by Neve Wilder
Chapter 9
Present Day
If I had to give props to Blink for his mad-scientist chemistry, so be it, because the show was amazing. Les was tuned into the audience, feeling their energy, which in turn rubbed off on me. We had a reciprocal relationship onstage, a constant psychic feedback loop between us. I could hear it in his voice and in the way he was playing. Lately I’d been worried it was gone, and was so relieved to feel the connection again, that when he broke with our reordered set list during the last quarter of our show, I went with it without question, my faith in him restored. At least where music was concerned. We spent eight months out of the year with each other, almost twenty-four seven. Trust had always been de facto. Lately it’d felt like a spotty internet connection, but at least tonight proved it still existed.
I picked up my bottle of water and took a swig on a song break, checking out the set list at my feet. We always set the stage with two stools next to each other and two mics in front, but we usually ended up wandering all over the place.
Les stood at the edge of stage left playing to the crowd, teasing them. Leave it to Les to successfully flirt with five hundred people at once. He glanced over his shoulder at me and grinned as I recapped my water bottle.
The audience loved this part. I parked my ass on the edge of my stool, then stretched my legs out and waited with my hands dangling over the top of my guitar.
Les roamed back to the mic stands, hitching his jeans and letting his guitar droop to one side as he paused to grab a drink of water before prowling back to the edge of the stage, where he paced.
“We’ve got a set list back there,” he said, hiking his thumb over his shoulder in my direction, “but I’m kinda curious what y’all want to hear.”
His back was to me, but I knew exactly what he was doing: his eyes were narrowing to a laser intensity of green as he skimmed faces in the crowd. He’d be catching his lip in his teeth, squinting one eye slightly, like the decision was a tough one and then, boom, he’d single someone out.
He pointed to someone about three rows back. Heads turned to look as he nodded at what appeared to be a petite redhead bobbing up and down excitedly. She quickly glanced behind her, then to either side, then pointed to herself to make sure, her lips poised in a little “o” of delighted surprise.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you.” Les let out a low, velvety chuckle. “What do you want to hear, sweetheart? Doesn’t even have to be one of our songs. Name it and we’ll do it.”
This bit of interaction always made me nervous. I liked things planned out well in advance, and Les’s favorite crowd-pleaser had bitten us in the ass a few times.
Les stood at the edge of the stage now, leaning over, one hand cupped to his ear as she shouted, then aimed a rakish grin over his shoulder at me. His eyes smoldered with mischief. “Did you hear that, Porter? She says I’m smoking hot.” The audience whooped and catcalled.
“Stop encouraging him,” I said drily. “We share a bus, and his ego already takes up all the cargo space.”
“Are you sure that’s not his dick?” someone in the front row shouted. Les’s grin broadened, his eyes gleaming.
I smirked, sliding fully on the stool, idly twisting the tuning knobs on my guitar. “Nah, his dick would fit in the ashtray.”
The audience roared, and Les twisted around to flip me off. I gave him a syrupy smile.
“Evan’s just jealous. It’s all hearsay, but I believe in hard proof. Y’all want to see some hard proof?”
He turned his back to me again, but I could tell by the bend of his elbow that he was thumbing at the button of his jeans. He’d do it, too, I had no doubt. Les would flash his dick to a pigeon if he thought he’d get a reaction.
Screams of encouragement replaced good-natured laughter. The front row especially was working itself up into a hot lather, and I could only assume by the fresh wave of cheers that followed that he’d unbuttoned the top of his pants. I had no desire to bail him out of jail for public indecency.
“Rein it in, Morrison,” I told him, leaning in so it came clear through the microphone. “No one needs to ride that storm right now. We’ve still got a concert to finish.”
A mixture of cheers and boos followed. Our fans tended to love our back-and-forth, and our bickering, my good-guy schtick to his bad-boy swagger. We were like the Gallagher brothers except… less hateful. And also not blood related. Thank God.
Les cackled madly, then put up his hands in surrender, but not before saying, “I’m happy to give private showings after we finish.” He clapped his hands once. “Right, now where were we?”
The girl he’d originally pointed out cupped her hands over her mouth and called out after the applause had died down, “‘Crash Course’!”
“Ohhh, interesting.” Les took a couple of steps back from the edge of the stage with a slow nod, angling toward me as he tapped the tip of his finger against his lower lip a couple of times in consideration. “I don’t think anyone’s ever requested that one before, which is kind of a shame, because it’s a good one and”—he paused for another look over at me, that same sly glint lighting up in his eyes like coals in a fire—“Evan should tell the story that goes along with it.”
“Crash Course” wasn’t a love song, per se, but it did have a story behind it. One that came mostly at my expense, which was why Les was grinning wickedly at me.
“I think you should tell it.”
“Not a fucking chance,” he said, dropping back onto the stool and folding his arms over the top of his guitar. He gave me an expectant tilt of his head, like he was settling in for story hour at a public library, and when I met that stare levelly, he started chuckling.
I sighed and told the tale that involved a bottle of caffeine pills, a long overseas plane flight, Les’s stupid idea that we should drive our own car in Italy for an immersive experience, and the mess with the Italian polizia that followed.
“He didn’t take kindly to you just pulling over to the side of the roundabout and hopping out of the fucking car, either,” Les finished for me.
I’d been in a near panic and thought I was about to have a heart attack from the stupid pills. But hey, the audience didn’t need to know that. Or how pissed I’d been at Les for passing out in the back seat in the first place. It had been his idea to call our liaison, though, because by that time he’d gotten out of the car and was trying to calm both me and the policeman down. I couldn’t even think straight. Once the liaison spoke to the policeman, he’d settled down and pulled the car onto a side street for us, and we took a cab the rest of the way to the TV station where we were supposed to be doing an interview—which Les had to carry because I was so out of it. Ironically enough, that interview was one of our most watched on YouTube. Les said it was because no one ever saw me cracked out of my skull and him being the sensible one. Which was probably true.
Les continued. “How a song comes out of that, I don’t even fucking know, but the next morning in our hotel, I just got up and wrote it, thinking about how the unexpected can lead to some of the best experiences.”
He glanced over at me then, something darting through his expression that I couldn’t quite get a read on. Something like hope and amusement and cynicism all at once, and only Les could manage all three; even his emotions were promiscuous.
He plucked a few strings on the guitar and then turned back to face the audience. I jumped in right behind him, picking up the song.
Post-show meet and greets were my least favorite part of touring. I liked the audience to be the audience. Once they separated out into individuals, I didn’t know what to do with all the small talk and fanfare. I guzzled a liter of water and tried to stay attentive, but I was thinking about that night in Italy and how different it was from where we were now.
We’d known our first album was good, but there wasn’t a lot of pressure behind it. Now it felt like a cement block on my feet. That night when we’d gotten to the hotel, we’d hung out in Les’s room until
four in the morning, partly because I couldn’t possibly go to sleep, but mostly because we were talking. We’d ordered rounds and rounds of room service and stuffed ourselves stupid while lying on the bed, talking about what we hoped would happen with our album, what we wanted to do on the next one, what we loved about music. Everything. I think it was the first time I realized that we’d become more than just bandmates and business partners and were actually friends. Our whole first tour was full of nights just like that.
Now, we went our separate ways as soon as we walked offstage. I missed it, and the feeling hit me as sharp and sudden as an elbow to the rib cage.
I glanced over at Les where he leaned up against the wall with a Sharpie in his hand, cutting up with a group of girls and waving the marker threateningly at them. When I finished rattling off a distracted spiel on how I’d chosen my latest Gibson to a rapt guy with a tight ponytail and horn-rimmed glasses who scribbled every technical detail in a little spiral notebook, I excused myself.
The girls looked me up and down as I approached, beaming me smiles bright as the spotlights we’d just left behind while Les seesawed the marker between his fingers, eyeing me. “They’re asking me if there’s a body part I haven’t signed before.”
“Doubtful. If it’s humanly accessible in any way, shape, or form, he’s probably signed it or put his mouth on it.”
One brow hiked up as if Les had taken my sarcasm as a personal challenge.
The blonde standing to his left puckered her pouty lips, then smiled. “Well, if I can’t be original, how about…” She hitched her foot up on the arm of a couch next to Les, sweeping her dress up to her waist casually and exposing a lean thigh. “Here?” She pointed to her inner thigh, just in front of her black satin panties.
Les looked up at her, tongue darting out over his lower lip as his hand closed over the top of her thigh and his thumb swept softly along the inside. I could see the goose bumps rise on her skin as he touched her. “Here?”
She gave a breathy murmur of assent accompanied by a nod, and when their gazes locked as Les’s marker descended, I almost rolled my eyes.
“There are other places you could write your name, but I wouldn’t want you to use a marker,” she said, biting her lower lip coquettishly. Her friends giggled, and I snorted. Then she turned a narrow look aside to me and added, “You too.”
I didn’t know if I blushed, but my blood instantly started to simmer. It had nothing to do with the girl and everything to do with being slingshotted back into that night six months before at the cabin. A mixture of remorse and the memory of desire flooded my throat and drowned any chance I had at firing back some smartass comment.
“He’s not into shit like that,” Les murmured dismissively, eyes darting up to me, then flickering back to the girl’s thigh just as quickly. I caught the darkness in the look, though.
I fit the stereotype of a musician in probably every way except one, but that one thing had been endless fodder for our roadies and Les: I didn’t sleep around. I wasn’t interested in it. It wasn’t some issue of moral high ground—as much as Les enjoyed teasing me about being a prude. It was that the whole idea seemed pointless. It wasn’t like I judged anyone who felt differently—except Les because he slept around too much, in my opinion. I just liked relationships. I liked knowing a person and feeling a connection.
Unfortunately, relationships and being on the road for months at a time hadn’t worked out very well for me. Even with Leigh the other night, I got the distinct impression that we were starting to peter out. Her job as a photographer had her hopping around just as much, and at first I thought that would be a good thing, but we were just growing further apart. And honestly? I wasn’t even that upset by it. Probably not a good sign.
Les studied me, fiddling with the marker as the girls wandered away to the craft service table.
“You didn’t give any of them your number. Color me impressed.” I watched the girls as they grabbed some plates and piled fruit on them.
He shrugged lightly, stuffing the marker in his back jeans pocket. “Meh.”
“We should hang out tonight,” I said. “Like we used to. We could send Mars out for food.”
His mouth curled in a smile, and I could see him warming to the idea. Maybe having this show under our belts and some solid hangout time would get us out of our rut. I’d definitely rather go into our songwriting retreat on friendlier terms than what we’d been like lately.
“Yeah, that’d be good. Wings?”
“Garlic, teriyaki, honey-glazed?”
He slitted his eyes at me like I’d asked a trick question. “Just straight up hot wings, no need to get fancy.”
I grinned. “Agreed.”
Speaking of the devil, Mars lumbered in and beelined for us, snatching up a bottle of water on his way that looked like a test tube in his huge hand. Another group of fans lingering nearby divided in half to get out of his way. He had a fierce frown painted on his face, but he usually did.
“That reporter’s here, waiting. He’s an arrogant little shit.”
I blinked at Les, and he gave me a wide-eyed no clue look in return.
“What reporter?”
“Dunno,” Mars said unhelpfully. “Says he cleared it with Levi. Asked who was going first.”
I frowned. Les and I usually did interviews together, but separately wasn’t unheard of. I pulled my phone from my pocket and thumbed through my texts until I discovered one from our publicist, Levi, that had come through while we were onstage: Last minute, sorry. Adam Slade is in town. Wants to do interview for String and Strum. Do it. Profile piece on each of you. Should be good pub.
“We doing it?” Les eyed me skeptically as he cracked a beer.
“Guess so. I can go first. Good behavior,” I warned Les, who grinned like a maniac, instilling absolutely no confidence in me.
“No worries. I’ll dazzle him.”
I should’ve known better than to trust that grin. Les was really good at charming people when he wanted to. Phenomenal, actually. A five-minute conversation with him and he could have people eating out of his palm. And it wasn’t like he was pretending or being fake. If he was talking to you, ninety percent of the time he was interested and was giving you untempered, charming Les, because the rest of the time he wouldn’t even bother, and that was the problem; he was fickle. We once did a disaster of an interview with a guitar magazine that I had to limp us both through. Les was hungover, firstly, but the biggest issue was that he decided he didn’t like the writer. “He’s a closet homophobe. I’ve read his articles,” he’d grumbled. I’d read his articles, too. I always did before we did an interview and I didn’t see it. But Les just shut down. It was right after we’d cut what was to be our slump album, and it certainly didn’t help things that he sat through the entire interview giving one-word answers and looking sulkily out the window the entire time. I think he’d even oinked at one point when the reporter asked him a question.
Chapter 10
An hour and a half later, after I’d finished my interview, Mars and I returned so weighted down with sacks of wings, we could’ve opened our own buffet. Mars split off for the venue, where the roadies were breaking down our equipment. I headed for the tour bus. We’d be driving straight to Indianapolis so we could do a publicity gig pre-show early tomorrow.
The interior was quiet as I elbowed the door open and stepped inside. I’d gotten way too used to our bus. Every time we finished a tour and I returned to my own home, I inevitably walked through it in wonder at having so much space after sleeping in a bunk or hotel room for so many months. I still had rooms that had nothing in them.
I shut the door behind me and could tell by the tinge in the air that Les was there. I didn’t know if it was aftershave, actual cologne, hair product, or deodorant, and I’d never asked, but Les had a distinctive scent that reminded me of a forest at night: dark and green, a little spice, a little wood, a little earth. I figured he was in the back of the bus in the lounge,
the one area capable of being fully closed off besides the bathroom. We had a few gaming consoles, a couple of guitars, and God knew what else in there. Mars always made sure it was stocked for us. I couldn’t even remember what we’d put in the original rider, except that Les got denied fresh cut tulips every day—which he didn’t even want; he was just seeing how far he could push it. But he did get his stupid request for a constantly replenished cornucopia of green and purple Skittles. “Best flavor combo ever, man,” he’d said. Les’s extravagance had risen in direct proportion to the number of albums we sold, but he was still nothing like some other bands we knew, and it was one of the things I really liked about him. He was hedonistic to a fault, but also delighted by the smallest things. Like the perfect Skittles combo and high-end hotel soap.
A groan filtered out from under the door leading into the lounge as I set the bags down on the built-in dining table. Plastic crackled, Styrofoam squeaked, and like a bassline underneath came another groan, louder this time. Les. No doubt about it. I’d spent enough time with him to distinguish even the incoherent sounds.
This wasn’t Les’s miserable ate-too-much, fucked-too-much, drank-too-much, took-too-much groan. Heat trickled upward over my neck, spreading across my cheeks. He couldn’t forgo a lay for one fucking night. I shook my head in disbelief, finished setting out the boxes of wings, and strolled to the back of the bus, sliding my hands in my pockets.
When I nudged the door with the toe of my boot, it whisked open with a sound like a sigh.
Adam Slade had sat across from me in this room earlier, all smiles and polite laughter, acting the consummate professional as he asked me his questions. Now he was on his knees, the back of his gray T-shirt rucked up over his hips, the waistband of his jeans loose and sagging to reveal the shadowed furrow of his ass as his head bobbed up and down in Les’s lap. Les’s head was thrown back in slack-jawed ecstasy, his fingers rippling rhythmically through strands of Adam’s hair. He was shirtless, bare chest rising and falling in panted breaths, pecs coated with thin shafts of light that slipped through the blinds on the windows and illuminated the tattoos inked there.