Before and Aftermath (Aftermath #3)

1. Just Like Coming Home

1

JUST LIKE COMING HOME

MAL

There was an absolutely luscious pair of legs in the first balcony, and you can trust my opinion on that. I’m a leg man.

I was only getting brief glimpses. The Paramount used spotlights to sweep the crowd if the band was hot, and we were hot. Like fire. I was hitting my drums with the down-deep joy that came from really crushing the song we were playing.

Because the audience was on their feet, some unknown lighting tech was blinding club-goers—all of whom shrieked with delight when they were caught in the glare, thinking their excitement was now visible to all the other anonymous dancing queens. And kings.

I was admiring the madness of the crowd and also one pair of very long legs, like a model’s, gyrating and dancing in a tight, short, emerald-green skirt.

Thank you for choosing that outfit this evening, unknown club goddess. We rock hard for you .

From behind the wall of my drum kit, I was idly grateful for those legs as I kept the beat hard. Aftermath was dishing up our latest hit, “Street Dancing,” which was in heavy rotation on SiriusXM and iHeartRadio, thank you very much. The fans at our home club were digging it.

And who could blame them?

I should have known it wouldn’t last. Everything was perfect for one hanging, magnificent moment. Ian, Archer, and I were weaving a fucking tapestry of tight, powerful music. I wore a headset so I could add backing vocals. Ian did, too, and together we did a good job laying in some tight harmonies. But it was Archer who pulled it all together. He wasn’t a bad bass player—even though Ian played lead guitar, Ian was still a better rhythm partner with me than our bass player was—but damn, Archer could sing. Like, really sing. And it was undeniable that he owned a crowd.

There’s a strange alchemy to a great band. Anybody can keep the beat, play the chords, hit the notes, but not just anybody can pull it all together into something that rocks. And that alchemy is magic. Like captured lightning. Unpredictable and lucky as hell.

Nothing was more fun than being a part of that collective.

I’m not saying it was always easy. Aftermath had been together since high school. Fourteen long years of practice and study and gigs, and we were finally getting airtime. Finally generating some heat. Things were happening.

My job was easy. Pretty much all I had to do is lay in the power. Sit at my drums and sweat. Act as the heartbeat of a huge animal consisting of a few thousand souls in the darkness, plus the three of us. I loved my work.

But then, with one wince, the rock-band high I was riding crashed to the ground.

The spotlight got to the hottie with the legs . . . and standing right in front of her, on the ground with arms on his hips, there he was. The king of arrogance.

Johnston Fucking Furneau.

The sight of him (he was nose in the air, of course, looking at the sea of hot energy around him like it wasn’t quite good enough to suit him) was all it took to pop my bubble. I fumbled the beat.

Ian glanced back at me. Archer was focused on the crowd and missed it, but Ian knew immediately that something had happened.

I shrugged. I’d already found the rhythm again—a pounding, dancing syncopation that pulled people out of the club’s few chairs. You couldn’t not groove to “Street Dancing.”

Unless, of course, you were the unnatural Johnston Furneau, Pissant Supreme.

After that, I kept my eyes off those long legs and my head down. Counted out time. Pushed the anger into the skins. Let the power coil up in my shoulders, down my spine, and into my fists. This was elemental. This was life at its most basic and its most complex. This was music.

Work it.

The crowd screamed their approval when we wrapped up the song, and Archer took the bows for all three of us. I grabbed my towel to mop off before the next song.

“Thank you, Huntington, New York! We love you, Long Island!”

Every crowd loves to have their city called out. It seems to be human nature. We all scream harder when we hear the location announced, even though we all knew where we were.

“We love coming home to the Paramount!” Archer could surf crowd energy like a big wave rider. He was a master. “We’ve been all over the nation lately, playing gigs in the country’s hottest clubs, and that’s been great. But nowhere—and I mean nowhere—rocks as hard as you guys do right here at home!”

They applauded with such vigor that Charlotte, the Aftermath dog, lifted her head to check out the reaction. She generally spent her time at gigs lying in front of my drum kit, chewing on her favorite toy—one of Archer’s boots, now shredded to tatters. She was a huge fan favorite.

“Tonight,” Archer went on, “I’m told that we’ve got a kind of reunion going on for people who went to Caumsett High. Where are my peeps? Let’s hear those Wildcats screaming!”

The spotlight swung over the crowd again, all of whom were screaming. But the most vigorous hand-waving was coming from that first balcony. Of course. They were going to show fucking Johnston again, even though he never would have dreamed of going to a public high school.

Still—look at all those people, many dressed in the school’s signature colors of green and white.

And now that the spot was still, I realized the babe with the spectacular legs looked familiar.

Oh hey. Prentice Luce, front and center and looking a lot less awkward than she had ten years before. Still the same huge grin with enough wattage to power a generator, but now all that long, dark hair had been cut short to frame an elfin face. Somebody had styled Prentice to very good effect.

As I was sitting back to admire a dazzling transformation, who put a meaty hand on the railing right in front of her to pull himself up the three feet from the dance floor to wave at the crowd like he’d gone to Caumsett?

Who else?

Get off that railing, Johnston. You don’t actually own the world, although you clearly don’t know that.

God, what an asshole.

“Ian, Mal, and I met at Caumsett,” Archer shouted. “We’re proud graduates!” He made a half turn to gesture at me. “Mal first played the drums in the high school marching band!”

He was improvising as usual. I grinned at his easy confidence and whipped off a classic paradiddle at the perfect cadence for a marching band. The crowd screamed, and I gave them a long glissando on the cymbals, which was my way of waving back. I noted that Archer hadn’t admitted that he’d played the trumpet in the marching band and Ian had nerded out with a Sousaphone, but never mind. Only the drum line in a marching band could claim any semblance of cool, anyway.

Yeah, I was a badass even then.

“We’re proud that you all came out to hear us play,” Archer said. “Especially since this is our last gig for a while. Aftermath is going to take a few weeks off before going back into the studio. Yeah, we’re making our next album. Thank you. Thank you. Want to hear one of our new songs that will be on that album? Here’s one you don’t know well—yet.”

I knocked out the opening to “Freedom,” another hard dance song Archer had written. The crowd was warmed up and ready to rock, and we were more than eager to accommodate them.

We played for almost two hours, testing out the new songs we’d be recording in the weeks to come and running through the songs that YouTube (and a fortunate gig opening for Sheree the summer before) had made popular. Archer’s song “The Salesman” was our encore piece now, and the audience rose to the occasion. We all screamed the last lines together, sacrificing musical precision for sheer exuberance:

Get you a latte? This is a mattress store, Karen

Darling, do your worst, you blackhearted turd

We left the stage as conquering heroes. The gig could not have gone better, and the crowd would have called us back again and again if the Paramount hadn’t turned on the houselights and gotten their staff to begin nudging people toward the parking lot.

I banged on Ian and Archer’s shoulders as they banged on mine. I grinned with them, excited and buzzed. I waltzed with Charlotte, her huge Great Dane paws on my shoulders, as we did after every gig. Everything was fine. Everything was normal.

None of them sensed the disturbance in the force that was Johnston Furneau. And that was good. That was the way I liked it. This was my own private hellscape.

“Come on,” Archer said, flush with enthusiasm. “Let’s go walk among our people. Show a little Caumsett High pride, what do you say?”

Ian raised an eyebrow, which was expressive for him.

“Is security going to be okay with that?” I asked.

“You guys! This isn’t a Sheree gig. These are our classmates, our neighbors. We’re not going to be mobbed!”

Archer fucking loved being mobbed.

I looked at Ian, who shrugged. We’d follow him out and act as his bodyguards if necessary. Archer’s handsome mug was getting very well-known. If he required rescue . . . well, Ian was very tall, and I was pretty strong. We’d get him out.

A lot of people had already left, but the cluster of Caumsett alums was still clustered on that first balcony. They screamed with delight when they saw Archer, his golden head parting the crowd like a king, and they welcomed him in. Ian and I, with our Normal Guy faces, did a better job of blending.

I shook hands with a few classmates I recognized, and I was listening to a trio of women from three years ahead of me tell me how great the gig was—but alas, they lost my attention when I heard Johnston’s voice through the hubbub.

“I’m going to pick you up at seven for the gala.”

If you heard his voice without knowing he was the son of Satan, you might not remark on it. Me, though? Nails on a chalkboard. Tiny hairs all over my body stood at attention, ready for trouble.

“You’re not taking me to the gala,” a woman’s voice answered. “I told you.”

“Right. You’re funny. Please be ready on time. I hate to be late. We need to make our appearances, right?”

“I’m not going with you,” she repeated. Her voice was firm, but Johnston wasn’t listening.

“I told your mom that your gold dress is too short. Plus, the blue will go better with my Aston.”

Oh no. No, no, no, no, nononono. The negation beat inside me. A negation that had been beating inside me all my life.

“Your car ?” she said. “You want me to match your car ? I told you, I’m not going with you.”

She stopped her protest and looked up in surprise when my hand slipped around the waist of her short, shiny emerald dress. I stepped to her to tuck her to my side.

“Hey, Prentice,” I said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You talking about the gala on Saturday? What time am I picking you up?”

She blinked, astonished. “Mal!”

“Hi, baby. Johnston, how you doing?” I held out my right hand to him. From the outside, it looked like one old friend greeting the other. Johnston and I both knew it was a resumption of hostilities.

He declined to shake. “Malcolm. I caught your little concert tonight,” he said dismissively as he put his hand on Prentice’s arm, attempting to draw her away from me. I pulled her in closer, and her hand came around my waist. “Takes quite a lot of musical genius to keep that 4/4 beat, huh.”

I grinned, thrilled that I’d grown taller and bigger than him. His hand fell from her arm. “Some of our songs are in 3/4, but if I cross my eyes and focus really hard, I can manage that too. So, Prentice—Saturday. What time should I pick you up?”

I smiled into her eyes because I knew it would piss off Johnston—and because her eyes were very pretty. She gaped at me. I raised my eyebrows and gave her time to work it out.

“Oh. Um. The gala. I suppose . . . no, wait. I’m on the committee. I have to be there early. Can we do, um, five?”

“Five it is. I’ll pick you up.” She still looked startled, but she played along. I turned to Johnston. “Will Prentice and I see you there?”

He shook his head, frustration tightening his shoulders. “You’re not going with her.”

“Sure I am. We set it up weeks ago, didn’t we, baby?”

Prentice was thinking faster now. “Sure did. Weeks ago. Mal and me.”

Johnston rolled his eyes. He glared at Prentice. “You’re going to the gala with him ? Does he even own a tuxedo?” She raised her eyebrows and eased more closely against me but said nothing. He shook his head. “Your choice. If you want to look like a fool. Or if you’ve gone slumming.”

Apparently feeling he’d delivered the most cutting put-down possible, he turned and pushed his way through the crowd. My foe was vanquished. I grinned to see him go.

Bye, Johnston.

Prentice attempted to step away from me, but she felt good against my side. I redirected my grin down to her. “Hi, Prentice.”

“Always rescuing me. Hi, Mal. What am I going to do on Saturday night when he asks me where you are?”

“Please,” I said, feigning offense. “I’ll be right beside you.”

“You’re really going to take me to the gala at the yacht club?”

“At the yacht club.” Fuck, it was going to be fancy. But what else would something called a gala be for this crowd? “You bet. I’ve got the next few weeks off from touring, and I can find a tuxedo rental place with a suit to fit me.”

“You’re awesome. Really—thanks. I’ll pay to rent the tux.”

I grinned, surrendering her at last when she tried again to step away. “I think I can cobble together the fees.” No need to explain that I was now rocking a bank account with more than four digits in the total. Aftermath merch was selling as fast as we could put it out, and I actually had spending money for once, which was fucking awesome.

“I’d like to do it,” she said. “I feel bad that you got conned into this.”

“Not conned,” I replied. “I totally volunteered.”

“Just like at Shield Academy,” she said with a touch of worship in her voice. I preened. “You were always having to protect me from—from those guys.”

“From Johnston,” I corrected. A very old flavor ghosted my tongue—the spice of a long-term rivalry. “I see he hasn’t gotten any better as an adult.”

From behind me, I sensed Archer on the move. Ian touched my arm. “Showers,” Ian said shortly. That meant Archer’s need for worship had been appeased enough for him to now want to wash off the sweat of the gig.

Which reminded me that I’d been holding on to delicate, pretty Prentice while being somewhat less than springtime fresh myself. She hadn’t seemed to mind.

“Don’t be too hard on Johnston,” she said. A woman I recognized as Cassidy Someone appeared, holding a jacket, which Prentice took with a smile. “Thanks, Cass. You remember Mal? Anyway, Johnston has had a bad year. The divorce hit him pretty hard.”

She and Cassidy were moving slowly toward the door, and I was following. Her words surprised me. “Johnston got married?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I wish! Then he’d maybe leave me alone. No, I mean his parents.”

I stopped walking, and Caumsett alumni piled up behind me. “Hey,” someone said. “You want to get out of the way?”

Prentice noticed I wasn’t with her and turned back to me. It took me a minute to form the words.

“Jack Furneau is divorcing Gigi?”

She drew me to the side so the crowd could leave. Cassidy waited, curious. “More like Gigi is divorcing Jack. Rumor has it that her prenup went for a full thirty years. She served her time, and now she’s entitled to half his estate. Not that he’d notice with that much money, you know?”

“Um,” I said, my mind locked into a test pattern.

“What is it? Oh, your mom works for them, doesn’t she? I’m sure she’ll still have a job.”

I blinked. Things needed to be prioritized. “Yeah,” I said. “Hey, I’m going to need your number. Let me put it in—” My phone was back in the changing room. No cell phones onstage; that was our rule. “Well, um, why don’t you email me through the band website? I’ll watch for it.”

Prentice nodded. “I’ll do it tonight. And Mal, thanks. It’s good to see you.”

My brain cleared enough to give her a real smile. “You, too, Prentice.” I took a centering breath. “I better go get a shower. Sorry to be hanging on you while I’m all sweaty.”

“You are?” Prentice did some blinking of her own. “Oh, okay. I’ll send you an email.”

She and Cassidy left, and I headed backstage. Archer was pumped up, and even Ian was grinning. I was distracted.

Gigi Furneau was divorcing her husband.

I needed to talk to my mother. She had a few questions to answer.