Page 31 of Not So Goode

Lexie, beside me, was still partially holding me up, but she had eyes only for the spectacle on stage.

“Lex.”

“Mmm.” A verbal response, but her eyes were on the singer on stage, tall and dark haired and lean, angled up to a mic like he was making out with it, belting a song I’d heard on The Highway a hundred times.

This must be Myles—Lexie’s crush, and my savior’s boss.

“Lex.”

“Hmm.”

I palmed her face, turned her attention onto me. “Alexandra.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I’m sorry.”

She was fully with me now. Hugged me. “No apologies.”

“I’m the older sister. I should be the responsible one.”

She shook her head. “No. I told you, we’re cutting loose. No responsibility. No older or younger, no roles. Just you and me, and whatever happens.” She squeezed me hard. “Just next time, stay close.”

“The crowd moved all at once, and I got swept away. Pushed and bounced around like a frigging pinball, and spat out the far side.” I sighed, bitterly. “And then these guys started talking to me, surrounding me, and to stay away from them I backed up and ended up at the barricade. And they were…they were playing with me.”

“I’m so sorry that happened, Char-Char.”

“I was fighting them. But they were just laughing, even when I hit them. I was so scared, Lex.”

She squeezed my hands in hers. “Baby, you’re okay.

“I know.”

I glanced over and saw him, my savior.

Off in the wings, a guitar strap looped loosely over one shoulder, a small tuner clipped to the headstock of a weathered classical acoustic guitar. His head was tilted to one side, eyes shut, ear close to the strings, plucking, twisting a tuning peg a hair, plucking again, glancing at the tuner to verify.

Done, he stood and waited, one hand on the neck.

God, his shoulders were so wide. Hard. Round, strong. His back was like a wall. Arms rippling with lean, toned muscle. His hair was messy, a pair of mirrored aviators slid back on his skull, long-since forgotten. Both arms featured full-sleeve tattoos, but it was too dark and he was too far away to see the details. I vaguely remembered my head flopping against the warm skin of his bare chest as he carried me—effortlessly, easily—and seeing on his right bicep part of a tattoo, a row of crosses, each one with initials. It was a vague, hazy memory, but somehow I could see those crosses as clear as day, in my mind.

The song ended, the stage lights dropped to black, and Crow strode onstage, traded the singer guitars, giving him the acoustic and taking the electric. Back off stage, he plucked a cloth from his back pocket and wiped the strings carefully and thoroughly, bringing it back into perfect tune and replacing it on the rack of guitars, stuffing the cloth into his back pocket again.

“He really hurt those guys, Lex.”

She was quicker to give me her attention this time. “They deserved it.”

“I mean, yeah—they’d have raped me for sure, if he hadn’t stepped in. But he…he really, really hurt them. There were six of them, and he just…” I shook my head, visions of fists and feet and knees and elbows moving with surgical brutality. “He was an angry, avenging god, and they were pathetic little children caught up in his fury.”

Lex snorted. “Wow. That’s…a very specific image, hon.”

“You don’t know, Lex. You didn’t see what he did to them.” I shuddered. “He could have killed them. They’re definitely going to have permanent disabilities.”

“They were going torapeyou, Charlotte.” Her voice was hard. “Don’t give those pieces of shit another thought.”

“It was just so easy for him. He wasn’t even breathing hard when he was done. I don’t think they got a single hit in.”

“Good for you. Bad for them, but you reap what you sow, right?”