by Nikki Wild
Thanks to our new friends at Snow Leopard, we had been set up as the opener to a major rock band that was dominating the airwaves – Trent Masters and the Whiplash. They were on their own serious streak upwards, and were pulling in a tremendous crowd by themselves.
Our job was the get the crowd pumped for them, sell some of our own records and merchandise, and utterly shred it onstage.
I was surprised at the amount of the crowd cheering for us as we took the stage. It was one thing to play sold-out basement shows and bar venues, but we were on another level entirely now.
The show didn’t exactly sell out, but it was clear that a lot of these people were excited to see us hit the stage. The promo website set up for us was obviously doing its trick. Jeremy successfully ran merch for us while we rocked a slightly abridged set, cutting out three songs to give Trent Masters and his people the time to set up their instruments.
We didn’t get to hang out with him after the concert. His band stuck around, but when I went up to say hi to him, he was already heading out the back of the venue. Trent offhandedly said something about a girl on the tour bus, zipping away basically immediately after playing his set.
Which was fine by me.
I focused on the venue instead.
At most, maybe two hundred people dedicated to violating fire code could cram into one of our older shows. But after a few nights on this tour, we were already hitting the stage at shows that started out around that with room to spare.
There was only one way to go, baby.
And that way was up.
The only downside was Aiden. It was now painfully obvious that he couldn’t keep his eyes off Phoenix. That fire in his eyes only burned brighter when she was near, and I was determined to head him off at the gate to her heart.
“Can’t help but notice you haven’t been getting your dick wet lately, bro,” I chuckled as I settled into the sofa beside him at one of our after-parties, maybe a week into the national tour.
My arrogant brother pulled his starving gaze off the sweet, delicious piece of ass wandering by so he could scowl at me.
“Don’t give me that shit. You’ve been blue-balling pretty hard yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” I groaned. “The bus is great, but where the hell am I supposed to jerk it?”
Aiden couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ain’t that the goddamn truth,” he darkly smirked. “I’ve been harder than a goddamn steel rod all week. Nowhere for all that tension to go…”
I followed his gaze over to one of the VIP chicks, who was glancing over our way with the least subtle bedroom eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Won’t take much,” I pushed him. “Get you some. We both know how frustrated you are when you can’t get your dick wet.”
His simmering gaze broken from her, and he scowled at me.
“You know you can’t beat me at my own game. But it’s adorable to watch you try.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I feigned ignorance. Not that the smile creeping across my face did anything to sell the confidence.
“Don’t give me that–“
“Hi, boys.”
We’d completely overlooked that VIP chick had been wandering over to us. With her hand sexily planted on her hip, and a blouse just tight enough to push out her breasts, she was a breath of fresh fucking air.
“Hello, love,” I smiled.
“Beat it,” Aiden growled.
“Oh, I’d love to beat it,” the chick threw her blond hair over her shoulder. “I’d love to beat it all night long…”
Aiden raised an eyebrow.
He was practically sweating. Perfect.
“What’s your name?” I asked politely.
She bit her bottom lip. “Samantha.”
“Well, Samantha, why don’t you take a seat right here, and I’ll come back with some drinks…”
I could feel Aiden’s gaze burning into the back of my head as I sauntered over to the bar. Traitor, he was snarling.
“Two whiskeys and coke,” I asked the bartender. “Double shots, if you don’t mind. My brother can handle his alcohol too well.”
The bartender got straight to work.
“Nice try.”
Aiden’s voice was lined with daggers as he stood behind me, a hulking mass of stone-faced anger. I glanced over his shoulder to see Samantha alone and dejected on the couch, a miserable look plastered across her young face.
“What did you do?” I asked him.
His wicked grin was triumphant. “I told her not to bother. That I was tired of trying to get it up for another nameless, worthless girl in the crowd.”
Before I could respond, the bartender slapped the two cups down. “Order up.”
I threw my twin a disgusted glance. “You could have let her down lighter than that.”
He taunted me, a cunning look on his face. “Go on, then. Go be the hero.”
I shook my head angrily and snatched the pair of drinks off the counter. Of course Aiden would have sidestepped such an obvious trap with Phoenix around… but I hadn’t expected him to rip this poor girl’s confidence to shreds in the meantime.
I sat down beside her and handed her a drink. “Aiden’s a real prick,” I told her. “I’m really sorry about that.”
That’s when I realized that Samantha was silently crying. At a loss of what to do, my compassion overcame me. I wrapped an arm around her and pushed the cup into her hands, and she took a deep swig and planted her face into my shoulder.
“Am I ugly?”
“What? No, of course not,” I told her. “You’re gorgeous. Aiden doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You’re just saying that.”
I slipped an arm around her, pulling her closer. I threw a furious look at Aiden, who was sipping a drink and watching us with arrogant amusement.
He was always like this.
It’s part of why I wanted to keep him away from Phoenix. He lacked my sense of compassion and morals. All he knew was to burn through and use up women, casting them aside when he was done with them.
This was no different.
He’d wounded this girl to make a point.
“Am I beautiful?”
I stroked her hair absentmindedly, summoning up every ounce of sympathy. “Of course you are,” I reassured Samantha. “You’re the most beautiful girl in this room.”
“Do you mean that?” She asked, sniffling into my shirt.
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“Would you fuck me?”
I paused.
“Well… yeah, I’d fuck you…”
That’s when I glanced up at my devious brother again. Aiden was looking downright fucking triumphant, and that sent a cold shiver down my spine.
I followed his gaze and saw Phoenix standing just over me, a drink paused halfway to her mouth as she watched us.
Oh fuck.
How long has she been standing there?
“Then fuck me,” Samantha whispered, pulling me into a sudden, surprising kiss. I was blindsided for a second, almost giving in to how wonderful her lips felt, but I came to my senses and politely pushed her away.
“Phoenix?” I called, turning around in the couch. After a second of scanning the crowd, I realized that she was standing over by Aiden now, and my stomach dropped.
Goddammit…
Samantha immediately pulled herself off me, downing half her drink in a gulp and flashing me a silly grin. “Thanks for the kiss, sweetie. By the way, Aiden said he knows you’re the one who’s been stealing his food out of the fridge, and he wants you to stop it.”
My jaw dropped as she climbed up off the couch and gave me a polite little wave, disappearing into the crowd.
That asshole just played me like a fucking guitar. I thought to myself, mildly impressed at his creativity.
A quick glance towards the bar showed me that Aiden and Phoenix had disappeared. I didn’t have the energy to try and find them to explain myself, s
o I bitterly settled into the couch, tilted my head back, and drowned it all out in immersion to the dancing fans and the thumping music.
Phoenix
Working so intimately with Dylan and Aiden Carpenter was a goddamn nightmare. But it was a delicious, tantalizing nightmare that I wanted to never, ever stop.
And they were completely obvious.
The endless pot shots they took at each other in front of me, trying to knock one another down a few pegs.
The hungry, salivating looks the brothers would give me when nobody else was looking – inspiring dirty, filthy thoughts that filled my sex dreams.
The possessive way they’d watch me during set practice, while the music was coursing through my veins and taking me out of my own head.
I didn’t know how much more of this I could honestly handle, not without finally buckling under the pressure.
Oh God, did I want to.
Every fiber in my being was tightly wound and ready to explode. As large and fully featured as the bus was, it was still a constrained space for, what? Six people?
The only place I had to stretch out was on that stage, four to five nights a week. I’d put in those earplugs and run my pick along that bass guitar, and the world would meld away from me.
But even then, Aiden turned to make staggeringly powerful eye contact with me at every possible opportunity. Meanwhile, Dylan shredded guitar near me with his raw masculinity drowning me in sexual tension.
There was no escape from them.
And goddammit, I didn’t want escape.
I wanted release.
But the crushing question lingered: even if I did give in… which brother?
They both inspired the same filthy lust in me, even if the way they got there couldn’t have been more different.
Both needed a little fixing up to be perfect.
Dylan was endearing and loving, but he let his emotions rule him. He was too compassionate.
Aiden had the fire. He had the predatory dominance in his eyes, on every syllable that he uttered. But his blind arrogance, massive ego, and cruel impulses were a turn-off.
If only they could split the differences…
But then I’d be in the same fucking position, wouldn’t I? A kinder Aiden and a stronger Dylan would put me right back at square freaking one.
The worst part was, I didn’t know how long I could hold out on them. I felt myself tremble under Aiden’s dark, smug grin, just like I felt my heart swell with Dylan’s dangerously heart filled stare.
Which brother?
About the only time Dylan and Aiden left me alone was while I was reading in bed. I used that time to relieve myself of tension.
Letting off steam with a hot, sweaty romance novel did wonders for me. It seemed like I had to resort to that almost every day, imagining that these handsome heroes were one of the twins, and that I was the heroine being pulled towards sexual liberation.
I would bite down on my blanket to keep the stifled moans away as my imagination took over, and I pretended that my hand was one of theirs, soon to be a thick, throbbing cock…
I’d finish up, slink into the bathroom to quickly wash up and splash some water into my face, and return to wrap up a couple of chapters of whatever I was reading.
But then I’d inevitably have to join them for practice, or go onstage and perform with them, and the sexual tension would fill the air yet again…
They were getting bolder, too.
I could sense the underlying clash between them in the way that they looked at each other. Carter raised an eyebrow at every subtle barb either brother aimed at the other. Even Trevor would sometimes tilt his head while lost in his video games, listening in on the blatant and quickly growing passive-aggressiveness between the twins.
I wondered how long this could go on.
Whether Jeremy saw it or not, he wasn’t saying anything. The tour manager seemed to be increasingly on his phone, talking with someone at Snow Leopard or delegating out work related to making the band a success.
He was clearly under a lot of stress, and was drinking more at the venues that offered after-parties.
“It’s just a lot to get used to,” he admitted to me one night after I’d pressed a few times. He had propped open the back door to a party with a brick and was smoking a cigarette.
“I didn’t realize you smoked.”
He sadly glanced down at the filter between his fingers. “Yeah, I didn’t either. Not until a few days ago. But now I get the appeal.”
“Don’t start now.” I quickly snatched it out of his fingers and crushed it under the heel of my sneaker.
“Hey!” He grumbled in irritation.
“It’s for your own good,” I admonished him. “You’re obviously under a lot of stress. Tell me more about it.”
The tour manager sighed heavily.
“The stipulation for keeping me onboard was that I handle all the social media stuff. Run the tour. Keep the band under control. I even got offered a decent paycheck to run a tight ship.”
“If you need help…”
“What I need is more time,” he shook his head. “I’m reading up on all this social stuff. Been trying to convince them to take these silly little bite-sized videos, or snapping pictures of them for Instagram. A week ago, I had never been to Instagram… I’m too old for this shit.”
“You’re not old!”
“I grew up in a world without google. I know how to use a goddamned card catalog at a library. I’m analog, and the world today is digital. I keep hearing about things like… Vine? What the hell is a Vine?”
“Actually, they just announced they’re closing that down,” I chuckled. “That isn’t going to be a thing anymore.”
“Well, that’s one less I’ve got to worry about,” he chuckled halfheartedly. “But this isn’t my world. I don’t have a knack for this young people shit.”
“Again, you’re not even forty!”
“Sweetheart, I graduated in the nineties. Twitter was the sound a bird makes, and facebook was just a book full of pictures you could buy from the geeks at school for twenty bucks.”
“You’re right,” I laughed. “You are old.”
Jeremy chuckled lightheartedly. “That’s right, punk. Remember that the next time you feel like disrespecting your elders. You think texting is hard on an iPhone? Back in my day, if you wanted an S, you had to hit that button four goddamn times.”
“Was that before or after the Stone Age?”
“Before. We got fire, then mobile phones. Of course, we didn’t know what to do with them for a few millennia, but boy did we have them! Used them to fashion tools.”
The air was full of our laughter. I felt his mood lift a little, and I lightly planted my head against his shoulder.
“You’re not the only one struggling with all of this,” I replied softly. “Although I do get why you’re under so much pressure.”
“Yeah, I haven’t forgotten. How are you holding up with everything so far?”
“It’s wonderful. But it’s terrifying.”
“I agree completely,” Jeremy nodded. “And I get the impression that the twins aren’t making it too easy on you.”
“You noticed, then.”
“Hell, everyone’s noticed,” he chuckled, slipping an arm around my shoulder as I kept my head against him. “I’ll have a word with them if that’s what you want.”
“That’s not necessary.”
He thought on that a moment.
“Well… if it makes anything different, they’re all coming to grips with this in their own ways. It’s a big thing, what’s happened with all of this.”
“I thought they were expecting it.”
“Hoping, maybe,” Jeremy corrected me. “But these kids missed a lucky break early on, and I think what they were expecting was to be disappointed again.”
“Oh yeah?” I turned up to him.
“Yeah, another studio exec was sniffing around them once their second song went
viral. They were starting to sell some tickets. At least enough to buy that shitty tour van. That’s when I came into the picture. But some studio guy showed up and filled their heads with promises of greatness. Asshole pulled out on them at the last second. Really devastated the band.”
“I didn’t realize. That must have been really hard on them.”
“Demoralizing as shit, yeah,” Jeremy told me. “But they pulled back together. They’ve been making their own luck since they started this little adventure.”
“But now that they’ve got this whole new opportunity ahead of them…”
“I think they’re all afraid of upsetting the balance,” he told me point-blank. “All of them have turned to something else. Trevor is on his games, Carter’s on his laptop, and the brothers usually turn to sex…”
“But I’m here.”
He smiled sympathetically. “Can’t say I’m totally surprised. I was in that sound booth when you were auditioning; I saw all the signs. I feel like I’ve let you down, and I just… I’m just sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I hugged him. “I love this opportunity, and I love being able to share some of this with them, for as long as I can.”
“For as long as you can?”
“This is too good to be true,” I told him sadly. “Nothing lasts forever. And I’m going to be prepared for when my stop comes. Maybe I’ll get noticed up there on stage and be ready for my next adventure…”
“Phoenix…”
“I don’t deserve this. We all know it. Alex should be there on that stage, not me.”
“Not this shit again,” he grunted. “Look, you got lucky. You were exactly what I needed to keep this gravy train kicked into top gear, and you’ve earned your spot. You signed a contract. You’re one of us.”
Maybe right now… but for how long?
I kept my mouth shut. “Thanks for the chat. I hope you’re feeling a little better.”
“Yeah,” he smiled softly. “Let me know if things start getting out of hand. You’re new to this world… I don’t want you getting in over your head, especially not with those two knuckleheads.”
“Of course. And tell me if there’s anything I can do to lessen your workload,” I grinned back.