“He has been a bit of a fuck-up lately, personally I blame the drugs. If he wants to hand us a number one and yet another Billboard award then let him dig his own grave.”
She raised one of her expertly shaped eyebrows. “I’ll meet you at the after party then. Until then, watch yourself.”
Kaz knew an expertly veiled threat when he heard one and kissed her on the neck. “Don’t worry about it, I will.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Agony & The Ecstasy: Touring 101
After the Tacoma concert, the party and then back on the bus, the days and nights started to run together for me. It was always a new city and a new venue but I eventually got used to it. The hotels were always opulent and both bands kept getting better and better.
Despite the rumor Seth was doing more drugs than ever, he never acted high or out of it while Winter’s Regret performed. In fact, he seemed to be in competition with Kaz and went out of his way to make their performances just as memorable as Scarlet Fever.
Several shows stuck out in my mind as we weaved our way across country.
The Allstate Arena concert in Chicago proved to leave its mark because that was the night Keren “the skank” Hughes decided to wear a tight red tube top and black leather pants. Her tramp stamp was firmly on display but I ignored it until I took a good look at it. It was Scarlet Fever’s original logo with Kaz tattooed in gothic letters underneath.
I blew a gasket and the two of us almost came to blows over the incident with Kaz and Talia holding me back away from the bitch while Jaden and Will tried to hold off Keren. From then on out, I made it my business to stay away from the cunt because I could have killed her for still having my boyfriend’s name tattooed above her ass.
Another memorable concert was the concert that took place at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The show had been unreal and Texans turned out to be some hard-core rockers indeed. It was obvious they loved rock and roll as much as they loved their country music, the Bible and guns.
However, Seth was pissed off after the show because Talia apparently had too much on stage chemistry with Kaz. He accused her of trying to fuck him too and they had to be separated by band members. Talia screamed they were over and marched out of the stadium without a backwards glance.
It took a while but Kaz spoke to her and an uneasy truce was formed but it was decided there and then that after this tour, she would no longer be a part of Winter’s Regret. She unofficially joined the Scarlet Fever family and although she continued her duties pursuant to her contract, Introspect attorneys became involved. There was a lot of legal rambling and a clause that her split could not be announced until the tour season was over.
Though nothing was concrete as of yet, she rode on the girls’ tour bus with Sasha, Laurel, Damira, Misty and Keren. Sometimes Faith and I joined them but it wasn’t too often because we both preferred our boyfriends’ company and being stuck in a bus with skanky Keren was the least pleasurable activity I could think of ever doing.
The next concert that stuck out in my mind was the event at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The bands did their thing and it was there for the first time, after the show, Faith and I made up. I missed her like hell and it turned out she missed me too. I loved that girl to death and she was my best friend. I couldn’t ever imagine a man coming between the two of us and we called a truce.
Afterwards, we got too drunk and ended up passed out next to one another in the girls’ tour bus on our way to our next venue. Much to my chagrin, Damira captured it all in her documentary.
When we finally reached Atlantic City and the concert venue, which was held at the Golden Nugget, I started to witness a light at the end of a tunnel that had been black for too long. Although not the best performance from either Winter’s Regret or Scarlet Fever, it was decent and by the end of the show, I made small talk with Keren outside on the casino floor as we both smoked cigarettes.
“Listen, I know things haven’t been…peachy between us but I wanted to let you know I am not trying to poach on your territory. Misty is my best friend and I am simply here for her. I’d be a liar if I didn’t think I was gonna be able to get into Kaz’s pants for old time’s sake but it’s obvious he loves you…even if he hasn’t told you. Believe me, you aren’t the first frustrated girlfriend that had to go through the push-pull with that man…I was, unfortunately.” She dragged off the last of her cigarette and put it out in the nearest ashtray.
“I keep thinking it’s me and he doesn’t want to tell me anything about his past. It’s beyond frustrating and I don’t know what to do. Frankly, I’m almost at the end of my rope and I feel like any moment, I will snap in two.”
“Don’t let him see you sweat. So far, you’re doing a great job of keeping him on his toes. You aren’t the jealous type—not like me—and you have a solid head on your shoulders. Believe me he will come around but you have to give him time. Nothing in Kaz’s world works fast, believe me. He is on his own time clock when it comes to relationships and when he’s ready, he’ll tell you what he wants you to know but those deep dark secrets he hides from everyone, don’t push because you will get the horns. It’s not pretty. He truly does represent the average Taurus.”
“I don’t believe in all that horoscope crap otherwise I wouldn’t be with him. I’m a Gemini and according to our astrological profiles, we’re an awful match.” I dragged on my cigarette and ground it out in a nearby ashtray.
“Are you calling me frivolous because I do believe in the astrological shit as you call it?” Keren’s eyebrows arched upwards. “I also do tarot cards and can do a spread for you when you do start to believe. I did my own reading when we were together and Kaz’s. I told him he wouldn’t meet his soul mate until he was twenty-seven and look what happened…here you are.”
I rolled my eyes. “I highly doubt we’re soul mates—”
“That’s what he said when I said you would be blonde with blue eyes. He called me certifiable after that because he has never liked blondes. He likes his women brunette, redheads, black-haired or exotic and mysterious. He also likes his women just plain dark. He is far from discriminating. He’s always stayed away from blondes, even with groupies…his mother was blonde and he never wanted a woman who looked anything like her.”
“Well, I suppose should feel grateful he was attracted to me at all.”
Keren shrugged her shoulders. “People can’t explain human emotions. Situations happen and he feels deeply for you…more than any woman he’s ever had in his life. He’s going to test you, of course. He expects you to disappoint him. I am just letting you know what to expect.”
Her words echoed in my mind as I found myself in bed with Kaz that night on the tour bus. We both sat up on the bed with very few pieces of clothing separating our bodies. Neither of us wanted to watch a movie; instead, he’d found some really good chronic and we shared a joint as we sipped from a crystal glass filled with a decent amount of Macallan 30.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to smoke on the bus?” I inquired as I stretched lazily before I dragged on the joint, held the potent smoke in my lungs and exhaled slowly.
“Well, it’s not like we can smoke this at a rest stop.” He took the joint from me and dragged on it. “Besides, this is short journey. We’ll be in Manhattan in less than an hour.”
That was the next stop but unlike all the other concert venues, Scarlet Fever and Winter’s Regret had two nights at Madison Square Garden. Then, there was Fenway Park in Boston before we left the States and began the European leg of the tour.
I sat up and sipped from the scotch as I pushed several strands of my hair out of my face. “Two nights in a row. That is a lot of work, Kaz, and you guys have been going non-stop for almost eleven weeks. I don’t know how you guys have done it. This has been a very…tiresome tour. Who ever said this would be a walk in the park has never actually been on tour with a band. I’m exhausted.”
He stared at me for a long time before he inqu
ired, “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
I looked back at his pinched face, which tried to hide the quiet panic that had already begun to spread through his body.
“I just came off my period a couple weeks ago. No, I am not preggers because I don’t skip pills. I take my birth control the same time every day,” I responded in a defensive voice. “I may be young but I’m not some mindless twit who is trying to trap you in a relationship you don’t want. We might not even be together after this tour so why would I do that? My worst nightmare is to end up just like my mother…alone with a kid the father doesn’t want to claim.”
Kaz dragged from the joint before he put it out in a crystal ashtray and set it on a wood counter before he took the scotch from me and swigged from it. “I would never do that to you, Syd. I couldn’t leave you to raise my child alone. I love Xander more than anything…I would love our child too and I would want to be in his or her life. I can’t promise you marriage but we would still be together.”
His hands roamed my shoulders before one hand dropped down to my right breast and squeezed. “I only meant we have been extremely sexual and I can’t get enough of you. If you need me to slow down, you can refuse me you know. You’re not my sex slave and you don’t always have to accommodate me every time I attack you.”
I smiled before I questioned, “I wouldn’t allow you to have me if I didn’t want it when you ‘attack’ me as you put it. I do have a brain and if I was too sore, I wouldn’t let you touch me. I get my five day breaks when I am on my menstrual cycle so I don’t feel like your personal sex slave, you feelin’ me—”
“—except that time I couldn’t stop myself and fucked you in the shower. You were in the middle of your period. What city was that?”
“Mmm, after the concert at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. I only remember because I really thought that was a kick-ass concert and you had me so hot and bothered, I didn’t care if you took me—period or no period. It was a very memorable night.” I turned toward him and kissed his lips softly before my fingers traced the contours of his mouth.
“Oh no, you are not getting away with it that easily!” he exclaimed before he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer into his embrace.
“You’re going to spill the scotch!”
“Here, finish it, so I can properly devour you.”
I grabbed the glass and finished the rest of the scotch before I set it next to the ashtray.
Kaz turned me toward him and laid down on the bed. I fell on top of him as we stared at one another for a long time. His eyes were gorgeous pools of aquamarine and I traced my fingers against his jaw.
It was then when I saw it for the first time and I wondered why I never noticed before. He’d buried it deep enough but I could see the love he felt for me. He didn’t have to say the words although they would have been nice to hear.
Then I thought about it and what would I have preferred? A man who declared his love every five minutes though it was simply an empty phrase to placate his partner or Kaz, who never said it but his eyes told me he really gave a shit about me. I wasn’t just some skank he fucked night after night. I meant something to him and he was as scared of his feelings as I was.
“I have to say this and don’t hate me,” I began softly as my forefinger and middle finger covered his mouth. “I’m falling in love with you. I wish it wasn’t the case but when you aren’t around, I want you to be. And when you are here, I wonder how much time we have before you dispatch me because…I don’t want to live my life without you. I’m no poet and I can’t do what Talia does with words on paper but you mean the world to me and…it’s going to be really hard when we finally part.”
Kaz stared into my eyes. His eyes were watery with unshed tears. “It’s going to get tough, Syd. Love isn’t all hearts and flowers; chocolate and sweetness. Love hurts and it’s often mean and angry. It can bite and bleed and…when I love, it’s intense because I don’t know how to do anything except in the extreme. You don’t want me to say I love you because when I do, you can’t leave and I won’t ever let you.”
I kissed his mouth passionately and welcomed his tongue inside my mouth as he devoured me whole. His right hand held the back of my neck but he slackened the pressure and allowed us to separate.
“Don’t tell me what I want. If you tell me you love me and it means I can’t leave then I won’t and you will have to leave me. Is that so bad?”
“Yes, it is because I don’t want to leave you. I would prove myself to be another rich asshole who let you down and that would hurt me more than anything else I could do to you. Trust me, when you’re ready, I’ll know and I will tell you I love you.” He breathed softly against my cheek. “But not a moment sooner.”
It was moments like this Kaz could annoy the fuck out of me yet I breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. “I can wait.”
There was comfortable silence between us; neither one of us said anything until the driver, Clyde, announced, “Mr. Gillian, we’re about five minutes from the hotel.”
“Thanks, man.” He turned toward me again. “Are you sure everything is okay? I have seen you speaking to Faith and Keren—miraculously, there wasn’t any hair pulling or other craziness involved. So what’s going?”
I smiled and his arms squeezed my waist just a bit tighter. “Well, Faith and I missed one another badly and I love that woman to death. We attended the same boarding schools and have known each other forever. It just seemed so petty we would allow a small issue like who we’re having sex with to destroy a relationship that has lasted almost our whole lifetime.”
His mouth traced my right ear before he said, “And Keren? Why are you trying to make nice with her?”
“I respect her, Kaz.” This time I made it my business to face him and look him dead in his gorgeous blue-green eyes. “She’s part of a different MC yet she followed her best friend out here on tour because she’s preggers by someone her MC’s going to disapprove of. I have respect for her unwavering sisterhood and Misty wanting to keep her baby—fuck the consequences. Does it mean I know what she faces when she gets back? No, I don’t because I am a wealthy brat with a trust fund and don’t know shit about motorcycle gangs—”
“Technically, they are called clubs but they aren’t truly that different from the Bloods and the Crips. They are gangs who profiteer off illegal activities and murder with impunity…why they think they’re so much better than the blacks and Hispanics I can only attribute to racism and bigotry since most of them don’t even bother to finish high school.
“The lifestyle tends to attract the worst and most downtrodden trash in society and Jaden is due back on his thirtieth birthday. To be honest, I know why he does drugs and I can’t fault him too much because he doesn’t want to go back to that life. Not after this…would you?”
My hands reached out to touch Kaz’s jaw, slightly prickly from a five o’clock shadow. “You know Faith could never be an old lady…she despises white trash and motorcycle gangs are the equivalent of a running Jerry Springer show gag. She can’t do it…what does he plan to do with her?”
Kaz shook his head. “I honestly don’t know because…I am a former trust fund kid who attended boarding schools and know just as much about motorcycle gangs as you do. When Jaden and I became friends, I had no idea old Man Cox had him lined up for future president of Lucifer’s Saints. I just assumed it would be his older brother, Cillian, but he is called Killer for a reason. His temper wouldn’t allow him to preside over an MC—he’d run it into the ground.”
The bus slowly stopped and we looked at one another. We’d both made it to New York City and weren’t tearing out one another’s hair yet. This was a very good development because it meant we would be okay.
Chapter Fifteen
Tonight I’m Lovin’ You
Kaz couldn’t wait until he led Syd to the Hudson River Suite at Ink48. Unlike the rest of the band who were staying at the Trump Soho New York, Kaz had an extreme dislike for the w
annabe mogul. Ironically, he knew that was his classist upbringing that would show its ugly face every now and then in thoughts, words he said and actions he did without thought.
You could take the man out of the wealthy, high society he’d grown up around but you couldn’t take the wealthy, high society attitude out of the man.
He also wanted that night to be special because he and Syd had made it this far. He had to give props to a woman he thought would fall apart after what she witnessed in Houston, definitely flee after Washington, D.C. but she stayed and her faith in him never wavered.
If life was made of love, faith, lust and dreams then they had conquered three of the four.
They’d lusted after one another like no one’s business; two adults acting like adolescents who had discovered the joy of sex. There wasn’t an end to how much they could make love to one another and every time, it was exciting and beyond the vivid images that filled their extremely wild imaginations.
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