The Beat Match Read online

  Freed by the Falcon.

  Leo would have loved it.

  Weston gave them what they craved, his music exploding from the speakers. His blood pumped in time to the bass. Humidity hung in the dense air. He let his gaze skim the floor, his attention locking on various dancers. Connection was key, making them feel part of his show. Weston nodded at a purple-haired dude, adjusted the frequency and volume, added a kick of reverb, and lifted the background drums. The kid punched the air to the beat.

  Weston’s gaze slid to the left…and air jammed in his lungs.

  Someone who looked a hell of a lot like Annie was dancing. Not just dancing. She was glowing, her arms up, head tilted back, hips and upper body swaying suggestively.

  His blood pumped harder. Yeah, it was definitely her, still in that skimpy outfit. He glared at the group around her. Was she on a date? At this hour? Was some dude hoping he’d score big? But she was dancing on her own mainly, occasionally interacting with others on the floor. She didn’t seem to be with anyone specific.

  Was she alone? At a late-night club, hoping for a hookup?

  Agitation edged his movements. Frustration fogged his focus. If he hadn’t launched into a new track, he’d have fumbled the transition.

  He kept one eye on her and one on his equipment, berating himself for the possessiveness firing in his gut. Annie was twenty-seven. She wasn’t the kid he’d promised to watch over. She was an adult free to party and date. Seeing her out and happy shouldn’t unbalance him like this. But clubs were unpredictable. All it took was one grudge, one weapon, and all hell could break loose. Or a man could think he was entitled to something that wasn’t his.

  A new urge Weston couldn’t name drove him. He tested out a new song, a swell of pleasure building when she picked up the rhythm, a secret smile on her face like she knew he’d chosen the song for her. She couldn’t know. No one ever could or would.

  He used a burner phone for all DJ business. He’d hired a roadie anonymously. Hank set up and stored his equipment for a generous fee. Weston showed up minutes before gigs, wearing his mask, a black outfit, casual shoes, and a different cologne, disguised down to his smell. He gave strict instructions limiting interaction and bailed the second his set finished. In and out. No talking to the audience. No talking to fans. He wasn’t doing it for personal glory.

  He was doing it for Leo.

  Annie didn’t know Weston was the man controlling her body now, but he knew he was the one making her move like that, and a strange warmth filled his chest. Her neck glistened with sweat. Her curves moved with his mix.

  He played the rest of his set for her, and for Leo. Always for Leo. He’d love seeing his sister like this, truly happy, even with him gone. One song, then another. Weston was on fire. Annie was glorious. It was his best gig, hands down.

  With his last note reverberating in the air, the crowd went nuts, and he pumped his fist for his screaming fans, stealing one last glance at her. She seemed to be trying to catch his attention, mouthing something he couldn’t make out. For one freaked out second, he wondered if she recognized him, but it was impossible.

  He strutted off the stage. A couple of guys congratulated him, but most knew to stay away. His disappearing acts didn’t seem to hurt his bookings. If anything, being eccentric and mysterious upped his appeal.

  He pushed out the back exit and almost smacked into a small group.

  “That show was sick.” A guy waved, moving to block Weston’s path. He was thin as a beanstalk but taller than Weston. One of the others wore a Freed by the Falcon T-shirt. They all started badgering him for autographs.

  This had never happened before. He’d leisurely grab a cab after a show, remove his mask and get dropped off a few blocks from his condo. Not so easy tonight.

  He pressed his fingers to his lips, then to his heart. Hopefully a sign these fans would understand as thank you. Then he busted into a run.

  Footfalls trailed him, but not for long. “Love you, man!” one of them called.

  At least they didn’t sound angry.

  He hailed a cab and hopped in.

  “Costume party?” the cabbie asked once they were on their way.

  Weston adjusted his mask, but didn’t take it off. “Something like that.”

  “The wife and I went to a masquerade party once. Crazy thing one Halloween. Not my scene, but the wife loved it. Said she liked pretending to be someone else. Kind of talked different that night, too. More outgoing and stuff.” The cabbie glanced at him in his rearview mirror. “You find that? That you’re, I don’t know—more open with that thing on?”

  “It definitely gives you freedom to do things you wouldn’t normally do.” Like live a secret double life.

  “Guess it’s a rush for some folks.”

  Not exactly how Weston would describe his live sets. Sure, DJing pumped him with adrenaline, but the outlet served a purpose. Clubs paid him through online transfers to a numbered account. The money he made got funneled into campaigns that pushed for stronger gun control, in memory of Leo. All of it for Leo. Weston owed that guy everything. Including his life. But, lately, DJing the way Leo had imagined and tossing money at charities hadn’t felt like enough. Hands-off philanthropic work wasn’t the same as working in a soup kitchen, touching people directly.

  For now he’d have to rethink his transportation. Maybe hire a personal driver. Avoid future fan ambushes. Get picked up and dropped off discreetly. Discreet being the operative word. One whiff of his evening activities and he’d be ousted from his family business. No one would trust a Chief Operating Officer who DJed at night, a scene well known for drugs and bad decisions. Even though he was there for the music, not the partying, his credibility would nose-dive. His father would be the first to cut him loose.

  Weston closed his eyes for the rest of the ride.

  When he finally made it home, he tossed his bag on his sectional and pounded back a glass of water. He plunked his cup down on the concrete counter. The resounding silence in his loft apartment made his ears ring. The modernized industrial space felt sparser than usual, the salvaged brick walls barer, even though he’d recently acquired an exquisite Trudy Benson painting. The space was pristine and timeless; an architectural masterpiece, the ceiling soaring three stories high.

  Over the ringing quiet, all he heard was Annie her first time in the place, saying, “It’s stunning and funky. It just feels more like a museum than a home.”

  He rubbed his sternum and headed to his Falcon Cave, a name Leo would have loved. The guy had been obsessed with Batman: the comics, the movies, the gadgets, how a regular guy could be a superhero without powers. Weston had razzed him about it. Now he moonlighted as Falcon and spent hours in his Falcon Cave, aka his sound room.

  He unlocked his studio, grabbed his laptop, and sank into the leather couch. He surfed through music sites, read an article about this year’s Ultra Music Festival, left a comment suggesting they put Grid Girl on the main stage—that woman dropped a serious beat. He browsed his latest research projections afterward, his mind flipping from music to pharmaceuticals and back on a dime.

  Switching between two lives was exhausting at times, but multitasking was his superpower. What he didn’t want was for his mind to keep drifting to Annie, her relaxed body as she’d danced to his beats, her hips and chest rolling, sexy as sin.

  He was glad she’d enjoyed herself, but sin was the real takeaway there. There were umpteen reasons he had to box, chain, and burn his unwelcome thoughts. None of which he wanted to unpack. He needed to focus on the Biotrell merger, not his late best friend’s little sister. He would ask Rosanna Farzad on a date. The move was good for business and maybe for his personal life, too. A way to squash these unwanted images of Annie.

  4

  Annie was high. Not literally, of course. With her family history, drugs were a hard no. That music, though? It had been a hit of euphoria injected straight into her veins. She closed her apartment door, still vibrating. She was restles
s, wired. Even at 3:30 a.m., sleep couldn’t be further from her mind. She eyed the dirty dishes in the sink, the laundry she hadn’t put away, the craft supplies littering her coffee table and purple carpet.

  If Wes were here, he’d take one glance at the controlled chaos and say her apartment looked like a garage sale. “How do you even find the couch?” he often asked, familiar judgment lacing his words. The same tone he’d used when criticizing tonight’s wardrobe.

  She could use her excess energy to tidy up. Get her place ready for tomorrow’s piano delivery. Or she could pull out her secret Weston Aldrich scrapbook and add a new page.

  Scrapbooking won out, obviously. She grabbed her laptop and clicked on the most serious, stuck-up, holier-than-thou photo of Wes she could find. Once the grim picture printed, she maneuvered her secret book from below her floral couch.

  She’d started this treasure on her sixteenth birthday. That fateful day, she’d been invited to a Lil Wayne concert and had shared the awesome news with Wes while out to lunch, too excited to keep it bottled up. The self-righteous dictator had said, “No.”

  He may not have been her official guardian, but he’d insinuated himself into that role. At twenty-one, he’d seemed so much older than her sixteen years, and she’d been too afraid of losing him, controlling or not, to push him away.

  He’d told her she was too young to go to the concert, that it wasn’t safe, droning on while looking down at her from his ivory tower, clueless to how valuable those concert tickets had been. Normally she’d have told him to screw off and gone anyway, but he’d taken it upon himself to call her friend’s mother. The ticket had been given to someone who didn’t have a tyrannical pseudo-brother/father controlling her life.

  Thus began the Weston Aldrich secret scrapbook.

  Some of his photos had been defaced with horns and mustaches, the backgrounds tastefully decorated with colored paper, butterflies, and flowers. One special page had cutouts of dog poop shoved into his mouth, with the tagline: Weston is full of shit.

  Defacing Wes pictures had become a soothing hobby. She hummed as she cut his face from the new photo and pasted it on a fresh page. She then gave him long pink hair, a sexy dress, and thigh-high boots like the ones she’d worn tonight. She even added a sparkly purse.

  The caption read: The dress makes the man.

  Scrapbook closed and hidden, she got ready for bed. It was insanely late, or crazy early. She still wasn’t tired. She was excited about the piano arriving—the idea of playing again and working toward a new job. She also kept reliving the thrill of the club, the beat moving through her as she’d danced. She wasn’t sure why she’d tried to catch the DJ’s attention afterward. To thank him maybe, ask him what it felt like to pilot the crowd, fill hearts with happiness and the club with intoxicating energy. Maybe to know how Leo would have felt if it had been him.

  Too jazzed to stay horizontal, she picked up one of her Sudoku puzzle books. She had twenty-odd books scattered around her apartment, their various states of progress another point of contention with Wes. Every time he visited her, he’d pick one up and shake it in the air, hollering, “Why don’t you finish these? You don’t get points for giving up.”

  “Simple,” she’d say, loving his irritation. “Hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable. When I get stumped, I get frustrated and probably look like you with your resting brood face. So I move on. I keep the hobby fun.” Knowing the half-finished pages annoyed Wes was an added bonus.

  He wasn’t here to annoy her tonight, and the math puzzles weren’t making her sleepy. She retrieved her laptop from the living room, sat on her bed, covers pulled up to her waist, as she powered up her Punchies page. She signed into her online scrapbooking group as Harley Quinn—badass comic book aliases for the win—and scanned the screen for her favorite online friend. Pegasus’s icon was lit.

  Harley Quinn: Surprised you’re up at this hour.

  Pegasus: Working different shifts. Nights are days and days are nights.

  Harley Quinn: No rest for the wicked.

  Pegasus: Wicked as in we’re super cool or perversely evil?

  Harley Quinn: Let’s go with cool.

  Pegasus: BORING

  Harley Quinn: Perversely evil?

  Pegasus: Now you’re just unoriginal.

  Harley Quinn: I’m trying to remember why we’re friends, but I’m coming up blank.

  Pegasus: It’s my winning personality. And my embossing skills.

  They chatted about Pegasus’s new matting technique for framing her photos, but Annie’s mind kept snagging on tonight’s wild club, the music, how it felt like another piece of herself had clicked into place.

  Harley Quinn: What makes a person fulfilled?

  Pegasus: Since when do we do deep thoughts?

  Harley Quinn: Since I’m overtired and overthinking.

  Pegasus: I hear you on overtired. As for the question, I think fulfillment is different for everyone. I’m good at my job. It fulfills me in many ways, but it’s not all about financial success.

  Annie had no clue what Pegasus did for work or if Pegasus was a man or woman. She assumed woman, but like with all her online friends, they didn’t ask personal questions. They talked shop and joked. Kept their interactions light and easy. Tonight, as she relived the energy in the club, the music and all the memories it had unearthed, she couldn’t resist delving deeper.

  Harley Quinn: I don’t mean jobwise. I’m not even sure I’m talking about fulfillment, exactly. Have you ever avoided something for a long time, but when you actually did it, you realize it’s not as scary as you thought it would be?

  Pegasus: Are we talking about laundry?

  Annie laughed while eyeing the mountain by her closet.

  Harley Quinn: Not laundry. Something bigger you thought would make you sad, but it actually made you happy. It made you realize you need more from life.

  Pegasus: Thinking about things can be more intimidating than doing them.

  Harley Quinn: Exactly. But this thing I did, it feels different, like a turning point. Like I’ve opened the door to Narnia and have to choose to stay in this life or walk into another.

  Awareness struck Annie as she wrote, just how deeply tonight’s DJ had affected her. The piano purchase was one thing, but the club scene had been something else entirely. Another way to feel closer to Leo. She’d never been to clubs with him. She’d been too young, but he’d get back from a night out, glowing, full of energy, talking nonstop about how alive he felt. She finally understood. The buzz in her chest hadn’t relented since she’d gotten home. She’d loved those beats, had wanted to jump into the notes and let them explode out through her limbs.

  Not just as a dancer. On stage. Being the power source for everyone’s joy. Doing what Leo would have done.

  Pegasus: I guess you have to decide which you’ll regret more, missing the world you know or never exploring the one that scares you.

  Fear was there, all right, under the slight tremble in her fingers. Many events had defined Annie’s life, most of them on the devastating side of unfortunate. Still, she didn’t consider her current life bad, and her foster homes had been better than most. She’d moved through three of them, none rough or dangerous. The other foster kids had been decent enough, everyone keen to keep their heads down and power on. There had been one girl in particular she’d loved. Clementine: cute pigtails, freckled nose. Older than Annie, but so shy and scared she’d seemed younger. Annie had made it her mission to make Clementine smile, chatting about comic book characters and acting silly.

  They hadn’t kept in touch in the end, but Annie didn’t need close friends, not with her online communities and coworkers. She also had Wes for company, even though he could drive a teetotaler to drink. She waitressed enough to support her various hobbies and vintage clothing obsession. She dated sporadically, though not recently. She liked living in Queens, even with her tiny apartment and not-so-tiny commute. She was happy in her day-to-day life.

  She ju
st wasn’t sure she was fulfilled.

  Harley Quinn: I think there’s a side to myself I haven’t explored.

  Pegasus: The first step is recognizing it. The second is going after it, no matter what the people in your life think. If this is something you want, don’t let anyone or anything stop you.

  She hadn’t mentioned wanting to be a DJ. She hadn’t entertained the notion before tonight, but the prospect was suddenly all she could see. Like there was no maybe or we’ll see or I could try standing in Annie’s way. Life was short. She didn’t need to ponder and research to decide if DJing was a viable option. That wasn’t how she rolled. She was the sort who quit jobs when they didn’t suit her. She breezed through half-finished Sudoku puzzles, bought used pianos after avoiding music for thirteen years. If she was any good at DJing, she could even quit waitressing. Teach piano during the day, DJ at night.

  The first step to making this a reality was taking DJ lessons, which required cash, and only one bank would never turn her away. The Bank of Weston Aldrich. But the request would have to be covert. If he caught wind of her piano and DJ plans, his head would explode, epically, loudly. He’d berate her for buying the piano and then hopping to another pursuit.

  He’d call her Squirrel.

  He loved that nickname, always joking that her shifting attention span was like a dog whose mind blanked at the sight of a running squirrel. This wasn’t her sometimes-flighty behavior, though. In her mind, teaching piano and DJing were linked. Different expressions of the same goal. And Wes was on a need-to-know basis. He had offered to help pay her rent. She simply had to convince him she needed a few months’ buffer, use the excess money for a DJ course or equipment, then pay back every penny.

  Her second step was finding Falcon.

  Taking a class was one thing. She wanted to learn from the best, and Falcon had set the bar high. She’d figure out where he was playing next. Flag him down or ambush him and plead her case. Ask to be his apprentice. As Pegasus suggested, she wouldn’t let anyone or anything stop her.