The Opposite Of Right (Bad Decisions Trilogy #1) (7 page)

“Theater’s locked up tight for at least another two hours. You could leave John Lennon’s autographed guitar on that table, and it’d still be there when we get back.” Cam grabbed a key off the top rim of the machine, right where it had been the last time he was there. Did a quick three-sixty to make sure no one was around to witness their disappearing act, then unlocked the door.

A single bulb lit the dusty, spiral staircase. It creaked loudly beneath their every step. Kylie kept a death grip on the narrow iron bannister. “How old is this place, anyway?”

“It opened in 1906 as a vaudeville theater. There’s more than a century of performances buzzing through the walls of this place.”

“Probably sharing that wall space with termites.”

“You’ll like this, I promise.” At the top, he remembered the trick to turn the knob and lift to open the warped door. Cam threw it wide with a flourish. Sunlight blinded them. “After you.”

Squinting, Kylie kept her hand on the door as she stepped out. And then squealed with delight. “I can see everything!” She rushed forward to plant her hands on the backs of the oversized neon letters that spelled the theater’s name on the marquee. “The state capitol, a lake”—she twisted to look in the opposite direction—“and another lake. Which is which?”

“One of them’s Lake Mendota. Can’t remember the other. But I did remember that this rooftop is the best view in all of Madison.” Life on the road was a long slog. Moments like this broke up the monotony. Cam wanted to share it with her. Wanted to be the one responsible for putting a smile on her face.

“It’s terrific. Thank you for bringing me up here.” Kylie grabbed his hand and sandwiched it between hers. Small. Soft. Delicate. She rubbed her thumb over his calluses. “Are these all from the guitar?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask you something? About your playing?”

He was surrounded by all the makings of a perfect summer day: sparkling water, warm sun and a hot woman. Cam would do just about anything to extend the moment. “Sure.”

“Why did the music change? How? I mean, I have everything Riptide’s ever recorded. I even pirated a copy of the original demo tape you sent into the label. And none of that music sounds like what you’ve been playing this week.”

That could be good or bad. “None of it at all?”

“I take it back. I can hear hints of your earlier stuff. Melodic echoes, almost. So it’s different and familiar at the same time. But it couldn’t be more the opposite of your last album.”

“That’s fucking right.” Cam regretted the words as soon as he said them. And then, he didn’t. He’d been professional. They all had. They’d kept their mouths publicly zipped about the shit bomb that was their last album. So finally telling someone was a relief. Telling Kylie was more than a relief. It was right.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Sounds like you’ve got some strong thoughts on the matter.”

Might as well spill it all. “We never wanted to make
Triangulation
. We hated the songs. Hated the sound. Hated it all.”

“I thought you wrote your own songs.”

“Most of them. Not the last album, though.” God, he hated that anyone might think they wrote that techno-pop crap. Bad enough they’d recorded it.

“Don’t you have creative control? The ability to say no to something that obviously doesn’t work for you?” She flushed the same color as her hair. Dropped his hand. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be insulting.”

“Don’t apologize. Whatever you say can’t be worse than what we’ve been saying since day one. I’d rather have your honest opinion. Otherwise, whatever you say about what we’re playing on this tour won’t be meaningful.”

“Okay.” She bit her lip. “Um.” Looked down at the loose gravel underfoot. Just when Cam thought she’d wimp out, Kylie met his gaze straight on. “Your talent was still obvious on
Triangulation
. Hidden, though, behind a bunch of synthetic noise and flash. The reason, the drive behind the music, was gone. There was no soul to it.”

Kylie really did understand music. That was a rarity among people who weren’t performers. It made this conversation a whole lot easier. “That’s because it was created to make money. Our label came up with the idea. A couple of bands were selling like crazy with an updated version of techno-pop. The plan was that we’d ride that wave, too.”

“But you’re a rock band. That’s not the sound that made you famous. That brought you millions of fans. Why would anyone try and turn you into something you’re not?”

Turning, he leaned against the back of the giant M. Crossed his arms over his chest and squinted against the glare off the water. “Label execs and producers come and go. When we started, it was with people who understood the artistic side. When
Triangulation
got dreamt up, bean counters were in charge. They saw a product on the market reaping a huge profit margin and jumped to replicate it. And their logic was that since we were already so big, we were the best choice to make the switch.”

“But why did you agree to it?”

Damn it. Cam knew Kylie was smart enough to come around to that question. He just hated the answer he had to give her. More than a year had gone by, and the regret was still as bitter as the first day. “It was my fault. I talked Jake and Jones into toeing the line.”

Kylie stood on tiptoe to smooth away the creases on his forehead. “Why?”

“Why else? A woman. In R&D at the label. I slept with her for all the usual reasons. Suzy was pretty, easy to be with, a part of my world. Except, I found out later that the real reason we slept together was that she’d engineered it.”

“Because you’re so hot?” Kylie pursed her lips and shook her head so hard that her hair brushed against his face. “I’ll bet that happens all the time. Poor baby. It must suck having your pick of women.”

Great that she thought that was the case. That it was so simple. “If it’d been my pick, sure. But Suzy didn’t actually want me.”

Laughter brightened her face as Kylie gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Trust me. I speak for all womankind when I say there’s no doubt that this woman
wanted
you. If I texted my grandma your photo right now, she’d call and ask me
who’s the hot young stud?
”

“As weirdly nice as that is for you to say, it’s not true.” Cam scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. He’d told only a handful of people the whole story. And they were all hip-deep or more in the business of Riptide. It’d be interesting to get an objective take on his epic fuckup. “Suzy sleeping with me was all business. They knew changing our sound would be an impossible sell. But Suzy had her eyes on a promotion. Promised that she’d deliver Riptide to the studio, ready to record whatever they put in front of us. Then Suzy got close. Got inside my head. And into my bed.”

Kylie’s hands shot to cover her mouth as she gasped. Then she dragged them just low enough on her chin to mutter, “She manipulated you.” Both hands curled into fists as they dropped back to her sides. “That bitch!”

“I was a sucker. I take half the blame.” But Kylie’s reaction was like ice on a burn. Soothing. Cooling the steady frustration that had flamed in his chest for months now.

“Did you like her that much?”

“No.” Which pissed him off the most. “I didn’t do it for her. I didn’t spend a solid week convincing Jake and Jones that this new direction was the best possible new course to take for our career because of Suzy. I did it because she convinced me that it’s what our fans wanted from us. I got all twisted up in what I thought
they
expected from us.”

Kylie paced a few steps away. Knotted the hands that were as expressive as her face. “I completely understand. I’ve always worried about what people think of me. It’s why I’ve never pushed too hard to think about what
I
want for myself.”

“You are now. That’s what matters.” Cam couldn’t be prouder of her for veering off the path. Now that she was in the driver’s seat, where would she go? “Have you decided what you want to do after the tour?”

“In a perfect world? I’d work with musicians.” She wrinkled that adorable, freckled nose again. “Not sketchily, like Suzy, but helping them take what they love about their music and present it in the best possible light to the world. That’s what excited me about the Smithsonian internship. It fit all my parents’ requirements of leading perfectly to a job at an NGO, promoting the arts. Maybe being a lobbyist. But I wanted it because I’d get to work with artists. Interpret their work by creating liner notes booklets for a collection of world music albums.”

Cam reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Mostly because he couldn’t for another second resist the urge to touch her. Serious conversation or not. “With that off the table, what’s next?”

Kylie literally darted to his side, to lean back against the sign next to him. “Same question, right back at ya.”

“Well, we’re done with our label. After
Triangulation
tanked, they offered to do a best-of compilation, but nothing else. Flat-out refused to let us try anything new.”

“Thank goodness you realized that you needed to start over.”

The three of them had hunkered down in a cabin in Sedona for two weeks. Cam apologized three nights running before Jake and Jones got sick of it and dumped him in the creek. They played music outside, bouncing it off pine trees. Scribbled lyrics on paper, on laptops, even on the kitchen wall. They’d snapped a picture, then painted over it before they left. By the end, Riptide was stronger than ever. Or so they hoped.

“We stopped listening to everyone else and just made the music that we like. So the bottom line is that we’re using all our own money. For the recording sessions and for this tour. If it goes well, hopefully we can find another label to back us.”

“What if this one flops, too?”

How come she was so insightful? How’d she know to poke at every thought that pinged endlessly around his brain? How the hell did Kylie see straight inside him?

A sharp elbow nudged into his ribs after just a few seconds. “Cam? Do you have a plan B?”

“Nah.”

Those pale pink lips formed a perfect O of astonishment. “How can you not care enough to plan for the worst?”

“Oh, I care. I care about fucking up again. About dragging Jake and Jones back down with me. I fucked us up royally once. Feel guilty as hell about it.” His role in the debacle of
Triangulation
haunted him. Pushed him to be better. To dig deeper into the creative well, to churn out the very best music possible. To his mind, though, the worst had already happened. They’d sold out. And he was damned if they’d ever do it again.

With a wry smile, Kylie asked, “Doesn’t making money matter?”

“Of course. Riptide is a business. It has to support us. But what brought us together, what keeps us together, is the art of making music. Personal expression through songs. We’re not a cover band playing hits at some beach shack, for God’s sake.” Although Cam would rather do that as an honest way to turn a buck performing, than let a single person try to influence his creativity ever again. “And if what everyone else thinks rules every single decision about my music, where am I in that equation? Gone. Invisible.”

She laid a hand on Cam’s chest. Slid her leg so they touched, ankle to shoulder, with her head tilted up to his. “That’s exactly how I feel following the path my family planned. Invisible. As though nobody sees me. Or hears me.”

Cam tipped his forehead down to Kylie’s. “I do.”

They stood like that, quiet but oh-so-together, in the summer sun, until a bead of sweat dripped down his face and onto Kylie. Laughing, they broke apart.

“We should go back down. You don’t want Jake or Jones coming up here looking for us.” Kylie held up a hand to stop him as she opened the door. “And don’t try to tell me they don’t know this place exists. This rooftop has
sexy makeout spot
written all over it. Every self-respecting, hot-blooded rock star who’s ever performed here probably hooked up under the glow of this neon.”

Cam swatted her fine, fine ass. “You really
do
understand musicians.”

“Yes, I do. Enough to know not to ask how many times you’ve been up here, too.” The door slammed behind them. Kylie plucked her tank away from her body. “Ugh. I need a pop. Served over a bucket of ice. Do you want anything?”

“I’ll get it for you. I need to grab a T-shirt from the concession stand.”

“Really? You didn’t sweat
that
much.”

“Not for me. For Deondra.” Cam wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed to admit how he’d spiraled Riptide into shit with
Triangulation
, or this. Good thing they were on the stairs and Kylie couldn’t give him one of those soulful looks. “I want her to feel like she’s still a part of Riptide, part of the tour. I’m sending her shirts from every club we play.”

“That’s…that’s really cool.” Her tone was overflowing with admiration. Like he’d offered to pay for Deondra to recuperate from surgery in a Caribbean villa. Cam had messed up enough with his team. He didn’t want a damn medal when he did something right.

“No big deal. Just a handful of cotton.”

“You’re a really good guy, Cam Watson.”