Taming Chaos

by Lynne St. James

  “So you worked for Symmetry Records too?”

  “Yup. I knew Chaos was signed with them but I didn’t realize they’d gotten stuck with Rod too.”

  “Oh yeah they did, and it’s because of him I’m here. Chaos accused him of working with Symmetry and screwing them over and I guess he’s right, huh?”

  Joe nodded. “It sure looks like it. I wish there was something I could do.”

  “Me too. Shit. I don’t know what to do now. I’m here because of him, well because he and Symmetry decided Chaos’s songs weren’t good enough. I thought it was strange they’d assign me to Raining Chaos. Their first album was amazing. I never figured he’d need help writing.”

  “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. If you can write lyrics like those to go with his music, they’d be unstoppable.”

  Shaking my head, I knew that wasn’t possible. They didn’t need me but I still had a promise to fulfill. Could I do it if I left now? Or did I see it through and just forget all this stuff Joe told me? It’s not like it was any of my business, besides, a contract was a contract right?

  Joe and I talked about a few possible options but I had a lot more to think about. He went to get something to eat and told me he’d be back in a while if I wanted to talk more.

  I didn’t know what to think. My insides were hollowed out and cold. Everything I’d believed about my father might be wrong. If I didn’t have my hate to hold on to, what did I have? Not a father, the fucking cocksucker who’d ruined my mother’s life and was working on ruining Raining Chaos.

  Carefully stacking the music next to the bed and putting the guitar back in its case, I grabbed my notebook and purse and went for a walk. I was in the middle of an almost empty parking lot but it gave me plenty of space to think.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chaos

  It had taken a lot longer to do the two interviews and the appearance at the statue than I thought. We couldn’t believe how many fuckin’ people fit into the park, and I don’t think I’d signed my name so many times ever. My hand started cramping and I had to stop or I’d play like shit tonight. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone but there were just too many people. Terrance, our security, had his hands full keeping the screaming women off us. It was a total trip.

  We had half an hour ‘til the sound check and I really wanted to take a fuckin’ nap or have a beer, but the no alcohol before the show rule worked well yesterday so we might as well keep it. I didn’t care if the guys bitched about it all the way back to the bus.

  Arguing about who signed more autographs we climbed into the bus. Joe was out cold in his seat with it reclined almost level. I turned to the guys and held my hand over my mouth so they’d quiet down but it was too late, Joe shot up like he’d been fired from a gun.

  “Hey, guys,” he said through a yawn. “How’d the interviews go?”

  “Great, and the signing too.”

  “We were fucking swarmed, man, you should have seen all those bitches,” Fury cut me off. “They were everywhere. I don’t know how they fit so many in one place. I think every chic in Philly came to see us.”

  I laughed, oh yeah exaggerate much?

  Wrath and Flame laughed too. “You’re out of your mind, bro. Been smoking the weed again?”

  Fury grimaced, “You know I’m not, but there were a lot there.”

  Joe laughed, “I bet there were. You guys still don’t realize how big Raining Chaos is, but you will before this tour’s over. I just hope you don’t change.”

  He looked genuinely concerned and I slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, Joe. We’re good. We’ve got this, been through too much to let this go to our heads now.”

  “I hope you’re right. You’d be surprised how it affects some people, even if they think it won’t.”

  He had a weird look on his face, like a bad memory. I wondered what he was thinking about but I didn’t think it was any of my business.

  I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and threw them to the guys. “Hey, Joe, where’s Cyn?”

  “She went out for a walk a while ago. She’ll probably be back soon.”

  “You let her go walking alone?”

  “I’m not her father.”

  There was that look again. Had something happened while we were gone?

  “Sorry, I know you’re not. I guess I just worry about her out there alone.”

  Wrath raised his eyebrow at me. “Dude, you’ve got it bad. What are you going to do about Sweets?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, Sweets isn’t going to be a problem. I talked to her last night.”

  “Are you sure? Is that why they didn’t come with us today?”

  “Nope, they didn’t because Rod said it was just for us. He doesn’t consider them part of ‘the band’.”

  “What kind of shit is that?”

  “No fuckin’ clue, but I didn’t find out until he’d already made the arrangements and it was too late to do anything to change it. I’m fuckin’ sick of all this shit. He’s showing his true colors now that we’re bringing in money and I think we need to do something about him. He’s a fucking dickwad and he’s pissing me off.”

  They all nodded. Thank God we agreed, although we usually did on most things. It sucked but we’d probably end up having to hire a lawyer to get out of this contract. Rod Dixon was a fucking boil on my ass and I needed him gone.

  The alarm went off on my phone telling me it was time for the sound check. I looked up and they were already getting ready.

  “We should have a few hours of downtime after this.”

  “Good. I thought we used to run around a lot before, but this is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Rage grumbled.

  “Get used to it, bro, this is only the fucking beginning.”

  He nodded, grabbed his good luck sticks and we followed him off the bus.

  Joe was sitting outside on a chair when we left. “Joe, could you do me a favor?”

  He squinted up at me in the afternoon sun. “Sure, Chaos, what’s up?”

  “If Cynda gets back before we do, will you text me?”

  “No problem.”

  “Do you have my number?”

  “Yeah, the bus company gave me all of them in case I needed to reach you.”

  “Great. Okay, we’ll see you in a while. I think we might go in search of cheesesteaks when we get back.”

  “I know some great places.”

  “Cool. You can tell us on the way,” I said and winked at him. I think I might have surprised him asking him to tag along, but he’d been with us for all east coast road trips for the last year, not the same as this but he was almost part of our family now. I didn’t want him to feel left out.

  It was strange having constant security with us now, but after the signing this afternoon, we’d seen how things could get fucked up fast. If Terrance hadn’t been there, we’d have been screwed, but no one was going to mess with a six foot five, three hundred pound ex-wrestler if they were smart. Stopping by the other bus, we grabbed Candy and Sweets. They hadn’t been happy to be left out of today’s shit but like I’d told the guys, it wasn’t my doing. I would make sure they were fuckin’ included from now on. I tried to get Sweets’s attention but she avoided looking at me. Fine, we’d play it her way. I didn’t care as long as she didn’t mess with Cynda. I guess it was past time to admit I had it bad for her. Where the hell could it go? We were going to be on tour for almost a year and I’d never see her. Maybe we just needed to fuck and get it out of our systems and move on.

  *****

  Terrance led the way into the building and backstage. Standing in the wings and seeing our equipment set up on stage, then looking out at the empty seats took my breath away. Fuck yeah. Last night was fan-fucking-tastic but tonight we were headlining. Sometimes I wished my parents knew how far we’d come, but it didn’t matter now. Jack and Sally were proud of us, they’d been thrilled at the gig the other night and the tears in their eyes got
me all choked up. They were amazing people.

  Wrath smacked me on the back as he walked on stage looking over his shoulder at me, and I flipped him the bird. He had balls sometimes but we’d been together the longest and were the closest. Fury and Flame had come within days of each other about six months after Wrath and me. Rage was the last one to come to the Sherman’s house, and he kept the most shit to himself. You’d think after all these years together he’d want to let it out, but not so far.

  I picked up Eleanor and grabbed a pic from the line taped to the mic stand, and then I checked to make sure everyone was in place. “Ready?”

  I put in the earbud and checked with Sean on sound and Pete our light man. Getting the all clear, I played a couple of warm up chords.

  “Count us in, Rage.”

  Holding his drumsticks above his head, he counted, “One, two, three…”

  The playlist was taped to the floor by the mic stand. It was the entire first album and a few covers. I really wanted to sing some of our new songs, but it was in the contract we couldn’t without Symmetry’s approval first. Fuckin’ contracts.

  Playing the first notes of “Hell On Wheels”, I emptied my mind and focused on the music. We played through about five of our songs and stopped a few times for sound or lighting adjustments but it went well. The acoustics in the arena were nothing compared to what they’d be later when it was full. Almost twenty thousand fans again. It was sold out, and so was tomorrow’s show. Hell yeah.

  We ran through “Step Into My Nightmare” a second time because it sounded off to me, but then I was satisfied. “We good?”

  Lots of nods all around, only Sweets didn’t respond. Rolling my eyes I wondered how long she was going to keep this fuckin’ shit up. I guess I should have listened to Wrath when he first mentioned her crush on me, but I didn’t believe it…now we were all going to pay for it.

  By the time we were done with the sound check, we had about three hours until the show. I saw a cheesesteak and soda in my future, I needed the carbs. Then it’d be back to the bus and chilling for a bit. Tomorrow we’d only have the show so we could do some sightseeing if we wanted. I wondered if Cynda would want to tour Philly with me.

  That reminded me, I didn’t feel my phone vibrate. Either she was still wherever or Joe had forgotten, but I was betting on the first. Where the fuck had she gone and why? She’d been fine when we left to go on the interviews. Shit, maybe Sweets had something to do with it.

  Slowing down, I let the guys pass so I could talk to her. Wrath raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged. He shook his head and I knew he figured I was poking the bear when I didn’t need to, but I needed to find out if she’d done anything else.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “What did you guys do today?”

  She didn’t even look at me when she answered, “Nothing. Just hung out in the bus.”

  “You didn’t go anywhere? Do anything?”

  “No, we didn’t but would it matter if we did. You had your freakin’ thing and we weren’t included.”

  “I told you it was Rod who’d fuckin’ arranged it. It won’t happen again, I can fucking promise you that.”

  “Oh yeah, and your promises are good?”

  “What the fuck does that mean? I’ve never broken a promise to you.”

  “Friends forever? Remember one?”

  “Yeah, and we’re still friends.”

  “You think it can be the same now? After yesterday?”

  “Sweets, nothing’s changed, I have always felt the same. I’m sorry you have a crush on me, I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “Fuck you too,” she snarled and stopped walking. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  “What did I ever do other than try to take care of all of us?”

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing, except fuck a bitch on your bus. You going to tell her she’s just like a sister to you too?”

  “What Cynda and I do is none of your fucking business. If you hadn’t started with her yesterday, none of this would’ve happened. I’ve known you since you were twelve, we grew up together, it’s totally different, you are like my sister. Why is it so hard for you to see that?”

  “Bullshit. You go ahead and tell yourself whatever you want, but you’re gonna realize you made a huge mistake.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  She looked up at me and gave me a big smile, but it gave me the creeps. She was up to something.

  “Not me, I’m Sweets remember. My sister and I are just your dumb backup singers, we don’t count for shit.”

  “Stop, just fuckin’ stop it. That’s not true and you know it.” Fuck, I was yelling and we were in the middle of the parking lot. Everyone ahead of us stopped and was watched the entertainment. How was I going to fix this, was it even fixable?

  “Whatever. Just leave me alone, okay?”

  She ran to catch up to her sister. Candy turned and gave me a nasty look. Fuck. What a friggin’ mess.

  I lagged behind the rest of them. I didn’t really want to hear any fucking crap. I’d figure out a way to fix this, it’s what I did best. I was a fucking fixer, that’s how I’d come up with the idea for the band. I’d had to come up with some way to keep us all together and out of fucking trouble. We’d all been really rough in the beginning, and forming Raining Chaos had changed everything. Hopefully this thing with Sweets wasn’t going to ruin it.

  Success definitely came with a price. We all had a lot of pressure we’d never expected, not that one of us would give it up for a minute. It just made everything more complicated, and living on the buses wasn’t going to help.

  Hearing Cynda’s voice, I looked ahead. Thank God she was back. She was talking to Joe and turned with a smile on her face to say hi. She must have seen Sweets because I watched her smile fade but neither of them said anything. Sweets and Candy continued walking to their bus.

  “Hey, Cyn, everything okay?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I don’t know, I figured you’d be here when we got back.”

  “I went for a walk, it felt good to get off the bus and be in the sunshine.”

  I nodded, what could I say without sounding like a fucking asshole. Oh, I was worried about you. I thought you’d be waiting. Yeah right, that would have been fucking brilliant.

  “We’re going for cheesesteaks for dinner, wanna come?”

  “You mean THE famous Philly Cheesesteaks?”

  “Uh huh, Joe says he knows the best place.”

  “Oh hell yeah. Count me in. When are we going?”

  “As soon as everyone gets ready.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cynda

  Sweets stared daggers at me as she walked by, but at least she didn’t say anything. I wondered how the sound check had gone, especially since there was a ton of tension in the air. Candy didn’t look too happy to see me either, at least the guys smiled. Joe told me they’d been looking for me, actually Chaos had, but he’d just told them I went for a walk. Joe and I were in deep now, we knew each other’s secrets and we had a common problem—Rod Dixon.

  While I was out, I’d called Michelle and gotten the scoop on her night with Flame. Holy shit it was TMI. I was having trouble making eye contact with Flame now that I knew everything, and according to Michelle, he was hung like a horse. She said she was even walking funny. I couldn’t believe she’d slept with him. All the time I’ve known her she’d never had sex on the first date, if you could even call it that. She said it was different. I hoped she was right, I didn’t know much about Flame and I didn’t know how to ask Chaos what type of a guy he was. He just better not hurt her or I’d kick his ass. I’d laughed when I said it to Michelle. It was the standard girlfriend saying anytime we started dating a new guy. I’d bet every woman in the world said it to her BFF at least once.

  I’d also told her about Joe and the cocksucker Dixon. I didn’t think it was possible but I think she was more pissed off t
han I was. She was going to try to find a lawyer who could look in to the band’s contract. Then she’d asked about the sperm donor. Did I want to try to contact him? Did I? After all of this time, if he hadn’t been paying the monthly checks, he probably didn’t even remember mom. Just thinking about meeting him freaked me out. He’d probably just think I was after his money. I didn’t need anything from him though. Mom worked hard and put all the money away we had gotten from him, so I had a huge bank account. I’d never touched it, I’d taken out student loans for school rather than use his money, but maybe I needed to rethink it now.

  Michelle hadn’t wasted any time asking for details about me and Chaos either, but there wasn’t anything to tell. She didn’t believe me but it was the truth, although from the way we reacted toward each other I wondered how long I’d be able to keep saying that. Did I want to give in and sleep with him? He was so not the commitment type so I’d be a fling for as long as I was around. Could I live with that? I wasn’t so sure.

  When it was my turn in the bathroom, I fixed my make-up and brushed my hair. I wondered if we’d be able to eat without being swarmed by fans.

  Coming out of the bathroom I just missed smacking into Chaos as he walked toward the front of the bus.

  “You ready?”

  “Yeah, I am but I was thinking, are you sure you want to eat in public? You’re famous you know, there’ll be fans bugging you wherever you go.”

  He thought about it for maybe half a second and shook his head. “We’ll be okay. Terrance will be with us. You should have seen it at the signing. Holy fuck it was packed and we got through that okay.”

  “Yeah but you weren’t trying to eat.”

  “It shouldn’t be too bad.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Hey, guys, Cynda’s worried about us being mobbed. What do you think?”

  “If they want to mob us let them try, they’ll never get past Terrance. He’s like a fuckin’ mountain,” Fury said and the other guys agreed.

  The limo was waiting outside and I was surprised to see Candy and Sweets getting in. Hopefully we wouldn’t have a scene in public. I didn’t want to be the cause of any bad publicity for them.