by Cari Quinn
Talking it out with the rest of the band had helped, but it wasn’t fair to let Molly think he was going to continue to be an asshole about it.
One by one, the ladies rolled out with whatever case full of magic they used to get ready for the shows. Jules and Molly usually had a contest for the biggest bag, but lately Elle had been in hot pursuit.
“Ry, can you take this?” Elle peeked out from her bunk, the wheels of her case eye level with him.
“Sure.” He lifted it with a grunt and set it on the floor. Yeah, definitely catching up with the other ladies. Personally, he was happy to see Elle opening up and getting tight with them. He’d worried about her at first.
The band had started as such a pack of ill-fitting pieces, but after a few months—and an album in the can—they’d really become a tight unit.
Ryan moved to the edge of the bunk area to give her room to jump down.
Just as she and her hot-pink Chucks landed, Mal came out of the bathroom without a shirt.
She swallowed and tried to get out of his way, but Mal crowded her before reaching for another of his tattered death metal shirts from the skinny cupboard at the end of the bunks. His version of getting ready.
Elle shrank back and scooted by Ryan to take the telescopic handle of her bag. She hurried off the bus without saying another word.
Ryan was pretty sure Mal did half of his asshole moves to get under her skin. “Careful there, man.”
Mal cracked his neck and gave him a blank stare. “What was that?”
“Elle’s not up for your games.”
“I don’t play with girls.” Mal muscled by him, slamming his shoulder into the edge of the bunks.
Ryan winced and rubbed his shoulder. Always had to be the one that he’d landed on in that fucking alley. He shook his head and pulled his duffel bag out of his bunk. He didn’t need much, just a change of clothes for after the show.
He followed Mal off the bus, but instead of heading into the venue with the rest of the band, he waited for Molly. He juggled his duffel from hand to hand, then dropped it when Molly came down the stairs with a muttered threat at the narrow door.
“Here, let me help.”
Her eyebrow arched, but she let him take her bright green case. “Thanks.”
He set it on the ground. “Look, about earlier.”
She waved her hand. “It’s fine.”
“No. It’s not. I was being a jerk.”
She flicked an errant curl out of her face before clasping her hands in front of her. “Come again?”
He blew out a breath. “I was being a jerk. I’m trying to get it together. I even went over the setlist with the rest of the guys.”
“And didn’t include me?”
He felt his cheeks heat. “I am now. I needed to calm down.”
“Fair enough.” She snapped the handle up on her suitcase. “We’ll iron it out in soundcheck.” She started to walk away from him and stopped, but she didn’t turn around. “Thanks for the apology.” Then she hurried off for the side door that was propped open for them.
He picked up his bag but before he could get to the door, a small crowd of people noticed him. “Aw crap.” He looked over his shoulder. Usually he wasn’t the main target of the fan base. They loved West’s antics and Molly’s frontwoman status. Hell, they even flocked to Malachi despite his indifferent attitude toward the fans.
But Ryan could fly under the radar most times.
Three girls picked up speed and headed right for him.
Not today, evidently.
He pasted on a bright smile. “Hi, ladies.”
The slighter girl in the middle with wispy dark hair, glasses, and a vaguely Asian look was trying to melt behind the taller, prettier blond girl. The blond stepped forward. “You’re Ryan from Warning Sign, right?”
He nodded and gave them a half grin. “Guilty.”
“See, I told you.” The blond dragged the shy girl in front of her. The girl ducked her head and spun back around behind the blond. “I’m Jen. This freak is Dani. She’s in love with you.”
“Oh, God.” Dani tried to make a run for it, but the third girl chased her down and brought her back.
Ryan never quite knew what to do when strangers blurted out declaratives like that, but he didn’t think he was in trouble this time. He laughed and stepped forward. “I’m harmless.” He held his hand out to the girl. “Nice to meet you. Dani, was it?”
She nodded and hugged a bag against her chest. She quickly shook his hand and went back to gripping her well-loved messenger bag. “I, um…” She swallowed and shoved her dark-rimmed glasses up her nose. “I play the sex—” Her eyes went wide before she slammed them shut. “Oh, my God.”
Ryan stepped a little closer and patted her arm. “Saxophone?”
“Yes!” She blew out a breath. “Yes, I do. I saw you playing it on YouTube during one of the secret shows and it was so awesome. I never knew anyone could play sax in rock music.”
“Aw, c’mon. Clarence Clemons did it for years, God rest his soul. The Boss is the perfect one to emulate. You’re an itty-bitty thing, but the instrument can make you huge onstage.”
She nodded. “Right, but he’s…well, he’s so old.”
Ryan laughed. “Don’t let Bruce hear you say that. He can run circles around us young guys. But yeah, older crowd. I get it. But really, it doesn’t matter what others think. Our friends in Oblivion have a violinist that can rock out with the best of them. You just keep doing what you do.”
She nodded. “I’ve been trying different musical styles thanks to you. My music teacher kinda hates it, but I just wanted to say thanks. I was thinking about giving up my instrument and you made me want to play again. So…I just wanted to say thanks.”
Ryan’s throat went dry. “Wow. That’s really awesome to hear. Thanks, Dani.” He cleared his throat. “You want a picture or something?”
“Yes!” The blond stepped forward with the other girl, who gave him a flirty smile.
“Great.” Ryan made sure to bring Dani closer to him and slid his arm around her shoulders as they all gathered close and Jen took a couple selfie shots with all of them.
“Perfect.” Jen flipped through them and gave him a satisfied smile. Then she looked at Dani. “One more with just her?”
Ryan gave Jen a real smile this time. He respected a friend who didn’t just think about herself in the moment. After a few tries, he got Dani to actually look up and smile without being a second away from a panic attack. He signed the inside of her messenger bag with the Sharpie he always kept clipped to his belt. The miniature Sharpies made their lives easier.
“Ryan? They’re waiting on you.”
He turned to Denver’s voice from the doorway. She had her arms folded over her chest and her hip cocked. “Yeah, coming.” He turned back to the girls. “Boss calls.”
Jen frowned. “She’s not in the band.”
“Maybe not, but I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Jen asked boldly.
Ryan pushed his hair back around his ear and handed back the bag to Dani. “See you at the show?”
“We’ll be there,” said the third girl.
“Awesome. Nice meeting you.”
He loped after Denver, but heard Jen say, “He didn’t answer,” before he got out of earshot.
Damn skippy he didn’t answer. He didn’t want Denver to put his head on a pike. But he didn’t really want to say he wasn’t into someone either. Tough place to be. But then again, nothing had been easy with Denver.
When Denver’s dark eyes gave him the once over, he only grinned. Totally worth it. “What?”
“Done flirting?”
He leaned into her and she shrank back, looking around. “Afraid to be seen with me?”
“I thought we were keeping things quiet.”
“What if I don’t want to?” He moved in closer. “What if I want everyone to know I’m into you? Really into you, not j
ust your body.”
Her eyes went wide as her gaze bounced from his mouth back to his eyes again.
“Not that I don’t love your body.” He pitched his voice lower. “And fuck, do I love to be inside you.”
She swallowed. “Ryan.”
“Don’t give me that warning voice. Just think about it.” He moved away from her—a herculean effort—and followed the music.
“There he is. Nice of you to join us,” Michael called out.
“Sorry, man. Fans found me outside.”
“Sure. Fans.”
Ryan flipped him off. “Where are we?” He picked up his acoustic that was set into a stand.
“‘Exile’ is what we were playing, but it’s pretty well covered. How about we go with ‘Shape of My Heart’?” Molly leaned on her mic stand.
Ryan put down his acoustic and went for his mandolin. “Excellent.”
Nothing could kill his good mood, not even going through the song six times before Molly deemed it worthy of the setlist. By then, there wasn’t any time to do anything else. It was time to get students and radio-contest people seated. Not to mention the meet-and-greet they had scheduled.
For the next few hours, they all put on their happy faces and signed precisely three hundred posters. He was pretty sure his hand was going to fall off, but the crazy-dar—radar for potential crazies—on the fans had been pretty much nada, so there was a silver lining.
He paced backstage as he waited for the high sign from the liaison from the college. The secret show held a dual purpose—one for the band and buzz about the album, but it also shined light on the college for having cool events as part of its campus life.
As a former college student himself, playing music had served as one of the best bonding moments of his life. He’d met his best friends in school, but their mutual love of music had cemented the friendship into something far more important than just buddies messing around in the rec room after classes. Michael and West had saved him from the eternal boredom of the engineering department.
And now look at them. A band, for fuck’s sake.
“What are you over here grinning about?” Michael asked.
“Just thinking we had an auditorium like this one. Remember when we saw that awful local band and threatened to go up onstage to show them how to play a guitar?”
Michael tipped his head back and bellowed out a laugh. “Stones of Death?”
“Yes! I couldn’t remember the name. God, so bad.”
“And we went home and wrote the original version of ‘Undermine’ that night.”
Ryan rubbed the back of his neck. “Christ. Feels like a million years ago.”
Michael peeked out into the crowd. “And now we send out a Tweet and an Instagram post and get two thousand people to show up to listen to us in under eight hours.”
“Fucking crazy.” Ryan turned to the sound of clapping.
“Okay, Warning Sign, we’re ready for you. This is an eighteen-and-over crowd, but try to keep the profanity to a minimum, huh?”
Ry glanced at Michael and his friend snorted.
“Shouldn’t have said that, dude,” West said as he came up to stand with them.
“Nope.” Michael picked up his bottle of water from the small table.
Jules came over. “He didn’t just dare us to behave, did he?”
“I do believe he did.” Ryan grabbed a bottle of water.
Juliet made a tsk sound.
The house lights came down and the murmur of the crowd went from a low hum to a roar.
“Fucking A, what a sound.” Ryan slapped Michael’s arm.
Elle and Molly came up to the table for their bottles and Mal lingered at the back of the pack.
Molly shook back her mane of hair. “Let’s do this.”
They all went out as a unit for the first time. Generally, Molly liked to come out last for maximum effect, but it felt right to do it as a band, with no egos and no games. And when the crowd actually came to their feet, Ryan’s chest went tight.
Damn, it was a good day.
“How are you doing, Rochester?” Molly brought her mic stand to the brown couch that had been put onstage for them. Every venue was different, and this one looked like a bastardized rec room from a library.
But it would do.
Elle stalked around the stage and sat on one chair, then another and made a face, then finally bounced into a huge beanbag chair with a sigh. Surprised that she’d hammed it up a little, Ryan ran over to her and scooped up her deep red acoustic and handed it to her.
“My hero,” Elle said into the skinny microphone headset she wore. She scrunched down into the chair until the guitar was up around her chest as she played the opening chords to “Goodbye” and then flattened her hand over the strings. “Whoopsie, not yet.”
The crowd groaned. The new single was always the favored song for these shows, but they always left it for last. Had to keep everyone until the end. Grinning, Ryan ran over to his side of the stage and pulled out the tiniest stool and sat on it. His long legs bent until his knees were by his ears.
The crowd laughed and then the band exploded into the first song on the setlist. “Cascade” was a jam song, and the mix of four acoustic guitars made for a helluva rocking sound. West slammed on his keys and Mal slapped out a brutal beat. Molly’s soulful voice carried to the back of the auditorium and blew the roof off the little room.
It kicked off the show into a wild frenzy of acoustic jams where they tried to one-up each other and soulful ballads that ripped at the heartstrings. Ryan saw hundreds of phones up, taping their antics, and knew YouTube would blow up with clips from this show.
They embraced that half of the fandom. He’d learned from Jazz and Oblivion to take this piece of networking and make it work for them, instead of trying to take down every video like some artists did.
And he secretly enjoyed seeing the comments on some of their crazier stunts. There were a ton of trolls out there too, but he found their remarks even more amusing. Made the bus ride a helluva lot more entertaining.
As they entered into the second half of the show, Molly stood and played with the fringy edges of the half-dozen scarves on her mic stand. “We have a special cover song for you tonight. This one came from our drummer and favorite trunk-o-fun maestro. We love a collaborative effort. Ry is going to help me sing.”
Ryan’s stomach jittered. He glanced out into the crowd and found the figure he was looking for in the shadows. Her compact little body hugged the accordion divider tucked away at the side of the auditorium. She was always half-hiding.
He pushed away the niggling feeling he’d been getting more and more. Denver was so much more than what she appeared. Not just that they were so well-matched sexually. Something made her stay on guard all the time. Even with him.
Sometimes especially with him.
He didn’t know if it was partly because of how they’d started out and her fear that sex would screw up their friendship or if it was just her intrinsic distrust of the male species.
Or if it was way more personal than that.
She wouldn’t tell him, at least not now. But maybe he could reach her this way. Music was a way to connect, and he’d use every trick in his arsenal.
He brushed his lips over his mic. “I heard this song on Spotify while I was on the bus one day. Old song. I loved the original, but man, Theory of a Deadman’s take on it left me itchy. Let’s see if you feel the same way.” He lifted his mandolin off the little stand and picked out the chords.
Michael and Elle filled out the song with their deeper acoustic tones as he closed his eyes and sang the first verse of “Shape of My Heart”. Memories of the teasing words between him and Denver earlier in the day swirled in his head.
She’d become the playlist in his mind lately. He didn’t even realize he’d fallen so hard and so deep into the song until he opened his eyes and found her. The lyrics held double meaning in so many ways.
He hadn’t realized jus
t how easy it was to slide from friends to more, but he was there. And as Elle brought out the divine in her Spanish guitar, he poured his heart into the words.
Denver was too far away for him to know exactly what was going on behind those huge dark eyes, but he knew she was with him. And the memories were there, arcing between them.
When the verse was over, he glanced over at Molly, waiting for daggers. He’d totally jacked the song and sang every verse instead of sharing it with her.
Instead, he saw her in that zone he loved to see. When the music took her over. She tapped her fingers on the mic and held a Tambourine for an extra sizzle of tone in the song.
Ryan relaxed and his attention went back to Denver, but she was gone.
He didn’t mean to sigh into the mic, but he did as he finished out the last bit. He had to believe she could still hear him. He knew he was asking a lot from her. Knew she wasn’t ready for the feelings growing between them, but dammit, he wasn’t going to lie about where his thoughts were headed.
“Give him a hand, guys.” Molly leaned with her mic stand. “That’s some love for music right there.”
The crowd went nuts, and he smiled. “All right, enough of that pussy shit.” He stood and rummaged for his saxophone. “Let’s get this party started.” The jazzy brass started off the rocking version of “Intent” as they flew into the last quarter of the set.
By the time they got to “Goodbye”, they were exhausted and exhilarated. More people came in and filled the back of the auditorium from the sounds of their set flowing out into the quad.
Molly ate up the attention, and she and her swishing skirts jumped off the stage and ran to the back of the room.
“Oh, shit,” Michael muttered and looked around. “What the hell is she doing?”
Ryan shrugged and followed her off the stage with his acoustic. Mal stood from his kit and grabbed his bongos and followed suit. When he jumped down next to Ryan, he socked him in the arm. “Don’t look so shocked, kid.”
Ryan laughed, and the band followed her like the Pied Piper she could be. She went through the doors and the crowd circled around her as she made a beeline for the grass in the quad. The sun was blazing and the campus was only at half capacity with summer classes.
