Chapter One
Backyard Wedding Reception
Peyton Cabot leaned against the deck railing, holding a red plastic cup in his hands and trying to get wasted.
The backyard wedding reception bubbled over with laughter and music.
Speakers hanging from the eaves of the large house blared rock and roll. The crowd seethed in the yard, dancing around the fire pits that warmed the brisk November air. Gray wood smoke curled around and between the people and fluttered into the night.
Peyton tapped the cold side of the cup with the fingertips of his left hand, the hard calluses from the bass guitar’s strings rattling the plastic.
He was a rock star in one of the world’s hottest bands, a formidable musician in his own right, and the only one at the wedding reception who was alone.
Again.
All the other musicians in the band Killer Valentine were married off, and they milled around the party with their spouses.
Tryp, the drummer, had married a pyromaniac roadie named Elfie right before Peyton had joined the band, and the two of them were canoodling over at the picnic table. Tryp’s hand rested, as usual, on Elfie’s somewhat pregnant tummy, and he smiled wider every time he looked down at his fingers splayed over her bulging sweater.
The band’s previous backup singer Rhiannon was engaged to their previous band manager, Jonas. They had managed to catch a train down from New York City for the wedding reception. The two of them were billing and cooing by one of the firepits, laughing with a swarm of roadies.
The tall, blond lead singer for Killer Valentine, Xan Valentine, had married the keyboardist, Georgiana “Georgie” Johnson, a few months before. They were standing over by the keg, laughing and toasting the bride and groom of the night. Xan pulled his long, blond hair back from his face and fanned himself, probably overheated from dancing.
Peyton couldn’t quite look at those two without an ache creasing his chest, but the pain had lessened over the last few months.
The wedding that afternoon had been a surprise to everyone, even to the bride and groom. Cadell Glynn, the lead guitarist, had married the voluptuous Dr. Andy Kumar, a surgeon. The bride was still wearing the bright red, drawstring scrubs that she had worn for the ad hoc ceremony. They stood with Xan and Georgie, laughing and eating Indian food off of paper plates.
Peyton took a long drink of the strong Seven and Seven from his plastic cup and tried to look like the dispassionate observer rather than the pathetic loner in the corner.
A lithe Indian woman—not the bride but her maid of honor at the wedding—grabbed Xan Valentine and Georgie by their hands and dragged them out into the yard to dance. The stranger was still wearing the blue scrubs that she had been wearing at the wedding in the hospital’s atrium. They were laughing and having a great time out there, right until Georgie waved to Peyton.
He focused his eyes beyond her, for surely he hadn’t been staring at her like some freaky stalker, right up until Georgie ran her finger over her throat and up to the shell of her ear.
Peyton could look away. He could leave Georgie with her husband out there in the dark yard, dancing in the crisp, late-fall night. It wasn’t a terrible fate.
But Peyton had always been Georgie’s knight in shining armor, even though it had become clear a few months ago that he would be the chaste and longing Lancelot to her Guinevere.
The King always won the Queen at the end of the story because they belonged together, but Peyton was still the Queen’s knight. Thus, he rode to her rescue.
Even when she needed rescuing from an overly enthusiastic dancer.
He sucked down the last of his drink in one gulp, disposed of the cup, and stepped down off the deck, wandering across the lawn and wiggling between groups of dancers and partiers who were warming themselves around the fires.
When he reached Georgie, Xan, and the stranger, Georgie reached out to him. “Peys! Just the guy I was looking for!” she yelled over the music and talking that filled the night. One of the groups was singing along to the music.
“Hey, yourself,” he said to her and nodded at Xan.
Georgie grabbed Peyton’s elbow and tugged him against her side. “Have you met Raji Kannan, Andy’s friend?”
“Pleased to meet you,” Peyton said to the woman.
The slim woman was more than half a foot shorter than Peyton, which meant that she was probably in the range of five feet, six inches or so. She had dark, Kewpie-doll eyes fringed with loads of dark lashes. Her black hair waved around her head, a layered pixie cut that flipped around while she danced. Two piercings glittered on her face: one on her lip, and the other in her nostril, and a dark tattoo marked the back of her right hand.
She looked more like a rock star than preppie Peyton did, no matter how much the stylists worked on him.
Raji stuck one slim hand out toward him. “How’re you doin’?”
Her accent was thick New Jerseyan.
Peyton laughed and let his native Connectikite accent shine through in New Englander solidarity, which meant he swallowed his R’s like a Kennedy. “I’m Peyton Cabot, bass guitar for Killer Valentine.” Guitah. Killah.
“Oh!” Raji’s lovely, dark eyes widened. “You’re the new guy! I’ve seen six Killer Valentine concerts, but I haven’t seen you play yet!”
“I’m the new guy,” Peyton agreed. “I’ve been sitting in on the studio sessions for the demos that we’re cutting.”
Georgie leaned in, her eyes wide, and she told Raji, “Peyton traveled with us on the European tour last summer to learn the ropes. How many countries did we stop at, Peys?”
He laughed at how Georgie was trying to play wing-girl. “Twelve, maybe? Or fourteen? Fifteen if you include Monaco, but we didn’t perform there.”
Georgie continued, “Peyton played his first concert with us in Rome a few months ago. When we start touring again in a few weeks, he’ll officially be our new bass player.”
“You’re going to be on stage?” Raji asked, her eyes widening.
“Yep, every night.” He glanced at Xan, who was nodding. Peyton’s rather unusual apprenticeship with the band had woven through half the instruments before everyone had agreed that he was most needed on the bass guitar.
The bass, the guitar for guitarists who couldn’t play the guitar.
Peyton, a Juilliard-trained pianist who played three instruments at a world-class level and four more as well as any professional, was wasting his talents on the bass.
Well, Peyton had chosen to join Killer Valentine, and he honored his commitments.
Now. He honored his commitments now.
Raji said to him, “That’s so exciting! I can’t believe you just auditioned and they picked you up and you’re going to be a rock star!”
“Peyton already is a rock star,” Georgie told Raji. “He’s been debuting the demos at the small clubs around here with Xan and the guys. He’s awesome.”
Raji squealed.
Peyton laughed with her. “I’m working on it, anyway.”
The woman stepped closer to him and toyed with a button on his shirt.
He thought about stepping away, but hell, he was stag at a wedding. Raji wasn’t a groupie who had made her way backstage by whatever means necessary. She was cute, and she was flying solo at a wedding, too.