More power to the people who could live with that stigma. I knew I couldn’t. From the time Dave and I ran away and tried to make it on our own people had looked at me differently. Honestly, they’d looked at the both of us differently before then. The thing was, I was always glared at like I was beneath the people walking by. Families pulled their children away from us, and women walked at a far brisker pace than they’d previously done, afraid we’d beg for money or something. Not a single one of them stopped to help us - ever. So, I don’t know why their opinion mattered. In actuality, it didn't. I just didn’t want to continue into my adulthood being the poor little street girl with no family but an older brother who she was a burden on.
I guess seeing firsthand that Evan preferred a woman who was everything I refused to be was a wake-up call I needed to stop the daydreams I’d been having about him since he rescued me from his drum kit and propped me up with a far better job on the tour. That had to be it. I had developed a crush on the man because he had been my hero that day. Never mind the fact that he was a rock god with the body of a pro athlete and a devilishly handsome face that women would definitely defy God himself to get next to. “There I go again,” I mumbled to myself.
“What was that?”
Damn, I forgot Aaron, the security man, was still walking along beside me. That’s how far down the rabbit hole of Evan-centric thoughts I’d fallen. “Nothing. Sorry, I was just mumbling to myself.”
“Do that often?”
“What? Mumble or fall down in a parking lot and then mumble about it?”
Aaron laughed once again. “Between you and Everly, I think you ladies are finally going to help Mags give these guys a run for their money on this tour.”
“I snickered. “Well, that’s a lofty goal, Aaron. Count me out though. There’s nothing special about me except that I can fall in a puddle of muck with style and grace.” I winked at him and his shoulders shook with the laughter he was attempting to contain.
“Who’s on the bus?” Aaron’s voice bellowed out as he led the charge up the steps and glanced around. There was no sign of Clay or the woman he had met up with in the parking lot so obviously, they had slid off the bus while I was sliding to my butt in the parking lot. All was well that ended well, I supposed. Now, I’d be able to get a shower in peace and wash the muck off of me. I frowned down at myself and wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t slipped and fallen and Evan had seen me. Would he have come over and left the groupie to the other guys? They were already outnumbered as it was. Would he have pretended not to notice me? Hell, for all I know maybe he wouldn’t even have recognized me.
“Ugh!” I groaned out as I started up the water and got busy taking the world’s quickest shower. I needed to just stop thinking about him. Nothing good would come from wondering “what if?” “What if” had never brought my family back to me. It hadn’t made us rich or even gotten us to the point that we could get by without a struggle. “What if” was for losers who couldn’t see their own future in front of them and grab on tight. My reality was that I had the entire tour to save money and then I was going to school when I got back so that I would be able to make something of myself.
When my shower was done and I sufficiently covered up I made my way back to the bunk I’d be occupying for the remainder of the tour. I would occupy it for the remainder of the North American portion of the tour anyway. I climbed under my thin blanket and stared up at the ceiling that almost felt as though it were closing in on me. I might not have wanted to be one of those girls I saw earlier, but part of me couldn’t help feeling jealous of them just the same. They were with someone else tonight. Maybe it was fleeting, but it was probably better - in a way - than lying here wondering if I would ever be a good enough person to deserve to have someone love me. I had been the background figure so long in everyone’s life story I worried I would never get my own starring role. Those were my final thoughts before the oblivion of a dreamless sleep embraced me so I could just shut it all down until I could start fresh tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I would be the best damn version of myself I’d ever seen, and I’d do it on my own terms. Anyone who couldn’t accept me for the simplistic person that I was didn’t deserve a role in my life.
Grunting and skin slapping on skin noises pulled me out of my dreamless sleep a while after I had reassured myself that tomorrow would be a better day. According to my cell phone, it was already tomorrow, and it wasn’t starting off very promising. Dave hadn’t returned to the bus yet. I knew this because there’s no way he would allow people to be fucking on the bus with me here. Yes, he was overprotective considering I was an adult. No, I didn’t mind one bit, and longed for him to be around at this point.
“Yeah, that’s it baby! Ride me!” I heard Clay’s distinguishable voice call out. The tone sounded almost dead though. Flat. As if there was no life inside of him and he was just rolling through the motions.
“Oh my God, I’m so fucking high,” the girl tittered. There were more slapping noises, and some other sounds I wish I could unhear. After fifteen minutes of praying they’d be done soon I finally snatched up one of my precious three books and launched it down the hall toward where the sounds were coming from.
“Some of us are trying to sleep here, asshole!”
“Fuck you!” The girl screamed.
“Shut up,” Clay chastised her. “Get off.”
“I’m trying to, baby!” The girl whined.
“I meant get the fuck off my dick. You’re not doing anything for me anyway.” Well that was just mean, even if I was glad the whole scene would be over soon so I might be able to get a little more sleep.
“Well, if you didn’t have coke dick, maybe you’d be able to get off just fine.”
“If I could actually have a tight pussy around here for a change instead of all the used wastes of space, I’d be great! Now, get gone before I call someone to get you gone!”
The girl huffed, there were shuffling noises, and then a shriek of displeasure before the bus doors slammed shut. That was a feat in itself, because it was not easy to slam shut bus doors. At least not these bus doors.
“Sorry,” Clay mumbled as a disembodied hand floated into my space beyond my privacy curtain holding onto the book I had launched down the walkway.
“Keep it,” I huffed as a page fell out. “I’ve already read it anyway.”
I didn’t hear anything else from Clay. In fact I remember this time to put my ear plugs back in and then I nodded off again with one new rule running through my mind. I would never get involved with a rock star. I would never be ‘that girl’ that got kicked off the bus meaning less to the man than the used tissue he left behind in the bathroom.
Chapter 4
~ Evan ~
It had been quite a few days since I last saw the woman I couldn’t get out of my head. Once I’d delivered her to Everly that had been it. She’d been sucked in by the Fourth Down band family and was on her way to doing great things, having forgotten all about me, apparently. I was beginning to think I’d made up the chemistry between us. When I really thought about it, there wasn’t any real reason to believe there was anything between us. I helped her patch up her arm, and I did a shit job with that. Nothing else had really happened, but somehow I couldn’t stop thinking about those expressive, hazel eyes that never seemed to stop giving her away.
“Oh my God, Evan!” A bubbly voice shouted at me, interrupting the rambling going on in my head. “Thank you so much! I can’t possibly tell you what a life saver she’s been to the boys and to me,” she panted out as she caught up to me.
“Everly, what the hell are you talking about?” I knew exactly who she was talking about, but the petty jealous asshole that lived inside me didn’t want to acknowledge that I knew, because then I’d have to acknowledge - out loud - that I hadn’t stopped thinking about the girl who thought I was disposable.
“Chelle - duh!” Everly teased. “She has been a Godsend. Did she tell you that we offe
red her the position for the rest of the tour, officially?”
I shook my head back and forth and watched as Everly’s face screwed up in what could only be puzzlement. “That’s weird. She was excited to thank you the other night when we…” Everly’s eyes clouded over as she remembered something. “That was the night you guys brought the groupies to the bus.”
“Um,” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I scratched at the back of my neck absently. “Sorry about that, again.”
“Yeah, I know. Still, I guess she couldn’t find you to tell you her good news. I know she wanted to thank you herself, but since she hasn’t yet I will - once again - because Chelle is seriously awesome. She’s making my job a whole heap of a lot easier. You know these knuckleheads don’t make it easy on me.” Her smile was contagious and I found myself grinning back at her.
“You just let those assholes know that I am totally willing to snatch you out from under them if they don’t start realizing what they have in front of them. You work far too hard for an opening act. Meanwhile, our own PA can barely ever find his way out of whatever hole he crawls into each day to respond to our text messages, let alone organize anything, handle the social media, and all the other shit Jay says you’ve been doing for the guys.”
Everly’s grin widened even more if that was possible. “Thanks for noticing my hard work, Evan!” She glanced down at her phone as it vibrated in her hand. “Crap, I have to go. Declan calls! Thanks again!” She called out the last as she swooped away on a cloud of subtle perfume and her upbeat personality.
It made me think of another girl whose beauty was natural, subtle, and understated most days. She had the kind of unforgettable beauty that lingered on your mind long after it passed by. Chelle, whose wavy auburn hair, even pulled back into a boyish ponytail, had my stomach in knots for days. Damn it, why couldn’t I get her off my mind as easily as she had forgotten me? “Evan!” A female voice shrieked from down the hall causing two more to scream at equally ear-piercing levels. “Oh my God, it’s Evan Mercer!” “The drummer!”
I tried not to roll my eyes at the last; as if anyone needed to be told what instrument I played. And so my night was about to start with a new fresh Hell filled with Chelle’s opposites in every way. These girls were probably pretty in their own right, if it weren’t for the fact that they were so in-your-face overdone just like the last fifty girls before them that had strolled through the back halls of the concert venues looking to hookup with a rock star. They were all the same. Either that or I had finally become jaded to this life I led. Either way, it was tired and old. I no longer got the thrill of seeing these women desperate to be a part of my life, no matter how miniscule that part might be. Now, I just wanted to know what it would be like to have something more sincere in my life. Someone more sincere who can ground me to share this crazy life with would be a dream come true. Sadly, there were not a lot of women out there I could trust to actually be that for me. The one woman I kind of wished would give it a try was sort of ghosting me now, and I didn’t know why.
~ Chelle ~
It had been a solid week since I had been hired on full time in a for real kind of way. Everly had brought me a contract and extended my non-disclosure agreement upon me being hired by their team. I no longer worked for Smithy and the road crew. Now, I was here on my own merit and not simply because I was my brother’s tag-a-long. My chest swelled with pride over that fact. We had gone through three cities and were hitting our fourth tonight. The guys were playing a smaller venue tonight than they had been previously, which I was excited about. Audiences at smaller venues were always more interactive with the merch tables throughout the show than they were at the large venues where there was a stampede at the end and then it was over in the next breath, and you were left feeling like a tornado just swooped in and wiped out everything you owned. Granted, the band was ecstatic when that happened so they weren’t complaining. I had a job and got to travel so I wasn’t either.
The only downside was that Evan never bothered to check in with me once. He didn’t come to see if my arm was healing up well. He didn’t bother to check that I was doing all right in my new position. He just didn’t bother. Heck, I was kidding myself, because truth be known he probably didn’t even remember me at this point. I’d seen him signing a woman’s bare breasts the night before when I finished up early and went in search of help to tote the rest of the band merch out to the truck. What was a woman who dressed like a boy with a cut on her arm in comparison?
I was meant for something different. I knew who I was, and more importantly who I wasn’t. I was also just fine with that. One day, I’d find someone who wanted me for the best things about me, and the worst. I’d have someone who would share my sense of adventure and maybe one day want to start a family and just be normal together. I sighed as I glanced around and realized I was on my own for getting the rest of the gear back to the truck tonight.
Once I got everything packed up, I had to figure out a way to load it all up on the little pallet that had been placed for me. Last time, someone left me to tend to everything on my own, with nothing to actually transport everything back to the truck. At least this time I had the pallet and pallet jack here to move it all back. Female giggling caused my ears to perk up and I turned around just in time to see a couple girls following Micah. “Come on, Evan’s back here waiting for some action, ladies. Let’s not keep him waiting.” None of them noticed me as the moved on by, but Jeremiah Stone, Micah’s brother and lead singer of The Infinite Everything, was a few steps behind the foursome, and he took notice.
“Hey,” he glanced around. “Isn’t anyone coming to help you with that?” I was in the process of jacking the pallet up so I could move it when I stopped and turned to him. I shook my head.
“Nope. It’s just me here tonight.”
He looked torn between the party that his brother was obviously taking back stage and leaving me here to fend for myself. In the end I saved him the trouble.
“The hard work is already done. I stacked it all myself. This thing uses momentum and wheels to get where it’s going so it’s not that difficult from here on out. I just roll out to the truck with it and load it all up. Easy.”
“If you’re sure,” Jeremiah stated uneasily, hesitating when he saw the shoulder of my sleeve fall and the puckered line of freshly healing scar there.
“You’re the girl that fought Evan’s drum kit, right?”
“Yeah, that’d be me. The loser who lost to a crash cymbal apparently.”
That made him chuckle. “I’ll let him know you’re doing okay then,” he informed me.
It was my turn to laugh. “I’m sure he’s forgotten all about me. Besides, from the looks of things he’s about to be too busy to care even if he did remember.” I honestly surprised myself hearing how bitter I sounded out loud.
Jeremiah gave me a funny look and then pointed in the direction where his brother and the three women had just disappeared. “I better get going.”
“Later,” I called out as I gave an exaggerated tug on the pallet jack to get the stubborn thing moving. Then I was off in the opposite direction heading toward the side door and the truck.
~ Evan ~
Micah came barreling into the small space the venue allotted us in the back with three women trailing behind him, all of them somehow managing to turn my stomach just a bit. I sighed inwardly knowing he expected me to party as we’d been doing for years. I cocked sideways in the chair in an attempt to glance past them, hoping beyond hope that someone else was joining in Micah’s little party so that it would be less noticeable when I slipped out. “Where’s Jer?”
Micah appeared confused and then glanced around behind the girls. “Damn, he was right behind us a minute ago.”
“He stopped to talk to the shop girl,” one of the women giggled out. “I don’t know why though. She was dressed like a bag lady.” The other women tittered, presumably at the way she had to cut someone else down to look good. Little
did she know she’d just made herself wholly unattractive to me, and probably even Micah with his barely there standards. He couldn’t stand bullies.
“Shop girl?” I asked.
The girl just waved her hand and made like she was going to come pounce on me. I held my hand up in the air stopping her mid-stride. “No,” my voice reverberated the word out in a deep, meaningful tone just as Jer popped in the room. He was a bit antsy and came right over to me.
“You know the girl running merchandise for Fourth Down, right?” he spat out rather quickly.
“Chelle, yeah, why?” My stomach started churning thinking that Jer was about to tell me he had a thing for her too. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if one of my band brothers fell for the same woman that I did.
“Did you know they have her loading up all the leftover merch and traipsing it through the back corridors of places alone at night?”
“What?” I asked as I puffed up, ready to go defend my woman. My woman? Shit! Either way, there was absolutely no excuse for her having been left alone to load up all of their merch. If it weren’t for her, they’d still be losing money and inventory left and right.
“Yeah, I just saw her as she finished loading a pallet, jacked it up, and took off in the opposite direction as us. She’s probably headed out to load it up on the truck by herself too.”
“Like fuck she is,” I growled out as I turned to leave the room. Before I got too far a small hand clamped down around my bicep.
“Don’t go. We need your help more than some poor, sad-sap shop girl that doesn’t know how to dress.”
The Infinite Beat (T.I.E. Book 2) Page 5