Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin

by Mariana Zapata

  I rolled my eyes. "I just said ‘so much.’ A lot. Too much." I hummed in my throat. "Why?"

  "Because if you don't love me very much, I have a lot more work to do until you do," he stated.

  That was suspicious. "Why?"

  "Because I don't think I'm going to like being away from you when the tour is over." He tugged on my earlobe, wrapping his arm around my waist to hoist me on top of him. He was hard already, pressing against the thin material of his boxer briefs.

  "I don't think I'm going to either," I admitted to him, trying not to rock over his thick erection but failing miserably. "You don't have to tour again for at least a few months after this, right?"

  He nodded against me. His fingers slipped underneath the hem of my shirt. "No. We're just writing until we're ready for the next album. This is the last tour for the cycle."

  "We'll figure it out," I promised, letting him peel off my shirt. His thumbs brushed over my nipples slowly. Looking away from the movement of his fingers, I smiled, taking in that handsome face. "We have to."

  * * *

  "Twelve men?" The van driver, who was also our translator, confirmed with Julian our group number before relaying the information to the receptionist working at the front desk of the hotel in Muenster.

  I shot a side-glance over to my brother, who was standing next to me. "Pretty sure I'm not a man," I whispered.

  Eli snickered, throwing an elbow out to catch me on my lowest rib. "Notice how no one bothered to correct him?"

  "Jerk."

  "Just speaking the truth, Flabby. You're pretty much a dude." He laughed. "Except Sacha thinks you're pretty, and I guess you do have nice hair."

  "I think your hair is nicer, you douchebag.” I elbowed him back. "But thanks for telling me you like my hair."

  Eliza rolled his eyes, poking me in the forehead before we followed Christof, our translator extraordinaire, down the hallway that led to our hotel rooms. "Want to go eat at that little restaurant we passed on the walk over here?"

  I nodded at him, pausing at a door that Christof explained would be my room. My brother followed after him. I’d barely opened the door when a presence came up behind me. "Princess,” Sacha said as he reached over me and pushed the door open wider.

  "Sas," I grinned up him, stepping inside.

  He followed in after me, dropping his bag right by the door. "I missed you today."

  "Me too," I said, dropping my bag alongside his and wrapping my arms around his waist.

  He'd been busy all day. There'd been two interviews with German magazines, a television interview, then a soundcheck in a venue with bad PA equipment that took twice as long as it should have. We'd only seen each other when we’d woken up and had breakfast, and then in passing during the day. I'd spent the afternoon at the Prinzipalmarkt and the Pablo Picasso museum with Carter before we headed back to set up merch.

  How the hell was I supposed to cope with not being around him in a few days? Instead of being separated by doors and fans, it was going to be thousands of miles and mountain ranges that separated us. It made my heart ache thinking about it.

  "I'm really tired," he murmured, kissing my nose. "My throat is starting to hurt, too."

  I winced. "Eli said something about going to eat, do you want me to bring you something back so you can stay here and rest?"

  Sacha nodded, sighing. "Please. Just food. I'm just going to make some tea, shower and lay down—"

  "Naked?" I asked him, waggling my eyebrows to get his mind away from feeling crappy.

  He snickered. "For you, anything."

  Planting another kiss on his lips that lingered decades, I dropped another one on his throat and started backing away toward the door before stopping. What the hell was I doing leaving? “Do you want me to stay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’d rather stay here and you bring me something back.”

  I eyed him for a second before nodding. "Call Eli if you need me, okay?"

  "I will," he scoffed halfheartedly. "Cheap-ass."

  Still on my case about refusing to turn on my cell phone so that I could avoid roaming charges, I winked and walked out of the room. Eli stood down the hall with his hands buried in the pockets of his loose shorts. He waved me over before we made our way out of the hotel and toward an open restaurant.

  "You all right?" I asked.

  He nodded slowly, the growing curls on his head catching my attention. "I still feel like shit, and I’m ready to go home."

  "I hear ya.” Because I did. I was tired of hotels, little to no privacy, and always being on the move, but the idea of not seeing the people I’d grown so close to over the last three months regularly, bummed me out even more.

  Opening the door before me, he narrowed his eyes. "Did you figure out what you're doing yet when we get back?"

  I groaned. "No."

  "No idea?" He didn't believe me. I usually had a plan for everything.

  In this case, I only had the next four days planned. After that…

  "Not a single one," I sighed.

  "What about your honey boo?" His question was low and cautious.

  Eliza and I hadn't really talked about the situation with Sacha very much. It was weird, at least with my brother. He knew how I felt about him, using that special sixth sense, and he'd been the first one to tell me that Sacha felt the same way in return, but still. I knew Sacha's intentions were pure and honest. That didn't mean the future still wasn't scary and full of variables.

  "He's planning on visiting a week after we get home."

  Eliza raised an eyebrow. "Huh."

  "What?"

  He shrugged too slowly. "That's… soon."

  "And?"

  "It's good," he explained. "It makes me happy, Flabby. That kid thinks you're the greatest thing on the planet, and I'm glad he does. You deserve somebody like that.” When my eyes started to get watery at his commentary, he yanked on the end of my ponytail really hard. "No crying allowed. Stop it."

  "You love me."

  He groaned and looked away. "Yeah, I do, estupid. That's my nice deed of the year."

  I laughed before wrapping both of my arms around his giant bicep. "Thanks, E. I'm glad you invited me to come on tour."

  Eli shot me a sick glance before opening his mouth, sticking his finger part of the way inside in a gagging motion. "Trust me. We all know how thankful you are that you came on tour, you dirty whore."

  He wasn't surprised at all when I punched him in the stomach.

  "You two lovebirds will figure it out. I won't be touring for a while, but you're more than welcome to go out with us again when the next one is confirmed," he said. “We can still get a place together.” I opened my mouth to say we should do it, but he put up a hand. “Think about it. Give it a few weeks to see what happens, Flabs. All right?”

  I nodded at him, grateful for his offer but not sure if I'd want to go on tour again after all of this, even if it was months or years from this moment. Plus, if Sacha was gone and I was gone, we'd never get to see each other. Something deep in the pit of my stomach told me this long-distance crap was going to be hard.

  But all the best things in life weren't exactly supposed to be easy either, right?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  "Why do you look like you just found out that Kulti guy got married again?" Mason asked me in a loud whisper. We were in Antwerp for the last day of the tour. The Cloud Collision was about to go back onstage for their encore performance, and in the meantime, while Eli and Gordo talked to fans in the audience, this baboon was keeping me company.

  I remembered that he had in fact been around when I found out my longtime crush, Reiner Kulti the German soccer icon I’d adored once upon a fifteen-year-old day, had the nerve to get married to some actress. Ugh. It had been a bad day, to say the least. "I'm sad the tour is over."

  He shrugged. "It was pretty fun, wasn't it?"

  I nodded.

  Mason gave me a goofy look. "You got to tour with the most attractive me
n in Prog—"

  "I think that's kind of stretching it."

  He frowned but kept going. "Got to see the world. See a kangaroo in person—"

  "Saw you almost get punched by that same kangaroo—"

  "Watched your brother get hit on by that transgender guy—"

  I made a face at him, remembering the incident. "I'm pretty sure that was you."

  Mason didn't even bother confirming or denying my statement. "Went to a bunch of boring museums—"

  I groaned. Mase and I had very different standards for what fun was.

  “Got to spend time with your best friends—”

  He had me there.

  "And you met your little snuggle bug," he cooed with fluttering eyelashes like an idiot.

  I relaxed my facial expression to look at him with boredom. "You forgot something."

  "Carter ripping his pants when we were in Stockholm?"

  "Nope."

  "Julian and Eli getting blow jobs from the same girl an hour apart?"

  I gagged at the reminder of that little ditty. They'd both been grossed out, more so Julian than Eli because he'd been the second guy to mess around with the girl. Disgusting. "No."

  Mason narrowed his eyes. "What, then?"

  "Me punching you in the nuts for the first time," I told him while simultaneously swinging my fist in the general direction of his balls.

  He jumped a foot back with a laugh. "Jesus! I'm glad I called the wedding off, you crazy." He whooped, but I couldn't hear him because the music started up again so loudly, it was impossible.

  There were only a couple of songs in their encore repertoire. After three months of being on tour, listening to the bands night after night, I could probably sing to all of their songs and play all of the instruments from memory. And I didn't even know how to play any instrument very well. Or at all, whatever.

  My heart ached a little knowing that this was the last time I'd get to see either band play for who knows how long. It seemed bittersweet that I'd agreed to come along reluctantly at first, only hoping to get away from crap back home. Now I was heartsick that the experience was coming to a close. Who would have known?

  "We only have a few songs left, Antwerp! Before it gets fast and heavy, we'd like to thank all of you for coming out tonight on our tour closer! It's been an insane three months with our friends in Ghost Orchid, who have stuck it out with us. Thank you to our crew, and especially," Sacha put his hand over his heart, smiling a tiny playful grin, "to my beautiful girl, the greatest thing since the invention of air conditioning, My Gaby, for making this the best fucking tour ever." The people in the audience started whistling and yelling out things I didn't understand. "Are you guys fucking ready?"

  “YES!” the audience yelled in response.

  Sacha pointed out into the audience before jumping up high off of a speaker, at the same time the cymbals on the drum set crashed and the second to last song began.

  Me.

  Me.

  I was the greatest thing since air conditioning, and who didn't love air conditioning?

  When I looked over at Mason with what I'm sure was the dumbest, goofiest smile to ever exist, he grimaced and shoved at my head, which only made me smile more.

  In that moment, I made that decision that there was nothing, and I mean nothing, that I'd let stand between Sassy and I. There would only ever be him. He was the end to my beginning.

  An hour later, when we were standing around outside while the guys finished signing autographs and posing for pictures drenched in sweat and smelling like dirty socks, I let myself take it all in. Sacha walked over after ending a conversation with a couple of fans and grinned. The bastard knew I had the swoons for him and his words. Plus, he was still wearing his stage clothes, specifically the suspenders he’d added to his performance wardrobe.

  "I love air conditioning," I told him, threading my fingers through his when he stopped in front of me.

  He nodded, smiling that same grin that I'm sure I’d replicated when he'd spoken to the audience earlier. "Me too, Rocky. Me too."

  In twenty-four hours, we were going to be separated by thousands of miles. But distance was insignificant when you loved someone the way I loved Sacha. Like air conditioning. And laughter.

  Epilogue

  "Hiiii," I cooed into the camera on my laptop.

  "Hi, Princess." The screen in front of me blurred while I figured Sacha moved around his hotel room. A second later the shot focused on the normally handsome man on the screen. He looked terrible. His pale eyes were dull, highlighted by the dark bags beneath them.

  "You look like shit," I said, taking in the sickly, ashen shade of his skin. It was a telltale sign that the flu he’d come down with two days ago was still kicking his ass.

  Sacha smiled weakly, chuckling. "Happy anniversary to you, my love."

  I squeaked, temporarily forgetting about how sick he looked. "Happy anniversary!"

  "I'm sorry I can't be there," he murmured, running a hand through his growing hair. The last time I'd seen him—almost four weeks ago—it'd been at its usual short buzz cut length on the sides. Recently, he'd been getting a lot lazier about shaving it meticulously, and I liked it. Then again, I'd probably still think he was beautiful if he had a mullet—the true sign of a perfect specimen.

  I shrugged, smiling at him through the camera. "It's okay. My present showed up in the mail yesterday, but I waited until today to open it like the box said," I told him in a sing-song voice, with a wiggle to my eyebrows, holding up the cool bracelet he'd sent me from Indonesia. "I love it."

  Sacha leaned forward to rest his chin on his hand, still looking out of sorts but happy. The plain white-gold band on his ring finger winked at me, reminding me that exactly a year ago, we'd decided at the last minute to go get hitched. We didn't even have rings when we did it. It had just been two random people at the courthouse who’d served as our witnesses, and us. Weeks later, we finally got around to getting some simple bands and couldn’t have been happier.

  We'd made it exactly two months living in different states before he stated the distance was killing him. In sixty days, he’d visited me three times, and I’d gone to see him twice in San Francisco before accepting that we didn't want to be so far away from each other. Correction: We couldn't be so far away from each other.

  A game of paper-rock-scissors via video chat decided that I'd be the one moving.

  And I did.

  "I thought of you when I saw it." He somehow managed to wink at me despite the fact that I knew he felt awful. "I have another one."

  "Another present?"

  He nodded.

  I made an “ooh” noise. "Show me."

  His tired face softened as he grinned wickedly. A moment later, he pulled his shirt over his head and gave me a perfect view of one side of his tattooed chest—

  "You got my name tattooed!" I yelled it, leaning forward in my chair to get a better look at the pretty, loopy lettering on my screen, because that definitely worked.

  "No, I got the other love of my life's name tattooed," he laughed hoarsely.

  "Sassy," I sighed. The trance I was in was so powerful I couldn't think of a comeback to his dumb response. My eyes were glued to the fact that my name was permanently tattooed onto his skin, directly mirroring the black swirl on his other pec. There was a little turtle dove at the end of the 'y' and I suddenly had the urge to cry. "I miss you." The statement came out like a sad moan. “I have your present here, ready and waiting.”

  Sacha's smirk was a wasteful one. "You have no idea how much I miss you too, but I'll be home in three days." He sighed.

  "Naked?"

  He laughed. "Definitely—"

  "Sachita!" Eli's booming, deep voice called out from over my shoulder.

  I turned around to roll my eyes at my brother. He'd been staying with me for the last two weeks, but he spent more time with our twenty-year-old, single blonde neighbor than he did with his “favorite sister.” Right after we'd gotten h
ome from The Rhythm & Chord Tour, he'd committed himself to not going so long without seeing me. True to his word, Eli went out of his way to visit even after I moved halfway across the country. Hell, Mase and Gordo tagged along half the time. No distance was too far to strain those friendships.

  "Hey, E," Sacha called out with a wave.

  "Me and Gaby went to go see the new Transformers movie," my brother offered him the information, despite the fact that we'd said we wouldn't tell Sacha we'd gone unless he asked. The bastard. They were Sacha’s favorite movies.

  He gasped. "You went without me?"

  I nodded at him slowly, gravely. "I’m sorry. We were really bored, and I promise to go watch it with you again when you get home."

  "You're lucky I love you," he grinned. He loved his movies, but he loved me more.

  "I know, Sassy." I smiled back at him, completely forgetting about Eli standing behind me.

  "I'm gonna go puke now. Take care, man. I'll take care of your old hag until you get home!" Eli yelled before throwing something at the back of my head and leaving the room.

  I rolled my eyes and laughed. "Remind me why I went into business with him."

  "Because you love him?" Sacha asked me with a raised eyebrow, like it was difficult for him to remember why I’d done it too.

  A couple months after we’d moved in together, I still hadn't been able to find a job that I was crazy about. Sacha had offered to take me on tour with him as their merch girl, but I loved Carter. He cemented himself as one of my closest—and only—friends after my move, and I knew damn well he loved touring with TCC despite how little they helped him. There was no way I was going to screw him over like that. After mentioning it to Eliza one night over the phone, he asked me why I didn't just sell merch online. Ghost Orchid paid out of their butts to let a major company sell their things for them, apparently.

  An idea, and a small loan from my brother because I refused to take money from Sacha, started The Merch Girl. It was an online website where I sold TCC, Ghost Orchid and eventually fifteen other bands’ merch, thanks to contacts from my two favorite men. I charged less than most other big companies did and made sure to stay on top of everything. The ultimate bonus was being my own boss, so I could visit Sacha on tour whenever I wanted as long as I could get someone to take over the business for however long was needed.