Indi issued a sharp whistle through his teeth, and a young’s man head whipped toward us. With a wave of his hand, Indi called him over, and his two friends followed.
“How’s it going, Jersey, Cole, Rory?”
“Great, pops.”
“Hi, Mr. D,” said Cole.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Dys,” said Rory.
I looked over the three. Jersey was a younger, skinnier, long-haired version of his father. Cole, who walked with the unmistakable swagger of a frontman, was blonde with an untamable mop. He also rimmed his eyes with eyeliner. Rory stood taller than the other two and looked like a Scotsman without a kilt.
“So how is the tour schedule coming along?” said Indi.
“Year five, coming right up. We just finished up the new record, and the label is getting ready to distribute it. We start touring in three weeks.”
“Good,” the elder Dys said with approval.
“I told Tobias here,” said Franklin, “these guys are only going to get hotter.”
“You connected us with a great promoter,” said Jersey.
“I’ll do everything I can for you boys,” said Franklin. “As long as you work hard, I’ll be right there with you, every one of you.”
We stoodat the opposite side of the irregularly shaped oval pool and facing the house, and that’s when I got the first glimpse of Jacine. At first, I didn’t recognize her, because the Jacine I knew was as thin as a rail, and her hair was naturally dark as her father’s. But she had colored it, and now she was a California blonde.
A very sexy Cali gal.
Jacine was just a kid when she hugged me goodbye before she went to college, and I hadn’t seen her in the six years she’d been away. At first, because of the blonde hair, I thought I saw Adelaide, Jacine’s mother, but that wasn’t possible. We laid Adelaide to rest eighteen years ago. She hadn’t been divorced from Franklin for even a year before he got a call from a hotel. I went with him. We never talked about how we found her.
As Jacine exited the house her bright smile, uniquely hers, beamed at me, or rather us.
God, how I wanted it to be just me she smiled at.
She waved. Franklin motioned that she should join us.
“Who’s that?” said Jersey. He sounded a little breathless.
“You know her, J,” said Indi. “That’s Jacine.”
“That’s—? Whoa. Little Jacine is all grown up.”
“Down boys,” growled Franklin. “That’s my daughter.”
In the face of a protective father, Jersey declared his thirst and headed for the bar.
“Damn, Franklin,” chuckled Indi.
“That’s my little girl. She’s not going to get involved with a musician. Or anyone in the business here. Jacine’s a smart girl and will find herself a nice doctor, or lawyer, someone level-headed like Tobias, here, just more age appropriate.”
I would have protested but I was too busy watching Jacine. She wore a feather-light yellow beach cover-up, and skimpy yellow bikini and god help me, spiked strappy sandals. The sandals made her legs go on forever, and her tits jiggled as she jogged toward us around the pool. People called her, and she stopped and greeted some of them by throwing her long, lean body against theirs.
My heart caught in my throat, I hated those men that took too much delight in her friendly greeting.
“And how, do you intend to stop her from doing that?” said Indi.
“I’m putting her to work in the firm. The New York office. Any celebrity she works for will be officially off-limits. And the celebrities, we don’t represent? She’ll need to keep a professional face with them for the firm’s good.”
“That’s devious,” said Indi.
