***
I wander the venue in a kind of blind panic, having no idea where I’m headed. All I can think is how close I just came to making such a huge mistake. Every fiber in my body wanted to believe him, wanted to find a way to convince myself that his marriage really was a disaster, that I had been a lifeline to him. The most cliché bullshit in the book, I think, disgusted with myself. How many cheating men have used that exact same line on spineless women over the years? And I wanted to believe it. I wanted any excuse to let myself fall into his arms, to feel his hands on me, to feel his lips—
Stop it. You walked away. That’s the important thing.
But I didn’t want to. Even knowing that he was married, I still wanted to kiss him. Even knowing how terrible I had felt for months after his forced confession, I still wanted to forgive him. Wanted to be back in his bunk right now.
There’s something severely wrong with you, I tell myself as I burst from the venue doors to the back parking lot. My fingers immediately find the raised flesh on my forearm, just below my elbow. It’s the largest of my scars, but far from the only one. A reminder of all of my mistakes, the very worst ones.
There’s no room here for another scar, I think. And definitely not one from Dan Brooks.
My mind is finally starting to feel clearer, my heart rate back to normal. I take deep breaths of fresh air, still running my fingers over the scar. I catch sight of the door to the bus, a bit ajar, and I frown. The bus is never left open.
Maybe Levi is in there, I think, suddenly hopeful. In my mad rush through the back halls of the venue, I didn’t hear the band playing, making me think that sound check is probably over. And Levi isn’t prone to hanging out with the rest of the band in the dressing room the way he used to.
I enter the bus, about to call out his name, when I hear raised voices coming from the back lounge. I pause at the couch, knowing I should probably turn right around. The back lounge is situated at the very end of the bus, behind the front sitting area, the kitchen, and the bunks. For the voices to reach all the way up here, whoever it is must be having a pretty big—
“Give me a break, Daltrey!” Levi shouts. “I’m doing the best I can!”
“No one asked you!” Daltrey yells back. The pure venom in his voice freezes me in place, all thoughts of leaving the bus gone from my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so angry.
“Actually, yeah. Someone did. Several someones, actually. Like all of your brothers and your dad.”
“We were fine last year,” Daltrey shouts. “Totally fine.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
There’s a long pause. “God, you’re such a self-righteous, sanctimonious asshole.”
I flinch. There was a time that these two were best friends. And while I’ve gotten used to the Ransome boys getting into giant fights with each other, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of them yell at Levi. Hell, he’s usually the one breaking up their fights.
“I’m sorry, Daltrey,” Levi says, voice shaking, and I can hear the frustration and anger in his words even from here. “I’m sorry I lied to you about Daisy, okay? When I took her away from the mess in New York, I should have stayed in contact with you. And I should have been honest with her about it.” His voice quiets, and now I’m straining to hear. “I handled the entire thing wrong. I get it. And I’m sorry.” The anger is mostly gone now. He really does sound sorry, heart wrenchingly so. I hadn’t realized how much guilt he was carrying over what happened. “I’m sorry I lied to both of you. But you have to admit that I had a reason to be angry. You handled things wrong too.”
“Are you seriously—”
But Levi talks right over him, his voice calm and firm. “You shouldn’t have gone after Justin. When you got arrested, you put Daisy in a terrible situation. I was trying to help her, and I was pissed at what you did.” Another pause. “But I am sorry.”
“And what about the other thing?” Daltrey asks, his voice low and angry. I take another step toward the bunks to hear better. “Funny, in all your apologies, I don’t hear a single thing about you telling my girlfriend that you loved her.”
“She wasn’t your girlfriend at the time.”
There’s a loud thud from the back, like hands hitting flesh. I wonder if Daltrey pushed Levi, and then I wonder if maybe I should go get some help. “You knew how I felt about her.”
“And that was supposed to be enough?”
“Yes!” Daltrey bellows. “Of course it’s supposed to be enough! You were my best friend. You were like my brother.”
Levi doesn’t speak for a long time, and I realize that I’m holding my breath.
“I can’t apologize for that, Daltrey. I fell in love with her. I didn’t ask for it to happen. I tried to ignore it for years. But it did happen—long before you admitted you cared about her. Before you were willing to leave and go gallivanting on tour for months on end when it was obvious there was something seriously wrong with her.”
“You—”
Levi’s voice rises to talk over him. “If you thought the person she loved—even a friend—was bad for her, you would do something about it. You would at least try. And that’s what I did. I regret that it hurt you. But I refuse to apologize for it.”
“Then you can take your ‘we have to get past this’ apology shit and go to hell,” Daltrey snarls. There’s a loud bang against the wall, and then I hear footsteps heading toward the bunks. Shit.
I scurry back to the doorway, sliding through before Daltrey appears in the kitchen. I sprint a few paces away from the bus before turning and walking back slowly, hoping my face is blank. When Daltrey slams out of the door a second later, I’m pretty sure it looks like I’m innocently walking toward the bus. At least I hope it does. Daltrey barely offers me a glance, anyhow. His face is red and he’s clearly still pissed.
“Hi,” I manage to squeak out.
“Hey,” he snaps, before stalking off across the lot.
Holy shit.
I climb back into the bus, not bothering to be quiet this time, and find Levi sitting in the back lounge, his head in his hands.
“Well.” I lean against the doorway, crossing my arms. “That sounded pretty shitty. I’m not sure you quite understood my advice to play nice with Daltrey.”
He looks up and something like relief passes over his face. “You heard?”
“Most of it. Enough to understand why you look like you just got hit by this bus.” He laughs weakly, moving over on the couch so I can join him. “So. Wanna talk about it?”
He shrugs. “What’s there to say? He’s never going to forgive me.”
“I don’t know. He’s still pissed. You’ve only been back in his life for what, a few weeks? There’s plenty of tour ahead of us—”
Levi groans. “Don’t remind me.”
“Come on.” I bump my shoulder against his. “For what it’s worth, I think you handled that perfectly.”
“Yeah?” His eyes are on mine, almost hopeful.
“Yeah. You shouldn’t apologize for your feelings about Daisy. It’s ridiculous that he wants you to.”
Levi shuts his eyes. “I’ve been so pissed for so long, feeling so freaking sorry for myself, that I haven’t taken a lot of time to think about the things that were my fault. Lying to them was one of them. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“And you apologized. Which sounded really sincere and mature to me.”
“I couldn’t apologize for loving her though. I just couldn’t.”
“Then you did the right thing.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes. Finally, he sighs, running his hands through his hair. “So. What brings you out here to eavesdrop? I thought you had a whole new shipment to go through.”
I look down at my hands. “I kind of left Dan to do it.”
Levi’s eyebrows shoot up. “Dan?”
I scowl at my hands. “He cornered me at the merch table and sent Paige away on a bullshit excuse so we could talk.”
Levi groans. “What a tool.”
I laugh in spite of the renewed sick feeling in my stomach. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s better to be a tool than a total idiot.” I look up at him and offer a weak smile, pointing at myself. “The idiot, in case you wondered.”
“Why are you an idiot?”
“Because I was about this close to believing his bullshit.” I dig my fists into my thighs, feeling disgusted. “What is wrong with me when it comes to this guy? I don’t get it.”
“I think the important thing is that you didn’t believe him. Even if you came close. Maybe all you need is some practice.”
“If that requires spending more time with him, I’m not interested.”
Levi laughs then groans when he looks at the clock on the wall behind me. “Doors are opening soon.”
“I take it you don’t really want to go in there.”
He raises his eyebrows. “However did you guess?”
I laugh and stand, holding out my hand to pull him to his feet. “Come on, I’ll walk in with you.”
“You know Dan is in there. I thought you didn’t want to see him?”
“I’m not going to let him force me into hiding. If I see him again, I see him again. I’ll just have to deal with it.” I squeeze his hand once before dropping it and head to the door. “Besides, isn’t that what allies are for?”
Chapter Ten
Levi
The first three weeks of the tour pass in alternating stages of busy exhaustion and awkwardness. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed working on shows like this. Back at the lodge, we rarely got high-caliber artists. Mostly washed up one-hit wonders from the seventies and cover bands of dubious quality. None of it could compare to the feeling of putting up a show for Ransom. The excitement that builds slowly throughout the day as we set up, the camaraderie that grows with a road crew of this size. Troubleshooting with the guys, being the one to pick up on the little details that needed dealing with, like new strings, mic levels, amp feedback. With most of the band, it’s like the best kind of teamwork, sometimes finishing each other’s sentences, like we could communicate without a word.
I had loved it for a very long time, and I am finally starting to remember exactly why.
And then there’s Daltrey. My old friend who seems determined to hate me for the rest of our lives. All because I made the unforgivable mistake of falling for his girl—years before he had any claim on her.
I feel annoyed when I think about it like that, like Daisy was some object to be claimed. And then I start to feel resentful, because he got the girl even though he’s the asshole who thinks it was okay to call dibs on a girl in the first place.
The resentment, like my anger, feels good, righteous. But it doesn’t do a whole lot to help ease the tension on the bus.
I’m really not sure how I would have gotten through it without Karen. It’s like she can sense when I’m about to melt down, and she’s always there with a beer or a video game controller or an offer to talk. We spend a lot of our down time walking around the venues. I never want to hang out in the dressing room too much, or the bus we sleep on with the band. Karen, on the other hand, is hesitant to hide out on the crew bus, in fear of running into Dan, who seems determined to get her to “talk” no matter how many times she makes it clear that she has no interest in a chat.
Before the Pittsburgh show, Paige decides that we all need to go out to lunch. It didn’t take me long to realize that, in addition to her work on the band’s graphic design needs, Paige seems to think her secondary role is some kind of rock-band version of a cruise ship director. She’s constantly making plans for what we should be doing in our down time, from the actually fun to the completely absurd. Like one day, she had us all visit a trapeze studio to take lessons. And when we were playing in Chicago, she organized a pizza crawl where we went to several of the city’s top deep-dish joints to sample the food before we voted on our favorites. I could barely move after the third restaurant.
To my surprise, the band goes along with this pretty happily. Even Cash, who I would have expected to veto anything that didn’t fit his idea of the rock-and-roll lifestyle. I wonder if Sam alone is responsible for the change in him, or if he was like this with Paige’s antics on the last tour. It gives me a weird feeling to see him so changed, knowing that I missed out on whatever happened to get him here. There are some things in life you should just be able to count on—like Cash Ransome being a womanizing, if lovable, asshole.
“Lennon,” Paige complains when he suggests we go on to lunch without him. “How can you come to Pittsburgh and not experience their most famous dish?”
“Pittsburgh has a most famous dish?” Daltrey asks, sounding skeptical.
“Primanti Brothers!” she cries, as if that should be the most obvious thing in the world. “They’re supposed to be legendary. We have to try them.”
Daisy scrunches up her nose. “I think I’ve had those. Isn’t it the place that puts the fries and the coleslaw right on the sandwich?”
“Oh, yeah,” I agree, a memory coming to me. I snap my fingers. “We ate there when we hit Pittsburgh on the van tour, after we played at that terrible bar. Remember? The roof was leaking right over Reed’s drum kit.”
“Right!” Daisy says, laughing. “His hair was soaking wet by the end of the show.”
Behind her, Daltrey is glaring at me, apparently not approving of this shared trip down memory lane. I struggle not to roll my eyes, only to see Karen on his other side, rolling hers. Trying to hide my smile, I turn to Lennon.
“Whatever you want to do, man. I’m up for a sandwich, but I’ll keep you company if you want to stay in.”
The truth is, I have no intention of going if Len doesn’t join the group. He’s looking pale today, his face drawn. It’s the first outward sign of trouble I’ve seen since the tour started. I’ve been watching him closely ever since we hit the road, but up until now, I thought the busy and hectic schedule of performing had snapped him back to his old self. Today, I’m not sure.
“I’ll go with you guys,” Lennon says, shaking his head in resignation. “God knows Paige won’t shut up about it for days if I miss out.”
She doesn’t deny it. “You’ll thank me later.”
The security guards want us to drive, but the restaurant is less than two blocks away so the guys veto that idea. “We’re not going to get mobbed walking two blocks,” Cash argues. Frank and Benny clearly aren’t pleased, but they agree to the plan so long as they come along with.
The restaurant is small and pretty much packed. I look over the menu, deciding on the steak sandwich, trying not to laugh when Paige nods at me in approval.
“So. Three weeks in. I think it’s going pretty well so far,” Cash says, looking around at his brothers. “Crowds are just as big as last time.”
“Crowds are down,” Reed says, his voice tight.
“They don’t look down.”
Reed rolls his eyes. “You do know that Dan makes the sales numbers available to anyone who wants to look, right? You could actually take a real interest in the numbers instead of going off your gut.”
“Stop being so uptight, Reed,” Cash says, shaking his head. “The crowds have good energy. What else matters?”
“Ticket sales. You know, the thing that keeps our sponsors and the label happy.”
When it looks like Cash is about to start yelling, Lennon interjects. “The album doesn’t drop for another week. I bet we see an uptick in sales before that.”
“We better. Or our world tour might end up shrinking to just the US and Canada.”
I watch Lennon throughout the exchange. As his brothers’ arguments get louder, he seems to retreat into himself, his shoulders slumping, not contributing to the increasingly heated conversation. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if the world tour doesn’t happen, I think.
“You don’t have any faith in our fans,” Daltrey is yelling now. “When this album drops, they’re going
to be all over it. The way they always are. Why do you have to bring everyone down all the time?”
“Excuse me for trying to be realistic and—”
“You guys,” Lennon says, his voice quiet. “Stop. There’s no point to this.”
Cash’s expression turns condescending as he turns to Lennon. “You could try to force a bit of energy into your performance, little brother. If the vibe is down, it probably doesn’t help to have some moody bastard standing stock still behind his bass, glaring down at the crowd.”
“Okay,” I say, holding up my hands. “That’s enough. Len’s energy has been fine. The vibe is not down. I’ve been out there with the fans every show, and they’re into it. I promise.”
As one, the band seems to relax, everyone sitting back in their chairs, reaching for drinks and sandwiches. I breathe a sigh of relief. Lennon does not look like a fight with his brothers is what he needs right now.
I return to my sandwich and catch Paige and Daisy glancing at each other, their expressions unreadable. Daisy shoots me a little smile, and I realize that she’s grateful, and that’s when it hits me that I just stopped a fight between the brothers. It’s not a new experience. In fact, I have a vast amount of practice calming down the passionate exchanges of the Ransome boys. I just hadn’t really been in a position to do it lately. It’s nice to see that they still respond, even if Daltrey is currently shooting me death glares from behind his Coke.
“So,” Paige says, voice bright. “Was I right about this place or was I right?”
“It’s pretty good,” Reed agrees, bumping her shoulder with his.
“Much better than that place in St. Louis,” Cash says, smirking at her.
Paige sighs. “I apologized for St. Louis. Several times.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that your restaurant of choice gave half the band food poisoning before a photo shoot for People Magazine,” Daltrey says.
“It was not my fault!”
Cash sets his sandwich down. “Paige. It was a rundown shack on the side of the highway. The bathroom had cockroaches in it bigger than some poodles.”
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