Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin

by Mariana Zapata

  I groaned to myself while Eli and Mason laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Minutes later, I found myself squished between Mase and Gordo while the bus driver steered the traveling hotel and trailer to where I’d been informed we’d be showering that night. The couches on either side of the bus were long, but it seemed like everyone was crammed into that front area closest to the door, including the narrow kitchen and bathroom. After the mini tour Eliza had given me hours before, I knew that past the door by the bathroom were the twelve bunks we’d be sleeping in, and at the farthest end of the bus was a small room with a U-shaped couch along the walls.

  Mason introduced me to two of the guys from The Cloud Collision, a big muscular guy named Julian and a lanky one named Isaiah that I recognized as being the guitar players for the band. I caught Sacha standing in the kitchen, drinking something steaming from a ceramic mug, still half-naked. Still unbelievably hot, if not hotter than before. The yellow lighting in the bus did wonders for the lean cut of his chest and for his narrow hips with their cut oblique muscles, all of which then did wonders for my panties—I mean my hormones.

  “You should wear shirts like that more often.”

  I slid my gaze over to Mason, whose entire side was pressed against mine. I shouldn’t have been as surprised to see his eyes on my “shirt,” and by my shirt, I really meant my breasts. The tank top had begun to ride low enough so that the edge of my lavender bra was visible. Instead of replying, I frowned and tugged my shirt up enough so at least the girls weren’t hanging out so much… since half an inch of boobage was apparently too much to begin with.

  When I met Mason’s gaze again he was smirking, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I can still see them.”

  “No way.” I rolled my eyes, trying not to be too self-conscious. It wasn’t like I didn’t get the same reaction from him every time we saw each other over the last three years. Well, it was the same reaction from just about every guy that wasn’t my brothers or dad. I’d spent ten years of my life trying to keep people’s attentions away from my chest and now, after everything, I still didn’t want people looking there for longer than a quick glance.

  Gordo nudged me from his spot on my other side. With hair so dark it was almost blue, a beard that was so thick and wiry it could pass as pubic hair and his naturally dark skin tone even tanner than normal, his face was one of the most familiar things in my life. “Are we going to be on the same team together?”

  “The same team…?” And then I remembered what team he was talking about. “Hell, no.” No, no, no, no.

  “Oh come on, Flabs,” Gordo insisted, his dark, nearly pupil-less eyes narrowing.

  Mason, who was still leaning forward, rested his forearm on my knee. “You’re already trying to choose teams, asshole?”

  “I’m not playing, so he can’t be trying to choose teams.” I made sure to look both of them in the eye so that they would know I wasn’t playing around. I wasn’t going to play ever again.

  “You have to play,” the man whose real name was Luis Alberto claimed. “It’s our tradition.”

  What it really was, was a yearly tradition of humiliation and physical pain. I shook my head at Gordo. “It’s not happening, Gordis.”

  “You’re playing,” Mason reiterated, eyeing my boobs again in a gesture that was intentionally meant to annoy the shit out of me. Really, I didn’t think he liked my breasts that much, it wasn’t like I had a D cup size, much less the Double-D size he usually salivated over, but irritating me was definitely at the top of his list of things he enjoyed. “I need those puppies on my team.”

  I smiled at him sweetly.

  There was a time, immediately after my surgery, that I had really tried to get him to quit making comments about my chest. For about six months straight he’d revolved between calling me Hooters and Twin Peaks. In typical Mason fashion, me complaining only made him do it more often. So I stopped telling him anything because I knew he really he did it to get a rise out of me. Instead I just began handling it differently.

  I reached under his arm to twist his nipple, an easy thing to do because he was shirtless. “I’m not playing and if I was, I definitely wouldn’t be playing on your team, jackass,” I said, turning the beady pink nip sharply as he leaned away with a grimace and an ugly “Nooooo!”

  The words had barely left my mouth when the bus pulled into a brightly lit travel center with a gas station, twenty-four-hour restaurant and restroom facilities. Eli tossed me a towel before everyone except Mason, who had his arms crossed over his bare chest like that would protect him from me, piled out of the bus with our belongings and headed inside. It was then that I realized I’d forgotten to bring shampoo and soap with me from home. I groaned and peeked inside, realizing that if I went into the showers after I paid, I couldn’t come back out for free.

  I waited outside the men’s bathroom for a few minutes, hoping Eliza or Gordo would hurry up and come out so I could borrow their soap and shampoo. Less than ten minutes later, the smacking of flip-flops on the floor got louder and louder.

  But it wasn’t Eli or Gordo coming out.

  It was Mason 2.0 in basketball shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops, making his way out with a backpack over his shoulder and black dress shoes hanging off his fingers. He smiled genuinely the instant he saw me standing there looking like a hobo asking for a handout.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, making me feel like a total mess.

  I nodded, my face immediately flushing at the memory that I’d kicked this poor guy in the ass just minutes ago. I cleared my throat when my ears got hot too. “Yeah, I’m just waiting for Eli.”

  Sacha raised a dark eyebrow, giving me a chance to take in the smoky, nearly transparent gray of his eyes. He glanced at the clothes in my hands before pursing his lips. “Did you forget your soap?”

  I was a little hesitant to admit it, but I did, fighting the urge to rub at my ears. “Yeah.”

  He smiled.

  “I want to borrow his,” I explained.

  Sacha didn’t hesitate a second. “Here,” he said as soon as I’d finished talking. Thrusting a bottle of some 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner and body wash at me, he shrugged. “It isn’t for girls—”

  This man had another thing coming to him if he thought I cared what I used for toiletries. I’d even be willing to share with Mason—the disgusting ass of the year—if I knew he didn’t borrow someone else’s on the rare occasion he decided to shower. I took the bottle from him and smiled, the embarrassment that had been swimming along my spine earlier from what I’d done disappearing at his kindness. “I have invisible balls, it’s cool,” I told him like I would have told Eli… and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t like I thought we were flirting or anything, and the fact I definitely wasn’t looking my best didn’t escape me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to think of me as… well, I didn’t know what. Unattractive, I guess? Manly? It didn’t help that I was still mortified over the kicking incident.

  Sacha laughed that cute, bright laugh that made me smile despite everything. “All right, invisi-balls. Have at it.”

  “Thanks. I owe you,” I said a little more shyly than I normally would have. Walking backward toward the entrance to the bathroom at his command, I gave him another awkward wave I immediately regretted. Good God, I was on a roll and needed to quit while I was ahead.

  He simply nodded at me before I ran into the area where the showers were. I rushed through mine as quickly as I could, not caring in the least that I smelled like a clean guy. As soon as I finished drying off and dressing, I hustled out feeling way better than before. Luckily, my brother was waiting for me right outside the restrooms.

  “I was gonna give you five more minutes before I went in there,” he warned. “I thought somebody kidnapped you.” Those green eyes so much like mine, peered at my feet, earning me a frown. “Where are your flip-flops, and why are you holding men’s shampoo?” A smirk covered his mouth a second later. “You fina
lly decided to go through with that surgery, huh?”

  I snorted and socked him right in the stomach as I walked by him. “That Sacha guy let me borrow his shampoo because I didn’t bring any and you were taking forever douching in there.” I hiked my thumb toward the restroom as Eli rubbed where I’d nailed him. “And I didn’t bring flip-flops with me. Why?”

  He grimaced, eyeing my feet again. “You stepped on that floor without shoes on?” When I nodded in response, he shuddered. I glanced at his feet to see he was wearing a pair of rubber thong flip-flops. “You better pray tonight.”

  When Eli gives you a reason to pray, you better pray. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to be praying for. Back when we toured in Old Pepe, we always showered in hotel rooms. This travel-center-showering was a new experience for me.

  We made our way into the bus, where I handed Sacha his shampoo back with a “thank you” while my brother made us three packets of ramen noodles to share, sixty-forty style with pieces of grilled deli chicken thrown in. He promised to take me to buy groceries, cheap sandals and shampoo the next day. As soon as we finished eating, I walked by another member of The Cloud Collision, who had some Middle Eastern ancestry in him. He was on the phone, so I raised my hand in a wave and he did the same back before I followed Eli into the bunk area.

  “Mine is that one,” my brother said, pointing at a top bunk with its curtain pulled all the way back. There were twelve total bunks with crimson curtains, three stacked on top of each other, six on one side of the hallway, six on the other. He then pointed at the bottom bunk, below where Gordo was sleeping at the top. “Zeke slept on that one. It’s yours now. I put my backup sheets on there for you earlier.”

  I immediately thought of Zeke drooling over the bed—or worse. Yuck.

  “Thanks.”

  It was then that the curtain on the bunk above mine slid open, and I fist-pumped in my brain because sane people don’t do that in real life. Sacha looked at me from his spot in the bed above the one I’d be taking. “Hi, neighbor.”

  Chapter Four

  The next two weeks went by before I could ask what the hell I had gotten myself into.

  One day we were in Boston and the next thing I knew, we’d gone through Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri. The routing made absolutely no sense but it never had. Booking agents usually didn’t care how long the drives were between dates as long as they scored bands the highest guarantee possible.

  A handful of fans had asked me so far, “How awesome is it to be on tour with them?”

  With them. Them. Eli, Mason, Gordo, Sacha, Isaiah, Julian, Miles, Mateo, Carter, Freddy and Bryce. Ghost Orchid, the members of The Cloud Collision, their merch guy, front of house slash tour manager and their lighting guy.

  I showered in gas stations. I had some kind of fungus thing on the bottom of my toes from the one bloody shower I took without flip-flops. I’d eaten more pizza over the course of two weeks than I had in my entire life.

  On top of all of that, summertime was a vengeful, rude bitch that didn’t care about your comfort.

  I sweated all the time. I stunk at the end of every night. I spent countless hours rolling around in a bus from town to town, and I hung out in venues for nine hours a day minimum. I lived in a bus with ten men who were like every other twenty-something-year-old guys in the world. They farted, they burped, some of them had smelly feet, some of them didn’t brush their teeth enough, or the only thing that really drove me nuts: some didn’t cover their food in the microwave.

  This life wasn’t glamorous. At. All.

  On the other hand, to be fair, no group of people made me crack up like they did. It had been a long time since my stomach had cramped from how hard I laughed at or with them.

  Eli and I had been acting more like conjoined twins than fraternal twins, as if we were trying to make up for all the time we’d spent apart over the last few years. I’d met a lot of twins in my life; some were close and others couldn’t stand each other. We weren’t like that, though.

  Before high school, we’d been inseparable. Two peas in a pod. Each other’s security blanket. My mom liked to tell people that when we were toddlers, sometimes she would walk into a room to find us on opposite sides, totally silent, as if we were having some kind of telepathic conversation. What she wouldn’t tell everyone was that if she stood there long enough, we’d randomly start laughing our butts off for no apparent reason, which in turn scared the crap out of her. Yeah, I didn’t blame her.

  Even during high school, there was never any doubt that we were still more than best friends. We didn’t spend as much time together by that point, but it didn’t matter. I’d woken up plenty of times in high school with Eli on my bed, his feet way too close to my face as he slept on top of the comforter with his own blanket over him. We might not have come from the same egg, but no one knew me, understood me or made me feel as comfortable as my brother did.

  I guess I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having him around over the years as we’d each gone our own ways.

  When we were in the bus, I was constantly with Mason, Gordo or Carter. When we were off of it, Eliza went everywhere with me. I’d spoken to the guys with The Cloud Collision a few times, but we hadn’t been anything more than friendly in passing. They were all always on their phones or their computers, so I didn’t take it personally. We had three months ahead of us to get to know each other; it wasn’t a big deal.

  I was enjoying my time, and that was all that really mattered.

  And besides the couple of times a venue had been playing one of Brandon’s songs between sets, I hadn’t thought about killing that piece of crap once.

  * * *

  “Shouldn’t you go eat something soon?”

  I finished setting the last cymbal on the stand and tightened it down, glancing at my brother over the top of his drum kit. He was closing the travel cases since we were mostly done setting up his stuff. We usually tag-teamed putting together his drum kit to save time; I’d done it so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. Most of the time he helped me bring most of the merch into the venue right after we got to wherever the tour package was playing, and then I’d help the guys set up their equipment to do soundcheck since it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. There was usually so much time before doors opened that I’d rather keep busy than sit around.

  But today we’d gotten to Little Rock almost three hours late, thanks to a major accident. Now, everything and everyone was running behind schedule, including soundcheck.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a peek at the clock with a wince. Doors were opening in two hours. “Damn it, I didn’t know it was so late.”

  Eli turned to look at me over his shoulder from where he was kneeling. He raised his eyebrows. “I mean, you could go without a meal or two—”

  He should have known better than to talk shit when he was on his knees. I shoved him.

  “Whore!” he cried as toppled over like a chopped-down tree.

  “Your mother,” I muttered as I kept right on walking past him to sit on the edge of the stage before hopping down. By the time I was back on my feet, Eli was again on his knees, glaring over in my direction. “I’m going to grab something to eat.”

  He was still giving me a dirty look when he said, “I can’t go with you. We gotta do soundcheck.”

  I shrugged both shoulders; it wasn’t like I didn’t already know that. “Okay. I’ll be back.”

  He blinked. And then he simply raised a fist with his middle finger fully extended.

  I stuck my tongue out and went to look for the only other person that might be able to go out to eat with me.

  The venue hadn’t provided us with food and instead had opted to give the tour members buy-out money to fend for ourselves. The TCC tour manager, who was also doing sound for them and Ghost Orchid, had walked around a few minutes earlier and passed out everyone’s cash. For once in his life, Eli had been right. If I waited
any longer to go on the hunt for food, I wouldn’t make it back in time for the start of the show. According to Mason, I had something called a job. Like I didn’t know what the hell that was.

  In no time, I found my new friend Carter, the TCC merch guy, sitting outside of the trailer surrounded by a huge pile of boxes. Clenching a clipboard, he shot me a tight smile, scratching at one of the legs of the knee-length cutoff skinny jeans he’d put on that day.

  “Still busy?” I asked, looking at the cardboard boxes that had been waiting outside when the bus had rolled in an hour ago.

  Carter let out this long sigh straight from his belly. His normally passive face was clearly exasperated. Even his ponytail was limp. We’d gotten to know each other over the hours of free time we shared at the merch tables. He wasn’t much of a talker unless you prodded him, but he was hardworking and kind. Mostly though, when the people I usually spent time with were louder than howler monkeys, I really enjoyed his company. “I’m only halfway done with inventory, and I need to get it all done before the show.” He shot me a flat look that drew his lip piercing tight. “By myself.”

  I grimaced, knowing all too well how frustrated he got with The Cloud Collision guys. They all basically left him on his own to do everything. According to Carter, it was pretty normal for bands at their level to feel entitled to do that, but I still pointed at him and said “ha” when he’d first told me. It was occasions like those that made me appreciate playing the sister card on Eli.

  “I was going to get food, but I can help you if you want,” I almost told him how I’d wanted him to go with me, but what was the point in rubbing the situation in? The poor guy was stuck working outside in a trailer with next to zero air circulation, counting T-shirts. That sucked.

  The corners of his mouth tilted up just enough in what could be considered a sad, resigned smile. “Don’t worry about it. I can get it done; go get something to eat,” he said.

  I didn’t think he was trying to do reverse psychology on me, but I’d spent too much time with people who did. “Are you sure?”