by Lisa Suzanne
Everything was fine. Not great, but fine. I was easily pushing away my attraction and my admiration and my want for her naked in my bed because of the complications involved. And then last night happened, and I watched her fuck a bathtub and now I’m hard as a rock all the time and I can’t get it out of my head.
“I have a band meeting to get to. You need anything?” I stand and set my napkin on top of my plate.
She shakes her head as she sets a piece of scrambled egg on Chance’s tray. He tosses it to the ground immediately. She avoids eye contact with me as she sighs. “No. We’re all right.”
“I’ll only be an hour or two tops, but if you want to go somewhere, grab an Uber.”
“I won’t go anywhere,” she says softly, and it clicks then that she doesn’t have the access to just grab an Uber the way I do.
I grab my wallet out of my pocket and set my credit card on the table in front of her. “Set up an Uber account and whatever else you need. I don’t want you to feel stranded here. Use the card and go enjoy Denver. Get lunch. Buy souvenirs. Have fun, all on me. Get out of this hotel and take a deep breath of some air that isn’t a hundred and ninety-seven degrees.”
She offers a small smile at my reference to her hometown. If she’s still here when I get back, I’m taking her somewhere. I don’t know where yet, and it’ll be a short window before we have to be at the venue for sound check, but I’ll figure something out.
She’s just lost so much, and I want to give her something. I want to be the reason that small smile widens into something beautiful across her lips.
I head over to Tommy’s room where we’re having our late morning band meeting. He’s ushering a girl out as Dustin and I show up at the same time to knock on his door, and he doesn’t look the least bit apologetic about it—neither to the girl he’s getting rid of or the fact that he literally just rolled out of bed and we have a meeting that starts now.
He flops onto the couch in the living room area of his suite. Tyler and Karl show up right behind us, and we all find seats in the room except Karl, who tends to stand at our meetings.
He reads from his phone. “We’re burning through merch faster than we’d expected. Projecting forward with the numbers from Phoenix and SLC, we’ll need to place an order within the next two weeks to have enough pieces by the time we get to Georgia on September first.”
We all react positively to that. There’s nothing bad about selling more t-shirts to rabid fans than we were expecting, and a huge chunk of revenue from touring these days comes from the merchandise booth.
He delivers numbers from our club appearance last night and our show in Salt Lake City, and he fills us in on a few other news bulletins.
“And the final item on my agenda is just for Tommy.” We all glance in his direction as we wonder what piece of news this is. A ripple of fear travels down my spine, the same way it does every time news is just for one of us. It’s either because we’re in trouble or because there’s a job offer that doesn’t include all four of us. Trouble I can deal with. That’s standard in this line of work. But the thought of something breaking up the four of us is my literal biggest fear.
I hold my breath as I wait for Karl’s announcement.
“You were tagged on Instagram last night sucking on some woman’s tit in the middle of the club after the appearance. Can you please, for the love of God, try to do that behind closed doors?”
I let out that breath on a laugh. “Dumbfuck. Everybody knows you do that in the alley, not in the middle of the club.”
We all have comments for Tommy on that one, and then Karl asks if any of us have anything to add.
“I do,” I blurt. Everyone turns toward me, and I let a beat of quiet pass as I try to figure out how to propose this. And then, bypassing eloquence completely, I just get to the point. “Hannah snapped a few pictures of me in Salt Lake from backstage. She’s got some crazy raw talent. We need to hire her as our official band photographer.”
“Oh come on,” Tommy says, rolling his eyes. “First you let her onto our bus and now you want to let her into band business? Fuck that noise all the way to the bank, dude.”
I’m not quite sure exactly what that means, but Tommy likes to pepper conversations with witty little phrases.
I knew if anybody would oppose the idea, it’d be him. “Look at them,” I say, pulling them up on my phone and passing it to Tyler first since he’s closest. “It’s just those five in a row. I wouldn’t scroll past those.”
Tyler laughs, but as he checks them out, his brow furrows. He zooms in on one and flips to the next one before passing the phone to Dustin without a word. Dustin does the same, and I find my chest prickling with anticipation as I await some response from them.
Dustin whistles through his teeth. “Damn,” he says. He and Tyler glance at each other and both raise their brows before he passes the phone to Karl, who takes a look, and then it goes onto Tommy.
“She’s got some talent,” Tyler says. “We could get some great shots for promo.”
“Album artwork, too,” Karl muses.
“And centerfolds for fucking Teen Beat,” Tommy mutters. “I don’t like the idea. We don’t need a band photographer.”
Dustin shrugs. “We don’t have one. Why not give her a shot? Amanda would be happy to watch Chance while Hannah does her thing. She’s already got Maya and Luna, and she loved having all three kids on the bus the other night. Said it was like looking into a crystal ball showing the future.” His face blanches a little, and Tyler laughs.
“What’s wrong with the shit we get from media and fans?” Tommy asks.
“This would give us a new perspective,” Tyler argues. He starts to get passionate about it, and it’s nice having him back on my side after it feels like we’ve been at odds more than we’ve been on the same side lately. “Someone on the inside. You know Mark Ashton’s wife handles all their social media? She takes photos backstage and she’s an amateur. Imagine the content we could get if we had someone around even right now, taking pictures here at this meeting, or on the bus, or at the club last night?”
“You mean of Tommy sucking a tit?” Dustin asks. He looks at me. “You think she could’ve gotten a better angle on that?”
“No comment.” Tommy purses his lips and flips Dustin the finger.
“She took these on her phone,” I add. “Imagine if she had a decent camera.”
“She could borrow mine,” Dustin says. “Let’s give it a shot. See what she can do.”
“All in favor?” Karl asks, and this is the way we always settle band debates.
Tyler, Dustin, and I raise our hands. Tommy does not.
“Passes with seventy-five percent majority,” Karl says. We get into some finer details including what we’ll pay her to take these pictures for us, and I leave the meeting excited to run back to our room to give her the news.
CHAPTER 23: HANNAH
It’s silly to feel abandoned just because he didn’t sleep in the same bed as me.
Yet I do.
These feelings stem back through my history. First my parents left me through no fault of their own. I was tossed about in foster care, never really finding a place of my own until I found Brie again, and then a decade later, she left me, too.
I’ve always had that fear that anybody I get close to will leave me, but Brett’s literally my lifeline right now. I don’t think I realized I put him in that position until I woke up alone this morning.
Did he choose not to sleep beside me because of what he saw in the tub last night?
I’m freaking mortified over that. Like to the point that I’m debating leaving this tour entirely and figuring out a new path. Surely there are programs to help people in my situation...except now that Brett knows he has this child out there, would he even be willing to part with him? Then where does that leave me? Abandoned again by another person I love. Nobody leaves me on purpose, but the truth is that they all leave me anyway.
It’s all too mu
ch, and the feelings plow into me as I swipe away the tears. We’re still out on the balcony, and Chance is still munching Cheerios, and I should probably unstrap him from his chair and get on with our day but the grief is like a heavy blanket I can’t seem to toss off this morning.
At least I have my sunglasses on to try to hide the emotion from the baby.
But kids are smart. They know. They can feel it, too.
Brett told me to go somewhere, but where the hell do I go in a city I don’t know? I have a baby with me. How do I just pack up and go out for the day with him? This is all new to me, too, and it’s a lot of responsibility that I don’t really want. I didn’t sign up for this.
But the second I think that, guilt drenches me. I’m sure Brie would’ve preferred to be here, too.
I wish she was still here.
I miss her with every part of who I am.
She wasn’t just my sister. She was one part mother to me, one part best friend, and a huge part of my heart. And now she’s gone. I keep thinking that tired old cliché that she’ll just walk through that door at any minute, that this has all been some strange dream featuring all the worst possible things that could happen to me combined with some sort of Capital Kingsmen fantasy world.
But the ache piercing my chest and the tears burning down my cheeks are all too real.
I don’t know how long Brett will be gone, so I should probably attempt to compose myself in case he shows back up. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this, including the baby...but sometimes the pain just becomes too much. And I suppose children need to see adults express and manage their emotions or else they’ll learn to express them in unhealthy ways. Or they’ll become robots who don’t express them at all and let them bottle up instead.
I try to draw in a deep breath, but that blanket is still suffocating me.
And wouldn’t you know it? Just as I’m attempting to pull myself together, the damn door opens and Brett steps out onto the balcony.
He takes one look at me and tilts his head a little as his eyes soften with something close to sympathy. I guess the sunglasses can’t hide the rest of my tear-stained, red, puffy face.
Instead of saying a single word, he unstraps Chance from the chair where he sits. He picks him up and holds him in his arms, and Chance touches the scruffy hair on his jaw. He giggles at the feel of it and does it again, and Brett chuckles softly. It’s a tender, sweet moment between a father and a son who haven’t bonded yet, but it’s definitely the start of something—and further evidence that just walking away from this tour isn’t an option for me.
“Come with me,” Brett says softly. He holds out a hand to me, and I take it as I allow him to help me up.
“I just need a minute,” I say. I grab my shoes from the bedroom and put them on, and then I go to the bathroom, where I flip my sunglasses to rest on top of my head. I inspect myself in the mirror for a second, and then I give up. There’s little hope for the red, watery eyes or the puffiness.
I blow my nose and splash a little water on my face. It felt good to cry, to let out a little bit of what’s been festering on the inside.
When I emerge from the bathroom, I spot Brett making a silly face at Chance. It marks the very first time I’m seeing Brett let go of the I’m too cool for this persona, and my chest feels a little funny at the sight of it.
“You ready?” he asks.
I nod even though I’m not sure what I’m getting ready for. He grabs a baseball cap and pulls it down low while I situate Chance in his carrier, and then we click the carrier into the stroller and head down the elevator to a car waiting out front. Ten minutes later we pull into the parking lot of the Denver Zoo.
“The zoo?” I ask as the driver navigates toward the main entrance.
He lifts a shoulder. “Have you ever left the zoo without a smile on your face?”
I can’t help a small laugh. “I’ve only been to the zoo twice that I can remember. Both were school field trips, and I don’t remember smiling much in general as a kid.”
He gives me a grim smile. “It’s a shame that that is something we have in common from our childhood, but today that all changes.”
And it does. We head right for the lions, and there’s some magical quality in the air as it starts to feel a bit like a date. Brett pushes the stroller, and we stop in front of the lion enclosure. We both search for a beat, and he points to a lion sleeping near the back of the exhibit.
We stare at the giant animal, and Brett yells, “Wake up!” A few people around us chuckle, and a few give him a dirty look, but the result is the same: the lion is totally unbothered by my obnoxious date.
We move toward the zebras next and watch as they munch on grass, and then the giraffes. There’s a special encounter there where we can feed the giraffes, and Brett raises a brow at me. I shrug. I’m game for anything.
We laugh as giant giraffe tongues come toward us, and some of the heavy darkness that has surrounded me for days begins to lighten. It doesn’t mean I miss her any less, and it doesn’t mean I’m not still reeling over my new life. But it does make me see that life has to go on, and that punishing myself by wallowing in the pain won’t change my situation.
“What’s your favorite animal?” he asks me as we stroll from the giraffes toward the tigers.
“Panda bear,” I answer immediately and without reservation. “You?”
“Komodo dragon.” His answer is immediate, too.
“Why?”
“They’re little beasts, man. Fierce as fuck. Why do you like pandas?”
“They’re cute, but they’re fierce, too. They’re surprising because they seem like these sweet, cuddly creatures who just snack on bamboo all day, but they have incredibly strong jaws to bite through those trees. I feel like, on a good day anyway, that’s kind of like me. Not the gorgeous kind of cute like you’re used to, maybe, but kind of cute and definitely fierce.”
“Wow, you put a lot of thought into that. I just picked the Komodo dragon because it’s kickass.”
I laugh. “I’ve always liked pandas, but when I learned that they symbolize peace and gentle strength, I felt like I’d found my spirit animal. Or, at least, the spirit of the animal I aspired for.”
“Strength,” he repeats. “Is that meaningful to you?”
I think of the ink on my back. Brie and I went together on my eighteenth birthday. I always wanted a tattoo, and I don’t even know why. It’s not really me, but I guess it is since I have one.
What we each got was her idea.
She said she wanted a word that was something she admired in me, something she aspired to be, and I should do the same. Because I felt like I was weak my entire life where I admired how strong Brie was, I went with strength. She chose happy. She said I was always smiling, that there was a ray of sunshine inside me that seemed to burst out, so her word was written in a rainbow.
I think, in the end at least, that having Chance brought her more happiness than not. I think that even though we were in a tough situation, that we didn’t have much and things could have been better...deep down she died happy.
And now of all times, the meaning of my tattoo seems to be greater than ever. I need the strength I pulled from my sister more than ever, but the one person I always relied on for it isn’t here anymore. I’m reminded of the words in her letter to me. She always saw me as strong, and I need to live up to how she saw me.
Instead of telling him all that, though, I simply say, “Yes. It’s something I aim to have.”
He presses his lips together, and he turns away from the tigers and we start walking toward the next exhibit. He pauses and faces me. “You have more of it than you give yourself credit for.” Both our eyes are hidden behind our sunglasses, but I still feel his gaze on me. He lowers his voice to a husky rasp. “And, for the record, I’ll take your brand of cute any day over whatever it is you think I’m used to.”
He turns at those words and starts off toward the
polar bears, and I stand in place for a minute to catch my breath at the shock that lances through me because of his words.
CHAPTER 24: BRETT
There aren’t pandas at this zoo, which is unfortunate since now I want to buy her a fucking panda bear. Except apparently they’re pretty fierce and have strong jaws that could tear apart a human, so maybe a panda as a gift is not a great idea.
Seeing her let go of some of the weight that’s been dragging her down today has been eye-opening. I’ve heard actual genuine laughs out of her today, always a sweet, tinkling sound that’s musical and charming at the same time with an addictive quality about it. But just beyond the polar bears, we find the Tropical Discovery, home to the dope ass Komodo dragons.
I don’t have any sort of emotional attachment to the Komodo dragon, but when Hannah went into the restroom to change Chance, I looked up what the animals represent mostly so I could report back to Hannah and impress her with my witty knowledge once we’re in front of the dragon’s enclosure.
I shouldn’t be surprised by what I find, but I am.
Komodo dragons apparently represent trusting your own survival instincts and they’re a reminder that you have the power and agility to go for what you want. The animals are fierce and deadly, but when you dream about them, it means new opportunities are coming your way.
My instincts have been proven wrong before, but today they’re directing me toward the girl and the kid. Today, it felt right to do something I thought these two would enjoy. Is that my instinct? Or is that just me trying to fit into this new life where I find myself?
And I have the power to go after what I want...I’ve always known that. The issue this time is that I don’t know what I want.
I thought I did.
I thought I was happy with my life the way it was. I thought I didn’t want anything to change. I thought I wanted the plastic women with the huge tits and the plumped up lips and the tight dresses and the sky high heels, and I thought I wanted a new one of those in every city. Same basic formula just in a new setting. I thought it filled the void.
