chapter 5
BY THE TIME THURSDAY ROLLS around, I've not looked Dex up once. I told myself I wouldn't think about him again, and I've stuck to it.
Today's my first rehearsal with the band, and to say I'm nervous is an understatement. I could barely sleep last night, and even Legend of Volthorn didn't calm me down. When gaming can't take my mind off something, I know it's serious.
And playing with Loaded God Complex is super serious.
To prepare, I looked up the other members of the band—while steering clear of anything Dex related.
There are three other band members: Lucas Moore, guitarist; Michael Sanchez, bassist; and Sebastian Harris, drummer and part-time pianist. From what I've found online, Michael is married, but I don't know about the other two. I just hope they'll be friendly; rock stars aren't exactly known for their amiability.
Driving through LA, I focus on the insane drivers and blaring horns, and it's enough to distract me from the panic curling in my stomach. But as soon as I pull into the parking lot at the recording studio, my nervousness comes racing back in.
I park in the corner of the lot, away from all the other cars, and take a moment to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.
In. One, two, three.
Out. One, two, three.
Whenever I get really nervous about something, I try to remind myself to take a few deep breaths and—
"Hey!"
The sudden loud voice makes me jump, and I whip my head toward the window. Standing on the other side of the glass is Sebastian Harris, the drummer. He's got short dark hair and the type of pretty face you'd expect a quarterback to have. His smile is wide as I pull the key from the ignition and step out.
"You're Nora, right? I'm Sebastian." He holds out a hand, and thanks to his baggy tank, it's impossible not to notice his bulging biceps. Did he get those from playing the drums? No, that's gotta be from the gym. They're huge .
"Um, yeah. Hi." I put my hand in his, and his grip is firm.
"This is gonna be so sweet. We've wanted to get a violin on a track for forever ." He waits while I fetch my violin case from the back seat, then heads toward the studio with me. "Dex said you're wicked good."
A jolt goes through me, and those nervous butterflies in my stomach start swarming like crazy.
Not good .
"H-he did?"
"Yeah, dude. Said you totally shred." Sebastian shoves me playfully, but he's so big that it nearly knocks me over. "Shit, sorry." He runs a hand over his cropped hair and smiles bashfully.
It makes me smile back—for real.
He holds the door open for me, and we step into the studio. That same blond woman is sitting behind the desk. She barely glances at Sebastian as he walks up.
"Hey, Morgan." He leans on the desk, and even I can tell he's trying to casually flex his biceps at her.
She must notice it too, because one of her brows arches in the corner, and the expression she gives him is withering.
"Hey nothing. Get off my desk."
"Damn, I said I was sorry. Can't we just—"
"Hi, Nora," the woman, Morgan, says. She seems a bit friendlier today. "The studio's open, and you can head on in. Do you want anything? Coffee? Sparkling water?"
"A water would be great." I tighten my hand around my violin case. "Thank you."
Morgan stands up and pushes around Sebastian with disinterest. "It's right through there." She points. "I'll grab you that water."
"Thanks." I head toward the open door, and voices drift out into the hall. Taking one more deep breath, I step through the doorway.
Two guys are already here, one on the couch and one on the rolling chair in front of the mixer. They both look over when I walk in, and the guy on the couch stands up to shake my hand .
"Hey, Nora. I'm Michael." He has dark eyes and hair and dazzlingly white teeth.
I put my hand in his and give it a gentle shake. I'd ask how he knows my name, but I'm guessing not many violinists come through here.
"Hey," I say, voice small.
The other guy rolls over in the rolling chair but doesn't bother to stand up. "Lucas," he says, and then he shakes my hand as well.
A brief silence falls over us, but thankfully, Morgan walks up behind me a second later. "Here you go." She offers me a glass bottle of sparkling water—the expensive stuff—and I take it with a grateful smile. Then her eyes shift to Michael and Lucas. "Behave yourselves. All of you!" She raises her voice at the end, and Sebastian laughs from somewhere down the hall.
"Come in," Michael says, stepping back to gesture at the couch.
I move into the studio and take a seat, setting my violin case down on the floor beside me.
"This place is cool," I say as I take in the elaborate controls on the mixer and the booth beyond.
"Ever recorded in a place like this?" Michael asks. Beyond him, Lucas rolls around in his chair some more, looking bored and slightly hungover.
"No." I shake my head. "I play onstage mostly."
"Sweet. I've never played with a classical violinist before."
Lucas laughs, and Michael cuts him a sharp look.
"Shut up. You know what I mean."
My lips curl into a smile, and I crack the top on my water as Sebastian walks in. The three of them do some weird handshake while I take a sip. Then Sebastian plops down onto the couch right between me and Michael, crushing us both.
"Dude, fuck off," Michael grumbles.
"Don't hog Nora," Sebastian says. "I wanna sit with her too."
"You're such an idiot." Lucas runs a hand over his buzzed blond hair, looking disinterested.
Sebastian kicks his rolling chair and sends it zooming across the studio and crashing into the wall. A second later, Morgan yells a sharp reprimand from the front desk.
I think I'm starting to understand her a little better.
The three guys talk and mess around for the next ten minutes, trying to include me in their conversation where they can, and then a man and a woman walk in. They introduce themselves as Naomi and Wes and welcome me to the studio, and then Wes tells Lucas to "get the hell out of my chair."
Naomi looks at her watch and puts her other hand on her hip. "Where's Dex?" she asks, her gaze cutting to the three guys.
"Don't look at me," Lucas grumbles from where he's now leaning against the wall, scrolling on his phone. "I haven't seen him."
"He's late. Again . I told him last time that—"
"Chill, Naomi. Shit."
That voice .
I don't look up at first, though I see movement in my peripheral vision, a figure darkening the doorway.
"You know we have a tight schedule," Naomi snaps back.
"Yeah, and I also know we're the biggest name you produce for, so unless you wanna go back to kissing ass for Nickelback..."
Naomi lets out an aggravated huff, and when I finally look up, her dark eyes are narrowed and her arms are crossed over her chest.
Sebastian and Lucas chuckle under their breath, but Michael looks appropriately shamefaced. No wonder he's the married one.
My gaze drifts to the right, and standing just over Michael's shoulder is Dex. He's got on dark sunglasses and a backward hat, and his lips tip up when I finally look at him.
"What's up?" he says.
God, I hate when people ask that. I never know what to say. Are you supposed to say "what's up" back, or are they actually asking what's up with you?
I figure saying less is the safer option, so I settle for "Hey."
Naomi takes a seat in front of the mixer while Dex pulls off his sunglasses. He's got Kobain vibes—long blond hair, stubble on his chin—but with a rougher edge. He's wearing a baggy black hoodie and tight black jeans, and when he hangs his sunglasses from the neck of his hoodie, I notice the tattoos and rings on his fingers.
I suddenly think about how the rest of his body is tattooed, and it makes my face heat up, so I look quickly away. That thought is very much off-limits.
The producers give us direction, but the guys seem to be barely listening. I take in every word they say while simultaneously trying to keep my hands from shaking with nerves. When the band heads into the sound booth, I take a moment to pull out my violin, rosin up my bow, and catch my breath.
"Hey," Naomi says before I can step into the booth. "You're gonna do great in there. Don't let those losers get you down." She smiles, and her teeth are gleaming white against her dark skin.
"Thanks," I whisper. Holding my violin close, I head into the booth.
The band's instruments were already waiting here, so all Sebastian has to do is pull his drum sticks out of his back pocket while the other three grab their instruments off their stands and sling them over their shoulders. Dex plays a quick riff on his electric guitar, and it's so loud I startle when he strums the first chord. He must notice, because he gives me a sideways smile, his lip ring catching the overhead light.
"Do you need to tune up, Nora?" Naomi asks through the speaker, and I nod.
I tuned before I left the house, but jostling along in the car could've caused the strings to slip and become untuned.
Beside me, Dex plays an A on his guitar, and I glance over at him before bowing the A string and making slight microadjustments with the fine tuners. I run through the other three strings, then give a small nod.
Most of my morning was spent ensuring I'd memorized the piece, and now I'm extremely grateful for it, because no one else in the band has sheet music in front of them, and no one seemed to think to provide it for me.
Score one for my incessant need to anxiously plan and prepare.
"All right, here's how this is gonna go," Wes says. He walks us through the process, though I expect he's just doing it for my benefit. "Got all that?"
I nod again. Seems like all I can do, given my lips are glued together with nerves .
"Let's do it."
The guys shift around me, stepping up to different microphones. I look down at the one in front of me and remind myself not to bump it while I'm playing. Behind me, the drum set is surrounded by multiple mics, all pointing in slightly different directions. There are big rugs underfoot, I'm assuming to dampen the sound, and a few stools, though no one's using one.
"No pressure on this first playthrough, Nora," Naomi says. "Ease into it."
"That's what she said," Lucas mumbles, and Sebastian laughs from his seat at the drum set.
We're doing a full playthrough first, just to get a feel for it, and then the producers said we'll track instruments individually. I don't understand about half of what they say, so I just keep nodding and waiting for someone to tell me when I'm supposed to play.
"Here we go," Wes says.
Everyone gets ready. I adjust my grip on my bow and take a breath.
Then they're counting us in, and the song starts with bass and drums. Michael nods his head as he plays, and Sebastian has a focused look on his face as he pounds out the first and third beats of the four-four rhythm on the kick drum.
Lucas and Dex come in next. Without meaning to, I watch Dex intently, drawn in by the way his fingers move across the strings. Dex glances up at me, and after meeting his gaze briefly, I turn quickly away.
My intro is coming up in six measures, five, four.. .
I lift my bow to the strings and home in on the notes the others are playing.
And then I join in, drawing the bow over the strings, letting my fingers move of their own volition. As soon as I start to play, my nerves melt away.
Compared to orchestral arrangements, this piece is child's play, though I'd never say that to the band. The song is upbeat, energetic, and it's easy to lose myself in it.
The song is only a few minutes long, much shorter than I'm used to. My solo is already coming up.
The bass and rhythm guitar fade out, which leaves me on violin, Dex on lead guitar, and Sebastian on the drums.
The guitar stops, and I crescendo into the solo. My eyes close. All I hear is my own playing and Sebastian's consistent rhythm on the kick behind me.
I still have my eyes closed when Dex's guitar comes back in, and then my playing decrescendos into silence, and I open my eyes to watch him play.
He's concentrating, his eyes down on the frets, and I like watching the way his left hand moves up and down the neck of the guitar, his tendons flexing under his tattooed skin. Something about it makes me warm.
Those butterflies are back again. Not the nervous ones. The other ones.
Pulling my attention away from him, I join in with the violin once more, and the bass and rhythm guitar pick up again soon after. We shift into the outro, and just like that, our first playthrough is complete.
A beat of silence passes, and then Sebastian lets out an energetic whoop .
"Fuck yeah! That violin sounds so sick !"
Lucas takes a step toward me and offers his fist for a bump, and I shyly return it, which makes his green eyes crinkle with a smile. "That's pretty sweet," he says.
Michael gives me a short applause. Then my gaze shifts to Dex. He's wearing that same expression he had on his face the day he listened to me in the warm-up room: a bit of a lazy smirk, just twisted enough that I'm not sure if he's smiling at me or laughing at me. It's unsettling.
"All right," Naomi says, calling my attention away from Dex. "Good first run. Let's track drums now."
Each instrument gets tracked individually, and the producers start layering the sounds over one another. We're given headphones so we can hear the music as we play, and I'm not nearly as nervous when it's time to track the violin.
"Just play it straight through," Naomi says. "If you make a mistake, stop, and we'll rerecord it."
The music starts in my headphones: drums and bass, then rhythm and lead guitar. I'm the last to track, so everyone else has already recorded, and they're lounging about on the stools now, all eyes on me.
I start to play, and everything is going great—until I turn and catch Dex staring at me.
His sideways smile has turned into a big beaming grin, and he's leaning forward on his stool, his eyes laser focused on me. I keep playing, but my eyes are locked on his, and I can't seem to look away. He flicks his lip ring again, and I completely mangle the measure I'm playing.
"Stop!" Wes calls.
My cheeks burn as I finally tear my eyes away from Dex and lower my violin .
What's gotten into me? There's no reason I should've messed that measure up.
"Mr. Reid, leave the girl alone," Wes says, and I know I'm about to melt into a puddle of embarrassment. "Ms. Miller, take it from the last measure."
I nod and lift my violin once more.
From here on out, I'm not looking Dex's way again.
Once we've wrapped the recording for the rhythm section, the producers call it a day. I'm so grateful we're done; I'm not sure I could take another minute in that room with Dex.
Despite what the producer said, Dex kept staring at me from across the room, and not in a vaguely curious sort of way; no, he was staring in that way you stare when you see someone you know from a distance or a few cars over and you're desperately trying to get their attention with nothing but your eyes. But I didn't give him the satisfaction.
After that first blunder, I stayed completely focused, and we finished my tracking with little fanfare. Now I'm wiping my violin down and putting it away while the band chats behind me.
"Nice job today, Nora," Naomi tells me when I straighten up.
"Thanks. That was . . . fun."
I wasn't sure it would be, but it was. There's something invigorating about playing live music with other musicians, and there was a special spark with the band that can be hard to achieve with such a large orchestra.
"I'm not sure if or when we'll need you again, but I'll let you know." She gives me a quick hug, then leaves the room with Wes, and I'm left feeling unsure.
Is that it? Was this the only time I'll get to play with the band? It makes sense, I guess, since they'll be recording vocals next and certainly don't need me for that. But in a small way, I'm a bit disappointed.
With my violin put away, there's nothing left for me to do except leave. I pick up my case and head toward the door.
"Nora, wait!" Sebastian jogs over to me. "Thanks for playing with us." He holds his fist out like Lucas did earlier, and I bump it with mine.
"I enjoyed it," I say.
His eyes crinkle in the corners when he smiles.
The others notice I'm leaving. Michael gives me a friendly hug, and Lucas just lifts a hand lazily from across the room.
"I'll walk out with you," Dex says.
I have no idea how to respond, so I just stand there in the doorway while he gives the guys parting fist bumps and handshakes. Then he's heading my way, and I quickly slip through the door and start down the hall.
I can feel him walking behind me. His proximity makes heat rise in my stomach.
What is wrong with me? He's just walking with me, for god's sake.
"See ya later, Nora," Morgan says from the front desk as I walk by. "Bye, Dex." Her voice takes on a feminine edge, and when I glance over at her, she's watching Dex like a lioness about to devour her prey.
He smiles back but doesn't say anything as he slips his mirrored sunglasses on and eases around me to push through the door. I step through after him, and then we're on the sidewalk in the weirdly warm winter air.
"Um, I'm parked over here," I say, pointing vaguely in the direction of my car.
"Sweet." He puts his hands in his tight jeans pockets, then steps off the curb toward my Honda.
I follow a step after him, trying not to admire his long legs and easy stride.
Why is he even doing this?
When we get to my car, I quickly unlock it and slip my case into the back, then close the door and turn to face him.
"Well, I—"
"Are you on Tribe?" he asks suddenly.
When I look up at him, all I see is myself reflected in his sunglasses—straight hair, brown eyes, a splash of freckles across my nose. A silver cross hangs from one of his earlobes, and the hint of a chain is visible beneath the neck of his baggy hoodie.
"Uh, yeah."
"What's your handle?" He pulls his phone out of his back pocket, and I'm momentarily shocked into silence.
Dex Reid, the lead singer of Loaded God Complex, wants to know my social media handle? This can't be real life. And I don't have many photos on there anyway—mostly violins and Margot and the rare selfie.
My long pause causes him to arch a sandy-blond brow at me, and I stutter out my handle for him to look up. His thumbs fly across his phone. Slowly, a furrow forms in his brow.
"You're not following me," he says. It almost sounds like a question, but not enough for me to reply .
No, I'm not following him. I'm not the type of person to follow insanely rich, good-looking celebrities on social media. That's a perfect way to obliterate my self-confidence, and I struggle with that enough as is. No thanks.
A moment later, my phone dings in my pocket, and when I pull it out to look at the notification, my heart thuds hard.
@DexxxReid followed you
I just stare at the notification for a second, too shocked to say anything.
"Aren't you going to follow me back?" His voice has a playful edge to it, and his lips are quirking up in the corner again. A breeze swirls around us, making his long blond hair and silver cross earring shift in the air. The metal catches the light and gleams.
"Uh, yeah, sure."
I hit the button to follow him, regretting it all the while. Now how am I supposed to avoid looking at pictures of his ridiculous abs and stupid sexy tattoos when he's all over my feed? Maybe I'll mute him later.
Resigning myself to my fate, I lower the phone and look into his reflective sunglasses again. I hate those things; they're unnerving. All I can see is my own pout and the crease in my brow.
But what's even more unnerving is Dex's self-assured smile.
Does he know he's getting under my skin?
We're still standing there in silence when a car comes rolling up beside us. It's a sleek black BMW, and when the driver's window rolls down, it reveals a brunette with brick-straight hair that looks right out of a shampoo commercial.
"See you around," Dex says, slipping his phone into his pocket again and backing toward the BMW. "And Nora..."
Hearing him say my name does things to my insides that can't be good for me.
"Hmm?"
"Try not to fall in love with me." His smile is sharp, and his lip ring winks in the sunlight before he turns and gets into the passenger's side.
Meanwhile, the brunette gives me a scathing look and rolls her window back up.
A second later, the car speeds out of the parking lot, and I'm left standing next to my Honda with what I can only assume is shock written all over my face.
Once again, my phone dings in my pocket, and this time when I pull it out, I find I've got a new comment on one of my pictures of Margot.
@DexxxReid: cute pussy
My cheeks flame with heat. Already, I'm tempted to block him. But for some reason, I can't bring myself to do it.
Call it curiosity.
Or stupidity.
So instead, I lock my phone and get into my car. The phone dings again, and a jolt goes through me, but when I pick it up, it's just a picture of a loaf of bread my mom made with her new sourdough starter.
Sighing, I let my head fall back against the headrest and try to calm my beating heart.
This man cannot be good for my health.