jesus, I must be far, far drunker than I thought.  

He holds his hand out. “I’m Lucas Craven.” I just stare at him. He gives me a puzzled look and starts to move his hand away. I quickly put my hand out and shake his warm solid, calloused hand.

“I-I’m Lilly, Lillian Blackwood”, I stutter, geez Lill, get a grip, remember he’s a douche bag that just spilled shit all over you…. still, he’s a good-looking douche bag.

“I know, I’ve been watching you. I mean, I watched you sing.” He smiles ruefully, pointing at the stage, “You sound amazing.”

“Thanks”, and then it occurs to me, “You’re one of the guys that helped the bouncers out earlier?”

“Yeah”, he shrugs.

“Thank you.”

“It’s no big deal. Some guys can’t take no for an answer.”

I nod, trying to wrack my brain for anything or something to say, but nothing comes to mind.

“I’m sorry for the ah mess. I’m happy to pay for the dry-cleaning bill.” I just continue to stare stupidly at him. After a minute, he hands me what looks like his business card.

“This has my personal phone number on the back of the card; let me know what the bill is. Maybe we can meet again and have coffee sometime?” he says, but he sounds doubtful, and I realize that I’ve been silent for far too long and staring senselessly at him this entire time. I can feel the embarrassment creep up my neck.

Finally, my brain to mouth starts to function, “Please, don’t worry about the dry cleaning. There’s plenty of these tanks in the back.” I smile while I babble at him. To my surprise, I take the card and accept his coffee invitation without thinking.

“Great, so coffee, how about tomorrow?” he asks appreciatively, probably because I finally took his card.

“Sure, I know a place. I’ll be bringing someone along with me. If you don’t mind?” That someone will be Benny, I grin.

He frowns, “Um, okay, I guess.” I tell him where the café is. He knows the place.

I reassure him, “Don’t worry. Benny doesn’t talk much; in fact, he will probably happily eat silently and lounge the entire time.” He frowns, looking more confused.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turn and walk to the storeroom to get a new t-shirt. I trash the wet tank and pull a fresh unmodified tank over my head; that’s better.

I find Stacie outside the door waiting for me; her eyes are wide. “Holy shit, I think you have a hot date, and I have to emphasize on the H-O-T - hot!” we both go into a fit of giggles as we exit the bar, waving goodbye to Joe as we leave.

“I don’t do dates, Stace, and you know this.”

“Well, you do now. Coffee is a date, Lillian” she laughs

“No, it’s not; it’s just an apology for ruining my top.”, Jeez if he thinks it’s a date, I’ll have to set him straight. I don’t do dates; I don’t do men, period. Right now, it’s my time to focus on myself.

Stacie jumps into a taxi. “Call me afterwards. I want to hear everything.”

Oh boy, I’m sure she does. It could be worse; if my mother and sister were here, they would have sat him down with us and asked him a million questions along with securing my engagement, wedding, and future children. I roll my eyes; it’s not a date Lillian, I take a deep breath. It is not a date!

Lying in bed with my music blasting in my ears, I find myself involuntarily smiling.

Lucas Craven, Stace is right; he is hot. I start to drift off to sleep, stunning hazel eyes dancing behind my eyelids.