TANTRIC (Book 3 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 71: Rock Stars Cry

So...it's time to see how the band is coping, awaiting their fate while Ash and Leed, et al were confronting Slade...

Trace

Arabella is getting on my last goddamn nerve.

"Adam, I'm serious," she whines again, dropping to her knees on the floor of my studio, where he's playing with Lennon, who is batting at one of the overheard floor gym toy bar things. She grabs his face, trying to pull his attention away from his daughter and put it on her.

A violent discord on the keys makes me turn my head sharply to look at Mac, sitting beside me on the synthesizer bench. Her makeupless face is pretty but scrunched in irritation and she's counting under her breath. "Five, four, three..."

I snort, catching her vibe immediately. She's giving Adam to the count of five to remove Bell's hand from his person. If he doesn't, Mac is likely to remove Bell's hand from her wrist.

"Easy, Maneater. Bells might give you the plague if you take a bite out of her," I murmur.

We both watch Adam jerk his head away from her. He picks Lennon up and rises quickly, like he's afraid Bells will contaminate her. His body language reads disgust, but his tone is patient as he says, "It's not the time, right now, Arabella."

Satisfied, Mac's fingers dance over the keys again, repeating the measures of the new chorus we are messing around with. "More like rabies."

"You right, girl. She's a rabid bitch," I mutter back with an evil grin.

"Be nice," Adam says as he leans down to put Lennon in my arms.

"Hey, Cheesie-Weesie," I plunk her little diapered butt up and down on the keys and she squeals in delight at the god-awful sound.

"Awwwww, sweet Len, you play keys better than Trace does already, don't you? Yes you do..." Mac leans forward into her daughters face. Lennon gives her a toothless smile at grabs at Mac's strawberry mane, tugging hard.

"Owww." Mac says dryly.

"See what you get—pooping on my playing ability?" I laugh as Lennon jerks harder.

Adam's already teasing Lennon's tiny fists away from his wife's hair. I grin, privately thinking if his daughter is anything like her mama, his days of refereeing between them have only begun.

Having disentangled his girls, Adam says, "Check this out, I'm hearing a whole different possibility..." He directs Mac to play the chorus again. I support-stand Lennon on my thighs while she plays the moody chorus and he picks out a bass line on the first octave. It's fast—sixteenth notes--on the bass it would be gritty.

"Let's speed it up," Mac nods, and plays faster. Suddenly the moody vibe becomes harder, more reminiscent of our first album but also a little electronica. I feel like we are about to break some ground with this next album and somehow return to roots at the same time. Foo-fighters meets Muse.

"That's dope," I grin, passing Adam a pencil to put it down on paper. He's not likely to pick up his bass in the immediate future. He sent the nanny back to their place for Lennon's swing, so we could really get into this song while Lennon takes her nap, so he's on daddy duty until she gets back.

"Adam!" Bells slaps the floor and crawls to her feet dead after him. "They are songwriting—" she slings a hand at me and Mac at the piano. "Why can't we?"

My eyes flit to Bodie, who is watching the scene from his seat on the large utility table at the back of the mixing room, various small instruments of percussion spread around him. He's experimenting with all kinds of subtle bells, chimes and whistles every since Dom turned him onto that agogo bell for December Dawn.