17. Zak
There were ten minutes left until the show began. And, seemingly, about thirty seconds left until Chase passed out from stage anxiety.
“Do you need some water or something?” Zak asked.
“Huh?” Beyond the curtain, music blasted through the speakers. The concert hall rumbled with the crowd’s arrival. Yet still, she heard Chase’s tone waver as he said, “I’m fine. What makes you think I’m nervous?”
“Well, for one, I didn’t say you looked nervous.”
“Ah.” A bashful chuckle slipped out as Chase stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“You know what helps me?” Edge offered up. “Stretching.”
“I have to stretch all the time,” Chase said. “I don’t see how that’s going to take my mind off of all those people out there.”
“Yeah, that’s shit advice. Yoga is for monks and housewives who secretly want to poison their husbands. You know what helps me?” Dallas took the flask out of his back pocket, unscrewed the lid, downed the first sip, and offered Chase the second.
A pause swept over their group. One that Zak was more than happy to break. “You’re drinking again?”
“Relax, Mom. It’s just one shot. For our first big show.”
Chase shook his head at the canteen. “I don’t think throwing up would help me either.”
“That’s where part two comes in.” Dallas reached into his front pocket and fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
“You seem to have a lot of space in those fairly tight pants,” Alex contributed.
“If that’s supposed to be a size joke, you can keep on dreaming, sweet cheeks. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of and I’m not showing you the goods to prove it.”
“Can you seriously not recall a single time you’ve been naked in front of us?” Edge asked. “Because unfortunately, they’re all burned into my memory.”
Dallas’s expression said it all as he tried to recollect those blacked-out nights, but he shrugged and extended the lit cigarette to Zak. A peace offering, maybe.
Zak kept her eyes peeled to the flask, wondering how much more liquor remained in it, as she took a drag with him for old times’ sake.
Link and Dallas were the ones who had turned her into a smoker out of sheer tradition. Before shows, it had been their little ritual. She couldn’t remember ever particularly enjoying the smell or the taste of tobacco, but at first, it had been the only thing she had in common with them.
She and Edge had shared history, she and Alex had shared worldviews, and as stupid as it was, those shared cigarettes ended up being as powerful of a connection to the other two members of her band.
“Don’t think about the people yet,” she told Chase, blowing the smoke off to the side. “You go out there and you don’t think about anything. Do what you know how to do, exactly how you always do it at practice. And then, when you’re done feeling like you’re going to throw up, that’s when you think about the people. In those big moments, when they turn the lights to the crowd and it’s not just noisy, black space anymore.”
The ambient intro music swelled behind the curtain. Through the gaps, she watched the lights dim as their headsets received the first cue.
One by one they would take to the stage, building the individual pieces of the first song.
Alex dished out a round of uncoordinated pats, slaps, and fist bumps as he went up first.
The crowd screamed the moment he jogged out, a sound that tapered off in confusion as they waited to see who would come out next. What would happen. The steady beat of the drums flooded her chest as the music began with him. Alex’s thirty seconds to show off, to go wild.
Then Edge was next, building upon the sound with the bass line.
Murmurs traveled through the crowd as people picked up on the flow of their stage entrance—an exhibition of each person’s talents before they came together to create tonight’s show.
Every band had two concurrent storylines: their musical journey, and their personal one.
Some bands were inseparable enemies, making magic happen in the studio and drawing blood backstage. Some were waystations for transient artists, always swapping members and chasing tumultuous trends. Some were beacons of hope and inspiration, and some were flashing sirens of untamable crime and misconduct. To Zak, Saint of Spades had always been a story of unity. Music first, and friendship also first.
Dallas left his vices behind as he joined the others on stage, taking over with his own guitar solo.
Zak had thirty seconds left, and they seemed to pass slower now that she was the one slated to step through the curtain next.
She gazed up at Chase, at the blue backstage lights reflecting brilliantly off the identical shade of his eyes. “You’re going to be amazing,” she whispered, as if it were a secret instead of the irrefutable truth.
And I love you.
Chase looked back at her, all nerves and tenderness and longing. “You are amazing. Go kill it up there.”
His kiss was quick, stolen behind a stack of speaker boxes. But the way he cradled her face in his palms, lingering until the very last moment, was lasting.
The cue in Zak’s earpiece catapulted her from the slowest thirty seconds of her life to the fastest.
She was playing before the audience could see her. Ripping through her solo as she claimed her place beneath the spotlight.
It took her entire solo for reality to sink in. That was the sound of her guitar filling the massive stadium. It was her hands, her fingers creating the music that completed the instrumentals of their song.
People were screamingfor her.
The lights dimmed once more, and those screams grew louder as Chase came out. The prodigal star, the ticket-selling voice with a face to match.
Zak had seen dozens of grand entrances by lead singers. Always with that same cocky expression—the fuck-the-background-noise grin—but Chase wasn’t smiling at all. He was doing nothing to mask how he was just as astonished to see all these people as they were to see him.
They dialed back the instrumentals and looped the background riff as he took center stage and curled one hand around the microphone on its stand.
He took a deep breath and smiled. “How are we doing out there tonight, Las Vegas?”
When Zak didn’t think it could get any louder, it did.
“Or should I ask—what are we drinking?”
The crunch of dents righting themselves from half-empty plastic cups popped in surround sound. Zak imagined thousands of fists in the air as she stared out at the darkness.
“Alright, enough of that.” He chuckled. “We came here to give you a show.”
Zak shook her head in disbelief. In veneration. Not only had he ignored her advice not to focus on the crowd, but he’d also chatted them up. And she loved him, impossibly, more for it.
These were the people who were responsible for her living her dream, for the fact that she no longer had a revolving balance on her credit card and a shared bedroom. And Zak was deserving of success in her career; she’d worked her ass off for it.
But what the hell had she ever done to deserve someone like Chase? Even if only privately. Even if only temporarily.
Song one kicked off the show with a raw shot of fire. Perfection. Timing and cohesion cultivated from all those years of playing gigs in smoky bars where no one knew their names. Where they sold a handful of shitty self-recorded LPs and those even shittier T-shirts at cost every week.
Back then, she had lived for those moments—a show was a show, no matter how small—but they meant more to her now. Every day, week, year of struggle added up to the explosion happening on stage tonight.
She was a parasite feeding off the crowd’s energy, riding out the unstoppable adrenaline high.
They played back-to-back through the first three songs of the album, giving extended solos whenever they came up. Their stage time was longer than their album run time, so Tribute had green-lit the embellishments and padded the setlist with different covers to make up the difference.
Zak tried not to be a snob about it. Covers had gotten them most of Saint of Spades’ old bookings and used to make up a solid eighty percent of what they played. Anything to keep the crowd’s attention long enough so they could sprinkle in their originals. But now, they had hours’ worth of songs that were yet to be released, and Tribute was hell-bent on not allowing them to use any of their unpublished work.
It seemed counterintuitive. If anything, she wanted to run the songs by the audience first to see what they liked best and what to record next, but Tribute probably wasn’t thinking about the next album when they were convinced this one would flop.
At the end of the sixth song, the lights flashed to the crowd, and she wished she could rub their manager’s face in it. Failure? Not a possibility. Not with this turnout.
Dual headlining was different from opening, but Zak had been to and played at enough concerts to know the flow of events. Like the gambler versus the house, the starter always got shorted. However, tonight, only a third of the way into their set, the concert hall was filled to the brim. Zak tried—and failed every time—to find an empty seat as they blasted through the next few items on the setlist.
Though she wanted to bask in every second, time passed the same out here. Whenever she looked at the sheet of paper taped to the ground and saw another song done, it was a bittersweet reminder that they were nearing the end of the biggest show of their careers.
She wished she had all night. She would stay on stage and play until her fingers bled, or until everyone in the audience left. Whichever came first. She would roast under the hot stage lights until she had to peel the clothing from her body at the end of the night. She’d never felt indebted to anyone, but now she owed thousands of people everything she had.
“The River” was two-thirds of the way down the setlist, and it was the first break she’d had all evening.
A stage assistant brought out a stool under the guise of the fog machines, and left it center stage. For one drawn-out minute, she would have the chance to pretend she was a member of the crowd.
Chase sat and kicked his heel up on one of the rungs, dragging the empty microphone stand closer. He’d grabbed the mic at the beginning of the show and hadn’t let go of it since, but now, he slid it back into the clip. Adjusting the height of the stand as he leaned at the edge of the stool.
They were always improvising.
She, Edge, and Dallas had an ongoing schtick in “Urban Candy” where they all switched instruments during the second key change. After Alex’s three-minute midpoint drum solo, she’d theatrically toweled the sweat off his forehead for him.
Tonight’s local special involved Dallas stealing Chase’s mic while he ran for a seconds-long water break, and firing up his Elvis impression again, goading the crowd into crooning “Viva Las Vegas” with him.
And in between all the instrument-swapping, mic-stand balancing, drumstick hijacking, and double-guitar playing, there were plenty of jokes to go around.
But Chase’s sigh behind the mic warned that he wasn’t about to get cutesy and comedic when he addressed the audience this time.
“There are a lot of rock songs about sex,” he started.
Screams, whistles, and whoops lit up the room. He smirked as he waited for the noise to dissipate.
“And there are a lot of rock songs about love.”
Her eyes dialed in on the dimple quivering at his cheek as he looked back at her. Though they hadn’t said the words to each other, he breathed life into that unspoken declaration to a room full of strangers.
“This one is about both.”
Then, he sang.
For some reason, on stage, the idea wasn’t so scary anymore. This was the safest place in the world to love him. Here, nothing existed beyond him and the music. Desire trumped pragmatism. Here, his dream and hers were one. She was the best version of herself. A polished, perfected, unsinkable woman.
And he was a fantasy. Something unreal and untouchable, and all hers, if only she were greedy enough to take him.
Chase grasped the microphone like a lead weight between two fists when the upper limits of his range were tested. Held it like fine crystal when the notes crept lower. From where she watched, there was a picturesque three-quarter view of every expression he made, every flex of the muscles along his shoulders, arms, and back like a ripple effect.
This was where sex and love blended. In the words that poured from his chest, in the grip of his hands on the microphone like they gripped her thighs. In the fire in his eyes as she started to play and the sound of her guitar collided with the sound of his voice, wrapping together. Dancing. Making love.
It was in the way they could perform together, for the world, and drop that performance the second they stepped off stage. Stealing every touch from underneath the noses of the executives, managers, and talent that kept the barbed wheels of the music industry spinning.
This is what you wanted.
She’d known he would figure it out. The whole point of her note had been to imply what she didn’t know how to say. But that had been weeks ago, and they hadn’t spoken of it since. They’d hardly had a moment to themselves to catch their breath, let alone to talk about the things she was trying to avoid.
But disguising the meaning of the lyrics from him had been a lie from day one. She knew when they were finally on the road—when they were playing this song for hundreds of thousands of faces—it would eat away at her to allow him to think she wrote those words about anyone else.
Those were his words, ripped from her heart and fed to him on a silver platter, and his gift back to her was the way they sounded echoing off the walls. Reminding her of how worth it he was, even if the stage was the only place where they had a future together.
Chase owned the song. He owned the show.
Tonight, like most nights, it felt like he owned her.
Sapphire Bay Casino Resort hosted the concert on one end of its massive premises, and, separated by the gambling den, the hotel where they would spend the next seven hours before departing for San Antonio.
In the minutes following their show, the band was ushered into equipment storage, past crew members setting up for the next act, and through a hallway that spat them outside onto a sidewalk.
The temperature had plummeted over thirty degrees since the high that afternoon, a gift to Zak’s overheated body. The night air was refreshing on her sweat-slicked skin. Even with noise cancellation, the blast of sound on stage had left her ears ringing as they walked back to their band’s suite.
The five of them hadn’t shut up since they got off the stage, chattering about the performance and calling out their favorite moments and their salvaged fuck-ups like a highlight reel. Zak’s brain toggled between their conversation, her worries about how the stage crew was handling her guitars, and the immovable boulder of a question on the back of her mind: what was she going to say to Chase?
She still hadn’t reached a conclusion when the time came for everyone to part ways.
“We’ll see you at the after-party, yeah?” Alex asked her.
“Of course,” she said, but was only half paying attention as her friends left her alone with Chase in the private vestibule that led to their band’s shared lounge.
Chase caught her hand before she could hold her key card to the sensor, and she dropped it as he laced his fingers with hers. “Hold on a minute,” he said, his voice rough and low. The afterglow from miles of multicolored neon signs danced in his eyes through the tinted glass walls.
“Yes?” She swallowed the thickness in her throat. She hadn’t considered, until now, that it was possible to want to hear something, but not want someone to say it, at the very same time.
“The song.”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t telling him to go on. She was answering the question she knew would come next. And did.
“It was about me. Not Link.”
“Yes.”
She might have elaborated if she wasn’t preoccupied with hoping the universe would intervene. It didn’t have to be divine interference, since she didn’t believe in that sort of thing anyway. She would settle for a kid pulling a fire alarm or a security guard mistaking one or both of them for a wanted felon. Did Dallas drop his pack of cigarettes out here by any chance? Maybe he would come back for them.
But no. It was silent. At least, she assumed it was, but she couldn’t tell over the deafening lub-dub of her heartbeat in her ears.
Chase’s thumb brushed over the bone of her wrist. His other hand swept across the side of her neck, over the damp strands of hair at her nape. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“You’ve heard it, Chase. Millions of people have heard you sing it. It’s—a lot. It’s especially a lot to write about a guy you’re not with. A guy you’ve only kissed. Once.”
“Tell me you know, now.” His gaze was unwavering. Aching. “That it never would’ve scared me away. That the way I feel about you has always been a lot, Zak.”
She breathed in, tobacco lacing the air from the casino textiles and from her earlier smoke. With it, came the faint scent of her perfume and his cologne. The stronger stain of sweat and the watery, chemical tinge of fog machine vapor on their clothing.
Then she stopped breathing entirely, and she kissed him. A cheap shot, again, but she didn’t know what to say. For a moment, he humored her. Her head fell back against the concrete wall as her thumbs found the inside of the waistband of his pants and pulled him in.
She deluded herself into thinking this would end the same as that night in the hockey rink when he kissed her back. His touch was hard. His body against hers, harder. But then nothing was on her lips but static air as he broke away.
Chase’s chest pushed into hers as he heaved a breath. “No. Not this time. I think you and I both know there’s more to say.”
“Sometimes it’s easier not to.”
“Not for me. So, I’ll start.” He combed the hair back from her face. His fingers lingered, playing with a few strands. “Tonight was incredible, and I never want this to end. The music. You and I. All of it. That’s what I meant by what I wrote on your album. I wasn’t trying to be impersonal. I was thinking about the next one because I was thinking about the next year with you. The year after that, the one after that. I can’t imagine one without you.”
She wondered if this was what fainting felt like, but seconds passed, and she was still conscious. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”
“Yes. I do. Because that wasn’t the right thing to say. It wasn’t what I wanted to say. But up on that stage, singing that song you wrote about me. Hoping, so bad, that you wrote it about me… I’ve always felt like I’m holding back around you. Like you said, it’s a lot. It’s always been a lot, but out there, that’s always felt okay.”
Zak closed her eyes and relived those two hours. White spotlights singeing through the semi-transparent veneer of apathy, grit, and sex she donned like armor. Fanatic cheering smothering the ever-present loudness of her own thoughts.
On stage, she allowed herself to feel. She allowed herself to devour the sound of his voice, the grace of his body, the knowing quirk of his lips when he glanced at her between every song and paid her a silent dedication.
“I know what you mean,” she said softly.
“Sometimes it seems like that’s the only place we talk.”
Her eyes fluttered open. The calm expression she last recalled on his face had given way to alarming gravity. “We talk all the time, Chase. We’re talking right now.”
“I know.” The corner of his lips, his slight dimple, quivered. “And I can talk to you all day and all night about anything. Except I can’t tell you the one thing I want to tell you. But I’m not going to do this anymore, Zak, because I love you.”
His words ripped an exhale from her lungs, but no air could find its way back in.
“I love you,” he repeated. “And I don’t know why it feels like it’s going to kill me if I don’t tell you that, but it does. At the show on New Year’s Eve, at night when we’re falling asleep and I can hardly believe you’re beside me. Tonight. So many times it felt like I was saying it. And I know I lost my fucking mind wherever you’re concerned a long time ago, but some nights it feels like you’re saying it back.”
“Don’t.”
Suddenly, she was so aware of her surroundings that she could feel every imperfection in the stucco wall against her rigid spine. Could pinpoint every errant ball of fuzz pilling on the fabric of her socks.
She was hearing every note in the rattle of the heater kicking on like a chord. Hearing the irregularity of his breathing joining hers in a syncopated rhythm.
Watching, helplessly, as the flame in his eyes deadened and he pulled away. “You can’t lie worth a shit, so which truth is it? You don’t love me, but you don’t want to hurt me? Or you do love me, but youdon’t want to get hurt?”
“You’re wrong. About all of it.”
At first, she thought she hated that he was forcing her hand right here, right now. But she quickly realized she hated herself for prolonging the inevitable. She never should’ve let things go this far.
“I have been lying,” she said. “I lied to you about the song, for one.”
“And I would’ve seen through it that very day if I hadn’t been desperately trying not to read into every word you said to me.” He rocked back another step. “Shit, I probably loved you then.”
“Stop saying that. It’s just going to make this harder.”
“Make what harder?”
She breathed in, and on the exhale, stopped thinking. And said it. “I’m sterile, Chase.”