Wild Open

by Bec Linder

  CHAPTER FOUR

  She drove downtown the next morning to sign the paperwork. James had given her the address of a hotel in Beverly Hills, and she expected a five-star boutique monstrosity with a rooftop pool, the kind of luxurious place where real rock stars stayed; but when she pulled up in front, she was a little disappointed to see that it was just a mid-range chain hotel, and not very fancy at all. What was the point of dealing with all of the press coverage and crazy fans if you didn’t even get to live in the lap of luxury while you did it?

  She went inside. A man and woman were sitting on a low bench near the front desk, and after a moment she recognized them from the audition yesterday: the woman with the clipboard, and the Asian guy who had been sitting in the middle, the one who had seemed to be in charge. They both stood up as Leah approached.

  She didn’t see her guy anywhere. Maybe…

  Speculating was pointless. She would find out soon enough.

  “Leah Zielinski?” the woman asked, holding out her hand and smiling. She was wearing a bright yellow dress and earrings that brushed her shoulders, and Leah looked down at her own frayed jeans and wished she had dressed up a little. “I’m Rushani Aachari, the tour manager for the Saving Graces.”

  Leah shook hands with her and then with the man, who said, “James Park. I’m the drummer and, I guess, unofficial responsible adult.”

  It sounded like a joke, but he wasn’t smiling. He was very good-looking, and he wore his plain white T-shirt and faded blue chinos like they were haute couture, but he had a serious expression on his face that belied his tattoos and floppy ex-skater hair. It was very clear to Leah that these two were the people she needed to impress. The contract hadn’t been signed yet; they could still change their minds.

  “I’m really excited about the opportunity to tour with you guys,” she said to James.

  His mouth pulled to one side. “Don’t speak too soon.”

  Leah didn’t have any idea how to respond to that. He must have been joking, but she couldn’t read any humor in his face at all.

  “Stop it, James,” Rushani said. “You’re scaring her.” She glanced around, and even though the lobby was empty aside from the woman at the front desk, she said, “Let’s go up to my room. We can talk in private.”

  A small knot of anxiety began to form in Leah’s stomach. What on earth was going on here?

  Aside from the open suitcase on the floor, Rushani’s room didn’t look like anyone had stayed in it at all. The bed was neatly made, and there was none of the usual travel mess strewn around, no toiletries on the counter or pizza boxes lying open and half-empty on top of the desk. Rushani gestured to the sole armchair in one corner and said, “Please, take a seat.”

  Leah sat, holding her tote bag on her lap. She had seen this movie. Someone would pull out a knife, or reveal they weren’t quite human. Leah, as the hapless and innocent heroine, would scream, or possibly faint, or else prove herself to be a member of that peculiar movie species known as the “strong female character” and bust out her awesome karate moves. Blood would be shed. All might end well, or tragically.

  Rushani and James sat side by side on the bed, both of them staring at her, and Leah waited for their jaws to unhinge in perfect sync and their faces to peel back to reveal their true selves, scaly lizard people from the Delta Quadrant.

  “There’s something about the band that you need to know,” Rushani said.

  Leah suppressed a hysterical giggle. We’re all blood-sucking vampires from outer space!

  Rushani glanced at James, who didn’t react. “The bassist quit, as you know,” she said. “It was a long time coming. The lead singer is sort of… difficult.”

  “Andrew,” Leah said. She had done some reading last night, after she got the phone call from James.

  “That’s right,” Rushani said. “He’s going through a… difficult period. It’s important that you’re aware. He may treat you quite horribly. The rest of us will do our best to run interference. If you think this will be a problem for you, please let us know now so that we can move to the next person on our list.”

  Difficult period? What did that mean? Rushani’s description was so vague that Leah couldn’t really figure out what she was talking about. But she knew it was a kind of trouble she had no interest in. She’d done her time in the band drama trenches. She had no interest in entering a meltdown situation. Plus, with that whole awkward situation at the bar—maybe it was better that she bowed out now, before things got any more complicated.

  James had been watching her closely, and now he said, like he was reading the thoughts off her face, “Leah, I’m going to be honest with you. Andrew is a huge pain in the ass. I want to throttle him on a daily basis. But we are completely fucking desperate, and you were so far above and beyond anyone else we saw audition yesterday that I will pay you just about any amount of money to put up with his bullshit for a month. The fans really loved Kerrigan, and they’re all freaking out about him quitting. The only way for me to not feel totally ashamed about dicking them over is to replace him with someone who’s at least as talented as him.”

  In the silence that followed, Rushani started laughing.

  “What?” James asked her. “Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?”

  “So much for negotiating!” Rushani said, wiping tears from beneath her eyes.

  Leah recognized the hard edge to her laughter. It was what you did when the only alternative was utter despair.

  “It’s just the truth,” James said. “We can afford it, Rushani, come on. I want her to know what she’s getting into so we don’t have to find a second replacement bassist.”

  “You’re right,” Rushani said. “Okay. Well. Leah, that’s all there is to it. Andrew can be pretty terrible. The rest of us, I think, are not so bad to be around. We have nice buses. We eat good food. You’ll be paid well. I hope you won’t turn us down.”

  Leah knew the smart thing to do was to politely decline and be on her way. She hadn’t called her boss yet. Her job would still be waiting for her on Monday morning. But James’ appeal had stirred something in her, the part of her that remembered what it was like to care about fans, to want nothing more in the world than to get on stage and see someone’s awestruck face gazing up at her. She could tell that James had that some passion in him. He cared about the music. She thought it would be nice to make music with someone like that again.

  “There’s just one thing,” she said, and felt herself flushing. “I sort of, uh.” This was mortifying, but she had to spit it out. “The other guy in your band—I don’t know his name…”

  “O’Connor,” James said. “Don’t worry about it. He already told us.”

  “Oh, God,” Leah moaned, and buried her face in her hands.

  “You don’t have anything to be ashamed of,” Rushani said, her voice very kind. “These things happen.”

  “Well, it was a mistake,” Leah said, “and I don’t want you to think I was—I don’t know. Sneaking around, or trying to hide anything. It won’t happen again. Not while we’re on tour.”

  James had been leaning forward, elbows on his knees, but now he sat up and turned his head toward Rushani.

  “I see you looking at me,” Rushani said.

  Leah said, “I really had no idea—”

  “Girl, get over it,” James said. “You made out with him at a bar. That is basically the tamest hook-up imaginable. Nobody is going to judge you. As long as it doesn’t happen on tour, we’re golden. You know how things can get messy.”

  “I know,” Leah said grimly. Experience was the best teacher.

  “All right,” Rushani said. “Should we sign the paperwork, then?”

  Leah went through the contract very carefully, but there was nothing at all suspicious about it. All of the clauses were standard. She would receive a flat rate, not a percentage of tour proceeds. If she backed out within the first two weeks, she forfeited 75% of her pay. She would receive no royalty payments from cur
rent or future album sales. Et cetera. She flipped to the final page and scrawled her signature on the line.

  When she looked up, James was standing in front of her with a large and very impressive camera. “Let me just get a few pictures.”

  Leah raised one hand to touch her face. “What? Now?”

  “Now,” he said. “I’ve already drafted a blog post about you. We need to push this out through social media so the fans aren’t taken by surprise in San Francisco. If I do it right, they’ll actually be looking forward to seeing you.”

  “Right,” Leah said. She tossed her hair over one shoulder and wished she had worn some earrings. “Okay.”

  “Say cheese,” James said.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “I’ll get it,” Rushani said, and hopped up.

  Leah was facing the door, and so she was looking right at him when he came through the door. The guy, her guy. O’Connor.

  “Okay, brooding and tormented works,” James said, and took the first picture.

  * * *

  O’Connor loitered by the bathroom, feeling awkward, while James conducted his impromptu photo shoot. He had been—okay. He had been hiding in his room, talking to one of his brothers on the phone. He hadn’t expected her to still be here. Leah. But there she was, and it would look too suspicious for him to turn around and leave again. So he waited.

  Her brown hair was loose over her shoulders in glossy waves. She kept glancing at him. He tried to pretend he wasn’t watching her out of the corner of his eye.

  Rushani came over after a minute. “Where’s Andrew?” she asked, in a careful undertone.

  O’Connor shrugged. “I’m not his minder. Still asleep, I guess.”

  She glanced at her watch. “That’s possible.” It was about 10:30, and Andrew hadn’t been awake before noon a single time that week unless someone dragged him out of bed. Rushani gave O’Connor a look he recognized all too well. “Would you go check on him? Maybe see if you can introduce him to Leah.”

  Her scheming was completely transparent, but if he called her on it, she would deny everything. “We’ll see. It looks like James is keeping her pretty busy right now.”

  “I’m almost done,” James said. “What’s going on? You need her for something?”

  “Travel arrangements,” O’Connor said, the first thing that came to mind. “Departure tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” James said. He looked down at the screen of his camera, scrolling through the pictures he had taken. “Sure. I guess I’m done. Thanks, Leah.”

  “Sure,” she said. She looked over at O’Connor. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she had arched against him, her teeth digging into her lower lip.

  “Leah, O’Connor is going to take you to meet Andrew,” Rushani announced.

  James snorted. “Right. Assuming he’s conscious.” Rushani shot him a warning look, but James ignored it and barreled ahead. He was by far the least afraid of Rushani of anyone in the band. Including Andrew. “There’s no reason to subject Leah to him this early in the day. She’ll meet him tomorrow.”

  “I think today would be good,” Rushani said, shooting invisible daggers at James with her eyes.

  Despite the inherent awkwardness of the situation, O’Connor was amused. Rushani had no subtlety, and James had no awareness of social undercurrents. It was just good luck that the two of them usually agreed on things.

  Leah resolved the whole debate by standing up and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go meet this legendary Andrew. I’m sure he’ll be more afraid of me than I am of him.”

  James let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Funny. Make sure you don’t stand too close, though. He smells.”

  “He really doesn’t smell,” Rushani said.

  “Only because you force him to shower,” James said.

  The situation was deteriorating quickly. “Let’s go,” O’Connor said to Leah.

  She followed him out of the room, leaving James and Rushani behind. Alone with her then, in the carpeted and warmly lit hallway, O’Connor raked his fingers through his hair and tried to think of the best way to phrase what he needed to say.

  “I’m really sorry about all of this,” Leah said before he could speak. “I didn’t… I mean, obviously I didn’t know it was you, and then at the audition…”

  “I know,” he said. “I didn’t think you did. I could tell—at the bar—I could tell you didn’t recognize me.”

  She grinned, an unexpected flash of white teeth. He had forgotten how tall she was—tall enough to look him straight in the eye. He liked it. “Were your feelings a little hurt? Big rock star, and I thought you were just some random dude at a show…”

  This was the worst situation possible. He liked her. He wanted to stand in the hallway and banter with her about his huge ego. He could already anticipate the conversation: someone would crack a dick joke, someone else would ask for proof…

  He couldn’t. James would kill him. Rushani would behead the corpse to make sure he was dead.

  Leah’s smile faded, and O’Connor realized he had taken too long to respond. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to try to jump you on tour. It was a one-time thing. We can both pretend to be adults.”

  “Right,” he said. He ran his hand through his hair again. It would be easy to act like he wasn’t interested at all, but that would be dishonest. He felt, somehow, like Leah deserved the truth from him. “Look. I’m really attracted to you. Nothing can happen on tour, and it won’t. But I don’t want you to think… Hooking up with strangers isn’t an everyday thing for me. I didn’t do it lightly. If circumstances were different… Well, but it is what it is.”

  She was watching him, her chin ducked down a little. Her cheeks were pink. “Thanks,” she said. “Um. Thanks for saying that. I mean—it’s mutual. So. But we’ll be good.”

  “I’d rather be bad,” he said automatically, and then winced and raised both hands in front of his face, staving off her protests. “I shouldn’t have said that. God.”

  “You’re a big flirt,” she said, and all of her body language was screaming for him to kiss her. “I see how it is.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” he said, and gave into temptation, one last time.

  The kiss was brief and heated. Her hands slid beneath his T-shirt and rested on the small of his back. He was tempted to throw all caution to the wind, take her back to his room, and keep her in his bed for hours. But he was a musician before he was anything else, and the band came before the demands of his libido, no matter how urgent. No matter how good she felt pressed against him. So he drew back and rubbed his thumb over her lower lip and said, “One for the road.”

  She closed her eyes. He watched her shoulders rise as she took a deep breath. Then she looked at him again, her brown eyes rich and dark, and said, “Right. Last time.” She took a step back and visibly straightened her spine. “Let’s go meet this Andrew character.”

  Andrew’s room was at the end of the hallway, on the other side of James’ room. O’Connor knocked on the door and waited. It usually took a few minutes for Andrew to rouse himself.

  “Are you sure he’s awake?” Leah asked.

  “I’m sure he isn’t.” O’Connor knocked again. “This is usually Rushani’s job. I don’t have the patience for it.”

  “I see,” Leah said, her eyebrows raised.

  O’Connor sighed. “Look. I don’t know what James and Rushani told you. They’re a little prone to catastrophizing. It’s true that Andrew’s a mess, but it’s not like he’s totally nonfunctional. He’s still holding it together on stage. He puts on a great show. So as long as that keeps happening, there isn’t much we can do.”

  “Your record contract,” Leah said.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. They have our balls nailed to the wall. We’ll be on the road unless Andrew drops dead or—who knows, a maid finds a dead hooker in his hotel room. But it’s not—he’s just sleeping. He isn’t passed out in a puddle of his own
vomit.” Which was probably true. Probably. “We aren’t that hardcore.” He and James weren’t, at any rate. But he didn’t feel the need to burden Leah with every sordid detail. She’d signed the contract; she would find out soon enough.

  “That’s how you know you’ve made it,” she said, giving him that look he was beginning to recognize meant she was teasing him. “When you lose control of your basic bodily functions.”

  “Big time rock stars are incontinent?” he asked, and knocked again. “I never knew.”

  “Adult diapers all over the place,” she said. “You should see their tour buses.”

  “I’m fucking coming,” Andrew yelled from inside. “Hold your goddamn horses, Rushani. Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “He has a potty mouth,” O’Connor said to Leah, who raised one hand to cover her smile.

  The deadbolt turned, and the door opened. Andrew scowled at them, his long hair falling in his face. He was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else, and O’Connor was unpleasantly surprised to see how thin he had gotten. His ribs protruded. A pattern of random bruises adorned his upper chest and shoulders. The placement was too weird to be from drug injections. Old hickeys, maybe.

  “Who the fuck is this,” Andrew said.

  “This is Leah,” O’Connor said. “Our new bassist. Because Kerrigan quit. Remember that?”

  “Yeah, I fucking remember,” Andrew said. He tossed his hair over his shoulder and stuck out his hand. “Okay. Leah. Sure. Hi.”

  Leah didn’t hesitate before shaking his hand, which improved O’Connor’s already pretty positive impression of her. He wasn’t sure he would have touched that sticky paw. “Hi, Andrew. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “I fucking bet,” Andrew said. “I bet you heard all sorts of fucked up things about me. Well, here I am. Gawk away.”

  This was a disaster. What had Rushani been thinking? O’Connor realized belatedly that she probably hadn’t intended for him to actually introduce Leah to Andrew. The whole thing had been a ploy to get him and Leah alone, so they could mutually promise not to screw each other. Christ. He’d fumbled it pretty badly, then. O’Connor gave Andrew another once-over. His eyes were bloodshot. His hands were trembling slightly.