Chapter 17
Cash
Riot and Roxie were fucking.
I had a sixth sense for these kinds of things, going back to high school when my sister started sleeping with her Chemistry tutor. She had our parents fooled, but I saw right through it.
Now, I saw through the facade Riot was putting up. I could read him like a book, and he was pining after this girl bad. His post-show rooftop routine usually only lasted ten or fifteen minutes, but he’d been gone almost an hour.
And, coincidentally, Roxie had disappeared after the show.
“Yo, Dollar Bills!” Milo called out to me on the bus. “You listening?”
I turned away from the bus window to face my bandmates. “I agree about the keyboard. It should be a little louder next show.”
“Ah hah!” Violet got up into Milo’s face and stuck her tongue out. He responded with a middle finger jabbed at her face like a dagger.
“I thought you were on my side,” Milo complained to me.
“I’m on the side of the best performance possible. And upping the keyboard sound will make the live performance better.”
“But not the recorded version,” Milo clarified.
“And I think we should swap out the songs you mentioned,” I added. “Remove Platinum Redhead and replace it with Joint Custody.”
“I’m not even in that song!” Violet complained.
“Sorry, Vi,” I replied. “Platinum Redhead isn’t hitting the way we expected.”
She slumped back into her seat. “Dana’s gonna be pissed.”
“We’ll add it to the next show she comes to,” Milo said. “Hey! Isn’t it fucking sick that we get to make these decisions?”
“As opposed to being forced to do whatever Rainknife wants?” Violet asked. “Hell yeah.”
Milo raised his voice to a mocking tone. “You can’t turn the volume up to the max! You only get seven songs on your setlist, with no encore! Blah blah blah.”
“It pays to be in charge,” I said with a small smile. “Did you see Pete’s email?”
Pete was our band agent. He was on tour with another group that he represented, rather than touring with us, which none of us minded.
“About the ticket sales?” Violet asked.
I nodded. “We’re not selling out every show, but we’re close. And there’s still lots of time to build momentum.”
“Better than we expected!” Violet said cheerfully. “We should end the tour with a nice war chest…”
“Nuh uh,” I scolded. “Don’t think about the pay until the tour’s over. But yeah. We should make out pretty well.”
We’d been scraping together a living as a band up to this point. We made almost nothing from streaming services and album sales. That’s how most bands were. Touring was where the real money was.
“Where the hell’s Roxie?” Milo wondered out loud. After a heartbeat he added, “And Riot.”
“Banging,” Violet replied.
Milo’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Banging. Fucking. Bumping uglies.” She made a circle with her thumb and index finger, then stuck her other finger in and out.
“You really think so?” Milo asked.
Violet glanced up at me. Her expression said: can you believe how oblivious Milo is?
Milo looked at me, then at Violet, then back to me. “You two don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Violet took a slow drink from her beer. “They’ve been eye-fucking each other since Houston. It’s about time they started body-fucking.”
“Body-fucking?”
“It’s a new thing people are saying.”
“Since when?” Milo asked.
“Since I first said it ten seconds ago. Shut up.”
“You shut up!” Milo shot back.
I watched them argue without adding my own thoughts. Hearing Violet’s opinion only solidified my own. I was surprised that Riot would give in so quickly after we’d had a discussion about this.
Then again Roxie wasn’t just any random woman.
There was something about her I couldn’t shake.
The carefree attitude she had on tour with us, like this was all a big adventure.
The way she grinned right before making a joke, like she was already laughing at the punchline.
How she felt pressed up against me when we hugged, like she wanted every part of our bodies to touch.
I understood exactly why Riot had surrendered to whatever he was feeling. Because I felt it, too.
Motion outside the bus caught my attention. “There they are. Coming out of the arena.”
“Told you,” Violet said.
“They aren’t doing anything!” Milo protested. “They’re just walking next to each other.”
“They’re walking,” Violet insisted, “like two people who just had sex and are trying very hard to pretend that they didn’t.”
Milo looked to me for confirmation. All I did was grimace. His shoulders sank like he was heartbroken.
“You all right, little drummer boy?” Violet asked.
“I guess. I was just…” He shrugged one shoulder. “I kind of like her too, ya know?”
“So what?” Violet said, and I could tell from the glimmer in her eyes what she was going to bring up next. “This doesn’t change anything. You two could share her. Or you three.” Her gaze collided with mine.
Milo rolled his eyes. “We know that never works out well.”
Violet casually propped her feet up on the bus table and smiled. “On the contrary, my drumstick-twirling friend. It worked out great with me. For a while.”
“Until you decided you’re a five-point-five on the McKinnley Scale,” Milo muttered.
“It’s called the Kinsey Scale, you dork. And I’m more like a five. But my point still stands. Y’all handled our weird little polycule just fine while it lasted. Better than I expected you all to. I bet you could do it again.” Her gaze met mine again. “If you wanted to.”
I glared at her, then watched Riot and Roxie approach the door to the bus.
It happened back when we first formed the band.
Back before we chose the name Cherry Midnight, and were going by the now-retired name Animal Style.
We were in Los Angeles, and had closed down a bar downtown before continuing the party in our hotel room.
Back then, we could only afford one room, sleeping two to a bed.
We couldn’t afford the minibar prices, but Milo had brought a bottle of vodka up to the room, which mixed well with a few Cokes from the hallway vending machine.
Two or three drinks later, when we had all lowered our inhibitions… it happened.
Violet was the one who suggested it. We all agreed on that after the fact. We had been talking about sex, or sex positions, or something along those lines. Violet mentioned that she had never been gangbanged before, but that it was a fantasy of hers. And then she smiled at the three of us.
That was all the invitation we needed.
It was great. Not just that first drunken night, but for months afterward.
We toured, and played our songs, and had incredible sex almost every night—and in every possible combination you could imagine.
Milo was kind of awkward at first about sharing a woman, but Riot and I never felt any jealousy or possessiveness.
It was only physical. Or at least, as much as it could be when the four of us were already friends and spent all our time together on tour. We were like best friends who also fucked.
Then Violet met Dana and quickly realized she preferred women.
I didn’t regret any of it. We’d all had a great time while it lasted, and if anything, we were now closer because of the experience, as unlikely as that seemed.
And Violet’s queer awakening gave us an off-ramp without anyone’s feelings getting hurt.
She wasn’t rejecting any of us individually; she was rejecting men as an entire gender. We could stomach that.
But Violet’s suggestion that we could do the same thing with Roxie?
I didn’t think it would work. Violet was a special situation, and it was ridiculously unlikely that we could replicate it with Roxie. Even if she wanted to.
Which she probably didn’t.
“You really think so?” Milo asked Violet. “You think she’s the type of woman who would be into…”
“Shh,” I said. “They’re getting on the bus.”
We tried to act casual as our lead singer and his muse climbed onto the bus. They were laughing about something, the end of whatever conversation they’d been having outside.
“She found me,” Riot explained, like he knew what we were all wondering. “On the roof.”
“Always on the roof,” Milo said. “Couldn’t be me. I get all woozy if I’m higher than five feet in the air!”
“Our stage tonight was almost ten feet high,” Violet pointed out.
“Which is why my drums are at the back of stage, and not near the edge!”
While they joked, I was watching Roxie and Riot. They seemed to have relaxed a small, almost imperceptible degree. Like they were relieved they hadn’t been caught.
To me, that was as much as an admission.
As the two lovebirds split up and went about their business, I exchanged a look with Milo, who grimaced.
I wondered what he thought about the whole thing.
When it came to crazy ideas, he liked to jump right in to see what would happen.
That was the opposite of my general attitude; I preferred to take my time, gathering information before making any big decisions.
But with Roxie?
I wanted to throw caution to the wind and dive right in.