by L. Philips
Victor rolls his eyes. “Excuse him. He’s starstruck. Jack is one of his many guitar idols.”
Martin just shrugs at me. “Vic said you need tickets?” He shrugs again. “For a friend of Vic’s, anything.”
He pulls two card-stock tickets out of his pocket and hands them over with absolutely no fanfare, as if he’s not giving me the key to happiness itself.
Victor is equally cool. “Thanks, man.”
“Thank you, man. You saved my ass.”
Victor tries very hard not to look proud of himself.
“All right, so we’re cool? I’ll see you inside.”
Victor nods and Martin disappears through a door, which I now realize leads to the back of the stage.
“What exactly did you save him from?” I ask.
“Nothing at all,” Victor sniffs, which is the sort of answer he always gives when I question him about his shady activities and dealings. I mean, I love the guy, but shady transactions are his thing. I have no doubt that, if and when he’s thrown into prison, he will be the guy on the inside who can “get things.”
Victor begins to walk toward the street and the entrance to the small, dark club that will showcase the Jacket Zippers shortly, and I follow like a puppy. “Think Martin can introduce me to Jack?”
I can almost feel Victor rolling his eyes. “Please don’t embarrass me tonight. There might be important people here.”
I scoff. “At the Crown? Doubtful. If you want to get discovered, you play uptown at the Twisted Vine. Not here. No one important ever comes here.”
Chapter Two
Cameron
The Jacket Zippers are about four songs into their set, killing it, when something—no, someone—catches my eye.
I’m in the balcony, watching the band and all the people dancing below, and one of those people is dancing better than the others. He’s short, or at least shorter than most of the people around him, and he’s close to the front.
At first I only notice him because he yells out the band members’ names between songs. It’s not just that he’s a big enough fan to know this not-yet-famous band by first names, it’s the pure exuberance of it. He’s not calling to them for attention; he’s just thanking them, personally, for being awesome. The second thing I notice is the way he’s dressed, which is . . . creative, to say the least.
I don’t even know how to describe what he’s wearing. Tight is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s all tight. Wonderfully tight. Dark skinny jeans cuffed at the ankles, an olive-green U2 concert tee (I’m not a big fan myself, but they had their moments), thin black suspenders, and red Converse high-tops that look like they’ve been decorated by hand with a Sharpie. They have the Jacket Zippers’ symbol drawn on them: a pair of lips that are being zipped up.
I watch for a few minutes, then excuse myself from the people I’d been talking with and head downstairs. The Zippers finish a song, and the lead singer is talking to the crowd, finally getting around to introducing the rest of the band. I plant myself next to my mystery boy and try to look interested but not too interested.
When they introduce the guitarist, the cheers and applause are deafening.
“He’s incredible,” I say. It’s meant to be to myself, but with this crowd, you have to shout your inner thoughts.
“Tell me about it,” Mystery Boy says. He turns to me, brown eyes sparkling. “He actually studied classical guitar before he picked up an electric. I mean, what the hell, right? He can play anything.”
The Jacket Zippers launch into another song, and I introduce myself, sticking to my middle name: the one my friends call me, not the one the rags call me.
“I’m Cameron. Cam,” I yell. I reach out my hand because even though we’re in a club with music so loud, the speakers are going to blow, shaking hands upon introduction is something that has been ingrained in me since I was old enough to talk.
He shakes my hand, a look of pleasant surprise on his handsome face. His hands are extremely rough. “Nate,” he yells back. “And this is Victor.” He jerks a thumb to a guy standing next to him, a puffier version of Al Pacino.
Victor nods to me but gives me the side eye, like he’s suspicious of my whole existence. Perhaps I’ve butted in on a date, or perhaps he’s just a protective friend. Either way, I’d like to know the motivation behind that look, so I’m direct.
“Boyfriend or friend?” I ask Nate with a glance over at Victor.
“Friend,” Nate rushes to say. “Definitely platonic. Victor’s as straight as they come, if you don’t count his love of show tunes.”
“Why do you have to tell people about that?” Victor looks at me again. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Probably not. I don’t get out much,” I say. Which is true. I don’t get out much because I’m usually not in this city and because, unfortunately, everywhere I go someone’s watching. Tonight is an exception. Besides Tess, there’s only one other person who knows I’m here: Theo, the large man a full head taller than just about everyone in the crowd, the one staring at me as if he’s paid to, because he is. He’s my jack-of-all-trades, my bodyguard-slash-driver. He’s my magic ninja.
“You look so familiar,” Victor continues. I probably do look familiar. Page Six familiar.
“I have one of those faces,” I say, trying to sound as casual as possible. Then the Jacket Zippers take it down a notch with one of their rare ballads. Not even sure I’d call it that. It’s more of a shoegazer song, I guess. People raise their phones in the air. Some of this crowd is old-school enough to raise a lighter. I turn to Nate. “Dance?”
He smiles, glances over at his friend, who waves him away, and lets me pull him close. There’s a bit of awkwardness about who’s leading, but then I feel him relax into me, and I move us to the beat, back and forth and barely moving at all. I lean my forehead down against his.
“Jack wrote this, not Levi.”
“Hmm?” I ask, partly because I can barely hear him, and partly because I didn’t notice he’d said something over the deafening feel of his muscular back. Maybe he’s a wrestler or something.
“Everyone thinks it’s Levi who writes all their songs, but Jack writes about half, probably,” Nate continues. “Levi’s got that voice. Makes everything feel personal, you know?”
I do know, so I say so.
“But he doesn’t play guitar. So Jack writes a lot of their more complicated stuff, like this song.”
“I like this song,” I say. “I like that it’s slow. Every band needs a good slow dance song.”
Nate grins at me, like he’s accepted some kind of challenge. “Even Metallica?”
“Please. ‘The Unforgiven’ is a natural slow dancer.”
Nate steps back slightly, enough to stop our swaying. “Are you kidding me? The lyrics are depressing as hell, man. I mean, you might as well slow dance to ‘Last Kiss’ or something.”
“I think ‘Last Kiss’ is romantic. There’s something about the Pearl Jam version.” I tap my chest. “Gets me right here.”
“You’re nuts. The girl in that song is literally dying, like, bleeding to death on the pavement.”
“And he kisses her, and she dies happy.”
He shakes his head at me, but he’s smiling. “You’re either sick or sentimental.”
“Little of column A . . .” I pull him close to me again. This time I press the side of my face to his, temple to temple. “So no songs about death, then? I suppose you hate ‘I Will Follow You into the Dark’ too.”
“No.” He says it softly, but I hear it, and its sincerity, loud and clear. “That’s one of the best love songs ever written. Although Death Cab’s version isn’t my favorite. My favorite is actually by—”
“Amanda Palmer,” I say at the same time he does.
Nate
There’s just no way, none, that this is
happening. That I, Nate Grisheimer, am dancing with a gorgeous boy, dressed all in black like some sort of sexy vampire, and he is a fan of the Jacket Zippers. From the little we’ve actually talked, it sounds like he’s a fan of music, in general. Real music. If he’s here for the Zippers, he likes the good stuff, not the drivel they play on the radio, where Auto-Tune is the main instrument. A fan of real music in L.A. is a unicorn, and not only am I dancing with one, he is just about the most attractive guy I’ve ever met.
I look over at Vic, who gives me a thumbs-up as he sways to the music alone. I look back at . . . Cam. I think he said his name was Cam.
“So are you a musician yourself?”
I feel him shrug. “I guess you could say that.”
“What do you play?”
“I don’t really play an instrument,” he admits, losing the rhythm of our dance slightly. “I wish I did. I played violin when I was little but was never any good at it. Tried to pick up guitar later and felt like the clumsiest person on earth.” He lets go of me for a moment and holds up his hands, which would appear powerful to anyone; but to a guitarist like me, his thick fingers mean it’s difficult to manage the thin strings of a guitar.
“Maybe you’d do better on keys,” I say, and he laughs.
“Oh, I played piano for a while too. It went better than the others. I can chicken peck out a melody if I have to. But I think I’ll stick to singing. I never feel clumsy when I sing.” And when he says that, I can hear it in his voice. Singers, even when they’re speaking, have better colors in their voices than other people. More vivid. More varied. His voice is smooth, a little breathy. If I had to guess, he could knock some jazz or R&B out of the park.
“I should have known,” I say to him, and he smiles.
“You? Guitar or bass?”
“How did you know?”
Cam squeezes my hand. “Calluses.”
I smile. “Guitar.”
The song ends, and we stop dancing to clap. Jack steps up to the mic to announce they’re going to take a quick break to get some beer, which makes the whole crowd raise their glasses and cheer in solidarity. I turn to Cam, about to ask more about his talent, but he beats me to it.
“It’s warm in here. Want to go outside for a minute? I want to hear more about your guitar playing.”
Victor hears the exchange. When I look over at him, he jerks his head toward the door, signaling to go on without him, and I silently thank the universe for a friend like Victor.
I follow Cam to a side door that says FIRE EXIT. He doesn’t seem to care. He opens it without caution, and I blow out a relieved breath when no alarm goes off. Cam smiles at me, then looks over my head and gestures to someone. I follow his line of sight and see a very large man nod back to him.
“Friend of yours?” I ask as we step into an alley.
“Yes,” Cam says, but doesn’t elaborate.
There’s some sort of loading dock across the alley, and Cam pulls himself up, sitting on it like he owns the place. Because I’m shorter and not quite sure I’ll make it up there, and also because there’s no way I could pull off climbing with that much swagger, I stay put on the ground.
“So what kind of stuff do you play?” he asks me at the same time I blurt out, “So what kind of stuff do you sing?”
We look at each other, both flushing under the dim alley lights, before laughing nervously.
“I like rock. Anything blues based,” I tell him. “And lately I’ve been really into the folk kind of sound. Really rough-around-the-edges kind of stuff.”
He’s nodding with me. The light catches his hair and I think, but I can’t be sure, that if we were in full sun, his hair would be auburn. Maybe it’s just because he looks like how I picture John F. Kennedy as a teenager, only with a bit more of a glam, rock ’n’ roll thing, and less of an Ivy League vibe. Elvis and Jack Kennedy’s love child, maybe?
Then I realize he’s been talking to me as I try to pin down exactly why he’s so good-looking.
“. . . so sort of a Kings of Leon kind of thing?”
“Yes!” I smile, catching enough to know he’s getting it. “Like, if the Rolling Stones had spent some time in the South, you know? And maybe a bit of Ray LaMontagne for good measure.”
One side of Cam’s mouth curls up. “I love it. Sounds like you’ve got your sound worked out.”
I shrug modestly and lean up against the loading dock, against his leg. “I don’t know about that, but it’s what I want to do.”
He’s looking at me, studying me hard, and I have to wonder what he sees. Earnestness? Hope? Desperation? Fear? All of the above?
“What do you sing?” I ask quickly.
“Nothing in public,” he says. “I think . . . I mean, I’m not completely sure, but I think my dad would flip out if I told him it’s what I want to do.”
“Doesn’t believe music is a viable career choice, huh? Not enough money?” I ask.
Cam shakes his head. “Unfortunately, my dad knows exactly how much money being a musician can bring in. But that’s not for his son. His son has to take over the business, and there’s no room for singing with that kind of career.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “Don’t be. I like it, what my father does, so it won’t be so bad. And I’ve known all my life what was expected of me, so there’s never really much point in daydreaming about something that can’t happen, you know?”
His words—and the way his eyes dim when he says them—make me truly sad. I give him a warm smile. “Well, my parents were both musicians, so I’d like to think they’d be cool with it.”
Cameron looks at me, thoughtfully. “Were?”
I wince slightly at my mistake of using past tense. It’s not really something I want to unload on an amazingly hot guy the first time we talk. I shrug as casually as I can manage. “I never knew my mom. She thought a kid would keep her from getting famous, and she split when I was just a baby. My dad was an incredible guitarist, but he died when I was pretty young, so it’s just me and my stepmom, and she barely cares that I’m alive, let alone what I do for a living.”
“I see,” Cam says, and I don’t judge him for a lame response. My family history isn’t exactly party conversation. I switch the focus back to him. “Well, when you’re singing for fun, what do you sing? R&B?”
Cam jerks his head in surprise. “Yeah. Mostly. How did you know?”
“Your speaking voice,” I say. “It has a nice tone.” Sexy as hell too, I add silently. “Seems made for it.”
Cam’s whole being lights up. “Thanks. Yeah. Have you ever heard of a singer named Luke—”
“Miles?” I finish for him. “Luke Miles is . . .”
“Pretty freaking amazing?” Cam offers, and I laugh.
“Yes! I saw him here, actually. Just a couple of months ago.”
“That’s what I’d want to do. Not exactly like his sound, of course, but base it off that old-school soul and go from there.”
“I get it,” I say, and my brain is already way ahead of me, snippets of melodies that could be exactly the sound Cam’s looking for. “There would be so much room to take that kind of thing Luke does, but expand on it. A twist of rock, or folk, a little pop even. Maybe even some mellow, beachy stuff?”
Cam gestures wildly with his hands. “See? You get it. Marvin Gaye meets the Beach Boys meets Bob Dylan. But modern, so . . .”
“So . . .” I think. “Adele meets Jack Johnson meets the Avett Brothers.”
“God, this is incredible. You get it! I could kiss you right now.”
My heart skips several beats. “You should,” I challenge him.
And Cam pulls me into the space between his legs and is—oh my god—about to do just that, when the very large man from before opens the door and walks into the alley, planting himself by Cam’s side.
“It’s time to go. I should escort you backstage. Security seems pretty lax in there.”
“They’re not done with their set,” Cam says, then casts a meaningful glance at me before turning back to him with a sly smile. He slips his phone out of his back pocket. “And I haven’t had time to get his number yet.”
“Mr. Pierce, with all due respect, if we don’t go now, you’ll be in the middle of a stampede to the back doors after they’re done. No. We go now. We wait backstage,” the big man answers, tone surprisingly parental.
Cam holds his phone up. “The cute boy’s number first, Theo. Priorities.”
In my flattered haze, it takes me a beat to realize that the huge man addressed Cam pretty formally, as if he works for him. Then it hits me that the name he used was Pierce.
I look at Cam. “Did he just say your name is Pierce?”
“Yes,” he says, eyes not wavering from mine, as my heart sinks down, sickeningly, into the pit of my stomach. “I’m Cameron Pierce. Most of the world knows me as Richard Cameron Pierce Junior.”
Cameron
I see the exact moment he recognizes me, like a storm cloud passing over his face, lightning flashing in his eyes.
Yes, that Richard Cameron Pierce Jr. Son of Richard Pierce, the famous recording industry mogul, owner of Paradise Entertainment.
The one whose mother is a former Miss California.
The one whose twin sister models, has a few million followers on Twitter, and is allegedly (kind of true) dating Taylor Huffman: actor, singer, and Hollywood bad boy.
The one who tries to keep away from the spotlight himself, but nevertheless has been linked to (and not incorrectly) Harry Garrett of boy band fame, and also Xavier Conrad (also not incorrectly) from the same boy band. (And good heavens did the paps have a field day with that one.)
The one who has a mansion in the Hills, a few expensive sports cars at his disposal every minute of the day, and a whole staff to do his laundry.
Yes, that one. I’m that guy.
And I hate that knowing this has made Nate’s smile turn into a sneer.
