Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Nash
I sat in the back room tuning my guitar. Betty, the manager of the Comstock Bar, was a grumpy woman who’d barely acknowledged us when we arrived. She’d pointed out the cramped back room for us to get ready and where we could sit for breaks between sets. Betty wasn’t the only grump in the building.
“If you’d move to the left, we could fit it through the door without me having my arm torn off,” Seth growled at Bosco as they carried Ronnie’s drums into the bar. Everyone had been disappointed ever since we’d had to turn down a European tour, one with expenses paid and plenty of publicity for the band. That had been my fault. There wasn’t any way I could leave the States and leave my sister solely in charge of our mom. In a way, it was for the best. We’d all been arguing a lot lately, and it seemed there just wasn’t enough friendship glue left between the four of us. Bosco, or Alan Burke, as his parents called him, and I had been friends since high school. He was an amazing bass guitarist. He stumbled upon Ronnie at a party. She’d filled in for the band’s drummer that night and blew everyone away. Seth joined us when we advertised for a keyboardist. He also had a great singing voice. I’d told Bosco they should move Seth into lead vocals and go on that European tour without me, but he insisted it wasn’t Moonstone without me at the microphone.
We’d been playing as a band for six years. It felt like the end of an era, and I wasn’t all that sad about it. Moving around from town to town, sleeping in crummy motels and eating diner food was fun for a few months, but after a few years, it became drudgery. In our twenties we’d all dreamed of becoming the next big rock stars, flying around in private jets with nonstop parties and trashing swanky hotel rooms. None of that sounded appealing anymore. Though I wouldn’t turn down a private jet.
Ronnie carried in her cymbals and set them on a stack of crates. Their clang echoed off the walls. “There’s a line around the parking lot to get in,” she said cheerily and slipped right past her two bandmates struggling to get her drums through the narrow passage. Ronnie stopped in front of me and tapped my chest with a drumstick. She had red hair that was cropped so short it looked like the top of her head was on fire. Both earlobes were lined with tiny gold hoops, and she had a dragonfly tattoo on the side of her neck. “I’ll bet they’re here to see the hunky lead singer.”
“Yeah, won’t they be disappointed when they see him in person,” Bosco chided. Ten years ago, Bosco was built like a tank—buff, with a neck that matched his head in width. He’d played football in high school, but much to his dad’s disappointment, he’d quit football to follow his musical dreams. Once he’d left behind the gridiron, he let the muscles go, too. Now he was tall and lanky, and he could move around on stage as if he had no skeleton to hold him back.
Betty, the owner, came marching to the back of the bar. “I thought you’d be set up by now. There must be two hundred people waiting in line to get inside, and my capacity is only three hundred.” She was growling about it and weirdly smiling at the same time, so I couldn’t tell if she was happy or angry about the long line. “Hurry and get set up. In twenty minutes, I’m going to open doors and start letting people in.” With that, she marched back the way she came.
Bosco looked over at me. “That was strange. I couldn’t tell if we were in trouble or if she was about to sign us to a month-long gig.”
“Actually, we’re already signed up for a month,” Ronnie said as she scrolled through her phone. We’d handed Ronnie the job of arranging gigs mostly because the three of us couldn’t be bothered with the mundane task. Sometimes she forgot to keep us in the loop, but since none of us wanted the scheduling job, we never complained. Bosco didn’t look pleased. His dark brows lowered, reminding me of his dad whenever we were in trouble for something back in high school and he was gearing up to lecture us.
“When did we agree to a month-long gig? I was hoping to spend a week in Hawaii at the end of the month,” Bosco said.
“Well, if you don’t want me to be in charge of scheduling anymore?—”
Bosco shook his head. “Never mind. Whatever. Hawaii will still be there after the month is up.”
We set up the stage. It was a nice one, wide with good lighting and plenty of space for our sound equipment. With all of us working together it didn’t take long. Betty, seeing that she was about to make a fat profit for the night, gave us each a free beer, and we returned to the cramped back room to hang out until it was time to start.
Betty had made good on her promise to open the doors. Voices and laughter rumbled through the building. Glasses clinked and music blasted out of a jukebox. We all had our ways of gearing up for a night on the stage. Ronnie liked to play games on her phone. Bosco usually found some place to stretch out his legs, rest back his head and close his eyes for a few minutes. This time he’d found an old cardboard cutout of a beer mug to rest against. Seth and his girlfriend, Brianna, had been trying to buy a house, and he was spending a lot of his spare time looking at real estate listings and loan sites. I, on the other hand, preferred to step outside and get some fresh air before going on stage. And since it had been a hot summer day and the air conditioning in these crowded bars was never great, I decided to take advantage of the fresh night air before having to stand in front of hot lights.
I stepped out the back door into the large alley where the van was parked. I walked to the corner and saw that most of the line had gone inside. Some people were wearing Moonstone shirts, which was cool to see. We’d gotten a big enough following to have a few record producers interested, only we didn’t have enough original songs for an album. We just couldn’t pull it together and find time to write more. A song-writing session almost always ended with all of us mad at each other. We were a great team on stage but not so great behind the scenes.
I stood at the corner and gazed up at the stars. It was a clear night, and the summer heat had been replaced by a cool breeze. Even though the bar was inland a good ten miles, I could smell the ocean trailing along with the wind. While most people were piling into the bar, one patron came shooting out as if something was chasing her. She was slender with long, tanned legs sticking out from a denim mini skirt and short brown cowboy boots. Her long hair was tied up in a ponytail, and even from the distance, I could see she was pretty.
As her boots scooted along, she kept looking behind her. She reached the corner where I was standing but didn’t pay any attention to me. She looked back again, and this time, a man walked out of the bar. His head turned back and forth as he searched the parking area. The woman gasped, spun toward me, and her eyes rounded.
“Quick, hide me.” She took my hands, and we turned in a circle until she had her back against the building, and I was standing in front of her.
I was probably having far too much fun because she was obviously worried the man would see her. He walked in the direction of the corner. I placed my hands against the wall on each side of her to block more of her from view with my arms. I leaned forward. “Should I pretend to kiss you?”
“Sure.” She hopped up and looked past my arm, then seemed to realize what I’d asked. “I mean, pretend, yes. See, he’s this guy who I broke up with today, only he didn’t take it as well as I hoped. I knew he wasn’t for me. Kind of a nudge, if you know what I mean?”
“Nope, not really. And I can’t blame the guy for being upset.”
She glanced up over my arm. “Oh, good. He’s heading out to the parking lot.” She relaxed some and became even more beautiful as her full lips softened.
I stayed in my commanded position. “What’s a nudge?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I just came up with it because some of the other words floating through my head weren’t as ladylike. Not that he deserves politeness. I broke up with him nicely, and he went all nuts on me acting as if we’d just spent the last five years together instead of three months.”
I’d been teasing her and enjoying the moment. A beautiful woman using me as a human shield—that was new even for me, but it seemed this wasn’t a funny matter at all. “Do you want me to go talk to him? Tell him he needs to leave.”
She turned her big brown eyes up to me and paused a second. I was sure she recognized me, but that was just my big ego talking. “That’s very nice, Mr. uh, Mr.—”
“Nash. My name is Nash.” The name didn’t ring any bells either.
“Right, Mr. Nash. That’s nice of you to offer, but it’s fine.” She looked over my arm again. “That’s his blue sedan leaving the parking lot. Honestly, I think he was here to see the band. They’re a big deal, apparently. I’ve never seen so many people at this bar. I came with my friend, Emily.” She rolled her eyes, and it was extremely cute. “She is absolutely bonkers about the lead singer. She found a spot near the stage and told me she was going to stand there all night until the lead singer noticed her and then, of course, sparks would fly, and the two of them would drive off into the sunset. In the meantime, I was surveying the big crowd in the room, and boom, there was Dustin just twenty feet away standing behind a group of women all wearing Moonstone T-shirts. I think they had the same plans as Emily. When I spotted Dustin, my heart dropped to my stomach. He was the last person I wanted to see tonight. I was sure he hadn’t seen me, so I snuck through the crowd.”
“Except he followed you out of the bar.”
“Yeah, I guess I have to work on my ‘sneaking around in a crowd’ skill. Thank goodness I found a good hiding place.”
I hadn’t moved my arms.
She smiled shyly. “Thanks for being my human shield. I think it’s safe for me to leave the fort now, but I really appreciate your help.”
“Trust me, it was all my pleasure.”
“I better get back to Emily. She refused to give up her spot near the stage even though her best friend was clearly in distress. That’s how crazy she is about the singer. Are you here with friends?”
I nodded. “Sure am, and I should probably get back to them.”
Her smile stole my breath. She was hurrying back to the bar before I could say goodbye. “Hey, wait, you never told me your name!” I called to her. She didn’t hear me before she disappeared back into the bar.