A Voice to Love (Fallen Tuesday Book One) (A Brothers of Rock Novel) (7 page)

“I get it,” Luke said.

Just then, the door
opened and the rest of the band filed into the room. Luke turned to shield the
phone conversation.

“I have to get going
here,” Luke said.

“Be careful tonight,
Luke,” Dr. Hornsbury warned.

“Thanks. Bye.”

Luke ended the call.

“Bad news, brother?” Mack
asked.

“No, not really.”

“Hey, what happened to
you last night?” Gray asked. “You went out for air and came back almost an hour
later.”

Luke smiled. “You know…”

“Tell me you had a
woman,” Mack said. “What did you do? Pick someone out of the crowd and go to
their room?”

“No,” Luke said. “I was
outside. And there was a woman.”

“Unbelievable,” Jake said.
“They just flock to him.”

“Nobody flocked,” Luke
said. “She ran into me. She was walking home from work and thought someone was
following her. She was scared to death.”

“Walking home that late?”
Mack asked. “Where does she work?”

“She’s a chef at a restaurant
around here. Maybe we could eat there before we leave town.”

“Yeah, sure,” Gray said.
“We’ll get on that.”

“Why’s it eating you
right now?” Mack asked.

“What?” Luke asked.

“Something’s eating you,”
Mack said. “I can see it.”

Something was eating at
Luke. It was Amy, yes, but it was also his voice. Luke had been trying to
calculate the implications if the band cancelled tonight’s show. The financial
implications, the way the band would feel, but most of all, the fans. Luke knew
it would upset all the people who had been looking forward to the show for days
or weeks if he cancelled the day of the show.

He couldn’t do it.

Not this show. He’d have
to find a way to get through it. No question about it.

Then again, he’d been
telling himself the same thing for the last dozen shows.

“You can’t meet a woman
at midnight and fall for her,” Mack said. “That’s…”

“Nobody is falling for
anyone,” Luke said. “She was in trouble last night. I called for a limo to take
her home.”

“Did you go with her?”
Trent asked.

“No. She was scared, man.
I think some guy on a bike was following her. She got home safe but I can’t
stop thinking about it.”

“Why?” Mack asked. “You
want payment?”

He smiled and Gray
laughed.

“I just want to know
she’s okay,” Luke said. “She didn’t seem like the type that knew what to do
with trouble, or the type to cause it.”

Mack put a hand to Luke’s
shoulder. “Those are always the ones that cause the trouble.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t
know. I’m all messed up right now. The bus thing yesterday, the party last
night, and now we have to get to the show for tonight. I’m a little out of it.”

“Don’t let her flood your
mind,” Gray said. “If you’re going to though, then check up on her. You know
where she lives, right?”

Luke looked at the band.
“I had the limo take her without me. She was uneasy about me going. Which I
understood.”

“Damn,” Mack said. “Oh
well then, right?”

“Not quite. I sort of
pressed the limo driver for her address.”

“You didn’t,” Gray said.

“Yeah, I did.”

“For a stranger? For some
woman.”

“It’s not going to be
some woman,” Mack said. He shook his head. “Do what you have to do, Luke. We
have to get out of here soon. The bus will be here.”

“The bus?” Luke asked.
“Really?”

“It was just a tire,”
Mack said. “It’s all fixed already.”

“Why didn’t they fix it
on the side of the road last night?”

Mack laughed. “Because
the longer we stood there the more of a crowd there would have been. Plus, you
wouldn’t have met your girlfriend, right?”

Luke opened his mouth to
say something along the lines of
she’s not my girlfriend, man
… but that
was pointless.

“Okay,” Luke said. “Let
me make a call and take care of something.”

Luke made two phone calls
and then took the back stairs down to the ground floor of the hotel. He took
more caution in the daylight. It was well known that Fallen Tuesday was at the
hotel. Out back a black car waited. It wasn’t a limo, thankfully. Luke opened
the passenger door and saw an envelope on the seat. He grabbed it and then sat
in the seat.

“Where to?” the driver
asked.

Luke closed his eyes and
spoke. He had it memorized. He hoped this wouldn’t blow up in his face.

**

Amy listened to the
entire Fallen Tuesday album twice. She was barely sipping a glass of wine. Her
mind was bouncing between Luke, Denny, and the restaurant. Julie had rambled on
for an hour straight about her love life. A boyfriend who liked sex but wouldn’t
commit. A real shocker. Not.

“Are you going to listen
to that all day?” Julie asked.

“Maybe,” Amy said. “I
can’t stop.”

“Because you were with
the rockstar last night?”

“You say it like you
don’t believe me,” Amy said. “Why would I make something like that up?
Especially to you?”

“I believe you,” Julie
said. “I just think it’s crazy.”

“You’re telling me. I was
running down an alley and then next thing I know I’m in a limo.”

“Whoa… wait a second,”
Julie said. She put her wine glass down. “Why were you running down an alley?”

Amy looked up at Julie.
With wide eyes, she thought,
shit
… she didn’t mean to slip that kind of
detail into her story. For all Julie knew, Amy had walked home without a
problem. Along the way, she met Luke, and he offered her a limo ride so she
wouldn’t be cold.

“Amy… what happened last
night?” Julie asked.

Amy sighed. She touched
her laptop and turned the volume down. “Sit down, Julie.” Julie did. “I’m going
to tell you something… I have no proof of anything, okay? This has to stay
between us.”

“Okay.”

“My car was broken into.”

“I know that.”

“I know who did it. Or I
think I do.”

That caught Julie’s full
attention. “Really? Who?”

“Denny,” Amy said.

“Denny… your Denny? Your
ex?”

Amy nodded. “I can’t
prove it and I haven’t said anything to anyone else, but I’m pretty sure it was
him. He gets into his jealous fits and… I don’t know.”

“So what does that have
to do with last night?”

“I was walking home and I
heard a motorcycle,” Amy said. “It freaked me out so I darted down an alley.”

“Wow,” Julie said. “Denny
was looking for you?”

“I didn’t say that,” Amy
said. “I said I heard a motorcycle and got freaked out. That’s all. So I ran
down an alley and hurried to get here. I got into the hotel parking lot and ran
into Luke. Literally ran into Luke. I had my head down. I wasn’t paying
attention.”

Julie scooted closer. “Before
I get to the Luke stuff… this thing with Denny, that’s kind of scary, isn’t
it?”

“I don’t know,” Amy said.
She played it off in front of Julie, but just talking about the incidents had
her heart racing, her mouth running dry, and she had a crazy urge to race to
the window and look for any signs of Denny outside. “It’s just Denny. He looks
for a reaction. We didn’t have the best relationship. The breakup really wasn’t
mutual.”

“But you broke up months
ago,” Julie said. “So, what is he going to do? Show up every couple months and
do something?”

“I’m kind of hoping if I
ignore him this time he’ll just go away.”

Julie slid a hand across
the table and gripped Amy’s hand. “Sweetheart, there’s a difference between a
drunk dial or a drunk text and someone smashing the window of your car. You
know that, right?”

“I know,” Amy said. Her
world of denial seemed to be coming down. Piece by piece. All thanks to Luke.

“I just don’t want this
to turn into something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t want to scare
you,” Julie said. “But, come on, if Denny is that crazy… what if he gets mad
that you didn’t respond to him? What if he does something else? Something
worse?”

“Okay, I get it,” Amy
said. “Change the subject. I hate talking about Denny. I hate everything about
him…”

“Fine,” Julie said.
“Thanks to Denny though, you got to meet a rockstar.”

“Yeah. Some meeting. I
was cold, nervous, confused. I didn’t do anything with him, not that I should
have.”

“You could have,” Julie
said. “Then you’d have a real good story.”

“You know, I didn’t even
ask for an autograph or anything. I just wanted to get home and clear my head.”

“Maybe that’s for the
better too then,” Julie said. “It’s still a story to tell.”

“That’s where I have to
leave it then,” Amy said. “It was just a story.”

The song on the laptop
came to an end. Amy looked at the screen. It was the third time listening to
the album now. She couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t just Luke’s voice
either, the band was really good.

She put her hand to the
laptop and considered changing her musical choice to something else. Before she
could click a button a pounding knock came at the door. Amy jumped and Julie
gasped.

“What the hell…”

“Someone’s at the door,”
Amy said. “It echoes so loud in here.”

Amy hesitated as she
walked to the door. She couldn’t believe she let herself live in such fear all
the time now.

She slowly opened the
door and saw nobody standing there. When she looked down, she saw an envelope
on the floor. Amy bent down as she scanned the hallway and took the envelope.
She stepped back and closed the door.

“What is it?” Julie
asked.

“I don’t know,” Amy said.

She turned the envelope
around and it wasn’t sealed. When she opened the flap, her jaw dropped. She
pulled out a ticket. A ticket to the Fallen Tuesday concert that night.

“No way,” Amy whispered.

“What’s wrong? Is it from
Denny?”

“Not at all,” Amy said.

She turned and rushed to
the window. She get to the second part of the envelope but she didn’t care.
Looking out the window, Amy saw a black car driving away.

“No… way…”

“Amy, you’re starting to
scare me,” Julie said.

Amy turned and held out
the concert ticket. “It’s a ticket to the Fallen Tuesday show tonight.”

Amy checked the envelope
again and saw a piece of paper.

It was a note.

At least I know you’ll be
safe tonight.

Call me…

The note was simple, the implications
not at all.

“Is it from Luke?” Julie asked.

“It is,” Amy said. “I
have to call him. He wants me to call him. He gave me his phone number.”

“You have the phone
number for the lead singer of Fallen Tuesday?”

“Yeah, I do,” Amy said.

It felt surreal. Amy
stood for a few seconds waiting to wake up. It all had to be a dream. A pretty
good dream… if it were a great dream, Luke would be in Amy’s bed waiting for
her.

Amy blushed.

“This is amazing,” Julie
said.

“This is too much,” Amy
said. “Let me go call him.”

Amy rushed from the room,
leaving Julie with the concert ticket. As far as Amy was concerned, the phone
number was more important. This was such a sweet gesture, but it was just way
too much.

As Amy sat on her bed,
her phone in one hand, Luke’s number in the other, she had the strange feeling
of being much younger. Butterflies flew frantically in her stomac, and a large
smile covered her face. The problems of the real world meant nothing in that
moment as she dialed Luke. Luke Nolan, lead singer of Fallen Tuesday.

It’s too real… way too
real to be true…

The phone rang and after
the second ring Amy hung up.

“What am I doing?” she
whispered.

She threw the phone to
her bed and fell back. Was she really going to call the lead singer of one of
the biggest bands in the world… and say what? Tell him thanks for the ride last
night. Thanks for the ticket. Tell him he didn’t need to do that. Remind him
that he was in a band and wouldn’t be in Syracuse forever. Just because someone
wanted to do something nice, did it imply a long term relationship? Amy squeezed
her eyes shut and hated herself. She hated that she looked into everything with
such depth. None of it mattered. Even if Luke wanted her at the show, wanted
her backstage, wanted more, that didn’t mean he would get everything he wanted.
Amy had control.

That’s why she had hung
up.

To prove she had control.

Her phone rang and Amy
groaned. She saw it was the number she had just dialed. Of course Luke would
call right back, who wouldn’t? Amy had let the phone ring twice and then hung
up.

“I’m a fool,” she grabbed
the phone and pressed accept. “Hello?”

“Amy? Is that you?”

“That’s me,” Amy said.
“Is this Luke?”

“It’s me,” Luke said.

His voice sounded even
hotter on the phone. Now that she could make the full connection between the
man who helped her and the man who was a rockstar, it was really sexy.

Really sexy.

“You left something at my
door,” Amy said.

“I know. I hope I wasn’t
out of line. I felt kind of stupid doing it.”

“Why didn’t you knock and
wait?”

“I don’t know,” Luke
said. “I thought it would be more interesting this way. Plus, you called me.”

“I sort of called you.”

“Why did you hang up?”

“I don’t know why,” Amy
said. “Is that an answer?”

“It can be. Are you
coming tonight?”

Amy blushed. Did she
really just think something sexual over a simple question?

“You want me to come see
your band?”

“We’re a really good
band,” Luke said. “You’d have fun.”

“You sent one ticket.
What about my friend?”

“Friend?”