by Vivian Lux
Together, we went from a group of bored teenagers terrorizing our suburban Buffalo neighborhood to the biggest rock band of the decade (or so they said), and all that time we had made decisions as a band.
Now, in the clutches of my drunken, obsessive desire, I had gone against that.
I was still in the hotel penthouse, somehow unable to leave the place where she spent time with me. I looked at the clock beside the vast hotel room bed, surprised to see that it was only eight in the evening. I had slept most of the day away and now had a long, dark, lonely night ahead of me to think about what I had done.
Regret made me angry, and anger made me reckless.
I picked up my phone, ready to call Scarlett's editors, ready to renege on the whole thing.
But instead, I dialed Rane's number.
"Everything okay?" It was Maddie, and she sounded sleepy and more than a little bit sex-drunk.
I rolled my eyes. "Let me talk to my brother," I said, hoping I didn't sound as defensive as I felt.
"You have impeccable timing. Or maybe I do." Rane laughed, and I heard Maddie giggling and hitting him on the other end of the line.
"So, I had that thing today..." I said.
There was no way to fix this other than just saying it.
"What thing was that?" Rane was still caught up in his Maddie-haze. I wasn't getting through.
"That Scarlett thing." I tapped my fingers against the polished wood of the headboard. "I might have fucked up here."
Rane murmured something to Maddie, still distracted.
Time to rip off the Band-Aid.
"Rane, she's coming. She's coming on tour with us."
Chapter 12
Scarlett
I made it all the way home, pulling into an empty space across from my building.
Then I took out my phone.
My hand was shaking so badly with suppressed rage that it took me three tries before I angrily stabbed his contact.
He picked up on the second ring, wary. And obviously really fucking drunk.
"Hey, Scar," Keir slurred. He at least had the good grace to sound sheepish.
"You. I can't believe you... Just like that..." I realized I wasn't making any sense, my anger was choking out my truly rational objection. Finally, I spat, "You summoned me!"
I heard his harsh breathing on the other line, that sharp exhale he always did in lieu of saying something he might regret. "I didn't fucking summon you, Scarlett," he said blurrily. "I'm trying to do you a fucking favor."
"The fuck you say?" I seethed.I could see myself in the rearview mirror. My knuckles were white around the phone. My eyes were wild, darting everywhere like a crazy person. "You just made your phone call, and now I have to come running. You couldn't just let me walk away from you like that, getting the last word in, could you? You had to show that you had power over me, didn't you?"
If you'd backed me into a corner and insisted I tell you the truth, I wouldn't have been able to say why this assignment made me so angry. I might have just spit out some garbled nonsense about Kevin, my parents, independence, and how I thought I was free of my past, but none of those thoughts could really be fully articulated. All I could say for certain was that I felt powerless, a pawn in someone else's game...
And nothing made me crazier.
It had happened to me too many times before.
"You'll be riding on the bus with the band!" Kelly Lynch had trilled in the beige conference room as I opened my mouth and shut it like a tiny baby bird. I swear to God, she looked at me jealously. "He's never allowed an interview like this before, never let any journalist into the backstage workings of the band for this long." She looked me dead in the eye. "He said it had to be you. Only you--otherwise it wouldn't happen." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "This will be a huge get for us, especially with everyone wary about the merger. I don't think I need to tell you how much is riding on this story..."
Only me. It had to be me.
I heard Keir suck in his breath at my accusation. I knew exactly what he was doing right now, rolling his head from side to side, flexing his fingers. I wondered if he had hit something earlier today. I sure as fuck wanted to hit something now. "Scarlett, slow your goddamn roll," he drawled. "You're not making any sense."
"No?" I spat. "That's because you're drunk."
"I'm not drunk and I'm not trying to show my power over you or whatever fucking slight you've got your panties in a bunch about."
Am I ever going to be able to live my life on my own terms? I felt my eyes fill with tears, which only made me angrier.
I was alone in the car in a dark parking lot, but I still held out my hands to ward off his excuses. "Save it," I ordered him. "I'm not seventeen anymore. I'm not the same girl I was, all naïve and trusting. God,I was such a fool. You must have had so much fun making fun of me behind my back." He protested, but I drowned him out, shouting, "You probably still do, don't you, Keir? You laugh about how you can just snap your fingers and force me to come back to you after all these years!"
"Yes," he snarled. "That's exactly right, Scarlett. Your keen journalistic mind always gets down right to the truth, doesn't it? You think you've got me all figured out."
"I don't think, I know. And if you're going to make me go on this tour with you, you should know that the only reason I'd do it is because I need this job." I was about to hit below the belt, but I couldn't seem to stop myself. "You should know as well as anyone why I can't go home again."
He grunted, and I knew my words had found their mark. "I know," he said grimly. "Believe me, I know." Then his voice grew louder. "I'm trying to do you a fucking favor here. "
"Favor? You sure about that?"
"Yeah, a favor. Helping out a friend."
"Friend?" I scoffed. "More like concubine. You are trying to get me under your thumb again, Keir!"
Too far, too far.
I heard his sharp inhale on the other line and instantly regretted what I had said. "I don't want you under my thumb, Scar." His voice was tight.
He was right, that wasn't fair. It wasn't his fault back then.
But that didn't mean he was allowed to be an asshole now.
Apologies sprang to my lips, but I pushed them back. There was absolutely no way I was going to accept this assignment. If it meant my job, well, then it meant my job.
"Good luck on the tour," I said. My voice sounded strong, sure and formal. Just like how I wanted it to sound. The hard-nosed journalist lifts her chin, unwilling to be beaten down by her source.
Keir grunted something, but I hung up before he could start to pull me back with sweet words. Because that's what he would do; he'd want to try to fix this. He could never just let anything go, not until it was done right, to his liking.
He always wanted to fix things. He always wanted to save things.
He always wanted to save...me.
I crossed the lot and took the stairs down to my basement floor two at a time, anger heating my blood and filling me with restless energy. I didn't know the neighborhood around here very well, but that was nothing a quick run couldn't help. I slipped my key into the lock, resolving to shed my work clothes and go for an immediate run, use this energy for something good.
I stepped inside and nearly slipped and fell on my ass.
Catching myself against the door frame at the last moment, I glared down at the white envelope that stuck to the heel of my shoe.
Then my heart stopped.
Those thick pen strokes, the kind that left dents in the paper and marks on any surface below, made my heart stop.
Kevin's handwriting.
He knew where I lived; he'd found this place.
How did he find this place?
Did he go to HR? Did he sweet talk Marcia right before security came to throw him out on his ass? Did he question somebody? Did somebody rat me out? Did he call my mother? Did they track me down together?
No matter how it had happened, Kevin had found me.
I picked up the letter, hands trembling. I didn't want to open it. I wanted to throw it in a fire, run away. He didn't seal the envelope, no need to, really. The message he was leaving me had no need for privacy.
Babe,
This neighborhood is a dump. I don't feel safe having you here. I'll be back to check up on you.
Love,
Kevs
I let the paper fall to the floor, heart hammering even louder.
He would be back. He knew where I lived, and he would be back again.
My heart raced as rapidly as my thoughts. I can't get a new apartment. Not yet. I don't have money for the security deposit. I just paid all of the hookups for utilities. I have a year's lease on this place.
Okay, let's think of what we can do. I could go crash on Myra's couch. Kevin doesn't know her. For a second, I latched on to that thought so tightly that Kevin's letter crumpled in my closed, desperate fist. But I didn't know her well enough for that, and she was too peripheral of a friend to drag into my drama. Jason, Zoe... Kevin knows them, he knows knew where they live. And he'd have no issues with bringing them down.
I couldn't drag them into my shit either.
A brief flashing thought whirled through my brain. I could go home. If I only had a normal family, a supportive family, I could go home and be safe.
But I didn't have a normal family. The look on my mother's face if I came back, the triumph mixed with disgust... I could see it now. She would do everything in her power to make sure I could never leave again.
I had no place to go.
You do, a small voice in the back of my head reminded me. I was shaking my head even as the reasons started piling in.
I would be safe. Keir wanted to save me. Tours had security, people would need clearances and background checks just to get near us. All I would need to do was say that Kevin was not allowed near me, and that would be that.
Rolling from town to town, city to city, there would be no way he could find me.
It was the only way.
I had to go on tour with Ruthless.
I had to spend the next month on a bus.
With Keir.
Chapter 13
Keir
The storm boiling up on the western horizon had nothing on the black thundercloud that was my brother's face.
Rane glowered, Pepper brooded, Balzac muttered... And even Twitch was uncharacteristically quiet as we waited inside the tour bus for the go-ahead to leave.
There's being protective, and then there's being annoying. I got that they didn't want Scarlett coming because they worried about me, but fuck that noise, I was a grown-ass man. This was getting irritating.
I needed more sleep, more coffee and to be left alone, and I wasn't getting any of the above on this tour bus.
The car I had sent to pick her up rolled up next to us. I wouldn't have blamed her for wanting to wait until the very last minute, but Scarlett was right on time.
Rane mumbled something when he saw the driver open her door.
I'd had enough.
Angrily, I smacked my hand down onto my armrest. Twitch nearly fell out his chair. "Hey," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I did this, okay? This is my fuck up. Me. Don't take it out on her, okay?"
No one answered me.
But no one objected either. At least, not yet. It was too early in the morning for brawling.
It would come soon enough.
Satisfied that I had made my point, I turned my attention back to Scarlett.
A part of me that I was ashamed still held so much sway wanted to shout out loud in triumph over seeing her again.
Even though she clearly wanted to kill something. Possibly me.
No, definitely me.
Her face was bare, clean of makeup, and the wind lifted her hair as she crossed the bus lot. Her pretty lips were twisted in an odd grimace, the kind of expression she wore when she didn't like something but was too afraid to speak up and defend herself. I had seen that expression before, had it etched into my brain, to be honest, but I never thought I would be the cause of it.
This is such a mistake.
From the window, I watched her pause, collect herself, then lift her head up high. Something old and unresolved squeezed at my heart.
When she boarded the bus, I smiled at her. She smiled back, just the barest little twitch of her lips, an involuntary jerk meant to be nice.
Then she settled into the frontmost seat up behind the driver and opened her notebook and began writing.
And that was that. Rocco, our driver, put the bus in drive, and we were on our way.
The fans would be disappointed, I'm sure, if they saw how mundane the beginning of Ruthless' Desolation City tour really was. They were probably imagining something wild, something more rock 'n' roll. Maybe me and Rane christening the start of the tour by licking champagne off some chick's tits.
That wasn't going to happen.
Scarlett's perfect, untouchable tits aside, the only other ones available were Pepper's, and the thought of asking her to lift her shirt made my balls retreat in fear.
Maybe that was how we rolled back in the day, with a tit-christening party to kick things off, but we were pros by now. This was our third tour, and the longest one we had ever committed to. We planned on spending this first month traversing the lower half of the United States, hitting several cities in quick succession along the way, before traveling up the East Coast to finish with a hometown show in Buffalo. It was going to be grueling--we knew that from experience too--and so this morning, on the start of the first leg of the Desolation City tour, what we wanted most was to catch a few hours of sleep before we played tonight.
I wondered what it would be like to play for Scarlett again.
Then I got angry at myself all over again for drunkenly offering this interview in the first place.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be with us, with her frostily ignoring me, and me regretting every second I spent screwing things up. We were supposed to be easy with each other.
We were supposed to love each other.
We did love each other.
Once upon a time, anyway.
I stood up from the captain's chair I had occupied while pretending to read and made my way back to the bunk I had claimed.
I laid down and closed my eyes. The memories were going to fucking come. It was better that I wasn't staring her down like some creeper when they took over.
I could still conjure up the smell in the air that bright June morning. It smelled like wet earth, honeysuckle and the overlying smell of a day that was going to get really hot before long.
I didn't know if I had ever noticed how the air smelled before I met her. That's what she did to me. She made everything more acute.
That bright, aromatic June morning was when I first noticed Scarlett Sawyer.
Of course, that's not to say that I had never seen her before. She was always around, a shadow on the edge of my peripheral vision, overlooked in the way only a teenager could overlook a child.
But that morning, I was newly eighteen and pissed the hell off. I stood in front of our cramped bathroom mirror, studying the bruises on my torso. They were fading into a sickly, mottled green, and were marks of shame. Three days ago, Joey Martorana and his gang of thugs had chased me down and jumped me after school over some smart-mouthed thing Rane had said about Joey's sister. When four-on-one proved too difficult to overcome, I ran. But I hadn't run fast enough. They caught me and inflicted the beating of a lifetime.
I was pissed. And when I got pissed at something, I started looking for solutions. Since the solution here wasn't my fists, I had to start thinking of something else to fix it.
Two days of serious thought gave me my answer. I could fix this, not just by getting stronger, but by getting faster too.
I needed to start running.
That June morning, I woke up early, padding softly past my father's bedroom, where his heavy snoring told me he'd worked a dou
ble last night. I stepped in all the right places, so as not to make a creak down our stairs, and opened the door to the basement.
As the oldest, Rane had pulled rank at thirteen and demanded the basement be given over to him. I didn't much mind because I was down here most days and nights anyway. Besides, he slept more deeply when he thought I couldn't bug him, and that made it easier for me to steal his shit.
Rane had tried running, tried out for the track team back in freshman year, but like all things, he soon grew tired of it when it didn't go exactly his way. When his natural talent stalled and he had to actually start training, he had shelved his beautiful running shoes.
And there they were, sitting right where he left them, the faint odor of dirty feet still hanging in the air. I wrinkled my nose, but grabbed them anyway, ignoring the thick coating of dust. My father had spent all his money that month just to get me another amp and lessons with the voice instructor at the music school. I wasn't about to ask him to buy me running shoes as well.
Besides, I intended to fix this on my own.
It was one of those mornings where heat hung in the air like a promise, but for now, the weak sun kept it at bay. I stretched a little, feeling the blood start to pump through my limbs, and felt that dogged determination that I always felt when I had a new project at hand.
Our house was the shittiest house on the block. There was no getting around this. My dad didn't have time to do maintenance, and neither Rane nor I could be bothered with anything more than just making sure the crap didn't get piled all the way to the rafters. But the houses on the rest of the block, those were actually pretty. Each one of them tried to outdo each other, whether by their own hand or, more often, with professional landscapers hired to cart away anything that died and had the nerve to be unsightly.
The prettiest house on the block belonged to the Sawyers next door.
In our neighborhood, filled with the disease of one-upmanship, not calling attention to yourself drew the most attention. Scarlett moved like she didn't want to be seen, along the edges of your sight, never fully stepping into your line of vision where you could actually confront her head on. That had been my experience of her.