by Caisey Quinn
“No, you know what? Here’s what really burns me. There are people out there, real people, with kids they can barely feed, and bills to pay, and rent, and real problems. And they show up to work day after day, night after night. But you, with your money and your flashy bus and your tight ass jeans, you show up whenever you feel like it. Or not. Like there aren’t a million people out there who would step over their own mothers to be in your shoes. And you know what else?” She sucked in more air so she could finish.
Something resembling pain flashed across the man’s face at her last comment but she couldn’t stop. Words tumbled out so fast she barely had time to think. “You probably have about fifteen more minutes until some guy with deeper dimples and tighter jeans, if that’s possible, comes along and steals your thunder. Because really, you’re not all that damned special. But congratulations. I hope it makes you feel like a big man to leave me and Pauly high and dry while you go out and have a good time.”
“You done?” Trace’s eyes were only half open. The red tingeing Kylie’s vision was fading slightly.
“No, I’m not, but I think two more seconds would be too much time to waste on some pathetic drunk who pisses away God given talent for his own amusement.”
At that, he sat up, squaring his shoulders and leveling her with a cold stare. “Oh yeah, and what the hell do you know about it?”
Oh, wow. He was just spraying her fire with gasoline. Kylie lowered her voice and leaned close enough to smell the liquor emanating from him. “I know that I thank the good Lord that I’m not a fan of yours, because the only people you treat worse than me and Pauly are your fans—or maybe your band members who’d rather travel crammed into the Winnebago behind us than be this close to you.”
“Really waitress, that the best you got? If I’m so pathetic, why don’t you just run on home to Daddy now?” He cocked his head and folded his arms across his chest.
Tears stung the backs of Kylie’s eyes, but no way was she going to let this guy cut her any deeper. Snapping back as if he’d slapped her, she tried to keep her tone light. “You know, I would, but he’s been dead for seven months. And it’s a good thing for you because if he was alive to see you destroying everything I’ve worked for, you’d be in a world of pain.”
“Shit, I didn’t know—” Trace interrupted himself to scrub a hand over his face.
“Makes no difference,” she snapped. “But I can tell you this much. Your ass better show in Baton Rouge because one of us actually wants to be here. And I’ll be damned if someone like you is going to piss all over my dream before I’ve even had a chance to live it.” She knew she was snarling. Good. Maybe he would realize that she wasn’t screwing around. “I could care less if you like me, or respect me, or give a damn about me, Mr. Corbin. But this is my shot and everything I’ve ever wanted and—”
And that was all she had. She shook her head, trying to convince herself not to cry. One more word and Kylie would break down in humiliating sobs. So she turned on her heels and escaped to her room.
TRACE WAS the one who’d stayed out drinking all night, but Kylie woke up with the headache. Naturally. She sat up and tried to get her bearings. Why was she awake so early?
Screaming. She could hear the screaming of someone on speakerphone filling the bus. Leaning against the wall by the bed, she heard a man’s voice she didn’t recognize. And he was pissed.
“…how much that fucking costs? Paying back the venue, the vendors, refunded tickets? That shit is coming straight out of your pocket, Corbin!”
The low rumble of Trace’s response was unintelligible. But the man on speaker was loud and clear. “One more screw up of any kind, I mean it. One more dramatic meltdown, or underage girl saying you screwed her, or if you are so much as two seconds late to a sound check, you are done, Corbin. And I don’t mean just with this tour. I mean with the whole goddamned label!”
Trace shouted a few obscenities, and something that sounded like motherfucking puppet, causing Kylie to wince. Pauly murmured something in a soothing tone and then she heard Trace storming off the bus.
Jesus.
Lying back down, she practically broke a sweat trying to fall asleep again. Trace was going to ruin everything. And he was taking her down with him.
She must’ve dozed off because when she sat up and checked her phone, it was nearly ten. From the sounds outside of her door, it sounded like Pauly was talking to Trace and things had calmed down. She tried hard not to feel nervous about facing him after her huge blow up, and then having eavesdropped on someone from the label tearing him to shreds earlier this morning, but there were angry butterflies battling it out in her stomach all the same.
A text from Tonya said Clive had come through on his promise; she was scheduled for some studio time as soon as the tour was over. Kylie was supposed to have three original songs prepared. So far she had one.
Rehearsal on stage in Baton Rouge wasn’t until two so she figured she’d try to get some writing done until then. She took an Excedrin and stumbled to the restroom on the bus. Surely she would feel better after a hot shower.
AFTER SHOWERING and working up enough nerve, Kylie headed into the sitting area on the bus with her notebook and plans to get some lyrics down. She nearly tripped when she saw Trace eating breakfast in the booth where she’d confronted him last night.
“Um, morning,” she mumbled.
He responded by holding up a box of cereal like a shield.
“Like that would save you,” Kylie deadpanned.
“Apology accepted. You wanna talk?” he asked with a mouthful of Fruit Loops.
She was starting to think Trace Corbin had drunk himself stupid. “To who?” she asked as she grabbed a banana. Someone had restocked. She switched on the Keurig and leaned against the counter.
“To me.”
She narrowed her eyes at her nemesis’ clear hazel ones. “Pass,” she said, turning back to the coffee maker. It wasn’t like there was anything else left to say.
“Come on, I’m not really that bad. Promise.”
“Oh yeah,” Kylie began as she added sugar to her coffee cup. “Says who?”
“Yeah, okay,” Trace answered with a shrug before he shoveled in another mouthful of cereal. “I am sorry about Dallas. Saw it online.” She might have imagined it, but it seemed like he flinched. “That was brutal.” Except his mouth was full of cereal so it came out “bootal.” God, he even talked with his mouth full. If only all the women who threw their underwear on stage at his concerts could see him now.
Kylie slid into the booth across from him and glanced at the colorful bird on the box. “What are you, eight years old?”
“Emotionally, yes.”
She sipped her coffee, glaring at him over her mug. “Then it all makes sense.”
Trace stopped chewing and gaped at her. “You always this mean?”
“Well, that depends. Are you always this selfish and unreliable?”
“Not always,” he answered with a dark look. He pulled his fitted navy blue baseball cap off, ran a hand through his thick hair, and slipped it back on backwards. He hadn’t shaved. Something about the scruff on his chin made Kylie’s stomach tense.
“We’ll see.”
She took another drink and flipped open her notebook. She didn’t really want to write this close to this man, but it was the only comfortable spot on the bus.
After a few minutes, Kylie was lost in lyrics. She’d been thinking a lot about Tonya and women like her. Hardworking single moms who did everything they could to provide for their kids but had to sacrifice time with them to make ends meet. She jotted a few phrases from conversations they’d had and tried to wrap them into a chorus. After she had that part worked out, everything else just started to flow. She needed her guitar. She hopped up to get it, startling when she saw Trace staring at her from behind the sports section of a newspaper.
“Can I help you, Mr. Corbin?” she asked politely, making a conscious effort not to grit her teeth t
ogether.
“You gotta stop calling me that. It’s Trace. Or my friends call me Tray.”
“Trace it is then,” she clipped as she headed back to retrieve her guitar. As soon as she stepped back into the little kitchen, her heart stuttered and her blood froze in her veins. He was leaning over her notebook.
“Jesus, what’s with you?” she asked, snatching her songbook back from him.
He didn’t appear to be apologetic for invading her privacy. “Kylie, you’ve got some decent stuff there, seriously,” he told her.
“Surprised?” she asked, responding to his tone more than his words.
“Well, yeah. I mean, what are you? Eighteen, nineteen?”
She didn’t see what her age had to do with anything. “Your point?”
“My point is, for a few more weeks, you’re on tour with someone who knows this business. If you ever wanted to run stuff by me, I’d be open to it.”
“Noted,” she told him, returning to her lyrics.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” he said as he slid out of the booth.
THEY WERE performing at some place called The Texas Player’s Club, which given the recent nightmare that was Dallas, Kylie was feeling pretty nervous about. She supposed it was a good thing that Trace was on his Back to My Roots tour when she joined since the venues were relatively small.
After hair and makeup had transformed her into Kylie Ryans, she got off the bus, heading towards the bar to rehearse. When the two-story wood-slatted building came into view, she nearly tripped over her own two feet. “Pauly, what the hell?” she demanded at the band manager she hoped would be hers one day. She tried her best to keep her voice down but she was a panicking mess on the inside.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, stroking his graying goatee and stepping away from the band members heading into the bar in front of them.
“Um, this place is freaking huge. Thought this was a small venue tour, intimate settings and all that?” She thought that because that’s what she’d been promised.
“Yeah, this one’s a little larger. But it’s nothing to worry about. It’s a fun crowd, mostly college kids. You’ll be fine.”
Right, more people to throw beer bottles at my head. Kylie sincerely hoped none of the local college’s baseball players would be in attendance.
After she finished with sound check, Kylie found Pauly on his phone outside by the bus. She’d seen Trace watching her on stage, so she knew he’d at least shown up for rehearsal and sound check this time. Not that he couldn’t still disappear in the next two hours.
She waited quietly while Pauly finished up his conversation.
“Okay, yeah, I know. We’ve discussed it. He wasn’t interested until today but I think it’s gonna happen.” He smiled at Kylie and gave her a hang-on-a-sec gesture with his hand. She nodded.
“On whose album though?” There was a long pause and then he nodded, as if the person on the other end could see him. “Yeah, okay. That’s what I thought too.”
Kylie examined her manicure.
“There will have to be some major thawing out, but progress is progress. I’ll update you as we go. I’ll be in touch.” Pauly ended his call and turned his attention to her. “What can I do for you, Kylie?”
“I just wanted to tell you that tonight, when my set is over, I’m getting off the stage. If your boy is a no-show, you can go out there and apologize for him and they can throw stuff at your head.”
“Yes, ma’am. Understood,” the manager said with a nod.
She turned to walk away but Pauly called out after her. “Wait! Hey, Kylie. Your wardrobe options are hanging in your closet.”
She nearly laughed out loud when she got back to her room and unzipped the sleek black garment bags. There were three choices—a short red sequined dress that was a size too small; an even shorter black skirt with a white lace top, if you could call the scrap of fabric that; and a pair of designer jeans with a dark blue t-shirt with a faded American flag that said Pride across it.
Door number three, she thought to herself. She knew there was a lady who picked out their performance stuff, but Pauly had to have gotten the t-shirt. He was the only one who knew the name of her hometown. It was cut so low that she wished she had time to dig through her suitcase and find a tank top to put on under it. But when she put it on, a smile spread across her face. She could do this. Lulu would be proud of her. Maybe her dad would be, too. Though he might not have approved of the top.
“TRACE?” PAULY called from the front of the bus.
Kylie was already dressed so she stepped out of her room.
“Kylie, you seen Trace?”
“No, not recently, why?” No he was not doing this again. No fucking way. Pauly muttered something equally as harsh under his breath and stomped off the bus. Her mind raced. What was his freaking deal? Was he trying to get dropped from Capital Letter Records, the biggest damn label in Nashville? Whatever, not her problem. Him pulling another no-show where the audience would blame her and then the tour getting canceled before she could blink, that was her problem.
Kylie racked her brain as she made her way to the bar. Surely Pauly had checked the green room. Some bars, nice ones like this, had private party rooms for VIPs only, according to Tonya. If she could get into the one here at The Texas Player’s Club, she’d drag Trace Corbin out by his ass, stick her arm up it, and do his entire set ventriloquist style if she had do.
Pushing through the crowd, she found a back hallway backstage similar to the one at The Rum Room. After several failed attempts, she found a locked door with voices, mostly high-pitched female ones, coming from within.
Freaking hell, she did not want to think about what was happening on the other side of that door. But she had to get in somehow. Yanking a bobby pin from her hair, she took a deep breath to brace herself for whatever lewd acts she might be about to witness. Just as she was about to pick the lock like her dad had taught her to do in case she ever forgot her house key when he worked late, a male voice from behind her stopped her.
“No need to pick the lock, sweetheart. Pretty girl like you can come in as my personal guest.”
Kylie turned slowly, trying to keep the guilt off her face. The man was tall-ish, though not as tall as Trace, and he looked to be about her age. Something about his bright blue eyes, black hair, and wicked tattoos swirling up his thick muscular arms was vaguely familiar. “Steven Blythe,” he said, winking at her. “Hero for a Night,” he added.
“Um, I don’t need a hero. I just need—”
Dark laughter made her insides quiver. “Hero for a Night is the name of my band. We play here a lot, though tonight we’re just here to see Trace.”
“Oh, right. I knew that.” Kylie’s cheeks heated as the man she now recognized from the cover of last month’s Rolling Stone magazine let his eyes dip to the swells of her breasts protruding from her low cut top.
“Here,” he said, producing a key from his pocket and opening the door. “Welcome to the Player’s Club.”
If she thought she was embarrassed about her little faux pas with Steven Blythe, she was downright mortified at what she was walking in on. It was like the seventh circle of hell, if the devil was a porn director.
Half-naked girls pranced around, some serving drinks on trays, some wearing nothing more than trays, like x-rated cigarette girls. While others were busy giving full on lap dances. Several men sat around drinking and smoking cigars, some of them too involved in conversations to even notice the girls.
“Stay close to me,” the guy from behind her murmured.
Happily. Things had taken a strange turn as the guy who’d startled the shit out of her five minutes ago now seemed like the safest bet. “I need to find Trace. He’s due on stage for sound check, like now, and…” And we’re both out on our asses if he’s late, she wanted to add. But she didn’t want to go around telling Trace’s business to strangers.
“That him over there?” her new friend asked, pointing to a man across
the room wearing a trucker hat, watching two girls go at it on a couch with a bored look on his face.
Trace sat alone, swirling dark liquid in a glass and looking for all the world like he owned this sin haven. Kylie needed a shower after just walking through it. “Yeah, thanks.” She meant for that to be Steven’s cue to go about his business. She didn’t even want to think about what that business might be in a place like this. But he followed her over to Trace.
“You were due on stage ten minutes ago,” Kylie informed him as she approached, doing her best to keep her eyes off the two women groping all over each other next to him.
Trace’s jaw went slack as he took in Kylie walking towards him. His eyes hardened noticeably when he saw Steven close behind her. “Kylie? What the hell are you doing in here?”
“She came in with me,” the guy behind her said. She could hear the arrogant smirk in his voice.
“Well get her out of here,” Trace sneered, a threat hardening his words.
“No,” she broke in. “I’m not going anywhere until you do. You heard what they said. If you’re late to sound check, you’re done. We’re done.”
Trace didn’t respond, just stared at her and then glanced around. When he stood, Steven backed off, but she didn’t. Kylie watched his chest heave in and out, and something in her ached to touch him. Maybe she was a little turned on by all the blatant nudity and sexual tension in the room. Maybe Trace’s smoking hot self being so close she could feel his breath on her, had her brain rewiring itself to accommodate the lust filling her head. Maybe she was losing her ever-loving mind.
“Turn around and walk out of this room. Now.”
Looking up into his eyes, she waited until he pressed his gaze into hers before she spoke. “Not without you. I’m not leaving this room until you do.” Her voice was breathy and weak but her nerves were steel. She glanced around at a few of the men noticing their heated exchange. She winked at one of them. “Maybe we should stay, Trace,” she drawled. “Bet I can find a few handsome fellas willing to buy a girl a drink.”