“Oh, we’re not having a spat, are we?” Celia asked. She sat down with them, ready to hear all about it. She loved being a spectator to the drama of others.
“Em, no,” Shay said. Now he felt the embarrassment on his cheeks. He did not like to parade his issues in front of anyone. “Con, I do appreciate you giving him another chance. Thank you.”
Conor watched him for a long moment and Shay saw the conflict in his eyes. But finally, he let out a breath and said, “You’re welcome.”
“Don’t tell me we’ve got a new bromance going on here,” Martin said with a laugh.
“For fuck’s sake, Marty,” Shay said. “Will you ever give that a rest?”
“Ah, I think Marty likes having those images in his mind,” Conor said. He leveled his sexiest gaze upon the bass player, and lowered his voice seductively. “You know, thinking of two good looking men stripped down to nothing but their naughty bits? Must really be the thing of your fantasies, thinking about me and Gav getting each other off.”
“Conor! The boys are just in the other room,” Celia said.
Shay laughed, unable to resist the idea that Martin’s teasing of Conor and Gavin all these years was just a cover for his own repressed homosexual tendencies. Though, in fairness to Martin, he wasn’t the only one who had “shipped” Conor and Gavin. There were countless Tumblr blogs devoted to obsessing over photos and GIFs of the two friends. Gavin’s penchant for throwing his arm around Conor and calling him “pretty” helped fuel purple prose fan fiction imagining a secret sexual relationship between them.
“Fuck off, will ya!” Martin said without malice.
“Okay, if you lot are going to carry on this way you can take it elsewhere,” Celia said as she stood up, ever conscious of exuding the kind of propriety not often found among a rock band. She had been a preschool teacher when she and Martin met. Also, a pious virgin who insisted on marriage. Martin gave her everything she asked for from then until the present. He was a man who craved the guidance of a woman.
“I’m leaving anyway,” Conor said as he stood up. “We’re off to France next, yes, lads?”
Martin and Shay also stood up.
“Yes, on with the festivals!” Martin said with a fist pump. The festival season was his favorite as it meant he got to spend more time at home.
“Boys!” Conor called. “Come see me off.”
Martin’s three boys came racing into the room and each grabbed one of Conor’s arms to protest him leaving. He played with them for a moment, showing off his strength and impressing them by raising each in turn to hang from his bicep.
“Come on, fellas. Let’s check out the motorbike one more time,” Conor said and had them eagerly trailing after him.
PART TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Shay had never broken a bone. He’d had a sprained ankle as a kid. And he’d suffered pulled muscles, tennis elbow, and rotator cuff inflammation as a result of aggressive drumming when an adult, but never broken a bone. Not until the Main Square Festival in Arras, France. The saving grace was that it happened during the last song of the encore.
The three-day festival was held in the grand square of Citadel of Arras on Boulevard du General De Gaulle. Rogue performed as the headlining closing act, and the crowd of over thirty thousand had been ecstatic, jumping en masse to the rhythm and singing along word for word throughout the show. Gavin had helped set the tone when he almost immediately acknowledged what the media the world over had been gushing over for the last several days, the birth of his daughter.
“It is with a heart full of joy that I am here to perform for you tonight,” he said. “It’s a kind of joy I never knew was possible until our Daisy came along.” The crowd roared, and Gavin placed his hand over his heart. “Thank you. You know, I’ve found that things take on new meaning now—including my own song lyrics! So, with that in mind, we’re gonna play ‘The Truest Thing’ with a little less angst and a whole lot more joy.”
The audience cheered so wildly that they drowned out the delicate start to the song. Instinctively, each of the band members played their instruments a little more sharply, hitting notes with depth and precision. They kept up that effort for the whole show and were rewarded with the kind of response from the crowd that made it a concert everyone would remember for a long, long time.
Even Danny Boy was caught up in the moment, hooting and hollering at the band during the short break before the encore.
“Yes! That was unfuckingbelievable!” he said, grabbing Shay by the shoulders and shaking him. “Man, I’m pumped! What a fucking rush!”
Shay pulled away from his brother with a smile. It had felt great to be out there, to get lost in the music. Everything else melted away when he was on stage and he needed that release after the last couple weeks of stress.
“I want to be on stage,” Danny Boy said. “Let me get closer so I can see things from your view, kid.”
The water Shay had been chugging almost went down the wrong way when he heard that. “What? No, you need to stay on the side.”
“Oh, come on! I just want to be close enough to feel the rhythm you lay down. It’s so fucking amazing!”
“Thanks, man. But you don’t come on stage. It’s just the four of us. That’s how it is,” Shay said. He wiped the back of his neck with a black hand towel but could still feel the trickle of sweat down his back.
“Just this once—”
Shay clapped his brother on the back. “Gotta go. See you after, yeah?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he followed his bandmates and stage manager back toward the stage. The closer he got, the more the applause and screaming filled his chest. Danny Boy was right, it was a rush, especially if they were screaming for you.
~
Those screams took on a different form during the last song of the encore. They were attacking the song "I Can’t Stay Here," their runaway hit from the most recent album, when something swung down from the rafters and struck Shay so hard he flew off his stool and landed awkwardly on his left arm. He felt the snap but didn’t hear it. There was too much commotion happening all at once, with the distraught cries from the audience, the sudden focus of more than his usual share of lighting, and trying to sort out what had hit him.
Within seconds, he pieced together the flash of images he had caught out of his peripheral vision and realized it was his god damn brother. Danny Boy had climbed up one of the roll down ladders that led up to the lighting gear in the roof framework. This was his “solution” to getting the closer view he craved. And for whatever reason, he decided he could adjust the straps to get into a better position and promptly fell right off and directly into Shay.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Danny Boy said, springing up unharmed.
This allowed Shay to sit up in time to see two things: his wrist was already swelling up and Conor had ditched his guitar and amp pack to run across the huge stage so he could knock Danny Boy down with one well-placed punch to the face.
“You fucking arsehole!” Conor’s usual cool and control was replaced by rage as he kicked Danny Boy in the stomach. “Get up. Get up so I can knock you the fuck down one more time!”
Gavin and Martin came over at the same time.
“Hey, leave off,” Gavin said. He tried to grab Conor’s arm to pull him away but got nothing more than air. “Come on, we’ve gotta finish the song.”
Shay shook his head and held up his wrist. It didn’t matter that it was his left hand. He needed both to play drums.
“See what you’ve done with your reckless bullshit?” Conor shouted at Danny Boy. He was curled into himself, defensively cradling his head.
The crowd had started chanting “Rogue Rogue Rogue” before dissolving into a rendition of The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” That other band’s hypnotic song had become a soccer fan favorite to chant en masse at games.
“Stop this shit, Conor,” Gavin said as Conor was gearing up to kick Danny Boy another time. “I’ll play guitar, you figu
re out how to fucking drum. Seamus, you okay with that?”
Shay looked up at Gavin and nodded. If this is what he wanted, he would do it.
“Merde,” he said softly. Though it was French for “shit,” he meant it in the way Jessica had taught him. She had told him that with ballet, you don’t say “break a leg” for obvious reasons. The tradition was to say merde. In 19th century Paris, a full-house for a performance meant a large number of horse-drawn carriages out front, along with the horses’ droppings. At about that time, dancers went from warning each other to avoid the merde to embracing it as a good sign, since it represented a sold out show.
But Conor would have only heard it in its traditional sense, and even seemed to see it as Shay’s upset at being temporarily replaced because he leaned down toward Danny Boy and told him, “You better run for your fucking life, you bastard.” He had regained his composure and said this evenly, which was somehow more intimidating than when he had completely lost it.
“It was an accident! I didn’t mean any harm!” Danny Boy said, still in his fetal position.
The band’s long-time stage manager, Adrian McElroy, intervened then, ushering the Donnelly brothers off the stage.
Once the crowd realized that Shay was incapacitated there was a great swell of disappointed boos. It was soon replaced by hopeful applause when they saw Gavin pick up Conor’s guitar. Conor then took a seat at Shay’s kit and was greeted by a huge roar of approval. Shay’s drum tech handed Conor a fresh pair of sticks and, only half-joking, made the sign of the cross before stepping away. The industrial fan that was always set behind Shay to keep him cool as he attacked the drums blew the back of Conor’s shirt up. The show of skin sent another cheer through the audience. He pressed down on the foot pedal for the bass drum a few times, then tapped out a rhythm on the skins of the drums and the cymbals to get the feel for it.
Gavin climbed up onto one of the speakers at the foot of the stage to be better seen, though it wasn’t necessary. The massive stage was flanked on either side by enormous monitors projecting his every move.
“So, that was . . . unexpected,” Gavin said and laughed along with his audience. “Shay will be all right, so let’s see what we can do here, yeah? You have our backs, right?”
Carried along by an intensely supportive crowd, they started “I Can’t Stay Here” from the beginning.
Conor struggled with the drumming before settling into the groove, his natural talent for music especially welcome at this moment.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
There was nothing Shay could bring himself to say to Danny Boy even as they went together through the process of going to the hospital, taking x-rays, and finally getting a temporary splint. Once the swelling went down in a day or so, he would get a cast for the six-weeks it would take the hairline fracture to heal. Though Shay had nothing to say, Danny Boy spoke non-stop. It was mostly excuses and expressing disbelief at what had happened. Shay knew Danny Boy’s latest misadventure hadn’t been an intentional effort to hurt him, but the result was exactly that. He had physically hurt him but what was far worse was that he had damaged the band in multiple ways. Rogue would now face another scandal that couldn’t be avoided by Felicity’s clever tricks.
Adrian McElroy, Rogue’s stage manager, had accompanied them to the hospital and explained that they would have to cancel the rest of their summer festival commitments and reschedule at least a month’s worth of their regular tour dates. All of that was at considerable cost—to their reputation and finances. Once done at the hospital, Adrian left in a separate car to find the rest of the band and explain the situation. Shay was glad not to have to face them right away.
It was only when Shay and Danny Boy were in the lobby of their hotel and Danny Boy started to gripe about the punch he had taken from Conor that Shay found his voice.
“Stop right there,” he said, turning quickly to face his brother. “Don’t you open your fucking gob one more time.”
“I’m just saying—”
Shay’s eyes must have turned as dark and menacing as he felt because Danny Boy finally shut himself up. “This is not something easily fixed or forgotten. You’ve fucked up the chance I worked so hard to get you. You know that?”
“Come on, kid. It wasn’t my fault. Jesus, I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“That’s the way it always is, isn’t it? You’re never to blame. Or really, I should say, you never take fucking responsibility.”
Danny Boy raised his hands defensively. “You’re angry, I get it. The pain probably makes it that much worse. What you need is to pop some of those pills they gave you. What was it? Percocet?”
Shay heard the hopeful note in Danny Boy’s voice and it made him sick and sad at the same time. His brother’s cheek was red and swollen. No doubt he was also in pain from that fierce punch he took, but he would just have to push through it. Even if Shay had some hard painkillers he wouldn’t share them.
“No, man,” Shay said. “They gave me ibuprofen. That’s all I got.”
“Well, what the fuck? How’s that supposed to help you out? You need something more, yeah? I’ll get you something, Shay. I’ll get you something to take the edge off. Let me go sort it and I’ll come back and the two of us can—”
“No. I don’t want anything else. And I don’t want you around anything like that. Just go to your room. Get some rest and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Are you sure? You must be feeling pretty wrecked. You shouldn’t have to just suffer.”
“I’m sure, Danny Boy. Come, let’s go now.”
It was clear that the temptation had caught hold of Danny Boy and he was slow to respond to the suggestion to move on. Shay waited him out and finally they both moved toward the elevators.
~
In his room, Shay collapsed flat onto the bed and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. Before he could process it, he found himself laughing. The image of Danny Boy careening into him on stage like some sort of superhero gone bad was comical. His laugh was anguished, though, born out of his fatigue and helplessness. He had thought he was tired before, but it didn’t compare to this feeling. This was something new and raw. There was so much repair work he had to do with his bandmates after this. He just had no idea how or where he could begin. Or even if they would be open to his apologies. Danny Boy could have just cost him his position as drummer for Rogue for all he knew.
The throbbing in his wrist finally made him go quiet. He sat up and reached for the pills he’d been given, taking the recommended dose. He stared at his cell phone for a long moment before grabbing it. So that he wouldn’t rethink it, he quickly dialed the number he wanted.
After three rings, he heard Jessica’s tentative hello and the sound of her voice filled his chest with warmth.
“Hi, Jess,” he said, “how are you?”
“Um, fine. I’m fine.”
Shay smiled. It was as if they were right back into their first meeting outside the sushi restaurant in New York where he had surprised her and come on too strong. She hadn’t known how to respond to him then, and it seemed she was having the same reaction now.
“I’m in France. I think the time difference between here and New York is okay for you, right?”
“I’m actually in San Francisco. But, yeah, the time change is fine.”
“Visiting your family?”
“Um, no. I live here. I moved back a while ago.”
That news surprised him. It felt wrong to not have known she had moved all the way across the country, despite the fact that he had no right to know anything about her life.
“Well, that’s, em,” he mumbled, “I mean, good for you. If you’re happy. Are you happy, Jess?”
He could hear her take in a breath that came out shaky.
“So, what can I do for you, Shay?”
Closing his eyes, he tried to focus. “I just wanted to hear your voice, love. I wanted to hear that you’re well.”
There was a long silence. “Ar
e you okay?” she asked.
He forced himself to sound more upbeat than he felt. “I’m grand. I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve been thinking of little else to be honest.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t want to engage with him, he realized. He didn’t blame her after how things had ended. After how much time had passed without any other contact. But he still felt the sting of her disinterest in the pit of his stomach. Then he realized that he had nothing left to lose and decided to forge ahead.
“Listen, I’m going to have some time off coming up. What would you think of me coming to see you there in San Francisco?”
“I think . . . it would be awkward. Especially for my boyfriend.”
So that was it. She had moved on and had no desire to look back.
“I see,” he said softly, absently. His mind drifted to something that shocked him. He thought for the briefest moment about taking Danny Boy up on his offer to find some sort of narcotic for them to enjoy.
A swift and loud banging on his door pulled him from his thoughts.
“What is that?” Jessica asked.
“Em—”
Shay was interrupted by Gavin’s shouting, “Open up, you one-armed drummer! Let’s see the damage!”
“What does that mean? Are you okay?” Jessica asked.
Shaking his head, Shay got up from the bed and headed toward the door. “I’m fine, Jess. Just got a minor injury.”
Gavin was still making a ruckus at the door, so Shay pulled it open to stop him. Gavin stood there with a bottle of vodka and a grin.
“Where’s the bloody cast? I expected more of a show than this for a broken wrist!” Gavin said as he let himself into the room.
Hitting That Sweet Spot (Rogue Series Book 3) Page 18