I drained my beer and slammed my glass down on the table.
“They’re going to audition. If the replacement is good enough, they stay. Otherwise, they go.”
“Whoa, man. That’s a bit... umm... insulting, really,” Elijah said. You’re making them audition? Surely, if they think the replacement is good enough, that’s all you need to know.”
“Not really. I need to know the new person is a good fit for the tour, too. I’m not taking chances.”
Crow nodded, but Elijah leaned forward.
“Do we get to sit in on the audition too? I mean, we’re on the tour as well. We should have a say.”
What he really meant was, he didn’t trust my judgment. He thought I’d be extra harsh, but I could remain impartial.
“If you want to. It’ll be during sound check, so stick around if you like. I don’t care either way. But the slightest sign of tension, and the whole deal is off. I’ve had enough of this shit.”
Crow stood up and nodded to my empty glass. I shook my head. The few drinks we’d had already hit my system. If I drank much more, I’d do something stupid, like take Elijah’s fool advice.
“Water?” Crow asked.
“Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
“What if you just open up about it?” Elijah said.
“More stupid advice?”
“Not at all. Tell the press you’re a couple. No one’s going to give a fuck after a few days. Why the hell would it even be news? Nowadays, there’s so much shit going on in the world, a man having a stable relationship with a chick, that’s not even newsworthy. It’s not like you’ve been found doing some non-consensual shit. You haven’t been harassing her or any of that shit.”
I sneered at his stupidity.
“Fastest way for this to blow over?”
“Yeah, except I don’t have a stable relationship with her. It was a fling. A stupid fling. I knew better, but I got a little carried away. In a day or two, she’ll be completely out of my system.”
Crow arrived back with the drinks. Elijah took his glass and raised it, looking me in the eye.
“Keep telling yourself that, buddy. ‘It was just a fling, it didn’t mean anything.’ If that’s what it takes to get you through, just keep telling that to yourself.”
Chapter 31: Polly
Damo walked into the bar. In a city with thousands of bars, why this one? Had he been following me? Suddenly, my beer tasted sour, and it sat heavy in my stomach.
“Why did you pick this bar?” I asked Jax.
“I came here with the guys the other night. It seemed like a chill place.”
Okay, maybe Damo was here for the same reason, but it made me so uncomfortable. I twitched in my seat and tugged at my clothes. I’d wanted to pour out all my misery, not think about how I looked. Having Damo at the same bar put me on edge.
“Let’s leave,” I said.
“Don’t let him chase you out. You have as much right to be here as he does.”
“Yeah, but I can’t relax with him here.” I sighed. “For a moment, there, I thought he really liked me, but it was just stupid. He obviously doesn’t, or he’d have never reacted like that. The guy has a heart of ice.”
My mind kept going over all the things that contradicted that. The way he’d held my hand, the way he’d smiled at me. We’d done laundry together. He’d been so sweet. And that’d all been destroyed in an instant. I’d done something stupid, sure, but he could’ve forgiven me. My heart ached, and so did my hand. I hadn’t held back when I punched Miles.
I sucked down my beer.
I’d destroyed everything. I hated to admit that, but I couldn’t lie to myself. I’d let my temper take control. Damo would never be a man who’d handle that. He’d never want to be with a woman like that. Ever. We’d had a thing, and it’d burned bright, but even without the Miles incident, it’d never have lasted.
I finished my beer and headed to the bar for another round. If Jax wouldn’t leave, I needed more beer to deal with being here. I couldn’t be that person who didn’t act on my feelings, but punching Miles had been a stupid impulse. I needed to get my shit sorted out. Not because of Damo, but because of me.
“It wasn’t such a bad thing to do, was it?” I asked Jax when I sat back down. “I mean, it was bad, but not that bad. Not ‘never speak to you again’ bad.”
Jax shook his head. “It wasn’t a terrible thing to do. I’d have done it myself, a hundred times. But Damo isn’t like other people. He’s so super-private and self-contained. He’d have already been bruised from Miles’ outburst. You just added the icing to the cake.”
“Except cake is usually delicious.”
I stared into my beer. I’d fucked up. I had to face it. My entire life was a mess, and that mess had hurt Damo.
“I should leave the tour,” I said. “It’s the best thing for everyone.”
“You should not leave the tour. That’s ridiculous. Fay is on her way here. She’s probably on the plane now, and we’ve convinced Damo to give us another shot. What you need to do is work your guts out, making sure we’re even better with Fay than we ever were with Miles. If you leave now, you’ll have let him down a second time. You’ll let me down, you’ll let Fay down, and mostly, you’ll let yourself down.”
On the music side of things, Jax was right, but there was a whole other side to it, and that side was my insides. The part of me that hurt the most. I couldn’t see Damo every single day knowing we’d come so close. That’d be hell.
I needed to learn self-control. Not to change myself to suit Damo, but to make sure I didn’t keep fucking up. There were only so many chances in this life.
“I’m going back to the hotel,” I said, standing up.
Drinking was really not going to help this situation. Being in the same bar as Damo sure as hell didn’t help, either. I’d go back to my room and have a good night’s sleep. When Fay arrived, I’d be ready to deal with her energy, at least.
Before I moved though, I looked at Damo without thinking. For a second, his gaze met mine. That moment set my body ablaze. I held my breath, waiting for him to do something, anything. If he made the slightest move toward me, I’d meet him halfway. I’d apologize. I’d do anything, even crawl across the dirty carpet just to get to him. He needed to give me an indication. Surely, there was still a chance. What we’d had didn’t die that easily.
He looked away, and that answered all those unspoken questions.
I walked out of that bar with my head held high. When I got outside, I wiped my eyes. It was just the cold sting of the winter air hitting me, nothing else. Damo could go to hell. From here on in, I’d be all business. We’d be the best damn band in this industry. I’d make sure of it.
Chapter 32: Polly
Fay arrived the next day. I hadn’t thought about arrangements until she arrived. We couldn’t both fit in my tiny room, so the smart thing to do would be to swap with Jax. I didn’t want to do that until Damo had left the hotel, though. Even if it meant holing up in my room all day, I’d avoid him. But I couldn’t avoid Fay and had to open my door to her.
“Polly!” she screamed, throwing her arms around me and squeezing the breath out of my body.
I hugged her back. Even if Fay was super high energy, she was a swell kid.
Behind her sat two huge suitcases. I couldn’t even pull her into my room, not with those cases. It was either the cases or us. I just didn’t have the space, and we couldn’t leave them in the hallway.
I tried Jax’s door, but he didn’t answer. All the time, my gaze kept turning to that door at the end of the hallway. I knew Damo would’ve left for the arena, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking.
Jax still didn’t answer.
“Let’s grab a coffee,” I said to Fay. “We can squeeze your luggage in my room until Jax gets back. Have you packed everything you own?”
We crammed her luggage through the door. One suitcase on the bed, the other in the gap between the bed and the desk. Then w
e wandered down the street. The cafe near the hotel was out of bounds, since I knew that Damo went there often. I didn’t want to risk running into him.
“You look fantastic,” I said to Fay.
She wore a tiny leather skirt and some kickass cowboy boots. She’d win a crowd over on looks alone, but luckily, she had the talent to back it up.
She smiled at me, then frowned as she looked me up and down.
“No offense, Polly, but I’ve seen you look better.”
I wasn’t about to go into the whole Damo thing with her.
“Life on the road,” I said. “You’ll look like this in a week.”
Fay laughed.
As we had coffee, she filled me in on all the news from back home. Small town gossip and all that.
“So, what happened with Miles?” she asked.
“You said you saw what happened online. Well, that’s pretty much it. Damo kicked him off the tour, and we’d have been finished, so that’s why you’re here. Nothing more to say. He was a prize dick from the time we broke up.”
Fay smiled. “Lucky for me. Lucky for you, too, because Miles was a jerk. I never liked him.”
“Anyway, we should get rehearsing. We have to audition for Damo on Friday, and there’s still a chance we won’t cut it.”
“Oh, we’ll cut it. No problems with that. I didn’t come all this way just to fly back home.”
I grabbed my phone. I needed to get our shit together. We needed a rehearsal space, and we needed to get our gear from the arena. When I left after our last show, I hadn’t taken anything with me. Not my bass, nothing. I wasn’t looking forward to picking it up. The chances of running into Damo were too high.
I had a message from Jax.
“Woohoo! Jax is a legend. He’s organized a rehearsal space and got our gear sorted. We just need to turn up.”
At least that helped me avoid Damo. I shouldn’t feel at all bad about that. I didn’t want to see him.
By the time we arrived at the studio, Jax had a loaner drum kit set up. I grabbed my bass and hugged it to me before I handed it over to Fay.
“I borrowed a guitar,” Jax said.
“Not from Damo!”
“Settle. It was one they had here. It’s not great, but it’ll do for rehearsal.”
With that, we got started. The rest of the day, we just settled in with working together. Fay knew our songs, but she hadn’t ever played with us before. I knew the guitar parts, but I wasn’t comfortable with them, either. We ran through our entire set list, then took a break.
“We’re going to have to drop a couple of songs,” I said. “In ‘Lonely Loser’, I don’t think Fay’s going to pick up the bass line fast enough to do it next week. And ‘Flowers’ isn’t going to work. It was written specifically for Miles’ voice. Honestly, I’d rather not do it, anyway. It reeks of Miles.”
Jax nodded. “Yep, better to strip things right back until we get used to playing together. We can get fancy later.”
“I’m happy to go with whatever the two of you think,” Fay said.
Jax and I worked through the set list until we’d gotten something we were both comfortable with. A couple of songs were beyond my playing.
Then we gave the songs another run-through. We only stopped to eat, then kept rehearsing.
“My fingers hurt. I’m surprised they aren’t bleeding,” Fay said.
I checked the time. If we left now, I’d be back in my room before The Freaks got offstage. That worked for me.
“Okay, we’ll call it a day,” I said. “But tomorrow, we do this all over again. Until we’re perfect, we’re spending every minute in here.”
My plans went awry when we couldn’t get an Uber. I paced the outside of the rehearsal studio, checking the time and checking my phone. What the hell was that driver doing? It looked like he was spinning around in circles when I tracked him on the app.
I hugged myself. If we didn’t get back soon, we’d hit the hotel just when Damo got back. That was the last thing I wanted.
I checked my hair and my makeup. I didn’t want to see him, but if I did, I didn’t want to look like shit. Fay was right. I had looked better. I hadn’t showered. My hair had some weird frizz happening, and my skin had gone all blotchy. Even if Damo never spoke to me again, I didn’t want to face him looking this disastrous.
Finally, the car turned up. We jumped in and headed back to the hotel. Maybe Damo would stay back at the arena later tonight. I shouldn’t panic about seeing him. It shouldn’t be that big a deal.
We got to the hotel. Jax had packed up his stuff, so, while Fay moved her suitcases, I gathered my things together and went to the other room.
I had to wait in the hallway. I paced. Damo wouldn’t show. The odds of that were super-low. Fay called me to help with something, and when I went back into the hall, I heard a door close. Damo? He’d come back, and I’d missed him. That was what I’d wanted. I should be happy.
By the time I got my shit together and got into our room, Fay had taken over most of the wardrobe.
“Oi, you can rethink this,” I said.
“Huh?”
I pointed to the tiny space she’d left me.
“Oh. Sorry.”
She reorganized things to give me some room.
“I really overpacked,” she said. “I panicked.”
I lay back on the bed, folding my arms behind my head. As much as I loved Fay, I wished I could’ve kept my own room. It’d been hard enough putting on a happy, smiling face all day. I hadn’t thought about having to do that once we got back to the hotel, too. I couldn’t wallow with Fay around. I couldn’t cry, and I couldn’t let my misery show. She’d ask me a thousand questions and try to comfort me. That defeated the whole purpose of wallowing.
“Hell, I forgot a few things. Can you believe it? I thought I packed everything I owned, but nope. No toothbrush, and there’s not even a hotel one, even though this is the fanciest place I’ve ever stayed. There’s a couple of other things I need, too.”
I was about to tell her to run to the convenience store, then I took a look at her. All her normal energy seemed to have drained from her face, and she looked overwhelmed. Sometimes I forgot how young she was, and she’d been on that long plane ride, followed by hours of rehearsal. I should offer to go with her instead of being so selfish.
“Come on,” I said as I got up and grabbed my jacket.
She trailed behind me as I walked briskly to the store. Really, if Damo was around, walking fast wouldn’t make him less around, but it made me feel better to hurry.
We picked up a few things, including way more snack food than a person could ever need.
“Are you going to eat all that?” Fay said. “It’s not like you to binge.”
“I’m not binging. I’m hungry.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not judging. I’m just checking in.”
“I’m fine. Sugar is good.”
We got back through the lobby without incident, but someone thrust their hand between the elevator doors as they closed. I held my breath as the doors opened. If it was Damo, I needed to arrange my face into a look of non-caring. I didn’t want one trace of longing showing.
Crow stepped in and nodded at us. I should’ve known. Damo would never be stupid enough to do that.
I exhaled.
“Hey, how are things?” I said to him.
He stared at Fay. Way too much.
“This is my cousin, Fay,” I said in a way that said “hands off” only too clearly. Eyes off, too.
“Your cousin is a chick?” he said.
“Looks that way,” I replied. “Now, stop looking.”
Crow was a nice enough guy, and I had nothing against him. But he was way too world-weary to be around my cousin. I’d make sure they didn’t spend too much time alone. I didn’t like the way he looked at her at all. If only Fay wasn’t glancing back at him.
Chapter 33: Damo
Polly might’ve stayed on the tour, but you’d
never have known it. She kept well out of my way, which was what I wanted. I figured Wreckage had found a rehearsal space in the city and had been spending most of their time there. I hadn’t even seen her around the hotel.
Before we left for the arena, Crow came rushing back to the hotel.
“You’ve got five minutes,” I told him.
He nodded and headed upstairs. It wasn’t like he needed any fancy onstage outfits, maybe just a fresh t-shirt.
“Where have you been?” I asked him when he got back to the lobby. “Sightseeing?”
He shrugged. “Watching Wreckage rehearse,” he said.
I turned away. I couldn’t ask him about Polly. I wouldn’t even ask him how they’d sounded. He didn’t seem that keen on talking about it, either. It seemed a strange way for him to spend his time. Crow was a loner, mostly, not the type to hang around another band’s rehearsal space. Maybe he had some reason for it, but I wouldn’t ask, and he wouldn’t tell.
The new opening band were already on when we got to the arena. They were a stalwart of the local music scene. Maybe getting a bit past their use-by date, but still with a local fan base. They’d been more than happy to pull in some extra cash as last-minute fill-ins, and they were solid enough. I wasn’t sure about bringing them on tour, though. Without that local following, they wouldn’t create any buzz.
If Wreckage didn’t pass this audition, we didn’t have many other options.
Even onstage, I kept glancing over to the corner. I knew Polly wouldn’t be there, but I couldn’t keep my gaze away. I wanted her to be there. I wanted to know she cared just a little bit.
I’d been an idiot. I knew that. If I’d done things differently, I wouldn’t be in this screwed-up situation now. She’d been upset by what Miles had done, so maybe, instead of getting angry, I could’ve comforted her a little. Would that have been so hard? I mean, I’d never comforted anyone before, but I was sure I could do it.
We got through the show. One more to do in Berlin, then we’d be moving on. If I was honest with myself, the thought of moving on without Polly ripped me apart. But I’d made my decision, and I’d stick with it. I had to. I wasn’t a person who screwed around with things like that.
Guitar Freak Page 12
