Chapter 7 – Riser
Chapter Seven
Riser
That chick is having a bad night.
Malcolm is bouncing off the walls, overcompensating for something that isn’t even his fault.
The last thing that woman needs is to be disappointed…
Mal gets bored easily.
It’s a ticking time bomb, but there’s not much any of us can do to stop it. He’s stubborn, meaning he’s going to do what he wants to do.
Kincaid will eventually try to talk some sense into him, but that’ll only make it worse. The more you push with Mal, the more he pushes back.
Tennyson and Parish came into the greenroom a few minutes ago, saw something was going down, and disappeared to somewhere else to get high.
I almost followed them, but someone needs to make sure Malcolm doesn’t cause any trouble. We’re supposed to be at our meet and greet, but the fans will have to wait.
Hopefully Ten and Parish make their way over shortly. Hell, none of us have even handed off our stage outfits to wardrobe.
Lumen sits on the couch in our greenroom with her cheek resting against her palm.
She’s been quiet since Mal left to find Benji.
Honestly, she was quiet when she found her boyfriend fucking that groupie.
I’d give her a two out of ten on the freak-out scale. It was mild, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she went full level-ten explosion once she finally comes to terms with what went down.
“Benji said we can go over now.” Malcolm closes the door behind him as he comes back into the room.
“Thank God.” Lumen’s head whips up, and she nods. “I need to get that done while he’s still busy.”
“You have an interview with that hometown reporter,” I remind Mal. “It was supposed to be before the meet and greet.”
The poor guy went to the same high school as Malcolm, and he got a job with some hometown paper that’s barely hanging on.
Mal agreed to meet with the guy, and he flew all the way out here on his own dime.
Mal shrugs. “I’ll make it up to him with a bunch of merch.”
“Wait.” Lumen’s head swivels as she looks between us. “You’re supposed to be meeting fans and doing interviews. I can go by myself. I’ll be fine, as long as he isn’t there.”
“I’ll go with you,” I offer before I can stop myself. “No one cares if the drummer misses the party.”
It’s embarrassing but true.
“Good plan.” Malcolm points at me with his hands that are clasped together and nods. “I’ll cover for you.” He crosses the room, stopping in front of Lumen. “Riser will go with you, and if Theo shows up, he’ll keep him away while you get your stuff.”
The way she stares up at him is a problem. She’s looking at him like she trusts what he has to say, but they’re essentially strangers.
Yeah, he’s been stalking her for a while.
That doesn’t mean much when they’ve only spent an hour together, total. This is the last thing we need right after Randy left. The label won’t hesitate to bring his annoying ass back, and I just don’t want to deal with that right now.
She glances between us. “Okay, thanks.”
“Come find me when you’re done.” Mal smiles, brushing her hair back from her cheek.
I hate it when I’m right.
Goddammit.
This is going to be a problem.
The driver waits outside Tangled Desires’ bus. He lets us inside, and Lumen gets to work. Their bus is more trashed than ours with coke and weed left on the coffee table in the living room. The label doesn’t do bus checks often, but it’s still a stupid move to leave that shit lying around.
The poor woman huffs and sniffles, digging in the drawers under one of the bunks.
I frown, rocking on my heels and shoving my hands into my pockets.
Damn, man.
She’s really upset.
I’m highly sensitive to the emotions of others. If someone is in a bad mood, it spills into me. I can always tell when someone is angry or hurting because I become hyperaware. It sucks to have to live what someone else is feeling, but I’ve been like this my entire life.
She finishes shoving a bunch of clothes into the duffel bag and pops up, going into the small bathroom.
The atmosphere is grim as hell, and I’m not sure what to do or say.
We met fifteen minutes ago.
Nothing I say could possibly help.
Shit like this is why I never got too deep into messing with groupies, and I don’t even have a girlfriend I’m trying to protect.
When we were first signed, I had a couple of hookups here or there, but it never felt like the women really wanted me.
I knew what they were after.
They knew what they were after.
And it left me feeling…not great.
It came off like they just wanted to mark off a box on their getting every member of Liminal into bed checklist.
Some women are persistent, and they’re beautiful. It can be easy to get caught up in the moment. It’s somewhat easier for me than it is for the others because, unless I’m with the guys, women very rarely recognize me as part of the band.
People back home and the hardcore fans can pick me out of a lineup, but Malcolm and Kincaid are the faces people know.
Drew used to be too, and he loved the attention.
My damn chest aches every time I think about the old days.
I put my ass on the line, begging Benji to push the label to agree to keep him. They made one offer—if he rode out rehab and agreed to drug tests weekly for his first tour back, they’d let him stay a part of Liminal.
He told them to go fuck themselves.
I miss him.
I’m not the only one dreading the day we get the call to say he overdid it. No matter how many times I’ve reached out, he won’t talk to me, and at some point, I probably need to take the hint.
Lumen comes out of the bathroom and dumps an armful of stuff into one of the smaller bags.
Standing, she glances around, like she’s not sure what to do next. Her scent bursts in the air as her hair bounces with the movement.
My nose twitches.
The first thing I’m hit with is something floral.
Roses?
Maybe that’s it.
The next scent is sweet and fruity.
It’s light and not overpowering.
Pears.
Jesus.
She smells like roses and pears.
Is she an omega?
My forehead wrinkles. Usually it’s easy to pick out someone’s designation by scent alone, but I’m struggling here.
Other alphas are easy to differentiate. They never smell appealing. They’re also physically larger, and they smell stronger than a beta would.
Omegas have potent pheromones that are easy to pick out because they almost always have cloyingly sweet scents.
I guess that means Lumen is a beta, but something about that doesn’t feel right either. She’s extremely vulnerable at the moment, and my system screams to comfort the omega.
Only, I’m not sure she is an omega.
Either way, she’s a human being, and I’ve never been able to stand around doing nothing when someone is suffering.
She looks destroyed, misery wafting off her in waves.
An itchy buzz pulses under my skin.
My instincts push me to find the problem and demolish it so the omega will feel better.
Still not sure she is an omega, I try to remind myself.
I grew up in a house with four omegas—my mom and all three of my little sisters. Because of how alpha and omega dynamics work, I know all about my impulses pushing me to solve problems for someone more vulnerable than me.
Lumen qualifies as that with no question.
I’m the kind of person who needs space to process something when I’m upset or anxious, but when something is bothering my siblings or best friends, I’m a nurturer.
Part of that is learned behavior because I’m the second oldest child in my family, followed immediately by those omega sisters.
My relationship with them is completely different than how I act with my older brother.
While we were growing up, he was a shithead to them.
He couldn’t be bothered to spend any time with them, due to the age difference, so I went out of my way to be around when they needed to talk.
I’ve been where Lumen is, at least emotionally. Everything in me screams to set her at ease. My instincts don’t seem to understand that it’s not that simple. I’m not the cause of her pain, so I can’t fucking fix it.
She steps over and climbs into one of the bunks, pulling out a pillow. Bringing it to her nose, she gives it a sniff and whimpers.
There must be an invisible string tied between us because that sound draws me forward, even though I should be respecting her personal space.
Her eyes meet mine over the top of the pillow, and her lip wobbles as she pulls it down. “It smells like him…”
I try to keep myself still, but it doesn’t work. Crossing the space between us, I pull my hand from my pocket, grab the pillow, and toss it back into the bunk. “Leave it behind.”
“It’s my favorite pillow.”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” I say, clearing my throat.
Jesus.
Why am I acting like Kincaid?
It’s not that he doesn’t care about anyone; he just hides it behind a gruff exterior. He has his own damage in the form of abandonment issues, and acting like a dick is his coping method.
“Unless it’s something you can’t replace.” I soften my tone as I point at her ex’s bed. “If that’s the case, a few runs through a washer should help.”
Her eyes clench shut, and her head shakes.
Shit.
I messed up.
She’s about to cry.
Malcolm is going to hear that I upset her, then he’ll try to rearrange my face.
She exhales heavily, and her shoulders tremble.
I’m not sure what comes over me.
“You need a hug.” I move slowly, wrapping my arm around her lower back. It gives her the opportunity to protest, but she doesn’t, so I pull her into my chest, giving her a proper hug.
I’m just debating what I can say or do when her eyes pop open. They’re glassy, but no tears fall.
“I knew better than to come on tour with him, but he was so determined,” she says in barely more than a whisper. “And I wanted to believe things could work. God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Don’t blame yourself for someone else’s poor choices,” I say, giving her shoulder a final pat before stepping away.
She sniffles, and my head tilts as I wait to see if she’s going to say anything else. Malcolm loves to tell me what a pushy bastard I am.
I can’t help that, though.
I love feeling needed, and I excel when I can solve someone’s problems.
The main issue is that no one lets me.
“I was so afraid that I was going to get screwed over in the end, but I wanted to believe in us,” she says, her voice cracking. “I let him talk me into breaking my lease.”
My jaw clenches.
Yeah, that was a bad idea, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
“He swore he would pay off the penalty from his first big tour paycheck,” she says, her voice growing more frantic.
“All my shit is in storage. I quit my job to follow him around on tour. There are no words for how stupid I was. I’m going to be starting over from scratch, when I could have just stayed in our apartment in Florida, building my own life. ”
That makes him an extra special kind of piece of shit.
Now she’s either going to have to take on that financial burden with no job, or she’ll have to beg him to keep his word.
“Hey, you don’t have to figure it all out tonight, okay?” I have no clue how long it’ll be before Tangled Desires is done with their shit, but the last thing I want to do is have them come in while we’re still here. “Why don’t we drop your bags off on our bus? Then we can check in with the others.”
She blinks, and her shoulders bounce as she kinda twitches. “I have to go. I need to see if I can get a rideshare to pick me up.”
“That’ll be a pain in the ass with the venue still clearing out,” I say, stepping around her to grab her duffel bag. “It’s a travel night. I don’t know exactly what time it is, but we’ll be leaving by one or two a.m. I’m not comfortable sending you out into an unfamiliar city with no plan.”
Her eyes widen, but she says, “I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, you probably would be,” I agree, solely because I don’t want to freak her out. “But I have sisters. Even a one percent chance something could happen will keep me up at night. Not to mention, Malcolm will kick my ass if I let you disappear without so much as a goodbye.”
“Why would he care?” she asks, her head tilting to the side like a confused puppy.
That is a valid question, but I’m not about to out Malcolm’s feelings about her. There’s no way to be sure how serious he is, anyway.
“We’re all invested now,” I tell her, and it’s not a lie. “We travel for the next two nights, but then we have a night off in Columbia before we’re there for three days. Why don’t you stick with us until then? It’ll give you a few days to plan if you need to rent a car or fly back to…Florida?”
I’m not sure if she intends to go to their hometown or somewhere else, but it makes sense she would go to where her things are.
She nods. “Yeah, I’m from Florida.”
“I grew up in the Midwest.” I laugh. “I would have killed to grow up that close to the beach. All right, do we have a plan?”
“Are you sure your bandmates will be okay with me traveling with you?”
“I’m positive,” I assure her. “Did you meet Randy?”
She shakes her head.
“He was our label-appointed babysitter, and he was with us all throughout Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Anyway, we’re used to having six of us on the bus, and he’s gone now. It won’t be any trouble.”
I still have no idea why the label sent us from Jacksonville over to Baton Rouge, but it’s like that sometimes.
Our schedule is more chaotic than usual this time because our original tour was delayed. They had to pop us in on the days the venues had openings, and that means we’re zig-zagging across the country, even more erratically than a normal tour.
“You’re sure it won’t cause any arguments?” she asks.
Well, I didn’t say that.
Kincaid might have something to say about it, but he’s got enough tact to do it when she’s not around.
There are six bunks plus the room at the back of the bus, so we really do have room. I’d warn her how cramped it is with so many bodies in such a confined space, but she’s lived it for over a month with her ex and his band.
“We’ll be on our best behavior, I can promise you that,” I say, nodding to her bags. “Now, can we get out of here?”
“Yeah, thanks, Riser.”