Always You

by Roxie Noir

  The bedroom door opens, and Darcy’s standing there, stark naked.

  “You okay?” she asks, her voice soft and worried.

  “Eli somehow called at four in the morning and wants me to send him five thousand dollars,” I spit out, still pacing furiously. “He won’t tell me why, he won’t even tell me how the fuck he’s calling me right now.”

  I turn, the phone still in my hand. I still feel like I could breathe black fire if I wanted to.

  “And then he fucking blames me. That night, the night I got arrested, I was fucking protecting him and he fucking knows it and he fucking blames me for all his problems!”

  I hurl the phone at the wall. I don’t even think about it, just channel my fury and frustration and pitch it as hard as I can.

  It hits with a sharp crack, falls to the floor, and Darcy flinches.

  Fuck.

  Her eyes dart from the phone to me, and she looks afraid. Of me, of what she knows I could do.

  I feel like a fucking monster.

  I thought I had it under control better than that, I thought I knew better than to throw something when I could have easily hit Darcy, and I didn’t.

  The look in her eyes stabs me deep, a needle to my heart, thin and piercing, leaving me breathless. I’ve got no fucking excuse, because I’ve flinched at thrown objects before. I know exactly what it’s like to wonder if you’re next, and I can’t fucking believe I made her think that, for a second.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, rubbing my face. “Fuck, Darcy, I’m sorry.”

  She glances at the phone again.

  “Trent, just—”

  “I need to go,” I say. “I’m sorry, Darce, I shouldn’t have...”

  I move past her, grab my pants from the floor, pull them on.

  “I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She starts saying something else, but I feel fucking run through with a blade, like I can’t even see or think or breathe. I just need to get out, away from Darcy because the thought that I could have hurt her, that I could lose control and do something, makes me sick to my stomach.

  In my own suite, I sit at the kitchen table, my head in my hands. I try to force myself to think about something else, anything else, but it just replays over and over again:

  The phone arcing through the air, the crash, her flinch, that look.

  Chapter Thirty

  Darcy

  Trent leaves. The door shuts behind him and I go back into the bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed, sinking in, wondering what just happened.

  I sit there for a long minute. I wonder if I should just go back to bed, or at least try, see him in the morning and talk it over then. But that feels wrong, feels like I’m abandoning him when he needs me.

  Fuck it, I can try. If he wants to be alone he can tell me he wants to be alone and that’s fine, but I’m going to try. I stand, grab the robe, get his phone from the floor and take my room key and walk into the deep dark of the hallway.

  I knock lightly on Trent’s door, hoping I don’t wake anyone else up. There’s no answer.

  I know he’s in there, so I knock again, louder, and this time he pulls the door open, still shirtless, face dark.

  I hold out his phone, the glass casing fractured with a thousand lines. It’s pretty broken. Trent just looks at it, then at me, and swallows hard.

  “I would never hurt you,” he whispers.

  “I know,” I say.

  We look at each other for a long time, and finally, he takes the phone out of my hand.

  “I don’t want to be someone you’re afraid of,” he says.

  “You’re not.”

  He’s just looking at the phone in his hand, shattered almost beyond recognition.

  “Maybe you should be.”

  I cross my arms. It’s late, I’m tired, and I want to get to the bottom of whatever’s actually going on.

  “How about you let me decide what I’m afraid of and you focus on inviting me in and telling me what the fuck happened?”

  A smile glimmers around his eyes, and he steps back, letting me in. His suite’s pristine, probably because he more or less hasn’t actually been living here for the past week. Trent tosses the phone onto the counter with a clatter, then walks in and flops on the couch, rubbing his face with both hands.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “My shithead brother won’t tell me. He wants me to deposit five thousand dollars into his commissary account, and he somehow got hold of a phone at four in the morning to call me, but he won’t tell me how he did that or why he wants the money.”

  I sit next to him. Even though he’s much taller than me, he tilts his head down until it’s touching mine.

  “It’s bad, Darcy. I can’t come up with anything that doesn’t end somewhere bad. And...”

  Trent trails off, taking a deep breath, and I shift on the couch, pull his head onto my lap.

  “If I give him the money, whatever this is won’t end. It’ll get worse, because that’s how Eli operates. But I’ve got no idea why he wants it. I don’t know if he’s trying to start some sort of toilet wine enterprise or whether he’s gotten into debt with a mass murderer.”

  I stroke his hair. He shifts slightly, and now he’s looking up at me, his deep brown eyes searching mine.

  “Whichever happens, it’s not your fault,” I tell him. “I’m taping that to your bathroom mirror. ‘What my brother does is not my problem.’”

  “I wish it felt like that,” he says. “But it feels like everything he does is another punch to the gut. Fuck, Darce, this all started because I wanted to protect him.”

  I keep stroking his hair, even though we’re suddenly in new territory. I’m pretty sure I know what Trent’s talking about, but this is one of the few details of his life I don’t know. I just know something horrible happened, and it was all a decade ago.

  “I know,” I say, even though I don’t, because that story can be for later.

  We sit there like that for a long time, and I stroke his hair, his head in my lap.

  I know I don’t understand. I don’t have any siblings, blood or otherwise. I’ve got no idea what it feels like to share your DNA with someone, to grow up with them, to be fiercely loyal like this to them even when they fuck up beyond belief.

  I had foster siblings, but it’s not the same. When I was fourteen and my last foster father sneaked into the girls’ bedroom at night, I didn’t try to protect the girl whose bed he went to. I didn’t do shit.

  I just laid there, thankful I wasn’t on the bottom bunk, and planned out how to run away.

  “He still blames me because Dad died,” Trent says, his voice low and dreamy.

  “He shouldn’t.”

  “He does. I think he blames me for Mom, too.”

  “Because you should have been your father’s only punching bag?”

  “Eli doesn’t make that much sense,” Trent rumbles. “He doesn’t have fucking reasons for it. He just does.”

  I still don’t know what to say, because I want to tell him that his father was a monster who’s better off dead and his brother’s an idiot who’s deserved everything he’s gotten. But I don’t think that’s going to help right now, and it’s definitely not what he wants to hear, so I don’t say anything.

  After a while, he sits up, sighs, stands. Holds out his hand to me, still on the couch.

  “Stay over,” he says.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Trent

  The next morning, we finally leave Tallwood. We’ve got a whole squadron of vehicles waiting for us in the parking lot: our tour bus, totally nondescript and black, two moving vans for our stuff, plus a couple of passenger cars, smaller vans with odds and ends.

  Darcy and I stand there, in front of the Lodge, coffee in hand, surrounded by suitcases. The morning chill is still in the air, but it makes everything feel fresh and new, cleaned out. Like Eli’s late-night call was a dream aberration, a blip in the functioning of everyday life.

  “Re
member the van?” Darcy asks, taking a long drink. “How’d we get here from there?”

  “I think this is what they call making it,” I say, looking over the hubbub.

  “I do like the part where someone else carries my luggage,” she admits.

  “I like the part where we sleep in beds, not the back seat.”

  “You’re going soft,” she teases. “Next, you’ll lose your edge, get all sensitive, and before I know it you’ll be Michael Bolton Junior.”

  “I don’t think my hair would look that good long.”

  “You also can’t sing for shit.”

  “So I wouldn’t be Michael Bolton at all.”

  “Don’t start, this is my first cup of coffee,” she says, wrinkling her nose, and I laugh. I feel like right now I could put my arm around her, pull her in for a coffee-flavored kiss and it would all be perfectly natural. I feel like it would be so normal that no one else would even notice, that Gavin and Joan would skip right over it like it was part of the landscape.

  I don’t point out that she started this in the first place by calling me Michael Bolton.

  Our first show on the new tour schedule is in a Spokane venue called the Knitting Factory, across the state. Besides the few festivals we’re playing — like Grizzly — most of our shows aren’t in huge arenas, by design. They’re mostly in smaller venues, old theaters and spaces that only hold two thousand people, not twenty thousand.

  We’d make more money playing arenas, but when we started planning out the tour we collectively decided that we fucking hated it and didn’t want to do it. It means tiny dressing rooms and hanging out in alleyways before the show, cramped quarters and air conditioning systems that can’t always quite stand up to the challenge of the place being at full capacity, but we’ll take it.

  It goes almost perfectly. Even though Gavin’s mic kept cutting out during sound check and one of the amps was making the lights shake weirdly, it’s all fixed by show time. When we walk on stage it’s already hot and sticky in there, but the theater is packed to capacity, everyone is shouting, and it feels like we’re all just different parts of the same big musical organism.

  After the show is the fans. All four of us are sticky, sweaty, and tired but elated, still buzzing from a show that’s gone well, and even though what I really want is to drink a gallon of water, maybe have a beer, then fuck Darcy and go to bed I’d be an asshole if I didn’t talk to the fans who make it backstage.

  So I autograph what feels like a thousand ticket stubs. I autograph a beer bottle, a flyer about our show, some CDs — who knew they even made those any more — and even some guy’s acoustic guitar.

  Toward two in the morning, when we’re all out back in the alley, finally just us and the guys loading our gear, it’s quiet, just the four of us standing with our backs against the brick wall.

  “I’d forgotten how rough this all is,” Joan says.

  “Weren’t you on tour last year?” Darcy asks.

  “Yeah, but we tour like old people,” Joan says, laughing. “Three shows a week, maximum, and we come home at least a week a month. We’ve all got kids and spouses and shit.”

  “Just tell us if you want to be sent to the hotel early,” Darcy teases.

  “And miss out on all the fun? Someone asked me to sign a photo of her newborn. Never had that one before.”

  “Please tell me she named it after you.”

  “Oh, God,” Joan says, crossing her arms and laughing again. “I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know. That’s a bit much.”

  “Someone asked me to sign her arse,” Gavin offers, standing next to them.

  “Did you?” Joan asks.

  “Was it a nice ass?” Darcy asks.

  “How’d we miss that?” I say.

  Gavin shrugs, leaning against the wall.

  “You were all busy,” he says. “And the arse was only out for a moment.”

  “That won’t do,” Darcy says. “You gotta let that ink dry so it doesn’t smudge all over your clothes. A couple minutes at least.”

  We all turn and look at her.

  “I did refuse,” Gavin points out. “I’m not signing some strange bird’s rump, but if you’d like to elaborate on how the ink ought to dry, please do.”

  “It’s not important,” she says, not making eye contact with any of us.

  “Bon Jovi’s drummer signed my tits when I was seventeen,” Joan offers.

  “Bon Jovi?”

  “Seventeen?”

  “I’m from Jersey,” she says, her voice calm but amused. “And you can’t tell me you don’t like Livin’ on a Prayer.”

  “I don’t, really,” I say.

  “It’s a good karaoke song,” Darcy admits.

  “Did it rub off the moment you put your shirt back on or were you wandering around backstage in the buff for several minutes afterward?” Gavin asks.

  “I don’t exactly remember,” Joan goes on. “The whole thing took some liquid courage. It’s gone now, though.”

  “I should hope so,” Gavin says.

  There’s a long pause. Two guys load amps into a van, and I’m glad it’s not my job any more. Setting up equipment, playing a long show, and then moving it again is exhausting as fuck.

  “Anyone ever signed a dick?” Darcy asks.

  “That might be hard,” Gavin says.

  “I think it would have to be.”

  Joan snorts, and Darcy grins.

  “I’ve signed tits,” Joan says.

  “We’ve all signed tits,” Gavin says, and Darcy nods in agreement.

  I frown.

  “I’ve never signed tits,” I say. “I’ve never even been asked.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’ve signed lots of arms,” I say. “I signed a bald guy’s head once.”

  I look around at the other three. Gavin looks faintly puzzled, Joan’s got one eyebrow raised, and Darcy’s trying not to laugh.

  “Do I have ‘don’t show me your tits’ written on my forehead?” I ask.

  “Maybe you just don’t seem like a tit-signer,” Joan says.

  “All right,” says a voice behind me, and I turn. There’s a burly bald guy wearing all black and sweating slightly standing there, his hands on his hips.

  “We done?” Gavin asks.

  “All packed in,” the roadie confirms. “Locked up tight, ready for Missoula.”

  Joan rubs her hands together.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Let’s all go to bed!”

  As we get on the tour bus to head to our hotel, Darcy holds me back for a moment.

  “You can sign my tits if you want,” she says, and winks.

  A week later, we’re in Minneapolis, still playing shows almost every night in small, hot, crowded theaters, not that I’d change it if I could. The grind of the road is starting to feel familiar again, the same routine of play-sleep-drive-repeat, though this time it’s different.

  This time, Gavin’s sober. We play a lot of Scrabble on the tour bus.

  Liam’s not there, and instead we’ve got Joan, who’s lovely and a good drummer and wonderfully pleasant to talk to, but she’s not Liam.

  Oh, and Darcy and I are fucking. We still haven’t told the rest of the band — we haven’t told anyone — and I don’t know if I get to use the word girlfriend about her or not, but I don’t really care. She’s in my bed every night and we’ve spent a couple hours on the bus perfecting the art of throwing popcorn into each other’s mouths, so I don’t care what word she calls me. I’ll be her dinglehopper if things can stay like this.

  Eli doesn’t call again, either.

  The shows go beautifully. There’s usually some hitch — the lights don’t go down quite properly, a mic doesn’t work and we have to switch it, the AC’s on the fritz — but there’s always going to be some minor problem. It’s life.

  In Minneapolis, there’s a bar right next to the theater, and around one in the morning, Darcy and I head over there through the back door to escape the crush of
people that always follows a show, especially somewhere small like this.

  They’re mostly fans, but sometimes not. There’s reporters, there’s people who just want to sell your autograph, there’s drunk guys who want to tell you how you should really play guitar, and sometimes I just need to fucking leave. So we do.

  The bar is smallish, cozy place, mostly empty because it’s a Tuesday night.

  “Do you miss it?” I ask.

  “Minneapolis?”

  I nod, taking a sip of my beer. Darcy shrugs.

  “A little,” she says. “I miss the people sometimes. I joined my first real band here after I hitchhiked from Madison.”

  “The Screaming Zombies?”

  “That’s who I was with when we met,” she says, also taking a sip. “This was Doll Limb Factory.”

  “How could I forget?”

  She laughs.

  “We weren’t very good,” she says. “But we were fun. And mostly we were loud.”

  “That’s what’s important.”

  “It was for us, at least,” she says. “And I guess it worked, because here I am with someone else loading my gear into a truck.”

  We hang out for a little while, bullshitting about nothing, because somehow our relationship hasn’t really changed.

  Well, it has. Fucking obviously it has, but not like I was afraid it would. The parts where we talk and joke and spend time together like we’re best friends stayed almost exactly the same, and it’s great.

  After a little while, Darcy hops off her stool to go pee, and I pull my phone out and aimlessly check Twitter. I’m reading dumb shit on the internet when a woman’s voice interrupts me.

  “Hi,” she says. “Can I get your autograph?”

  I put my phone away and look up, forcing a smile. Even if I just want to be left alone with my secret-girlfriend-or-whatever, if you’re rude to one fan they post it on Facebook and then fucking everyone thinks you’re a dick.

  “Sure,” I say. “I haven’t got a pen on me, though.”

  “Oh, I brought one,” she says, and hands me a Sharpie. She’s blonde, fair-skinned, and cute in a midwestern kind of way.