Wild Open

by Bec Linder

  “The good news is that they seem receptive,” James said. “I’ve been keeping an eye on social media. They’ve been circulating Rung’s music and everyone agrees that you’re a good musician. The consensus seems to be that you’re no Kerrigan, but they’re willing to give you a shot.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” Leah said wryly, although it did sound like good news—she knew the potential had been high that the fans would reject her altogether, which would have made for a long and miserable tour.

  “But that means the pressure’s on,” O’Connor said. “Unfortunately. You haven’t had a lot of time to prepare.”

  “But I have to be on point tomorrow night no matter what,” Leah said. “Yeah. I know.”

  “We’ll have a lengthy soundcheck tomorrow,” James said. “Get in some rehearsal time. But—”

  “I know,” Leah said again. “I’ve been listening to your albums pretty much nonstop since the audition. I think I have them memorized at this point. So…”

  “That’s good,” O’Connor said. “That’s great. You’ll be fine. The first show might be a little rough. We’ll have the sound guys mute the bass a little in the mix. No big deal.”

  Leah glanced at James to see his reaction. He was nodding thoughtfully, swishing around a mouthful of beer. He swallowed it and said, “That’ll work. We can even dub in the album track, if it’s necessary—”

  “It won’t be necessary,” Leah said. No way in hell was she going to get up on that stage and play air guitar. Not even for one night.

  O’Connor started laughing. “You touched a nerve, man. She’s a real musician.”

  “You’re an asshole,” Leah said, and then realized she probably shouldn’t have said that, and took a hasty swig of her beer and tried to look cool and tough, and not at all like she had just sworn at a guy who was sort of her boss.

  “Can’t argue with that,” O’Connor said, unbothered. “Nah, don’t worry about it. You’re going to be great.”

  Leah took another sip of her beer. After her knee-jerk bravado, she couldn’t exactly admit that she was worried. What if she totally screwed it up and the fans hated her? It didn’t really matter—she was only on board for a couple of months, after all—but she didn’t want to ruin things for the band, or totally embarrass herself onstage.

  It was too late to worry about it now. She was all in.

  Sink or swim.

  O’Connor was watching her, his mouth wrapped around his beer bottle. She made the mistake of meeting his gaze. He grinned at her, a white flash of teeth, and then winked.

  “O’Connor,” James said sharply, and Leah was embarrassed all over again that they all knew exactly what had happened. She would give just about anything to go back in time and undo that night.

  That was a lie. She wasn’t sorry. She didn’t want to give up those memories of O’Connor’s hands on her, his prickly beard scraping a hot line down her neck.

  She could feel herself turning pink. God.

  “Another beer?” James asked her, and she realized she had finished her first, and nodded mutely. It would be at least a three-beer night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They rolled out at 5:00 on the dot, as always. The bus pulled out of the lot and trundled down Santa Monica Boulevard, headed for the interstate and the San Joaquin Valley. O’Connor had made this drive before, and it was boring as sin. Nothing but flat land and agriculture for three hundred miles.

  He could use another drink.

  He should probably just stay drunk for the rest of the tour. Leah was already stretching his self-control to the limits, and she had been on the bus for less than an hour. God, that little tank top she was wearing…

  He groaned and let his head flop backward onto the back of the sofa. He was completely fucked.

  Rushani and James, busy with their daily pow-wow about Twitter, looked over at him curiously.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Sorry. It’s nothing.”

  “Okay,” Rushani said. She looked at him blankly for another moment, and then went back to staring at James’s laptop.

  O’Connor rubbed his hands over his face. He should do something useful with himself.

  He got off the couch and walked toward the back of the bus. Andrew was back there, still shut up in the rear lounge. He probably needed a talking-to.

  The curtain was drawn over the empty bunk across the aisle from O’Connor’s. He knew instantly that Rushani had given Leah that bunk, probably to test his moral fiber. She would be sadly disappointed. O’Connor didn’t have any moral fiber. He was a horny bastard, and if he had to listen to Leah make little noises in her sleep for the rest of the tour, he was going to lose his fucking mind.

  He would have to talk to Rushani about it later.

  The door to the lounge was, as he expected, shut tight. It was also locked. Fucking Andrew. O’Connor knocked on the door and said, “Andrew, let me in.”

  “Andrew isn’t in here,” Andrew yelled.

  O’Connor rolled his eyes. Fine. He fished out his pocket knife and used it to jimmy the lock on the door. Andrew had pulled this trick before.

  “I said I’m not in here,” Andrew said, sulky, when O’Connor opened the door.

  “I learned a long time ago not to listen to you,” O’Connor said. “You’ve got a nice nest in here, huh?” Andrew was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, surrounded by crumpled sheets of looseleaf paper. He had an ashtray perched on one knee and a notebook on the other. O’Connor didn’t see any empty beer bottles, though, which was an encouraging sign.

  “Nice and quiet,” Andrew said, and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke in O’Connor’s general direction. “Until somebody barged in.”

  “You aren’t supposed to smoke on the bus,” O’Connor said, not caring how much he sounded like a scolding nursemaid.

  “I opened a window,” Andrew said, like that somehow made it okay. “I’m writing. Do you need something?”

  The words could have been confrontational, but Andrew said them so mildly, with such a polite and curious expression on his face, that O’Connor decided not to take offense. “You’ve been holed up in here all afternoon,” he said. “I can bring you a snack or something.”

  Andrew took another drag from his cigarette, eyes narrowed. “Suspicious. Attempting to bribe me with food. What do you want, O’Connor?”

  O’Connor leaned against the doorway and folded his arms. “Have you talked to Rushani?”

  Andrew knew exactly what he was referring to. O’Connor could see it in the way Andrew’s eyes darted aside before returning defiantly to meet O’Connor’s. “I talked to her this morning.”

  “Not about bus call,” O’Connor said. “About your fucking drug habit, Andrew. Don’t play dumb with me. Have you told her yet?”

  Andrew stubbed out his cigarette with a vicious twist of his wrist. “No.”

  “Fucking tell her,” O’Connor snapped. “You said you would. Don’t make me do it. I’m not your mother.”

  “You’re damn right you fucking aren’t, which is why you should mind your own business and stay out of it,” Andrew said, snarling like a cornered animal. “Fuck you trying to tell me what I can do, like you’re the goddamn morality police—”

  “Shut up in there,” Rinna yelled from the bunks.

  “Shut up, fuck you,” Andrew yelled back.

  This situation was deteriorating quickly. O’Connor closed the door behind him. “Do it before we get to Portland. Otherwise I’m telling her myself, and you know she won’t respect you for that.”

  He could see the gears working in Andrew’s brain. Disappointing Rushani was the one consequence that still had some sway over him, for whatever reason. “It was just some fucking cocaine, O’Connor. People do it all the time. We’re rock stars now, and—”

  “People? Who’s people? I don’t give a fuck what you see happening at festivals, and frankly, I don’t give a fuck if you do a couple of lines at a party now and then. But doing blow in your hotel room is
n’t a fun party habit, it’s an addiction, and that’s the kind of shit that gets you on one of those Behind the Music specials. I want to keep making music until I die. Don’t ruin it for me.” O’Connor forced himself to take a deep breath. His voice had gotten louder than he intended.

  Andrew lit another cigarette and took a long drag, watching O’Connor with an inscrutable look on his face. “Pretty selfish, kid.”

  “That’s me,” O’Connor said. “A selfish fuck.” He ran one hand through his hair. Time to extricate himself from this conversation. Somehow Andrew always made him lose his cool. They knew each other too well, had been friends—almost brothers—for too many years. Andrew knew exactly how to yank O’Connor’s chain. “Whatever. Talk to Rushani. She needs to know what you’re up to so she can run damage control if necessary.”

  “Damage control,” Andrew repeated, sneering, but it was half-hearted. He tapped his pen against his notebook. “Fine. I’ll talk to her.”

  “Okay,” O’Connor said. “Good. Okay.”

  He made his way back to the front of the bus. The curtain was still drawn shut over Leah’s bunk.

  They stopped for dinner at a truck stop north of Bakersfield. It was the kind of place Rushani always picked: inexpensive, quick, and anonymous. Nobody eating there would recognize them or take pictures to post to Instagram.

  The air in the Valley was hot and still. The parking lot, so freshly paved that O’Connor could still smell the tar, radiated heat from its black surface. Flat land stretched unbroken into the far distance, where O’Connor could see the dim outline of the mountains, mostly hidden by the summer haze. Leah, standing nearby, stared up at the empty sky, one hand lifted to shade her eyes.

  Andrew strolled over, smoking a cigarette. “Leah, why don’t you have dinner with me and James? We should all get to know each other.”

  Leah’s hand dropped, and she looked at Andrew in naked shock. Then, an instant later, the surprise was gone, and she smiled at Andrew with every appearance of calm acceptance. O’Connor was impressed. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  James looked over at O’Connor and raised his eyebrows. O’Connor shrugged. Andrew could still do this sometimes; there were still glimpses of the man he used to be. It wasn’t like Andrew had woken up one morning and been transformed into an unrecognizable monster. He was still a good person, maybe, somewhere deep inside. And he probably recognized that keeping Leah happy was crucial to getting through the rest of the tour. He would make nice with her, at least for a while.

  O’Connor didn’t like to think about how much time he spent interpreting Andrew’s motivations.

  They went inside, the whole group moving like a sluggish organism, an amoeba oozing into the truck stop’s frigid interior. The four of them, the band and Leah, sat at a big booth in the restaurant, right up against the windows looking west toward the setting sun. Rushani, sitting across the room with some of the roadies, kept making faces at O’Connor that he tried to ignore. Whatever she wanted to communicate to him could wait until later. Leah was beside him, and her bare thigh in her shorts was inches away, smooth and bronzed. He didn’t care about Rushani right now.

  “So,” Andrew said. He glanced at O’Connor and then away, scowling. He was still bent out of shape about their argument. Okay. O’Connor rolled his eyes and opened his menu. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Andrew lean across the table toward Leah. “Leah. Your brother knows James’s friend, right?”

  “Sean?” Leah asked. “Yeah. They work together sometimes.”

  “In what capacity?” Andrew asked.

  “You sound like fucking Anderson Cooper,” James said. “In what capacity.”

  “I’m not speaking to you, James,” Andrew said. “Leah and I are having a conversation.”

  O’Connor rolled his eyes again, hidden behind his menu. Leah shifted beside him—uncomfortable, maybe, or just shifting. Well, she’d have to learn to deal with Andrew sooner or later.

  “Uh, well,” Leah said. “My brother manages a few local bands, and Sean does PR for him sometimes.”

  “Interesting,” Andrew said, sounding anything but interested, even though he was the one who had fucking asked. “Sean said your old band imploded.”

  Leah shifted again. O’Connor glanced at her. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line. “Did he,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Something about your lead singer,” Andrew said.

  “I really don’t want to talk about this,” Leah said.

  Andrew kept going like she hadn’t spoken. “Died? Killed himself? Sounds pretty dramatic either way. Too bad, you guys were starting to get some buzz going, but—”

  “Excuse me,” Leah said, and scooted out of the booth.

  O’Connor watched her as she walked out of the restaurant, her back stiff, and then he looked at Andrew, disgusted. “Nice fucking going.”

  “I was just trying to make conversation,” Andrew said, because it was never his fault.

  “Go after her,” James said, but O’Connor was already getting up.

  He found Leah sitting on a bench in front of the truck stop, staring out toward the mountains, her hair blowing in the light breeze. He sat down beside her and tried to think of something to say.

  A few silent moments passed. O’Connor fought the urge to put his arm around her and draw her close. He wasn’t her lover, and they certainly weren’t friends. They barely knew each other. It wasn’t his place to offer comfort. Then Leah drew in a deep breath and ran her hands over her hair, smoothing down the flyaways. “I didn’t mean to make a scene. Andrew just—struck a nerve.”

  “He’s good at doing that,” O’Connor said. “Sorry. James and I should have stopped him. He can be so—”

  “Unpredictable,” Leah said.

  “Yeah,” O’Connor said. “I’m never sure what’s going to come out of his mouth until it’s too late. But he shouldn’t have—I’ll talk to him.”

  “Don’t,” Leah said. “I will. Or else he’ll just keep it up. I don’t want him yanking my metaphorical pigtails for the rest of the tour.” She stood up and gave O’Connor a lopsided smile. “Let’s go eat. I could use a burger.”

  * * *

  They rolled into Santa Clara a little before 10:30. Leah had been lying in her bunk with the curtain drawn, listening to the band’s album on her headphones, but she emerged when she felt the bus slow as it exited the freeway. James and O’Connor were in the front lounge with Marina and Rushani, all of them poking at their respective phones and ignoring each other. Andrew was nowhere in sight, which was a small mercy. Leah still felt embarrassed by her meltdown at dinner. She needed to talk to Andrew—to apologize, to explain—but she wasn’t ready quite yet. She stood in the doorway to the lounge and peered out the nearest window. Lights flashed past, neon blurs.

  Rushani glanced up, spotted Leah, smiled. “We’ll be at the hotel soon.”

  “Are we going past the venue?” Leah asked.

  “No, not tonight,” Rushani said. “It’s in the other direction. But you’ll have plenty of time to look around tomorrow morning.”

  Marina tucked her phone in her pocket and sat up. “What time is load-in tomorrow?”

  “Noon,” Rushani said. “So, Leah and the rest of you, soundcheck is at 3:00. Doors are at 6:00, and Timory’s soundcheck is at 5:00, so that will give you a few hours for rehearsal, and then dinner.”

  Marina yawned and scratched her face. “Sounds good.”

  The bus pulled into the parking lot of a hotel, and Rushani went inside to check in and get room keys. Leah went to her bunk to grab her backpack, which had everything in it that she needed for a night in a hotel room: change of clothes, toiletries, laptop. When she went back to the front lounge, James handed her a piece of paper. The words at the top, printed in bold font, caught her eye: July 14 Schedule.

  “What’s this?”

  James grinned. “Rushani’s daily schedule. She’s terrifyingly organized.”

  “Wow,�
� Leah said, skimming the typed list. Terrifying was the right word. Rushani had their entire day planned out, from breakfast down to bus call after the show. It was a little over-the-top, but at the same time, it was probably necessary for a tour with this many people.

  “Breakfast is for Andrew,” James said. “Everyone else just eats whenever. You don’t need to worry about showing up. But this way Rushani can force Andrew to get out of bed at a reasonable hour. It’s on the schedule.”

  “And everyone knows you don’t argue with the schedule,” O’Connor said.

  “Okay,” Leah said. She folded the paper and tucked it inside her backpack for later scrutiny. “Duly noted.”

  Rushani came back with keys and room assignments, and they all trooped inside and filtered upstairs. Leah had expected to share a room, but she opened the door to a room with a single king-size bed, and nobody came in after her. The benefits of touring with an internationally famous band.

  It was still early, and she wasn’t tired yet, but she changed into her pajamas anyway and climbed in bed. The mattress was soft and the sheets were cool. She put in her headphones again, Andrew’s voice and James’s drums pulsing against her eardrums, and looked over the schedule. It didn’t look like she had anything to do until 2:30, when Rushani had written Band meet in hotel lobby for transfer to venue. Maybe she would go over a little early and see if the sound guy would help her fine-tune her setup.

  I’m adrift without you, sailboat on the sea, Andrew sang. Darkness rises from the water to welcome me.

  Leah fell asleep.

  She woke in darkness. Disoriented, she fumbled around on the nightstand for her phone. It was after 8 in the morning; the room was dark because of the blackout curtains. She sat up in bed and rubbed her face. She had gotten plenty of sleep, but she felt a little blurry anyway, like her head was swaddled in fine cotton.

  Leah took a long, hot shower and then went downstairs to forage at the breakfast bar. Maybe she would run into O’Connor, and they could eat breakfast together, and do a little illicit flirting. But she didn’t see him anywhere, which was probably for the best. She needed to keep her distance.