by Riley Sierra
“It’s all right,” Blake said. Then: “Cal. Shit. You were amazing. I’m so sorry.”
Blake’s eyes were red around the edges. The swollen bit of his eye socket looked worse than ever. And his shoulders were up like the hackles on a dog’s back. Something was up.
“It’s Rhett,” Blake said, answering Cal’s wordless question. “He faxed us a fucking cease and desist.”
“That’s not what the document’s actually called—” Palmer started.
“I know that. But it’s the easiest way to explain it.”
Blake uncrumpled a sheet of paper that Cal hadn’t even noticed he’d been clenching. He smoothed it out and turned it face-up so that Cal could read it over.
The sheet had definitely been sent via fax machine, judging by the poor quality printout. A letterhead with a lion-face logo and the text Smalls, Koch, and Perrine adorned the top. The text was short and sweet, written in plain language rather than confusing legalese. Cal skimmed it.
Rhett Ballard, on behalf of Smoky Mountain Publishing, was demanding via these lawyers that the Sinsationals pay statutory royalties for any songs performed that belonged to the Smoky Mountain catalog. The letter promised an attached list of intellectual property, which Cal just assumed nobody had bothered to show him. The letter’s closing paragraph informed the reader that these royalty payments included performances on the current date and that Mr. Ballard would be seeking to sue the Sinsationals’ management for breach of contract.
“Can he even do all this?” Cal wasn’t interested in what-ifs. He aimed the question at Palmer point-blank.
“Some of it, no. Some of it, yes. I’m no lawyer, but I’ve forwarded a copy to our team. They’re burning the midnight oil.”
Cal spoke slow and calm, for Blake’s benefit.
“All right. Assuming it all holds up and we owe him royalties for tonight’s show... I mean, I don’t know how you even calculate that. Can we afford that?”
Palmer actually laughed.
“You have no idea how much money this tour has made. Our coffers are pretty stocked.”
Cal turned to Blake, slowly curling one of his hands around Blake’s forearm. The muscle beneath his fingers twitched and trembled. Blake looked like a deer in headlights. Scared. Petrified. He barely even reacted to Cal’s touch.
“Blake,” Cal said, squeezing. “It’s all right. Even if his ridiculous demand isn’t just an empty threat, we can afford it.”
More than anything, Cal just wanted Blake to understand that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. He just had to hold on and wait for the professionals to handle it.
“I’ve. I. I can’t.” Blake stuttered, wrenching his arm free of Cal’s grip. “I’ve gotta get some air. I can’t do this. Not now. Not anymore.”
“Blake—” Cal and Palmer said in unison. But Blake was already on his way out the door.
Cal hurried after him. He heard Palmer speak to his back:
“Stay with him.”
And under his breath, so low that Palmer probably didn’t even hear, Cal murmured, “Of course.”
31
Blake
Blake thought he needed air, but after he got air, he still didn’t feel any better. Gulping down cool lungfuls of the desert night in the parking lot didn’t alleviate the viselike grip around his chest.
Lily texted him, something about an after-party.
Getting black-the-fuck-out drunk seemed like as good a coping mechanism as any.
It was official. The guillotine blade was crashing down. He’d lost his handle on his band for good. All that remained now was for Rhett and his legal team to pick over the Sinsationals’ bones like vultures. Because Rhett was right. The Sinsationals as the world knew them were nothing without him. His guitar, his songwriting, his publishing, two albums of material.
Blake took a cab to the address Lily sent: a big, wrought-iron-fronted monstrosity named The Forge. He didn’t bother to change from his concert attire, didn’t bother to see if anyone from the band was even there yet. Blake wasn’t the type to take needless risks—not with his life, his safety, his sexual health—but he wanted to get plastered in anonymity and just give up for a while.
The interior of the club was done up like some sort of borderline goth industrial outfit, caged panels and metal latticework and heavier music than he was used to. An interesting choice for a country band after-party. But Blake appreciated Lily’s handiwork there: they weren’t likely to be recognized. And if they were, they wouldn’t be fawned over.
It was too early for there to be much of a line outside and as such the inside was still sparsely populated. Blake approached the heavy wooden bar at a pace he hoped didn’t telegraph get me wrecked please desperation. When it came time to order, he went for the mezcal and opened up a tab.
A group of women in varying shades of sequins were clustered all together down one end of the bar. A single older guy in all black sat between them and Blake. Apart from that, most of the action was taking place at the private tables and on the dance floor toward the back.
Blake relished the aloneness and took a sip of his drink, alternatingly smoky and biting. He worked his way through two short glasses of it in a hurry.
The buzz came on quick, enough to take the edge off the clenching sensation in his chest. Blake felt like there was a black hole opening inside him, a void torn open in his chest, some part of him irreparably damaged. Losing the band was losing everything.
Even if his lawyers fought off Rhett’s demand for royalties, there was no coming back from this. Rhett was gone for good. As much as Blake wanted to celebrate that—especially for Erica’s sake—he couldn’t stop replaying Rhett’s words from earlier that afternoon.
The band was nothing without him.
Blake’s little house of cards was toppling.
Midway through his third glass of mezcal, someone took the stool beside him. Blake knew this meant incoming conversation, because the bar was flush with empty seats.
She was pretty. Prettier than he was expecting. The woman who sat next to him had bright red hair in an undercut style, the long strands parted sideways to reveal the shaved left side of her head. Unlike a lot of the other women Blake had passed on his way in, she wore pants. Or leggings, rather, skin-tight as they were.
“Pardon my intrusion,” she said with a slow-spreading smile. “But you look miserable.”
“I feel miserable,” Blake said. He wasn’t feeling low enough to spit in her face and scream at her to fuck off. And the mezcal had warmed him up a little. Life was still awful, but it wasn’t awful enough to ruin a stranger’s day over.
“Care to talk about it?”
Blake paused, mulling the question over.
“I don’t know?” he said. Honesty was the best policy, right?
“I’m Kat.”
“Blake.”
They didn’t shake hands or anything, but he quirked a little smile at her. She leaned forward on her stool, propping an elbow on the bar and then leaning her entire body weight onto it. Blake could see the contours of muscle along her arms, revealed by her sleeveless top. Between her lithely athletic body and the smoky makeup she wore, the Blake that did not belong to Cal would have been quite taken.
But since Cal was back in the picture, instead Blake just thought of her as pretty cool looking. Which was a sign he was likely growing drunk.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Kat said. “But I feel like I need to tell you a joke or something.”
“I like jokes.” Blake gulped down the last of his drink, the mesquite aftertaste lingering on his tongue.
Down on the dance floor, the song faded out. The track that replaced it thundered loudly through the speakers, reverberating in Blake’s sternum. He liked it, even if he couldn’t place the artist.
“Okay, okay. I’ve got one.” Kat raised her voice over the music, leaning in closer to Blake for volume’s sake.
“Hit me with your best shot,”
Blake told her. He motioned to the bartender for another mezcal.
“Why didn’t the lifeguard save the hippy when he was drowning?”
“The what?” Blake struggled to hear her over the music.
“The hippy! There’s a hippy that’s drowning in the ocean! Why doesn’t the lifeguard save him?”
Blake blinked once, hard, and burst out laughing. He hadn’t even heard the punchline yet, but the premise itself was so ridiculous he couldn’t handle it.
“Why?” he managed to ask once he’d gotten a handle on himself.
Kat’s deep red lips split with a wide smile. She lifted her glass to him.
“Because he was too far out, maaaaan.”
Blake was sure that at some point in his life, he must have heard a joke that was stupider. But he couldn’t place it. And despite the overwhelming stupidity, God damn it was funny. He heaved out a laugh so hard that he had to steady himself on the bartop, planting a hand down. Kat, startled by his reaction, laughed along with him.
Gulping down a nip from his drink, Blake shook his head.
“That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard!”
Yet he was still laughing.
In fact, he was still laughing even as someone sat down on the other side of him, clearing their throat pissily. Blake spun, ready to tell whoever it was to fuck the fuck off, but found himself face to face with Cal, of all people. Which didn’t make any sense. How did Cal even get here? This totally isn’t his kind of bar, Blake thought dizzily.
And Cal did not look as happy as Blake felt.
“This guy bothering you?” Kat asked from over his shoulder. Blake was tempted to reply in the affirmative, but even at his drunkest and least happy, he’d never do that to Cal. And he wasn’t halfway to drunkest yet.
“No, he’s my boyfriend,” he said instead. Kat sat up straight, blinking rapidly.
Cal, meanwhile, looked like Blake had just slapped him across the face.
“We... we should talk,” Cal said when he’d recovered himself. Blake tried to figure out the look in his eye, that crease in his brow, the way his mouth had gone all tight around the edges. He couldn’t tell if Cal looked pissed or not. Maybe he was more than just a little buzzed.
“Sure,” he said. “Have a seat.”
Cal looked past Blake at Kat, who had since turned away and ordered another drink.
“Alone.”
Sighing theatrically, Blake downed the last of his glass and set it down. He rose from his stool without a wobble in his step, still level on his feet in spite of the pleasant buzz in his brain. Cal watched him for a moment, then nodded, apparently satisfied in his sobriety.
“Come on,” Cal said. “There’s gotta be a smoker’s patio or something.”
As Cal grabbed his wrist and led him off, Blake turned a wave in parting to Kat, who was watching their exchange with a mildly bemused look.
“Nice meeting you!” Blake called while Cal dragged him away.
32
Cal
Bombarded by the heavy bass throbbing through the club, Cal held onto Blake’s wrist and pulled him across the dance floor, through the crowd, and toward the nearest glowing green exit sign. He was one setback away from snapping, and he really hoped to be able to avoid directing that snap toward Blake.
Beneath the exit sign, an open doorway led out onto an enclosed patio. A single lengthy leaner table stretched along the building’s exterior wall, smaller tables dotted around the darkened space. Strands of ivy raced up and down the walls, although Cal was skeptical it was real. Las Vegas and all.
The patio was empty. Thank God for small favors. Cal dragged Blake over into a corner of it and whirled to face him, somewhat out of breath.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said at last. Blake’s blank stare rebuffed him.
“I could ask you the same thing. Yanking me all over this bar, interrupting my business, what the hell are you doing?”
Cal wound his fingers in against his palms, one hand curling into a full-on fist. He bit his anger back, tried to keep his head clear. He’d almost gone nuclear when he’d spied Blake at the bar, leaning in and speaking far too closely into that red-headed woman’s ear. He wanted to focus on what was important—on Blake fleeing the venue and rejecting the support structure designed to protect him. Not on his own private suspicions that Blake was up to old tricks and looking for an anonymous lay.
“You can’t just run off like that,” Cal said, keeping his voice low. “Everyone’s worried sick about you.”
“Don’t you ever just have to get away?” Blake took a step back, putting some deliberate distance between himself and Cal.
“Maybe getting away wasn’t the best idea after one of our bandmates just went MIA,” Cal countered.
Blake’s shoulders went stiff. He slanted his gaze away from Cal, appearing to study the ivy crawling along the exterior wall instead.
“I had to get out,” he said. “It was... it was like the spider and I couldn’t quite keep it all put together anymore and I just had to get. Out.”
Cal’s hands fell to his sides. Blake was borderline drunk and not making a lot of sense.
“Why does getting out have to involve running away and hiding in a club and burying your face in some stranger’s tits?”
Blake whipped his head back as though he’d been struck.
“Seriously? Is that what this is about?”
Cal ground his teeth together. He hadn’t meant to mention the woman. That hadn’t come out right at all.
“That’s not what I meant. That’s not what this is about—”
But Blake was having none of it.
“You think that I can’t even talk to someone in a bar without wanting to ‘bury myself in her tits’ which is first-of-all not true and second-of-all kinda sexist, pal.”
Cal slammed his palm into his forehead, cradling his face in his fingers. Seriously? He meant to confront Blake about running away and now Blake was drunkenly calling him a sexist?
“Blake, Christ on a crutch you are not listening to me.”
“I heard you pretty well, actually. What makes you think you can police who the hell I talk to?”
“It’s not about who you talked to. It’s about the fact that you ran away instead of letting me help you. Are you seriously making this about the girl instead of your own behavior?”
Blake reached out and gave Cal a little shove, palm flat against his sternum.
“If it’s not about the girl, why bring her up like that?”
Cal simmered over. External stressors he could handle. Crises at the bar he could handle. Rhett being an asshole he could handle. He could not handle Blake being an immature fuckwit. Lashing out in anger, Cal gave Blake a little shove back, nothing physical enough to hurt him, just to prove his point.
“What do you want me to say?” Cal raised his voice. “Do you want me to say I’m fine with you talking to anyone you want, taking home anyone you want, fucking anyone you want because otherwise I’m a jealous dick?”
Cal’s words appeared to have the exact opposite of their intended effect. Rather than fighting back at all, Blake just took a half-step backward from him. His hazel eyes shone in the orange glimmer of the bar’s lamps. His cheeks were flushed, just a bit red from the drink. His lips parted.
“Cal, what in the world?”
Blake spoke so quietly Cal could barely hear him.
“This... whatever this is, it isn’t about tonight. Are you even listening to yourself?”
The softly-questioning note in Blake’s voice scratched along the inside of Cal’s chest, something deep inside him twinging with pain and regret. He wasn’t thinking. He was speaking in anger. This whole conversation was a mistake. And Blake being fucking Blake could pluck the true hurt out of his words like it was nothing.
No. Blake was right. It wasn’t about the bar. Or the girl.
“I just...” Cal struggled to articulate himself. How could he put how he felt i
nto words? How could he convey to Blake the enormity of his feelings, the lengths he’d go to protect what they had, the depth of his loyalty? There were no words.
“I just wish you’d turned to me instead of running away,” Cal said, the words murmured lowly.
“Is that what all this is?” Blake took a step closer, halving the distance between them. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just needed to get away and go somewhere nobody knew me. I needed to go somewhere and be with someone that didn’t need me to be Blake Bradley, even if that’s a whole club of anonymous people.”
Cal felt sick the second Blake said the phrase be with someone.
It was now or never. If he didn’t front up about his fears, about why he left the band all those years ago, he’d never have the chance again. Because this conversation was either going to dredge his worst fears to the surface or leave them buried forever, null and void.
“I. I want to tell you something.” Cal hated how stilted his voice sounded, how robotic. He tried again, clearing his throat. “You’re right. I was being jealous. I was afraid you’d... gone back to old habits.”
“Old habits? I drink a bit but I like to think it wasn’t ever that bad.”
“The girl,” Cal said through his teeth. “Yes. I did think—well, not really think, no. I feared you were trying to get her to go home with you. So she could be the one who helped you through this instead of me.”
Blake’s jaw fell open. He lowered his eyebrows, his expression vacillating between hurt and surprise.
“Let me finish,” Cal pleaded. “I should have said this a long time ago, but even back years ago, it bothered me. I always said it didn’t bother me when you slept with other people, but it did.”
Blake sank down into the closest chair, folding his limber body into it, looking numb.
“Then why on earth pretend it didn’t?” He sounded broken.
Cal crouched down, placing his hands on Blake’s knees. He dug his fingertips into the fabric of his jeans, stroking the denim with his fingernails.
