A Lush Rhapsody: A Rhapsody Novel (11 page)

He pauses for a moment, and I can sense a tension, like he’s going to say something else, then he gives his head a little shake and puts out his hand to shake mine. Wow. So not what I was expecting.

“You go in first, I’ll wait a few minutes so no one sees us together. Sleep well, short stack.”

I blink and stare at his hand, floating in space in front of me. I should be happy. He isn’t asking to sleep with me. I don’t have to turn him down. So why do I feel like someone just took away my favorite stuffed animal?

Finally I give his hand a shake and murmur something like, “Okay, see you around,” before I turn and walk briskly to the doors. Once inside the elevator I lean back against the wall and let out the breath I’ve been holding. I’m not sure what just happened, but I think I might have screwed up the best thing that’s ever swaggered into my life.

D
ez
and I are on our pre-performance run, a tradition we’ve had since the early days. Even when I was using heavily I always pulled it together for our runs. Now I look back and have to thank the cocaine gods that I didn’t have a fucking coronary putting all that stress on my heart.

“Dude, where were you last night?” he asks as we round an outcropping of rocks at the beach we’re on.

I debate how much to tell him, but this is Dez, and I don’t keep things from him. I also know that as an addict it’s not in anyone’s best interests for me to hide shit. Sometime lies are a necessary evil, but I’m striving to keep mine to a minimum. I don’t have to announce everything to the world, but at least one person on the planet needs to know what I’m doing and with whom. Dez is my guy.

“It has to stay between us,” I tell him, taking a couple of small steps to stay at pace with him.

“Dude—really?” He gives me a disgusted look.

“Okay, okay. Sorry.” As if Dez would be anything but completely trustworthy. “I had a date of sorts.”

“No shit. Who with? You met someone after rehearsals yesterday? Just tell me it wasn’t a groupie.”

Both Dez and I have had plenty of groupie-filled nights, but we sort of committed to forego any more of that action on this tour. Groupies are a hazard to your career. They do shit like poke holes in condoms, try to slip you drugs, and post pictures of you when you’re in bed asleep—just ask Julian Edelman. We decided that neither one of us needed to get laid badly enough to take the risk. We need Rhapsody to have a solid reputation for the Super Bowl committee to take us seriously, plus, I’m really not in the mood for any little Blazes right now.

“No way. We agreed, I haven’t changed my mind. It was someone from the tour, but it was just a one-shot thing.”

“Didn’t hit it off? Or you just wanted a one and done?” Dez lands with one foot on a broken shell and swears. “Fuck!”

I look down to see if he’s trailing blood. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he grumbles. “Should have worn shoes.”

“But then your chi would be off all damn day,” I tease him.

He flips me off and sprints for a few yards before coming to a stop and flopping down on the sand to inspect the sole of his foot. I stop running when I reach him and stand, hands on hips as I think back to last night and what it felt like to have Tully in my arms, watching her gorgeous face as she came all over my hand, her cheeks flushed, nipples hard as diamonds, breath spilling out of her in pants.

“It was Tully O’Roark,” I tell him.

He looks up at me, his eyes sharp. “Huh. Should have seen that one coming.”

I sit next to him, watching the water spill onto the beach in front of us. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, maybe it was the little counseling session you gave her after we overheard her phone call the other day. Or the fact that she gave you so much shit. You’ve never been interested in women who are too easy.”

“Actually, I kind of dig easy chicks,” I joke.

He snorts. “Whole other kind of easy, my friend.” We sit in silence for a couple of minutes. That’s something about Dez, he doesn’t feel the need to talk all the time. He never says or does anything without thinking about it carefully, and if you hang with him you learn to respect that because when he does say something it’s worth twice as much as whatever someone else said in half the time.

“But you didn’t hit it off?” he finally asks.

“If only,” I mutter.

“So it’s the Lush-Rhapsody thing then.” He doesn’t make that a question.

“They’ve told her not to hang out with us—me in particular. She’s new, she needs this gig. It’s life changing, you know? I get it.”

He looks over at me for a brief moment, bringing his knees up and locking his arms around them. “But you wish things were different.” Again, not a question. He knows me too well.

I sigh. “She’s pretty amazing.”

He nods. “Haven’t heard you say that about anyone…well, ever.”

I stand and brush the sand off my shorts. “And you won’t again any time soon. But it is what it is.”

He stands as well and slings an arm around my neck.

“Get your sweat the fuck off of me,” I growl, struggling against his headlock.

“Aw, sweet thing,” he says before he digs his knuckles into my head and releases me. “Race you back!” he shouts before he takes off, his long legs eating up the sand as he sprints away from me.

“Fucking dick,” I groan as I push off to catch up. By the time we reach the parking lot I’m two yards ahead of him though, because I don’t lose. Ever.

* * *

T
he energy backstage
at a concert can be intense. Everyone’s got their thing that they do to prepare. Some people are reflective, sort of mentally preparing themselves for it all. Others are on an energy high and can’t sit still. In the days before I started using, I was always the guy who followed a ritual. It’s a habit I carried over from football. Athletes are superstitious, and rituals help you feel like you’ve got control over the unknown—the outcome of that game.

Performing isn’t a contest, but it’s got that same feeling of the unknown outcome. Will you kill it or will the audience sit and stare at you like you’re speaking to them in tongues? If you develop a ritual that came from successful performances, you can convince yourself that it’ll ensure success every time.

But since I got out of rehab I’ve avoided rituals. Cocaine was a ritual for me, and I relished that aspect of using. The way the powder looked when I poured it out in front of me. The scrape of the razor blade against the tiny grains. The sting when it flew into my nasal passages, and the numbness as it worked its way down my throat. Then the bitter flavor and the rush of energy that followed. That feeling like everything was brighter, lighter, more intense. Cocaine became a way to regulate my days. As strange as it may sound, it grounded me, gave me plot points in the story of my days and nights. My life became a series of intervals in between the ritual consumption of cocaine.

With the exception of a run with Dez, which is mostly just an excuse for us to touch base, I don’t do rituals anymore. Now, before a performance I do whatever the fuck occurs to me. If I’m thirsty I drink water. If I’m hungry I eat pizza. If I’m tired I nap, if I’m wired I play some Call of Duty with Carson.

Tonight I’m reading an article in Guitar Monthly on Mike Owens. Well, Mike is the excuse, since it is a guitar magazine, but the real story is about Lush’s new addition. So basically I’m thumbing through a magazine to see the photos of Tully. Yeah, I’m a dumbass.

“Watcha’ reading?” Garrett asks in a singsongy voice as he throws himself down on the sofa next to me in the dressing room. He’s wearing a ripped up t-shirt that he’ll tear off completely before the end of the performance, which will of course, send every woman in the place into a frenzy. I’m not much of a judge of dudes, but it’s hardly a secret that whatever it is chicks love, Garrett’s got it.

“Just some bullshit about Lush,” I answer, tossing the magazine down on the coffee table so Garrett won’t think it’s anything important. The last thing I need are his loose lips telling the whole tour that I’m fixating on photos of Tully.

“We still at war with them?” he asks.

I look at him in disgust. “How can you not know the answer to that?”

He shrugs and kicks his feet up on top of the magazine. I twitch because I don’t want him to tear that picture of Tully. I’m fucking keeping it—as soon as no one’s looking, of course.

“I was just hoping maybe you’d brokered a truce. Their new girl is hot. I wouldn’t mind a little of that action.”

I’m halfway out of my seat and reaching for his throat before I remember that I can’t let on about my interest in Tully. So I jump up from the sofa and turn my back to him. Pacing around the room instead, trying to cover my near disastrous slip. Luckily for me, Garrett is all things narcissistic, and I don’t think he even notices.

“Well, we are still at war, so hands off of her, you got it?”

He salutes me with a cocky grin on his face, and just like that my anger melts away. He’s an idiot. A child. Completely irresponsible, selfish to a fault, plowing through women like he’s clearcutting the whole forest, but he’s also incredibly charismatic, endearing when he chooses to be, and one of the most distinctive voices in rock and roll. I can write hits and play a wicked guitar until the earth spins off its axis, but Garrett’s voice is what fans will recognize every time they hear a Rhapsody song. And while he’s a good friend of mine, that alone might not overcome his flaws. But what does is that power—his voice—it’s part of our signature sound, and in the end it means we have to put up with his irresponsibility no matter what.

I’m about to lecture him some more when I hear a dustup in the hallway outside. I swing open our door and find Carson and Dez standing nose to nose with Joss Jamison and Colin Douglas.

“I’m telling you,” Dez says in a diplomatic tone. “You don’t want to go there. It’s only going to make things worse.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Joss snaps back. “He’s the only one who can do it.”

“What the hell’s going on?” I ask as I see Tully slip up behind her bandmates. I try not to look at her too long, but I’m surprised at how hard my heart beats when I catch her gaze.

Dez puts a hand on my arm, obviously preparing for me to launch myself at Joss or Colin.

“There’s been a problem with Lush’s set. But you don’t have to worry about it.” He looks at Joss hard. “They can find another way to deal with it.”

“Fucking hell, Dez,” Joss says. “You think we want to ask this? There is no other way.”

“Just spit it out already,” I snap, growing impatient with all of them, and wishing that Colin would move a little to the right so I could see Tully better. I need to know what her mood is, what she’s thinking. I don’t want to do or say anything that would upset her. No matter how much I hate Lush, I’d prefer not to hate them at Tully’s expense.

Joss sighs and does his signature
run a hand through the perfect hair
move. “Mike’s come down with this really nasty stomach bug. His wife brought it back from her tour last week, and he started puking this morning. There’s no way he can go on tonight.”

I cross my arms and lean against the door frame. “Well, that sucks for you guys I guess. Luckily there are five other bands here to entertain the masses.”

“Look,” Joss says, staring me straight in the eyes. As much as I don’t want to say it’s a little intimidating, it is. Not because of anything physical, I’m a hell of a lot bigger than he is, but because of his presence. His reputation. He’s Joss fucking Jamison, and no matter how many times I’ve seen him, performed on the same bill as him, even had a shouting match or two with him, when I’m calm enough to focus on it, he’s a legend, and I’m me.

“We’re the headliners tonight,” he continues. “They’re expecting to see us, and it’s a really bad way to start the tour. Mike will probably be fine in twenty-four hours, but there’s no room in the schedule to spend another night here. There’s no way to prorate the tickets, so no one will get a refund. We’ll end up with a lot of angry fans, and a hassled tour promoter.”

“I still haven’t heard what it is you want from me,” I say, although I’m starting to get a pretty good idea.

Colin clears his throat as he and Joss glance at each other. “We’d like you to go on with us.”

Normally at this point I would be answering “hell no” because mercy missions for Lush are not on my to do list. No way. No how. But this time, this time I look up and the first thing I see isn’t Joss or Colin, or even Dez and Carson. The first thing I see is Tully. And her eyes are big and scared, her cheeks flushed. I realize that tonight is supposed to be her debut, the first time she walks on a stage in front of a live audience with Lush. She’s practiced for months for this night, and there are all sorts of people—critics, producers, fans—waiting in that audience to see how she does. A lot of them are skeptical, because Lush is beloved, and fans don’t do well with changes to their beloved bands. Her job here tonight is to prove them wrong, and she can’t do that if they can’t go onstage.

But then I think about the Super Bowl gig. If Lush couldn’t play tonight it would go a long way toward making them look bad to the committee. However, if I fill in for Mike, it would go a long way toward making me look like a prince of a guy for helping out a rival band. I might be able to help out Tully and myself at the same time. Can’t get a bigger win than that.

“They need an answer, dude,” Garrett says quietly from behind me.

I swallow. “Why me?” I ask.

Joss rolls his eyes. “Like you don’t know the answer to that.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. I’m going to give him what he wants, but I don’t have to make it easy on him.

He snorts. “Because you’re the only one who’s good enough to take his place.”

I see Dez trying to hide a smile from the corner of my eye.

I break into a grin. “Why, thank you. And yes, I will go on with you, but I’d suggest you not tell Mike until it’s all over. He’d rather puke onstage than let me play with you.”