Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Keannen
WE MANAGE TO ACT normal for the next few tour stops. Being on the road a lot helps. We drum our way across the entire country, hitting the big cities as well as a few more notable towns along the way.
I keep my hands off Tim the whole time.
We don’t room together after that night in Austin. We sleep on the tour buses a lot. This segment of the tour is brutal, with constant stops to perform but no real breaks. We won’t slow down to catch our breath until we reach the East Coast, and maybe by then Tim and I will have forgotten about that one night in the bathroom in Austin.
Yeah, small chance of that. I catch Tim looking at me every chance he gets: when we’re loading and unloading the buses, when we’re setting up and doing sound checks, when we’re stuck in hair and makeup at the same time, when I’m onstage performing. He’s certainly living up to the “clueless virgin” thing with all that staring, but I have nothing to offer him that I haven’t already given. It was fun to mess with him during that shower, but if he thinks jerking off together one time undoes our past, he’s wrong.
That’s not to say I’m above having a little fun with this. I’ve got my ex wrapped around my finger, and tormenting him is as easy as yawning and stretching during sound check so my shirt reveals a sliver of bare skin at my waist.
Sure enough, when I relax, Tim is staring at me instead of the sound guy trying to sort out all our equipment. I catch his eyes and smile, and while Tim flinches, he doesn’t look away.
“Drums.”
The sound guy interrupts our silent battle of wills. We snap our attention away from each other and toward him. The sound guy shrinks back.
“Could we talk about the drum kit swap for a minute?” he asks meekly.
We go through the sound check. It’s identical to every other sound check. These shows are starting to blur into each other, one venue in one city little different from another in another city. We haven’t paused to see any of our destinations outside of the venues and hotels, if we even got a hotel and didn’t pile right back onto the bus.
This night proves no different. I get through it, thinking about Tim as little as I can. Then it’s right back on the bus, right back on the road, right back on this strange, lumbering journey around the country.
Our arrival on the East Coast marks the midway point in the tour. It doesn’t feel like we’re halfway through this, though. That seems both way too short and way too long. Just moments ago, I was home in Seattle wondering how I could ruin my ex-boyfriend’s life. Now, I’ve got bigger things in mind. With every stop, there are more people there for us, for Baptism Emperor. The Ten Hours are still the headliner, but I don’t need marketing numbers to know we’re building something here.
“She what?” Jacob says one day on the tour bus.
His brown eyes widen as he listens to the voice on the other end of his phone.
I lie reclined on an uncomfortable bed, messing around on my phone, but I can see down the narrow hall of the tour bus to the seating area where Jacob and the others tend to hang out during the day. Our guitarist, Shawn, reads beside a sunny window while our bassist, Levi, and the backup guitarist, Dan, attempt to play a board game at the fold-out kitchen table. Jacob is beside Levi at the table, shaking his head in disbelief.
“But why?” Jacob says. “You’re sure? And we don’t get a say in this? Uh-huh. I know. I understand, but—”
Jacob scowls, an unusual expression on his normally bright, pretty boy face. His budding fan base would weep to see him looking so upset. Even I’m getting uneasy. I hop down from the bunk bed, pacing into the “living room” area.
By the time Jacob hangs up the phone with a sigh, the whole band is focused on him, books and games forgotten.
“What’s going on?” Levi asks beside him.
“That was Emmett,” Jacob says. “The tour sold out.”
Everyone except Jacob exchanges a look.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Dan asks.
“Yes,” Jacob says, “it should be. They even wanted to extend the tour.”
“But?” I prompt, because there is definitely a “but” looming at the end of that sentence.
“But,” Jacob says, “The Ten Hours refused. They won’t extend the tour. They agreed to a few extra shows that we can hit along the way, but they’re dead set on returning to Seattle by the date we originally agreed to.”
“What the hell?” I snarl.
Any goodwill Tim might have built up for him and his band with his little show in the shower vanishes like water down the drain. This is our big opportunity. They’ve already got the fans and the money and the record deals. We don’t. Yet they shot us in the foot during a tour specifically designed to help boost our image alongside theirs.
“Those selfish pieces of—”
“It’s not their fault,” Jacob says.
“The hell it isn’t,” I say.
“We can’t blame them,” Jacob says. “Really. Tours are long. They’re hard. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m exhausted, and we’re barely halfway. They agreed to six weeks, and they’re sticking to six weeks. That’s their call to make.”
“Not when it screws us over,” I say.
Shawn is your typical lead guitarist, all broody and quiet, but I catch him nodding his agreement from the corner of my eye.
Levi, our token laid back stoner, shrugs. “I won’t mind getting home on time.”
“Damn it, this is our break ,” I say. “You’re all just going to let the damn Ten Hours take it away from us?”
“They aren’t taking anything away from us,” Jacob says. “Yes, it’s frustrating, but they’re well within their rights to stick to their original contract. There’s nothing we can do. Let’s make the most of the shows we have left.”
Jacob never raises his voice, but when he makes a decision for the band, that’s usually the end of the conversation. I stomp away, throwing myself on my bunk and shutting the privacy curtain to keep from exploding in front of the others. Even alone in the dark, however, I’m seething.
The Ten Hours didn’t even ask us. They didn’t call. They didn’t talk to any of us. They handed down this decision like royalty making decrees from the throne. We’re the little guys, the upstarts, the small-time band playing crappy bars in Seattle. We don’t get a say in our own destiny.
Even as my rage boils over, I know the thoughts rising alongside it are unfair, but I indulge them anyway. We’ve got a tour stop in Atlanta tonight, and I am going to do everything in my power to show that crowd we’re the better band. We should be the headliners. We should be the ones handing down royal decrees to whatever lesser band has to open for us.
Tonight, I’m going to drum like my entire musical career depends on it.
Tim better get ready because there’s no way anyone is leaving that venue believing he’s the better drummer.
I SCOWL THROUGH hair and makeup and all the other pre-show shit that’s become my routine during this tour. Tim is doing his puppy dog thing, trying to catch my eye, but I glare back so fiercely that he turns away. How long ago did him and his stupid band decide our fate for us? Before or after that shower?
It makes no difference. I’m taking him down tonight, and his entire band with him.
By the time I stalk onto the stage, my hands itch for my drumsticks. The crowd might be screaming. I can’t tell. The only sound echoing in my ears is Jacob’s voice when he told us about that phone call .
When the set begins, I do my very best to drum so loud, so hard, that I can’t hear anything at all.
Sweat flies off my forehead as I slam my way through the music. We’ve always courted a hard, edgy, aggressive sound, but tonight I’m personally dialing that up to eleven. The venue booms every time I hit my drums, like I’m Zeus commanding thunder to roar through the room. My bandmates respond, however calm and reasonable they seemed on the bus. Shawn shreds through solos on his guitar. Levi’s bass throbs alongside my beats. Even Dan, usually in the background of our band, steps up a few times to show off. And Jacob — Jacob howls into the mic, his voice ranging from angelic high notes to grating shrieks to seductive harmonies. He’s magnetic tonight. At times, it feels like every stage light shines only on him, our charming pretty boy frontman who’s going to make the whole damn world fall in love with him — and us.
When the set ends, it’s like waking from a trance. As the lights go down, cloaking us so we can shuffle off the stage and make way for the crew, I find my bandmates blinking and taking the same shuddery breath I do.
When I climb off my seat, I glance into the dark beyond the stage and find Tim there, as breathless as my band as he gapes at me. I swallow down the swirl of hot anger and warmer desire that clogs my throat. I want to hate him for this latest twist, but the adoration in his eyes makes me want other things even more .
I bump my shoulder against his as I leave the stage, meaning to throw him off-balance. I’m buzzing too hard to go sit in a greenroom, so I linger, watching The Ten Hours get ready and wondering if I can curse them to fail using just my thoughts. When they finally stumble, Baptism Emperor will be here to snatch the crown off their pretty heads.
But they don’t stumble.
As though we left some feral magic out there on the stage, The Ten Hours play louder and harder and better than I’ve heard them all tour. Tim closes his eyes and drums like he’s in a dream, hair flying around his head. Erin’s voice is massive. She doesn’t sing to the crowd; she demands their attention as she howls into the mic.
The musician in me can’t help but stand in awe, but the jaded asshole in me sneers. Because yeah, why shouldn’t these guys derail our career before we’ve even gotten a chance, then strut on stage and steal our thunder from us? Why shouldn’t they cut the tour short when this could be our big break? They already have everything.
It’s like when Tim disappeared, I realize. He was the good boy with the good family and the good grades and the good life. So when being gay became a little uncomfortable, he simply packed up and left. He was already winning. He didn’t need to make his life harder for the likes of me.
I guess some stuff never changes.
The Ten Hours already have everything. They’re not going to interrupt their comfortable rise to stardom for the likes of us.
I march away from the stage sneering. A plan takes shape even as The Ten Hours go on playing. It might not be an entirely ethical thing to do, but it will make me feel better, it’ll soothe the bitterness burning a hole through my chest.
Besides, I know Tim wants it.
He’s been staring at me for weeks. Why not give the straight boy another little taste of what he thinks he desires?
I start texting before the music ends.