The next caller asked about Ray’s process for writing songs and how that worked with the rest of the band. That took a while to discuss—and it was fascinating.
“I don’t talk about this much, ’cause people don’t always understand, but I have synesthesia,” Ray said. Then he went into how he saw songs. Sometimes the music came first, sometimes the words. Once he had a sketch, he’d play it for the rest of the band and they’d go from there, each adding their own unique takes.
“We only have time for one more call,” Amy said. “Hi there, you’re on the air with Twisted Wishes!”
There was a pause, then a masculine voice spoke out from the speakers. “Yes, my question is for Mish.”
The tone of that voice, the way Mish’s name had been spoken, had David on his feet. Every nerve alight. Fucking hell.
“David.” A whisper from Adrian.
Mish glanced at him before speaking into the mic. “Go ahead.”
“You were wearing those slutty tights again, at the last concert, and I want to know why. I told you—” The line cut off abruptly.
Both Ray and Zavier were standing. Marcella had somehow materialized on the other side of the hall by the studio door in mere seconds, probably because she had more training in management than either he or Adrian did.
David was rooted to the ground, mouth dry, heart pounding, every instinct to lash out at the threat that wasn’t there. Not physically, at least. His hand flew to his chest, but his tags weren’t there. They were on Marly and he was safely tucked into Mish’s belongings, ready for their next leg on the bus.
In the studio, Mish sat still, pale but for red high on her cheeks. She wet her lips and leaned into the mic. “I wore them because I wanted to. Because they make me feel good. Because no one dictates what I wear.” Her voice was low and smooth, but carried the force of her passion. “Clothes are a personal choice. Wear what you want.” She leaned back.
Both Amy and Clark had the same wide-eyed and shocked expression, but Amy spoke in that upbeat voice of hers that only belied a little of the chaos in her expression. “I think we can all agree to that! Why don’t we treat you to another song off Twisted Wishes’s latest album? This is ‘Born in Fire.’”
Music started to play, and both hosts slumped over. Marcella was in the studio in a flash, talking quickly, but nothing came out the speaker except the song.
Mish sat still, her eyes closed, in the studio as everyone moved and gestured around her. David fought the urge to go to her side. There were already too many people in that small space.
Domino sat next to her, still and silent. His focus seemed to be on his hands.
“Shit,” Adrian murmured.
David thought of Dom’s comment on the bus. “Don’t worry about Dom. I’m going to ring that fucker’s neck first.”
Silence stretched before Adrian spoke again. “You know, you’d look hideous in orange, David.”
Maybe. He rubbed his chin. “I don’t like death. I’ve seen too much of it. But this fucker...”
Mish opened her eyes and flicked them up to meet his. Her shoulders dropped. She rose, seemingly oblivious to the people around her, and strode out of the studio. That unrooted David. He met her in the hallway.
Everything in his chest was painful and full of danger. All the words in his mind. He uttered only one. “Mish.”
She gave a single shake of her head. “I need air.”
He pushed his own anger and fear away. “Let’s see if there’s somewhere private you can go.” Because the front parking lot would still hold fans, all of whom had just heard that creeper speak.
They worked their way to the reception desk, and David spoke to both the guard and the receptionist while Mish stood back. When he returned, she held her body so rigidly and her lips were set in a line so sharp he could have used them to slice stone. “There’s a loading dock in the back of building. There’s only one way back there from the outside, and there’s security, so there shouldn’t be any fans.”
“Good.” That was all she said.
He led her in the direction the guard had told him. Down a corridor, around a corner, and through a nondescript door out onto the dock. The area smelled of cool concrete and oil, but beyond the rolled up dock doors shone sunlight. He headed down another short set of stairs and out into the day.
The guard had been right—there was little back here but a few cars, a high chain-link fence and a driveway that turned around to the front of the building. Mish had stopped in the shade of the dock, and he gestured to her. “There’s no one here. It’s safe.”
She slid out into the light, her arms wrapped around herself as if it were late autumn and not June.
“Nowhere is safe.” Her eyes glistened and she shook, maybe in rage, maybe in pain. Quite possibly both.
David knew that cacophony of emotions when he’d wanted to scream and hit and cry until unfairness bled away. Never really left him.
“Right here and right now, you’re safe.” He kept his voice soft, but firm. “There’s no one else. Just us.”
It was almost a laugh, her huff of breath, but there was too much sorrow in it. Mish loosened her arms, then craned her face up at the sky.
There were tears in her eyes, though they didn’t fall and made no tracks down her cheeks. “I’d scream, but I have to sing tonight.”
If there was one thing in the world that meant everything to Mish, it was being there for the fans. Mind, body, and tonight, voice.
“I guess punching something is out, too.” David shoved his hands into his pockets.
This time she did laugh. “Unless you have a hidden talent as a bass guitarist and can replace me tonight.” She flexed her fingers. “Otherwise, I need these in one piece.”
“I never learned to play an instrument, beyond those plastic recorder things in elementary school.”
“Ah, the flutophone.” Mish’s sharp expression was gone. “I had one. My mom couldn’t stand it. I think that’s why she got me a guitar.”
This was a better avenue than talking about the stalker. “How’d you learn bass, anyway? You said you moved around a lot.”
A nod. “We did. But I loved music. Wouldn’t stop playing that damn flutophone, so Mom found a half-decent acoustic guitar and some books at a thrift store and gave them to me. The music teacher at the elementary school at the time indulged me. She taught me basic fingering and we were learning to read music. So I just...studied those books. Played as much as I could.” She paused. “I was heartbroken when the guitar got smashed in a move.”
“Shit.” He almost tasted the shock and agony of a young girl discovering her beloved instrument broken.
“I cried for hours. One of two times in my life I’ve done that.”
He didn’t have to ask the other—he had a very good idea what that moment had been.
Mish rolled her head around her shoulders. “Couple months later, my mom dated this guy who played bass. I kinda wish he’d stuck around because he was nice—nicer than the rest of them. But he was chasing fame.” She stopped. “I get that now. Didn’t then, though. I was ten.”
“I remember ten.” He’d been so torn, wanting the jeans, shirts, and shoes all the guys had. Wanting to be accepted as one of them. Instead, he was “cute” for emulating the boys and shoved back into the dresses he hated.
Mish had a smile now, thin, but there. “When I saw Danny the bassist’s guitar, I asked if I could play it. He thought I was joking, but when I started to get chords and notes out of it, he realized I wasn’t—and spent time teaching me.” Another huff. “Sometimes I wonder what happened to him. I mean, he was something like twenty-five, so he’d be around fifty now. Not too old. Maybe still out there, playing.” She paused. “Before he left, he got a new bass, so he gave me his old one.”
There were tears in Mish’s eyes again. David’s thro
at was tight. “That was kind of him.”
Those eyes—green now in the summer light—trained on him. “It changed my life.”
He let the silence settle between them. After a while, Mish kicked at a stone. “I miss my mom so much. It’s been years, but the pain never leaves.”
He could only nod. “My parents are alive, but we—drifted apart.” Joining the army. His transition. All those internal scars that never seemed to go away.
Mish raised her face to the sky and drew in a breath. “She called me her little smish. That’s why. That’s...” More tears traced down her face. “I took a name that was all her. Because she was everything to me.”
Her pain was so raw, so intense, David couldn’t move. Didn’t have the right to interrupt. To speak.
She took another breath. “Can I ask you why you chose David?”
“Because he defeated Goliath.” So had he, in his own way.
Maybe Mish understood that, because she met his gaze. “It’s you.”
It was. And Mish Sullivan was her. Every inch.
Mish kicked another stone across the lot. “I think you’re right. This shithead is from my past, somewhere. There’s something about his voice that’s familiar, but I can’t place it.” She pursed her lips. “Why couldn’t someone like Danny drift back into my world instead of this creep?”
So, his instincts had been right. David took no pleasure at all in that. Instead, he focused on Mish’s happy memories. “I don’t know, baby,” he murmured. “Maybe when this is done we can try to find Danny? I bet he’d be thrilled to see how far you’ve come.”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” There was brightness in her words again. An ease in the way she moved. “David?”
“Yeah?”
Mish opened her arms. “Thank you.”
Of course he went. For this woman, he’d always step into her arms.
He expected the hug. What he hadn’t anticipated was her kissing him. Wasn’t the passion of the night before, but her mouth still threatened to take David to his knees. There was affection in that kiss. A homecoming. And a need so deep and profound answered in him that it shook him to his marrow.
This wasn’t a job anymore. Hadn’t been for some time. This was—if he let it be—a road to the future. One he could walk along with others. With Mish. A path he’d never ventured down before with any thought that it might actually work. He wasn’t built for company. He’d been a loner all his life.
But this woman—with her fingers in his hair, with softness, pain, and hope in her lips—with this person, there was a glimmer that the path might be different. Be shared. Be true.
David was frightened and angry for Mish, yes. But in that moment, he was also terrified for himself. Because hope opened doors, but it also shattered lives.
* * *
Silence. That had been Mish’s life since Marcella had found David and her in the back lot of the radio station. In fact, they pulled the van around to the loading dock and they’d all boarded there.
The drive to the hotel, where the bus waited to take them to the concert venue, was quiet but for the road noises and the occasional shifting of bodies on seats, shoes on the floor.
Mish’s fingers were twined with David’s. That touch kept her grounded and present even as she replayed the stalker’s words in her head, listening to the memory of that voice. Examining the timber.
The words hurt—the whole damn thing cut her—especially that voice. Something stirred in her mind, but she couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t match the sounds to anything she knew.
Each one of her bandmates was caught in a silence of their own. Ray looked sad. Not hopeless—probably because he knew something could be done. Something had been done. Still, he sat with his eyes downcast. Zavier had his hand resting lightly on Ray’s thigh, as if to remind Ray that he was there.
Dom’s eyes were closed, arms crossed, and Adrian was thumbing and typing on his phone, as was Marcella. Probably dealing with the inevitable social media—and every other media—storm.
All she’d ever wanted to do was play. Play songs and sing and be heard. Lose herself in the music, both in her heart and in the hearts of others. Ray had plucked her out of a bar and offered her a path to that dream, one that he shared with such fierce passion, she’d believed in him even that first night.
Her mom would be so proud. Had been so supportive of her music, even if the shrillness of the flutophone all those years ago had been like nails on a chalkboard. Even when Mish had taken up stripping to support them, her mom hadn’t berated her.
And deep inside her came that wailing that always did when she thought about her mom too long. Because death was unfair and awful and final.
She tightened her grip on David’s hand and got a squeeze in response. He turned in the seat—that much she saw out of the corner of her eye, but she kept her gaze focused in front of her.
Momma would have liked David, thought he was a good, decent man, so unlike the ones she’d dated. Beggars can’t be choosers, she’d said once, when Mish had asked why she dated so many awful guys. Don’t ever be a beggar, my beautiful child.
To this day, Mish didn’t understand what she meant. Her mother had been a bright star in the galaxy of her life. Not a beggar at all.
Mish closed her eyes. This wasn’t good, this train of thought. They had a concert to play tonight. So she took a deep breath, then another and another, and listened to the rumble of the van and the stillness of her bandmates and worked to clear her mind of thoughts of her mother, of that awful voice she’d heard over the phone, and of her pain and sorrow.
David’s hand was warm in hers, and she drew strength from that. She was here. Her dreams were here and manifest. So many would look to her tonight to give them a taste of that hope.
When they reached the hotel, the tour bus was already there, which was good. There were also fans, which normally lightened her heart, but her heart felt like a stone of iron falling and falling down into something dark and shadowy.
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered as the van pulled up.
Ray answered in a quiet, soothing voice. “You don’t have to. We can sign. You and David can head to the bus.”
Another squeeze from David, which felt less like agreement with Ray and more like support for her—for what she wanted to do. Mish looked up at the ceiling, hating that this...fucking asshole...was getting to her. Had gotten to her.
No matter what she did, his comments, his actions, and that damn call changed how she behaved by making her think about how she should act. How each motion would be perceived, how that damn man would respond.
“Fuck.” She whispered that, too. “No. I’ll go. Can’t be any worse than after the ring.”
David finally spoke. “Would you like me there? With you?”
“With me with me, or just with me?” The question tumbled out, though she hadn’t meant to ask it.
He cocked his head. “Either. However you need me, Mish.”
She needed him. Right now, she needed him by her side. She didn’t know what the future held—didn’t want to think beyond the concert and the stage and the freedom that was playing and singing. After tonight, maybe she would. “Come with me. Stand with me. Be with me.”
“Okay.” That was all he said, though his eyes, the curve of his lips, and the warmth of his hand said so much more.
They filed out from the bus.
In the end, signing for the fans lifted her spirits. They were all kind and bright-eyed. Hopeful and excited. They couldn’t wait to hear her sing. See the band play live. They were astounded to be able to talk and hug and take photos with Twisted Wishes.
She was here and now. Because that’s what was important. Hold on to those moments tight, her mom had said so many years ago. Never forget them.
I miss you, Momma.
David was her
e, his hand occasionally touching her. His soft smile lifted his cheeks, even if she couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses.
There were pictures taken of them like that—David close. Closer than a guard would be. The pool toss, the night out. All of those would be catalogued, too, along with that horrible phone call. Such was her life in the spotlight.
But Mish’s life was also what was before her now—a young woman’s bright smile. Another from a college-age fan wearing a pronoun necklace that read they. The laughter from a group waiting to see the band. All of this was her life, too.
When they finished signing, she waved to them. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to us. To me.” Then she boarded the tour bus.
David followed. The whole band was there. Ray had sorrow in his eyes when she met his.
“Aw, kiddo,” she said, and pulled him into a hug. “I’ll be okay.”
“I know,” came his muffled reply from her shoulder. “But I also know it hurts.”
She gave them all hugs, after that. Kissed Dom on his forehead and Zavier on the cheek. Marcella even opened her arms, though she was the least touchy-feely of them all.
Then she drew David into her arms and let him take her weight and rock her. “Baby.” His voice was full of the grit he got when emotions were in play. “You’re gonna knock ’em dead tonight.”
Right words. Right time. Tears welled, and though she hated them, she let a few fall, then pulled back to wipe her eyes. “Yeah. I want to.”
The bus shuddered to life, rolling forward, and they all found seats. “I want us to walk out there and play like it’s the first concert and the last concert. The only one we get.”
Ray nodded and Zavier was rubbing his chin, eyes bright. Dom—Domino—had his grin on. “All right. Let’s do that,” he said.
Ray dug out his Moleskine. “Let’s get to work.”
Mish took David’s hand in hers, and they all leaned in to make this the best Twisted Wishes concert ever.
Chapter Fifteen
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