“I thought I was here to just keep Nash out of trouble.”
“No. You’re here to spin the story about Nash. Don’t forget that. Anything you see write it down, and be ready. There’s a lot of people that would love to see this band fall on its face.”
“I take it there’s a lot of bridges burning?” I asked.
Toby laughed. “Bridges? That was years ago. These guys have burned down cities, states, and continents with their shit. But, again, at the end of the day… there’s nothing like it. I’ve been with them since day one, Olivia, and I still stand there and shake my head at how fucking good it is.”
Toby stopped walking and pointed to all the different rooms and hallways. We had gone inside the outdoor arena, which was kind of cool and kind of weird.
A horn beeped and a guy cruised by on a forklift, carrying a stack of black boxes with the name Filthy Line spray painted in white on them.
“Now, through here, we can go back outside,” Toby said.
We walked side by side and emerged at the side of the stage.
It reminded me of a gladiator movie where the fighters would come to the center, outside, and fight.
The arena was huge. Empty seats everywhere, with the pattern of a bird across the back section. That was for the team that played at the field when it wasn’t being used as a concert venue.
The ground level was filled with chairs and there were even more people working to set up the sound and lights for the concert.
“These steps go to the stage,” Toby said. “Have at it.”
“What’s with the X’s?” I asked, pointing to the sloppy tape.
“Glows in the dark,” he said. “So the guys don’t fall. Between that and flashlights, they’ve been good this tour. But usually someone falls. I blame the whiskey.”
“That’s what any good drunk says,” I said.
Toby laughed. “See? You fit right in.”
His phone started to ring. He touched my arm and walked away.
I slowly climbed up the steps and walked onto the stage.
There was a giant wall of speakers next to me.
I saw Sab’s drum kit and approached it.
The gold cymbals shined so bright. The neon green drums made me smile. The snare drum looked beat to hell and back.
“You can take one.”
I turned my head and saw Sab.
“What?”
“A drumstick,” he said. “You can take one. Give it to your friend. The crazy one.”
“Nash told you about Zoe?”
“That a problem?”
“No.”
“You play drums?”
“Me?” I laughed. “There’s nothing musical about me at all.”
Sab nodded. “If you want me to sign a stick, I could do that.”
“Actually… my best friend has a young son. He’d probably go crazy for some drumsticks.”
“Consider it done,” Sab said. “I’ll hook you up before you’re sent packing.”
“Before I’m sent packing?” I asked.
Sab lifted an eyebrow. “You think Nash is keeping you around forever?”
He laughed to himself as he walked off the stage.
I had no idea what that meant.
I slowly turned and looked out from the vantage point that Nash had each and every concert.
My heart raced again.
I didn’t get how he did it.
To stand there with so many people watching.
My mouth went dry just thinking about it.
But I totally understood it.
It was like a drug.
Like getting drunk or high.
“You look good up here, babe.”
Now I had Nash next to me.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“You’d look better down on your knees,” he said.
“So would you,” I said.
“That can be arranged.”
I turned my head and rolled my eyes.
“Is it the same for you?” he asked.
“What?”
“When you sit down to write.”
“What do you mean?”
“The feeling,” he said.
His right hand touched my back. Every muscle tensed in my body. A gentle flood tried to begin elsewhere.
Fuck.
“I stand here and look at all these seats. And soon they’ll be filled with people. And they’ll want me to sing a song a certain way. And then they’ll sing it back to me. And we do this dance… me and the fans. You know? Is that how it is for you?”
“Nash, we are on two different planets when it comes to our careers,” I said.
“But it’s still the same. Every song we’ve ever written started with an idea. A note. A riff. A lyric. Same as a book, right? You think of an idea…”
I tilted my head to the side.
Was Nash talking to me like a human? No references to my chest? Or my ass? Or talking about his dick?
“Yeah… I guess,” I said.
“Well, what’s it like, babe?”
“I don’t know. I don’t put that much thought into it.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. You care enough to be here. You want to do this for yourself. On your own. I respect that. You know, we got our first offer when we were still in high school. This guy wanted us to come out and record a certain kind of music. And he wanted us to dress a certain way. Kind of just pull us together, you know? It was hard to pass that up. I mean, think about it, babe… I could have gone to biology or to the recording studio.”
“What did you do?”
“We beat the shit out of that guy,” Nash said. “He left in a little yellow fancy ass car and I never saw him again.”
“So you went to biology.”
“Fuck no,” Nash said. “But I was very fond of anatomy.”
I sighed. “You would say that.”
“Close your eyes.”
“No.”
As the band gave their last waves to the crowd, I knew what was next. They were going to invite some fans up on stage to become Line Whores. Jay, Dex, and Reed tossed picks out to the crowd. Sab threw at least six drumsticks. Nash being the lead singer, he didn’t have anything to throw out, so he just stood there, letting them all reach for him. Desperate to touch him, even for a second, hoping he would whisper something to the security guards to invite them backstage.
Because I was untouchable.
I started to climb into my own head, feeling like Nash for a split second, which was a disgusting feeling.
It could be a secret.
I turned and walked along the side of the stage as the crowd cheered and the band played into it. I was still invisible to everyone there as they walked around, bumping into me, shouting orders at each other. The way they were running around you would have sworn there was a fire.
But they were just getting ready to pack the entire stage up and move it to another city. I paused for a second and took that in. I wondered what that life was like. Traveling with a band like Filthy Line. Better yet, knowing their livelihoods were on the line each night. All it took was something crazy from Nash and the shows would be cancelled. The crew would be out of work.
For some reason that made me feel pressured.
It was bad enough being near Nash.
Bad enough that I was only doing this for my own benefit.