Love Out Loud

by Aimee Salter

  Tommy looks thunderous.

  A male face I don’t recognize suddenly appears around the corner from the entryway. I startle, but Crash just holds my legs tighter. “We’re fine.”

  “All clear,” the guy says, a deep five o’clock shadow making his skin look vampiric pale. He disappears again and I gape at Crash.

  “Sorry. The team’s moving around all the time, inside and out. They pop up at random times to make sure we aren’t being kidnapped, or whatever.”

  I’m appalled. When I don’t respond he looks at me and his face falls.

  “No! I was joking, Kelly! I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant.”

  He takes one of my hands and grips it hard. I squeeze back, but I’m biting my lip. I came over here because I thought seeing him would help me relax. I thought we’d play and sing and I could remember why I’m doing all this crazy stuff.

  Instead, I’m finding out there’s more crazy than I thought. The muscles in the back of my neck go rigid. I want to cry, and it takes a minute to figure out why.

  I feel helpless. But I’m also on overload and find I don’t want to talk anymore because every time someone speaks right now they’re kicking my anxiety into the next gear. My chest tightens in a prelude to a panic attack. I breathe slow, try to head it off.

  “Hey, hey,” Crash says gently, leaning closer. “You’re shaking. Baby, don’t worry. Seriously.”

  “I-I’m sorry.” I try to relax. “Can we just forget about all this for a while?” Please. Before I suffocate.

  His smile is immediate and beaming. “Yes.”

  Thank goodness. “Let’s play.”

  He’s off the couch and headed to his room for his guitar before I’ve finished the sentence.

  As soon as he’s out of sight, Tommy turns to me. “He’ll listen to you,” he says. “You have to convince him to stay out of sight.”

  “I’ll try.” My chest squeezes and I inhale for a count of four and exhale for a count of five.

  “You okay?”

  I shake my head. “But it’s better being here than anywhere else.”

  He looks like he’s about to reply, but Crash bounces into the room, guitar in hand and sits next to me. “So, where should we start?”

  How about two years ago before any of this happened?

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Two Weeks Ago

  Kelly

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Crash says, beaming into the theatre. “Me and Crash Happy are excited to introduce you to . . . Kelly Berkstram!”

  Polite applause rises from the auditorium as I walk on stage.

  Crash, silhouetted by the stage lights, his shoulders underlining flat beams of light coming right at me, catches my shaking hand as I pass and squeezes. I can’t really see his face, but I smile up at him and hope he can’t tell that I feel like I’m about to throw up. He shouldn’t even be here—he was adamant, and Merv worked it out, reluctantly—but I’m glad that he is.

  The lights on stage are surprisingly hot. I’m sweating under my make-up.

  I slide onto the tall stool as I adjust the mic and murmur something about being glad to be here. The applause cuts off abruptly.

  Well, okay then. “This song is called Restless.”

  Fingers trembling, I adjust the capo on the neck of my guitar before turning toward the light.

  The theatre is small by Crash Happy standards. It can probably seat several hundred, though there’s only a fraction of that here tonight. Red velvet curtains, black stage, beige and gold décor, and cinema seating on a slight rise from the front of the stage, all the way to the back wall leave the impression of opulence and exclusivity.

  As I strum the first chord of the song I’ve never performed for anyone but Bob and his people, I wonder how I let him convince me to sing it here of all places. This monster—the specter of a career—keeps running away with me until I reach crossroads and think, wait, can we go back a couple miles so I can make a different decision?

  The lights make it easier as I strum the chords to intro the song because I can’t see the faces measuring me. But it’s not the audience I’m worried about. Not really.

  Crash is in the wings and I know the text I sent earlier this afternoon didn’t prepare him. I was being a coward and now I regret it.

  I need to give you a heads up: Bob

  Wanted another original song to

  showcase. He’s got me singing one

  I wrote when you were gone but never

  recorded because I wasn’t sure of it.

  I was having an Alannis Morrisette

  moment. But Bob likes it. Just don’t

  worry about it, okay?

  Crash replied almost immediately.

  Sure. I think I understand putting

  angst in a song. Don’t stress. I’m

  excited to hear it.

  That didn’t help at all. But before I could figure out how to tell him the truth so he wouldn’t be surprised, Bob pulled me into another rehearsal and we haven’t stopped since. Now I’m sitting on this stage, about to pour this out on these people who don’t even know me. When Crash really should have heard it first.

  I don’t know why I never told him.

  My fingers stutter, looking for the chord, but I get it. Just. Then I inhale and sing.

  Saw your face tonight

  Not my dreams this time

  You laughed and danced, a pagan farce

  No one could see but me.

  Saw your face tonight

  The crystal ball relentless

  You got your dues, happy now?

  No one sees, it’s pointless.

  I wrote it months after Crash left, the day I accepted that he wasn’t coming back. It was the first song I truly wrote myself, but it wasn’t right. Then last week Bob asked me if I had written anything darker, that could fill the hole in the story they’re trying to tell with my little set. I warned him it wasn’t great and played it. He helped me with the lyrics and his producer friend helped me refine the melody. I can hear that it’s a song now. But it feels off to sing it now that Crash and I are sort-of back together.

  Because I know what you did.

  Do you ever think about me?

  I know who you hurt. I know your claws.

  Why can’t anyone see?

  Because I know what you did.

  Do you ever wish for different things?

  I know how you hurt. I know your teeth.

  Why can’t they all see?

  I was mad when I wrote it. I’m not mad anymore. Bob says that’s okay. Give it grief instead. Because it’s the perfect lead-in to the duet. But I’m desperately aware of the heat of Crash’s gaze on me from the wings as he watches. Probably pissed and wondering why he didn’t know about this.

  How did I forget the look he gets when he’s hurting?

  How did I convince myself this wouldn’t cut him?

  Heard your voice tonight

  When I didn’t see it coming

  You reached out and touched, cast your spell

  Left me broken, nothing.

  Heard your voice tonight

  Broke through my last defenses . . .

  The last two lines were real when I wrote it. Bob told me not to touch them, said they’re perfect.

  But they aren’t true anymore.

  . . . You don’t even know, do you?

  The way you’ve left me restless.

  There’s a break for a couple bars before I launch into the repeat of the chorus. I pretend to look at the frets of my guitar in the hanging minute, but really I’m looking for Crash in the shadow of Mervin, both of them crammed between the wings so they can see me on stage. I do a second of pleading, mentally begging him to understand that I’m not here anymore. Knowing I still have to repeat the chorus two more times.

  Because I know what you did.

  Do you ever think about me?

  I know who you hurt. I know your claws.

  Wh
y can’t anyone see?

  Because I know what you did.

  Do you ever wish for different things?

  I know how you hurt. I know your teeth.

  Why can’t they all see?

  I repeat to the fade and the lights dim. Crash and Merv disappear in the near-darkness. I can’t help staring at the space where they were.

  Then somewhere near the back of the room, someone claps, and it’s like a cue. The applause starts small but grows. The lights come back up. Crash breaks into a smile just before I acknowledge the room.

  Bob tells me there’s over fifty producers and industry “influencers” here. I can’t see much beyond the lights pointed right at my face, making me sweat.

  Thankfully, the middle two songs are covers I can sing without thought, because I feel so wrung out by that first song, I’m ready to leave and go to bed.

  But they pass quickly. My voice didn’t shake. I know I was too preoccupied, that I probably didn’t give them the energy they needed. But there’s no time to worry because Crash is walking onstage to do the duet with me as the closer, and the applause gets a lot thicker. I try to smile, but I can’t read whether he’s happy or not. He’s smiling, but he’s performing. He always smiles when he walks on stage.

  “Isn’t she amazing?” he says into the microphone, nodding towards me. There’s a murmur of response from the room as the applause dies down and Crash leans onto the stool next to me. We meet eyes. Then I strum.

  We stripped this right back. He’s not even playing the guitar, which makes me very nervous. But Bob wanted these people seeing Crash come to my party, so to speak.

  I think he’s nuts, frankly. But it’s too late now.

  “I want to thank you for coming tonight. This next song will be the last,” I say into the microphone. “It’s called, Forever You.”

  There are a few whistles and a whoop. But most of these people are too old and experienced to be impressed by a hot song.

  I look at Crash. He winks at me and it’s as if the rest of the room sinks away. I’m supposed to be looking out over the crowd, connecting with them. Showing them my emotional range. But I can’t stop watching him staring at me.

  For a minute, as we sing, all my nerves, doubts, and insanities coalesce to separate me from myself. I can hear how our voices are so different, yet so perfect together. His melodic rasp, my careful purity. I wish everything we ever did could be like this.

  I sing You never knew the truth, and he answers The ends, the means, they broke me. I remind him that You never heard my heart, and he promises, I’ll never forgive myself for you.

  Being with him like this, apart from everyone else, being understood, it breaks me in a whole new way. A way I can welcome and wallow in. And I desperately wish it wasn’t happening here.

  It gives me a picture of us that brings me to tears.

  Alarm flashes in Crash’s eyes, but I sing it away and I’ve forgotten that I’m even playing the guitar. He’s half-turned towards me now. My voice gets a rasp, just for a couple lines, because my throat is pinching. He watches me with so much love I have to look away.

  It breaks the spell.

  Then we’re just us again. Me fumbling through this song that seems so much bigger than me, him drawing every person in the place like he always does.

  He’s crossing the space between us and I don’t know what he’s doing, but I can’t regret it because I want him close.

  Then we wind down through the repeating chorus and I let the guitar fade so we sing that line that cuts me every time with nothing behind our voices.

  Now I’ll never

  Forever you

  The sight of his face blurs as, for a second, I feel like he means it. That alarm flashes in his eyes again and I shake my head, smiling.

  We’re supposed to ease off the note, to fade out. But my throat closes at an awkward time. Crash saves it by holding a second longer, then fading off like it was on purpose.

  A second later the room vibrates with applause.

  Ignoring the crowd, Crash gathers me into a hug that I return with shaking arms.

  “You did it.”

  When we pull back to bow to the audience, there’s love beaming in his gaze. It warms me.

  But as the applause quickly dies down, I can’t help noticing the tension in his shoulders, and the rigid way he continues to hold my hand.

  Doubt flutters back to life in my chest, pushing out the warmth he just put there.

  Bob looks surprisingly slick with his hair gelled back, in a trim blue suit. We’re in the broad aisle of the small theater where I performed. Polished women in black slacks and white shirts circulate, handing out champagne and nibbles—not the kind of nibbles my mom put on at a party. I don’t even recognize half the ingredients on those things. Where’s a nice little pig-in-a-blanket when you need one? I’m starving, but also nauseous.

  Touching my arm to get my attention—I hadn’t realized I was staring at the wall—Bob indicates a tall man on my other side. “Kelly, this is Gordon Leamer from Hammer Studios. We were lucky enough to catch him while he’s in town—he lives on the east coast. He’s in distribution.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Leamer.” I try to smile confidently like Bob coached when we talked about this part of the night. Mr. Leamer doesn’t smile back but takes my hand in a firm grip and nods. “Very nice, Miss Berkstram. You and Crash make a good team.”

  My heart sinks again. “Thank you.”

  They’re all talking about me and Crash. Since the moment we left the stage and Bob made Crash let me go so I’d be the center of attention instead of him, then led me out here to press the flesh, all the compliments are about me singing with Crash. But Bob’s told me a thousand times that the whole idea tonight was to give all these people a feel for me as a solo artist.

  So far, few of them seem interested in that part.

  We make a few seconds worth of small talk before Mr. Leamer leans into Bob’s ear. Bob said this might happen a lot if it goes well. These guys want to deal with him privately, not “emotional artists.” His tone was apologetic, but it felt patronizing.

  Bob looks at Turk, who’s been standing against the wall a few feet away. Turk springs forward to take Bob’s position next to me. “You stay with Turk, Kelly. He’ll pretend to me be for a little while, okay?” Before I can even answer, Bob leads Leamer away.

  “Good sign,” Turk says absentmindedly, scanning the room like he’s looking for someone. “Leamer’s a known ear for new talent. If he’s interested in promoting you, others will want to work with you.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. “That’s good.”

  Turk leans a little away from me, peering between heads in the crowd. He’s definitely looking for someone. I’m about to ask when he smiles and he takes my elbow. “Come meet a friend of mine,” he says.

  At first, I don’t move. He turns back, a flash of irritation on his angular face. “Kelly?”

  “Bob said earlier we’d stay at the front tonight. Let them come to me.”

  Turk’s smile shows too much of his teeth. “And we’ll come right back here when we’ve met my friend who will find it rude if I make him come to me.”

  I look in the direction Bob left in case he’s watching and can tell me whether this is kosher—Turk’s always too intense—but Bob’s disappeared somewhere with Leamer, and no one else is nearby, so I sigh and follow Turk.

  He’s all charm and smiles when we get to the back of a theater where a small group of younger men—there’s very few women in this crowd, which bothers me—are stationed near the back wall, drinking.

  From the volume of their voices and their red cheeks, it’s obvious they’ve been taking advantage of the free drinks.

  “Turk!” one of them says too loudly as we reach them. The guy next to him snaps his fingers at one of the hosts walking past with a tray of fresh champagne glasses. She looks irritated but catches me staring and immediately smooths her features. I smile so she’l
l know I commiserate.

  “To Turk and his new project!” the loud guy says, raising his half-empty glass. The guy who snapped takes the tray from the waitress, presses one into my hand as they all repeat his toast, then down the glasses they’re holding, immediately putting them down on the tray and taking a fresh one.

  So that’s how it’ll be.

  I shift on my feet. I’m not staying here. These guys don’t even know my name. They think I’m Turk’s project?

  “It was great to meet you all,” I say, hoping they won’t notice that I didn’t actually meet any of them. Turk smiles but grabs my arm too hard.

  Bob’s pretty patient, and very down to earth. He makes me feel steady. Whenever he leaves the room, though, Turk likes to share his wisdom with me about all the ways I’m screwing up and letting Bob down. At first, I found him intimidating. Now that I know he tried to sign with Bob and Bob refused, I think he’s jealous.

  “Kelly, ignore the thugs,” he says with a predatory gleam. The “thugs”—with their beards and man-buns and skinny-leg suits—all laugh too loudly. “I want you to meet DJ Mink, of K-RED fame. I’m sure you’ve heard of him,” he says, indicating a fairly short, black-haired guy in his thirties who’s wearing a hoodie under his suit jacket. He has two thick silver hoops in each ear, and one in his lower lip, his black hair is sheared into claw-like talons that fall over his forehead.

  Heard of him? I just about drop my champagne glass. Dillon Jarvis Mink is the most listened to Top Forty radio DJ in the country. He broke Adele in the US during his first month in radio when he was like nineteen, or something—the move that made him famous. He does all the music award shows and runs an entertainment listicle site where he tells everyone which new bands to watch. If he said my name on air once, I’d be set.

  A metallic tang coats my tongue.

  An elbow pokes my ribs. Turk’s glaring at me. I leap forward to offer my hand. “S-sorry, Mr. Mink. Of course I know your name. I l-love your show and—”