Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  “Why would I be glad of that, Octavia? You seemed to have a decent working relationship with the boys. And I feel bad for you, I do. It's obvious you have a lot of passion for your job.”

  “This is all I've ever wanted to do, work in this industry,” she says, her voice strained, almost sad. She finishes off her drink and grabs the pitcher to pour some more.

  “You can't have imagined that kicking me off the tour with a lie and insulting me straight to my face would go over well, could you?”

  “You've been in love before, haven't you?” she asks, but that question's getting harder and harder to answer. Now that I've spent all this time with Beauty in Lies, I don't think that I actually loved Kevin at all. I think I got comfortable with him, got lazy, became complacent. I don't know if I'd say I was in love with all the boys yet, but … I can see myself getting there. I can feel myself getting there. And quick.

  It's a little scary, I won't lie.

  What would you think, Dad? I wonder, the pain of his passing still fresh in my heart. The boys, this tour, those are my bandages, wrapped tight around the bloody mess of my soul, keeping me together. And their pain does make for a pretty brilliant distraction. But I haven't forgotten my daddy, my brave beautiful father who volunteered as a firefighter, who fixed his neighbors' cars for free when they couldn't afford to pay for labor. I miss his deep voice, his unfettered laugh, his big hands holding mine on the way to the pink and yellow building that housed my elementary school.

  I decide that as unconventional as my situation is with the guys, that dad would be happy for me as long as I was happy. It's all he ever really wanted for me.

  “I have,” I reply carefully, because … it feels like a lie to say anything else.

  “Then you know what it does to you. It makes you do stupid things. Even if it's not real. Just that false promise is enough to make a person feel desperate.” Octavia puts her beer down and rubs her eyes, pausing for a moment to press a button on her headset. “I'll be back in a moment. Give him a VIP pass and a free t-shirt.”

  She lets go of the headset and opens her pale brown eyes to look at me.

  I think of Ransom and Paxton, how shitty their situation ended up because of love, romance, attraction. Whatever it was that happened between them and Chloe, them and Kortney.

  “Some asshole tripped on a cord and is threatening to sue the bands and the venue. Clearly he has no case, but sometimes it's best to put fires out when they're still just sparks.”

  I smile, taking a long drink and letting the slight buzz of alcohol warm me up between sets. Tipped by Tyrants is leaving the stage to raucous applause; Rivers of Concrete will be up next.

  “Anyway,” Octavia continues, closing her eyes again, taking several deep breaths. “I'm sorry for what I said to you. And frankly,” she opens her eyes to look at me, “I'm a little surprised by your reaction. I'm not sure I know anyone else that would've reacted the way you did. So, thank you.”

  She stands up and then reaches into her pocket, putting a twenty on the table.

  “For the drinks,” she say, but I'm already trying to hand it back to her. “No, please, just take it. I'm sure the boys paid for this, but it doesn't matter. Give it to Muse or whoever's card is on your tab.”

  My smile gets a little wider. It is, in fact, Muse's credit card that's on file with the bar.

  “Octavia,” I say as she starts to walk away, pausing for a second to glance back at me. “I forgive you. Just … next time, try to remember that women need to stick together, okay? We should be helping each other up, not pushing each other down.”

  She smiles, a little tightly, but at least the expression's there.

  “I should get backstage before Paxton or Michael find something else to make a lawsuit out of.” She lifts her hand in farewell and disappears through the crowd, leaving me to order another pitcher of lager and enjoy the concert, one lone girl in the middle of thousands.

  I smooth my hands down the front of my short red dress, yet another one of Muse's picks from the Chicago mall, and clap with the audience to welcome Rivers of Concrete to the stage.

  Their set is the perfect transition between Tipped by Tyrants' angry music and Beauty in Lies' heartfelt rock. I find myself singing along to songs I wasn't even aware that I knew. And as soon as the last note of their last long plays, I feel it. The crowd's love for my boys is palpable.

  That's when I stand up, finish off my drink and dig my way into their midst.

  Confetti cannons fire from either side of the stage and even from all the way back here, I'm showered in tiny pink and red hearts. The animated short plays on the white curtain, lifting up to reveal my boys dressed in their concert best.

  They open to a horde of admirers with arguably one of the best lines out of all their songs.

  “We fight and we cry and we fuck and we bleed, but it's when we give our hearts away that we find what we need.”

  There's nothing sexier than five sweaty rockstars piling onto one bus, their scents mixing into this toxic confection that heats my entire body from head to toe. Violets, pomegranates, new denim, smoky incense, and the sharpness of expensive cologne. Plus, I know old sweat is gross, but fresh sweat … there are literal pheromones in it that supposedly excite the human libido.

  It seems to be working on mine.

  “That crowd was electric,” I tell the boys, smoothing my hands down the front of the pencil skirt portion of my dress. The top is a built-in corset with real boning, and the fabric is as rich and red as the apple Muse picks up from a small bowl on the counter. “Do you guys feel that when you're up onstage?”

  “It's impossible to miss,” Cope says with a soft smile, looking at me with his tropical blue eyes, his expression laced with … affection. My heart pitter-patters and I feel myself wetting my lips, anticipating one of those perfect kisses of his. It's interesting how each one of the guys kisses in a completely different way. If they were to blindfold me again and kiss me one by one, I'd have no problem telling them apart. “When someone—when a lot of people—connect with your art, there's this …” Cope twists the fabric of his red tank in his long fingers and lets his smile soften slightly. “I don't know, undeniable response from deep down, this satisfaction of being understood by other human beings. It's almost indescribable.”

  “If you ever actually showed us any of your art, then maybe you'd feel it, too?” Paxton says, his accent sweeping against my ear along with the warmth of his breath, making me shiver. I turn and watch him shrugging out of his red suit jacket. Yes, red today. I wonder if he was trying to match me or if he just felt bold as fuck after his night with Ransom.

  I purse my lips a little and then let out a long breath.

  “Are we going out tonight?” I ask, feeling slightly disappointed that we slept through most of our day here. If I'd managed to pry myself out from between Ran's and Pax's naked bodies, I'd have dragged the boys to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. They have dinosaurs there—dinosaurs. I'm a big sucker for fossils of any kind. I don't know why, something about seeing a piece of frozen history just fascinates me.

  “Can't,” Muse says, biting into his apple, his face an entirely different canvas without his glasses on. Personally, I think I actually prefer them to his contacts, although he's beautiful either way. “The buses leave at midnight for Philly.”

  “Okay then,” I say as I take another deep breath, tucking some loose hair behind my ear as I catch Michael's gaze. “If you don't mind me using your laptop again, I … guess I can show you some of my work.”

  “You can have the laptop if you want it,” he tells me and I feel my lips part in surprise. His computer is nice, a lot nicer even than the one Kevin took from me when we broke up. I play with the charm bracelet on my wrist and try not to touch the necklaces at my throat. I seem to do that a lot when I'm looking at Michael, and it makes me blush every time. “For your art.”

  “Hey,” Ran says, coming up behind me, sliding his arms around me and
breathing me in. I do the same to him, loving the flirty scent of his mother's perfume, the animalistic allure of his sweat. My sex gets wet just standing in the circle of his arms like this, my body a candlewick and each one of these boys a flame. It doesn't take much to ignite me these days. “Since we're getting into Philadelphia so early, do you want to find an art store or something and pick up some supplies?”

  My heart skitters and jumps at the idea of creating something new again. Other than a few random sketches, I haven't committed any time to my art since I left Kevin.

  “Your paintings, Lily, they make this empty heart of mine feel full. I see Davina in every line you make, every color you choose. You're your mother's daughter, that's for sure.”

  Dad's words hit me like a brick, and I have to blink past a sudden rush of tears.

  “Are you okay, gorgeous?” Ransom asks me, reaching up a thumb to brush a single droplet away from my eye. His fingertip comes away smudged with a bit of silver eyeshadow and some black liner.

  “I'm sorry. I just … I'm thinking of my dad again.”

  “You don't have to be sorry, darling,” he says, his voice the color of sensuality, this indescribable shade of lust and romance, like layers of chocolate silk sheets and glasses of expensive wine in sweaty, sex scented hands. “Grief doesn't have an expiration date; love doesn't have a prerequisite.”

  “Are you saying you're in love with me?” I joke, but Ransom doesn't answer and the entire room just gets … I don't know, charged. “Hand me the laptop and I'll show you what I can do,” I say, trying to get my voice above a whisper as I glance back and meet Ransom's eyes, watching him push his hood off his head as he studies me.

  Personally, I'm waiting for him and Pax to … I don't know, sneak off to the Bat Cave or something, but all they do is gather around me when I sit on the couch and pop the lid to Michael's computer.

  I log into the cloud drive and then stare at the sea of folders.

  “I want to see Sex and Sensuality,” Muse says, making my cheeks color slightly.

  “Of course you do,” Copeland says and the two of them make tight stupid smiles at each other.

  “I told you, I wasn't really in touch with my—”

  “Hogwash,” Pax snorts, clicking the folder by reaching over my shoulder to steal the keypad. “Excuses, excuses.”

  The folder opens and a flood of digital paintings emerges, most of them unrecognizable colors and splotches, feelings that I didn't know how to express trying to escape the best way they knew how at the time.

  “I like that one,” Ran says quietly, pointing at a long narrow canvas, its dimensions making it look like a bookmark from afar. I double click it, my heart thundering, my skin warm with a hot flush of embarrassment. I never really showed my art to anyone before—just my mom, my dad, and my sister. The only pieces Kevin ever really saw were the physical ones I hung on the wall of our apartment. He didn't have much interest in any of it.

  “Orgasm,” Michael reads from the filename. “Is that what your orgasms used to look like?”

  The canvas is dark, a shadowy grey with speckles of silver and the smallest splatter of white in one corner. Studying it now, as abstract as it is, it's a little sad to look at.

  “I don't think I'd actually had a real one until I climbed on this bus,” I say and there's a sort of collective silence around me that makes my blush ten times worse. “If I were to paint it again now, it wouldn't look like that.”

  “Would it look like the sun peeking through the clouds?” Ransom asks and I glance back to see Michael making a face behind him.

  “What the hell does that mean?” he says as I bite my lip and glance away suddenly, scrolling through the digital art, and then moving over to the folders that hold photographs of my real stuff, those big soaring canvases I covered in gobs of thick oil or acrylic or watercolor. They're all gone now, but at least there's proof that they once existed.

  “I can't take anything like this on a plane, but if we could stop somewhere and pick up a digital drawing tablet, maybe a sketchbook and some pencils, that would be … fuck, that would be nice.” I pause for a moment because it hits me again how poor I actually am. They'll have to pay for everything—including the very expensive computer programs that I'll need to do my work. I can't ask for that …

  “Don't hold back,” Muse says, giving my shoulder a squeeze as he stands up and slips off the denim hoodie he was wearing, the one covered in pins and patches. “If you need something, you have to ask. You promised, remember?”

  “I promised not to put my art on the back burner to take care of you,” I say with a smile fighting to bloom its way across my cherry glossed lips.

  “What kind of idiot wanker made you promise that?” Paxton asks, sliding into Muse's place next to me.

  “So what else do you need?” he asks as he stands in front of me with his hands on his hips, his pants sagging low, flashing enough flat perfect skin that I've got a pretty good idea that he's not actually wearing any underwear today. “I'll get it for you.”

  “I've got it this time,” Ransom says, smiling one of those sad, dripping smiles of his. They're so tragically beautiful that they make my heart ache inside my chest. “I want to do this, get the art supplies.”

  “Okay, Ran,” he says, still smiling, that crack still visible down the center of his face. Damn it, but I have no idea how to crawl in there. I'm starting to think that I'll have to wait for an explicit invitation, something I'm not sure he's ready to give. “Since, you know, I got to buy those amazing crotchless panties that we all seemed to like so much.”

  “I'll need to download some programs,” I say, trying to distract the guys from the subject of crotchless underwear—not an easy task, I'll tell you that. “Adobe Photoshop, most importantly. But a handful of other things, too. If I have that, a good mouse, a digital pad, and a few physical art supplies, I can do my work anywhere.”

  “Then that's exactly what I want you to do,” Muse says, pointing at me and wiggling his black painted fingernail in my direction. “I want you to fucking just … create. Make shit. Whatever you need. Consider us patrons of the arts. We'll give you grants to continue your work.”

  “Even if I do happen to make anything worth looking at, I don't know what to do with it.”

  “You find your niche and then you blow it wide open,” Pax says, leaning back into the couch and looking up at the ceiling of the bus like he's thinking back on something important. It's got to be about Beauty in Lies, about starting the band, seeking out men with as much or more pain than he had. I bet it would've been exciting, to be around them at the beginning, watch them rise from virtual obscurity into serious up-and-comers in the rock world. “Tenacity and drive, that's what's most important.” His mouth quirks into a sideways smile. “Just pretend you're Mikey with a serious vendetta and latch on tight.”

  Michael sighs, and I smile.

  “Why does it bother you so much when he calls you Mikey?” I ask, leaning into Ransom's warmth and letting the thick folds of his hoodie envelop me.

  “It's what my parents used to call me,” Michael says with another sigh. “It was their name for me, not his or Tim's or Vanessa's.”

  “And yet I've been calling you Mikey for years, imagine that,” Paxton says, looking smug as hell.

  “Mikey is a cute nickname,” I say, leaning my head back so I can look at him when I talk. “And you are the only person here without one.” I start listing them off. “Ran, Pax, Cope, Lil, Muse.”

  “Jesus,” Michael breathes, looking down at me, “you're too goddamn beautiful. I don't want to say no.”

  “Is it cuter when I say Mikey than when Pax says it?” I ask as Michael reaches down and lifts my chin with his fingers, burning my lips up with a scorching kiss, one that makes my toes curl against the bottoms of the black high-heeled booties I'm wearing.

  “Maybe not for Ransom,” he says, and for a second there, I'm afraid the joke will push the two fragile men on either side of me
too far. But it doesn't. Ransom chuckles and when I glance back to look at Pax, I see him sitting there with his eyes still closed, smiling.

  “Do you think you guys are going to seriously pursue a romantic relationship?” Muse asks, still working on his apple, surveying everyone in the room, gauging their moods. He's almost too good at it. He seems to have zero problem being a background character, putting the other guys' needs above his own. I can't let him keep doing that.

  “I have no idea,” Ransom says I look up at his face, his eyes flicking in Pax's direction. “But I don't feel like I need to have an answer to that yet. We're both with Lilith, so what does it matter?”

  “Are you going to pursue a more sexual relationship?” Muse continues and Paxton snorts.

  “Are you asking us if we're going to fuck each other? Christ, Derek, don't you have any propriety whatsoever?”

  “Not a lot, no,” Muse says, sitting back down in the swivel chair across from Ransom.

  “Are you interested because you want in on it?” Pax jokes, but Muse doesn't answer, just sits there and takes another bite of his apple, juice shining on his lower lip.

  “I think it's time for a subject change,” I say, closing the lid on the computer and taking a deep breath. “Let's do something together, all six of us.”

  “You mean like get naked?” Cope asks, smiling at me, his red hair still sweaty and tousled from the show, sticking to his forehead.

  “I mean something other than sex,” I correct as I curl my fingers around the laptop and feel my heart start to beat like one of Cope's drums. Right now, I don't have to worry about selling my car, finding a place to live, seeing if I can grab a minimum wage job that I'll hate just to make ends meet. No, I get to sit here and think about all the art I want to create, the world I get to see, the boys I get to fall in love with.

  I don't think about how close we are to New York. I don't want to. Did Cinderella think about the chores she'd have to do after the ball? The lonely years of living in a house with family that wasn't family? No. She danced with the prince and enjoyed the ball; she lived in the moment.