by Bec Linder
For God’s sake. “Leah, why don’t you go back to Rushani’s room and see if there’s anything else she needs to discuss with you?”
Leah gave him a look like she knew exactly what she was doing, but she nodded and said, “Sure. I’ll see you later.”
O’Connor watched until she had gone back down the hallway and disappeared into Rushani’s room. Then he turned to Andrew and said, “Why don’t we take a little look at what you’ve been up to, you stupid piece of shit?”
“You stay out of my room,” Andrew protested.
O’Connor ignored him, and shouldered past him into the room. It was dark, the curtains still drawn, and it smelled like stale sweat. He flipped the light switch. The blankets were a tangled mess on the floor. The bare mattress was strewn with empty beer cans. And there, on the side table: a little pile of white powder, and a razor blade.
“You stupid piece of shit,” O’Connor said again. His gut twisted. The drinking he knew about, and the party drugs, but this—doing coke alone in a hotel room…
Andrew was still standing in the doorway. His hands were curled into fists at his sides. He looked away and shrugged, his mouth pinched tight.
“That’s it?” O’Connor asked. “Nothing to say for yourself?”
“Don’t tell Rushani,” Andrew said, in a small, pitiful voice, nothing at all like his earlier invective. He sounded like himself, then, for that one moment. Like the Andrew O’Connor remembered. The one who had been his friend.
“Fine,” O’Connor said. “I won’t. You’re going to tell her yourself.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Bryce drove her to the hotel late the next afternoon. Luka was working—one of his bands was playing a show that night, and he was helping them with set-up. She could have taken a cab, but Bryce offered, and she wasn’t opposed to the moral support.
They drove most of the way in silence¸ down Santa Monica Boulevard past the restaurants and palm trees, the mountains rising in the distance. Leah leaned her head against the passenger side window and thought about what she had gotten herself into.
“Are you excited?” Bryce asked finally, waiting at a red light.
“I guess,” Leah said. “I mean—the money will be nice. Being on stage again will be nice.”
“But?” Bryce asked.
She shrugged, slumping down further in her seat. The air conditioning in Bryce’s car was broken again, and her tank top stuck to the small of her back. “Band drama. Their lead singer is sort of… I met him yesterday. He’s on drugs, I think. The bassist quit because of it.” She had read every interview with the band she could get her hands on. It was a classic story: Andrew and O’Connor lived in the same dorm their freshman year at UIC and decided to start a band. They recruited Kerrigan and James through a classified ad and started playing local shows. Within a year, they had released their first album and gotten enough buzz for a record deal. Their second album produced a minor alt-radio hit and sold decently, and their third album went supernova. The interviews made them sound like a close-knit group of good friends, which might have been true at one point, but didn’t seem to be the case anymore. Band drama. Things fell apart.
Bryce sighed and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “We’ve been there before.”
“It’s going to be a shit-show.” Leah tried to smooth out an uneven crease dried into the hem of her shirt.
“But you agreed,” Bryce said. He glanced at her, and then the light turned green and he accelerated, eyes on the road once more.
“Masochism, I guess,” Leah said. “Or—I don’t know. I missed it. Playing music. Being on stage. Does that sound stupid? It’s not like I’m, you know, desperate for the audience to adore me or whatever—”
“No, I know,” Bryce said. “I know what you mean. I’m surprised it took you this long, to be honest. You were always… Look. For the rest of us, being in a band was a thing we did for a while. It was awesome, don’t get me wrong. We had a lot of fun. We did some seriously cool shit. But when it was over, we were all okay with it, you know? It was time. We were ready to move on to the next thing. But for you—Leah, there’s nothing in this world you were meant to do except make music.”
That was a long speech for Bryce, whose usual conversational style consisted of dry one-liners. “Am I really that transparent?”
He laughed. “I’ve known you for a long time, that’s all.” He reached over and patted her leg. “It’s only a month. Even if the lead singer is one hundred percent bananas, I think you can probably hang tough for that long.”
“You’re right,” she said, and took a deep breath. “Okay.”
The tour buses were parked in a lot beside the hotel: two of them, huge and shiny. Bryce pulled into the lot and parked his car. A couple of guys were loitering beside one of the buses, smoking cigarettes, and they glanced in the direction of the car before looking away again, bored or pretending to be. Leah didn’t recognize them. Roadies, probably.
She got out of the car. It was hot and bright, the sun a yellow disk edging toward the horizon. Bryce popped the trunk, and Leah hauled out her duffel and threadbare backpack, veterans of half a dozen tours, and her guitar in its beat-up case.
“You’ll do great, kid,” Bryce said, pulling her into a rough hug. “Don’t forget to call home. You know Luka worries.”
“I’m a big girl,” Leah said, a little nettled. “Luka needs to find a hobby.”
Bryce laughed. “Okay, message received. Don’t get into too much trouble. I’ll see you in a couple of months.”
He got back in the car, and Leah realized belatedly that he was going to leave her there. She had never been on a tour without Bryce, and she had subconsciously expected that he would follow her onto the bus and it would be just like always.
Well, she hadn’t been lying: she was a big girl.
She waved at him as he pulled away.
The roadies, still smoking, watched her and said nothing.
The door to one of the buses opened, and Rushani descended the steps, smiling. A wave of relief washed over Leah at the sight of Rushani’s friendly face. She wasn’t totally alone here.
Rushani paused and spoke with the roadies, one of whom shrugged and tossed his cigarette to the ground. The other looked at Leah and smirked. Great. Tour politics, and she was already somehow embroiled in it. Rushani said something to the smirking roadie, who rolled his eyes dramatically. Then they both walked around the side of the bus and disappeared, and Rushani crossed the hot asphalt to where Leah stood waiting, still holding her bags.
“Right on time,” Rushani said as she drew near. “Punctuality is a tour manager’s favorite trait.” She smiled at Leah. “Can I take one of your bags?”
“Uh, sure,” Leah said, and handed Rushani her backpack. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mind the peanut gallery,” Rushani said. She slung Leah’s backpack over one shoulder and started walking toward the buses. Leah followed her. “Apparently those two heard a rumor that you were, and I quote, a smoking hot babe. So they wanted to check out the situation for themselves.”
“Great,” Leah said, already imagining the delightful variety of sexual harassment that she would get to put up with for the next month.
Rushani shot her a glance. “Don’t worry, it’s not like that. I don’t put up with any funny business, and they both know it. If they give you trouble, let me know and I’ll take care of it.”
Something in Leah’s stomach unknotted. She liked Rushani, who so far seemed very forthright and matter-of-fact. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”
That issue apparently settled, Rushani moved on. “We’re leaving in an hour. I’ll get you settled and introduce you around. We’ll stop for dinner somewhere. We should be in San Francisco by 11:00, and we’ll check into a hotel there. Well, San Jose. Or, I guess technically, Santa Clara. Timory Rose, who’s the opening act, will meet us there. She and her band went ahead without us.” They had arrived at the closest bus, and Rushani moun
ted the steps without pausing for breath.
Leah followed more slowly, blinking in the sudden dimness of the interior. She hesitated in the doorway while she waited for her eyes to adjust.
“You should have worn your sunglasses,” a deep voice said, warm and amused.
It was O’Connor. Leah blinked a few more times, and finally a few shapes emerged from the gloom. O’Connor was sitting on a low couch, beer bottle in hand. James was beside him, and he rose as Leah squinted at them and said, “Let me take your bag.” She noted that he didn’t offer to take her guitar: a musician through and through.
“A true gentleman,” O’Connor said.
“Boys,” Rushani said crisply. “I’m sorry, Leah, I forgot how long you had been outside. We usually turn off the lights in here when we’re parked for a while.”
“It’s fine,” Leah said. “No big deal.” She smiled weakly in O’Connor’s general direction, surrendered her bag to James, and followed Rushani into the depths of the bus.
Rushani had told her the day before that the Saving Graces had nice buses, and she hadn’t been exaggerating. Leah had never toured on a bus, but she’d known people who had, and had spent plenty of time partying on other bands’ buses, most of which were run-down, filthy, and smelled like stale cigarette smoke. But Rushani apparently ran a tight ship, because there weren’t any dirty socks on the floor, and the kitchenette sink looked like it had recently been scrubbed down. Even the bunk area was relatively tidy, although a few untucked sheets hinted at the disarray hidden behind the drawn curtains.
“You’ll sleep on this bus, with the band,” Rushani said. She set Leah’s backpack on an empty middle bunk. “I sleep here as well, and so do Marina and Rinna, the merch girl and the monitor tech. Girls have to stick together.”
James, standing behind Leah, said, “Rushani likes making sure we don’t party so hard that we miss bus call.”
“Don’t be sassy, James,” Rushani said. “That’s what you pay me for.”
He laughed, and lowered Leah’s duffel to the floor. “You’re giving her the tour, right? I’ll go to the other bus and tell the crew guys to hide their contraband.”
“Thanks,” Rushani said, flashing him a smile.
“How long have you been working for these guys?” Leah asked, after James had made his way back toward the front of the bus.
“Oh, a few years now,” Rushani said. “Three years, I guess? I wasn’t with them on their first tour, but I’ve done every tour since then.” She closed the curtain over Leah’s bunk. “I’d show you the rear lounge, but Andrew’s sulking in there right now.”
“It’s okay,” Leah said. She set down her guitar case beside her duffel bag. “I’ve been on a tour bus before.”
“They’re all more or less the same,” Rushani agreed. “So. Do you feel up to meeting the crew?”
Leah really didn’t, but she knew she would have to get it over with sooner or later. She drew in a deep breath, plastered a smile on her face, and said, “Sure.”
O’Connor was still sitting in the lounge as Leah followed Rushani off the bus. She felt his eyes on her, a hot prickle at the back of her neck and skimming over her bare shoulders. She fought the urge to glance at him, fought it, and then succumbed at the last moment, her feet already on the stairs, and met his gaze with a hot shudder that curled her toes in her sandals.
She couldn’t. It couldn’t happen.
She was off the bus and gone.
Rushani was saying something. Leah forced herself to focus. “…think you’ll want him to tech for you?”
“Sure,” Leah said, hedging her bets. She had no idea what Rushani was talking about.
“He’ll be glad,” Rushani said, and Leah nodded, pleased that she had said the right thing.
They approached the other bus. A few of the roadies had set up folding lawn chairs on the pavement outside, and they were smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer out of cans. One of them raised his can in greeting as Rushani and Leah drew near. “New girl!”
“She has a name, Leonard,” Rushani said.
The guy grinned. His arms were covered in tattoos, dark swirls against his dark skin. His dreads were pulled back in a neat tail. “Sorry. Leah, right?” He hauled himself out of the chair and shook Leah’s hand. “I’m the drum tech.”
“Nice to meet you,” Leah said, doing her best to be polite, doing her best not to be overwhelmed by all of the strange eyes watching her. She recognized one of the gathered roadies: the smirking one who had been loitering outside the bus when she arrived.
Rushani introduced her to the gathered men, and Leah tried to make mental notes, but there were so many of them, and they were all variations on the same long-haired, tattooed theme. James emerged from the bus with even more roadies—and a single woman, rail-thin and fierce. Leah caught her eye and smiled. The woman stared back, unsmiling, and Leah looked away and blushed. Okay. So much for making friends.
“Here’s the rest of them,” James said. “Leah, I know we’re giving you a lot of names to remember, but I particularly want you to meet Jeff. He was Kerrigan’s bass tech, and he’ll be doing the same work for you unless you have some objection.”
“Not at all,” Leah said, and shook hands with Jeff, who was a short and paunchy white guy approaching middle age, with lines around his eyes and mouth that spoke to a lifetime of laughter. When he smiled at her, there was genuine warmth in it, and Leah felt reassured that she would have at least one friend on the crew.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said. “Kerrigan was almost too laid back for his own good, so you’ll have to tell me how you like things done.”
“I’m not sure,” Leah admitted. “I’ve never had a tech before.”
One of the other roadies, overhearing this, roared with laughter and slapped Jeff on the shoulder. “Nice, man! You can spend every soundcheck jerking off and nobody will ever know.”
“I’ll know,” James said flatly. “I’m standing right here.”
The roadie grinned and slung one arm around James’s shoulders. “If you don’t tell Rushani, I’ll give you some of my special stash.”
“I don’t want your special stash,” James said. “For God’s sake, Tom.”
Leah filed that name away. He was the rigger, she was pretty sure. One of the riggers? Was there more than one? Her tours with Rung were never that complicated: the band in a van with their tour manager and one sound guy. They did all of their own load-in and load-out, and Leah’s guitar had been her own responsibility, not anyone else’s. But the Saving Graces were a big deal, and playing stadiums took a lot more manpower than playing the little backwater clubs that Rung had frequented.
She would just have to adapt.
Rushani had been talking to one of the roadies, but now she came over to Leah and said, “We’ll head out in half an hour. James, will you take her back to the bus and tell her the bus rules? I need to get these guys rounded up.”
“Sure,” James said agreeably, and as he and Leah walked back toward the other bus, he leaned in and said in a low voice, “You look like you could use a beer.”
His words startled a sharp laugh out of Leah. “Yeah,” she said. “I really could.”
O’Connor was just where she had left him, sprawled on one of the couches in the front lounge. Only the label on his beer bottle had changed.
“Working hard?” Leah asked.
He grinned and took a swig. “This is what I get paid for, sweetheart,” he said, speaking with his mouth loose against the rim of the bottle. “Lounging and partying.”
“That isn’t what you’re paid for,” James said. He opened the mini-fridge and tossed Leah a beer. By some miracle, she actually caught it. “Act lively, O’Connor. We’re having a band meeting.”
“Oh yeah?” O’Connor straightened up. He dangled the beer bottle between his knees. Leah’s eyes went to his long fingers, casually wrapped around the neck of the bottle.
Stop it.
She sat o
n the sofa, a few careful feet away from O’Connor, and took a careful sip of her beer. It was a decent IPA. Of course: they were rock stars. They didn’t drink cheap beer anymore. “Shouldn’t Andrew be here? If we’re having a band meeting.”
O’Connor snorted. “What for? So he can complain about how unreasonable we are to expect him to do anything other than gaze at his navel and drink too much? I can’t wait. Bring him on out.”
Leah frowned at him, feeling a little stung. “I didn’t mean—”
“O’Connor, rein it in,” James said. He leaned against the counter across from them and popped the cap on his own beer. “Andrew doesn’t need to be here. I just want to give Leah the run-down about what to expect.”
“No toilet paper in the toilet, no showers on the bus, clean up after yourself or steam starts coming out of Marina’s ears,” O’Connor said. “Which is honestly pretty funny.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Leah said. She knew how touring was. Close quarters led to short tempers; strict bus rules kept the peace.
“I don’t expect that you’ll have any problems,” James said. “You’ve toured before. But I think we should talk some about the shows and the fans. Some parts of this will be new for you, I think.”
He was being so diplomatic. “I haven’t played an arena tour, you mean,” she said. “I know it’s a whole different ball game.”
“Right,” James said. “The transition can be sort of startling.”
“After we played our first arena show, James needed a cold drink and a lie-down,” O’Connor said. “Come on, James, you’re being dramatic. It isn’t that different.”
“The music’s the same,” James agreed. “But the—you know, the experience—”
“The fans,” Leah said, extrapolating.
“Some of them are crazy,” O’Connor said. “Like, genuinely crazy. I know I’m supposed to talk about how grateful I am for our devoted fans, and I am, but some of them really cross the line. Most of it’s directed at Andrew, thank God, but there’s plenty of crazy to go around.”