Finding Rhythm

by Lara Ward Cosio

  It wasn’t enough sleep, though, and Martin groaned at the persistent knock on his door in the morning. When he realized it wasn’t going to go away, he got up and shuffled heavily to the door, swinging it open angrily.

  Ashley stood there, geared up in workout clothes and a half-smile.

  “Looks like you already have the blood flowing,” she said, glancing at the morning wood pressing against his black boxer briefs.

  Jesus, what was going on? Had she just openly checked out his hard-on and commented on it? He closed the door, leaving only two inches to see her. “What are you doing here?” he asked, annoyed at being woken and at her seeing him exposed like this.

  “I said we’d do another workout, didn’t I?” She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head toward the elevator banks. “I’ll give you five minutes to change.”

  “Em, no, but thanks very much for the offer,” he said. Celia would murder him if she knew he was standing in only his underwear in front of this gorgeous woman.

  “Martin, come on out and play. I promise, I know how to make it feel like fun and not work, okay?”

  Was it just him, or did she only seem to speak in innuendos? He had a vision of grabbing her by the arm, pulling into his room, and covering her mouth with his. He let the door fall open along with his fantasy.

  But then she reached her hand inside the doorway and pinched an inch of his soft belly, and he recoiled, losing all desire.

  “We can tighten this up really quickly. Just give me a chance,” she said.

  Now this was just embarrassing. And it meant that this hot girl’s only intention was of making him her pet project.

  “I owe you for the way you stuck up for me,” she said. “And I really think you could have a killer body. I’d love to help you get it.”

  The underlying flirt in her voice was seductive—and contradicted the idea that her interest was purely platonic. He ignored the warning bells in his head. Instead, he convinced himself he could have an innocuous client-trainer relationship with Ashley. Because he thought it was finally time to give getting in shape a shot. And because he liked the vague sense of danger being alone with her gave him.

  “I’ll be dressed in a minute,” he told her.

  That leg of Rogue’s tour would include dates in India, Thailand, South Korea, and Japan. It would also be a time of extreme change—both for Martin’s physique and for his outlook on life. Ashley was responsible for both.

  Ashley quickly established a routine that had Martin working out in the mornings and again in the afternoon before soundcheck. She had been right about making it not feel like work, as she pushed him through a rapid-fire boot-camp-style cycle in the mornings and incorporated hikes, swimming, soccer drills, and even one-on-one basketball in the afternoon sessions.

  She also kept him preoccupied by peppering the workouts with conversation that began with the usual casual banter of getting to know him, including learning about his wife and kids. Their talks soon veered into things he hadn’t examined in years. They were simple things at the start, like why did he stay so close to Shay’s drum kit on stage? Why didn’t he make a more aggressive presence? Why did he dress and wear his hair so blandly? Was he trying to blend in and let everyone else stand out? Why did he let his bandmates, his so-called friends, make him the butt of jokes? He didn’t have any real explanation for those questions, other than that was how it had always been. But she didn’t let him off the hook that easily, and they spent hours after working out talking things through.

  It was when the band was taking a planned mini-holiday at a remote and picturesque spot in southern Thailand after their Bangkok show that she delved deeper, asking him about his marriage and whether he was happy.

  “Of course I am,” he said reflexively.

  The group had taken over the Ammatara Pura Pool Villas. It was a luxurious, independently owned and operated hotel located on a white sand beach, with each villa boasting its own small pool. Martin was tempted to linger in the heat and drink the day away, but Ashley insisted he keep to his workout schedule.

  To change things up for that afternoon’s workout, she’d secured a two-person kayak and had Martin do all the rowing as they glided over the crystal clear aquamarine water. Just when he didn’t think the burning muscles of his arms could take it any longer, she called for him to take a break. And then she asked that question about his marriage.

  They sat in the yellow kayak on the calm blue-green sea far from the shore, passing a water bottle between them. The villas looked small in the distance and they could see fish swimming below them. The humidity and warm sun was offset by a gentle breeze. It was an exceptional place to spend a few days. Jessica had flown in from America to be with Shay for three days. Felicity, Sophie, and Daisy had come from Dublin. Martin’s wife and kids wouldn’t make it. The boys were in school. Even so, Celia wouldn’t have made the trip. She had come to dislike long-distance travel.

  Martin would have normally used the time off to float in the water and nap, but he had a feeling Ashley was going to keep pushing him out of his comfort zone, starting with the question about his marriage. He hadn’t shared anything personal with her about Celia, preferring not to, especially given the fact that he and Ashley had been carrying on some kind of mild flirtation ever since she licked her lips and suggested exertion felt good.

  “You and your wife have been together for a long time?” Ashley asked.

  “Met her when I was nineteen. Got married less than two years later. So about thirteen years over all.”

  “Have you grown together, then? Because a nineteen year old isn’t done growing.”

  “We . . . yeah. We’re good.”

  “What common interests do you share?”

  “Our boys. We’re mad about our kids.”

  Ashley nodded, conceding the importance of this. But then asked, “What else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What else do you have in common? Is she into music? Anything else you do together?”

  “Well, with the boys, she doesn’t travel obviously. But she appreciates our sound.”

  “And? What do you guys do together? Do you and she ever go out? Go dancing? Go to the movies? Go drinking? Go to an art gallery? Go for a walk in the park and just talk?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know,” he said, overwhelmed by her suggestions. Ashley was pointing out all the things he and Celia could do that might enrich their marriage. But they did none of those things. Celia wasn’t a big socializer and had never been the type to ask for “date nights.” Once married, they had settled into the predictable, sedate lifestyle they still led today. “She’s a big church-goer, so there’s that. We’ll have my sisters over for holidays and the like.”

  “Do you have a good sex life?”

  He laughed at the intrusive question, but she was silent, waiting for an answer. “None of your business,” he told her.

  “I’m just trying to understand the things that keep you with someone that long.”

  “It’s commitment, Ashley. Haven’t you ever been in a long-term relationship?”

  “I was married once. For two years. When it went bad, the sex went with it.”

  “Too bad for you,” he muttered.

  “I think what’s too bad for you is that you are a rock star and you’re in a sexless marriage.”

  He looked at her, unable to reply. It was incomprehensible to him that she would know such a thing.

  “Come on, you react like a teenager around me. I’ve seen how easily you get turned on,” she said with a gentle smile.

  So, she knew the effect she’d had on him since that first morning in the gym. Big deal. He wasn’t about to act on it. He replied with the only thing he could think of: “I’m a man. It’s just a simple reaction.”

  “I like it, actually. I’m really flattered.” She paused long enough to make him feel even more uncomfortable. “But I’m pretty sure you react that way because you are the most celibate rock star I’ve
ever seen.”

  “I’m not celibate.” He didn’t know why it was so important to stress this to her. Maybe because he sensed a suggestion in her words that she could remedy his situation.

  She held up her hands defensively, but her crooked smile was back. “Okay, if you say so.”

  “I do. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Looking out at the water, he fixated on a bird in the distance as it skimmed just above the surface. He didn’t like this feeling. It was that she knew this intimate thing about him and he knew nothing about her in return. She owed him.

  “I may be celibate on tour because my wife isn’t around,” he said, “but you’re in the same situation with no one here with you, amn’t I right?” At the very least, they could share the same plight of not having someone to be with.

  “Not exactly,” she replied.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I think it’s a good thing to act on your urges.”

  He squinted at her and shook his head, waiting for more of an explanation.

  “If I feel like having sex, I have sex,” she said without shame.

  “With who?” It wasn’t any of his business but she had started this conversation, maybe even purposefully led him to this point. And he was definitely interested in what her answer might be.

  She shrugged. “Whoever turns me on. Some of the crew guys are pretty hot. Sometimes it’s whoever I meet during the tour stops.”

  Martin was fascinated by her open sexuality. It was the exact opposite of what he was used to with Celia, who disdained talk of sex. Now he wanted to know how far Ashley would go with sharing this side of herself with him.

  “When was the last time you had sex?” he asked.

  Licking her lips, she made a show of thinking. “Yesterday afternoon.”

  He laughed out loud but soon realized she was serious. “Oh, I see.”

  “I’ve shocked you.”

  She had, but she had also turned him on. The thought of her writhing naked with a man flashed through his mind before he realized he had conjured up himself as the man in his vision.

  He wasn’t sure what else to say. But she was watching him with amusement, clearly enjoying the effect she was once more having on him as he envisioned her sexual escapades.

  “Was it anyone I know?” he asked.

  That crooked smile came to her lips again. “I’ll never tell,” she said. “I’m very good at being discreet. In case you wondered.”

  The implication was clear enough for him. Their harmless flirting had just crossed into something more dangerous.

  “We should head back,” he said.

  “Whatever you want. The choice is yours.”

  “Fuck’s sake,” he mumbled. He chose to turn back. The exercise of rowing forcefully through the water was a good release for the time being.

  It was that conversation that started a pattern of Ashley over-sharing intimate details. Martin told himself that this meant they were friends, because she told him things about being with other men. He wouldn’t realize until much later that it was a contrived method to draw him in. It was a power trip to her, but he was quickly hooked by the titillation she offered. He was a man, after all, simply reacting to the stimuli in front of him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ashley had kept challenging Martin—both with line-crossing flirtation and with getting him to question his status quo. It was when they were passing time between the soundcheck and the show at the Seoul Olympic Stadium in South Korea that Ashley brought forth memories of the kind of person he used to be.

  “What were you like as a teenager?” she asked.

  “As a teenager? I dunno. Just like any lad, I suppose.”

  “Really? Come on, Martin, give it some thought.”

  He did what he was told, diving deep into his memory. “Well, I suppose you could say there were two versions of me. Pre-Gavin and Post-Gavin,” he said.

  Intrigued, she gave him a crooked smile. “Do tell.”

  “I knew of Gavin before I was part of his group of friends. Everyone knew Gavin. He was legend. He and Shay would nick cars and go joy-riding. He and Conor would write songs on guitar. He had girls chasing after him. He was funny and cooler than cool,” he recalled with a far-away smile. “Me, I was just phoning it in with school. Wasn’t interested. Had a few friends I got on with because of our mutual love for Doctor Who, but we were the sort to just keep our heads down mostly.”

  “What a nerd,” she teased.

  “Do not disparage the good Doctor,” Martin told her, mostly serious.

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Then . . . one day when I was about fourteen, Gav was with this crowd in the hallway at school, the center of it all as usual. I was just killing time, not eager to get to class, so I was sort of half-listening to him go on about how he had snuck out over the weekend and talked his way into some club without paying the door charge. Oddly enough, I had been there, too—with my oldest sister as a sort of chaperone on her date. My parents wouldn’t let her go unless I was there. There wasn’t much to the place itself, but they had a DJ spinning some interesting stuff. That’s what Gav was going on about, the songs he’d heard. But he got stuck trying to remember the name of one band in particular. Of course, no one could help him out, so he looks dead at me and says, ‘Marty,’—bleeding Marty as if we were the best of pals—‘what’s the band that sings that tune that goes ‘I never thought you’d be a junkie because heroin is so passé?’”

  “That sounds pretty random,” Ashley said with a laugh. “Did you know it?”

  “I did. The name stuck with me, I guess because it was so odd. I told Gavin it was the Dandy Warhols. Turned out, it was almost like a test I didn’t know I was taking. And I passed it with high fucking marks because after that day, Gavin made sure I was a part of his group of friends. It was a whole different world from what I’d had before. I was always surrounded by friends, always sneaking out at night with Gav to hear DJs and local bands, always at Conor’s house listening to new music. It was the life. I would have been happy if we’d just kept on with that even after we got older and got normal jobs. But Gav had bigger plans. I think he handpicked us all to be in his band. I could see why Conor and Shay made sense, but I never knew why he wanted me to be a part of it.”

  “You do that a lot,” Ashley said.

  “Do what?”

  “Sell yourself short. You’re a really good bass player.”

  He shrugged. “I’m good enough.”

  “Oh my god, I feel like shaking you.” She laughed, incredulous. “You are a major part of why Rogue is what it is.”

  “Thanks, Ash, but it’s not really true. The basslines you and everyone love so much from our biggest songs—either Shay or Gavin came up with them. I just do as I’m told.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “If that’s true, then maybe Gavin did pick you for a reason.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s a really big personality. He probably didn’t want any competition. Nice to have someone that will just show up and do the job. Less of a threat.”

  “Aye, it’s not like that. He’s my mate.”

  She cocked her head. “You’re sure? I mean, what do you think would happen if you all of sudden had your own contributions to make? How do you think he would take that? Would he welcome it? Or put you back in your place?”

  “You don’t know him,” Martin said reflexively.

  But the more thought he gave it, the more he really wondered. That was Ashley’s power. She was able to get him to examine things he had never thought twice about before. It was an awakening after so many years of passivity.

  She motivated him to examine and test the boundaries of his life, including at that night’s show. A third of the way into the concert, he deviated from his usual part in the interlude they often used to reset from the heavy-hitting opening and segue into a couple mellower songs. The usual pattern was
that he would riff on the bass, then Shay would have a drum solo, followed by Conor freestyling. The three of them would then transition to the next song. Martin always played the same unremarkable chords, sticking to his spot to the side of Shay’s drum kit. But on this night, Ashley’s words were still echoing in his head and he found himself not only moving to the front center of the stage, but playing something new, funky, and crowd-pleasing. The audience found the rhythm with him, clapping along, and he extended his bit to three times longer than he would have normally played.

  He might have even kept going if Shay hadn’t pounded on the bass drum, forcing his way into the spotlight. Nonetheless, he was exhilarated by the experience. It made him see performing in a different way. He felt engaged, rather than just the often overlooked fourth member of the group.

  The stunt did not go unnoticed by the rest of the band, but it was Gavin’s reaction that made Martin cringe.

  “Well, how about that bass playing from our Marty?” Gavin said and the crowd roared in approval. “Seems he’s discovering a new side to himself, yeah? But let’s keep it in line for this next one, shall we?” He winked at Martin as the audience laughed and clapped.

  Martin had gone from a feeling of freedom to red-cheeked embarrassment. He retreated to his usual spot near Shay and played the rest of the show in the practiced manner he was accustomed to doing. But the episode stuck with him, and so when Ashley continued to push him into challenging other aspects of his life and worldview, he was increasingly receptive.