On the Road: (Vagabonds Book 2) (New Adult Rock Star Romance)

by Jamison, Jade C.

  I got close to her and stood silently, and the guy glanced over at me. “Holy shit. You’re the guitarist. Kyle, right?”

  Okay, so I couldn’t help it. That shit was flattering and hadn’t gotten old yet. It wasn’t that I wanted to steal any of Vicki’s thunder. And, when I glanced at my friend, I could see a look of desperation in her eyes. She wasn’t angry or upset with me, but she was probably going to be if I had my way. “Yeah. What’s up with you guys?”

  “Your girl here told me she likes to party.”

  I nodded. “That she does.”

  “Kyle does too.”

  I looked my friend in the eye, trying to pull her away from the guy’s siren song. “Yeah…but I’m thinking maybe we should take tonight off. Recover a little bit.”

  She laughed and said, “Hair of the dog, Kyle.”

  The smile slid off my face. “No, Vicki. We need to take a break. We sounded like shit tonight.”

  “You guys sounded awesome.”

  I turned to that fucking leech and did my best not to scratch his eyes out. “What the fuck kind of drugs you smoking, pal, that you think we sounded awesome? We fucking sucked. One of my bandmates was flat off and on all night and my friend here, much as I love her, couldn’t have kept a beat with a metronome tonight. We were all off and we gave an okay performance—okay only because you haven’t heard what we can really do.”

  “God, you don’t have to be a cunt about it.”

  My eyelids lowered. “Got your attention, didn’t I?”

  Vicki waved her hands in front of herself, palms facing the ground. Or maybe she was shaking—I couldn’t tell. “Don’t mind Kyle.”

  “Uh, no. Do mind Kyle. My friend here needs some time to chill, not get all hopped up on whatever new shit you’re giving her, and if I have to be a cunt to get your attention, I will, cocksucker.”

  “I don’t need this shit.”

  “Don’t listen to her.” Vicki looked at me. “Get the fuck out of here, Kyle. I don’t need you.”

  I nodded, shoving my tongue between my molars and backing away. “I’ll talk to you when you’re sober, Vicki. Just be careful.” Inspired at the last second, I grabbed the dirty guy’s collar and pulled his face close enough to smell that he had rotting teeth in his mouth. “Anything happens to her, I will hunt you down and skin you alive.”

  Yeah, so I had no intention of harming him, but I was hoping to scare the shit out of him. He was just as thin as Vicki and high as a kite, so I suspected I could maybe take him if I had to.

  He shrugged his shoulders and sneered, but his eyes gave him away. He gave me a once over with his eyes but I knew he was a little afraid of me—and, at this point, that was all I could expect, because my friend was too far gone to give a fuck.

  Chapter Twelve

  WE WERE IN Oregon, I think, and the weather was getting downright cold. I’d since taken to drinking two or more beers before going onstage, because they kept me warm in the skimpy tops I had to wear.

  Vicki and I were talking over our beers before the show, and I was shocked that she hadn’t remembered my confrontation out by the van with the carny-looking dude earlier that week. I didn’t know if she was pretending she didn’t remember or not, but I suspected she truly had no memory. That was another reason for me to worry.

  But she was speaking first about drugs in general. She hadn’t said it, but I knew it to be true: there was never a drug she didn’t like, never a taste she would turn down. Then she started talking about how much she loved coke, but she couldn’t afford it, not with the cheapskate stipend Peter gave us. She said she was considering crack because of that.

  “Are you fucking kidding, Vicki? That shit is so addictive, you can never quit.”

  “That’s just what they say so you don’t take it.”

  I wanted to slap her. Hell, I wanted to beat my head against a wall. She was so fucking stupid sometimes. “And why do you think they don’t want you to take it? You ever think about that?”

  “‘Cause the man wants to keep us down.”

  Wow. She really had been doing too much shit. I had to try another tactic. “How do you think your mom would feel if she knew you were taking hardcore shit? That you were considering crack, for Christ’s sake?”

  She huffed and rolled her eyes. “My mom’s not perfect, Kyle. She’s done her share of shit. Believe me.”

  “Crack?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno.”

  God, she was so full of shit, but I didn’t want to call her on it, didn’t want to call her a liar. She was an addict and fighting with her wouldn’t do shit. I let out a long breath of air and took my last swig of beer before crushing the can in my hand. “Vicki…just look at it this way. Crack is to coke like meth is to speed. Seriously, Vick. Don’t do that shit. It’ll kill ya. For reals.”

  She frowned. “Would you stop worrying about me, Kyle? This is supposed to be fun. It is fun, but it’ll stop being that way if you lecture me like a fucking teacher all the time.”

  That was when I knew I couldn’t save her. All I could do was try to protect her, try to encourage her to not do the worst things…and be there to catch her when she fell.

  I just didn’t know that I would be around when she did.

  * * *

  As if Vicki’s drug bullshit wasn’t enough for me to begin to hate the whole band drama, Liz was going to do her damnedest to pile more on. A couple of days later, we’d just finished lunch. Vicki and I had gone outside to have a smoke and Liz joined us, but she said to me, “Walk with me, Kyle?”

  I almost started laughing, because it sounded so dramatic, so much like something a movie character would say. But something was bothering her, so I kept my smile to myself and said, “Sure.” We started walking away from the restaurant, and I heard one of the other girls come out and start talking to Vicki. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Liz was a woman of few words—so if something had been nagging at her enough to want to have a quiet conversation with me, I didn’t want her to beat around the bush about it. “What’s up?”

  “You were talking a while back about the elephant in the room. So I want to know—are you the reason Barbie wants nothing to do with me anymore?”

  I felt my brow furrow before I shook my head. “No. She’d already made up her mind long before that.”

  “Yeah, but did you say something to her before?”

  “No.”

  She stopped walking, so I turned to face her. “I saw you guys the other day—you seemed pretty cozy. Are you guys—?”

  “Oh, hell, no.” Yeah, Barbie was a pretty girl, but it was no secret that she and I weren’t even friends. Sure, I’d felt bad for her and I had grown to respect her as our frontwoman, but there was nothing sexually appealing to me as far as she was concerned. I hadn’t said it to hurt Liz’s feelings, but just the fact that she thought I wanted to steal Barbie from her was comical.

  She squinted her eyes, almost as if she was trying to decide if I was telling the truth or not. Her lips were pursed, as though she couldn’t trust herself to breathe any words, but she finally nodded her head. “Okay. Just checking.”

  “We cool?”

  “Yeah.” We started walking back toward the van without even agreeing to do it. “You’d tell me if that changed, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Of course.” But it wasn’t going to happen. I just hoped Liz would let it all go and focus on the music. It was what she was best at.

  * * *

  Vicki was getting worse, and I was worried enough that I decided maybe I needed to go to Peter—and even threaten to tell her mom…and our parents, if need be. Christmas was just a few short weeks away, and our parents would find out soon enough if we couldn’t contain our shit.

  Just watching Vicki do what she was doing to herself made me back off a lot of the drugs I’d been experimenting with. I didn’t want to ruin my life, especially when it had just started. So many of my rock heroes had died from drug overdoses—or had, at lea
st, ruined their lives because of drinking or drugs. I wasn’t going to be another rock star cliché. No fucking way. I was going to stick with cigarettes, pot, and alcohol. Yeah, there’d been rock guys who’d fucked up their lives with alcohol too—the one I thought of off the top of my head was Steve Clark of Def Leppard but yeah…I thought maybe drugs had something to do with it too. It was a chance I just didn’t want to take. If I was going to kill myself, there had to be better ways to go.

  So, one afternoon before we headed to our latest venue, I went to Peter’s room. He was unpacking his luggage and Andrew was in the room too but texting or doing something else on his phone. The expression on Peter’s face looked droll as it often did, as though he was trying to communicate to me that he was “not amused.” “Yes, Ms. Summers?”

  “We need to talk.”

  He raised his eyebrows, and, even though he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to communicate his boredom with me, I could feel it coming off him. “About?”

  “Vicki.” I sighed and looked from him to Andrew and back again. I was more than a little pissed that I had to tell him to do his goddamn job. I shouldn’t have had to watch Vicki’s back. Peter and Andrew should have been. “I’m afraid she’s turning into a full-blown addict.”

  Peter was silent for a few minutes as if pondering what to say before he finally replied, “Every band has to have one.”

  I know my brow furrowed, because his answer—while typical Peter—was nothing like any of the possible responses I had expected. I paused while I tried to figure out where our conversation was going. Finally, I said, “We have to do something. We can’t just let her do that to herself.”

  Peter cocked an eyebrow again and said, “And what do you propose we do, Ms. Summers? If you know anything about addicts, then you know that they need to realize they have a problem. Until they do, there is no fixing them. There is no helping them. They will fight every step of the way. Interventions are nice but they’re not lasting if the addict doesn’t want change, doesn’t want the help they’re being offered.”

  His voice turned sinister then and that was when I realized he was a salesman. He’d learned each of our weaknesses and knew how to exploit them, twist them, and manipulate us. He knew our hopes and fears and understood exactly what kinds of things to say to us to keep us in line. If someone had told me Peter had a psychology degree and had chosen to use it for evil, I wouldn’t have doubted it for a second. His voice was quiet when he put his hands on my shoulders and said, “If we get her the help she needs, then this tour is over before it’s even started. The Vagabonds? Maybe people will remember you when she’s out and clean, but there’s no guarantee in this fickle world. People are worshipping you one moment and then, two weeks later, they forgot they’d called you their favorite band. They’re off following some other act and you’re left in the dust. But if you keep plugging away—if you stay in the limelight, if you stay on the road, pausing long enough to record new material—they don’t have a chance to forget you. They have no choice because you’re in front of their faces all the time.”

  Yeah, he knew exactly where to hit me to make it hurt. After he’d filled my head with dreams of fame, nothing else would satisfy me in my life. There was no way I could go do what others would consider a “normal” job because my place was on the stage. My job was perfecting Liz’s songs and then playing the shit out of them live for an adoring audience. I hadn’t lived that damn dream long enough to have it ripped from me.

  Still, I was struggling. I’d grown to love Vicki like a sister and her behavior had me worried. Peter could see my internal turmoil all over my face. “When she comes around and is ready, we will take care of her. We will get her the help she needs. For now, let her enjoy this taste of freedom and this chance to try new flavors of life. We’re assuming it’s a problem, Ms. Summers, but she hasn’t had a chance to decide she doesn’t want those things yet. Let’s let her party behavior play itself out”—yes, he’d said that for my benefit too, because he knew I liked to cut loose and have fun too, and that was all part of what I considered my new rock star experience—“and then, if it still seems like she has a problem, we’ll consult with the experts.” He could see my defenses weakening. “Okay?”

  How could I fight when I had no one in a position of power and authority helping me? I didn’t want to be the bad guy to my best friend. Then she wouldn’t even talk to me. At least now, I could try to talk sense into her on occasion and try to keep her safe. If she was pissed at me or decided she hated me, she wouldn’t listen to me at all. For now, at any rate, I at least had a chance.

  I let the air out of my lungs and said a silent prayer in my head—one for forgiveness, because I felt like I was letting my friend down, but also that she would be all right. “Okay.”

  Sounding like a barking auctioneer, Peter said, “Problem solved,” as if it really was—but he and I both knew we were living a lie. Of the two of us, though, I think I was the only one whose conscience nagged her—until I myself indulged enough to drown out the voices of guilt and betrayal.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HAVE YOU EVER spent Thanksgiving on the road? No, I don’t mean visiting family members. I mean spending it alone somewhere you’ve never been before, away from all the people you love.

  Actually, worse than that. Around all the people who have been driving you nuts and pissing you off.

  We all chatted with our families, but Peter explained to them and us how we’d barely get home, have a couple of days to spend, and then have to be right back at it. Our last show that week was Tuesday night and our next show was Saturday night. We could have gone home, and—had I been older and knew then what I knew now—I would have insisted. But I didn’t know enough to be able to argue.

  We’d played somewhere in Idaho and our next stop was Northern California, so that Wednesday, we drove to a halfway point and Peter informed us we’d be spending Thanksgiving there. He’d already called around and found a restaurant that would be willing to cater to us, and he took all our stipends (including, I guessed, the amount reserved for himself and Andrew, and also what he gave Bad Dog and TT) and paid the restaurant well. One thing I will say—it was magical. After eating nothing but fast food burgers and tacos for the last two and a half months, a truly home-cooked meal was amazing. And they’d thought of everything—we had turkey with gravy, stuffing, buttery mashed potatoes, cranberries, sweet potatoes, glazed ham, rolls, corn, green bean casserole, and a huge salad. Oh, and then for dessert, not that any of us had room, we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream, red velvet cake, or chocolate cream pie—or all three if we so desired.

  I felt like a stuffed turkey by the time we were done.

  They also sent each of us back to our hotel with a Styrofoam container of leftovers, Chinet paper plates, and plastic utensils so we could microwave dinner later in our hotel rooms.

  Peter wasn’t done surprising us, though, and it was that brief shining day that I thought maybe he did have a heart. Maybe he did have a soul. But one day trying to keep your moneymakers happy to avoid mutiny does not make you human.

  He stopped at a Walmart and bought a Monopoly game, a few decks of cards and dominos, and even an Xbox and a few games to go with it so we could play games that afternoon. But I just wanted to nap.

  I didn’t see through his ruse at the time. I didn’t realize it was just a way to lull us into feeling like we were with our music family so we wouldn’t cry fowl. It was completely out of character for Peter to be kind and considerate like that, and it’s the only time I remember him being that way. Something I know now in retrospect is that Peter always had an angle. He always had a reason for doing something and, if I have ever known anyone in my life who is a sociopath, it would be Peter. He didn’t care about anything or anyone else other than himself. Anything and everything he did was to benefit number one. He was good at pretending to care or faking emotion, but it is clear to me now that he never had any concern about any of us. He was really go
od at putting up smokescreens to hide that lack of caring and inability to empathize. On Thanksgiving of that year, the smokescreen was dinner and games. And we enjoyed ourselves so much, in spite of the fact that we couldn’t really recharge and reconnect with our real family members, that we didn’t see what he was really doing.

  That was Peter in a nutshell. He was always one step ahead of us.

  So, that afternoon, I slept. It felt good, and I hadn’t realized how sleep deprived I’d been until I rested my head on the pillow and slept for over six hours straight. I woke up close to ten o’clock that night. Most everyone was still in Peter and Andrew’s room playing games, only by the time I got there, they were playing charades. Drunken charades.

  The problem was, thanks to my freewheeling existence as a kid, I didn’t know—had never known—how to play charades. So my already plastered friends gave me the best instructions they could, and I muddled through, but it was a laugh riot—mainly because they were so trashed that their guesses at my gestures were comical. Of course, trying to charade eternity when trying to communicate the movie From Here to Eternity wouldn’t have been easy for people at the top of their game, much less people who couldn’t spell their own name due to their lack of sobriety.

  We had fun and I got drunk too as the night wore on.

  That night, Kelly and I shared a room and we walked back to it together with the intent of heating up our leftovers before going to sleep. I let Kelly nuke hers first and I sat on the bed. I’d chatted with mom and dad before my nap earlier today but my mind wandered back to the other person who occupied my mind on occasion. CJ. I wondered what he was doing tonight—if he was hanging with his band or if they were home for a few days. I wondered if he ever thought of me. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and found his name in my text messages. I pondered what I wanted to say for a few seconds before I started typing my message out with my thumbs. I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment, so I thought it best to ask a neutral question. What are you thankful for today?