by Lisa Suzanne
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ETHAN
I want to touch base with Mark, but Steve and James are in the car with us as we make our way to the studio. Maci has an interview scheduled for this afternoon, so she had already planned to travel separately. I’m not ready to talk to Steve and James about all this, though I don’t doubt they’d have a different perspective. They’ve both been married several years, where Mark and I were the bachelors together for a long time. He gets me in a way the other two don’t.
“Why are you so broody today?” James asks me as we travel through New York City to the studio.
I break my stare out the window and glance over at him. I shrug. “I’m not. But for the record, you guys were assholes to me last night.”
“You played a shit show,” Steve counters.
“Right. We’ve all had off nights, and we don’t harp on it,” I say.
Nobody apologizes, but after the morning I had with Maci, I don’t want to ruin it by fighting with my best friends.
“Let’s move on,” Mark finally says. I press my lips together in silent thanks, and he nods. “James, did you ever figure out the pulse issue with the bridge?”
They launch into a conversation I’m half-listening to. It’s important because it affects how I’ll play my instrument, but my mind is elsewhere again. I need to get it together, need to focus, and I will. Once I see her and once we’re back in the same room together, my vision will clarify and the distractions will fall away. I’ll play my best because I’ll know I’m doing it for her success, too.
“What’s going on with you and Maci?” Steve’s voice comes low next to me.
I glance over at him and shrug.
“Are the rumors true?”
“You’re not one for gossip, Steve,” I say, surprised he’s confronting me. “But what rumors are you talking about?”
“That she’s pregnant.”
I’m sure the blood drains from my face. “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Angelique, who heard it from a roadie.”
“Roadies don’t know shit,” I mutter.
“So it’s not true?”
I blow out a long breath and shake my head. There’s no sense in denying something that’ll be obvious in a few months anyway. “It’s true.”
“And it’s yours?” he asks.
I nod.
I can’t help but detect the slightest hint of envy in his eyes. He and Angelique had a hell of a time getting pregnant, so I understand. It probably doesn’t seem fair to him that he had to work so hard and spend so much money to knock up his wife when an asshole like me did it without even trying. It isn’t fair, to be honest. But I can’t reverse our situations, and I wouldn’t want to, anyway. I might not have planned for this, it might have happened by accident, but it’s no mistake. As crazy as it is even for me to believe, I think it might even be something I want.
And that thought scares the living fuck out of me.
When we get to the studio, Maci is already there waiting for us. She’s holding the lyrics, reading through them again as she listens to something on her earbuds. She doesn’t see us right away, and I take an unabashed minute to stare at her.
We’ve fought hard to get here, and I’m not even totally sure where we are right now. I haven’t done this before, so I don’t know what comes next. Does she expect me to propose? Because marriage isn’t something I’ve ever thought about. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted. It doesn’t work—that was something ingrained into me from a very young age. It’s for fairy tales.
But is it what she wants? Is it the right step for us, the logical one? Can we make it work despite everything?
I guess it’s a conversation we should have, but the baby throws a wrench into everything. He wasn’t something I ever thought I wanted, either, and now...I do.
If I want that after only knowing about it for a short time, maybe other things I thought I never wanted might end up on the radar as well.
God, is this what love is—bending to what someone else might want without even realizing it? Putting someone else’s wishes over your own? Taking on risks and challenges you never bargained for?
She turns to look at us, and the very second our eyes meet across the small reception area, my chest tightens. I still know it’s her—Dani. I know it is. It’s the same slight curve of the same delicate neck, the same passionate expression in slightly different fiery eyes. Her lips tip up in a smile. She’s happy to see me.
I’m happy to see her, too.
But I still haven’t pieced together why she won’t just admit the truth to me. What harm is there in that? I don’t get it, and I’m not sure how to continue down this same path if she can’t be honest with me. I’m not sure how we make something work long term if she’s living a lie.
Is this also what love is—emotional swings from high to low, losing every bit of confidence along the way, wanting to trust someone with your very soul but not sure how to do that when she won’t come clean?
I’m about to approach her and ask her those questions. I’ve never been one for beating around the bush, and my bluntness has definitely gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion.
But just as I open my mouth to speak, some guy approaches our group to take us back to the studio we’ll be using today. He guides Maci with a hand on her back, and a ferocious need to bat his hand away rolls over me like a wave.
I pick up my pace and slide in between Maci and this asshole. I don’t give a fuck.
She looks surprised as I fall into step beside her. I claim her by pressing my lips to her temple and slipping my arm around her shoulders.
The dude takes the hint and leads the way for us, and then we take over because we know how to do our jobs. Our crew got our shit here fast, so I step behind my drums. I test them, hit each one, and make a few slight adjustments, but my head roadie, Shane, has set up my drum kit hundreds of times. Mark’s head is bent close to Maci’s as they go over the lyrics again, and I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy that he’s the one who gets to sing with her. I can’t wait to sing my song with her.
I listen as they practice before we start laying the actual tracks. Mark sings the first part, and as the words ring into my ears, I think back to what happened between him and his brother as one fought the other for revenge: “You stabbed me in the back, took the wheels off the track, you were supposed to be my number one, but all our progress came undone. The best revenge is getting her back, you can’t tempt me into attack, not again, again, again.”
Maci joins him on the chorus. “The best revenge is sweet victory, when one and one are meant to be, where have you been, you been, you been.” Watching her like this, singing and in her element, makes me want her inexplicably more. Every single time I watch her sing, the need to be inside her intensifies and amplifies until it becomes this real, tangible, living thing inside me.
And then she sings her own verse, words that echo what happened to Reese, almost as if Reese could’ve written them herself. And maybe she did. “I believed the words you said, when you took me to your bed, I believed you when you lied, when you caused our great divide. The best revenge is getting back to him, it won’t be some stupid little whim, not again, again, again.”
They run through the chorus again, and from where I sit, I can already see this one topping the charts. Between Vail’s ability to always shoot to the top and Maci’s pure vocals, it’s a sure hit. I wonder whether Maci and I will have a similar level of success when we record together. I’m not one to wallow in self-doubt, but Mark’s always had the edge over me. It gets frustrating because I don’t want anyone to ever have the edge over me.
After the lyrics are set, Mark sits at a piano to record a ghost track. We won’t use it in the song, but it works as a guide as we each do our part to create the final song. I close my eyes as he plays, listening and taking mental notes just like I know James and Steve are, just as I assume Maci is doing, too.
This
is one of my favorite parts of my job—recording new music. Creating something where silence lived before. Some musicians hate it, and others get self-conscious as they play in-studio, which is very different from performing live. For me, it’s the one time I can really set my focus on my craft. Live shows become just that—live shows. Recording sessions are all about the music, and my love for music is what pushed me into this career in the first place.
After we have the ghost track in place, I listen to it on a headset twice. I sit behind my kit to record drums, the ghost track in my ears again as I hit the snare, as I pound the bass, as I bang the toms, as I smash the cymbals. I do it all with the finesse and passion of someone who’s been doing it for nearly his entire life.
I finish and glance up at Maci, who’s staring across the room at me with lust in her eyes. It’s the same when I watch her in her element. It gives me this primal need to fuck her.
“Again,” Mark says, shaking his head.
“Fuck you,” I say. “It was on point.”
“It was close, but you know we never set the first take.”
I roll my eyes, and I hear the first notes of the ghost track in my ears again. I play my heart out, but I don’t hit quite as hard as the first time—not because I don’t carry that same level of passion, but because I know that was the mistake the first time around. I was showboating for Maci without even realizing it, I guess, as I played hard and forgot how shitty that sounds on tape.
I end up playing it eight times before Mark is satisfied, and as much as I want to kill him by the last round, I’m glad for his perfectionism. This song is a reflection of Maci, too, so it needs to be exactly right.
Maci and Mark record the lyrics next, and then James records bass and Mark and Steve follow up with guitars. We won’t get the finished product until our sound engineers put it all together, but we leave a few hours later satisfied we just created magic in that studio.
I kiss Maci before we part, wishing we had more time together. Our car takes us to our hotel since we’re in New York a few days, and we check in and head to our own rooms, the other guys to be with their wives and me to be alone, as usual. I used to live for this part—a few hours on my own before we had to get back to the venue for soundcheck. I’d explore the city or find someone to bring back to my hotel room or drink from the minibar and watch porn. I don’t feel like doing any of that, though. I just want to be with her, but that’s not an option.
I have a missed call from Zoey when I get to my hotel room, so I call her back.
“Hey, big bro,” she answers. She sounds tired.
“What’s going on?” I ask. I’m lying lazily on my bed, staring out the window at the skyline. I love New York’s hustle, but Los Angeles is home and right in this moment, I miss home.
“He’s taking a turn for the worse. They say he’s got a month at most.” Her voice is quiet, and I don’t answer. I don’t know what she wants me to say, and I don’t have the right words to make her feel better. It’s just another example of how I’m not what someone needs.
I wasn’t the drummer my band deserved last night, and this morning I wasn’t the man Maci needed, either. I’ve corrected both those things—or at least I’m working to—but the lack of compassion where my father’s concerned won’t allow me to say what Zoey wants to hear.
“Say something, Ethan.” She’s angry.
“I guess you better visit him and say your goodbyes, then,” I say thinly.
She hangs up on me, which I probably deserve. I hate that I couldn’t say the right thing, but that’s never been my forte. I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ETHAN
The adrenaline rushes through me in the darkness. It’s that singular moment before it all begins. The only sound is the loud din of the crowd as screaming and yelling voices mesh together in a cacophony of excitement. I’ve taken my place behind my drum kit. Everyone waits on me to hit that first note, the deep pitch of the bass drum resonating through each person’s chest wherever they stand in the crowd.
My mind’s on Maci again, naturally. It shouldn’t be. This is where I need to focus because the last time my mind was on Maci while I played, the result was disastrous. I won’t let that happen tonight.
Tonight I’m playing for her, and I even admitted it in tonight’s pre-game huddle.
We haven’t had much time together since we parted ways at the studio earlier today, just a minute or two after her set before I had to run to a fan meet and greet, but she’s been on my mind every second of the day. This isn’t me, this fawning, lovesick fool. I don’t understand these feelings and I don’t like what they’re doing to me, yet at the same time I want to hold them as tightly as I can between my fingertips for fear they might fly away at any moment.
It’s terrifying, this thing called love.
I’m somehow more broken than ever, yet she makes me whole again. Drumming used to do that for me. Whenever I’d get antsy, I’d beat out a song on my kit and feel the rush of calm as it moved in a slow wave over me. When I couldn’t play, I’d turn to pot—usually. Sometimes other things, too. But now, she’s the one providing that rush.
And that scares the ever living fuck out of me.
I push it out of my mind and force myself to focus on what’s directly in front of me. My success is hers now because every part of me belongs to her in one way or another.
I push my foot down on the pedal of the bass drum, and the music begins. I toss my shirt off somewhere during our fourth song. I beat the shit out of my set tonight, and when it comes time for my solo right in the middle of the show, I play harder than I’ve ever played. Maybe it’s showboating again, or maybe it’s something else entirely. Some strange mix of angst and excitement settles into the pit of my stomach. This is where flaming drumsticks would fucking kill, but the lame little sparks fly out the front of the bass drum as I kill the end of my solo.
I hit the final cymbal with extra force tonight as I try to beat out that rush of adrenaline and love and confusing feelings that fills me. I hit it so hard that it tips over—rookie mistake, I know. It tips right into the bass drum just as the final flames shoot out of it. The bass shifts backward toward me, and all I see are flames everywhere as they seem to engulf me.
The lame little sparks aren’t so lame or little when they’re coming at me in a shower of fire.
Fear pulses through me. I might scream out, but I’m not sure because my vision, my consciousness, my very being all goes black at once. When I come out of the darkness, the first thing my brain registers is a searing pain coming from my left arm. Adrenaline must take over because suddenly I’m rolling on the ground in an automatic, panicked response to the fact that I might actually be on fire. The air must hit whatever part of my flesh is burned, because the searing pain turns agonizing. Before I have a chance to comprehend what’s going on, I’m surrounded by people and flashlights. Mark’s there first, yelling shit out to someone, and I’m lying on the ground. I think I might be in shock as a dizzying sensation pours over me. I feel like I might pass out from the pain in my arm, and all I want to do is finish my fucking set and then find Maci.
In this moment of panic, it’s clear those are the two most important things in my life: the girl and my job.
“Get water!” someone screams. “He needs cold water!” A cooling sensation hits my arm as someone pours a bottle of water on my arm, but it’s not calming like I want it to be. It just makes the pain somehow even more acute.
“Fuck,” someone mutters. “Fuck!” they scream a little louder. I hear echoes of the word all around me, other curse words piled on top of it, and then someone yells, “Get a doctor! We need a doctor!”
“I’m fine,” I say. I sit up, but I think I do it too fast because little dots of blackness edge my vision as the dizziness I felt lying down takes hold of me.
I lie back down, and then I lift my wet arm to take stock of the damage. It’s hard to see in the darkne
ss only illuminated by flashlights, but my left forearm looks an unnatural shade of bright red. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know anything about burns, but I do know flames just shot at me and it could’ve been so much worse. Whatever this is might be painful, but at least I’m still here to feel the pain.
All the stupid shit I’ve done in my life—experimenting with drugs, nearly getting shot at by a lunatic “fan,” fucking around with all the women, acting like I’m fucking immortal—and this is the thing that could’ve killed me, the thing that should be safe because we tested it. We fucking tested it. Mark wouldn’t have let me get out on that stage if it wasn’t safe. But I pushed and pushed for it, settled for a compromise that wasn’t good enough for me, and here we are.
How much worse could it have been?
I don’t have just myself to consider anymore. Even through the torture of the pain shooting through my arm, I think of her. I think of the baby.
And I realize something.
For the first time in my life, I have someone else to consider first. I have someone to live for, to make better decisions for, to be a man for.
People are still surrounding me as I make this realization. They carry me off the stage, and I hear the confused din of the crowd. It’s dark up here. Everything was done with flashlights, mostly from phones, so I’m not sure if anyone out there really knows what just happened. They might think it’s part of the show, even. I remember a heavy metal concert I went to years ago where the lead singer caught on fire as part of the act.
This isn’t just for show, though. And it hurts like a bitch.
Can I get back out there to finish the set? I flex my fingers, and a pain shoots up my arm.
We’re backstage now, in better lighting, and I take a good look. It’s red and raw, but as the shock and panic start to wane, I realize it’s not as bad as it could have been.
