19. Chase
Concerts were their own category of workout.
Part physical—it was six hours of movement each show day. The planning and rehearsals plus the performances, with extremely irregular sleep and shoddy nutrition in between.
Part mental—it was remembering lyrics. Considering tone and instrumentation and the four other people he worked with while they played.
Part recovery—it was figuring out how to take care of his voice. The one part of his body he’d never needed to worry about before.
There was a moment each time, right after Chase got off stage, where he allowed his mind to blank as he cooled down. A reprieve from the constant outpour of energy these shows demanded. And in that moment, backstage, after their second concert in San Antonio, Alex scared the absolute shit out of him by grabbing the back of his shirt and spinning him around.
“And just where do you two think you’re going?” Alex stared Chase in the eye, and then next to him, Zak.
Zak’s lip curled. “To find a fucking bar of soap. What’s your deal?”
“Sounds like bullshit.”
“Yeah?” She looked at her glistening arms, and, with unexpected speed, wiped the back of one of them over Alex’s cheek. Only for it to return to her side wetter than before. “Oh, gross.”
“Yeah, that was a dumb idea. Everybody knows the drummer’s got the sweatiest job in the house.” Alex shook his head, droplets of moisture flinging from his auburn hair in all directions. “And speaking of dumb ideas, you’re both on surveillance for the next two hours. You missed our first after-party, and no one isgetting out of this one.” He gave Edge an apologetic look. “Not without a valid medical excuse, of course.”
Edge nodded. “Appreciated.”
This time, playing the amputee card wasn’t beneath him. “Since when is missing a leg not a valid medical excuse?” Chase asked innocently.
“There was a chick in a wheelchair there last time,” Alex said.
Dallas released a cloud of cigarette smoke over the group. “Leave ‘em alone. Half the point of going to an after-party is to get laid, and they’ve already got that squared away.”
Chase tried not to look too smug, but he wasn’t sure he achieved that goal.
Zak threw her hands in the air. “There’s no winning with you three. I don’t have enough sex, I get harassed. I have too much sex, I get harassed.”
“You’re coming tonight. Pick-up’s at eleven in the lobby,” Alex said over his shoulder as he walked off.
Zak fixed Chase with an accusatory glare. “Look at what you did. I used to be the fun friend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I thought we had plenty of fun.”
Dallas took another drag. “You’ve never been the fun friend, Z. If anything, being with Chase makes you more fun, because it means you’re not hounding us to work all the time.”
“Work is fun,” she argued.
Dallas squinted. “Do you hear yourself right now?”
“Youshould be less concerned about fun, and more concerned about whether you can handle being at a party,” she said. “Can you, Dallas? Or are we going to be peeling you off the pavement again? Because this seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”
“I’m fine. One shot before the first show—I didn’t even have one today—and it’s the fuckin’ apocalypse, huh?”
Chase tried to manage an expression in the realm of, I’m being cool, I’m asking as your friend. “Was it just one?”
But Zak was way past playing it cool, and he couldn’t blame her. “Alex said you were drinking at the club, too.”
“Alex is a blabbermouth,” Dallas spoke around the lit cigarette. “I’m working on the moderation thing. I barely had a buzz going. Come on, Z, it’s how this shit works. I can’t avoidalcohol everywhere. What am I gonna do? Sit in my room staring at the ceiling?”
“Like me?” Edge spoke up, his eyes hardened. “You can’t avoid it because you don’t want to be an antisocial loser, like me?”
“That’s not what I’m sayin’, man.”
“That is what you’re saying. That you can’t do what I’ve had to do this whole time. That’s a weak excuse, Dallas. I am proof that you can be surrounded by partying without doing stupid shit because of it. And no, I don’t just sit in my room staring at the fucking ceiling,” Edge snapped. “There are a lot of other ways to pass the time besides getting fucked up or doing nothing.”
“Hey, take a step back there.” Dallas flashed his palms. “I’m not judging you, but I’m also not you. You’re sick, it’s different.”
“You are sick, too. It’s not different at all.”
Dallas shook it off as Edge turned his back to the group and left. “Whatever. I just—” He coughed up smoke. “I know things have gotten bad in the past, but I really am working on it. I don’t wanna go back to the way things were, and I’m not gonna. Life is better now. I’m happier.”
“I hope you are,” was all Zak said.
But Chase knew the difference between happier and happy. He could also vividly recall what it was like being hooked up to a dialysis machine. “Take it from me, multiple organ failure sucks.” He watched Dallas for any sign of a reaction. Of which, there was none. “If you ever want to talk again—”
“I’m fine,” Dallas said lackadaisically. “There’s nothin’ to talk about. And I promise, you won’t have to carry my ass anywhere again. That was humiliating. Felt like fuckin’ Rapunzel. Or, Snow White? You’d be Rapunzel, right? You’re the blond one.”
Chase tilted his head. “You know a surprising amount about princesses.”
“You know a surprising amount about metal. Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Dallas countered. He walked off, leaving Chase and Zak alone at the exit door.
A driver took them to the hotel where they checked in separately, stood at separate ends of the elevator, and then shared the same showerhead.
Chase’s moment of mental tranquility had been short-lived, and now he couldn’t stop thinking. About the show they’d just finished and the one they would play tomorrow. The news headlines about his fake relationship that continued to proliferate like an infection.
All he wanted was to focus on his real one, and he really, really didn’t want to go to this party. But he thought he was doing a good enough job keeping that to himself until Zak stood beside him at the bathroom vanity and nudged his shoulder with her own.
“I know you’re not a party guy, but pretty much everybody there already knows you. I’m sure they won’t be bothering you about old news when everyone’s focused on the band. And if no one will shut up about the band to you, give me a signal. I could talk anyone into a coma about music theory. Even Izzy.”
He cracked a smile. “No, it’s not that.”
For once, it wasn’t. It hadn’t crossed his mind whether anyone there would ask him if he got discounts on shoes or if he peed sitting down. Parties still weren’t his preferred way to kill a night, but Zak could make jury duty fun, and he had actually enjoyed the nights out that he’d spent with the guys. There was never any fear of saying or doing the wrong thing around them.
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be the only ones there.
“Actually.” He sighed. “It’s because of Izzy.”
“She doesn’t bite,” Zak said. Though he could tell that she knew what he’d meant. She was just trying to ease the tension. “She doeshug so hard it feels like she’s giving you the fucking Heimlich maneuver, though.”
“I’m not scared of Izzy.” In fact, they got along great. Chase couldn’t imagine anyone wouldn’t get along with Izzy. “I just don’t want to ruin her night. If we’re in the same place, at the same time, in public, we’re going to be expected to act a certain way. We’ll have to sit together and leave together. The whole night will turn into another performance.”
“It would probably look suspicious if she went to all of them alone, though.” Zak turned to the mirror and ruffled her wet hair. “A couple more and I’m sure you’d be getting a call from marketing.”
“I already did. Only, not a call. Marjorie cornered me after sound check to set up more ‘dates.’” Chase turned, propping his hip against the counter. “Which, do you have any idea how much it pisses me off that I’ve waited my entire life to have the courage to ask you out, and now that I have it, I can’t? I can ask you to move in with me, but I can’t take you out to fucking dinner. What a joke.”
“Hey. It’s just for this tour.” She rubbed his shoulder. “And I’ll be there with you even if I”m not with you. We’ll have fun, I promise.”
“Yeah.” He watched as she started on her makeup. “Just for this tour.”
But as with Dallas’s “just one shot,” all these “just for the tour’s” and “just this once’s” and “just for the camera’s” added up. Tribute Records hadn’t made it to the top on moderation. Moderation didn’t make anyone filthy rich. Only exploitation and luck could do that.
So what would they demand next?
The after-party was held in a western club called The Silver Buckle.
Inside, the air was thick with a rich cocktail of leather, hops, and cigar smoke. License plates, posters, and beer advertisements climbed the wood paneling and covered the ceiling. The chairs and barstools were made from worn belts woven over copper pipes, and scarred leather couches formed the seating areas.
On the open floor, people line danced to live music, their chunky boot heels making hollow knocks on the splintered flooring.
The wood planks creaked beneath Chase’s shoes as he made his entrance through the saloon doors alongside the other members of Saint of Spades, Edge excluded. Warm glowing lights, enough to illuminate the menus, hung in faux oil lamps from the posts surrounding the bar.
Tonight’s festivities were by invitation only, but as Chase quickly discovered, that didn’t mean he knew any of the people there. He recognized the staff they’d worked with so far, but the building was mostly packed with strangers. Unlike at the pre-show meet-and-greets, everyone here seemed to be more at ease with the inner workings of the concert scene and were more subtle with their stolen glances.
Chase did his best not to get ensnared by strangers. He gave clipped answers to a few band-related questions before sitting at the bar beside Zak to soak in their moment of restricted autonomy.
She glanced up at the smeared chalk drink menu above the bar. “I pick yours, you pick mine?”
Which was how they both ended up drinking margaritas and talking. Only talking, only as friends. But every once in a while he’d catch the start of one of those soft, affectionate smiles on her lips and it would feel kind of, sort of, like a date.
Zak pressed her tongue flat against the salt rim of her glass because, apparently, she wanted to make this night extra painful for him. Whatever look she caught on his face made her search the establishment for a conversation starter. Her eyes settled on Dallas, who was chatting up a blonde at the other end of the bar.
“He sure has a type, doesn’t he?”
Chase gave her a mock glare. “And a high success rate.”
A puff of laughter escaped Zak’s closed lips. “Lowest in the band. Alex has pulled ‘straight’ guys before. And Edge is the biggest whore of us all. He’s just quiet about it.”
So quiet that Chase hadn’t noticed. “Seriously?”
“You miss out on all the fun being the first one to sign autographs, huh?” She smirked. “He leaves his room number for the ones who flirt with him.”
“He’s going to end up with a stalker, doing that.”
“Or Chlamydia. Whichever comes first,” she said over her straw as they both continued people-watching. “Dallas gets points for creativity though. He opens with some small talk. Right now, he’s asking her what her name is. It doesn’t matter what she tells him, because he’s going to say that it would make an amazing song. If it’s a good night, he’ll come up with a few lines on the spot, but repeats are his bread and butter. Even I have ‘Amy’ memorized at this point. Wouldn’t be surprised if that one ended up on an album someday.”
Chase shook his head. “I am so disappointed in my sister.”
“Don’t be. ‘Lydia’ is a pretty tough one to work with. If he made it sound good, I would’ve been impressed, too. There’s a reason the two-syllable names get all the good ones. Roxanne, Brandy, Jolene, Eileen, Lucy, Jenny…”
He faced her, chin resting on his fist. “Anyone ever write you a song?”
“Zak doesn’t really rhyme with the sexy, romantic words.” She looked up in thought. “Attack. Crack. Hack. Lack. Smack.”
“I can think of a few instances where ‘smack’ is sexy.”
She took a slow sip of her drink. “I’m sure your girlfriend appreciates that sort of thinking.”
Toward the entrance to the bar, once muffled conversations increased in volume. Without her vibrant red hair, Izzy’s small stature made her difficult to pick out of a crowd. It was her boisterous, unmistakable voice and all the people falling into her orbit that told Chase the relaxed part of his evening was over.
“Guess you can ask her for me.” His last words to Zak, before he played his part.
He had ordered Izzy a Texas Tea, but he almost forgot to grab it as he stood. Abandoning his girlfriend at the bar to greet the woman he should’ve arrived with.
“Hey, you!” Izzy exclaimed.
Hugging wasn’t second nature to Chase with people he knew, let alone with casual acquaintances. The Paytons were more of a pat-on-the-shoulder and a wave-goodbye type of family. If he and Lydia hadn’t shared a womb, he didn’t think they would even be comfortable hugging each other. But he pushed aside the awkwardness in his gut and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek that made him feel like a cheater, a dick, and the biggest fraud in the room.
“I’m sorry,” he said in her ear.
“For what?” she returned cheerfully.
“This party is about to suck for you.”
“Please. It can’t suck more than the last one. One guy tried to come on to me by complimenting me on my lip-syncing.”
Chase gave a resigned smile. “What did you say to that?”
“I lip-synced ‘move along, asshole,’ and asked him if he understood that one. But he didn’t. He kept trying to talk to me for the rest of the night. Do you know what it’s like for me to get sick of talking to someone?”
He laughed as he pulled away, spine straightening. It was a shock to the system every time to remind himself that only their co-workers were in on the bit. The swarm of partygoers seemed as intrigued as all the paparazzi and journalists. To the intimate crowd, no doubt, it looked like they were whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears about how seeing one another on stage made them want to fall into bed as soon as the evening was over.
What Chase really wanted was to steal away somewhere less overwhelming, less loud. Parties were fine on the outskirts, but at the center with Izzy, he felt like part of an art exhibit. Both valuable and worthless, observed but not understood.
It was like standing in the middle of a bonfire as questions and compliments and sly comments about his personal life blazed around him, and he couldn’t hold his head high enough to get oxygen.
He did his best to keep up with all the conversations taking place, but his eyes kept finding Zak at the bar, getting hit on by a different man or woman every time he looked.
“… so, anyway, that night was fuckin crazy, man,” Abstraction’s drummer, Jensen, was telling a group of girls. He threw an arm over one brunette’s shoulders, curling his hand around her breast. “We got to talking, had a bit of a jam session. Tossed around the idea of me going on stage with them for a few songs next time they’re playing in St. Louis, but life’s been busy getting ready for this tour so who knows? Maybe I’ll catch up with the guys next time.”
“Is he talking about who I think he’s talking about?” Chase asked Izzy.
She gave a tight smile. “Probably not. He likes to tellpeople he’s tight with Metallica, but what he’s really referring to is a Metallica cover band he smoked weed with after our college homecoming festival.”
“As your fake boyfriend, I feel obligated to tell you that you can do better.”
“Technically, I’m off the market. My options are pretty limited right now. But if all the lying has anything to do with why he’s so good with his tongue, then I guess I can deal with it. It’s not like I’m trying to marry the guy.”
“And you wondered why I apologized.”
“It’s not your fault.” Izzy finished the drink in her hand, looking not quite at him, but past him. “We’re all at the mercy of the label here. It’s the cost of turning your name into a commodity instead of an identity, isn’t it? Oh, what am I saying. You know more about how it goes than anyone else here.”
“I’m not so sure,” he said. “To some extent, yes, but I also never had anyone telling me who to be seen with. How to align my private life with my professional one. People were interested in my life outside of hockey, but no one was curating it for me either.”
“All we can do is hope this works out the way they think it will. Then it’ll all be worth it, right?”
“We can hope.”
There was no reason to bog down Izzy’s positive outlook with his sour one, especially when everything else about his life was positive. He was happier than he’d ever been. And as much as he hated being the guy to start his new career with a lie to the very people who were supporting it, he had to remind himself that he wasn’t responsible for that lie.
“Tequila, anyone?”
A shot glass filled to the brim entered his vision as Zak dangled it in front of his face. It may as well have been a life preserver in the open ocean.
Chase stepped back and accepted the drink from her, bumping into the tray filled with twenty more that she balanced on her forearm. Tequila sloshed out of the overfull glasses, but she regained her grip on the tray and passed out a round to the group.
“Hey, that’s top-shelf.” Alex arrived with a second platter full of shots before they’d toasted with the first. “Spiller has to take the tray shot.”
“What?” Zak looked down at the puddle of tequila, where Chase swore he saw at least three human hairs and some partially solidified sauce splotches of unknown flavor and origin. “Fuck no.”
“I don’t make the rules.”
Her lip curled. “You just did!”
“It’s a well-documented after-party custom.”
“No, it’s not.”
“How would you know?” Alex asked. “You didn’t go to the last one.”
“So this is a punishment, then. Right?” Zak raised her chin. “That’s what this is?”
Dallas chose the perfect time to re-enter the group, holding a mason jar filled with amber liquid. “What’s ‘a matter, gal-pal? I thought you used to be the fun friend.”
“Fun friend would take the tray shot,” Alex tacked on.
“This is not fun, this is fucking disgusting!” she protested with the ferocity of a person being tortured rather than hazed. “And besides, Chase is the one who spilled it.”
Chase stared back at her, slack-jawed.
“I don’t know…” Dallas put on the voice of an overzealous sports reporter. “Will we accept a transfer?”
Alex gave Chase a devilish once-over. “We will.”
Now fully invested in the absolute insanity taking place between Saint of Spades’ unhinged representatives, Izzy and her band watched on to see what would happen next.
What did happen, was a blur.
Alex started the chant. Or maybe it was Dallas. Or both.
“Tray shot, tray shot, tray shot,” caught on all around.
Chase looked down at the tray, still in Zak’s hands. What was that stain?
She shook her head. He was pretty sure she was saying “no” too, but he couldn’t hear it over the increasing pace and volume of the group demand.
Somewhere along the way, he’d gone from being an independent adult, completely unsusceptible to peer pressure, to thoughts like: Well, I did spill the tequila. And, If I don’t do this, will they think I’m a loser? And, Dallas has done heroin and survived. I can drink the tray shot and survive.
When had heroin become his standard of comparison? And when the hell had he started thinking of it as the “tray shot” instead of simply the spilled tequila?
Chase tossed back the clean tequila shot first—which tasted terrible enough without the added texture—and handed Alex the empty shot glass.
He closed his eyes, his nose wrinkling as he caught a whiff of liquor and old grease. And, without thinking—because he would puke if he did—he made a blind grab for the tray and tossed it back.
Half of the liquid spilled down his shirt, and the other half, unfortunately, did make it into his open mouth. Something crunchy (burnt cheese?) scraped past his tongue as he made the most regrettable swallow of his life.
When he opened his eyes, no one was chanting anymore. They were cheering, but in a revolted, incredulous sort of way.
Alex, a wide grin now taking over the impenetrable mask of severity he had donned a few seconds ago, handed Chase another shot that he gratefully downed. Then, and only then, did he say, “I can’t believe you actually did that.”
“That makes two of us,” Chase rasped.
What felt like seconds later, he was seeing two of everyone. Which ended up being a lot of people—half real and half blurry mirages—when Dallas dragged all of them onto the dance floor to join the line.
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus, by the way,” Chase said to Zak the first time he bumped into her. Literally. Both of them were stomping around like lost idiots to the never-ending wasplike trill of a fiddle. “You kiss this mouth, I just want you to remember that.”
Zak shot him a look that told him she remembered quite vividly, but there were some sloppy boot kicks and crisscrossed ankles before they were face-to-face again. “Alex is a fucker, you should know that by now. And since you gave in, he’s going to spend the rest of eternity trying to top that one by peer pressuring you into increasingly inhumane shit.”
“How was I supposed to say no?” Chase asked. As if the Tray-Shot Travesty of 1998 was on par with turning down a cookie-pedaling Girl Scout. “I’m supposed to be the lead singer of a rock band. I feel like there’s a sort of reputation that goes along with that.”
Zak laughed so hard that air got caught between her nose and the back of her throat. “You could have started by tossing out the sweaters and khaki pants instead of giving yourself a foodborne illness.”
The fact that she described it as food instead of liquor made his stomach churn again. Or maybe it was all the spinning. “And here I thought you promised we would have fun.”
She gave him a smirk that was pure, unadulterated trouble. “Aren’t you?”
“In between drinking biohazardous waste, you mean? Yeah,” he answered honestly. “Now I am.”
For as long as the tequila could turn off his worries.