Goode To Be Bad

by Jasinda Wilder

  “Mick, I want you to check out this video we made up in Alaska. Give you a little taste of what’s coming for the band.”

  “Oh shit. Really?” I watched the video along with Myles and Mick. “You made a video?”

  “When Corin realized several people had been recording our jam sessions, he got them to send in all the footage, then stitched it together into video, and tracked the song over it. Fuckin’ genius.”

  “It’s…live? Like, it’s out there?” I felt faint.

  He pointed at the screen. “Went live on YouTube this morning, and it’s got six million hits already.”

  “Fuck.” I sat back, rubbing my face. “Six million?” I couldn’t quite believe it.

  Myles laughed. “It’ll have a hundred million by tonight, guaranteed. Especially once I post it on my socials. It hasn’t even hit any of the big sites, yet. Once it does, watch out. My fans have been after me for years to get Crow on something. I’m always talking about how talented he is, but the reclusive fucker has been impossible about it until now. He’d never go on stage with me, but this is a good compromise.” He grinned at me. “The thing that really makes this video, though, is you, Lex. Straight fuckin’ fire.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t ready for that.”

  He chuckled. “You never are. You helped make the album, you knew I was publishing it.”

  “Yeah, but that was just my name and voice as a session player. Not my face.”

  He held my hand. “Believe me, you’re ready. This is just the beginning for you.”

  “Myles, until this week I’ve never played in front of anyone, ever.”

  “I know this week was a bit of a trial by fire. Now you just jump in and trust me.”

  “Jump in?”

  “And trust me.”

  I swallowed. “Myles, I don’t know.”

  “Lexie, I do.” He squeezed my hand. “The future is now, and you’re it.”

  “That is crazy.”

  “Not really.” He laughed. “Just trust me in this. I won’t let you down.”

  “I’ll try.” I knew he had plans, and if I knew what they were, I’d be shared shitless. So I didn’t ask, but I had to admit I was just a little bit excited.

  Tokyo was nuts. Busy, crowded, loud and super fun, and the people were so polite. We spent two days just seeing the sights—usually through the tinted windows of a limo; being whisked from place to place, always entering through the back entrance. Seemed like a lot drama to me, but Myles took it seriously. We ate in fancy restaurants and simple little holes-in-the-wall, went to shows, nightclubs, and one night Myles even got me drunk enough on sake to do karaoke, which he then recorded and put up on his socials. Suddenly I had my own following and hashtag, and he showed me thousands of comments of people wanting to know who I was, and if I was going to be on the tour. Thousands of comments––I could barely get my mind around it.

  He scrolled through them, and had to scroll for what seemed like forever, just so I could see how many there were.

  It didn’t seem real.

  I didn’t really believe it.

  And then Canaan and Corin sent over another video, edited from more of the same footage, and this one was just Myles and me in a duet, with footage of us together. A lot of the footage was from when we did the duets at Badd Kitty. The video racked up hundreds of views within seconds of going live, millions within hours, and then it got picked up and spread around. The number of people who had seen it was higher than I could fathom.

  The count was more than most of Myles’s band videos, including the ones he had Grammys for.

  This was crazy…and exciting all at the same time.

  But I couldn’t believe this was because of me––it didn’t seem real. Or right. I was no one. I’d done nothing. Sang a few songs into a mic, in a little studio in Alaska.

  And now?

  #Lexie&Myles was trending on Twitter.

  Then, our two days of playtime in Tokyo was over. We showed up at the venue—the Tokyo Dome, a place with fifty thousand seats. Empty, for now. The stage was still being set up—lights, sound, effects––it was a whirlwind of activity. Once the sound was up, Myles and the guys settled into a sound check, found their marks on the stage, and then went through their set list.

  The setup and rehearsals took a few days, but it was becoming a familiar routine for me—I’d sit side-stage, a bottle of water near me, watching the techs bustle and the guys play, stopping as they missed a note or messed up a chord or forgot a lyric. The day before the show, they went through the entire set from start to finish in a full dress rehearsal, necessary after more than two months off, to make sure the show went off without a hitch.

  The last night, before the big show the next day, after their rehearsal, Myles sat down with me at the side of the stage.

  He was sweaty from jumping around the stage, shirtless, a towel around his neck, chugging a bottle of water. “Hey, you.”

  “Hey yourself,” I said. “You guys look and sound great.”

  “We’re all right,” he said. “A little rusty. We’ll do a quick run-through tomorrow, and we’ll have it down by then.” He winked at me. “You know who looks great? You.”

  I snorted. “Quit winking. It’s smarmy and stupid.” He was quiet, and I knew he had something to say. I poked his ribs. “Well? Out with it.”

  “I want you to do something for me.”

  “No promises. But what?”

  “Practice some songs. Your own. Your favorites. The ones that really show the world who you are. Your best songs.”

  “My songs, like my own personal ones?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He just stared. “You know.”

  “I’m not going on stage with you.”

  He chugged more water. “You are.”

  “I can’t play in front of fifty thousand people, Myles.”

  “You can.”

  “I’ll suck.”

  “You won’t,” he said with utter confidence. Not a shred of doubt in him.

  “I’ll mess up.”

  “They won’t know.”

  “I’ll embarrass you.”

  “Never.”

  “Myles, I can’t.”

  “Lexie, you can.” He crumpled the plastic bottle, twisted the top back on to suction it closed, and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. He turned to face me, and took my hands. “Listen to me, Alexandra.”

  “The full name, is it?” I went for breezy, came off snarky.

  “Eyes.”

  I begrudgingly met his gaze. “What, Myles?”

  “I believe in you.”

  I swallowed hard. “Okay.”

  “Hear me. Don’t look away. Don’t give me fuckin’ attitude.” He was serious, harsh. “I—believe—in you.”

  I blinked, my eyes were wet with tears. “Please stop.”

  “You need to hear it. Know it. I believe in you.” He gestured—Jupiter, Brand, and Zan were standing, watching, listening. “They believe in you.”

  “Sure as fuck,” Jupiter said. “You’re the real deal, Lex.”

  “We’re with you all the way,” Zan said.

  Brand: “Word.”

  I shook my head. “Thanks, guys, but…”

  “But nothing. Has anyone ever said that to you? Anyone ever make you believe it?” He held up his phone. “Believe the millions of views your two videos have gotten in under a week. Nobody even really knows who you are, yet. Those numbers are organic. They are all yours. My reach, sure, but it’s you. They want you.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t, Myles, I’m too scared.”

  “You can.” He touched my chin, so I had to look at him. “I’ll be right there with you, every single moment. Promise, my heart to yours.”

  “Why are you forcing this?” I asked, my voice raspy.

  “Because you’ll never jump if I don’t push you. The only way you’ll ever fly is if I push you out of the nest, because I know yo
u can fly.” He cupped my jaw, his smile so tender it cut like a razor to my heart. “Because I believe in you.”

  “Dammit,” I whispered. I shot to my feet and did what I always did—I ran.

  He let me go. I only went as far as the limo, because I’d learned my lesson about running off in strange places—no Bast to rescue me here. I sat in the limo and let myself cry for a few minutes. I’d been keeping it pent up for too long, and it had to come out.

  He believed in me? How could he? Why? I didn’t deserve this.

  All those silly dreams as a girl, sitting in my room with my guitar or ukulele, playing my silly little songs about teenage crushes and heartbreak and loneliness and being misunderstood by the big, bad world.

  Those silly little dreams, the ones where I’d sing into my mirror, recording myself on Dad’s old boom box, and later on my computer, pretending I was singing for thousands of people, to a sold-out stadium. There’d be flashing lights and people screaming my name.

  I’d just wanted to be seen, back then.

  I didn’t know what fame was back then. Now, having been around Myles, I had a much clearer idea about what it meant for him, but shit, I had no idea what it meant for me. I’m about to find out, I think. I can feel that, and it’s terrifying.

  God, there are so many things to be scared of, and they’re all piling up and coming to a head.

  All those silly little dreams, crushed in a moment by a father’s careless words: “You’re just not talented enough, Lexie.”

  All those silly little dreams.

  And here was Myles North, superstar, top of any list of sexiest men alive, top of any list of most talented performers. Award winner. Showstopper. Globetrotting multi-millionaire.

  A man who kept his four Grammys in a box in a storage unit, because he cared more about playing music than he did anything else.

  Except for me.

  He believed in me.

  I couldn’t ignore that.

  But I wasn’t sure I could be what he wanted me to be.

  He wanted to love me.

  He wanted me to love him.

  There would be a moment, soon, when I’d have to make a choice—believe his words, or Dad’s.

  * * *

  You’re just not talented enough, Lexie.

  or

  I believe in you.

  * * *

  All those silly little dreams…

  About to come true.

  If I could find the courage.

  Myles

  Showtime.

  I was keyed up as fuck—feeling higher and wilder than if I’d bumped a couple lines. I hadn’t—I was stone sober.

  The dome was packed to capacity. House lights were low, house speakers playing modern country. The jabber of tens of thousands of voices overlapped in a million ways, and I knew from experience I wouldn’t have been able to make out a single voice or conversation even if they had been speaking English.

  I was jumping up and down, shaking my hands. My T-shirt was already damp and sticking to me, and I’d taken my hat off and put it on backward and forward a dozen times. Hands shaking. Knees shaking. Gut churning. Head spinning. Lyrics ran through my head, and I sang them as they occurred to me. Went through scales, up and down, tongue twisters.

  Then the music cut out. The stadium lights dimmed.

  Darkness covered everything. I heard Jupiter move, saw his broad outline swagger to his set, straddle the stool. Twirl his sticks.

  “Ready boys?” he called.

  Brand and Zan were there, plugging in. “Ready,” they both called.

  “Myles?”

  I let out a breath. Glanced at Lexie, standing next to me. “Kiss me for luck.”

  She clutched me by the shirt, yanked me to her, and kissed the jitters right out of me. “Kill ’em.”

  And shoved me toward the stage.

  God, she looked hot. Booty shorts—cut-off denim, white fringes, ripped back pockets, just barely cupping the lower edge of her perfect ass. Knee-high cowboy boots, red leather, glittery, pointy toed. White button-down tied under her boobs, cinched tight to keep them in, mostly unbuttoned. Hair swept to one side, minimal makeup.

  Fucking perfect.

  She had her guitar and ukulele, and I’d heard her in the hotel room, all night and all day, going over songs. In the bathroom, alone. Refusing to let me be with her as she played.

  “Myles?” Jupiter again, voice pitched low. “They’re going nuts, bud.”

  I leaned over and kissed her once more. Grinned at her, and then snatched the cordless mic from the stagehand, the guitar from the new tech…whose name eluded me in the adrenaline of the moment. Good kid, though. Swung it by its strap around my shoulder, headstock pointing down and jogged out on stage.

  “Hit it, Jupe.”

  As practiced: a full half a dozen beats, BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM…

  And then the lights kicked on, brilliant and blinding, and Zan and Brand hit the huge opening lick of “Hookups and Hangovers” and the crowd, already howling and clapping and whistling, erupted to a deafening roar. I stood at the very front and center of the stage, arms raised overhead, a huge grin on my face—the one I thought of as my show-biz grin, million watts, the one that had landed me on magazine covers and lured probably way too many women into my bed. Brand and Zan twisted out the opening—Zan’s six string electric howling as he trotted his fingers through a complicated hammer-on series of notes, Brand with his huge bass thumping and growling. And then they silenced their strings and Jupiter kicked out the beat, a steady pound on his bass drum and a quick clacking tapping interlaced rhythm of his sticks on the snares and snare rim. I stomped my foot on the stage in front of the mic, hands clapping over my head, and within a beat the crowd was stomping and clapping with me.

  Stood up close to the tilted-down mic, swung my guitar around and led us back into the melody as I sang and the crowd sang with me, and we went through it all again because they like short verses and catchy choruses they can sing along to.

  And then it was muscle memory and autopilot, feeling alive as you only can on stage in front of tens of thousands of people, fingers stinging from the strings and sweat pouring down, ears ringing, my whole body shaking with the adrenaline rush of performance.

  Song after song, all the hits, the crowd singing along in a strange mixture of English and Japanese. Having performed here a few times already, I knew a few phrases in Japanese, learned after laborious repetition, and I sprinkled them throughout the performance—“thank you, Tokyo!” and “are you having a great time?”, and things like that. I wasn’t one for talking to the crowd all that much, especially now that Crow had retired as my tech. I missed that fucker.

  All of a sudden it was the end of the set, an hour and a half gone in the blink of an eye. I was saying goodbye and thank you in English and Japanese, trotting off stage with my guitar in hand, the guys joining me just off-stage. We were all sweating like pigs, but as we hit the wings we all crashed together in a sweaty group man hug of laughter and back slapping. The lights were still down, the sound system silent, and the crowd was more deafening than ever, demanding an encore.

  Best fucking feeling in the world, that—crushing a set and being begged for more.

  We let ’em howl for a few minutes, and then we four butted our heads together, arms around shoulders.

  “Three-song encore, boys,” I said. “‘Heaven Is You’, ‘Claim to Fame’, and ‘This Ain’t a Breakup’.” I grinned at them each in turn. “And then I drag Lexie on stage.”

  “Hell fuckin’ yeah,” Jupiter said. “Just you two?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “You guys okay with that?”

  Brand and Zan were enthusiastically all right with sharing the encore with Lexie.

  We jogged on stage in the darkness, finding our marks via the glow-in-the-dark taped X on the floor. “Heaven Is You” started with a bold, thunderous bass solo from Brand, and then we all kicked in at once as the lights came on and
deafening applause became ear-piercing cheers of approval at our choice of encore opener. All too soon we’d shredded through our three songs, and the lights stayed on as the boys trooped off stage, Jupe throwing spare drumsticks out into the crowd, some close and some as far back as he could fling them, Brand and Zan tossing picks to the front rows. I stayed on stage and handed my Fender to Alyn—the new tech whose name I was still learning—and accepted, not Betty-Lou, this time, but the guitar I’d named Na’ura, after Crow’s Mom.

  The crowd, sensing something different than my usual show ending, settled and sat, silent.

  I gestured at the cameraman, and he scuttled closer. “Get a good shot of my new guitar,” I said into the mic; I glanced up at the side-screens to make sure he was getting a good close look at it. “Ain’t she a beaut? She’s named Na’ura. All of you remember my guitar tech and best friend, Crow?”

  The crowd’s affirmation was loud and enthusiastic.

  “Well, he’s retired as my tech and taken on a new adventure.” I lifted the guitar. “Making these. Now this one here is a special piece—not only is it the first guitar he made, it was the last one ever made by his grandfather, River Dog who, if you know anything about custom acoustic guitars, was the maker of some of the hardest to get and sought after customs in the world. And this is the grand prize. He died before he could finish it, and Crow, my brother in every way except blood relation, finished it and gave it to me. You guys here in beautiful Tokyo, Japan are the first audience in the whole wide world to hear me play it.”

  Alyn brought me a stool and a sound tech brought out a second mic for the guitar—it was a classical acoustic, no amplification. I settled on the stool, snugged Na’ura on my knee, and finger-picked a melody that the crowd soon recognized as the opening to “Sing You Home,” the first slow ballad I put out, and the only one to really ever make any waves, chart wise.

  “Ya’ll know this one,” I said. “Sing along.”

  I moved through the song, eyes closed, playing from the soul.