*****
When Angel finally left for the show, the apartment was finally quiet. I had just taped shut the last box in my bedroom when my cell phone buzzed so loudly I almost had a heart attack.
When I saw the caller ID, I looked at the time. 10:20 p.m. I couldn't help but smile. "Hey, Dad, you had better not be calling me on your honeymoon!"
My dad's familiar rumble sounded more relaxed than I had ever heard him. A month in Bora Bora with your soulmate would do that, I guess. "Just landed at JFK, actually," he said. "Thought we might be able to swing by and see my baby girl."
I had to shake my head at his impeccable timing "Dad, I don't actually have a place anymore. I'm moving out as we speak.”
"You're what?"
"Moving out."
My dad was silent for a moment. Then he grunted in affirmation. "Ah. Okay. Where're you headed?"
I grinned even wider. "I'll fill you in once I have all the details," I told him, suddenly eager to pick his brain about life on the road. "Maybe I could meet you for dinner in Queens, or something?"
I heard him mumble something, and then the sounds of a slight scuffle. Annie's voice suddenly filled my ear. "Lily! You're going to see Jax tonight, right? We can go out afterward."
"I'm… not going to this show. No," I faltered.
She held her silence a beat longer than necessary. Just long enough for my heart to sink into my stomach. "He had three shows in New York," she said frostily.
"I know."
"What the hell happened with you two?"
My heart leapt into my throat. "What?!"
She huffed and must have moved to a quieter part of the airport because suddenly her voice was as clear as if she were standing right in the room with me, her voice ringing in my ear. "It's clear you love him. Why did you leave?"
As my brain still stumbled to process what Annie had just said, my dad snatched the phone back from his wife. "You two got a good thing. Take it from a guy who spent his whole life runnin' away from what's good, Liliana."
"You're not runnin' anywhere now, old man," I heard Annie drawl in the background.
"Not until you give me back my balls," my dad growled back at her, earning a round of her rich, smoky laughter. He got back on the phone with me. "Every father wishes this sort of thing for his daughter."
My mind simply refused to process what I was hearing. "…this… sort of thing?"
"I saw the way he looked at you while you were dancing at the reception. And Lily, maybe I don't deserve to have wishes for you after being absent from your life so long. But the best a father can hope for his daughter is that she ends up with a guy that looks at her like that. Like she's the only thing in the world."
"You knew?" I bleated.
My Dad growled. "I may be an old road dog. I've abused my brain with too much booze, and I don't hear too good from too much rock and roll. But my eyes still work just fine. And I can see that you love him." He hesitated. "Why, I have no idea… ow." I could hear Annie smacking him and laughed through the freely flowing tears. "Okay, he's a smug little shit, but you bring out the best in him. And he makes you happy. I'm not ever going to stand in the way of that again."
The sounds of the Annie grabbing for the phone filled my ear. "I've already talked with my publicist about it. We can spin it. He's already working the dark and edgy thing. My guess is this only adds to his career." She paused. "If that's what you were worried about."
"That was… part of it."
"Honey, we all got rock and roll in our blood. It's our job to shake things up, be the bad guys. Hell, scandal is my middle name."
I stammered something that sounded vaguely like speech as she continued. "I'll be proud to call you my daughter, Lily. Guess this'd make you doubly so."
"Holy shit," I whispered.
"Yeah?" Annie sounded downright eager.
I didn't know what else to say, so I said the only thing that sprung to mind. "I have to go."
Chapter Forty-One
Jax
There was a certain point in the night when the music seemed to flow through me. It had happened at every show we'd played on this month-long mini-tour and it was happening again tonight.
We were a cohesive unit now. I hadn't touched the bottle since the night with Lily. I had been focused and determined, even deigning to take direction in spite of it ruining my cocky reputation. But it was helping. Even Banks seemed to be enjoying himself at his bank of keyboards.
I moved my head and Casper stepped forward, launching seamlessly into the guitar solo as the lights angled out into the crowd, lighting up the sea of rapt faces staring back at us. I lifted my fingers and Talon's bass drum kicked in and then suddenly we all crashed together into the bridge
It was electric. It was wild. It was everything I had ever wanted it to be.
"Said she was my sister/Caught up in a twister …" Casper's last note blended seamlessly into mine. I held it as long as I could, screaming out the longing in the lyrics I had written during those fevered three days. They barely seemed like my words anymore. They were a snapshot in time, a moment with Lily I had lost forever.
"One-two-three-four!" I roared into the mic, bringing us straight into the last song before the encore. "Hey there, stubborn little girl/Wanna show you all the world/But first, you gotta open up your door …" The song hadn't even dropped twenty-four hours ago, but somehow, these people already knew all of the words to “Slam.” They were saying it was bound to be an even bigger hit than “Cocky.”
"Slam the door/Go on and give me more/Slam the door/On me."
"Thank you, and good night!" We made our bows and bounded off the stage to thunderous applause. I ran backstage and grabbed the towel my assistant had at the ready. The roar of the crowd shook the whole stadium, reaching up to the rafters. "Jax, Jax, Jax!"
I nodded at the guys. "Encore's 'Cocky,' of course. Give 'em what they came for. But let's do it the new way we rehearsed. Everyone good?"
Four heads nodded in unison. "Sorry, Banksy," I teased. "I know how much you hate that song."
"It's grown on me," the keyboardist sighed.
If I wasn't already as high as a kite with the adrenaline of the show, I would have crowed out loud over that admission. Instead I just nodded. "Thanks, man."
"No problem." he grumbled.
Well, shit. It took long enough but Banks had finally succumbed to my charms.
They all do, eventually.
Except one. The one that mattered most of all.
"Okay," I said, rubbing my hands together. "Let's get out there before they tear this whole place down."
"Yo, Jax?" Diggs called from the backstage entrance. "Can I grab a word?
"Kinda shitty timing, dude." I would never admit how much I liked having my mother's road team working for me now. They were old farts, but they knew their shit backwards and forwards. Only problem was when they got a bit too familiar. Like right now. "Can it wait?"
I saw a brown, silky head moving behind him. My body was reacting even before I could process it into speech. "Not really no." Diggs smiled ruefully. "She's never been good at that."
"Jax!" Liliana called from behind him. "Jax, please!"
I didn't hesitate. I nodded and Bash lifted his arm, sending Liliana careening into my arms. She was already babbling, her breath hitching, barely understandable over the roar of the impatient crowd. "I finally realized… My dad doesn't care, Annie doesn't care, but none of that matters, because I don't care either." She pulled my face down to her level, pressing our foreheads together. I closed my eyes in sheer bliss at having her skin against mine once again. "Do you hear me, Jax? I don't give a fuck about society or propriety. I love you, and that's the only thing that matters."