The Song Remains the Same (25 page)

“You need to talk to Devon.”

His nostrils flared. “I don’t see what he has to do with any of this!”

“It’s about what I found out when you went out to lunch with that viper! I
can’t
tell you myself. So, do us both a favor. Swallow your fucking pride, and listen to what he has to say!”

“I’m fuckin’ workin’ on it!” he hissed. “But right now, I’m still too full of hate for the motherfucker to trust myself not to kill him! Don’t you get that?”

Brigid’s pretty face floated through my head. “Actually…I do. So, yeah, take all the time you need.”

“Will you stop pushin’ me out then?”

“I’ll think about it,” I replied as I slid open the panel.

Crawling in with Phil’s assistance, I rolled onto my back and yelped.

Plastered with photos of Phil, the ceiling of my foxhole watched me from at least fifty pairs of eyes. Goofy shots of him sending me kisses, photos of our happy faces kissing and touching, handwritten poems, cutouts of lotus blossoms—the whole thing was wallpapered with
him
. In the very center was a magazine poster of him. Normally, it would show his rockin’-out angry face, but over his head was a superimposed photo of his head with his eyes closed and his lips puckered up.

“Gods above!” I gasped. Turning my head, I stared at him. “What the hell, babe?”

His eyes sparkled with warmth at the term of endearment. “Just want you to know that I’m always with you, even on the creepiest of levels.”

“You’re kind of insane, you know that?”

“Only for you,” he replied.

“Orlando, I’m in a bit of a funk to be honest, and there’s a song that fits me perfectly right now. The guys are happy to play it with me, so if y’all don’t mind a cover, we’re gonna go ahead and do that for you.”

Orlando cried back in support of Phil’s little speech.

Alys, Lili, and I had joined the crowd for this show, much to our dudes’ irritation. But I wasn’t going to sit backstage to suffer another sneak attack from the Swiss Brigade. I was under the impression that Switzerland was supposed to be a friendly neutral country. Brigid must have missed that bit of info at Swiss Citizen Orientation Day.

Smashed close to the stage but not so close as to be spotted, we were just a few fans in the crowd, happy to be watching our favorite band play.

“Flipper and X are gonna take a break on this one,” Phil told the audience as he pulled up a stool and strapped on an acoustic guitar.

The crowd started to cheer for him, excited to see an instrument in his hands. Jason took the seat on his left, and Connor took the one on the right, holding a violin across his lap. Each of them had a mic positioned in front of them.

“Some shit’s been fuckin’ with someone I love, and I’m tied up inside, watchin’ her have to deal with it. So, this one is for the most beautiful soul I’ve ever had the great fortune to know,” Phil said.

He started to strum the acoustic, and I immediately recognized it as “Vermillion, Pt. 2” by Slipknot. A beautiful song from a band not known for tenderness, it was a personal favorite of mine. It took Phil, Jason, and Connor harmonizing perfectly to pull it off.

It seemed that all I’d had in me these past few days were tears. Stuffed in with all these filthy, sweaty ripe bodies, once more, my eyes dripped. Phil showing the world he was aching for me was more than I could bear.

Around our heads, lighters rose, and flames flickered. The balmy night turned light. Inside myself, trampled and squashed down into the sore parts of me, I ascended with their voices. We all sang with the heroes on stage before us, releasing some of the pain and sadness harbored in each of us. Everyone here carried something that needed to be freed even if just for the space of a four-minute song.

Phil has always known how to reach me, even when I can’t reach out for myself. Sometimes, I forget that I’m only human. I make mistakes, and I’ve made one by pushing him away.

When I’d needed him, I had turned my back on everything he offered.

Would it have been so wrong to lie down with him this afternoon and let him hold me until my anger ebbed as he filled me with his love and support? Why is it that I can’t bring myself to tell him how Brigid has been finding me, trying her damnedest to tear me down? Is it my own pride? Do I just not want him to think of me as a brat, tattling on my bully?

Before they had gone to get ready backstage, Connor had taken me aside and asked me what the hell it was I was doing, and I’d broken down and confessed about Brigid’s sneak attacks and that I might actually be wrong by behaving like I had been. My brother had pulled me in his arms and let me weep it out until Phil had come out to see what was holding their fifth member back. I’d bolted in my embarrassment, dodging into the crowd, with Phil’s voice calling my name, haunting my steps.

I was a fool. Without meaning to, I’d given Brigid the upper hand even if she didn’t know it. She was a bully with the face of an angel, and I’d allowed her to drive a wedge between the only man I would ever love and myself.

So what if he went out to lunch with her? So what if the woman deluded herself into thinking she could have him back? So what that she took it upon herself to chase me down in order to hurt my feelings? Only a person with nothing important in her life would have the time to waste it as she had.

My heart filled with pity for Brigid. Insignificant, unloved, superficial, she had no understanding of the connection Phil and I possessed. Sadly, in this life, I seriously doubted she ever would. Her selfish pettiness had turned her into a bitter, evil little woman who could only find joy in the pain of others.

The song slipped into silence, and Phil rubbed the heel of his hand over his tattoo. After knowing him for so long, for as close as we were, I knew he did that when he sensed me, my emotions. His eyes scanned the crowd. I honestly had no clue how he could find me in this mass, but his warm eyes locked on mine, and I blew him a kiss. His smile was soft, bleeding hope into me.

“I love you, Baby Girl,” he said into the mic, his eyes looking into mine.

“I love you, too,” I replied, my voice swallowed up by the crowd.

At the end of each show, a bunch of fans with passes were allowed to get photos and autographs from the bands, and Alys, Lili, and I hung back at the tail end, hoping to walk back to the bus with the guys.

The door to the backstage opened, and the fans went nuts. Screams rose up, and the three of us separated even farther from the crowd. It was easy to spot Phil and Jason’s golden head. Connor and X followed, and the sight of my brother’s grinning face as he was bombarded for his autograph made me laugh. Flipper bounded out, glowing with his usual post-show energy, and handed out drumsticks. Sheri, Vivian, and Tim brought up the rear.

“There was a time when we used to be like that,” said Alys softly. “We would’ve done anything to get some backstage passes and have all our possessions signed by them.”

Lili laughed. “Yeah. They were gods. Funny how human they turned out to be. And Connor…it still blows my mind he’s been inducted into the pantheon.”

Sheri and Viv spotted us and made their way over, and then we all waited another ten minutes for the guys to make it through the crowd with the help of security herding the fans out.

As Phil approached us, I got nervous. His hooded gaze didn’t allow me access to his mood, but he came right up to me, and we stood there, looking at one another, while the others headed back to the bus.

“You liked the show?” he asked, guarded.

“I always love a NOLA’s show. You know that.”

He nodded, and I could tell now that there was something he wanted to say to me, but he wasn’t exactly sure how.

“Phil?”

“Yeah, Baby Girl.”

Swallowing was proving to be difficult. “I’ve been thinking…”

“About?”

“Well…about the fact that I’m sorry for letting something so stupid come between us. I accused you of having too much pride while ignoring that very thing inside myself. I was too proud to let the whole situation with you and Brigid go. I know you didn’t do anything with her, and you’re right to tell me that I’m a stubborn person. I was all butt hurt and jealous—”

He stepped closer to me, but he didn’t touch me. “Why would you be jealous of her, Kenna?”

Throwing pride completely aside now, I took a deep breath and spoke the barest, most naked truth, “Because, Phil…she’s
beautiful
. She’s everything I grew up wishing I was like—small, feminine, a classic beauty with an amazing body.
Boobs
. When I knew that was what you could have anytime you wanted, I started to wonder why you were with me at all. I mean, I don’t consider myself ugly or anything, but—”

“Kenna,” he said softly, inching even closer, “you
are
beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, hands down. What’s so awesome about your beauty is that there is no one else who can claim it. You stand out, and maybe some people are intimidated by that, but that’s the whole reason I saw you in the first place.”

Okay, the tears needed to stop because I was seriously becoming concerned about the state of my tear ducts.

“Well, I want you to know that I’ve done a bit of soul-searching, and I’m ready to admit that I was wrong,” I stated. “I was hurt and angry, and I pushed you away. I never should have done that.”

Phil’s hands whipped out and seized my face, and his mouth descended hungrily on mine. Passion had been building up and building up between us, and he unleashed his inside me. I moaned beneath the onslaught as my hands slid up his chest to cling around his neck.

Breathing heavily, he broke the kiss and pressed his Third Eye to mine. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I just fell even more in love with you.”

“Well, hold on to that sentiment because I’m still not sleeping with you.”

“I don’t care,” he whispered.

That was a bit startling but all right. We’d just see where this was going.

“You don’t?”

Eyes still closed, he slowly shook his head, not releasing his brow from mine. “No. It’s beyond that right now.”

Oh.

“Kenna…” He sucked in a deep breath. “I love you so damn much. I hate that I’ve caused you an ounce of fuckin’ pain. But…
wow
. You amaze me on a level that I can’t even comprehend.”

“Because I can admit that I was wrong?” I asked.

“Because of that and because you can forgive me. You still trust me. I
feel
that.” He kissed me again, and this time, he wrapped his arms around me and crushed me along the full length of him, lifting me so that my toes dangled above the ground. When he set me back down on my feet, he looked into my eyes. “I need to talk to you about somethin’ though. And I have to tell you that you pissed me off.”

“Yeah, all right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me Brigid was harassin’ you?”

With my face smooshed into his chest, I slumped under that question.
I’m going to kick Connor’s ass. What? Did he even wait five minutes before blabbing? That shithead!

“Because I didn’t want to sound like a brat.”

“I could’ve stopped it. What has she said to you?”

“Which time?”

“How many fuckin’ times have there been?”

Pulling back slightly, I replied, “I’m not even sure. The last time she ambushed me, I was coming through the security checkpoint, and she asked me to autograph the photo of you two at lunch.”

Phil’s jaw dropped.

“I wrote a prescription for an overdose of lithium on the photograph,” I confessed. “And I called her Brigid Von Douche Bitch.”

“Lithium?”

“It’s an anti-psychotic drug.”

Phil burst out laughing. “And here I thought it was just a Nirvana song.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well…”

Draping his arm around my shoulders, he led me back to the bus. Mack had it up and running already, just waiting for us to show ourselves so that we could make the four-hour journey to Miami.

Connor was excited about playing in the city where he’d lived for nearly four years. He had given his friends tickets and backstage passes, and he was looking forward to introducing them to his brothers and maybe his sister, too.