Everwhere

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Trey Carpenter watched the young women in the room bounce, sway, and gyrate to his music. All the women's eyes were on him of course. Twenty or so women, most in their early twenties, were staring at Trey as they moved their sweaty bodies seductively, as if vying for his attention.

Trey scanned the group of women and finally spotted Deni Ray. Her shoulder length brown hair was flipping rhythmically in time with the others. The petite woman stood out from the crowd although dressed as casually as the rest. Trey watched her slender, tanned legs as the muscle tone changed with each bounce.

Deni and her best friend Lita were swaying shoulder to shoulder. Each woman was trying to push the other a little harder. Trey saw that Deni's heavier, hippie-like friend seemed to be trying to push her out of Trey's line of sight.

She always tries to outdo Deni when I'm around. A small grin upturned one corner of his mouth. Never happen.

Trey's shoulder length brown hair flopped even more than Deni's as he furiously worked the strings of his guitar. He approached the microphone as the band finished the first song of the night.

"Thanks for coming to Club Soda to check us out. We've just come out with our first C.D.; it's on sale at the bar. For those of you who don't follow us, I'd like to introduce the band. To my right on base we have Ouch, on keyboards we have Catbird, and finally, on drums, the mighty Tinkerbell, you can just call her Tink. Me, I'm just Trey, no nickname. Together we're called Bad Mayonnaise. Now I'd like to play a song I wrote for a very special woman who I'm glad to see made it tonight. This is called 'Free Spirit'"

Trey exchanged his electric for an acoustic guitar and sat on a stool as the band started the song.

"The mountains call her sister,

The forests call her friend,

Gaia calls her soul mate,

Her breath, it is the wind."

Deni locked eyes with Trey as he sang the ballad to her. Trey knew he was in love with the gentlest woman on earth.

"The creatures in the wild,

They all know her name,

Her heart is one with nature,

No mortal man can tame.

Come to me earth lover, walk with me across the land."

The pull of Deni's gaze was broken when Lita led Denny away by the elbow.

Not during Deni's ballad! Trey watched as Lita led Deni to a dark booth occupied by a tall, disheveled man with a short beard. He could tell by the clean but wrinkled suit the man was wearing that it must be the club's shifty manager, Owen Owens.

What does he want with Deni? Trey watched as the threesome sat at the booth.

"She'll set your soul on fire,

With a look into blue eyes.

How can they treat the planet so?

The leaders and their lies."

Trey watched the three in the booth. Owens was pointing upstairs where Heston Fitzpatrick – the owner of Club Soda – had his office.

I'd better check that out at the end of the set, only three more songs to go.

Trey was getting annoyed.

"They run their corporate machine,

On the bloodshed of our young.