by Mia Storm
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods again. “I’m getting there.” Then her face brightens and she looks around. “So, tell me everything!”
“Why don’t you catch up over lunch,” Billie says. “I’ve called a car for you. Go get something to eat, but remember you need to be back for costuming and makeup at six.”
We find a pizza place that the driver recommends and we catch each other up on everything over pepperoni and mushrooms. My first release was Lilah’s song, so she’s made some money from that.
“Enough that Destiny and I moved out of our crap apartment to somewhere Bran thinks is safer,” she says with a glance at him.
“It’s in my building,” he says, a smile ghosting over his face. “So, yeah. It’s safer.”
“No one messes with Bran,” she says with a wily smile.
“Maybe someday I’ll get some time off and I can come out there,” I say. I’m still having trouble picturing Lilah in the sticks, but she seems happy.
We get back to the bus just in time for me to head over to the dressing room.
“Your passes should get you just about anywhere,” I say, giving Lilah a hug on my way into the arena. “You can just walk around or whatever. I’ll see you backstage before the show.”
At seven I’m onstage, and Lilah is dancing with Bran in the wings through the entire show. When I get to my finale, “More Than Nothing,” I drag her onstage with me.
“This is my best friend, Lilah Morgan,” I tell the crowd, “and she wrote this song. She’s amazing and I hope I get to record more of her songs for you.”
I make her stay out here with me through the whole song, and when we come off, Bran is waiting for her with the most incredible smile. There’s no doubt from that look how proud he is of her.
Which makes me so happy.
Billie grabs me as soon as we hit the curtain. “You’ve got a quick interview,” she says, pulling me toward the hall to the dressing rooms.
“I’ll be right back!” I call over my shoulder to Lilah.
By the time they’re done with me and Billie cuts me loose and heads back to the bus, Roadkill is already on stage.
I come up behind a dancing Lilah and grab her hand. “Let’s go.”
“Uh-uh,” she says, tugging back. “I’m backstage at the concert everyone wants tickets for. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Fine,” I say and keep walking. “Meet me at the bus after.”
She grabs my arm. “And so are you.”
I bunch my hands on my hips. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Have you stayed for Roadkill’s show before?” she asks with a tip of her head toward the stage.
I shake my head.
“You get that people are paying scalpers a grand a ticket to see this show, right?”
I glance toward the stage, where Tro and the guys are just hitting their stride on their next song, and take a deep breath. “I’ll see if I can find some chairs.”
She grins and starts dancing to the music. “I won’t need one.”
I sit next to Derrick, the stage monitor guy, while Lilah dances. After the song, Bran pulls her to him and kisses her. She sways in his arms for the next three songs.
Bran brought Lilah to L.A. for The Voice finals. I’ve seen tapes of the show, and when I’m singing my original song, the one Lilah wrote, the cameras cut to Lilah in the audience and caught her and Bran in the middle of a life-altering, Earth-moving kiss. Turns out, I found out later, that was the night that Lilah finally gave into Bran. She’d been fighting her attraction for months because Bran had dated Lilah’s sister and Destiny was still into him, but also because Bran was twenty-six and he didn’t know Lilah was only sixteen…which he found out the next night while they were in the audience for the results show.
But now…I’ve never seen Lilah so happy. And after everything she’s been through with her methhead parents, she deserves it.
I settle deeper into the chair and watch Tro. It’s the first time I think I’ve ever seen him totally sober out there, focusing on just the music. He always sounds incredible, but tonight, he’s on fire. His vocals are clear and perfect, even when he’s screaming out the lyrics.
I don’t realize he knows I’m still here until he takes a few steps my direction and looks directly at me. “What did you guys think of Lucky tonight? That girl’s something, huh?”
An appreciative roar goes up from the audience.
He comes closer and beacons me with a crook of his finger. “Come on out here, Lucky.”
My eyes go wide and my feet are suddenly lead. I shake my head.
“How’d you like a Lucky exclusive?” he asks the crowd. “Something no one’s ever heard before?”
The audience sends the roof off the stadium.
I feel like a rabbit, trapped in the headlights of an oncoming Lamborghini. It’s coming so fast that no matter what I do, it’s going to flatten me.
I glance at Grim and he strums his bass and gives me an annoyed look. Apparently he’s about as onboard with this detour as he was with “Happy Birthday” a few weeks ago.
“Go, Lo,” Lilah says from beside me and gives me a gentle shove.
I turn to look at her with pleading eyes. When I turn back to the stage, I find Tro right in front of me. He takes my hand and gently draws me to center stage. One of the roadies brings over a stool and sets it up in front of Tro’s mic and Tro helps me onto it.
And all I can think the entire time is, this is a huge mistake. He wants us to do a song we’ve never rehearsed. It’s basically a rock ballad—nothing like anything else in either of our set lists. The audience, who came here to hear Roadkill’s heavy rhythms and Tro’s angry lyrics, is going to totally turn on him.
On us.
But then he starts fingering out the notes on his guitar—his song, the one he wrote for me, and a desperate tickle starts deep in my chest. I don’t know what it means or exactly what I’m desperate for, but the sensation grows stronger with every note until I’m overwhelmed with need so intense that I feel like my heart is about to cave in.
Tro must have given Grim and Jamie a heads up, and the music, because they slide right in seamlessly. And when they come around to the beginning, I open my mouth and sing his words.
“I walk from what I’ve left behind
as if it has no hold.
As if the chains aren’t forged from steel
and welded to my soul.”
Out in the dark of the arena, one by one, lighters begin to glow in the air. By the end of the first verse, as far as I can see, arms are waving overhead to the slow beat. And when I glance at Tro, he’s watching me with a quiet intensity that sets off sparklers in my chest.
All of a sudden I can’t take my eyes off him. They trace the lines of his face as I sing, and when a light I’ve never seen there before begins to shine out of his eyes, like a reflection of the thousands of lighters out in the audience, it warms me to my core.
He’s not drunk. Or stoned. He’s right here with me, and despite the fifteen thousand onlookers, it feels like we’re all alone.
Emotion begin to choke off my voice, but I fight it because more than I’ve ever wanted anything, I want to do his song justice.
Chapter 13
Tro
She’s a fucking angel.
It’s cheesy as all fucking hell, but it’s what’s running though my mind the entire time I’m listening to her sing my words. She turns them into something bigger than what I wrote.
I want to keep her out here. Close.
But the song comes to an end, because that’s what they do, and she slips off the stool. For a moment, she holds my gaze, but then she’s gone, retreating to the wings.
I can’t keep my eyes off her for the rest of the set. I’m pretty sure this is the first time she’s stayed to hear us play. I know it’s probably because she’s got people here with her, but I can’t help hoping it’s at least partly because she’s feeling the same d
raw I am.
When we head to the dressing room to change between sets, Lucky stands as we pass and gives me a small smile.
And right then, with that gesture, Earth’s magnetic poles shift and up turns to down.
I fucking float into the dressing room, the whole time thinking about Lucky and me in the studio, recording that track.
Jamie rips his shirt off and beats his chest like a gorilla before tugging on a fresh T-shirt, but Grim’s uncharacteristically quiet.
“Everything cool, man?” I ask.
He looks hard at me. “I’m just not sure what the fuck we were doing out there at the beginning of that set.”
“Just wanted to try something new,” I say. “The crowd seemed into it, so I don’t get the problem.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t good, man, but what the fuck’s going on with you and that little girl.” He tugs on a dry shirt. “I mean, if that’s your grand fucking gesture or whatever—”
“We gotta go,” I say, pulling on a shirt and heading to the door. Because it kinda was, but I’m not sure I’m ready to admit that yet.
But before I’m out the door, Grim has a handful of my shirt and is yanking me back. “Keep your fucking head on straight, Gunner. Remember who your fucking audience is.”
I yank myself out of his grasp and turn for the stage, my Lucky buzz totally dead.
Chapter 14
Shiloh
Tro doesn’t look at me on his way back to the stage, and their next set is full of their loudest, angriest stuff.
Lilah finally wears out near the end of the set. She’s a big ball of sweat when she comes over and sits in my lap. “This is crazy!”
I can’t help the smile. “Having fun?”
“Oh my God! This is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I glance to where Bran’s watching show. “The most amazing thing?”
She follows my gaze and smiles. “Okay, the second most amazing thing.”
“Are you in love?” I ask, clasping my hands around her waist.
She drops her head back onto my shoulder. “I am so in love I don’t even think there’s a word to describe it.” She brings her gaze back to mine. “Give it a few weeks and you’ll know what I mean.”
I scrunch my face at her. “I’d need to find a guy first.”
She nods toward Tro, onstage. “You already have a guy, Lo. He’s so fucking into you it may as well be tattooed across his forehead.”
I pfft her and shake my head. “You have no clue what you’re talking about. That’s Tro Gunnison. He’s into anything with a vagina.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’ve always been so blind to what other people think about you.”
The stage lights flash through the colors in quick succession and the crowd roars as Jamie starts the drum intro to “Insane.”
“Which is why I’m still sane,” I say, shoving her up.
She looks at me a second longer before going over to dance with Bran.
We stay through the encore, and I see why everyone says Roadkill is a tour band. I have to admit their live show is incredible. All three of the guys are total showboats, playing to their audience and leaving it all out there.
Tro heads straight for me when the stage lights dim, toweling off his face and neck. “Surprised you’re still here.”
I flick a wrist at Lilah. “Only because Lilah wanted the full Roadkill experience.”
Tro turns to her with raised eyebrows. “The songwriter friend?”
“Lilah, this is Tro Gunnison. You might want to shield your eyes or get one of those mirror scopes they use to watch solar eclipses, because his ego might blind you if you look directly at him.”
She’s bouncing on her toes a little, unable to contain herself. “Oh my God. It’s amazing to meet you. You guys put on a crazy good show!”
His smile is as cocky as ever. “Thanks.”
“You wrote that song?” she asks. “The one you did with Lo?”
“Lo?” he says, glancing at me. “That’s what you call her?”
Lilah nods. “We used to call ourselves LoLah when we played in San Francisco. Get it?” she asks, then stabs a finger into my arm. “Lo and Lah,” she finishes, thumbing her own chest.
“Well,” he says, “all I know is Lucky needs someone with talent writing for her, and she says that’s you.”
“Her stuff is kickass,” I interject before Lilah can put herself down. She knows she’s good, but she might not be willing to admit that to a bona fide rock star.
But when she smiles and nods, I know I didn’t need to worry. “Kickass,” she repeats.
Jamie comes by and chest bumps Tro. “Heading back to the hotel. You coming?”
Tro turns to me. “What are you guys doing now?”
I look at Lilah and shrug. “We might just go back to the bus and hang out.”
“When is your bus heading south?” he asks.
“Not till morning.”
He looks up at Lilah. “You guys mind if I hang out with you?” He nudges his chin at Jamie and Grim, and Grim cuts Tro a glare as they disappear out the back door. “Otherwise I’ve got to go back to the hotel with those dicks.”
“Yeah,” she says with a questioning look at me. “That would be cool.”
“Awesome,” Tro says, flashing her his killer smile. “Maybe I can hear some of your stuff.”
I can tell she wants to be more excited, but she’s holding it back while she tries to read me. I guess I don’t blame her. Partying with Tro Gunnison has to feel like a pretty big deal to her.
When I look at Tro, he’s waiting for my answer. “As long as you promise not to fuck with my girl,” I say, nodding at Lilah. “Her boyfriend is an ex-Marine and he’ll filet your ass if you touch her.”
He cuts Bran a grin. “Wouldn’t want to disrespect a national hero.”
I stand and we walk toward the hallway to the dressing room.
“I’ll find you guys after I get cleaned up?” he says, plucking his sweaty T-shirt off his chest, and that’s all it takes for my eyes to glue to his pecs.
Damn.
“You know where the bus is?” I ask, pulling myself together.
He nods. “See you in a few.”
“Kay.”
He heads up the hall and I turn to find Lilah grinning at me.
“What?”
“Tattooed,” she says as Bran punches through the door to the hallway that leads to the parking lot.
We get to the bus and Billie’s at the dinette with papers strewn in front of her and her laptop open, talking on the phone. She’s always putting out fires for one of her many clients so it doesn’t surprise me to see her working so late. She gives us a wave and I gesture that we’re heading to the rear lounge. I grab three beers out of the fridge on our way through the kitchen and Billie scowls at me, so I hand them to Bran.
“So, you and your manager have this bus to yourselves?” he asks, glancing at the bunks we’re passing on either side of the narrow hallway on the way to the back of the bus. There are six of them, but three are covered with my clothes.
“Yeah. The band is together in another bus.”
I open the door into the lounge, where there’s a horseshoe sofa around the back facing a big screen TV next to the door we just came through. My guitar is propped in the corner and I’ve got a snapshot of Lilah and me at her grandmother’s tucked into the window casing.
On the other side of the door is a bar with a stocked fridge. By stocked, I mean snacks and sodas. Billie won’t let me keep beer back here, I guess because she wants to think she has control over how much I drink.
Billie hardly ever comes back here, so this is my sanctuary. I mostly play Hearthstone and text Lilah and some of my old The Voice friends when there’s decent cell service. Max texts me a lot, but I’m trying not to encourage him, so about half the time, I ignore them. Sometimes I play some of Lilah’s and my old stuff and picture myself back in San Francisco. I’d say it’
s lonely, but the truth is, I like being alone.
I go to the cupboard and grab bags of Cheetos and Doritos, tossing them on the low table in front of the couch. I pull down a tub of Red Vines and set it in front of Lilah. “Had them pick those up for you.”
Bran cracks open a beer and hands it to me, then does the same for Lilah before opening his.
“Pretty glamorous,” Lilah says, looking around as she and Bran settle into seats on the couch.
I shoot her a cynical look. “I’ve always been glamorous.”
She laughs, because it’s so not true. Lilah’s been at my side through every foster home, the group home. We’ve been there for each other when no one else was. She’s the only person I’ve ever shown my insecurities to. She’s the only person who’s ever met the real me.
“So, where to next?” she asks, pulling my guitar into her lap and picking at the strings.
“We’re heading south, L.A. and San Diego, then we cut back through Denver and Texas on our way to Florida, where we wrap up.”
“How many shows all together?” Bran asks.
I click on the TV and find a rerun of The Big Bang Theory, then mute it. “Forty in nine weeks.”
“How’s your voice holding out?” Lilah asks, bringing her hand to her throat with a cringe.
“So far, so good. We usually have a travel day in between shows, so that helps.”
“God, Lo,” she says, looking around again. “I always knew you’d make it. Ever since that first time we sat on that bus stop bench singing Bob Dylan.”
I bust out laughing. “Yeah, that was a big day. Was it four dollars and seventy three cents we made?”
She shakes her head. “It was the way people looked at you. We were, what, nine? Ten? Even then, you had that…whatever. That intangible thing that makes people stars.”
“Wow, that was deep,” I say, then take a long drink from my bottle. “I’m not drunk enough for that yet.”
She slugs me in the shoulder, then her fingers start moving over the strings. It’s a song I haven’t heard for a while—one of the first Lilah wrote. I start singing the melody and she slides in with the harmony.