by Lisa Suzanne
“Already?” Will asks, and she nods.
“I don’t mess around.” She pushes some papers across the table. “The ones with the pink tabs are for you to sign,” she says, looking at me, “and the ones with the green tabs are for you.” She punctuates her sentence by glancing up at Will. “Sign by all the arrows and you’re free to take your trip.”
Will grabs a pen and signs on all the lines without reading it.
My dad always taught me to read everything before I sign it, but I’m taking Will’s lead on this one. If I want to go on this road trip with him—if I want to find out the truth about that letter I got—this is my chance. Besides, I’m agreeing to take a trip with a guy who is basically my boyfriend. Nothing in the contract will change my mind on that.
I sign by all the pink tabs and hand it back to Kylie.
“Enjoy your trip,” she says with a smile.
CHAPTER 9: WILL
“Have you told her you love her?” Adam asks me later that day. Amber went home since she has to work in the morning, and I miss her already.
Adam and I have had some nice heart-to-hearts over the last year or so, but this doesn’t feel like it’s going to be one of those times.
“Shouldn’t you be banging your bride?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Well?”
“No,” I admit, my gaze on the television screen as I expertly shoot an enemy on board the Titanic in this version of Call of Duty. I glance at the split screen beside me and see what Adam’s doing, but honestly, he sucks at this game. “I feel like we have this same conversation at least once a week. Stop dictating the pace of our relationship.”
“She’s my sister. I just want to make sure you’re doing right by her.” He sets down his controller, his signal that he’s done playing. In the middle of the action. What the fuck is wrong with him?
I heave out an annoyed breath but set down my controller, too. “I am doing right by her. Things are great. Hot and heavy and details you don’t want to know about. But with our tour and her work schedule...sometimes it’s hard maintaining a relationship with someone I only get to see once in a while.”
“But you’re maintaining it?” he asks. “Because you have time for this shit,” he nods toward the game on the huge screen in my bedroom, “so you better be making time for her.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s at work, not that I need to defend myself or my relationship to you.”
“Are you doing okay?” He’s studying me.
“I’m fine,” I answer automatically, but it’s not exactly the truth.
In theory I’m fine.
But in reality...
I don’t know.
I’m tired. I’ve been recording music and playing it and touring for almost a decade. I love what I do, but I never wanted to play the fucking keyboards for a living. I spent my entire childhood rebelling against the piano lessons my mother made me take.
“It improves discipline and creativity. It forces you to concentrate and work hard.” I still hear her voice in my nightmares.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but never once in my childhood when I was being forced into lessons did I think I’d choose that particular instrument to play for the rest of my career.
I miss guitar.
That is what I love.
But when Kane and I met Adam, Brody, and Dax, MFB already had two guitarists in Adam and Dax. Since I was the new guy, I was pushed to keys.
See what I mean about letting life just sort of happen to me?
I lucked out in getting with four other men who wanted success as much as I did, who worked hard together and had a few lucky breaks that got us to where we are now.
But you take the good with the bad, I guess, and the bad is that I got stuck on an instrument that isn’t really my passion.
And I’m starting to feel the fatigue in that.
I don’t even know what my passion is. Guitar, maybe. Video games, sure. Freedom and doing what I want rather than having everything dictated for me, yep. Sex with Amber, fuck yes.
“Are you really?” Adam asks, and I finally look over at him and shake my head.
“No. I’m not. I have no idea where your sister stands. I’m sick of the fucking keyboards, man. I know we just got off tour, and I’m grateful as fuck for everything and all that shit, but I feel the sting of burnout. I’m thankful for this break and I need...I don’t know. Something.”
He nods. “I know.”
My brows dip down. “You do? You feel it too?”
He shakes his head. “No, but I understand where you’re coming from. I just got married. I leave for my honeymoon in a couple days. I found something I wasn’t expecting with her, you know? Something that, as cheesy as it sounds, completes a part of me I didn’t realize wasn’t completed. I think Dax found that with Kylie, and Brody found that with Zoey. Kane’s had that with Sierra forever. And maybe you’re on your way to finding it, too.”
“That’s fucking dumb,” I say, turning as usual to insults as my defense mechanism.
I know I do it. Adam knows I do it. Fuck, we all know I do it. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop.
“Okay,” he says. He knows how to deal with me. They all do. They just agree with what I say. They treat me like a toddler. And maybe that’s because I’ve acted like one my entire adult life. “I just think maybe she’s what you’re searching for.”
“We’re taking a road trip,” I say. It sounds like a subject change, but it’s not, not really.
“You are?”
I nod. “She’s coming with me. I want us to face challenges on the road together. I want to find whatever it is I’m searching for, but I don’t know how. And as stupid as I think your assessment might be, you might be right about one thing.”
He looks at me with curiosity.
“She might be the one person who can help me find answers to questions I’m not even sure how to ask.”
He nods once, and then Kane appears in my doorway. He stares at me for a beat before he speaks. “God, I’m still not used to how you look with short hair even though it’s been months. It looks darker, too. Not as red now that it’s short.”
I don’t say anything, and neither does Adam.
“What are you two talking about?” Kane’s got this instinct for reading people that I’ve come to appreciate over the years, but it’s also annoying as fuck sometimes.
“Rascal and Amber,” Adam says.
“What’s going on with you two?” Kane asks me. He also gets straight to the point—something else that’s annoying as fuck sometimes.
I shrug, and he takes that as an invitation to sit on the edge of my bed since the two chairs in my room are occupied.
“You sure you wanna sit there?” I ask.
He looks over at me and narrows his eyes. “Why?”
I laugh. “No reason.”
He stands. “Did you jerk off right here?”
“Right there, over here, pretty much everywhere. All I’m saying is that you probably shouldn’t shine a black light anywhere in here.”
His narrowed eyes deepen into a glare and Adam makes a face of disgust.
“Can you stop doing that for a minute and be serious?” Kane asks.
“Doing what?”
“Deflecting. Making jokes. Acting like you’re five so you don’t have to face reality.”
Did I mention how annoying Kane is?
I bite my tongue at the joke sitting just on the edge of it about how five year olds definitely don’t participate in the same activities I do. It doesn’t seem like the kind of joke that would go over well at the moment.
“I’m not avoiding reality. I don’t have an answer, and even if I did, it’s none of your business.” I slouch back in my chair.
Adam’s phone rings, and he excuses himself to take the call.
“Of course it’s my business.” He nods toward the door Adam just disappeared out of. “It’s Adam’s business, too. Even Dax and Brody. It affects the
band, so it’s all of our business.”
I roll my eyes.
“She isn’t just some girl. She’s Adam’s sister,” he says, as if I need the reminder.
“I know who she is, but she has an identity apart from her sibling. It’s not like I yell out ‘Oh, Adam’s sister!’ while I’m fucking her.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Thanks for that visual.”
“You’re welcome. Now get the fuck out.”
He sighs and crosses his arms over his chest like he’s getting ready to lecture me, but I stop him at the pass.
“Listen, I don’t know what it is, okay? I like her, but we haven’t had much time together. Time will tell.”
“What do you want it to be?” he asks. He unfolds his arms and leans on my dresser.
“When did you become some chick who has to talk about her feelings all the damn time?” I ask.
“I’m invested in you. In all of us. I care, Rascal, and I don’t think you see that.”
Apart from my parents, who, by the way, are the best, I don’t know if anyone has ever really told me they care about me. But I know what this is. “Of course you care. I’m part of MFB, and I’m fiery and unpredictable and you’re worried I’m gonna bail. I’m not gonna bail. You’re worried this could come between Adam and me. It won’t. I have responsibilities to the band, and why the hell would I ever fuck that up?”
“Because you’ve always wanted to play guitar,” he says flatly, like he can read my goddamn mind.
I heave out a breath. “I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s been fine for almost a decade.”
He looks around and then starts gesturing wildly. “But all this...it could just disappear tomorrow, and we’d be helpless to stop it. We’re already taking time off after Dax’s wedding, too. What if it’s all gone when we try to come back?”
My whole face wrinkles in confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He clears his throat and shakes his head. “Nothing.” He heads toward the door. “I think I’m just...I don’t know. Projecting my own insecurities or something. Just don’t fuck over Adam’s sister, okay?”
I nod. “Fucking her over is not in the plan. Fucking her over a table, however...”
“You’re a dipshit,” he says, and then he opens my door and leaves.
It only takes me two seconds of reflecting on my conversation with Kane to realize that even though I want to be a better man for Amber, there’s a whole lot I still need to work on.
CHAPTER 10: WILL
“You have an appearance tonight at Flex,” Kylie tells us the next afternoon, naming a night club in downtown San Diego. “No performance, just pictures, and you need to be drinking South Pike. You’ll have a camera crew with you to catch footage for Rock on the Road.”
South Pike is a local brewery, and I just learned a few weeks ago that San Diego has the most breweries of any county in the United States. The competition around here is fierce, so we’re always being offered sponsorships. We take pictures drinking beer, post them to social media (labels out, as Kylie always reminds us), write some shit about how much we love their beer, and make bank.
Dax makes a face. “Is that the one with the high alcohol content?”
She nods and clicks around on her tablet before she says, “Nine percent.”
Brody whistles. “Jesus. That’s over double a Miller Lite.”
“Good, we’ll get drunk faster,” I say, and everyone turns simultaneously to shoot me a look. I lift both hands in surrender.
“All five of us?” Brody asks.
She nods. “It’s a great deal, you guys. A lot of money.”
“Great. Anything else?” Dax asks.
She shakes her head. “That’s all I’ve got. Tonight’s appearance is the last thing I have on the books until Dax and I get back from our honeymoon. You’ve got a few gigs booked and the Rock on the Road Revisited premiere in June with press junkets, but otherwise MFB will be taking a short break while we have this baby.” She glances over at Dax, and the hearts in his eyes are a little gross. “Obviously we need you all at the wedding and rehearsal, but apart from that, you’ve got some rare free time. Enjoy it. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t get arrested.”
“So we can’t get arrested during our free time, but tonight’s okay?” I ask.
I get another look from everyone around the table.
“Those better not be famous last words.” Kylie rolls her eyes. “We meet back here on March twenty-fifth at four. Meeting adjourned.”
I suck in a breath. Those last two words feel a lot like freedom even though we have that appearance tonight. Amber’s working, and Kylie’s pregnant, so she’s out, and Emily wants to pack for the trip. With three of the five women absent, the other two decided to skip tonight, too.
So it’ll be the five men of MFB and some high alcohol content beer.
I’m sure nothing will go wrong.
When we arrive at Flex, the proverbial red carpet is rolled out for us. We’re each handed a beer, and we pose for a few candid shots.
I realize that’s a complete contradiction, but it’s what we’re being paid to do. We pretend to laugh, though Brody cracks a few jokes to give us natural smiles. “What’s better than having roses on your piano?” he asks. We wait for the punchline. “Having tulips on your organ.”
“Ha, two lips,” Kane says, the logical one who likes to show he got the joke first, and we all laugh. It helps us to pose in a way to look like we’re all having a great time, which we are...even though the first beer tastes like shit. The second one goes down a little easier, and the third actually tastes sort of good.
By the fourth, I’m starting to slur.
I can handle four beers, but I’m used to Miller Lite, which is just under four and a half percent alcohol content. This is over double that.
I’m drunk, and I don’t really even remember getting drunk.
But so is everyone else with me.
We think we’re tough guy rock stars who can drink a shit load of beer and not have any repercussions, but I can already tell tomorrow’s going to be a rough day.
“Bet you can’t chug the next one in under twenty seconds,” Brody says to Dax when we’re done with pictures. I can’t help my wide smile. We haven’t done dumbass bets like that in a long-ass time...ever since these douchebags decided to commit to their women. Now it’s all, oh let’s look at flowers for the wedding and oh have you tasted this fine wine and oh I have a stick up my ass twenty-four-seven. Okay, maybe not that last part, but you get the sentiment.
“What’s the price?” Dax asks, his eyes edging over to the cameras capturing this footage. I can tell that he knows Kylie will see, and that’s what’s making him pause.
“Don’t be a pussy!” I yell at him, and he glares at me.
“A hundred bucks.” Brody takes out his phone and sets a timer for twenty seconds, but he doesn’t hit start yet.
“You’re on, fucker,” Dax says, and being drunk with my best friends tonight is a whole lot like being back in the good old days. He flicks the cap off another beer.
Brody hits start, and Dax tips back the bottle. He’s done with four seconds left on the clock.
“A hundred bucks says you can’t, either,” Adam says to Brody, who takes the bet. He loses.
“Bet you can’t, Kane,” Brody says next, but Kane just shakes his head and looks away.
Talk about a stick up his ass.
I make a mental note to talk to him about why he’s not as drunk as the rest of us and why he doesn’t want to take bets, but I’m fucking wasted and there’s no way I’ll remember that mental note tomorrow.
I find myself thinking about Amber even through my drunken haze, and so I text her.
Me: Come to Flex.
At least that’s what I mean to type. Who the fuck knows what letters actually get typed. I don’t know how long her reply takes because honestly time isn’t anything more than a concept at this stage of drunkenness.
; Amber: I wish I could but I have to work in the morning.
Me: Fuck work. Come hang.
More bets are issued, more money is lost and won, and holy fuck I’m drunk by the time we head out back to pick up our ride home.
“A hundred bucks says you can’t scale that wall Spiderman-style,” Adam says to me, pointing across the alley at the back of a bakery. “Five steps on the wall.”
I glance at the wall and back at Adam. “Fuck yeah I can,” I say, because apparently beer doesn’t just make you drunk, but it turns you into a superhero with powers that allow you to scale walls and forget that cameras are capturing your every move. I take a running start, and then I get two steps up and throw my leg up for the third when my shoe catches the glass in the window of the door.
The glass shatters, an alarm starts blaring, and I fall down onto my ass, my back slamming against the concrete.
“That’s gonna hurt tomorrow,” I mutter, looking up at my friends who survey what the fuck just happened.
“Oh fuck,” Kane says at the same time Brody and Adam start laughing hysterically and Dax stands there looking just a little horrified, probably because he’s going to be in deep shit with Kylie for allowing this to happen.
The alarm bells apparently tip off a few police officers nearby that something happened, and they walk down the alley and spot two cameraman recording the actions of five drunk men, one lying on the ground, two laughing, and two with wide eyes.
“What’s going on back here, gentlemen?” one of the officers asks. I sit up gingerly and attempt to act semi-sober.
It’s not like I can really lie here. The cameramen haven’t set down their equipment yet, so the cops will see that it’s all recorded.
“Sorry, I slipped and accidentally broke the window with my foot,” I say, which makes no sense given that the glass is five feet in the air. And again, I think that’s what I say, but I can’t really be sure.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the officer begins, and oh shit, even through a pretty drunken haze I realize I’m being arrested.