Read Online Deeper Than Dreams by Jessica Topper - Free Book Online Page A

hadn’t been touched since.
    And maybe it hadn’t.
    I pulled Alexander Floyd’s
Godforsaken
biography out, flicking on a brass table lamp as I passed it, and settled carefully in my dress on one of the brown leather couches.
    If I was to see Rick tonight at the gala, I wanted to be a bit more prepared with my secondary sources. Adrian’s stories, as intimate as they were in their details, may not have been the most objective, understandably.
    â€œAch, Kat. Really?” I glanced up to find Adrian hovering in the doorway. “My word isn’t good enough for you?”
    Everything about Adrian was good enough for me. Handsome didn’t even begin to describe how he looked, dressed forthe gala. His tuxedo was all crisp lines, and contoured his lithe body like only a custom-fit could. I loved that he had accented it with tousled locks and a touch of scruff.
    â€œOf course it is. But pictures are worth words as well, no?”
    Adrian couldn’t suppress his smile. “If we’re talking blackmail, some of those pictures are priceless.” He shook out his sleeve and checked his watch. “We’ve got a half hour to kill. I could think of worse ways to spend it.”
    â€œOr better,” I laughed as he collapsed onto the couch next to me. “But since we are all dressed up with somewhere to go . . .”
    ***
    Our knees became a book rest as I propped it open. “I want to get to know Rick a little better.”
    â€œWell. I knew Rick, pre-Simone,” Adrian said, licking a thumb and pushing past the first few pages. “And then of course, there was the Simone phase itself. But I’m afraid I know about as little as you in terms of post-Simone Rick.”
    The band’s wantonly public mouthpiece had become intensively private since sequestering his family in Hawaii. Rick had been harder to track down than Adrian, and with good reason. Caregiver to his wife as cancer quickly claimed her, then sole parent to three teen boys, were not exactly roles in keeping with the singer’s once infamous persona. Had performing last night been a mindless flick of the switch for Rick? He’d made shifting gears after so many years look effortless.
    â€œI’m curious to know what made you guys tick.”
    â€œOh, we ticked, all right. Like a bloody time bomb.” Adrian flashed a wry smile. “Luckily, I’ve got a much longer fuse these days.”
    He chuckled to himself as we turned to a fuzzy black-and-white class photo of Rick and Adrian in their Ditcham Park school uniforms.
    â€œAw, look how cute you guys were!”
    â€œCute?” Adrian protested. “We weren’t aiming for cute. We were two guys aiming for total annihilation of our country through rock and roll.”
    He smiled fondly at the photo of the starry-eyed best mates. “We had to learn how to play first, though. I found a beat-up acoustic that had belonged to my stepfather and I began to teach myself notes and chords. Rick fancied himself a singer, so he worked on poses and struts when he was not doodling elaborate logos for the name we had chosen:
Diabolus in Musica
.” He used air quotes and a deep voice, laughing at its ostentatious ring. “We had come across the Latin term in our school encyclopedia.” My fingers ghosted his as they skirted down the glossy page of text.
    Rick was summoned to spend the holiday with his parents in New York in the summer of 1977, which proved to be a long but evolutionary summer for both lads. Digger spent his break back in Portsmouth, where he could come and go without much hassle from his dad, and get reacquainted with his old friends.
    â€œGood God, look at me and Sam!” Adrian pointed to a full-color photo of an adolescent version of himself and a chubby, grinning blond boy.
    Sam Summerisle was a mate of the highest order; not only had he given Digger his nickname long before, he also freely offered up his