Beauty and the Bassist (The Extra Series Book 9) Read online

  What shocks me is the age of these girls. They’re adults, but not one of them can be over the age of twenty.

  “Dude,” I whisper to JT. “I am not scamming on teenagers. I don’t care if they are of age.”

  “Yeah, well,” JT says. “I’m dead. I’m going to go look up some skirts.” He saunters off and does just that, while I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses.

  A woman approaches me from the direction of the stage. She’s supermodel gorgeous, but she looks older than the rest of the girls, maybe close to my age. She’s got dark hair that curls around her shoulders and skin so tan that I wonder if she might be Latina. She’s wearing this dress that’s half black and half white in this sort of off-center pattern, and it hugs her body—her very hot body—nicely.

  She’s also glaring at me. “You’re late.”

  “Hi,” I say, letting some of my annoyance show in my voice. “I’m Shane.”

  “Allison Mendez. And you’re late.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m always late.”

  Her scowl grows deeper. “Great. We decided to get started without you, so we’re about to run the opening sequence. You can use the time to read over the script.” She thrusts a stapled stack of paper at me. “You can read, right?”

  I look over at JT, who is lying on his back staring up the dresses of a couple of girls who are fussing over their evening wear. I shake my head slightly, and Allison’s eyes narrow. “You can’t read? Seriously?”

  “I can read,” I tell her.

  “With your sunglasses on? Is this some kind of statement you’re making? Are you too cool to let other people see your eyes?”

  I snatch the script from her. “What’s your problem?”

  Allison puts her hands on her hips. She’s hot, but seriously intense.

  JT looks in my direction, and he smiles.

  Okay, maybe I like intense. But there’s normal intense and there’s heinous bitch intense, and this is—

  “My problem,” she says, “is that despite agreeing to do this, you show up forty-five minutes late and don’t care who you inconvenience.”

  I hold up my hands, one of them still containing the script. “Look. I didn’t sign up for this. My buddy did. I’m just here covering for him. And you just met me, so I don’t know what makes you think you know so much about me.”

  The girls in the room are starting to notice us, turning toward us and whispering to each other. Not a few of them are probably saying variations of “oh my god, there’s Shane Beckstrom,” which is something I normally encourage, but lately makes me sick to my stomach.

  Allison, however, doesn’t seem to care. “I know your type,” she snaps. “You think that just because you’ve got this bad boy rock star thing going, you can do whatever you want. But I’m here to tell you to stay away from my girls.”

  “Your girls.” I want to lift up the sunglasses and glare at her, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. Plus, I wear them inside to avoid headaches from the fluorescent lights. I might have told her that, if she’d asked instead of just assuming I’m an asshole.

  “Yes, my girls,” she says. “I know why guys like you sign on to do this job. But you’re not going to take advantage of them. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” I say sharply. “Some rock star broke your heart, and now you have to take it out on everyone who happens along. Noted.”

  “For your information,” Allison says, “I have never dated a musician. But I’ve worked for plenty of them, and I know how they think.”

  JT tires of looking up the skirts of the girls who are staring at us, and comes over to stand behind Allison. “Dude,” he says. “She’s hot. I can just see her in a leather corset.” He mimes cracking a whip in my direction, and I laugh.

  Allison does not appreciate this. “That’s hilarious, is it?”

  “No,” I say. “I just figured out what you’re so pissed about.”

  JT grins like he already knows what I’m going to say. Allison, on the other hand, doesn’t. “Oh, really,” she says.

  “You’re just mad because you want me so bad. But it’s okay, sweetheart. I don’t bite unless you want me to.”

  Allison looks like she wants to kill me, which is fair. It’s an asshole thing to say, and I take way more glee out of her anger than I ought to.

  I shrug. “What can I say? I’m a jerk. You’ve got me pegged.”

  She points down a hall the way that I came. “The green room is out there to the left. Go have a seat and read the script. I’ll let you know when we need you.”

  I bite back a comment about how I can be anything she needs. But I do check her out from behind as she walks away, and damn, she’s smoking hot.

  “You,” JT says, coming around behind me and checking out the view over my shoulder, “have a type.”

  I turn around and head into the hall before I answer him. “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” he says. “But you’re right about her. She wants you bad.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m just here to do the job you signed up for and get out.”

  “Aww,” JT says, following me through the doors on the left. “Come on. I’m dead, so I can’t get any. But there are some seriously hot honeys in there that you have got to see up close and personal, if you know what I mean.”

  The green room consists of a leather couch, a floor-length mirror, and a table covered in more makeup and a couple piles of papers. I sprawl out on the couch, flipping through the script. “Again,” I tell JT, “no one says honeys. And yeah, I’m sure the contestants are hot. And also barely legal.”

  JT sits down on the table, right on top of a pile of papers, which don’t move an inch. “Then do it with whip lady. It’s been months, and you need to get laid.”

  I refuse to look at him. “You’re only saying that because you think you get to watch.”

  “Hell, yes, I’m going to watch.” He rolls his eyes when I glare at him over my glasses. “Okay, fine. I’ll block out you, and just watch her, okay?” He holds up a hand in an approximation of him trying to do this, and I shake my head at him.

  “Dude, if you insist on watching, I’m never having sex again.”

  “Fiiiiine,” JT whines, in that way that he always did when he knew he was in the wrong but wasn’t going to admit it. “I’ll just listen.”

  I’m about to protest, but he cuts me off. “It’s not like I’ve never heard you have sex before.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, okay. Remember me and that girl in the back of our van when Kevin was driving us up to San Francisco?”

  “Dude, I wish I could forget. Those sounds you made are forever burned in my memory.”

  “Well, enjoy those, because they’re all you’re going to get for a while.”

  JT groans, walks over to the mirror, and starts cleaning his teeth, as if he’s had anything to eat in the last three months. I flip through the first few pages of the script, which I can in fact read, and find that it’s basically a bunch of corny jokes that sound like they would be better coming out of the mouth of William Shatner.

  “No way am I sticking to this,” I say.

  As if summoned by my belligerence, the door swings open while I’m still in the middle of the sentence. I’m struck again by how beautiful Allison is, but also how exhausted she looks.

  I imagine I’m not helping that any.

  “How’s the script?” she asks. “And yes, you will stick to it.”

  I definitely won’t, but I don’t argue the point. She’ll figure out soon enough. “Ready for my entrance?”

  “No. But we have to put up with you sooner or later.”

  I smile. I respect a girl who can throw my shit right back at me. “You don’t have to. If you don’t want me to do this job, I can walk right out the door. Makes no difference to me.”

&
nbsp; She sneers at me. “You would, wouldn’t you? Commit to doing something and then walk out and never look back.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who doesn’t want me here.”

  “I don’t,” she says. “But I do need you here.”

  My smile widens. “Ah. She admits it. I knew you were hot for me.”

  “Whatever. You’re clearly the one who wants me.”

  I scoff. “Right. That’ll happen.”

  Her face hardens, like this actually bothers her. And I think it might. “Whatever. Get off your ass, and bring the script with you. And please try not to be a total nightmare on stage, okay? We have a show to put on.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re going to hate what I do no matter what it is. Are you a bitch to every guy you want to bang, or am I just special?”

  “Maybe you’re special,” she says, and then hesitates, like she’s just now realizing that isn’t an insult. “And maybe I know Anna-Marie.”

  That settles over me like a lead blanket. “Oh,” I say. “That would explain it.” My ex-girlfriend, Anna-Marie, decided to completely ignore me in favor of some tool from LA on the one weekend she came back to Wyoming after four years away. I might have reacted to this by writing a song all about how I was still in love with her just to get back at her and her rich, city-boy boyfriend.

  Then they got married and the world decided they were the cutest couple ever, so the joke was on me. But hey, I got two hit albums out of the deal, supposedly all about how she broke my heart, so I made out all right.

  Long story short, Anna-Marie hates my guts.

  “Really?” Allison says. “That’s it? You’re not going to defend yourself?”

  “What’s to defend? You’ve already made up your mind about me. Besides, what do I care what you think?” I know I should stop there, but I’m starting to get mad, the way I do whenever I think about the way Anna-Marie ignored me like I was nothing the minute her now-husband showed up. I mean, she and I were way over. But we’d been a big part of each other’s lives back in the day, and I’d thought we’d be the kind of old friends who were in and out of each other’s lives, even if the romantic part was over.

  The joke, again, was on me.

  “You say you know my type,” I continue, “but believe me, I know yours. You’re a man-hating crazy cat lady who feels the need to take her own sexual frustration out on every guy within shouting range. So just go home, cuddle your cat, and leave me alone.”

  “Leave Lord Shelldon out of this,” she says. But she seems less angry now. More . . . amused.

  And she is a cat person. I’m kind of proud of myself for getting that right.

  “How do you know Anna-Marie, anyway?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I don’t actually know her. I used to work with Jenna Rollins, so most of what I know about you I heard from her.”

  She says this like it should make sense, but I’m not getting the connection. “Anna-Marie knows Jenna Rollins? The pop star?”

  Allison looks startled, like she thinks I should know all about the social life of the girl who has barely spoken to me since she left town without saying goodbye back when we were twenty. “Oh. Anna-Marie is friends with Jenna. Because Anna-Marie’s best friend is the sister of Felix Mays, who’s married to—”

  “I know who Felix Mays is,” I say. “I was there at the VMAs the night he pushed Alec Andreas off of that stage onto Kanye West.”

  Allison smiles. “So was I. And it was glorious.”

  It was glorious. As is Allison’s smile. “Anna-Marie has a friend who’s a girl?”

  Allison laughs. “Yeah, a couple of them. I’ve only met her once, but I thought she was cool.”

  Which explains why she hates me. Still, I’m glad we’re not yelling at each other anymore. “Do you really have a cat named, what was it? Sir Snugglesworth?”

  She laughs. “No, but clearly I need a second cat so that I can name him that. Mine’s named Lord Shelldon.”

  “Maybe I should get a cat,” I say. I’ve never had this desire before, but sitting across the room from this gorgeous woman, who I have no intention of taking home with me tonight . . . it reminds me that I’m the crazy person who lacks for human affection, not her.

  “Oh, then you keep the name,” Allison says. “It would be way better knowing that Shane Beckstrom has a cat named Sir Snugglesworth.”

  “What? I can’t like cute cat names?”

  Allison holds up her hands. “Oh, no. You definitely can. Should, even.”

  I smile and she smiles, and for a moment I regret being as defensive as I’ve been. It’s not like she’s said anything about me that isn’t true.

  “I have a concussion,” I say.

  Her smile slips. “What?”

  “From the accident. It’s why I wear the sunglasses inside. I get headaches from the fluorescent lights. They say it’ll go away, but it might be months before it does.”

  “Oh,” Allison says, her voice softening. She’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe we should start over. I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

  I bristle at that. There’s nothing that makes me feel angrier since the accident than people looking at me like I’m some wounded puppy. I’m the lucky one. I’m the one who got out of that van alive. “No, thanks. I don’t need your pity.”

  “It’s not pity,” Allison says. “It’s possible that I’m legitimately sorry about what happened to you, and I think maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

  I shake my head. “You have a thing for bad boys, don’t you?”

  She looks surprised. “What?”

  “You do. First you’re angry about what a jerk I am, and now you’re deciding that I must be some wounded soul underneath. Well, I have news for you. I’m not wounded, just an asshole. I’m everything that Anna-Marie said, so there’s nothing to start over. You were right about me. You were right about everything.”

  And with that I get up and stalk back into the auditorium, ridiculous script in hand, Allison and JT following after me.

  If I’m going to do this job, might as well get it over with. The sooner the show is done, the sooner I can go back to the dark cave of my apartment and resume pretending that the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

  Three

  Shane

  The next day I’m standing in front of a microphone on an empty stage as women in high cut bathing suits parade in front of me. Their ass cheeks undulate as they practice not falling off the apron stage while sauntering and turning. The auditorium lights are on, so even through my sunglasses I can see Allison glaring at me each time one of them passes me. She’s wearing a tight red dress today and a pair of high-heeled boots to match, and if anything, she looks even hotter than she did yesterday.

  I smirk back at her. It’s not my fault that most of these girls have chosen swimsuits that ride halfway up their butt cracks. Out in the audience, a busty dark-haired girl is eyeing me hungrily. And while I’m not entirely certain, I think the lips of her vulva may be hanging out of either side of the crotch of her swimsuit.

  I lift my glasses. Yep. That’s definitely what’s happening there. JT sits in the row in front of her, staring openly. That swimsuit reeks of more desperation than I’ve encountered since the last time I saw Anna-Marie’s cousin Lily.

  Allison follows my eyeline and throws her hands in the air. “Carmen!” she says, “I told you not to wear that swimsuit until you make some alterations.” She rushes over to Carmen, who looks at me knowingly. When Allison returns from ushering Carmen to the dressing room, she sits down next to one of the girls—Collette, I think? She’s got bleached blond hair and wide blue eyes and a boyfriend who keeps skulking around. I don’t see him at this moment, but Allison says something to her, and Collette holds out a palm and does a wax-on, wax off gesture at the general area of my crotch.

  �
��Can I help you ladies with something?” I ask into the microphone.

  All eyes turn toward me. The girl in the string bikini currently walking the stage stops mid-stride to turn around, and Collette grins. “I was just reading your aura!”

  “Ah,” I say. “Is that what the kids are calling it?”

  Allison smiles at that, but stifles it quickly so that she can glower. I grin at her, which only makes her glare harder. It’s kind of adorable.

  “Yep,” Collette says, turning to Allison. “He clearly wants you.”

  Allison’s mouth falls open, and she shushes Collette. It’s too late, though, as giggles travel through the room.

  I smile. “Oh, really?”

  “I think you two were married in a past life.”

  Allison looks less than pleased by this news, which is hilarious.

  Collette’s eyebrows hug together, like she’s concentrating. “Yes. And then you killed him.”

  That sounds about right.

  “All right,” Allison says. “Back to work.” She moves over and starts helping one of the girls get her bikini straps crossed correctly over her back while Carlyle, the director, calls for me to take it from the top.

  I read from the script, because I don’t have it memorized yet. Carlyle has some kind of yard stick up his butt, because he snaps at me anytime I off-road it. I’ve decided to keep my asides to myself. He won’t be able to snap anymore once we have an audience, and if he doesn’t like the way I announce the girls, he can get out here and do it himself.

  As we move through the script, I watch Allison work. She rotates from girl to girl, smiling at something this one says, helping that one with the pins in her hair. JT is following Allison around trying to look down the front of her dress, which makes me want to smack him upside the head. I vow to do this at my earliest opportunity that won’t make me look like a psycho. Carmen comes back looking all kinds of pissy that her swimsuit didn’t pass inspection. She’s got on a crop-top number that I think must be borrowed because the bra part looks like it’s one size too small, and she’s popping out the top. Allison walks over and gives her a hug, then looks as if she’s saying something reassuring.