by James, Vicki
“Jeez, Dicky, calm down.” Hawk frowned.
Dicky slammed a fist down and stood, making us all look up. “I’m starting to wonder if this is even worth it. If you guys really want this, or if all any of you are interested in is getting some regular piece of pussy every night.” He stormed off to the back of the bus, leaving each of us to watch him go.
I sought out Julia, who had her eyes closed as she sat there, quiet.
“Julia?” I said calmly.
“Just so you all know, I have zero interest in settling down.” Big D chuckled, trying to break the tension. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“No way am I bringing a woman into this life,” Hawk said. “Not with that bipolar fucker hanging around. Christ, not even my own mother gave me that much shit for getting laid.”
“Julia,” I repeated.
“I think everyone needs to calm down,” said Coops.
“Julia.”
She looked up sharply.
“You okay?”
Casting a quick glance at the guys, she eventually shook her head. “I have no idea what I am anymore.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it?” Jules asked me quietly.
What the hell did I know? I’d once been like Dicky, frustrated by inconvenience, new people on the scene, or anyone taking us off track as a band. A part of me—the old me—felt like it was still there inside my chest, somewhat suffocated now, but still pushing against the fabric of who I had become to remind me of who I used to be.
I could hear him in the quiet of the night. That cocky, arrogant attitude swirling around in my mind.
You’ve become what you loathed.
You’re no better than Presley.
All you’re thinking about is Julia. What about the band?
This is the beginning of the end, and you know it.
You’ll never be able to see a pretty woman and do whatever the hell you want with her again. What is wrong with you?
Just because your life gave you a plot twist and made you fall in love with someone unexpectedly, it didn’t erase who you were for all those years before that love came along. But where once those questions would have tortured me—built me up into a fiery ball of rage until I couldn’t see straight—now I was able to sit back and think about things. I was able to look in the eyes of Julia and weigh everything up.
Was life better before she came along? Or had I been pretending to everyone that I was loving all the shit I did, when really, I was waking up every day feeling unfulfilled, lonely, and cold, spending every minute of every hour ready to chase my next high?
Those questions were as rhetorical as they came. I didn’t need an answer. I already knew.
Some highs were better because you hadn’t been waiting for them. They just happened.
Julia happened, and I was so fucking glad she had.
I wasn’t going to let anyone, not even my own family, make her feel like shit because of me.
I did have something to fight for now, and I’d go to town on anyone who got in her way.
Without thinking, I stood up to go and find Dicky. He was pacing the narrow aisle at the back of the bus, with one hand on the waist of his belted jeans, while the other hand worried his forehead. He didn’t see me coming, and I didn’t know what I was going to do until I got there, but when I did, he spun to face me. It only took one look into his eyes, and I found myself gritting my teeth.
I reached out for his shirt, balled it up in my fist, and I slammed Dicky Bennett up against a door. Using all the irritation within me, I pulled him forward before I slammed him back again, just for good measure.
“That is the last time you will refer to Julia as a regular piece of pussy in my presence, do you fucking understand me?” I growled.
Dicky’s eyes were wide as he stared at me, his lips parted in surprise.
“And before you even think about giving me a lecture on who I’m supposed to be, what she’s actually employed for, and what this could do to the band, let me make one thing crystal clear: I don’t give a shit. You may be the manager around here, but I’m the fucking star. Those guys out there are the fucking stars. She’s a fucking star. And while we’ll always be grateful for everything you’ve done for us, you’re as replaceable as they come, Bennett. Nobody gives a damn who our manager is. Least of all me. Either get on board with what’s happening or get ready for me to throw you off the damn bus.”
Dicky’s nostrils flared. “What the hell has happened to you?”
“Something good. Something really good that isn’t at the bottom of a bottle, at the end of a line of coke, or in the form of a shitty little tablet.”
“You make it sound like what you do for a living is torture. Do you have any idea how lucky you are, for Christ’s sake?”
“Lucky.” I leaned in closer. “Luck happens by accident. Achieving things happens by working hard, and I’ve worked damn hard for everyone in this band, including you, so you’d do well to treat me as an equal instead of as your little kid who isn’t listening to what Daddy says.” My fist tightened in his shirt. “And do you want to know something, Dick? Maybe it was torture before she came along. Maybe all of the accolades, the adoration, the awards, and the fans meant shit to me when I was waking up alone every day, too much of a bad boy to talk to any of you, and too much of a soft-hearted shit inside to keep it all locked up. Torture comes in many forms, and I feel sorry for you if you can’t see for yourself when someone way out of my league comes along and finally makes me happy.”
I let him go at once and took a step back, watching as his body crumbled against the wooden panels behind him. His breaths were heavy, and his eyes were wild as he looked up at me.
“So, this is it?” he gasped. “The rugged rock star went and got himself all cleaned up?”
I huffed out a sarcastic laugh and shook my head. “There’s nothing clean about me. I’d tell you to ask Jules, but you so much as glance at her with narrowed eyes without my permission from now on, and you’ll be on your arse before you can blink.”
With a stretch of my neck, I straightened out the shoulders of my grey T-shirt, and I began to walk away.
“Not gonna have this conversation again, bro!” I called over my shoulder. “Make sure you’ve learnt how to apologise to pretty ladies before you show your face again.”
When I made it back to the tables and booths near the front of the bus, several pairs of eyes were staring back at me. Few were amused. A couple were stunned. And then there were hers.
Sitting there between the guys, Julia looked like a queen who’d just been saved from the clutches of a dragon by her king.
“Anyone else got a problem with Julia and me screwing?”
Everyone who wasn’t Julia shook their heads and stayed quiet.
“Wonderful. Now… who’s up for some fucking poker?”
Chapter Forty-Five
The Encore! Festival in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, always felt oddly like we were coming home. As we drove through the centre of the city, I looked up at the murky sky from the window I was resting against, and I wondered if there would ever be a day when I’d arrive here to sunshine.
“Raining again,” Hawk grumbled as he grabbed hold of his beer.
“The rain is just another prop for me to work with on stage,” I assured him.
“And you do it so well,” Julia’s voice cut through the noise, dragging my attention to her.
Her eyes were heated and narrowed as she stared at me for just a heartbeat too long before she looked down at something she’d written in a little black notebook and smirked to herself.
Defending her against Dicky had gone down well.
I huffed out a silent laugh and looked back out of the window at the gloomy view. The bus turned a corner before Edinburgh castle came into view, and it didn’t take long for the sight of the big vehicle we were in to start drawing attention. Girls cheered on the side of the streets. Some tried to wave us
down, while others looked up at the blacked-out windows like they could see us.
“Hawk, do you remember the first time we saw women standing beside our tour bus like this, paying us attention?”
He whistled, low and long. “Cardiff?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “That woman who threw herself in front of the bus, made the driver slam his brakes on, and had us all launching forward until we nearly broke our front teeth?”
“What a time it was to be alive.”
Hawk glanced out at the girls running down the busy street, chasing after our monster bus. “And look at us now.”
“Yeah. Look at us.”
“You okay?
“Sure.” I nodded, casting a glance at Julia.
Before her, this life had been everything to me. Even up until a few weeks ago, it had been everything. The idea of not being here, in the middle of this, would have tortured me to the point of having to reach for a bag of something, or at least a joint. I hadn’t realised I’d had some kind of anxiety about losing that dream until a new dream had come along.
Now, all I could think about was that fucking blue house on that freezing cold beachfront. That raging fire in that old English country pub as we sat there in the quiet of our lives, sipping wine and sharing stories. All I could wish for was her yellow house, not far from my blue, and the way her crisp, white, pure cotton sheets felt against my back as I held her thighs and watched her riding me from above.
“Despite what everyone says, you can have it all, you know, Rhett,” Hawk said in a whisper as he leaned in close to me. “If anyone can switch up the rules, it was always gonna be you.”
Before I could respond, he’d patted me on the shoulder and made his way up from the table to move to the back of the bus.
I was staring out of the window when Julia slid into his place, the two of us alone at this end of the bus as the rest occupied themselves at the back. She reached up to cup my cheeks in her hands and press her sweet lips to mine.
When she pulled away, the pad of her thumb trailed over my bottom lip, and she watched the action as it tugged my lip down before setting it free. “It’s time to go to work. The world wants a torn up, rotten rock star on that stage. A bad boy. Not a man dressed up in love. Remember that when you’re out there.”
“Why can’t I be both?” I scowled.
“Both of what?”
“Why can’t I be the bad boy rock star, and the man dressed up in love.”
“I’m not even sure how that would look.”
I searched her eyes. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
* * *
“How’s it going tonight, Edinbuuuurgh?”
The crowd roared to life in front of me as the rain fell from the dark sky above.
Presley was rocking out a beat behind me. Hawk, Coops, and Big D got to work, walking the main stage while I headed down the T-section and into the crowds—my favourite place to be.
With the mic only a few inches from my mouth, I smirked out at the audience. The rain rolled off my tight leather trousers, and it clung to the black vest I was wearing. My ink was out, and the water dripped down my skin, and into the space under my armpits, cooling me down and soaking my stomach through.
“I said… how’s it going tonight, Edinburgh?”
I came to a stop at the end of the stage runway and snapped my feet out to stand there with my legs shoulder-width apart, and my chin raised proudly as I smiled from left to right and back again. A sea of music junkies stared back at me, but all I could see was silhouettes and bright, flashing lights as they tried to capture this memory of the band for a lifetime.
Goosebumps rippled over my skin.
It happened every time.
Any doubt I had about this life faded away the moment I got in front of the fans like this.
The longer I stood there assessing them, the louder their cheers grew. Presley built them up the way he always did, and the other guys supported him like only they knew how. Five men made up Youth Gone Wild. Each one so different from the next. Yet out here, like this, doing our thing… no other band was more in tune. I could throw myself out into the arms of the fans, and the four boys behind me would find a way to turn it into a song.
“I think some of you may already know this,” I said smoothly into the microphone, “but we are Youth Gone Wild.” The cheers erupted even louder, the applause and hollering deafening. “And we’re here tonight, at the one and only Encore! Festival, to give you guys a night to remember. What do you say we get started, huh?”
The stage lights flashed out to the audience, lighting them up, before the pinks turned to reds, then to purples and blues. Within a few seconds, the lights were rolling back to the stage, and I heard that first hit of the cymbal from Presley.
I began to sing.
Really fucking sing.
The internal push and pull within me came out in song like never before. Every lyric had meaning now, and when I closed my eyes to reach for the higher notes, I imagined Julia standing in front of me, silently challenging me to get higher.
That quirk of her eyebrows. Those pointed cheeks.
Damn pretty pink smirking lips.
Not even the beautiful women eyeing me up in the first few rows, making sexual promises with their teasing gazes, did anything for me.
We sang all the popular songs from our first album. Wylde had the crowd going crazy. Green, Green Eyes of Home. Denim-Covered Lover. They showed the souls of who we’d been as a band, sure… but not who we were now. Evolution happens quickly in music, and people like us are forced to grow quicker than the rest. We weren’t the same people we’d been a year ago.
I made sure to show everyone who’d bought a ticket how much we’d improved.
It was one of the strongest performances of our lives. Song after song caused the best uproars from the crowds. Time flew by as the rain poured down and the lights lit me up, turning me from the Billie Joe Armstrong wannabe of Cookham into the Rhett Ryan of Youth Gone Wild.
I didn’t want the night to end.
When I finished the penultimate song, I ran to the back of the stage and gestured for the guys to gather around Presley’s drum kit. The crowd behind us were screaming for more, cheering wildly, and proclaiming their love.
You had to give them an encore at Encore!
When Presley stood up over his kit and pulled the standing mic down, away from our voices so no one could hear, he leaned in towards me and the rest of the guys.
“Rhett, what’s going on?” He frowned. “We’ve got one more song.”
“I know, I know.” I grinned, gasping for air and pushing the soaking wet strands of hair back from my face. “I was wondering how you guys felt about mixing it up?”
“Now?” Hawk screeched.
Presley chucked his chin. “What you thinking?”
I glanced around each and every one of them. “Remember that song we tried out once? The one about time. You think you can work that out off the cuff?”
“Fuck, man,” Big D hissed. “Do we have to do this tonight? Can’t we just play it safe?”
“When the fuck have we ever played it safe?”
He didn’t respond to that. None of them did. I threw my arms around Coops and Hawk’s shoulders while eyeing the other two.
“Come on, fuckers. Give me this, and I swear to Christ, I won’t ask anything of you again.”
Presley’s smile erupted. “Do it, man. Tear shit up.”
“Ah, Christ,” Hawk sighed.
“Here goes nothing,” grumbled Big D.
“I knew I should have become a science teacher,” Coops muttered before turning his back on us.
I focused on Presley, whose toothy, mischievous grin matched my own. I held out my hand, and he slapped his to it before he squeezed it tight and gave it a subtle shake.
“Be good out there, Ryan.”
“It’s the only mode I have.”
With a laugh, Presley brought his standing mic back to his lips and
sat back on his stool while the others worked out the chords on their guitars.
“Hey, Encore! How’s shit treatin’ you?” Presley asked smoothly. “We have a brief interlude while the lead singer gets his balls readjusted. Are you ready for more?”
As always, the ladies in the park went insane for him. That suited me just fine. I strutted to the side of the stage, where Julia stood with a clipboard in her hand and a scowl on her face as she looked down the setlist in confusion.
“Don’t bother trying to figure out what’s going on,” I warned as I came to a stop in front of her. “Give me your hand.”
She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak—to no doubt argue—before she cautiously reached out to take my hand and drop her clipboard to the floor.
“That was easier than I thought it would be.” Her trust meant everything, and it showed in my shit-eating grin.
Walking backwards, I slowly guided her out onto the stage.
The crowd quietened somewhat, even though a few began to cheer louder the second they saw Julia walking out there. Sure, she’d seen this viewpoint from the side of the stage a hundred times over. Sure, she’d stood in the middle of it before the shows during soundcheck, but Jules had never seen it alive like this. Where you’re standing on a platform in the middle of a moving, living beat. Where you can feel the quake of the earth around you as the dancers danced and the singers sang. When you feel the screams of your fans penetrating your skin.
Jules turned towards the noise, and her lips parted as she took it all in.
I guided her to the middle of the stage, just in front of Presley, before I brought the microphone to my mouth and kept my eyes on her.
“Baby,” I said into the mic with a smile on my face. The noise from the crowd grew in a second.
Her head slowly turned back to me, and my super cool-looking Jules seemed, for the very first time, intimidated.
“Rhett,” she whispered, my name from her lips making my chest pinch tight.
“Hey.” I beamed, talking to her like no one else was there. “You doing okay? Wait. Don’t answer that.” I squeezed her hand. “We both know you’re hating this, but some things need to be done.” I glanced at the audience briefly. “This woman does not like feeling out of control.” They laughed, and I turned back to Jules. “And she’s been feeling a lot of that lately because she stupidly went ahead and fell in love with me.”
