Beat shook his head. He couldn’t take his eyes off Melody. Her display of courage was prying his ribs apart. “She’s not thinking about the reunion right now.”
Silence had encompassed the living room, the music having been lowered in deference to the obvious argument taking place between Trina and Melody. Beat breathed through the urge to carry Melody out of the house and take her somewhere far, far away. He quelled the impulse, stood at her back, and waited for the smallest sign that she needed him.
Buck, of all people, broke the uneasy silence. “Hell, Trina definitely isn’t afraid of being onstage. She sings for us all the time.”
“Wow.” Melody looked around. “Might as well be Madison Square Garden.”
Trina’s eye started to twitch.
Again, Buck attempted to lighten the mood. “Why don’t you sing something for us right now, Trina?” He signaled someone across the room with a wave, as frantic as possible for someone with a peace sign tattoo. “What about ‘Celebrity Skin’ by Hole? You love that one.”
A woman handed Buck a guitar and he strummed a few notes.
“Why don’t you sing something by Steel Birds?” Melody suggested.
Audible gasps went up around the room. The music cut out completely.
Melody scanned the crowd that had formed around them. “What?”
Buck coughed into his fist. “We don’t . . . we don’t play them here. Don’t talk about the band, either.” He rubbed his jaw. “It’s sort of a requirement to stay.”
“Ah.” Melody pursed her lips. “So it’s all free love and living wild on the surface. But what you’ve actually got here is a strict set of rules designed to make yourself comfortable.” Melody appeared amused by her revelation. Her chest started to rise faster, a sheen forming in her eyes. “Well, I don’t live here. These people didn’t even know I existed until today and I don’t have to follow the rules.”
Melody took the guitar from Buck and abruptly left the circle that had formed.
She stomped over to the trunk where Trina had been standing and made an attempt to climb on—and failed. She was too short. Beat was already on the move. He reached her within five seconds, prepared to boost her up onto the piece of furniture. Before he could reach her, however, she shocked the hell out of him by executing a flawless box jump.
“Oh!” She spun around, mouth open. “I did it!”
His chest felt fuzzy. “Next stop: two-year gym membership.”
“They’ll have to kill me first.”
Beat’s laugh cut off when she strummed a few notes. “Hold up. You play the guitar?” he asked, his eyes level with her stomach.
“I took reverse lessons,” she whispered, voice shaking.
He repeated that explanation out loud. “What does that mean?”
“It means that, unlike box jumping, I got worse the more guitar lessons I took.”
“I see.”
“I was remembering what your mother said about sucker-punching the spotlight back next time. But with everyone looking at me, I’m suddenly regretting getting up here.”
“No regrets.” He squeezed her waist. “You’re going to absolutely slay.”
Her fingers strummed a couple of the strings, the notes perfectly familiar to him. “You’re just saying that because you’re my best friend.”
Was this what it was like to be 100 percent willing to die for someone?
Out of the corner of his eye, Beat could see the camera’s blinking red light and, honestly, it just didn’t mean a goddamn thing in that moment. “You’re my best friend, too, Peach.”
“Best enough to sing with me?”
Was he supposed to be breathing right now? “Best enough for anything.”
Melody shifted side to side, released a long, shuddering exhale. “Okay, here goes.” And to Beat’s utter shock, her upper lip tugged into a snarl, the opening line of “Rattle the Cage” bursting out of her in a sold-out stadium-worthy growl. “Well, you can’t get to heaven raising this much hell!”
He only had a split second to overcome his shock before she widened her eyes at him, begging him to join in. Don’t leave me hanging.
Beat climbed up onto the trunk beside her, angling himself so he wouldn’t disrupt her guitar playing. “Fingers wrapped tight around the bars of your cell,” he shouted. Terribly. He couldn’t sing for shit. “Now shake those motherfuckers, show them how they offend!”
They both held up a middle finger, as was tradition at this stage of the song.
“Rattle the cage,” they sang together. “They won’t keep us penned.”
Danielle was the only one in the room cheering them on—and she did so with enthusiasm. Joseph stood in front of them filming, a grin splitting his face beneath the viewfinder. The inhabitants of the Free Loving Adventure Club looked distinctly uncomfortable, although a couple of them sang along under their breath. None of them existed, though, after the first verse. There was only Beat and Melody, trapped in this moment of time that felt fated. Someone had written it into their story a long time ago and they’d finally found their place on the correct page, so they could follow along.
She was glorious. Brave and uninhibited and a little sad. A lot wise.
Even as he sang, Beat’s throat burned with the need to reach back into the past and rearrange every hour of his life, so it could have been spent with her. Knowing her.
He wished for it so vividly that he didn’t even realize the song ended until the guitar dropped to Melody’s side, remaining there until White Jeans collected it without a word. She was staring back at Beat in a way his body understood. Responded to.
Voraciously.
It was pure lust. It was I need you now. With them on the same page, he could do nothing but keep reading. Unable to stop himself, too hungry for his counterpart to second-guess his actions and their consequences, Beat jumped down off the trunk, helping Melody down and leading her behind him toward the staircase by the wrist.
Melody tugged him to a stop in front of Trina who was looking at her daughter with an impassive expression. “We’re leaving in the morning,” Melody said quietly. “And I’d rather you didn’t come visit me in February.”
“Done,” Trina drawled into a sip of whiskey.
But Melody was already walking away, Beat at her side.
Wisely, Joseph didn’t follow with the camera.
Chapter Twenty
They crashed into the tiny attic room like tangled wrecking balls.
Melody’s blood had never been so hot that she could feel it, the elevated temperature of it, flowing through her veins. Her throat hurt from singing at the top of her lungs, something she’d never attempted in her life, but Beat’s mouth on hers was the perfect cure. She had no idea where these stolen moments in the starlight would lead, but just then, she didn’t care.
She was cocky.
If she could imply her mother was a coward—to her face—and belt out a Steel Birds song in a room full of people, she could handle a potential broken heart. In fact, bring it on. Bring it all on. She was immortal tonight and she scorned the concept of regret or pain.
How could a single negative thing exist on this earth at the same time as his mouth? It was the perfect combination of reverent and aggressive, his adventurous tongue banishing any possibility of stopping. Or thinking. Or breathing. She opened her lips wide for him, their heads canting to their respective rights in tandem, like they were built for each other. To kiss this wildly in this house in the middle of nowhere, to taste each other without a hint of reservation or insecurity. The only thing present between them was feverish want and deep recognition of two souls that had been separated too long. Maybe not good for each other, but created as a pair for better or worse.