Here in reality, his strong, toned fingers still covering mine now squeeze until the stick is firm in my grasp.
“There are a few ways to hold a stick, but this is how I like it,” he says. “Perfectly balanced, see?” He stretches his left arm around my other side so I can see the stick in that hand. It balances on his index finger for a second of demonstration before he flips it expertly into his palm.
At this point he has me completely encased in his arms, his chest to my back as he crouches behind me. I fight the urge to lean into him and tug his arms tighter around me. To tilt my head and expose my neck at the perfect angle for his mouth. His lips are right at my ear, hot and full and tempting, and I just want…
To die of cold when he suddenly lets go. Backing up, he hovers on the edge of the riser until we’re not even breathing the same air anymore.
“Um… You should be good now. Just… uh… tap the sticks in a steady rhythm on the snare. You’ll want to count, typically one to four. Like—one, two, three, four. You can…” He clears his throat, and when I look back, he’s stepping down to the main part of the stage.
“You okay?” I ask, my heart pinching in my chest. “Did I do something?”
“What? No! I mean…” He flashes a quick smile. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I should probably go clean up and get ready for tonight. Just…” He turns, already halfway across the stage. “Put the sticks back when you’re done. I’ll rearrange during soundcheck,” he calls before disappearing out of sight.
I stare after him in disbelief, then study the snare in silence. Still struggling to catch my breath, I force in a long draught of air as I slide the sticks back into the holder. Now, I need a shower too. A very long, cold one.
CHAPTER 9
XANDER
There’s only one good reason to focus on your crazy-ass mom while soaking naked in a hot stream of water: to keep your mind off something else. Elliot and Matty insisted on coming with me to our communal hotel room we share for cleanup on day stops, which means I have zero privacy in my bid to cleanse Lydia from my system. It’s not like I could say I needed alone-time to rub one out before our marketing director killed me with lust. Even worse, they’ve been invading the bathroom at will, barking stupid questions and making commentary I wouldn’t have cared about even if my brain wasn’t about to explode.
My blood still slams through restrictive capillaries at the thought of her wrapped in my arms. Her warm skin beneath my fingers. The smell of her hair and tantalizing arc of her neck just centimeters from my lips. How easy it would have been to indulge in a taste. Just the smallest lick to arouse sensitive nerve endings and spark her body into compliance. She’d gasp in the slightest breath and slide her delicious ass into me and… Damn, if I hadn’t run when I did, who knows how badly I would’ve screwed up right there on that small drum riser, witnesses everywhere. It didn’t seem small until she invaded it with her addictive flower scent and seductive glances.
Fingers that still remember touching hers now clench into a fist against the fiberglass shower wall. The others run through my hair, gripping hard at the memory of her soft skin and the feel of her pressed against me. Shit, that adorable smile when she first settled onto the throne? Your majesty. Funny since she’s the one who rules us.
Now my brain starts spiraling down another dangerous path involving royal bed linens and complex undergarments I’d love to rip open. My hand pulls harder in my hair, the other descending down my body. Don’t. You’re going to make it a hundred times worse. Will I? Can you die from unindulged lust? I haven’t heard from the others in a while. Maybe they finished and left. Maybe, just maybe…
“Lex?”
I drop my hands at my brother’s voice, guilt washing over me. Shit, I didn’t even do anything and I feel like I’m betraying him. How the hell do you stop something you can’t control?
“Hey. I’m almost finished if you need the shower.”
“No rush.”
I rush anyway after he leaves, eager to get dressed and find an activity to distract me. By the time I finish and wrap a towel around my waist, Matty is propped up on the hotel bed, watching TV. He glances over when I enter, and I return a stiff smile.
“Elliot’s gone?” I ask.
Matty nods. “Yeah, he finished and headed back to the bus. I think the girls are waiting for their turn for the bathroom.”
The girls. I can’t think about one of them in a shower right now. Instead, I sift through my suitcase for a change of clothes. Matty mutes the TV and straightens on the bed.
“Hey, so, about this morning…”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly.
“No. It’s not. I shouldn’t have said any of that shit, and I’m sorry.”
“I know, man. Like I said, it’s fine.”
“Lex…”
I shake my head and yank on a pair of underwear. “It’s fine, Matty. I know, okay? I get it.”
“Do you?”
I glance over at him, softening at the apologetic look on his face. “I do. You’re right. Sometimes I forget you’re not eight anymore. That you don’t need me to fix everything.”
“It doesn’t mean I didn’t need you back then. None of that takes away from what you’ve done for me our whole lives. Maybe I didn’t always understand then, but I get it now. Seeing that video…” He quiets as a shadow passes over him. “Do you remember that night?”
My jaw tightens, and I turn back to my suitcase. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. My twelfth birthday and first time getting drunk, right?”
“You were irritating as hell,” I say, turning back to offer a brief smile.
“Nice of her to memorialize it for us. Did you know she was filming that night?”
I sigh and sit on his bed. “No. I wouldn’t have let her if I’d known.”
He studies his hands, clearly fighting something dark. “What do you think she wants?”
My chest tightens. “I’m more worried about what else she has on us. This feels like a shot across the bow.”
He pales and swings his legs around until he’s aligned with me on the edge of the mattress. We sit in silence for a while, and I’m sure his mind goes back to the same nightmare as mine.
“She threw us away,” he says quietly after the long, painful pause.
“She could never get over Pai throwing her away.”
Matty scrubs a hand over his face, and I resist the urge to put my arm around him. He’s craving control right now, not comfort. I know that feeling well.
“I almost called her, Lex. When I saw the video, I was so pissed I almost dialed her right then to call her out.”
I flinch and swallow my critique. Didn’t I feel the same? I might have done worse if she’d been in front of me. “It’s good you didn’t, Matty. It’s what she wants. Confronting her is just going to feed into her warped scheme and make things worse.”
His fist slams into the mattress. “But why now? Why the fuck now? She wanted nothing to do with us from the day we moved to the states. She was glad when we left after you turned eighteen. So why now?”
The small knot that always seems to twist in my chest burns with a new fire. “Because we were a burden then, and now we’re valuable. It’s always been about her, and now she can use us.”
My words linger in the air, carving the space around us with their jagged truth. Use us. Isn’t that all we ever were to them? An accessory. A tool. A weapon. An excuse.
And now: A meal ticket.
Matty leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His fists clench in unison with mine, his eyes narrowing on the ugly hotel carpet. “So what do we do?” he asks finally. “If we can’t fight her, what do we do?”
I can’t look at him as I think the answer. Definitely not when I say it. “Honestly, I don’t think we can to do anything to fix this. Only Lydia can. We have to tell her everything.”
Matty’s haunted gaze lifts to mine. “Everything?”
I clench my jaw an
d look away.
I’ve just pushed up from the bed to finish getting dressed when the sound of a key sliding into the lock draws our attention.
“Probably Liam,” Matty says, leaning toward the entryway.
Sure enough, a knock follows as the door swings open.
“Hello? Anyone in here?” Kate calls out.
“Just us,” Matty returns, while I continue searching for my clothes.
“Oh shoot. Sorry, Matty. We thought you were back at the venue with Elliot.”
“It’s fine. Xander and I got to talking. Are they waiting for us?”
“No, no. You have time. We just thought… never mind. We’ll go wait in the lobby. You let me know when you’re finished.”
“It’s fine. You can wait here,” he says, coming back into view from the foyer.
I pull on my jeans just as our guests round the corner—and I freeze. So does she. Not Kate, who tosses me a playful wink, but her companion: the woman whose ghost just showered with me in agonizing royal detail.
I zip my jeans slowly, straightening with as much nonchalance as I can muster. Breathe, dude. It’s going to be fine. She doesn’t know what you just did with her in your head.
Except the way her eyes roam over my body suggests she does. That she was there too. That she’s there now. Stripping me down and shoving me two feet to the left onto a hotel mattress.
I reach for my shirt and pull it over my head. “Bathroom’s all yours,” I say casually, while straightening the fabric around my torso. “Unless…” I glance at Matty, “You still need it?”
“I was going to jump in the shower quick,” he says, studying Lydia like she’s studying me. Shit. I’ve never wanted to do a two mile sprint so badly in my life.
“Oh, see? We should have waited,” Kate says, slinging her overnight bag back onto her shoulder. “It’s no problem, really. We’ll go grab a coffee at the hotel café while you guys finish up. Sorry for bothering you.” She shoots a mock glare at me. “Maybe answer your phone next time?”
I glance down on instinct, and sure enough, there’s a missed call and ignored text from Kate.
Are you still at the hotel? she had typed out twenty minutes ago. Yep. I definitely am. Come over if you want to see me naked. Be sure to bring Lydia to make things brutally awkward.
At least I was kind of dressed. This could have been so much worse. But maybe not when I catch Lydia’s gaze as they turn to leave.
Naked drum lessons. That’s what her look says.
Tonight. My imagination responds, snatching the cue and running in forbidden circles. All night. In my bunk, making sure the curtain is securely closed this time.
I was worried about how the drama with our mother would affect our energy at tonight’s show, but if anything, we seem to channel that rage into an additional spark. The crowd is electric, and I’m drenched from exertion by the second song. Matty’s voice has an edge I don’t usually notice, and his movements around the stage are sharp and hypnotic. Phones glow all over the room in an effort to capture our fire, and I wonder if Lydia will see a surge of #fallingforFBN hashtags like she hoped. We’re supposed to be pushing for more “UGC,” a.k.a. “user generated content” for those of us who don’t speak Publicist-ese as Elliot called it the other day. “Only Portuguese, sorry,” Matty quipped back, but we trust her, and secretly love when she spouts off marketing lingo, even while we tease her to her face.
Now, she’s circling the stage for more money shots to improve our Instagram aesthetic. Yep, also a thing. I do my best to tune her out this time. I can’t lose my concentration like yesterday when I almost missed triggering the track for “Heaven Help Us” after Matty’s final transition. As our most recognizable song (and failed single), this moment is beyond important. I nail it tonight, though, and settle into the intro with a quarter note on the kick.
Boom-boom-boom-boom. The crowd is already rocking with intensity when Matty riles them further by jumping with each beat.
Jump-jump-jump-jump.
We’ve added six extra bars of the kick intro for the live performance, and my brother doesn’t waste a single beat. At the fourth measure, Elliot comes in with a killer lick on bass, while Liam echoes Matty’s movements to help work the crowd. By measure eight, you can taste the anticipation, feel the blood charging for an explosive rush through hungry veins.
I add a hi-hat hit to each downbeat when Matty ducks to a crouch at the front of the stage for verse one.
“Renegade angel
Just another sinner
Making my way on the downlow
Who’s that?
Sly peddler of daydreams
Paving the way to fires below”
He straightens and stalks to stage left for the prechorus.
“Hell hath no fury
Like my twisted journey
Who wants in on this joyride?
I said, who wants in this joyride?
Hey, you want it?”
At the dramatic break, he holds the mic out to the crowd. Matty punctuates each syllable with an empathic nod as they shout, “Heaven help us!”
He pulls the mic back. “Heaven help us,” he says in a low voice.
And then…
Explosion.
The room erupts with an all-in wall of sound for the turn. I slam my kit in a crescendo of monster fills, while Liam’s guitar sings the famous guitar lick.
“Heaven help us!”
Elliot blows out the subs with his bass, and Matty’s a fucking animal jumping and thrashing all over the stage.
“Heaven help us!” he screams at each break before the manic instrumental riots resume.
Industrial walls can’t contain our energy as it screams off every surface and shatters over the crowd like a drug. There isn’t a single body we don’t own, all of them bobbing in an undulating current of electricity.
“Still livin’ on the downlow… Heaven help us!”
Liam tearing up the air with his riff.
“Just fallin’ on the vertical… Heaven help us!”
Elliot practically on his knees.
“Situation critical… Heaven help us!”
For a split second my gaze brushes Lydia, and her euphoric expression tells me everything I need to know.
“Do you want it? Do you? Do you want it?” Matty cries.
This song put us on the map. Tonight we’ve made it a landmark.
Heaven help us.
#fallingforFBN
CHAPTER 10
LYDIA
Magic. That’s what happened on that stage last night. Magic that I managed to capture, and now the world is obsessed. #FallingforFBN is trending everywhere. Follows are up, streams are way up, and shares and mentions are off-the-charts. I’m flying high as I sift through the data, making notes and responding on the band’s behalf when appropriate. They’re going to flip when I show them what’s happening. Even more importantly, we’ve shown what can happen when they’re free to be the artists they’re meant to be. That maybe the market is, in fact, “ready” for them.
I scan through my notes on their setlist and decide to record their cover of Limelight’s “Jonas” at tomorrow’s show. An explosive cover of a popular song is just what we need to maintain our momentum and shoot us into the heavens. Plus, the Limelight guys came up through a hard path as well. They’d probably give us a mention or share if they like it. I jot down: connect with Limelight’s manager, Mila Taylor.
I’m scanning through the tags when one in particular catches my eye. The name sounds familiar, and soon a sickening wave of recognition swells within me. Stacy Rogers. The woman who posted that disturbing video of Xander and Matty—their supposed mother. I hold my breath as I read her post.
“So proud of my babies. To bad they got to famous to contact there poor mother. ;) Maybe Ill get to see them if I can ever afford tickets to a show 1 day lol!”
My skin is already crawling when I check the band’s inbox to find a direct message from that same accoun
t. Heart racing, I study the notification of the unread message. If she’s desperate enough to contact Xander and Matty with this method, they’ve probably gone to great lengths to cut off communication. My thoughts shoot back to Matty’s face when he let a few details slip about their past, to Xander collapsed on the floor after the video came out. I don’t need to know anything else about this woman to know she’s a cancerous timebomb. This message is meant for them, but there’s no way in hell I’m allowing her near my clients unfiltered. I open the preview so I can read it without her knowing.
“Looks like you boys did ok for yourselves after all. Enjoying a nice fat paycheck I bet. Oh wait its Stacy your mom, remember me? How about a phone call? Hell I’d settle for an email. But your prob to busy for that huh. My phone number hasnt changed. I have plenty more ideas to get your attention if you dont call me. PS Don is gone now Alex if thats what your worried about.”
Nausea washes over me as I stare at the message. Grammatical errors aside, their own mother cannot be blackmailing them. No, because that’s not a thing. Not in my world, anyway, where we manipulate with more subtle methods. I shudder at the thought that this could be someone’s “normal.” And I thought my father’s calculated ability to get what he wants was disturbing.
One line of her message blares above the others: I have plenty more ideas to get your attention if you don’t call me.
Her direct threat leaves me no choice. He needs to know.
With a heavy sigh, I pick up my phone and message Xander. Matty and the others are enjoying their off-day in Manhattan, but Xander hung back to work—his body and new music, if I had to guess. He’s looked particularly stressed lately, and I’ve already been worried this thing with his mother is weighing on him more than he’s letting on. I hate myself for every letter I type telling him to meet me in a secluded alcove of the hotel.
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