by Cherrie Lynn
“In their natural habitat,” he muttered. “There isn’t much I can do about it. It has settled down a lot but I do have a bandmate who’s newly single.”
“Like, two groupies.”
He only laughed. “Yeah.”
“You’re single too,” she pointed out.
To her surprise, he sat down across from her, crossing one ankle over his knee as if to have a real conversation with her. “Yeah, but I’ve got my kids here. Kinda hard to think of myself as single.” His dark head turned toward the back, where she could hear that Seger and Dylan had already gotten into the games. Iris found herself rather in love with the way he looked when he talked about them.
Couldn’t really hate on a man like that, regardless of the way he felt about her. The way he felt about her didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. She would cling to that.
“So how does this work?” she asked. “Do you let them watch the shows?”
“Definitely. You can stay with them side stage if you want.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t it . . . loud?”
“Fuck yeah, it’s loud. We have ear plugs they can wear.”
“I might want some too.”
One corner of his mouth tugged downward in mild exasperation. “It’s not that loud. Unless you’re a wuss.”
“I’m a total wuss.” Admitting that probably wasn’t the smartest thing, given his challenge yesterday. Oh well. Let him be off his guard; it might give her an advantage.
Sighing, he absently ran both hands back through his shoulder-length black hair, smoothing it from his high, handsome brow and securing it at his nape. She watched his movements with a fascination she couldn’t exactly identify—she only knew she wondered how soft his hair was to touch, and she wondered what was going on behind those soulful green eyes.
“Do you still get nervous?” she asked. “Opening night, and all?”
He let his arms fall to the cushions on either side, his task completed. “Shit usually goes wrong on opening night. There’ll be kinks to iron out. I dread that part. And yeah, even after all these years I get nervous. Once I’m out there, I’m all right. But with live shows, nothing is perfect, and the fans are stoked just to be there. I could drop an entire verse and no one would notice. So as long as I don’t trip and bust my ass or anything like that—which has happened before—I consider it a success.”
“Oh no.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m sure if you dig deep enough on YouTube, it’s out there.”
“That has to be hard. It’s like you’re no longer performing only for the crowd you have, but for the entire world.”
“Exactly. Sometimes we debut a new song at a live show. By the next night, the next city, the crowd already knows the lyrics. It’s wild.”
It pleased her that they agreed on something. Maybe at the very least, they could be allies if she kept trying to build this relationship brick by brick. Eli pulled his cell phone out and checked the time, uncrossing one ankle to cross the other. Now that Iris was here and everything appeared okay, her nerves had settled somewhat, and her stomach felt hollow. At that moment, it decided to get her attention and growled. “You mentioned catering?” she asked him. “Or do you keep snacks on the bus?”
“It’s pretty well stocked. Look around, and if there’s anything else you want, make me a list. Or I’ll take you inside or send someone to get whatever you need. Up to you.”
She wasn’t too sure she was ready to go inside yet. It was nice here on the bus, the hum of the idling engines, the protection from prying eyes. Those women out there had . . . scared her. Iris was twenty-six, but next to them she felt old and frumpy.
After working for Heidi these past few years, she supposed she ought to be used to that feeling, at least the frumpy part. Heidi wasn’t one to use her beauty as a weapon, though. She was beautiful, that was the simple fact of the matter. The women here were on a mission. One of them, the brunette, had looked at Iris and smirked. She was sure of it. This was a competition for them, a game.
“I think I’m okay here for now,” she told Eli. “I’m not picky. I’ll find something.” How many of them have won that game with him?
He planted both feet and stretched his tall figure upward. God, he smells good. It was the faintest whiff that reached her every time he moved, darkly sweet and mysterious. She wished she could shove her face into his neck and inhale her fill.
Whoa. Down girl.
Without further comment to her, he strode to the back and called to his boys, asking if they were hungry. To that, he got a yes and a no. Seger ate like a horse while Dylan ate like a bird, so she’d known what their answers would be as soon as their dad asked.
While he took the kids inside the arena—Dylan protesting loudly about leaving their game—Iris found where they’d chosen to sleep and picked out a bunk of her own: first one to the left, on the bottom. She put her things there for now, observing that the space had lighting and even a small TV, sheltered from the rest of the bus by a thick curtain. It was adequate, but the thought of sleeping there while hurtling down the highway sparked her paranoia. It might rock her to sleep, but she also couldn’t help imagining the terror of waking up to tumbling down a ravine or something.
Pulling the curtain closed and standing straight again, she rubbed her arms in the chill air and glanced around. Eli must like it cool in here. Even beneath her cardigan she had gooseflesh. Morbid curiosity getting the better of her, she stepped toward the back of the bus, and the area where the rock star slept.
King sized mattress, the bedding rumpled where the boys had been wallowing. Huge TV. The same starry lighting and edgy black and ivory decor as the rest of the bus, only . . . Mirrors. Wherever there was a wall, there was a mirror, wherever it would fit, surrounding the bed on all sides. Everywhere she looked, her own reflection looked back at her. Whatever Elijah got up to back here, he liked to watch himself doing it from all angles. Or liked watching it being done to him.
The hair prickled at the nape of her neck, and though she blamed it on the air conditioning, that didn’t explain the flush creeping up her neck and cheeks, which the mirrors threw back at her with brutal honesty. She pulled her cardigan tighter around her, her nipples chafing against the padding of her bra.
Don’t go there, she begged herself, but she had little choice in the matter. In her mind, he was stretched out among those messy sheets, that lean, inked body naked and sweaty beneath a female form that would probably resemble one of those Iris had seen outside.
It was the briefest of flashes, there and gone again, and it made her flee the room in near panic. What was she thinking? She shouldn’t be invading his space like that, anyway; it was no business of hers what the man did in his own bed, even if Heidi wanted to make it so.
Iris feared that was one thing she simply couldn’t do.
Feeling icky and suddenly overheated even in the frigid air, she wondered if she might be coming down with something. That was the last thing she needed, but given the stress of this entire situation, it wouldn’t surprise her in the least. Her immune system must be running at an all-time low. The first thing on her grocery list for Eli would be fresh fruit and veggies—she wasn’t much of a stickler on nutrition, but that was something she believed in having on hand at all times. Naturally, she didn’t find so much as a banana as she searched the kitchenette, but there was orange juice in the fridge. She found a glass and poured some, downing it in only a few gulps as much for the vitamin C as to cool herself down.
What was wrong with her?
Seven
When he brought the boys back to the bus, Eli handed her an access-all-areas laminate on a lanyard. Iris smirked as she examined it. “My best friend would have an absolute heart attack if she could see this right now,” she told him.
“Yeah? She’s a fan?”
“To say the least. I can’t tell her about it, of course, and I never would. But it would be so funny to see her face. She has a raging crush
on you.”
His grin was surprisingly sheepish for a man who should be used to women having raging crushes on him. “I’m sure we could arrange for her to get a souvenir somehow,” he said. “You’d have to come up with a believable story.”
“Well, she’s pretty smart and has a devious mind. She knows what I do, but not who I do it for. She would put two and two together and figure it out.”
“A devious mind, huh? Sounds like my kind of woman. Honestly, Iris, I couldn’t give a shit less about whatever NDA you have with Heidi. If you want to send a picture or whatever else to your friend, I really don’t care.”
“Heidi is my boss, though. I abide by her rules.” Yeah, that was probably the wrong thing to say, and his mouth formed a tight line. “I know Sara would never betray my confidence. I just . . .” She looked helplessly down at her laminate, which showed the artwork for Aesthetic Ruin’s latest album: a model-beautiful woman’s sultry face, appearing in the heights of ecstasy. But rivulets of blood streamed from her hair while her bright red lipstick and black mascara were smeared all over cheeks. It was rather gruesome.
“Always do exactly what she says?” Elijah finished for her, bringing her attention back to his face.
“Why would I not?”
“I guess that’s why she and I had our issues. I didn’t kiss her ass enough.”
Iris seethed. “I wouldn’t say that I—”
“You get in line and pucker up like everyone else, and you know it.”
“What about you? All these people here? What would you do if any one of them refused one of your commands?”
“They’re here to do what I say, but they’re not here to shape their entire lives around me. Once they’re off this tour, it’s not for me to say what they do. I don’t care if you want to tell your friend where you are.”
“It’s easier this way,” she insisted. “If I told Sara I was talking to you right now, she would drive me nuts. Besides, I’m on Heidi’s clock just like all those people out there are on yours. It’s fine, honestly. It’s no big deal.”
He shrugged, rubbing his stubbled jaw with one hand as he regarded her with those smoldering, strangely hued eyes. Iris shifted from one foot to the other as warmth spread up her cheeks. It hadn’t quite dissipated from earlier. “What?”
“Do you never live dangerously?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t. Why should I?”
“Because it’s fun sometimes. You might like it.”
“Not if it puts my livelihood and my future in jeopardy. Please don’t try to get me in trouble. I feel like that’s what you’re trying to do.” She couldn’t parse out what was going on behind his eyes, but it didn’t look well-intentioned. Then again, a guy like him could hardly ever look innocent.
He held both palms up in a “not me” gesture. “Hey, we had an agreement. I even shook on it. We’re all good.”
Yeah, she hardly believed that. His words brought another flash she didn’t want to entertain at the moment: the way his hand had felt wrapped around hers while the cool blue pool water dripped from them as they made that agreement. Warm, strong, lightly callused from all the instruments she knew he could play. His shades had been pushed to the top of his head, his eyes a prismatic, blazing green in the sunlight. She’d swallowed thickly, and he’d only released her hand after one too many seconds. By then, her blood had been racing.
“Thanks,” she said with a little more sarcasm than she’d intended.
“And as much as I’d love to stand here and bicker with you, I have to get ready. I’m taking the boys over with me. I just wanted to give you that in case you decide to come too.”
Did she want to? No. Never. She was scared to death. Heidi would be none the wiser if she remained on the bus for the next handful of hours, but Heidi had stipulated total surveillance, and Iris didn’t want to give Elijah one single reason to get her caught in a lie.
She looped the lanyard around her neck. “I’m coming,” she told him with far more confidence than she felt.
IN HIS LONG, STORIED career, he’d done it all. Leather and studs, even sequins on a dare. Face paint. Crazy masks. He liked to mix it up sometimes, but now in his old age, he would rather keep it simple. Black pants and a ratty black Nosferatu T-shirt did him just fine tonight. Leather made him sweat like a whore in church.
You’re only thirty-seven, asshole. That’s hardly old.
Goddamn, it felt like it. Tomorrow, his entire body would be on fire with the stress of performing, yet he’d have to go out there and do it all again for another sea of facelessness. He’d sprained ankles, thrown out his back and neck, busted his ass, busted his lip, damn near knocked himself out cold. More than once. He’d dragged himself straight from bed to perform before, so sick he could hardly see, and then gone straight back. He’d battled through hangovers so bad he thought his head was going to explode from the noise. The only time he’d ever canceled a gig was on doctor’s orders to rest his vocal cords, and when Heidi had called him frantically thirty minutes before they were scheduled to take the stage in Vegas to tell him her water had broken three weeks early with Dylan.
In all other instances, the show must go on, no matter how sick he was, no matter how depressed he was, no matter the circumstances of whatever funk he was in.
He was definitely in a funk. His boys were here to see him, though, so all should feel right in the world. At least that part of this felt whole.
Eli held no delusions that he still loved his ex-wife. He didn’t. What he had loved, and missed to this day, was being a part of something bigger. Lately being with Seger and Dylan only threw into sharp relief the fourth piece that was missing in his life. But it was difficult to find anything real when he was out here adrift in a sea of fake.
Iris stood in a shadowed corner, as she had since he’d led her into the building, her eyes somewhat large and fixed as pre-show chaos brewed around her. His bandmates stood with him, his brothers, the four men who had seen it all with him and stuck together through various addictions, in-fighting, divorces, kids, lawsuits, feuding wives, deaths, and everything else life had thrown at them on this crazy, awful, beautiful ride.
It was a miracle they were all still here and, for the most part, liked each other, with few exceptions.
Each of them knew his role and had his act down to a science. Eli thought they sounded better, tighter, than they ever had. He, on the other hand, sometimes listened to his vocal changes over the last few years and despaired. It wasn’t that he sounded worse, or even different. Not really.
He sounded tired.
Skinny arms looped around his hips and he looked down into the face of his younger son. “I love you, Dad,” Dylan said, those big innocent eyes seeming to see into his soul. He had to shout to be heard over White Zombie’s “Electric Head, Part 2” playing over the speakers, entertaining the masses while they waited for the headliner to go on.
“Love you back, buddy,” Eli shouted back, brushing his son’s hair back from his forehead. He knew these moments with him would soon be rare. Seger stood aloof to his right, arms crossed, watching the stage hands run to and fro with disinterest. Eli stuck his fist out. Seger glanced over and bumped it with his own. “Love you too.”
“Yeah,” his oldest said nonchalantly.
Iris took a few tentative steps forward. “So, um, what am I supposed to say? I don’t know the etiquette. Have a good show? Break a leg?”
“How about ‘Don’t fuck it up’?”
“We’re gonna fuck it up!” Jason bellowed upon hearing him. A chorus of cheers went up in their immediate vicinity.
“Okay. Don’t mess it up,” Iris said pointedly, the dark wing of one eyebrow cocked with disapproval as she swung her gaze from Jason back to Elijah.
He scoffed. Jesus. His kids had heard him say “fuck” a million times, and a lot worse. They knew what they weren’t supposed to say yet. Dylan backed away from him, stepping to her, and Iris linked her arms around him from behind.
It was such a natural, affectionate action on her part that it gave Eli pause. She gave him a tiny smile, looking timid and so out of place it was almost laughable. Like a nun in full habit had wandered up to watch side stage. Actually, nah, she looked more out of place than that, because at one point in their career, they’d had nun costumes as part of the set—even though it had been strippers wearing them. He chuckled at the memory, and then the guys were pulling him into their pre-show huddle, all of them arm-in-arm as the house lights went down and the roar of the crowd turned deafening.
Jason, Travis, Quin, Russell. They’d been up, they’d been down. They’d been through shit as deep as the Pacific. But they’d started as poor Indiana trash, and now they were here. He looked at all their faces and felt an intense rush of love for them all. Except maybe for Quin. Of them all, he was the one who had let fame and fortune go to his head too much . . . only he’d never really had the fame he thought he did, and he’d burned through the fortune as fast as it rolled in. If there was internal drama at this point, it was usually Quin’s. His immense talent and the fact that he’d simply always been there were the main reasons he was still around, so as long as he kept showing up, doing his job and not fucking up too badly, everyone kind of suffered him.
Eli didn’t even have to ask; it would’ve been Quin’s groupies who disturbed Iris as she arrived earlier with the boys. He didn’t necessarily want that shit around them, either.
They broke apart, and Quin sidled up beside him as they waited for their cues. “Your nanny’s fucking hot, dude,” he said, throwing a leer back over his shoulder. “She gives off a hot-for-teacher, schoolmarm in the streets and freak in the sheets vibe. Like if I do something wrong, she’ll make me do it over again.”
Yeah, how about you stay the fuck away from her, Elijah thought, then frowned at himself. Not because he’d had the exact same thought about Iris, but hadn’t he sat brooding by his pool at home only a few weeks ago, imagining all sorts of debauchery he could get her caught up in so she would stay out of his hair? Hadn’t he been planning that very thing?
