Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin (4 page)

I reached under his arm to twist his nipple, an easy thing to do because he was shirtless. “I’m not playing and if I was, I definitely wouldn’t be playing on your team, jackass,” I said, turning the beady pink nip sharply as he leaned away with a grimace and an ugly “
Nooooo!
”

The words had barely left my mouth when the bus pulled into a brightly lit travel center with a gas station, twenty-four-hour restaurant and restroom facilities. Eli tossed me a towel before everyone except Mason, who had his arms crossed over his bare chest like that would protect him from me, piled out of the bus with our belongings and headed inside. It was then that I realized I’d forgotten to bring shampoo and soap with me from home. I groaned and peeked inside, realizing that if I went into the showers after I paid, I couldn’t come back out for free.

I waited outside the men’s bathroom for a few minutes, hoping Eliza or Gordo would hurry up and come out so I could borrow their soap and shampoo. Less than ten minutes later, the smacking of flip-flops on the floor got louder and louder.

But it wasn’t Eli or Gordo coming out.

It was Mason 2.0 in basketball shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops, making his way out with a backpack over his shoulder and black dress shoes hanging off his fingers. He smiled genuinely the instant he saw me standing there looking like a hobo asking for a handout.

“Everything okay?” he asked, making me feel like a total mess.

I nodded, my face immediately flushing at the memory that I’d kicked this poor guy in the ass just minutes ago. I cleared my throat when my ears got hot too. “Yeah, I’m just waiting for Eli.”

Sacha raised a dark eyebrow, giving me a chance to take in the smoky, nearly transparent gray of his eyes. He glanced at the clothes in my hands before pursing his lips. “Did you forget your soap?”

I was a little hesitant to admit it, but I did, fighting the urge to rub at my ears. “Yeah.”

He smiled.

“I want to borrow his,” I explained.

Sacha didn’t hesitate a second. “Here,” he said as soon as I’d finished talking. Thrusting a bottle of some 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner and body wash at me, he shrugged. “It isn’t for girls—”

This man had another thing coming to him if he thought I cared what I used for toiletries. I’d even be willing to share with Mason—the disgusting ass of the year—if I knew he didn’t borrow someone else’s on the rare occasion he decided to shower. I took the bottle from him and smiled, the embarrassment that had been swimming along my spine earlier from what I’d done disappearing at his kindness. “I have invisible balls, it’s cool,” I told him like I would have told Eli… and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t like I thought we were flirting or anything, and the fact I definitely wasn’t looking my best didn’t escape me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to think of me as… well, I didn’t know what. Unattractive, I guess? Manly? It didn’t help that I was still mortified over the kicking incident.

Sacha laughed that cute, bright laugh that made me smile despite everything. “All right, invisi-balls. Have at it.”

“Thanks. I owe you,” I said a little more shyly than I normally would have. Walking backward toward the entrance to the bathroom at his command, I gave him another awkward wave I immediately regretted. Good God, I was on a roll and needed to quit while I was ahead.

He simply nodded at me before I ran into the area where the showers were. I rushed through mine as quickly as I could, not caring in the least that I smelled like a clean guy. As soon as I finished drying off and dressing, I hustled out feeling way better than before. Luckily, my brother was waiting for me right outside the restrooms.

“I was gonna give you five more minutes before I went in there,” he warned. “I thought somebody kidnapped you.” Those green eyes so much like mine, peered at my feet, earning me a frown. “Where are your flip-flops, and why are you holding men’s shampoo?” A smirk covered his mouth a second later. “You finally decided to go through with that surgery, huh?”

I snorted and socked him right in the stomach as I walked by him. “That Sacha guy let me borrow his shampoo because I didn’t bring any and you were taking forever douching in there.” I hiked my thumb toward the restroom as Eli rubbed where I’d nailed him. “And I didn’t bring flip-flops with me. Why?”

He grimaced, eyeing my feet again. “You stepped on that floor without shoes on?” When I nodded in response, he shuddered. I glanced at his feet to see he was wearing a pair of rubber thong flip-flops. “You better pray tonight.”

When Eli gives you a reason to pray, you better pray. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to be praying for. Back when we toured in Old Pepe, we always showered in hotel rooms. This travel-center-showering was a new experience for me.

We made our way into the bus, where I handed Sacha his shampoo back with a “thank you” while my brother made us three packets of ramen noodles to share, sixty-forty style with pieces of grilled deli chicken thrown in. He promised to take me to buy groceries, cheap sandals and shampoo the next day. As soon as we finished eating, I walked by another member of The Cloud Collision, who had some Middle Eastern ancestry in him. He was on the phone, so I raised my hand in a wave and he did the same back before I followed Eli into the bunk area.

“Mine is that one,” my brother said, pointing at a top bunk with its curtain pulled all the way back. There were twelve total bunks with crimson curtains, three stacked on top of each other, six on one side of the hallway, six on the other. He then pointed at the bottom bunk, below where Gordo was sleeping at the top. “Zeke slept on that one. It’s yours now. I put my backup sheets on there for you earlier.”

I immediately thought of Zeke drooling over the bed—or worse. Yuck.

“Thanks.”

It was then that the curtain on the bunk above mine slid open, and I fist-pumped in my brain because sane people don’t do that in real life. Sacha looked at me from his spot in the bed above the one I’d be taking. “Hi, neighbor.”

T
he next two
weeks went by before I could ask what the hell I had gotten myself into.

One day we were in Boston and the next thing I knew, we’d gone through Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri. The routing made absolutely no sense but it never had. Booking agents usually didn’t care how long the drives were between dates as long as they scored bands the highest guarantee possible.

A handful of fans had asked me so far, “How awesome is it to be on tour with them?”

With them.
Them
. Eli, Mason, Gordo, Sacha, Isaiah, Julian, Miles, Mateo, Carter, Freddy and Bryce. Ghost Orchid, the members of The Cloud Collision, their merch guy, front of house slash tour manager and their lighting guy.

I showered in gas stations. I had some kind of fungus thing on the bottom of my toes from the one bloody shower I took without flip-flops. I’d eaten more pizza over the course of two weeks than I had in my entire life.

On top of all of that, summertime was a vengeful, rude bitch that didn’t care about your comfort.

I sweated all the time. I stunk at the end of every night. I spent countless hours rolling around in a bus from town to town, and I hung out in venues for nine hours a day minimum. I lived in a bus with ten men who were like every other twenty-something-year-old guys in the world. They farted, they burped, some of them had smelly feet, some of them didn’t brush their teeth enough, or the only thing that really drove me nuts: some didn’t cover their food in the microwave.

This life wasn’t glamorous. At. All.

On the other hand, to be fair, no group of people made me crack up like they did. It had been a long time since my stomach had cramped from how hard I laughed at or with them.

Eli and I had been acting more like conjoined twins than fraternal twins, as if we were trying to make up for all the time we’d spent apart over the last few years. I’d met a lot of twins in my life; some were close and others couldn’t stand each other. We weren’t like that, though.

Before high school, we’d been inseparable. Two peas in a pod. Each other’s security blanket. My mom liked to tell people that when we were toddlers, sometimes she would walk into a room to find us on opposite sides, totally silent, as if we were having some kind of telepathic conversation. What she wouldn’t tell everyone was that if she stood there long enough, we’d randomly start laughing our butts off for no apparent reason, which in turn scared the crap out of her. Yeah, I didn’t blame her.

Even during high school, there was never any doubt that we were still more than best friends. We didn’t spend as much time together by that point, but it didn’t matter. I’d woken up plenty of times in high school with Eli on my bed, his feet way too close to my face as he slept on top of the comforter with his own blanket over him. We might not have come from the same egg, but no one knew me, understood me or made me feel as comfortable as my brother did.

I guess I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having him around over the years as we’d each gone our own ways.

When we were in the bus, I was constantly with Mason, Gordo or Carter. When we were off of it, Eliza went everywhere with me. I’d spoken to the guys with The Cloud Collision a few times, but we hadn’t been anything more than friendly in passing. They were all always on their phones or their computers, so I didn’t take it personally. We had three months ahead of us to get to know each other; it wasn’t a big deal.

I was enjoying my time, and that was all that really mattered.

And besides the couple of times a venue had been playing one of Brandon’s songs between sets, I hadn’t thought about killing that piece of crap once.

“
S
houldn’t
you go eat something soon?”

I finished setting the last cymbal on the stand and tightened it down, glancing at my brother over the top of his drum kit. He was closing the travel cases since we were mostly done setting up his stuff. We usually tag-teamed putting together his drum kit to save time; I’d done it so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. Most of the time he helped me bring most of the merch into the venue right after we got to wherever the tour package was playing, and then I’d help the guys set up their equipment to do soundcheck since it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. There was usually so much time before doors opened that I’d rather keep busy than sit around.

But today we’d gotten to Little Rock almost three hours late, thanks to a major accident. Now, everything and everyone was running behind schedule, including soundcheck.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a peek at the clock with a wince. Doors were opening in two hours. “Damn it, I didn’t know it was so late.”

Eli turned to look at me over his shoulder from where he was kneeling. He raised his eyebrows. “I mean, you could go without a meal or two—”

He should have known better than to talk shit when he was on his knees. I shoved him.

“Whore!” he cried as toppled over like a chopped-down tree.

“Your mother,” I muttered as I kept right on walking past him to sit on the edge of the stage before hopping down. By the time I was back on my feet, Eli was again on his knees, glaring over in my direction. “I’m going to grab something to eat.”

He was still giving me a dirty look when he said, “I can’t go with you. We gotta do soundcheck.”

I shrugged both shoulders; it wasn’t like I didn’t already know that. “Okay. I’ll be back.”

He blinked. And then he simply raised a fist with his middle finger fully extended.

I stuck my tongue out and went to look for the only other person that might be able to go out to eat with me.

The venue hadn’t provided us with food and instead had opted to give the tour members buy-out money to fend for ourselves. The TCC tour manager, who was also doing sound for them and Ghost Orchid, had walked around a few minutes earlier and passed out everyone’s cash. For once in his life, Eli had been right. If I waited any longer to go on the hunt for food, I wouldn’t make it back in time for the start of the show. According to Mason, I had something called a job. Like I didn’t know what the hell that was.

In no time, I found my new friend Carter, the TCC merch guy, sitting outside of the trailer surrounded by a huge pile of boxes. Clenching a clipboard, he shot me a tight smile, scratching at one of the legs of the knee-length cutoff skinny jeans he’d put on that day.

“Still busy?” I asked, looking at the cardboard boxes that had been waiting outside when the bus had rolled in an hour ago.

Carter let out this long sigh straight from his belly. His normally passive face was clearly exasperated. Even his ponytail was limp. We’d gotten to know each other over the hours of free time we shared at the merch tables. He wasn’t much of a talker unless you prodded him, but he was hardworking and kind. Mostly though, when the people I usually spent time with were louder than howler monkeys, I really enjoyed his company. “I’m only halfway done with inventory, and I need to get it all done before the show.” He shot me a flat look that drew his lip piercing tight. “By myself.”

I grimaced, knowing all too well how frustrated he got with The Cloud Collision guys. They all basically left him on his own to do everything. According to Carter, it was pretty normal for bands at their level to feel entitled to do that, but I still pointed at him and said “ha” when he’d first told me. It was occasions like those that made me appreciate playing the sister card on Eli.

“I was going to get food, but I can help you if you want,” I almost told him how I’d wanted him to go with me, but what was the point in rubbing the situation in? The poor guy was stuck working outside in a trailer with next to zero air circulation, counting T-shirts. That sucked.

The corners of his mouth tilted up just enough in what could be considered a sad, resigned smile. “Don’t worry about it. I can get it done; go get something to eat,” he said.

I didn’t think he was trying to do reverse psychology on me, but I’d spent too much time with people who did. “Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“Are you really, really sure?”

Carter’s smile tilted up a little more. “I’m positive.”

I felt bad but… “Want me to bring you something?” I offered.

His brown eyes lit up and he finally smiled, suddenly forgetting how irritated he’d been a minute before. “Please.” He began fishing through his back pocket for his wallet. Handing me a twenty-dollar bill, he paused and made a thoughtful face. “Who’s going with you?”

Even though we’d only met two weeks ago, apparently he was going to worry about me. I liked it. “No one. My brother’s busy, and I can’t wait any longer if I want to get back here before doors open. I’ll just walk somewhere close by, no big deal.”

“Gaby.” Carter’s long face was already telling me he thought my idea was terrible. He was only twenty-one, but he was such a mature guy, he seemed older.

“Yes?”

He shook his head. “This isn’t the best side of town. Find someone to go with you,” he insisted.

“There’s no one.” There wasn’t. The guys were more than likely about to start soundchecking.

Carter scratched at his chin, he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and though he wasn’t capable of growing in a beard—his words, not mine—he had some stubble going on. “TCC isn’t doing anything. They’re around here somewhere.”

I almost crossed my eyes. “I don’t want to bother them. Honest. I can go by myself.”

Just as he opened his mouth to argue, someone cut in.

“Where do you want to go?” The voice I’d come to recognize as Sacha’s, from our handful of conversations and from listening to him talk to the audience every night over the last fourteen days, floated through the air.

I turned to find him in his black basketball shorts, ASICS running shoes and a T-shirt. He didn’t even look like the same man who went onstage every night in a button-down shirt and dress pants with his hair gelled or moussed into perfect place. I thought he looked even better when he wasn’t in that persona, but that was probably just me.

We’d only spoken a couple of times about how the most recent show went, and he still seemed like a really nice guy who brought up nearly every day how I’d kicked him in the ass. Twice already he’d walked by me with his hands splayed out behind him like he was protecting his butt cheeks from attack. I also tended to go to bed before he did, so it wasn’t like we got to gossip in our bunks or anything.

“I want to go get something to eat,” I explained a little awkwardly, eyeing the piano keys I’d come to recognize were tattooed on his neck.

He smiled easily, making those black and skin color keys tighten. “I’ll go with you.”

What? “You will?” We’d spoken a few times but really, it hadn’t been more than ten or fifteen minutes total. There was also the fact that every time I spoke to him, I thought about how we’d met and it made my insides cringe. We were friendly but we weren’t friends exactly. At least, not like how Carter and I were. We were at the point where I knew he liked Dr. Pepper and sour candy, disliked the same music I did, and he had a girlfriend who hated him going on tour. You knew you were friends with someone when they grew comfortable enough around you to let you read psycho text messages from the person they were dating.

“Yeah,” the tall man agreed with a dip of his chin.

I didn’t miss the pleased look Carter had on his face.

Just like that, Sacha and I were walking across the parking lot at his guidance while I pocketed my younger companion’s twenty dollars.

The black-haired man walking alongside me looked down from over his shoulder, his eyes such a pristine shade of ash they were nearly a clear blue. “Are you craving anything?”

I scrunched up my face. “As long as we aren’t eating pizza again, I’m game.”

Sacha laughed, his gaze still on me. “It’s the worst, isn’t it?”

There was a reason almost everyone on the tour crossed their fingers and toes that pizza wouldn’t be the meal of choice wherever we happened to be that day. Venues were responsible for providing the tour package with food every night. Each band had a rider, or a list of requests, of items they wanted. It wasn’t anything crazy like all red Skittles, Oreos without the filling or anything. Ghost Orchid’s rider consisted of a case of Dr. Pepper, some kind of vodka, a large bag of barbecue chips, a sandwich tray and Oreos. They were a vision of health.

Apart from their riders, the two bands were either supposed to have dinner provided or if that wasn’t available, each person on the tour was given a certain amount of money to supply their own food. The problem was that when the venues did have dinner available, more often than not, it consisted of pizza. Not the good kind of pizza either, at least so far, but the kind that had cheese that tasted like the off-brand individually packed crap, suspicious-looking pepperoni, and no sauce. It made me want to puke.

If you thought there was a food you could eat every day without getting tired of it, you were lying to yourself. Everything got old.

“I haven’t had pizza on tour in almost ten years,” Sacha continued. “There’s a Thai place about five blocks away…” He trailed off and I didn’t miss the hopeful look he shot me.

He gave me the type of innocent smile as he raked a hand through the hair at the top of his head that reached into your soul like a puppy’s lick could. “I swear it’s great—”

“Okay.” I shrugged up at him, meeting his gaze. “I’m game.”

Sacha paused for a second. His six-foot-one-ish height towered over my five-two. “You don’t mind?” He asked it so hopefully even if I hadn’t wanted to eat Thai, I would have still done it to keep the grin on his face.

The question earned him a snort. “Food is food.”

He hitched a shoulder up, the sleeve of his T-shirt sliding back to reveal more of the thick, black bands of his tattoo that went from wrist to shoulder. “That was easy.”

I didn’t even miss a beat before blurting out, “I’m easy.”

I slammed my mouth closed. And I blinked. Then I stopped blinking all together and just stared.