Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
Salem
Zooming in, my eyes stay glued to the viewfinder as Taylor hits the ramp at full speed, launching his bike into the air.
His body twists in perfect sync with Christian’s, both of them suspended for a breathless second before their tires slam down. The engines and the crowd's cheers are deafening, but not enough to drown out the noise in my brain.
I shift the focus slightly, tracking Christian into a backflip with his middle fingers in the air. We’ve put on this routine a dozen times now, and I watch it through the lens slightly bored, setting up each angle habitually. Filming seems to be the only thing I can control lately.
I can capture the world and put it in a pretty frame. Cut out the mess, mute the sound. I can mold the memory of this moment into exactly how I want it to be.
If only reality worked the same.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket to see Xed's face lighting up the screen. Shoving in a pair of noise-canceling earbuds, I hit the answer button, simultaneously snapping another photo of Taylor’s Captain Morgan backflip. “You have shit timing.”
“I'm at Hannah's swim lesson,” Xed mutters into the phone. “She found out from her teacher that you can swim with reef sharks, so guess what her new goal is.”
A snort escapes me at his daughter's shark obsession. “Sounds about right. Is Matty there?”
"Yeah, let me get him for you."
Xed calls for his husband, and a grin tugs at my mouth when Matty's sunshiny voice rings in my ear.
“Hey, Sal!” he greets. I don’t need to look down at my phone to see his crooked grin. “How’re you holding up?”
My throat tightens, but before I can answer, a loud splash graces my ears followed by a shriek of giggles.
“Oh, hang on.” The phone muffles as he shouts over the noise, “Not the deep end, jellybean! You are not a shark!”
I laugh despite myself, heart aching just a little.
Matty comes back for half a second. “Sorry, she's in full apex predator mode. You okay, though?”
“I’m—”
“Shit. Ducky, take the phone. She just belly flopped onto someone's child.”
There’s a shuffle before Xed’s amused voice returns on the other end. “She’s trying to impress the swim coach, I think."
With a hum, I squint and adjust my lens. “Maybe we can take her to the aquarium when we see you in a few weeks.”
“Yeah, she'd love that. Consider it payment for ghosting me.”
I wince, lowering the camera as Christian lands a Superman seat grab that drives the crowd wild. “I haven’t ghosted you.”
Xed scoffs. “You texted ‘S.O.S’ three days ago and then vanished.”
“Uh… yeah, okay. Fair.” Blowing out a breath, I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts and glance around to make sure I’m truly alone.
Arya decided to hang out with Cedar at her booth, Huck and Logan are saving us a spot for As Above’s set, and Devon…
well, I don’t give a fuck what he’s doing. “Things here have taken a turn.”
“Define turn.”
I roll my lips and debate on how much to say. Part of me would feel like a traitor if I told Logan’s story but on the flip side, everyone else already knows. Won't be long until someone lets it slip one of these days. Still, though… some things aren't my business to tell.
Fuck it.
“So Logan is adopted.”
Xed’s silent for a beat. “No shit?”
I nod like he can see me as I line up another shot. “Yep. And his parents are actually Devon’s. They're adopted brothers.”
For Logan’s sake, I leave out the part about them fucking. And also the part where I almost made them do it again last night in front of me. Damn church boy and his conscience.
“Wow,” Xed breathes. “When did all this come out?”
“Not sure how long Dev has known, but he told Logan last year in Vegas. The morning after we… you know.”
“Got drunk and tied the knot? Guess that explains why he left so suddenly. He's not handling it well, I take it?”
Is bending over for the guy you thought was your uncle handling it well?
Who am I to say?
“He's… handling it,” I answer vaguely, unsure of how else to answer the question. “All that aside, Devon's been his usual asshole self.”
“No surprise there.”
“Nope, and I uh… kinda beat the shit out of him with a dirt bike helmet.”
There's a sharp intake of breath in my ears. “You did what?”
Huffing a nervous laugh, I blurt out the entire story before I change my mind. “He was being a dick, so I knocked him in the head once or twice. Okay, three times but it’s fine! He’s fine. Just an itty bitty concussion, four stitches, and some missing back teeth. No biggie.”
Xed chokes on his own spit. “Salem.”
“What?” I glance around at the crowd like they’re judging me, too. “I said he's fine. He deserved it, Xed. He was talking shit and I had a helmet. It was kismet.”
“Tell that to the judge when he presses charges!”
“He won’t,” I snort, wrapping up filming as Taylor and Christian finish their final stunt. “Devon’s too proud to admit I laid him out. Plus, I might have broken his taillights, too, so the bike crash story we told the hospital tracks.”
My friend lets out a disbelieving laugh. “God, I miss everyone.”
Closing my eyes, I let those words settle into me. Xed and I had grown close over the two years we lived together and admittedly, living alone kind of sucks. I spend more time at Taylor and Christian's place than I do my own.
“We miss you too,” I say softly, wishing he were here. “But Arizona is good, right? You and Matty are good?”
“We're great. Better than we were. Healing takes time, you know?”
My eyes flick up to Taylor, watching him shake out his dark, purple tinted hair as he removes his helmet with a carefree grin. “Yeah. I know.”
I can still remember how Tay used to be in high school, stuck under his shitty dad's thumb.
He'd been so full of anger and hatred. Even though it's been years, and he and Huck have moved on from their past, I still catch those moments of darkness in his eyes.
The lingering regret and shame that never seem to disappear.
He jogs back toward Christian, helmet swinging at his side. For a second, when he catches me staring, his smile softens—just briefly. But in that blink of a moment, I see it.
Not the badass stunt bike rider or the snarky loudmouth.
Just the boy who used to organize sleepovers for us at Christian's because we didn't want to go home. Neither did Xed.
“I’m glad you’re doing okay,” I murmur, yearning for those times when all of us were in one place. “You deserve that kind of peace.”
“So do you,” Xed says simply.
A bitter laugh bubbles out of my mouth. “Maybe someday.”
In all honesty, I wouldn't even know what that kind of peace would look like for me.
What Xed and Matty have is something I can’t give. Marriage, babies, swim lessons. Beautiful, and perfect, and unequivocally boring… but safe.
Maybe that’s the part that scares me the most, though.
Not that I don’t have it.
But that I might never be able to want it.
Bass thrums through the floor like a second heartbeat, rattling up my legs and through my ribcage. My ears are still ringing from the last song, sweat clinging to the back of my neck as I headbang to the music.
“You're seriously my new BFF,” Arya squeals, clutching Cedar’s arm while we watch As Above from backstage. “I can't believe we get to be VIP!”
Neither can I. Who knew the tattoo artist we'd chosen at random would end up being the girlfriend of my favorite band’s guitarist?
Cedar laughs and sips water from a paper cup. “It’s just a band, girls.”
“Uh, no,” I disagree. “It’s As Above. They’re like therapy in musical form.”
The drummer, Mac, drops a beat that has the crowd going feral. I shake out my hair, heart pounding from the adrenaline and maybe just the rare joy of not being in charge for once.
Cedar glances at me sideways. “You look like you needed this.”
“Desperately.” I watch the lead singer, Rex, lean into the mic with a growl that raises goosebumps on my arms. “I forgot what it felt like to… not have to think.”
“Well,” she says, tugging Arya toward the VIP bar, “don’t think. Just vibe.”
I let them drift off while I linger near the shadows, half-hiding behind a stack of amps as Fin's guitar solo washes over me.
Raising my camera, I snap a photo of the crowd from this angle, along with a few of the band members themselves. It's much calmer than capturing dirt bike shenanigans but still just as satisfying. I zoom in close enough to frame the bassist, Toby, throwing the crowd a sinful smirk.
Obviously, with the boys wearing helmets, I don't get many chances to photograph their faces, so I take advantage of this opportunity.
Every scream, every emotionally charged lyric that I feel deep in my bones, I spend song after song dancing around backstage to capture it for my personal collection of memories.
Eventually, my throat starts to beg for water, and I flip through my camera roll as I join the girls at the bar.
“Can I see?” Cedar gestures toward the camera. I slide it over, and her blue eyes widen with each passing shot. “Jesus, these are insane.”
“Insane bad or insane good?”
She looks through a few more, stopping on one where Rex is mid-scream, sweat flinging from his long hair. “You ever think about shooting professionally? Like, other than your dirt bike gang?”
Shrugging, I try to play it cool even though the compliment hits somewhere deep in my chest. “I mean, I mostly shoot for the promo side of the stunt show. It pays okay.” Now, anyway. “Gives me a reason to keep a camera in my hand.”
Arya leans over Cedar’s shoulder. “Okay, but this one is amazing. Look at the way the light catches his irises. This is, like, album cover material.”
“It's the lighting crew doing their job,” I deflect, fiddling with a napkin to distract myself.
But Cedar shakes her head and sets the camera down before pinning me with a serious look.
“You’ve got an eye for emotion. I can feel it in these photos, and it's not just fancy lighting.
This is art. As Above already has someone, but if you're interested, I know a band searching for a new tour photographer.”
My first instinct is to turn her down, tell her I'm happy where I'm at, but curiosity gets the better of me. “Who?”
“Symbiotic,” she smiles, pulling her phone from the pocket of her ripped jeans. “I had a few drinks with their drummer the other day, she's cool. Apparently, they're going on tour soon but can't seem to find anyone because their manager keeps scaring people away.”
I sputter on my sip of water. “Seriously? Symbiotic? Taylor and Christian would lose their shit. They've been in love with that band since high school.”
“Yup. Lead singer’s a total nightmare from what I hear, but the rest of the band seem solid. And they’re looking for someone who’s not afraid to get up close and dirty.”
I blink at her, my heart soaring as I think about what it would be like to tour the world doing what I love. My “art,” as Cedar put it.
Would I even want that? Tours take months, sometimes even years. That would mean being away from the gang, away from my family. I’ve never gone more than a week without seeing Taylor—and only when he visits Huck during football season.
Arya jumps into my arms, forcing me to grab her thighs when she wraps them around my waist. “Salem. Salem. This is, like, fate. Symbiotic is huge. And moody. And sexy. You're going to have so much fun!”
A snort leaves my lungs. “I haven’t even said yes yet. Or talked to anyone.”
Cedar hums, tapping a few things on her phone. “Don’t worry. I just sent Pepper, the drummer, your info.”
“What? Cedar!”
She offers me nothing more than a shrug and a cheeky smile. “You can thank me when you’re getting paid to travel the world with hot, sweaty band members for a living.”
The bartender orders us a round of celebration shots, and even though I drink them down, uncertainty settles in my gut along with the tequila. But there's also… excitement buried there too—the opportunity to do something new and experience life in a way I haven’t been able to before.
The music shifts behind us, transforming into something slower, more haunting and mellow. I glance toward the curtain and catch a sliver of stage light bleeding through the crack.
For a second, I imagine myself out there, not as a performer, but as the one capturing the rawness of it all. My pulse quickens at the fantasy.
Question is, could I do it? Could I give up my family and everything I've known in order to chase a dream?