Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Please come to the show dress rehearsal. I’d like you to see the performance of the new song. I also want to meet with you afterward.
Roy read the note for the fifth time. It had been delivered with a bouquet of Tootsie Pops. All grape, with DJ’s chosen raspberry forming an outside border. Inside the envelope were details for a private charter to take him to Florida.
A fifteen-thousand capacity arena. He knew Henry could handle it, but Roy had still called, with ways to improve his security coverage.
Henry had incorporated them into his plan, but added, “Don’t worry, Roy. We’ve got no unusual red flags on this one. I’ve triple checked, believe me.”
When he landed at the Jacksonville air strip, he was in for another surprise. While he was waiting in the VIP lounge for his rented car to be brought up—they refused to let him just go get it—he got some company.
“Honey, is that the Roy Bloodwell? Security to the stars? Do you think he’s seen Taylor Swift in her underwear?”
Roy glanced up from his laptop to see Mick standing at the threshold. Cyn, wearing a slinky black dress, leaned against her man in a posture that suggested sex kitten or psychopath.
“Think he’s here for the Survival concert?” she added. “I want to throw my panties on stage.”
“Sweetheart, you didn’t wear any,” Mick informed her.
“How did you know I was going to be here?” Then Roy answered his own question. “G. Or Warren.”
“Warren’s here on a separate gig, but he’s free tonight,” Mick confirmed.
“DJ had him on standby. He told him he’d invited you to see his rehearsal, but if you didn’t have backup on site, you’d be so busy double-checking stuff, you wouldn’t sit your ass down and watch the show.
So Warren is going to handle things with Henry. ”
The kid had been busy. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“Sometimes even the most together man on the planet needs moral support,” Cyn said. “Sy said so when he called. He also told me to tell you, and I quote: ‘The unlikeliest of pairings are often meant to be.’”
She swept an appraising gaze over Mick. “I have no idea what he’s talking about, 5-0.”
“Me either, Mistress Felon.”
“Ooh. I may change that to my scene name.”
“But I like Mistress Care Bear so much better.” Mick squeezed her trim waist with a strong hand as she chuckled in her throaty way.
Roy shouldered his bag and moved toward them. “I assume you cancelled my car. If I have to ride in that monster truck of Cyn’s, I call shotgun.”
Mick grinned. “We brought my vehicle. A sweet Lincoln Aviator with enough leg room for an NBA player.”
They’d given him an out on commenting about the need for backup, but when Roy reached them, Cyn brought him to a halt, her expression saying they weren’t going one step further until she got a straight answer.
“You want him?” she asked. “One word response. None of the bullshit going on in your head that doesn’t mean anything.”
She wasn’t much on small talk, and if Roy tried to work around it, she’d just kick him in the balls to get him to cut to the chase. Or try to. He gave himself even chances against her MMA skills. But she might get blood on his shirt.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Then let’s go get him.”
DJ was still on vocals only for the Jacksonville show. They were featuring a guest guitarist, on loan from another big name group not on tour. It had amped up the already enthusiastic response to the show, selling it out even faster than usual—a record ten minutes.
But for the first time in his career, performing a single song during a rehearsal was going to be more important than performing it in front of thousands of fans.
He stood in his dressing room alone. They’d put together a complicated performance for the song, but the challenge of it transcended that.
All the things DJ knew and felt about music, about the art within him and the life without, everything that had led to this…
Every part of it, every lyric, step, costume choice, all of it, had significance.
He thought of what Bono said about the moments right before a show. The crowd’s anticipation wasn’t just for the music, but for the chemical reaction between the band and the audience. In this case, an audience of one.
Everyone involved, from the band to the dancers to the sound and light engineers, had been told to act like this was the actual performance, because Moss would be providing influencers and the press recorded clips from it.
Those in his inner circle knew the real reason.
Roy.
He’d used the plane ticket. It had eased one worry while escalating his trepidation over the outcome. But earlier in the day, when Warren met with DJ and Henry to go over security issues, DJ learned Roy had been in contact with Henry all along.
“Every concert you’ve done since…” Henry paused.
“Since a crazed stalker kidnapped me?”
“Yeah, since that.” Henry didn’t smile. “He’s called me ahead of time and gone over things.
I didn’t take it wrong. I’m not going to turn down an extra set of eyes out of professional pride.
He also gave Moss the names of people who could take over when I retire.
If Roy recommended them, you know they’ll be good. ”
Hearing that had dampened some of DJ’s hopes, but Roy not wanting to work for him wasn’t necessarily a rejection. It could mean just the opposite.
After DJ’s cutting “not sharing my bed, so piss off” response, Roy hadn’t texted the rest of that day, but on the next he was back to friendly dialogue that skirted intimate lines. DJ hadn’t initiated any of them, even as he’d craved their arrival every day.
He waited for them. Like he wanted to wait for his Master’s desires, be ready to receive them.
DJ looked at himself in the mirror. Black jeans with metallic strands, studded belt. No shirt, just his ichthys. He also wore the bracelet Gilda had given him.
He stretched out his fingers, feeling the ache.
The exercises were torturous, but it was getting better.
It was so vital to him to reconnect with his guitar that he was probably the first person his physical therapist had ever had to tell, “Doing the exercises five times more than the recommended amount is not recommended. Don’t overdo. ”
Like Roy had said.
This was probably overdoing it, this whole dress rehearsal, fly Roy here, performance thing.
But it was what he knew how to do. He had a mess of emotions in his heart and mind, and he didn’t know what to do with them but lay them at Roy’s feet to be stepped on, kicked out of the way or worse… politely ignored.
“Stop this shit. You are a world famous rockstar, buddy.” DJ pointed a finger at the mirror. “You’re Steve, Tal and Pete’s brother, their bandmate through eternity. Marjorie is your mother, in every way that counts.”
He needed to tell her that. It was way past time. Tal would agree. Sometimes you had to stop being a chickenshit and risk all of yourself.
“You love Royal Bloodwell. Passionately. So get your ass out there, put it on the line and see what happens. When you started, you kept your eye on the ball, on getting to where you are now. But there’s a new ball now.”
His grin became the soft smile that Roy had said was irresistible, because it wasn’t practiced. It was him, coming from a deep and sincere place inside.
The new ball was this. Today, tomorrow, and even when the lights and fame finally went away, he wanted Roy to be the forever person at his side. The one who took the journey with him, all the way to the end of their lives.
DJ left the dressing room. As he moved along the corridor to the stage, he acknowledged his roadies, bumping fists. Getting into the spirit of what they’d been asked to do, they were acting like they did for an actual show.
He reached the mark where the dancers were waiting. While his lighting and stage designers had gone through hair-tearing-out moments thanks to DJ’s alterations, the dancers had physically borne the brunt of the changes he’d made. By suffering with them, he’d become their friend.
Each dancer playing a "Dom" role had been directed by DJ on how to act their part, as well as react to his role. The music and lyrics would drive the energy, make it build and keep building. Sy’s idea to improve the rhythm of the outro had taken that to a new level.
DJ nodded to the dancers. They settled in and waited for the cue. Heads turning side to side, light bouncing on the balls of their feet, a quick stretch of beautiful male bodies.
He’d wanted Roy to enjoy the view.
Though not too much.
Before a show, he fed on the anticipation, the energy of thousands filling a space, waiting for everything to start. Which meant if he’d invited Roy to the concert, he would have been offering a mixed message, that he was performing for all of them, not just his Master.
He also wouldn’t have had the unique pleasure of feeling it now, the anticipation, the desire, the connection, all directed toward one man.
The lights went down. A random scattering of spotlights popped on, and swept over the stage.
Starbursts exploded across the five large backdrop screens, silhouetting the wall of amps, the drum kit and band members, poised with their instruments.
Sy and the others, ready to play the music.
The drum platform glided a few feet forward, strobing lights highlighting the steps in front of it, and setting off similar brackets of lights on the four other platforms.
That was his signal.
DJ moved onto the stage, gripping his wireless mic.
The first five lines had no instrument accompaniment, pure acapella.
If there had been a crowd, the spotlights, the starbursts spiraling on the black screens behind him, would have drawn their attention, bringing a hush to the vast arena, a wave of whistles, the water-rushing sound of indrawn breaths.
The sound cue came through his in-ear monitor, and he began.
You covered me
Surrounded me
Caged my heart
Freed my soul from the pain