Daltrey (Pushing Daisies Book 4)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  I’d had a bit and now I was having a little more.

  “What are you bitching about?” I slid back so that I was half-lying down on the couch near the front of the bus.

  “Bitching? You think I’m bitching?”

  “You do sound a little like a bitch.”

  Mack sighed and dropped into the single chair across from me. “You didn’t pay your bill before you left the bar tonight.”

  “Oops.” I thought I had, but things were getting a little hazy when I left. Too many shots too quickly.

  “Oops.” He watched me for a bit and I knew what he was thinking. He was trying to figure out how to get me to talk. “Daltrey, come on. It’s me you’re talking to. Of all the Thompsons, you talk to me, so fucking talk already.”

  “Why are you always so wound up tight?” I asked, trying to flip this conversation. That was my MO.

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “Maybe we should be. Have a drink.” I leaned over to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer then held it out to him, but he just kept staring at me. “Or don’t.”

  Mack furrowed his brows and tighten his jaw. This was his concerned dad look. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Daltrey. I’ve known you your whole life. Don’t bullshit me.”

  I took another drink then sighed. “Can you be specific about the problem here?”

  “You’re phoning in the shows this week and it seems like you’ve been on a downward spiral.” He sat forward. “Are you spiraling?”

  “The fuck are you talking about?”

  Mack rubbed the bridge of his nose the way he did when one of us was stressing him out. I didn’t mean to stress him out. I was just trying to live my life.

  “Daltrey. This is an important step. This tour is the difference between going back to Detroit and playing local shit shows and actually fucking making it.”

  “I liked those shows.”

  “Of course you did. But this is what we did those shows for.” He quickly wet his lips. “If you fuck this up, you’re fucking it up for Bonham, Van, and Daisy.”

  “And you.”

  “No way. I’ll be fine. I’ll go back to a regular job, where I don’t have to deal with you. But they won’t.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “What’s going on with you?”

  Do I tell him that the pressure has started crushing my chest? Because that’s what’s been going on. The only time I could calm my worry was when I’d had a few drinks. Sure, that could be causing me to drink a little too much too often, but it wasn’t a problem. I had it under control.

  Mack didn’t need to worry about me.

  “Nothing,” I told him.

  He wasn’t wrong. He and I being the two oldest had a special bond. We’d grown up together. We’d been the ones taking care of all the others. I told him everything. Well, most things. There were some things I kept to myself or that Dad knew, but he promised he wouldn’t tell anyone else.

  Daisy was the prodigy. She could play all of our instruments, though none better than she played her violin, and she had the voice of a fucking angel. She was what made Pushing Daisies Pushing Daisies, but if you asked her, it was a group effort. I got where she was coming from. The four of us were in the spotlight when we were on stage and putting an extra bright light on just her wasn’t something she was comfortable with.

  Van and Bonham were always messing around. Van loved playing the bass and was great at it. Bonham owned his drums.

  I was fine on guitar but not anything I’d call special.

  That was probably for the best. As much as Daisy hated being put on a pedestal above the rest of us—and she fucking hated it—I wouldn’t have survived it in her position.

  How in the hell could my siblings be so nonchalant about being on stage when lately all I’d been feeling was crushing anxiety?

  Mack blew out a breath of frustration. “You’ve got to give me something, Daltrey because I’m not going to let you take the rest of the band down while you figure out what the hell is going on.”

  “I’m not going to take anyone down. I love playing with the group.”

  “So it’s the tour that’s the problem? Are the shows too big?”

  Too fucking close to home with that one.

  “There is no problem,” I told him again.

  “Yeah. It’s totally normal for you to drink this much every fucking night.”

  “Wow,” I dragged the word out. “So having a few drinks is a problem. Did know you’d turned into a prude.”

  “Fuck that, Daltrey. You went years and I never saw you take a drop. Now it’s every night. Come on.”

  “It’s all part of rock and roll, right?”

  Mack shook his head and his jaw tightened. If there were only one of him and I could see his face clearly, I would’ve probably felt a little bad. There’d never been any intention on my part to cause him problems. I was just trying to live my life.

  “Get it together, Daltrey.”

  I gave him a half-hearted salute before he stomped off back to his room.

  He got the big one at the back of the bus. The one Daisy used to occupy before she’d moved over to Lawson Styles’ bus. He was the manager of Courting Chaos and had his own. Well, it used to be his own. Not long after Daisy moved over there, Van had fallen in love with Lawson’s sister and now spent most of his time over there. Bonham, Mack, and I had been the only ones left on this bus until our week-long break, where Bonham had somehow fallen in love with a girl from back home. Jurnie Evans was a sweet girl, innocent as hell before my brother had gotten his hands on her, but now she too was traveling on our bus while interning for a radio station in Detroit. She was doing live spots and some other things that I didn’t really care about.

  I just knew that sometimes I’d have to do interviews with her. Which was fine. I’d do whatever the band asked me to.

  Once my brother left me alone, I was able to drink myself to sleep right there on the couch.

  I woke the next morning to an extremely bright sun rudely spilling into the bus as well as Bonham and Jurnie talking in the little kitchen area over cups of coffee.

  They were attempting to be quiet, but how fucking annoying was it that they were smiling this fucking early?

  “It’s not even early,” Bonham told me, though I hadn’t realized either of them had noticed me waking up. “You can stop glaring at us.”

  “It’s really fucking early.”

  Bonham chuckled. “We have soundcheck in like two hours. It’s not early at all.”

  “Fuck. We’re there already?” Because I forgot which city we were in today. I knew that tomorrow was Chicago and I only remembered because that was where the guys of Courting Chaos were from and their families were coming to tonight’s show. We’d probably all meet them and I had already planned not to be a dick to any of them. Plus, the best part was we had two shows in Chicago and that meant we got to sleep in a hotel tonight and I had no curfew.

  Curfew being the time I had to be back to the bus before they left my ass.

  “Why didn’t you go to bed last night?” Jurnie asked.

  “Jeez, Jurnie, I wish I’d thought of that.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched down and I immediately wished I could take those words back. Jurnie was nice to all of us and she didn’t deserve my hangover anger. Actually, I thought Jurnie was probably the nicest person I’d ever meet and because of that she probably wouldn’t hold my attitude against me. That made me feel worse about giving it to her.

  “Watch your mouth, brother,” Bonham said nonchalantly as he took another sip of his coffee and rubbed her lower back.

  “Don’t worry about it, Bonham,” she said. “Given the way he looks, he probably doesn’t feel so good.”

  “No excuse.”

  “No,” she said reluctantly. “Not an excuse, but we’ll give him some grace.” And that was her niceness coming through. She seemed to want to believe the best in people even
when she shouldn’t. Like in my case.

  “Thanks,” I said, but I probably should’ve sounded more sincere.

  “Even if he doesn’t deserve it,” she added.

  I chuckled and shook my head.

  If there was one thing I liked about my brothers’ girlfriends, it was that they weren’t afraid to give the rest of us shit. Hell, they weren’t afraid to give their boyfriends shit. That was the only way someone would last in our big, loud family.

  It took a lot of effort to get my ass moving, but I did it. After a long, hot shower, I felt a little better. None of what I did last night would impact what I had to do today.

  Who was I kidding?

  The pounding headache would definitely impact my performance. Even with the noise-canceling in-ear monitors that we wore on stage, the arenas were loud as fuck.

  Still, I made it through and headed out as soon as our set was done.

  Most of the time now, Bonham and Van disappeared with their women and Daisy watched Courting Chaos with Lawson. Mack was still working after the show. Fine by me. I’d do just fine on my own.

  I ended up at the closest bar and a few fans had followed me. We were gaining our own little fanbase from this tour and if that didn’t scare the shit out of me, I’d say that was exactly what we wanted.

  In the old days, I’d never gotten anxiety over this stuff. We’d play. We’d get paid a little and it had been fun. But now it was serious. Like a regular job and the pressure was real.

  I tossed back a shot of something. I’d asked the bartender to give me whatever and had never found out what it was. Since it was my second shot, my taste buds were already numb anyway.

  The shot was followed up with a large drink from my glass of beer. Whatever was on tap worked perfectly for me.

  “You’re Daltrey from Pushing Daisies, aren’t you?”

  I looked to my right, where a tall blonde was half-standing, half-sitting on the stool beside me like I’d caught her mid-sit.

  “I am. Were you at the show tonight?”

  She gave me a huge grin. “I was. It was amazing.”

  I wouldn’t go right to amazing, but if this leggy blonde with the big tits wanted to say it, I wasn’t going to argue.

  Look, most of the time, I’d never objectify women. My mother would take me out herself if she knew that I was sizing this woman up the way that I was. But since I knew she was doing the same to me and was likely here for a quick fuck, I didn’t worry about it.

  The alcohol helped that too.

  If there was one thing this tour was good for, it was finding random pussy. A lot of these women just wanted to hook up with a rock star. Now, I wouldn’t call myself that, but since they did, I wasn’t going to argue. Besides, who was I to deny them?

  “You know, I think you and I could have a lot of fun together,” she said, brushing her hot body against mine.

  “What kind of fun?” I asked, a cocky grin on my face as I wrapped an arm around her waist. “Like a card game?”

  She giggled a lot harder than that lame-ass joke required. It was almost too easy.

  “No.” She leaned in close to me and whispered against my ear, “Like a lot of fun.”

  Obviously, we both knew what she was talking about.

  “We could go to my place. It’s across town, but—”

  “Can’t do that,” I said, cutting her off. “The bus will leave without me.” Which was a fucking lie. Mack wouldn’t let the bus leave without me but this sweet-ass blonde didn’t need to know that.

  “We could go back to your bus.”

  I sure as hell wasn’t going to take her back to the bus. Then she’d stay all night and that could get ugly in the morning.

  I hated the hopeful look in her eyes.

  “Not an option. I share.” That hadn’t necessarily stopped us before but Jurnie was there now and sometimes Lexi. I hadn’t brought a woman back there since my brothers fell for them.

  She wet her lips quickly and nodded. “Follow me.”

  This hot blonde pulled me behind her by the hand and didn’t stop until we were inside the women’s restroom.

  Fuck. This might have been a new low for me. I didn’t even know this woman’s name and wasn’t about to ask if I were being honest.

  She flipped the lock and we were alone. At least for a few minutes.

  Then she was all over me. The alcohol must’ve been working its magic because I couldn’t keep track of where she was. My mouth was on hers and hers on mine until she pulled her panties down without taking her skirt off and climbed up onto the single sink in the room and spread her legs.

  I was more than ready. When she pulled a condom out of her purse I shook my head.

  “I only use my own,” I told her and reached into my pocket. I always had one on me and never used one that they provided. The last thing I needed was some rando showing up pregnant.

  When I slid into her, the rest of the world quieted, at least for a little while.

  Much like my waning passion for this tour, what I was doing right now was because I could, not because I wanted to. I mean, I wanted to. Consent wasn’t the issue, but this wasn’t how I’d seen my life playing out when we’d gotten so excited about getting this tour at first.

  It was just one of the only ways I could try to forget about all the pressure.

  Much like the alcohol, fucking this random woman in the restroom of a bar also wasn’t getting the job done.

  I could still feel the expectations in my chest.

  There had to be something I could do to get back to the me I’d been when we’d started the tour. The me without the anxiety of looming failure.

  3

  Ella

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Emery urged as she bounced on the balls of her feet. The excitement threatened to keep her moving every second until we were at the damn venue.

  “Emery, I’m hurrying, but the more you hurry me, the more likely I am to make a mistake.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  I snorted. “Thank you. Though I’m not trying to look good. This is for you.”

  “Yeah.” She stopped behind me where I was putting mascara on my eyelashes. “But there will be pictures and you want to look passable, right?”

  While chuckling, I dropped the mascara in my makeup bag and turned to her. “Do I look passable?”

  “You look beautiful. I already told you that.”

  “I think you might be saying that so I’ll be done and we can head to the venue.”

  “I would never do that.” She scowled at the suggestion. Emery would never let me go out in public looking like I’d just rolled out of bed unless I’d wanted to. Or as she put it, she’d never let me go out with boogies in my nose.

  “What if I told you we need to stop for gas first?”

  “You drive a Prius. We can go forever on very little gas.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing your mom wanted to get rid of it for so little money,” I told her as I shoved my license, debit card, and the little bit of cash I had on me into my back pocket. No purse tonight.

  I’d always thought that Emery was responsible for her mom selling me the car so cheaply. It was worth a lot more and Emery had said she’d probably just give it to me, but I couldn’t take that. I needed to pay for what I had, even if I’d been desperate. My car had just died and Emery had been driving me back and forth to work. I couldn’t take advantage of her forever.

  “Maybe we should eat before we go?” I asked, to which she groaned. I loved teasing her about this stuff.

  I’d wished her a happy birthday right after midnight by jumping on her bed. She’d been asleep, but this was our tradition. If we weren’t in the same place, then I’d call her until she woke up.

  It was how I showed her my love.

  “Come on, Ella. You know how excited I am for this.”

  “I do.” I pulled us out onto the road and followed the GPS to the venue.

  Once we were there, Emery went up t
o the Will Call window and got our tickets, backstage passes that we were required to hang around our necks, and instructions on where to go.

  As we rounded the corner toward the back, several people stopped or gasped as we passed. They saw our passes and a couple even asked how we’d gotten them. It was getting weird which had me anxious to get to the door so no one would try to wrestle us for them.

  “You’re”—an around-thirty-year-old man with disheveled blond hair glanced down at his tablet—“Emery Nelson?”

  “I am,” she said with a huge grin. “This is my best friend, Ella. She’s my plus one.”

  “Perfect. I’m Gary Browerhouse.” He reached out and shook both of our hands. “I’m the on-air host you talked to when you won the tickets.” He waved for us to follow him. “I made a note here that today is your birthday?”

  “It is,” she told him. “Ella and I have been following Pushing Daisies this week for my birthday. We couldn’t get tickets to this show.”

  “Oh, nice. I guess that makes today extra special.”

  “You could say that,” I mumbled then snickered. “I thought the backstage passes were going to give her an aneurism.”

  He laughed with me as Emery scowled at me and I raised my hands all innocently.

  “They’re my favorite band,” she told him, as if that weren’t already apparent.

  “Well, because you’re the radio winners and I told them it was your birthday, they’ve agreed to do a meet-and-greet with just you before the others.”

  “Are you serious?” Emery almost sounded like she didn’t believe it.

  “I am. So you’ll be able to say hi,” Gary said. We entered the building and this man could walk incredibly fast. “You’ll get pictures. I assume they’ll sign something for you if you’d like.”

  “Just a picture would be fantastic.” Emery was in such a rush that her toe caught on the floor and she stumbled. I quickly reached out to grab her so she wouldn’t fall to the ground. This girl was on the verge of freaking out.

  “You OK?” I asked her. She nodded that she was but I still questioned it. I knew she was excited but this was insane.