Page 116 of Hot Mess
When he wasn’t playing drums, his brown hair was slicked back, like it was now. Offstage, he always looked polished and ready, like he was on his way to meet up with some beautiful girl, which maybe he was. He had a nose piercing and eyes that seemed to change from blue to gray to green, depending on the lighting or his mood or something.
And the guy didn’t blink much. He was always watching, always scoping the room.
Probably just didn’t want to miss the next hot chick walking by.
Honestly, I probably would’ve tried to fuck him centuries ago if I thought I had a shot in hell. I had no shot. Knew that much about five seconds after meeting him. With some dudes, you just knew.
Xander Rush—or Alexander Roscoe, if you’d known him long enough to know his real name—was about as straight as they came. I’d been shot down by plenty of guys way less straight than he was.
If there was a dictionary just for players, next to the wordpussyhound, you’d find Xander Rush’s smiling face.
But it didn’t bother me that this particular straight dude was never gonna be into me. I wasn’t into him. Other than being easy on the eyes, Xander wasn’t my type.
He was definitely hot, though. And at this point, I was counting that as a win. I considered myself a man of good taste. If every dude—or chick—we recruited for this band hit the mark on my personal scale of hotness, how could we go wrong?
Xander?Hot.
Summer?Hotter.
Matt?Hottest.
Put them together, throw in a hot guitarist, call it a day.
Thing was, we didn’t have Matt yet, probably thanks to me… and we didn’t have Xander, either.
All night long, dude wouldn’t even talk business with me, any way I tried to bring it up.
* * *
Later, we stood in the alley outside the bar and said oursee you later’s. We were both pretty liquored by now, and Xander was definitely playing hard to get.
I couldn’t be sure how interested he really was or wasn’t, or if he was just fucking with me. Wasting my time.
So I came right out with it.
“You want to consider giving me and Summer a chance, or what? Join our band?”
Xander lifted his chin and in the dim street lights, his blue-gray-green eyes held mine.
“Maybe,” he said, and walked away.
Chapter Sixteen
Ash
“It’s Monday night.” Summer opened her front door and looked me over like she could already smell the beer and strip bar oozing off me. “Where’ve you been?” She cocked an eyebrow at me, as if to imply that partying on a Monday night was uncouth or something.
When she had a bunch of random people sprawled in her living room drinking martinis—and dancing to Ol’ Dirty Bastard in her kitchen.
“Misty’s,” I said as I stepped inside.
“Ah.” She closed the door behind me and gave me a cursory introduction to some of the people in her living room. A few of them nodded a hello. Of the several dudes, her sad poet-boy, Jewel, wasn’t there, so that was something.
“Gotta talk,” I told her. “It’s about the band.”
“Sure.” She beckoned to one of the girls on the couch. “Bring us some drinks, hon?” The girl hopped up to get the drinks as Summer followed me into the music room.
“We need Xander in the band,” I informed her, as soon as we were alone. “You know, Xander Rush. Drummer with Steel Trap.”
