The Luminous Rock Series Box Set Page 7

  “You’re cocky, too. We’ll see how long you last…” The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Don’t lie to me, kid, I hate being lied to. Effa’s not wearing your shirt for no reason,” Luke declares as he turns and marches out of the room.

  I look down at Effa sitting on the sofa, her bare legs almost dangling from the edge she’s so tiny. I grit my teeth, finally seeing what Luke was witness to—his lead singer, asleep in my arms, wearing only my shirt. Yeah, guess that does look bad.

  Alana stands still in the doorway while Effa looks over at her. She takes a deep, heavy breath. “What happened to no one sleeping with Mercs, Effa? That was our rule, remember?” Alana calls out, and I turn my head to look at Effa in confusion.

  Effa stands up, her head only barely coming up to my chest. “I didn’t break the rules, Alana, and I mean it! We didn’t sleep together. I mean… we did sleep together, but we didn’t fuck.” she says it so casually I almost miss it.

  I let out a small chuckle as Alana walks into the room opening her eyes wide and tilts her head looking at Effa’s bare legs. “But you’re wearing his shirt, and… nothing else.”

  “Umm, yeah, there was no way I was sleeping in a leather dress…” She pauses then continues, “I swear, Alana, nothing happened,” Effa defends.

  I’m thinking perhaps I’ve been some sort of topic of conversation between the girls.

  I put my hand up in confusion. “Wait! What the fuck! What are you on about?”

  Alana and Effa both look to me and furrow their brows. “Mercs, you’re crew. You could have had any one of us if you wanted,” Effa blurts out nonchalantly.

  I let out a stifled laugh.

  She shrugs. “It is what it is, Mercs. We didn’t want to mess around with you because of who you are.”

  “Who I am?”

  Effa nods, reaching out touching my arm, and I inhale slightly.

  “We need you. This tour needs you. And none of us can fuck this up,” Effa says.

  “That’s why Luke’s so angry at Effa, Mercs,” Alana tells me.

  “This is a little crazy. What if something happened last night, Effa? What then?”

  Effa smiles weakly. “I would have stopped it before it got that far.”

  Letting out a puff of air, not knowing what the hell is going on. I’m a little pissed off, now I officially know things can’t go further with Effa. “You girls are nuts. Like balls to the wall, asylum crazy,” I tease.

  Effa smiles, the girl actually smiles. I swear she really needs to work on taking insults for what they are.

  “Mercs, I get it. I know what it’s like having your choices taken from you, but really, let’s be honest, you’re not the type of guy who would actually want to sleep with any of us anyway… would you?” Effa asks with a hint of a smirk on her face.

  I try to assess what game she’s playing at. I think this is one of those lose-lose situations, where no matter what I say I’m going to be wrong. I’m not sure what she’s trying to pry from me, so I attempt to change the subject. “How about instead of all this, who’s having sex with who talk, you guys go back to your hotel. I’ll stay here and we can all go about our separate worlds like this never happened?”

  Effa’s bright smile falters like I’ve definitely said the wrong thing. She slumps, her glittering eyes extinguish. It’s the first time I’ve seen Effa look… sad.

  “Yeah, sure. You stick to your world… I’ll stick to mine. Sorry for trying,” Effa mumbles and pivots, walking toward the door without her shoes or dress wearing only my shirt.

  Not knowing what to say, I say nothing more. I’ve hurt her feelings, and I didn’t mean to. I’m a little out of my depth. I’m not used to people trying to befriend me, and here she is attempting to make me feel welcome, and I shoved it right in her face.

  “Effa,” I call out as she reaches Alana, who’s looking to me with a somber expression.

  “It’s fine,” Effa calls out, but she doesn’t look back as she walks past Alana and out into the hall completely away from my view.

  Letting out a long breath, I run my hand through my hair. “Shit,” I mutter.

  Alana looks at me and purses her lips. “For the record, asshole… Effa’s feelings don’t get hurt very often. So if you’re able to hurt them, it means she thinks highly of you…” Her mouth sets into a hard line before she begins speaking again, “Tread carefully, Mercs.” Alana turns to follow her stepsister out the door.

  I groan, throwing my head back in annoyance at myself as I hear footsteps coming back toward the room. I spin, and step forward hoping Effa’s coming back so I can apologize.

  Fuck! I probably should have gone after her.

  Alana walks through the door with my shirt. She winces at my expression and places my shirt on the sofa while leaning down to pick up Effa’s stuff. “She said to give you back your shirt and to pick up her things. I… ahh… better go. She’ll be waiting in the car.”

  “She walked outside in just her underwear?” I ask.

  Alana shrugs and nods. “She’s super confident in her own skin.” Her eyes look upward. “I wish I was as confident as her.”

  “You have every right to be confident, Alana. You’re beautiful just like Effa.”

  She weakly smiles and shakes her head. “I might be pretty, I have no idea, but our confidence levels aren’t the same. It all comes so naturally to her. She’s so gifted. I have to work for everything. Even the attention of those I want attention from. And when I get a chance at having that attention, even for a brief moment, somehow it gets taken away, and someone else is in the limelight. Like last night, when we found out Effa was missing, and we were having such a great time…” Alana’s eyes glaze over losing focus as she looks off into the distance. “Finally, he was opening up to me and then, bam… panic stations…” she drifts off like she didn’t even realize she was talking out loud.

  Furrowing my brows, I wonder who she’s talking about. I wonder if the other girls know that Alana has a crush on someone, and is having a hard time dealing with it. Anyway, it’s not my place to deal with that. Fuck! I can’t even deal with my own shit. Look how much I’ve fucked things with Effa in the space of about a thirty-second conversation.

  “Alana?”

  She blinks rapidly like she’s shocked she’s still here. “Sorry. I better go. Can’t keep Miss Bubbles waiting, especially when she’s sad. I need to cheer her up… Alana the llama to the rescue.”

  Furrowing my brows, I wonder if I heard that right. “Alana, the llama?”

  She giggles. “Something from when we were kids. I had a llama outfit, and when Effa would get in one of her moods, I would dress up and pretend to be a limerick loving llama. Always cheered her right up.” I raise my brow with a smirk. “Yeah, we do weird things in Nimbin… don’t judge.”

  Trying to hide my laugh, I nod. “Okay, limerick loving llama, off you go. Cheer up our girl… tell her I’m sorry.”

  “She knows. It usually takes her a little while to come up from her lows, though. She’s always on such a high that when she bottoms out, it’s usually for a few hours. She’s a complicated beast our Effervescent.”

  “Tell her I’m here if she wants to talk.”

  She nods. “I will. See you later today.”

  I nod, and she turns with all of Effa’s stuff in her arms and almost skips out of the room. Leaving me with my thoughts of Effa being miserable—which is at my doing—and the image of Alana dressed up as a llama.

  What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  Chapter Seven

  EFFA

  Luke’s sitting opposite me in the car, giving Raoul an earful about not keeping him in the loop. Poor Raoul, he was only doing what I told him to do, and now he’s in trouble. I sink into the lined leather seat further, it squeaks with the friction of my skin moving against it, and I wince at Raoul as he glances at me. But he’s taking the telling off like a champ.

  Luke is so damn tense, he needs to chill the fuck out. I don�
��t know what his problem is. I know I should have probably told someone where I was going. But fuck! I’m twenty-two, not sixteen. I don’t need to tell my dad where I’m going. Plus, Luke’s more like a protective older brother. But right now he’s annoying the shit out of me, and poor Raoul is copping the full force of his ferocity.

  “Okay, Luke, seriously… like, chill the fuck out. It’s not Raoul’s fault. I asked him to bring me here, and he stayed all night on guard to protect me. He did a good job. Nothing bad happened. You should be thanking him, not blasting the crap out of him.”

  Luke turns to me and gnaws on his bottom lip. “Effa…” Luke sighs, “… I know you think this is all a big joke, but seriously, you’re a big-time rock star, and you’re sitting in a car, out the back of a stadium, in your damn underwear… in broad daylight. You don’t see a problem with this?”

  I look down at my matching purple underwear set and shrug. “No. I think I look quite nice in this actually.”

  He groans and throws himself back into his seat, bringing his cell up to his face and punching something into it, seemingly having enough of this conversation. I smirk at Raoul, who grins at me, and then proceeds to look out the window saying nothing more as the car door next to me pulls open, and Alana slides in with my dress and boots.

  She closes the door behind us and takes a long breath before looking around and noticing the tension in the car. “Well, I can see it’s a little frosty in here.”

  I nod and glance at Luke then roll my eyes.

  Alana purses her lips. “Okay, well… Mercs told me to tell you he’s sorry for what he said.”

  My stomach sinks and I hate that he wanted to forget our night together. I know it was only a kiss, and we basically fell asleep in each other’s arms, but it was the best sleep I’ve had in years. Even on a small, lumpy sofa. I have trouble sleeping at the best of times, and being in Mercs’ arms, I went out like a light. Something about him calms all my energy. Something about him settles me. I liked it. I want more of it. But if he wants to forget it ever happened then I guess our friendship is over before it even had a chance to begin.

  Alana reaches out placing my dress over my lap and grabs my hand giving it a squeeze. “Hey, stop overthinking. Don’t go there. Don’t go to that place, Effa,” she mumbles.

  I look up at her and raise my brow. “What place?”

  “Your unhappy place. The place where you lose your amazing confidence. Don’t go there. You’ve worked so hard to become Effervescent. Don’t let one guy rain on your parade and ruin everything you’ve worked on becoming…” Alana trails off.

  I notice Luke casually glance up from his cell to peer at me.

  “No. I’m okay, I promise. I just… I don’t know. He’s different to the rest of the crew, you know? They throw themselves at us. He’s… Mercs is different.”

  Alana nods. “Well, even so, I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” I chuckle as the car pulls out from the curb on its way back to the hotel, I’m assuming.

  She clears her throat and sits a little taller. “Have you ever heard of the star Effervescent? She really is quite fluorescent. A hippy by day, a rebel you’d say. She’s such an antidepressant,” Alana recites off the top of her head, making me smile. I grin wide, loving her spur of the moment limerick. It would have been perfect if she had on her llama outfit, but I don’t even mind that she doesn’t. Right now, the fact that she’s trying to make me happy, by pulling out her limerick game, only fills me with warmth and love, and all thoughts of sadness and despair fade away. I don’t know what I’d do without my step-sister. She really is the light in my life—her and Kristy. I love these girls.

  Luke lets out a stifled chuckle as he continues to tap away on his cell, but sends Alana a sideways glance, like he’s proud of her. I lean over and embrace her tightly, wrapping her up in my affection and love. She hugs me back, and I breathe her in as I embrace her tightly.

  “Thank you, sis. You always know how to cheer me up. I love your limericks, they never grow old.”

  She sighs and I pull back. “That’s what I’m here for, Effa. Always. You know I love you. But seriously, next time you take off please tell someone, or at least get Raoul to text me.”

  Nodding, I sigh. I know I made a mistake last night. I didn’t mean to scare them. Honestly, I didn’t, and if my cell didn’t die, I wouldn’t have lost contact. But I understand, I know how important I am to the band—to the sound of Luminous. I have to be better than this. And with Mercs shutting me out, I can be focused on the band and not on making new friends.

  My stomach sinks a little at the thought of not hanging out with Mercs again, but I guess if that’s what he wants then there’s not much I can do about it. I know his job is important to him, and I don’t need to threaten that. And I’m not going to.

  I need to keep my distance from him.

  I need to go back to the hotel, have a shower, and forget all about Kaden Mercury.

  I can’t seem to get Mercs out of my fucking mind. It’s doing my head in, as I scrub the smudged glittery pink lightning bolt off my face. The pink swirls down the drain in a myriad of glitter and paint.

  I wonder what he’s doing right now.

  Groaning out loud, I place my face under the hot water, closing my eyes as the steady stream of liquid pummels against my skin. I hold my breath letting the last of the pink paint and makeup wash off from last night’s show.

  Pulling back, I take a deep breath as I swipe my hands over my face to remove the water from my eyes.

  I’m excited about our next show tonight, but not that excited about running into Mercs.

  I feel like our friendship might be awkward now. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into his comment about forgetting it ever happened. Maybe it was a throwaway comment, but either way words like that tend to get to me. I want to remember every moment of my life with passion, so purposely trying to forget a night that turned out really sweet for me seems like a harsh blow.

  I’m overreacting, I know it, but it seems it’s something that’s hitting me a little harder than usual. Mercs is the first outside person in a long time to like me for me, not for my rock star persona. That means a lot to me.

  Washing with my loofah, I try and relax my tense body, relishing in the warmth of the shower for another few minutes before getting out and drying off. There’s still a number of hours before we have to go back to the stadium for pre-warmups for tonight’s show. I’ll just bum around the hotel, maybe go get some lunch in the restaurant.

  Luke prefers us to get room service, but fuck staying in my room cooped up like a sardine. I like to get out and see the world.

  Fuck it!

  I’ll call Raoul or Cooper to go with me if I need to.

  I know Luke worries. Our safety is of paramount concern to him. Especially, with all the stalkers and crazy psychotic fans rockers seem to attract these days, it’s no wonder he’s worried. I understand. I just think sometimes he takes it too far. He’s so overprotective of us. He tries to show it as being a boss, but I know it’s out of love. He loves us all, as much as he absolutely hates to admit it.

  Throwing my wet hair back into a loose plait, so it gets extra wavy for tonight, I don’t bother putting on any makeup as I walk into my bedroom and get dressed into a pair of loose tie-dyed harem pants and pairing it with a backless halter that’s made out of gold dots. It does up with a single strand around my mid back leaving the rest bare, so I have to go braless with this one, but that’s okay because my breasts aren’t massive being just over a handful, and they’re perky enough to stand on their own.

  Looking into the floor to ceiling mirror, I smile. I look cute. Definitely, like me. Vespa Carrington—the girl from Nimbin, New South Wales, Australia, not Effervescent the A-list rocker taking America by storm. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the two identities apart, but when I’m dressed like this, no makeup and not all glammed up, this is me, the real me. And
even though I love being Effa, sometimes it’s good to get back to your grassroots.

  Going barefoot, I pick up my cell and walk out of my room. We’re on the top floor of the hotel, just below the penthouse suite. We could have the penthouse, but it only has four bedrooms, and we need at least six. So instead, we decided to take the next level down and rent out the entire floor. Our opening band, Swift Division and us, are taking up the space. I’m pretty sure most, if not all the rooms on the floor are being used.

  Heading to the elevator, I look over the artwork on the wall, it’s modern and sleek, much like this upmarket hotel, and I grin knowing that this is a long way from home. The elevator opens, and I step in, the coldness of the marble tiles hits my feet as I look at the design on the elevator floor. A gold diamond placed in the center is surrounded by pristine white marble and a gold border around the edge. The walls are lined halfway up with white marble to the handrail, which again is gold, then it turns into a dark mahogany timber finish. The elevator looks super expensive, and I’m almost scared to hold onto the handrail in case I break it. Not that I can’t afford to fix it. I mean with how the tour and record sales are going I’m pretty fucking rich, but still, I feel small and insignificant in here as some sort of elevator music plays gently over the speakers.

  The doors open, and I take a deep breath almost like I was holding it, scared to breathe the elevator air. That thing freaks me out. It’s too opulent and wealthy looking. That’s not me, not me at all. I step out quickly, in my bare feet, now caressing the plushness of the second-floor carpet. The deep velvety red pile caresses my toes leaving the harsh cold of the sterile elevator behind.

  I turn, walking down toward the restaurant. It’s around ten fifty, so not quite breakfast, not quite lunch. This is regular waking hours for me, if you’re lucky. Depends on the day, really.

  It’s reasonably sparse in here, not too many people for mid-July on a Thursday morning. The area’s nice and it looks like I won’t need security after all.