Night with Sole Regret

SHARE ME II

“Ellie Carlisle wanted to be here tonight to thank you for helping her family out with her medical expenses. Unfortunately, after a strong dose of radiation therapy yesterday, they wouldn’t clear her to leave the hospital. So tonight she’s getting a lot of rest so she can wake up tomorrow and see what Santa brings a perfect angel for Christmas.”

It might have been the sound system, but Shade’s voice sounded a little raw as he talked about the Ellie, a five-year-old girl who was fighting for her life in a local hospital. The town had come together several times to try to help her family out, but pancake breakfasts and silent auctions for afghans only raised so much money. A Sole Regret concert, on the other hand, brought in folks and their money for hundreds of miles.

“Her father is a big fan of ours,” Shade continued, “so when he asked us to come out and help them raise some money to help his little girl fight for her life, we couldn’t say no.”

“Be sure to buy a T-shirt on your way out,” Kellen Jamison said in the deepest, sexiest voice Lindsey had ever heard. How could she possibly think about anything but the sound of that voice in her ear when it echoed around her from every direction? “All of the profits from merch sales go to helping the Carlisle family too.”

Owen stepped up to his microphone. “You know what? f**k cancer,” he bellowed, thrusting a fist in the air.

He soon had the entire auditorium chanting, “f**k cancer, f**k cancer, f**k cancer” over and over again. Even stick-up-her-ass Mrs. Weston was yelling it along with the others.

When the crowd settled again, Shade said, “Thanks for coming out tonight and supporting Ellie’s cause. Now we’re going to rock your faces off.”

Shade started the next song with a battle cry that caused a thrill to streak down Lindsey’s spine. Hard to believe this group of bad ass men would be willing to give up their Christmas Eve to help out a little girl they didn’t even know. Lindsey was surprised that tears were prickling at the backs of her eyes as she thought of their selfless act. Suddenly, the members of Sole Regret seemed more substantial to her than walking aphrodisiacs. She wondered what kind of men they were. Maybe she could find a way to get to know them. And not just so she could check two tasks off her f**k-it list. She had a powerful need to thank them for being awesome.

Owen glanced around the tour bus, looking from one grim face to another. You’d think his band mates had just come from a funeral, not from a kick-ass benefit concert that would likely save a little girl’s life. Owen shifted his Santa hat to the c****d and ready position and reached for the black garbage bag of decorations his mom had sent along with him when she’d learned he wouldn’t be able to attend their family’s annual Christmas Eve celebration. His brother wouldn’t be attending either—Chad had been deployed to Afghanistan in August—so Owen was somewhat glad that he wouldn’t have to sit across the table from an empty chair and wondered if his brother was dodging bullets while he was dodging Grandma Ginny’s questions about when he was going to settle down and make pretty babies for her to spoil. Though he missed his family as much as the next guy—yes, even Grandma Ginny—Owen wasn’t going to lounge here on the bus and sulk all the way from Wherever-the-hell-they-were, Idaho to Wherever-the-hell-they-were-going, Montana. He was going to make the best of their situation and not let his bummed out band mates ruin his perpetual good time.

Owen’s prime target was Kelly. Not because the rhythm guitarist was the most depressed—that honor went to their vocalist, Shade—but because Owen needed a partner in Christmas cheer and Kelly always had his back. He didn’t even have to ask Kelly for his assistance. They’d formed a pact of mutual mischief long ago.

Owen dug the snot-green, artificial Christmas tree out of the sack and set it on the end table between the pair of recliners where the band’s drummer, Gabe, sat reading of all things and Shade sat glowering at nothing.

Straightening the branches of the tree into something slightly more pine shaped, Owen hummed under his breath and then broke out into song. “O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how plastic are thy branches.”

Shade lifted his head and one dark eyebrow rose above the frame of his aviator sunglasses. “Do you have to be obnoxious right now?”

“Why,” Owen said, “is it interrupting your sulking?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.” Shade reached for one branch of the hideously fake tree and bent it into a wider angle.

“And why are you sulking? It’s Christmas Eve. Are you afraid you’ll get nothing but lumps of coal in your stocking?” Owen dove into the sack of decorations and pulled out several strands of lights. His family was of the opinion that it was not possible to have too many lights on a holiday tree. When fully lit, the Mitchell Family Christmas Tree could probably be seen from Mars.

“Julie only has one third Christmas,” Shade said. Arranging another branch, and then dropping his hand when Gabe turned his attention from his book to watch him try to perfect the unperfectable.

“But she doesn’t have to,” Owen said. “You can give her another Christmas when we get home next week. She’d love that. I’ll even wear my Santa hat and shimmy down the chimney to put a smile on her face.”

Shade crossed his arms over his chest, his scowl deepening. “It’s not the same.”

“At least it isn’t my fault he’s sulking this time,” Adam said. The lead guitarist had his acoustic guitar out and was quietly strumming some riff he was working on for the next Sole Regret album.

“I’m not sulking,” Shade said.

“Looks like sulking to me,” Kelly said. He rose from the sofa to stand beside Owen. He inserted a long, tattooed arm into the sack and dug out a red rope garland. He lifted his eyebrows at Owen, before flicking his eyes at Shade pointedly.

Owen tried not to grin and give their silently exchanged plan away, but it wasn’t easy. He nodded ever-so-slightly.

“You’re the one who signed us up to play a benefit concert on Christmas Eve in the first place,” Adam said to Shade. “You don’t even know that kid.”

Owen winced. Did the two of them really need to pick a fight tonight? Surely they could find it in themselves to put aside their differences on Christmas Eve.

“I didn’t have to f*****g know the kid, Adam. She has leukemia. Her family has no insurance, no jobs, no money to pay for her chemotherapy. A few hours out of our busy schedules gives her a chance to see her sixth birthday. Do you always have to be such a selfish prick?”

“I had absolutely no problem with doing the benefit concert. It’s not like I have better plans for Christmas anyway and believe it or f*****g not, I do care. But you sitting there looking like your dog just died after you made the decision to do the concert in the first place is pissing me off. I’m not gonna lie,” Adam said.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Shad grumbled.

“All I want for Christmas is a pair of ball gags to shut you both up,” Gabe said and lifted his book until all that was visible of his head was his foot-high red and black mohawk. “I’m trying to concentrate over here.”

“Ball gags?” Kelly nodded. “I can probably fulfill that wish.” He started to wrap the rope garland in long loops from hand to elbow. Owen knew Kelly could produce two ball gags in a matter of minutes. He also knew exactly where Kelly kept his secret stash of kinky implements if he ever felt the need to borrow something. Recently Kelly had taken up a new hobby—tying knots. It was a perfectly innocent hobby for most people, but not so much for Kelly.

Carefully untangling a strand of lights, Owen pretended to be intensely interested in their drummer, Gabe, to keep attention off Kelly, who was fashioning a loose noose out of one end of the garland. The dragon tattoos on the shaven parts of Gabe’s scalp stood in complete contradiction to the colossal, decidedly boring, book in his hands. “What are you reading about?” Owen asked, as if he didn’t already know he didn’t give a s**t.

Gabe pushed his reading glasses up his nose and grinned deviously. “Friction.”

“And how to reduce it with proper lubrication?” Owen asked. Gabe was the only person he knew who tried to apply the laws of physics to s*x.

“You don’t want to reduce the friction too much,” Gabe said. “You want it slick and wet, but not too juicy.”

“I disagree,” Shade said with a grin. “The juicier, the better.” At least his sulking had diminished.

“Yeah,” Kelly agreed. “I like it dripping wet so I can lick it clean.”

“The conversation on this bus always turns to p***y,” Adam said.

“There’s nothing better to talk about, is there?” Owen asked.

“No,” his band mates said in unison. They all laughed at the one thing they always agreed on.

“And there’s definitely nothing better to think about,” Gabe said, “so you all need to shut up. I’m thinking.”

“Who needs this worse, Owen?” Kelly said. “Shade or Gabe?” He was now prepared to act on his plan.

“Personally, I think they both need it,” Owen said.

“Need what?” Shade asked.

“Looks like Shade volunteered to be first.”

“First at what?”

Kelly moved fast—like ninja—and Owen stepped back out of his way, awaiting his opening to assist him.