Chapter 9
9
FOSTER
Not so long ago, I almost met my idol at a party. He stood on the opposite side of a room, both of us with drinks in hand. The musician talking to me casually offered to introduce us unprompted. In that moment, the stars had finally aligned. The fates wove the cosmic strings just right. My life had flipped so surreal, I fit seamlessly into his reality. He wouldn’t even question if I strolled up to him. Fuck, he might even tell me he knew my music.
One of the final life-defining experiences I’d fought for waited for a head nod.
I threw my drink back and walked out.
They say to never meet your idols because they won’t live up to the version of them you created. I think it’s crueler than the bite of disappointment. Once you meet your idol, it’s over and can never happen again. You’ve touched the star. Brushed your fingers over the string. The moment is capsuled, the exhilaration fades, and you’re stuck chasing a high that can’t be replicated. I wasn’t ready for that to be gone.
Meeting your muse couldn’t be more different. They’ve already been aligned and deeply woven into your tapestry. They’re a part of the air you breathe, coloring every aspect of your world. Meeting your muse can never end because they feel like a piece that’s been there all along. Something you always knew but never quite understood.
This makes losing your muse such a fucking tragedy.
She’s suddenly everywhere and nowhere.
I can’t see her, but I feel her in the dark.
And fuck her for feeling so damn perfect.
My eyes flick to the viewing area where Christian’s on his phone on the other side of the soundproof glass wall. Today’s our first day off since going back on the road, and the label booked us rehearsal space. A not-so-subtle nudge from Mac Records, reminding us they expect us to be in the studio a week after we wrap up in NYC.
We originally had more time between shows these last months of our tour, specifically so we could write. Then a performance of “Haunted” went nuclear at the start of it, and they crammed in stadiums for the last leg. We’ve been on a wild ride the past few years, but it still messes with my head how a rock icon reposted me singing and led to us playing the same stages she did a few months ago.
Sav Loveless—or more likely her team—altered our trajectory into the stratosphere with a fucking tag and rock on emoji.
Christian’s pacing outside the glass, crossing back and forth in his rich-boy suit. Each time he passes, it flashes views of a messy auburn bun behind him. His legs and then a tease of a smooth one crossed over the other in an overstuffed chair. Him, then her. Him. Her. My focus shifts and turns his next passes into a dark blur, leaving me with just the fragments of Remi.
Always only pieces of her.
I smother a groan and drag my emo-ass attention back to the notebook open on the table. To my bandmates and my untouched acoustic at my feet. To the tick-tick of an invisible clock. The only shit I should be focused on.
I grab my guitar’s neck to pull it up on the loveseat. The other two cover different parts of the sectional across from me, both in their own worlds. Felix beats away on a practice pad, and Dev’s playing with a bass line.
None of us are committed right now. Maybe we did need the day off.
Slouching on the cushions, I will myself to create on demand. After a few seconds, my head rolls to the side. Christian’s off his call, collapsed in a chair and not disrupting my view anymore. Remi flips through a magazine, looking beyond bored with her crossed leg swinging. Other than shooting through the glass, she can’t do much until we leave. She filmed in here before we kicked everyone out. The dark flower scent of her still lingers. Every time it hits me, the world dissolves into thoughts of the other night when it surrounded me. Thoughts of silky skin beneath my palm, my thumb stroking wet lace.
My hands. Your body.
I breathed her in and felt my teeth dent her thigh.
Starving breaths on promise-covered skin.
Her whimper sent blood rushing to my cock, still trained to the sound.
My grip tightens on the fretboard while I watch her. I can’t fucking stop watching her. And soon enough, I’m humming notes I’ve fought off for days. They’ve been spiraling. On the bus the other night before the San Francisco show. I succumb to them, finally listen. Then I feel for them on my guitar, my eyes on Remi the entire time. Once I match the first one, the others fall into place. I hit the end of the melody for a third time, but my fingers keep going, extending it a little longer before muting the strings with my palm.
“Play that again.”
I swing my gaze to the sectional and realize I have Dev’s rapt attention. Felix is sitting up, his sticks not moving anymore. Then he parrots Dev’s, “Play that again.”
I scrunch my face. “Nah.”
“Play.” Felix flings a stick, and I reluctantly slide back to the first note.
Halfway through this time, I actually hear what they do. I don’t even bother looking up when finished, just shift straight back to the beginning. I hear more and feel my way through until the foundation settles. The riff develops naturally, like the entirety already existed and needed me to stop fucking around. Playing it over and over, I build and tweak.
The riff doubles. Dev’s down an octave on his bass, deep and tonal. He varies the bass line as we jam, and I start to add chords.
“Fucking hell,” Felix groans out. He hops off his ass and drops onto the cajón. “The muse is in the room.”
Not quite.
I glance through the glass. Remi’s at the edge of the chair, locked onto us in the rehearsal space. Even from here, I can see the rhythmic pulsing in my veins mirrored by the light in her green eyes. An unrelenting need claws at her to capture the rawness of us creating, the same way it tears music out of me.
With Felix drumming a beat on the box, the three of us sync in a way none of us try to explain. It’s been this way since the beginning when we got together four years ago. A goddamn three-way soul read into an unstoppable creative flow. We work it for a while, shaping and harmonizing the initial melody.
It morphs into a chorus in my head at some point. I feel how the line will evolve for the verses. But I don’t follow the chord progression yet. I’m chasing different notes, layered over what we’re already playing. My lips start moving before sound follows. Mostly la-di-da shit to hear how vocals could fit.
Songs piece together differently with us. We have no code or formula. Sometimes I’ll show up with every part breathing already. We’ll work around lyrics on others. But not many have developed chorus first like “Echo” and “Haunted.” Our wildfire and inferno. “Echo” set us ablaze, and “Haunted” engulfed the world in our flames.
The words aren’t there yet, so I shrug when Felix asks what we have. Maybe the song goes nowhere. We could throw the whole thing out before we reach the studio.
I’m still flirting with a lyric melody as I walk down the corridor toward the kitchen. Dev’s facedown on the floor in the viewing room, and Felix is getting high with Christian while we take a preventative “Colt break.”
A couple years ago, the three of us sank into a writing bender—or bender in general. Three days of cigarettes, tequila, coke, and Maui Wowie. We ended with an album’s worth of songs. Christian fell at our feet, money in the bank for him. Colton punched me in the face and took me to the emergency room for severe dehydration. Since then, we take breaks before Colt mandates them.
Bitch aims for the ribs now.
He has his back to the open archway when I enter the kitchen. I casually slap him in the head on my way by to the fridge. Colt curses as I swipe a glass bottle of water, and I smile, shutting the door. Only I sober once turned around. His massive frame blocked Remi on my way in. She has spy glasses pushed up into her hair. Her perky ass leans against a countertop, one bare foot on top of the other and arms crossed. The navy skirt hits her mid-thigh, and the R.E.M. shirt’s ripped neckline dips low.
My hands. Your body.
“Write me a song, baby?” Colt asks.
I look down at my water and twist off the top, shaking my head. “You inspire me to get tested but not much else, my brother.”
Colt rolls his eyes as Remi laughs. My lips twitch at the sound, and my gaze follows it.
Build the walls. Fight the siren’s call .
“At least you’re creative with the insults.” Colt rotates to leave. “Channel that into something useful, and you might have a chance out there, kid.” He condescendingly slaps my cheek while I drink and whispers, “Be nice, asshole, ” before he disappears around the corner.
Then it’s just me and her. Alone for the first time since San Francisco, when I lost the shred of control I have and had every intention of finger-fucking her by the stage.
Every second’s a betrayal, every touch a threat.
Fuck, I need to find a way to survive this tour with her. Or at least try.
She lowers her arms and starts to follow Colt out, but I rip off a scab for the sake of my sanity the next few months.
“You went to Sound Clash.” I spare myself the two years ago part. No intention of bleeding for her too.
When I spin around, Remi’s frozen, still facing away. Her shoulders rise in a deep breath, and then she slowly turns around. She hesitates, likely wondering how long before this turns.
I couldn’t tell her, but I’m fucking trying.
She steps closer when I wait expectantly, and the tension eases from her shoulders.
“I went to Sound Clash. A few years ago,” she says, but it was two . “It was amazing—everything you said it would be.”
I nod and repeat what I told her about the battle of the bands, “Wasted college kids, shitty riffs, and pure magic.”
She laughs, nodding back. “The magic part’s addicting. The atmosphere and crowd and … I don’t think anyone can really understand without being there.”
Without truly seeing it.
“You nailed it in your documentary. Maybe not as exhilarating as being on the stage yourself, but as close as you can get.”
“I can’t believe you watched it,” she says.
I could tell her the band watched everything when the label brought her on. Tell her Dev and Felix loved it too. Instead, I drop the veil fully. I speak to Remi Sinner but ask Remi Saint what I’ve really wanted to know.
“How far into the park did you go?”
Remi slams me with the emerald eyes. The mask hiding the sadness in them slips, yet she has the tiniest upturn to her mouth.
I half-smile, question answered. “You saw the fountain.”
“ Really saw it,” she almost whispers.
The amount of time that can span a few seconds of silence in the right circumstances is incredible. She searches my eyes, and I tip my head to the side, letting her. The broken girl and wandering boy are face-to-face for the first time. It’s so hard not to fall into what we were. Who we were.
Who I thought she was.
I look away, and my armor’s back in place when I return my gaze. “I’m glad something was real for you.”
“Foster.” She cringes using my name and checks over her shoulder to see if anyone’s near us.
“What? Does my name make me too real?” I erase the space between us until she has to tilt her chin to look at me. “Was it easier in the dark, Remi? Not having to see me?” My thumb skims the skin between her shirt and skirt, her breath hitching. “I could finally touch you, and you could still pretend?” Her chest rises faster, my graze dipping under the top of her skirt and chasing more, and we both watch every pass lowering. “Maybe next time I play with your shadow, I make it come.”
Her eyes flutter closed, lush lips parting on an inhale. I’ve seen parts of her this way more than once. Only now we’re minus the phone screens, and the full view is even sexier.
I told her you never truly see something until it’s right in front of you, and she’s no exception. It’s why I can’t resist her in the dark. When I can’t really see her, I can hide in the lies a little while.
My thumb stops, eyes trailing off while I chase the words instead of her skin.
“Foster?” Remi says, more hushed this time.
She touches my arm, near my wrist, and I look up at her.
The first line’s right there.
I snag the black frames from her head, walking out with notes and syllables swimming. Christian stands by the door separating the viewing room and rehearsal space. I pass him while sliding the spy glasses on. I press the flush button without thinking. Muscle memory. Dev’s on his bass on the sectional. I swipe the notebook and pen and barely hit the cushions across from him before ink hits the page. He stops playing, and all noise cuts out of the room after he shuts the door.
I write in fragments at first. Kill more lines than I save. I rework the same words three different ways, letting myself drift into the alternate reality that is creating—wrong builds to right and what fits perfect one time lacks the next. Then for no apparent reason at all, everything exists exactly as it should.
Everything flows in absolute harmony.
* * *
As Christian pounds on the door for a third time, demanding we get the fuck out, I drop back on the loveseat. I lazily launch my pen toward our manager. It plinks off the glass, but he gets my point.
It’s been hours since we came back in here. My mind feels empty in a way that soothes the deepest parts of me. The paper’s a mess of crossed-out words and circled ones. But what I want in the end remains mostly legible.
“You have enough lyrics to admit we wrote a chorus yet?” Felix asks.
I stare down at a chorus plus two possible verses and then smirk at him. “No, I might throw them all out.”
“That’s why I can’t believe you recorded it,” Dev says. “ You . The dude who refuses to even let his bandmates in his notebook, and you just showed the entire doc crew.”
“Only one of them,” I mutter, sliding off the glasses and powering them down.
We take our time packing up, mostly to spiral Christian longer. He has his manager frown on when we come through the glass door. “We were supposed to be out of here two hours ago.”
“You want an album or not,” I counter.
Remi’s dragging her camera bag onto her shoulder, and I hand off the glasses. I put on my shades and drag on the black baseball cap, jogging down the stairs and leaving the rest of them. Except for Colt, who’s always a few inches from having his dick up my ass. There are worse things than being required to bring your best friend everywhere you go.
I walk outside into the same Seattle drizzle from earlier and the hum of Pike Place Market. Like a good boy, I stay on the cobblestone by the nondescript door.
The space is tucked in a little nook of the historic market but no less alive. No one on the sidewalk spares me a second glance with the sunglasses and hat. Everything else demands their attention, including the iconic neon Pike Place sign acting as a beacon in the distance. I have no issue leaning against the brick and being lost in the movement.
Colt’s head is on a swivel, and I catch him glaring at a fishmonger farther down.
“Don’t worry about him.” I gesture to a flower vendor across the crowd. “If anyone’s a pap, it’s her.”
“Ha. Ha,” he says dryly, but he checks out the granny for a camera anyway. “You know I’d be less stressed if we took the alley exit. Or if the van wasn’t parked in fucking Narnia.”
A two-minute walk is hardly through a wardrobe, but I let him have it. Dev, Felix, and I might need additional security and disguises to breathe in public, but Colt’s on the ride with us. He went from winding cables and drinking at our shows to holding back increasingly aggressive fans and coordinating with a security team.
The others flood out along with the other bodyguards, Anton and Henry. I push off the wall and grab my guitar case. We navigate through the throng of people. I’ve only been to Seattle for shows, never having a chance to explore. I’m tempted to check out every side street and dip into the coffee shops. Other than when I ditched Colt in Prague, I haven’t gotten to wander for a while. I feel it now. The restlessness.
I glance at Remi up ahead, strap falling off her shoulder.
A street band blocks out the buzz of voices once we get to the corner. The music drowns out everything while we wait at the pedestrian light. Colt’s scanning ahead, Christian is on his phone, and I almost miss the panicked, “ Hey ,” right before Remi crashes into me.
I catch her as a guy in a denim jacket dashes between tourists with a camera bag. “Shit.” Then I have to grab Remi again when she starts running after him. “What?—”
She jerks around, and the absolute heartbreak on her face shreds deep, through the armor and into my marrow.
“My dad’s card. Foster?—”
I miss anything else, already dodging around her, case dropped, and forcing my way through the crowd.
People are fucking everywhere, shouts and laughs and more music. I weave around who I can and shoulder-check the rest, following glimpses of denim and the bag anytime he lifts it higher to squeeze through.
He clears a slight path by knocking bodies out of the way for me. I narrow his lead enough that I’m only a few seconds behind when he cuts a hard right. I breach the herd of tourists and sprint down a mostly empty alley after him.
The dude glances over his shoulder to check on me, and as he turns back, his foot slips on the wet cobblestone. It slides out from under him, and he barely saves his ass from hitting the ground before I catch up, gripping the collar of his jacket. I yank him toward the nearest wall and shove him against it, hand around his throat to keep him there.
“Wrong. Fucking. Bag,” I bite out.
“No, no, no.” His panicked gaze darts to the side at someone else running toward us. “Take the bag. Take it.”
I rip it out of his hands, releasing him at the same time Colton pushes between us. The guy scrambles away, nearly falling again, and Colt turns on me, jaw hard and eyes murderous.
“What the actual fuck?” His nostrils flare, his breaths heightened like mine while he crowds me.
“Sorry,” I say, distracted by the strap I have fisted.
“You’re sorry ?” Colt huffs an unamused laugh. “You tore off after a thief who could have fucking stabbed you or worse. All for a fucking camera ?”
But that’s not what I retrieved.
The racing of my heart lowers along with me to a crouch so I can unzip the camera bag. Colt sets off on a rant about how it would kill him if anything happens to me, but it barely registers.
My eyes scan inside. Black fabric and dividers, Remi’s camera and cords and equipment. I drag the zipper across for the side pocket, then I let my fingers finish the search for me. The second they connect with velvet, I swallow and slowly pull out the dark red pouch. I can feel the hard plastic square through the fabric before I open the top of the bag. At the bottom lies the SD card.
A relic Remi cherishes above all else. Resentful dick or not, I’d never let her lose it without a fight.
Having it in my possession now, knowing without a doubt this part of us was true … it further disturbs our remains.
I have no idea if it changes anything or only intensifies the grief over what I lost.