Paper Thin

“Right. Okay. Thanks.” There was a tremor of nervousness hanging in Sadie’s words. I knew she was as uncomfortable as I was in this girl’s presence.

“Thresh sent me out to get you.” Natasha flipped her glossy black hair over her shoulder, and started walking away. “He’s waiting backstage for you.”

Thresh? What kind of name was that? Surely not one his parents had given him. It had to be something he’d come up with while sitting around drinking with his friends, pla

Thresh? I mean, what the hell?

“Okay! Great!” Sadie sounded way too excited about heading backstage, or maybe it was because Thresh was waiting for her. I couldn’t pinpoint which. She followed behind Natasha without making sure I followed.

“Sure, yeah. I’ll go back there with you,” I deadpa

Sadie glanced at me, and rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

Backstage was nothing spectacular. It was dark, and smelled like sweat and stale cigarettes. There was a bald guy with a beer gut toying with some wires, and a group of younger guys standing around who didn’t look the least bit scary. Definitely not scary enough to be called Black Bash. I had pictured a burly biker gang, not a muscular, tattooed group who looked sexy as hell. Suddenly, I wasn’t aching to get out of here anymore. In fact, I was positive I could pretend to like any music these guys created.

“Sadie, you made it,” a beefy muscular guy with a dragon tattoo on the inside of his forearm called out. I assumed he was Thresh.

Now that I had put a face to a name, I could see where it fit him. There was something mysterious and dangerous about him, making the name seem to fit. I just hoped that was all it was I was picking up on, and that he didn’t enjoy beating the crap out of anything. Thresh meant beat repeatedly, right? Or was there another word I was confusing it with?

“I see you brought a friend along.” He glanced at me, but didn’t give me the onceover I had been expecting. I smiled, because he’d passed my first test. His eyes seemed to be only for my friend, as they should be. “Cool. The more the merrier.”

“Yeah, she just got back in town from a horrible weekend visit home. Her sister is marrying the guy she’s had a crush on since she was little,” Sadie told everyone, completely mortifying me. “I couldn’t leave her behind. She needs to salvage her weekend somehow.”

“Nice. Thanks for that, Sadie.” I flashed her an a

Her blue eyes widened as though she was as shocked the words had left her mouth as I was. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to me, her face scrunching up in pain.

“A night with me, and I’m sure I could erase all those bad memories from your mind. Hell, I bet I could even erase the guy,” the guy closest to me muttered as he leaned toward me. He had jet black hair that fell to his shoulders and no shirt on. While the other guys were muscular, this guy was grotesquely so. He had the V going for him most women loved, and biceps the size of my head.

Yuck. Muscles were nice, but not that much. There was a point where you no longer looked healthy and hot. This guy had surpassed it by a mile with his veiny body that looked as though his muscles would pop any second.

“I’m sure you could, if you used the roofies in your back pocket.” There was no way I was giving him even an ounce of hope for a one-nighter with me. He seemed like the type to be persistent unless you nipped it in the bud right away. I’d dealt with his determined type a time or two at random parties around campus.

“I really like this girl.” Natasha laughed. “She’s the only one I’ve ever seen put my brother in his place right away.”

Her brother? I shifted my gaze between the two of them, searching for a family resemblance. I guessed they shared the same nose and inky hair, but that was about it. Natasha had dark eyes while her brother’s were a crazy electric-blue. Contacts. They had to be contacts.

“Nah, she’ll just take some time to convince is all,” Natasha’s brother said, taking another step closer to me.

“I don’t think so. Charlotte is pretty straight forward about things of that nature,” Sadie chimed in. “I wouldn’t waste your time.”

“Is that so?” he asked, the creepy smirk I was sure made panties drop lightning fast with other girls still clung to his lips.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.” I sighed. “I don’t get off on any of this.” I gestured to him as a whole.

“Ouch, that’s harsh.” He chuckled.

“You seem like you come on strong and never quit, so I figured I’d nip it in the bud right away,” I told him. “It’s just not going to happen. Sadie is right, don’t waste your time.”

“Damn.” Another in the group laughed. “You are killing me over here. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk to Blaze that way!”

Blaze? Again, what a name.

I smirked, and shrugged my shoulders. My eyes took in the guy talking. He was decent looking. A little on the scrawny side when compared to the other two in the group, but I could still make out the definition in his body. That was enough for me. Combined with his sandy-colored hair and light brown eyes, he definitely was someone who grabbed my attention. I wondered what crazy band name he had been given.

“I think it was about time.” I gri

“It was. For sure,” the other guy said. My eyes pulled back to him at the sound of his voice. I took in the sweet grin stretched across his face. “I’m Joh

Joh

“Charlotte.” I returned his smile.

“Yeah, I caught that earlier when your friend was telling us about your crappy weekend.” He licked his bottom lip, drawing my attention to his mouth. I noticed he had a lip ring. It reflected the lights above us. “I hope we can end it on a good note tonight for you.”

Normally, I didn’t go for the bad boy, tattooed, and pierced type. I went for the all-American guys or straight-up country boys. Obviously, none of them had worked out well, because here I was, still single. I caught Joh

BLACK BASH WAS ACTUALLY decent. They weren’t as hardcore as Sadie had made them seem. In fact, they reminded me of one of my favorite rock groups, Three Days Grace. The crowd had seemed menacing when we first walked into Throttle, but once Black Bash had taken the stage, things started to look a little different to me. Half the girls in the bar were here because of the band. The way they were dressed—all black leather pants and cropped off tops with hooker heels—was in the hopes of gaining one of the guy’s attention. They weren’t like Natasha, where it was actually her style. You could tell they were all fake. As for the burly guys, they didn’t seem as hardcore either. Maybe I had let the stories I’d heard about the place form my opinion.

After my second beer, I was loving the place. Blaze had a damn good voice, Thresh was crazy good on the drums, and Joh

“You were right.” I leaned into Sadie, shouting in her ear. “This was exactly what I needed. Thanks for dragging me along.”

“No problem. I knew you’d have fun,” she yelled back.

The current song ended, flowing into another one. I noticed Blaze and Joh