Chapter 21 Roxie
Roxie
The show the next night was probably the weakest one we’d had since the tour began.
The Washington D.C. venue didn’t have a traditional floor section; there were rows of seats that went right up to the stage.
Some of the fans stood when the concert began, but a lot more remained seated the entire time.
For a band that fed off the energy of the crowd, it was a huge buzzkill. Riot still gave a great performance, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Even Milo seemed downright subdued behind his drum set.
“They can’t all be bangers,” Riot said with a shrug after the show. “Just got to shake it off and think about the next show.”
“Philly will rock,” Milo announced. “They know how to appreciate us.”
The East Coast cities indeed did not disappoint: Philadelphia, New York, and Boston were each better than the last, with fans screaming and stretching out their hands toward the stage like worshipers at the foot of a prophet.
We had a hotel in Boston, and this time Cash gave me my own room and bunked up with Milo. I protested to a polite degree, but eventually accepted with the knowledge that this would make things easier for Riot and me.
And oh, how it was worth it.
Three nights in the Boston hotel meant three nights of naughty fun without any time limit to inhibit us. We were like gluttons that were ending a fast, devouring each other with a hunger that we both felt deep within our bones.
Rough, hard, passionate, and slow. Sensual one night, then filthy the next. We had sex in every imaginable way, to every possible degree, until by the third night I was too sore to continue.
“Probably for the best,” Riot said while we stretched out in bed, allowing the hotel air conditioning to cool our sweaty bodies. “I don’t think I have a drop of body fluid remaining.”
“Really?” I asked. “You’ve only come… six times in the past three nights?”
“Eight,” Riot corrected. “We had sex four times on Wednesday, twice last night, and twice tonight.”
“There’s no way we had sex four times on Wednesday.”
He started counting on his fingers. “A quickie right after checking in, before going to dinner. Then immediately after dinner. Then again an hour later…”
“That’s only three!”
“The fourth time was in the middle of the night,” he insisted. “You woke me up around midnight to grind your ass against me, and I tugged your panties to the side and fucked you like that.”
“Ohh yeah,” I said with a giggle. “I forgot about that. But I wasn’t trying to grind against you. I just wanted to cuddle.”
“You wanted my cock to cuddle the inside of your pussy.”
I laughed against his chest. “I really didn’t. But I’m glad you took it the wrong way.”
“I’ve never been good at reading body language.” He sighed. “Too bad we leave Boston tomorrow.”
“You mean too bad we’re leaving this hotel room?”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe we’ll get some alone time on the bus,” I suggested.
“I like a quickie,” he said with a grin. “I bet I can make you come in under a minute.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I said. “I’ll have a good time whether you succeed or not.”
We hit the road the next morning, but I was already counting down the days until our Chicago concert, which was the next time we would get to stay in a hotel.
To distract myself from Riot’s sexy form stalking up and down the tour bus, I spent more time trying to get to know the other members of the band.
Cash was still burying his nose in a book whenever we had a few minutes of downtime. The way he lounged on the loveseat, one arm propped up behind his head and his legs stretched out, reminded me of a philosopher king. Quiet, competent, intelligent—and totally sexy.
Eventually I downloaded the audio version of what he was reading and listened to it while working on the band posters for the next few cities.
“I just finished that,” I told him while we were parked outside the venue in Toronto. “Fantastic book, but it kind of fizzled out at the end.”
He blinked in surprise, then looked at his book. “You read this?”
“I listened to the audiobook sped-up, but yeah.”
Cash closed the book and placed it in his lap, then cocked his head at me. “Did you read a lot growing up?”
“All the time! My mom used to take me grocery shopping with her after school, and I would walk alongside her cart with a book held in front of my face. She had to take me to the library at least once a week.”
He smiled at me. “Same. Do you still read?”
“Not as often as I’d like. Before this, the last book I’d read was King of Ashes, a thriller that takes place in Virginia.
I just don’t have a lot of time, you know?
Audiobooks help, but sometimes I can’t concentrate while working on my art and listen to music instead.
And it’s too easy to plop down on the couch at the end of the day and watch TV instead. ”
“Do you usually read thrillers?”
“I’ll read anything if it’s good. Fiction, non-fiction, biographies, educational stuff.”
Cash opened his backpack, rummaged around, and came out with another paperback. “This was the last thing I read, if you’re looking for something new.”
The book was a biography titled Mark Twain, by Ron Chernow. A photo of the mustached man filled the front cover.
“Might be too dry for you, but give it a go.”
“I know very little about him, actually,” I said.
I ended up devouring the book in a single day. Cash and I split a bottle of wine that night and spent two hours discussing the book and all the interesting parts of Mark Twain’s life.
After that, we sort of formed our own two-person book club.
Cash picked a book for us and read the paperback—he said he preferred having a physical book in his hands—while I preferred listening to the audiobook version.
Then, when we were both finished, we split a bottle of red wine and discussed it.
“You have no idea how nice it is to have someone to talk to,” he said late one night. Everyone else had gone to bed, while the two of us sat together on the bus loveseat long into the night.
“You have your bandmates,” I pointed out.
“I mean someone to talk to about books. Milo and Riot never read for fun, and the only thing Vi cares about it romantasy. She’s currently obsessed with some dragon book series where the main character is also named Violet.”
“Happy to be your partner in reading,” I said with an intoxicated smile. “It feels good to read again! I forgot how much I love it.”
“Real life gets in the way of our true passions,” Cash agreed.
“What do your parents do?” I asked. “Aside from turning their noses down at rock music.”
Cash snorted. “They own a crematorium.”
I sat up a little straighter. “Holy shit, really?”
“Calm down. It’s not nearly as interesting as it sounds.”
“They make money by turning dead bodies into ash. That’s metal as fuck.”
He barked a laugh. “I guess so. But it’s really quite boring in practice. They wanted my sister and I to take over the business some day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t want to spend your whole life taking care of dead bodies?”
“God, no,” he replied. “Dead bodies don’t bother me, but I wasn’t interested.”
“So your sister is stuck with it?”
“Not quite. She went to medical school, which was enough to make my parents happy. I wanted a different life from all of that.”
“But not the MIT life?”
He grimaced. “That was never my dream. It was my parents’ dream for me when they realized I didn’t want to take over the family business. They took my rejection of the crematorium and segued it into a new plan without ever asking me what I wanted.”
“Parents are good at that.”
“I thought yours were supportive of your art career?”
“Yeah, they are,” I said. “I’m lucky as hell.
But most of my friends growing up had overbearing parents who were pushing them in a certain direction.
My best friend, Meghan, became an accountant because she got an A in Calculus and her parents decided she needed to find a career that has a lot of math. ”
“Meghan the friend who barged into the dressing room after our Austin show?”
“The one and only.”
Cash poured the rest of the wine bottle into each of our glasses. “I know I only met her the one time, but she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who allows herself to be pushed around.”
“In general, you’re right. Her parents are her one weakness. And it kind of worked out because she has a good career as a CPA. And she’ll be able to work remotely if and when they get pregnant.”
Cash slowly nodded along. “Do you want kids?”
“Oof. Jumping straight to an intense topic.”
“I waited until we were both nice and wine drunk,” he said with a smile. “But you don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”
“I was just giving you shit.” I leaned into him for a moment to let him know I was joking. The physical touch, skin on skin, made me feel just as warm as the wine in my stomach. “I love kids. I think I want them.”
“You think?”
Shrugging, I said, “I’m fairly sure I want them. But I’m pragmatic enough to know I might change my mind. Or find a partner who doesn’t want kids at all.”
Cash cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. “That’s a pretty big incompatibility. You’d really sacrifice what you want for your partner?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just trying to keep my options open, I guess.” I shrugged it off again. “What about you?”
“I do want kids,” he said simply. “Two is a nice number, but I could be talked into three.”
“Two is a nice number,” I agreed. “Any more than that, and you’re outnumbered.”
“And you have to get a bigger vehicle!”
“Exactly!”
We laughed about that, and then Cash opened another bottle of wine while we changed the subject to the next book on his list.
That night while I drifted to sleep, I thought about how much I liked Cash. I liked all of them, but Cash and I had an intellectual connection that went deeper. I felt so lucky that I’d been invited on tour with such a wonderful group of people.
Up until now, I focused mostly on Riot during the shows.
It was tough not to since he was the frontman, with his smooth vocals streaming from every speaker at every venue.
But during the Toronto show, I focused on Cash instead.
He was a calmer presence on stage, confidently plucking at his bass guitar while bobbing his head in time with the music.
I thought about everyone’s roles in the band.
Riot was the leader, obviously. The face that everyone saw the most. On drums, Milo was the heart, constantly beating in the background and giving energy to everyone else.
Violet was… well, I wasn’t sure what she was.
The brain, maybe, since she wrote most of the songs with Riot.
But Cash was the backbone of the band. His bassline was calm and sturdy, reinforcing everyone else. The metaphor extended off stage, too: he drove the bus, did all the planning, coordinated our hotels and appearances.
Cash didn’t have the raw sexual energy that Riot gave off, but he was immensely attractive in his own way.
After the show, the two of us split a bottle of pre-mixed margaritas and stayed up until two in the morning. We didn’t even discuss the book that we’d both finished that day; we drifted from topic to topic, childhoods and role models, hobbies and bad habits.
When we eventually decided to call it a night, Cash wrapped me in a big hug. We were both pretty sloshed from the margaritas, and clung to each other for support as much as emotional connection.
“I’ve really enjoyed our late-night chats,” he said, slurring his words slightly. “I haven’t had a reading partner since I was a teenager. I’m glad you’re on tour with us, Rox.”
“Same,” I replied.
Neither of us seemed to want to end the embrace, but eventually it did, and we went to our separate bunks.
But his comment made me smile until I fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning and went for a walk around downtown Toronto. It was a beautiful city on the lake, and there was a nice crispness in the air that made my coffee taste extra good.
Back at the bus, Violet was standing outside smoking a cigarette. “Don’t judge me,” she said, wiggling the cigarette between her fingers. “I only do it when we’re on tour.”
“We all have our vices,” I said, joining her while I finished my coffee. “My dad used to smoke, which turned me off from it. My mom hated it and eventually made him quit.”
Violet took a drag and nodded. “Dana hates it too, which is why I only indulge when we’re on tour. Everyone else I’ve ever been with didn’t mind, though. Riot used to join me, but only… after certain activities.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Are you saying you and Riot used to date?”
“We didn’t really date, if you know what I mean,” she said with a suggestive flare of her eyebrows. “Same with Milo and Cash. It was just physical with the four of us, you know?”
It felt like my brain was suddenly processing everything slowly. But I wasn’t that hungover. “You… wait. Are you saying…”
“Oh yeah, the four of us were a hot little polycule for a few months. Did we never mention that?”
She said it in a weird way, like she had been looking for an excuse to tell me. Like it wasn’t really a secret, but something they didn’t talk about.
“I’m sorry, I’m not really understanding. You and your three bandmates…”
“Oh yeah,” Violet said with a suggestive grin. “The four of us were together. Riot, Cash, and Milo used to share me.”