by Grace James
He threw the butt of his cigarette on the sidewalk and ground it out with the toe of his sneaker, suddenly looking bashful with his head lowered, eyes on the ground. “I want you to come on tour with me.”
The rising panic stopped me from speaking.
He looked up at me, his brow furrowed. “After finals, I mean. Next weekend, when you’re done, I thought you could fly out and meet up with us. I know it’s gonna be cramped in the van, but if the merchandise sales are good we might have cash for a motel some nights.” He cracked a small smile. “What do you say? Come on an adventure with me?”
Come on an adventure with me?
That old line that I could never say no to…only this time the thought of THAT particular adventure, being stuck in a tiny van for weeks at a time, that close to Blake, made my vision swim. “Um…I don’t know if that’s a good idea –”
Connor dragged a hand through his hair, his brows knitting in frustration. “I don’t mean stay the whole tour. I’m not expecting you to camp out with me for three months, but just come for a little bit, a few weeks, whatever. I need you to come. I’ll pay for your plane ticket, I’ll book your flight.” He swallowed and looked down. “I just – I need you to come,” he finished quietly.
I thought about refusing, but I knew that I couldn’t. There wasn’t a good enough reason in the world to ignore his plea, not after his overdose, not when he needed me.
Apart from the real reason.
That would probably do it.
But that wasn’t an option.
“Okay, I’ll come,” I said, forcing a smile.
Half a second later he had swept me up in his arms and was swinging me around and around on the sidewalk; when we stumbled to a stop, he kissed me hard.
“Hey! Guys! We ain’t got all day!” Derren’s voice split through the moment.
I turned to see a white Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van idling by the curb. Derren was leaning out of the passenger side window, grinning at us.
Behind him, I could see Blake sitting in the driver’s seat, his hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. His blue eyes were like chips of ice, boring into me.
I felt my stomach drop through the floor.
I knew seeing Blake would be hard, but I hadn’t banked on it being soul crushing.
All that week, I had managed to completely avoid him – even when I had dropped Connor off at band practice – and I had managed to construct a wall around my emotions.
Seeing him again brought it crashing down.
Thankfully, he was immediately blocked from my view as Derren shifted and flung open the van door, then jumped down to the sidewalk. At the same instant, the sliding door in the side of the van opened and Kane appeared, grinning amiably. He and Aiden were sitting on the front of three rows of seats. Kane jumped out and Aiden followed behind him, with a polite yet slightly indifferent smile on his face.
“Hey, Amy, want the tour?” Kane asked impishly.
The sound of a door opening and closing from the other side of the van told me that Blake had gotten out too. I latched on to Kane’s offer like it was a life preserver. “Absolutely! Show me where you guys are going to be living.”
“You’ll be blown away, this is the five star shit right here!” Derren joked as they led me to the back of the van.
As one, Kane and Derren opened the double doors at the back. Inside there was a storage area that went back about half the length of the van, then there was a partition wall. The storage space had been modified and split in two horizontally, creating two spaces. Underneath the divide was all the band’s equipment and boxes of merchandise, on top of the divide were two double mattresses – the band’s sleeping quarters.
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “You’re all going to sleep in there?! No way you’ll fit!”
“Cozy, right?” Derren grinned.
“One or two of us’ll have to sleep on the seats in front,” Kane said, as he and Derren slammed the doors shut again. “We’ll have to flip a coin.”
“All part of the adventure, right?” I smiled at them; they looked like little kids about to go on their first camping trip.
I heard Connor calling to me from the sidewalk.
When I stepped back around to the side of the van, I saw Connor standing with Aiden; Blake was standing there too, his big arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t looking my way, he had his head slightly bowed and he was looking at the floor.
Connor waved me over and asked, “When’s your last exam?”
“Friday morning, why?”
“Just talking flights,” he said, turning back to Aiden. “Where will we be Friday?”
“Seattle. You’re playing the Key Arena that night.” Aiden looked at me, all business. “What time can you leave?”
“Um, my exam finishes at eleven.”
Aiden nodded. “Fine. I’ll get on it. Connor can let you know details later.”
“What’s going on? You comin’ on tour with us Amy?” Derren asked.
I felt my face heating. I really wasn’t sure how the guys were going to react to me crashing their tour.
“Yeah, looks like she’s flying out after finals,” Blake said without looking up, his voice was dangerously low.
“Hayley’ll be jealous,” Derren said. “She’s not flying out for another three weeks after that,” he shot me a mischievous look. “Just don’t screw in the van, okay? We all gotta live in there.”
I saw Blake’s biceps bunch against his chest and cringed, wishing Hayley were there to smack Derren and tell him to shut up like she usually did.
Connor laughed. “Yeah, ‘cause you and Hayls have so much restraint when it comes to shit like that.”
“Nah, man, gotta respect Nancy.”
“Nancy?” I asked.
“The van,” Kane explained in a tone of voice a benevolent father would use to discuss a foolish son. “He named the van Nancy.”
“Oh.” I shot a look at Derren who looked particularly pleased with himself. “Why Nancy?”
“Hayley’s middle name.”
I couldn’t help the involuntary “Aww” that popped out of my mouth. Kane rolled his eyes at me.
Aiden spoke up. “We’ve got to get on the road. Time to say your goodbyes.” With that he climbed back into the van.
“Alright, man,” Kane said to him, before stepping towards me and drawing me into a bear hug. “See you soon, Amy.”
“Yeah, have fun out there,” I said, hugging him back.
“I will,” he said pulling back and hopping into the van.
Derren followed suit and hugged me next. When he moved away and opened the passenger side door, I was astounded when Blake moved in for a hug too. It was a quick, one armed squeeze. Really, it barely classed as bodily contact, let alone a hug, but I swear my heart nearly stopped.
I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t dare breathe – because I knew the scent of him would make me buckle.
I knew he was only doing it to keep up appearances; it would look weird if he didn’t hug me when the others were, but still I looked up at his face, seeking some sign that he didn’t completely hate me.
I didn’t get it.
He wasn’t even looking at me.
His eyes were focused on something over the top of my head, then his arm dropped and he turned away quickly and strode out of sight, around the other side of the van.
Then there was just me and Connor left on the sidewalk. As he kissed me, all I could think was that I hoped to God Blake couldn’t see us. I broke the kiss after a couple of seconds and hugged him tight instead, hating myself for my duplicity. “I hope you have an amazing time,” I murmured into his ear, and it was the truth, maybe the only truth I could give him right then.
“I’ll miss you,” he whispered back, before he pulled away and picked up his duffel bag. Then he climbed through the sliding door in the side of the van, to sit with Kane and Aiden.
As I waved them off I cried – for all the wrong
reasons.
105
My mom has always been really into self-help books. Growing up, they were all over the house, dog eared pages in every one of them, highlighting her favorite sections.
I used to skim through them sometimes when I was bored, or just when I wanted something to make me laugh.
One time, though, I came across a self-help book that I didn’t think was dumb. I can’t remember the name of the book, but it focused on the Buddhist idea of having complete control of your own mind, which doesn’t actually sound like it should be a problem in the first place. But anyone who has tried really hard not to think about something, only for that something to be the only thing that you can think of…well, anyone who’s tried that will know that it can be almost impossible to control your own mind.
Not according to this book.
It worked on the theory that our thought processes are habits, we use the same ones all the time. Our brains have a pattern, a way of functioning on an unconscious level that is unique to us. The book claimed that if we want to change the way we think, we need to forge new pathways through our brain, and to do that, we have to consciously control our thoughts. Every time our thoughts stray from where we want them to be, we have to drag them back and force our brains to think only about what we want them to think about.
Basically, it’s a mental ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ strategy based on something Buddha said: ‘Rule your mind or it will rule you.’
That week, during finals, I went Buddhist. I tried to reprogram my mind…
I would NOT think about Blake.
I WOULD think about Connor.
I would NOT think about Blake.
I WOULD think about finals.
When I walked out of my last exam, I felt pretty confident that I had done well. It had taken mammoth effort, but I had managed to focus. I was exhausted from the effort, but I had done it.
My satisfaction didn’t last long though, because then I flew to Seattle.
106
After I touched down in Seattle, I took a cab from the airport to the Key Arena. I called Connor from the cab to let him know that I was on my way so that he could make sure I could get through security.
When he answered the phone he sounded sleepy, like I’d just woken him up. “Hey, whassup?”
“Hey, I’m on my way, I should be there in ten minutes. Can you come meet me?”
“Shit, yeah, what time is it?”
“It’s just after three.” I paused for a second, suddenly feeling even more apprehensive. The way Connor was talking, his tone, troubled me. “Big night last night?” I asked, a little stiffly.
I heard him huff down the line. “It’s just dark in here, feels like the middle of the night still.”
“Where are you, the back of the van?”
“Yeah, think so…”
“You think so?!”
“Relax, kidding. See you in ten.” With that he hung up.
I chewed on my lip as I travelled through the city, trying desperately hard not to think about seeing Blake again. And failing. Miserably.
When my taxi pulled up outside the venue, Connor wasn’t waiting for me, but Kane was.
He grinned at my confused look before pulling me in for a bear hug. “Con went to find a shower,” he said by way of explanation. “He asked me to come get you.”
“Oh, okay, thanks,” I said, my apprehension doubling as Kane took my duffel bag off me and started to lead me towards the parking lot, to where I could see some huge busses parked among a kind of caravan of smaller vehicles. “How’s the rock star life treating you?” I asked.
He grinned. “It’s weird. It’s like, incredibly intense and busy twenty percent of the time, and the rest of the time you’re just waiting around for something to happen.”
“The parts on stage are good though?”
“The parts on stage are fucking awesome. Hey, damn, I should have asked, how’d finals go?”
I smiled at his thoughtfulness. “I think I did okay.”
“Well, I’m sure you did great.”
“Oh my God!” A shrill voice squealed.
I looked up to see that we were approaching a gate in a chain link fence that had been erected around the caravan of vehicles. On our side of the fence, there were a crowd of people, mainly girls, milling around, and a couple of them were staring right at us – well, to be precise, they were staring at Kane.
“Are you Kane from Sons of Sinners?! Oh my God! You guys are awesome!” One of the girls approached us, a look of complete rapture on her face.
I couldn’t hide my grin as I looked at Kane. The guy actually looked a little flushed. “Uh, yeah, that’s me.”
“Oh my GOD!” she shrieked again. “Can I have your autograph?”
“Sure.” He took the sharpie she offered. “Who shall I make it out to?”
The fan girl handed him a copy of the Sons of Sinners EP to sign. “Amanda. I’m sooo excited to see you guys tonight! When Divide announced who would be opening for them I searched you guys on Twitter. I love your stuff, especially Bind of the Blue Collars, that’s awesome! My friends are going to go CRAZY when I tell them I met you,” she gushed.
“Well, I really hope you enjoy the show Amanda –”
“Is this your girlfriend?” she asked, looking at me. She wasn’t hostile, more like hungry for information.
“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re just friends. My boyfriend is in the band with him.”
Amanda gasped. “Which one is he?”
I couldn’t help smiling at her excitement; this was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. How desperately she wanted to know about the band – it was just surreal. “Connor,” I said. “He plays –”
“Drums! I know! He is soooo hot!”
Kane chuckled next to me.
I couldn’t help laughing a little too. “Yeah, he is, but he has a big head, so don’t let him hear you say that,” I joked.
“We’ll never hear the end of it,” Kane agreed. “It was nice to meet you Amanda, but we gotta go.” He gestured to the gate in front of us.
“Oh, yeah, nice to meet you too, thank you so much for the autograph!” She still looked elated as we moved past her and through the gate, the security guards waved us through as Kane showed his Access All Areas pass.
“Does that happen a lot?” I whispered to him, jerking my head back towards Amanda.
“It’s happened a few times, it’s really weird.”
I nudged him with my elbow as we walked. “Better get used to it. You guys are gonna be faaaamous,” I said the last word in a sing-song voice, grinning at him playfully. I knew the idea of fame made Kane uncomfortable, he wasn’t like the other guys in the band in that he didn’t really like to be the center of attention.
He shot me a withering look and nudged me back.
We wove our way through the mass of vehicles and people that were scurrying around inside the temporary compound. We passed three enormous, silver tour busses with blacked out windows. They were hulking behemoths, their chrome exteriors glinting fiercely in the sunlight. Along the sides of them, in huge red letters was the word DIVIDE.
With everything that had happened in the last few weeks, I’d kind of forgotten about the huge band that Sons of Sinners were touring with. When Connor had asked me to go with him, the thought of being in close proximity with a band that I kind of worshipped hadn’t even registered.
Walking past their massive tour buses, it suddenly hit me. “Holy crap!” I breathed.
“Crazy, huh?” Kane said from beside me.
“Have you met them?” I asked.
“Yeah, a couple times. Aiden knows them, that’s how come we’re even here. They seem like good guys. Those busses are something else though aren’t they?”
“Why do they need three?”
Kane shrugged. “Roadies, management, private chefs, who knows.”
I turned to look at him. “Private chefs? Seriously?”
He gr
inned. “So I heard, but it could just be a rumor.”
“Wow…just…wow…”
“Yeah. Don’t sound too impressed around Nancy though, she’s sensitive.”
“Derren wouldn’t let that go, would he?”
“Nah, it’s easier just to go with it. C’mon.” He nudged me again. “Let’s go find your guy.”
107
When I caught sight of Nancy, nestled among a host of other vans, the knot of anxiety in my stomach that I had been telling myself wasn’t really there, tripled in size.
As we got closer to the van, I saw Derren walking towards it too, with an arm full of hamburgers.
“Hey, D!” Kane called out. “Tell me there’s two of them for us!”
Derren turned and smiled slyly before launching two hamburgers, which were thankfully wrapped tightly, at us in quick succession. Unbelievably, Kane caught them both, then handed one to me, simultaneously shaking his head at Derren in disgust. “Idiot,” he muttered, before unwrapping his burger and taking a big bite.
I made no move to open mine, I wasn’t sure I could stomach it.
“Hey, Amy,” Derren greeted me. “Good trip? How were finals?”
“Good thanks, I think I did well.”
He nodded then opened the sliding door on the side of the van. “Here, Broody, got you somethin’ to eat,” he threw another hamburger inside the van.
At first I thought he must have been talking to Connor, then I heard the rumble of Blake’s voice. “Fuck off, D.”
“A ‘thank you’ works just as well,” Derren said sarcastically, then shot a look at me. “Just so you know, Blake’s being a giant pain in the ass. It’s fun for everyone.”
“I heard that, dick,” Blake’s voice sounded again, right before he emerged from the van and jumped to the ground next to Derren, burger in hand, and sent a backhanded tap into Derren’s stomach. “And I’m not brooding, I’m just –”
“– resting your voice. Yeah, got it,” Derren finished for him, rolling his kohl rimmed eyes.
“Amy’s here,” Kane said, stating the obvious.
“Hey,” I said to Blake, trying to sound relaxed. I’m pretty sure I failed.
