I get back to the house and Vaughn’s there along with fucking Jackson Cole. It’s bad enough that Vaughn showed up. Bringing along our vapid opening act is more than I can handle right now. I’d never wanted Jackson to tour with us in the first place. He was a friend of Vaughn’s whose first album broke out. His second record, which dropped just before the tour started, is nowhere near as good. Maybe his first one was a fluke, who knows. Either way, he’s been irritating me from day one, with his loose way with women and his omnipresence. He thinks of himself as one of us. I don’t.
“If you tell a single soul where this place is,” I say to him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt because my nerves are shot at this point, “I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
“Shit, man,” Jackson laughs but there’s a nervous edge to it. “I won’t.” He’s got dirty blond hair and a hipster-folk vibe. I could easily take him in a fight and maybe I will at some point.
I glare at him, releasing him. Then I storm into the kitchen to get myself a beer. Vaughn follows me.
“What’s up with you, Travis? We’ve been trying to get a hold of you. You haven’t answered your phone in three days.”
I flick open a can of beer and chug half of it, swiping my arm across my mouth. “I’ve been busy.”
“With what?” He notices then that I’m dressed only in a pair of wet shorts. I’m glad I decided to go for another swim on the way back to the house so there are no … signs. No clues. None of the cum that was all over us. I miss her. “Or should I say with who?”
I make the mistake of hesitating. “None of your goddamn business.”
Vaughn laughs. “Who is she?” My brother knows me too well. I don’t bother confirming or denying. She feels too sacred to talk about.
“What are you even doing here, Vaughn? And why the fuck did you bring Jackson?”
“He has a date out here somewhere. And I’ve been instructed by Roxie to find out what’s going on with you. Why’d you bail out of that interview halfway through? She’s pissed.”
I don’t care if my little sister is pissed. I’ve been on call 24/7 for my family and my band for three solid years. I need a fucking break. “I had somewhere to be.”
I walk out the back door and Vaughn follows me. Jackson’s driving out and rolls down his window. “See you guys later.” To me, “Don’t worry, Travis, I won’t say a word.”
He knows I don’t trust him.
Vaughn and I check out the barn, which he agrees is a perfect place to film our next video and write our next album. We take a walk around some of the acreage. There are two small cabins set back from the pond that look like they haven’t been used in a hundred years. The doors are creaky and the few ancient pieces of wooden furniture are covered in dust.
“Can I move into one of these?” Vaughn asks, and maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe he can commune with nature for a while and lay off the booze and drugs. He looks sort of out of place against the backdrop of clean air and green trees with his tats and his cigarette and the shadow-bruises under his eyes. Even so, it’s easy to see why he has at least one and more often two girls in his bed every night. There’s a thread of vulnerability under my brother’s bad-boy-rocker look that drives them crazy. They want to save him.
But I can see the roof of Ruby’s house from here and I’m cagey about sharing anything about this place—which has become all about her—even with my brother. “Maybe after the tour’s over.”
He elbows me. “Damn, boy. You’re surly as fuck. This isn’t the free-and-easy Travis we know and love. Something—or someone—is getting to you. Who is she?”
The afternoon, at this point, feels like it might have been a beautiful dream. If I talk about it, I might break the bubble of my fantasy—which sounds fucked up and it is. But the last thing I want to do is dirty my sweet, hot memories of her by talking about them.
“All right,” Vaughn laughs again. “You can tell me later. We have some kind of photo shoot at ten tomorrow morning, by the way, and the interview with Rolling Stone the morning after the show. Roxie said if you walk out of either one of them she’s skinning you alive.”
I’m stuck in Nashville all day and all night tomorrow and half of the following day. We have our second-to-last show of the tour tomorrow night.
Two days suddenly feels like an excruciatingly long time.
The entire tour sold out ten minutes after the tickets went on sale. The stadium is filling up, they tell me.
After the peace and quiet of the countryside, the crowded dressing room feels claustrophobic.
There’s a goddamn party going on in here. I wish there wasn’t.
Kade hands me a guitar he just tuned. His girlfriend is standing behind him. She has short blond hair and expensive-looking clothes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. He seems more relaxed tonight, though, than I’ve seen him lately. “How’s the new house?” Kade’s watching my expression. Vaughn obviously mentioned a few things to him. My brothers aren’t just my brothers, they’re my band and my creative collaborators—which means we spend a lot of time together and always have. Which also means they know me better than I know myself, or at least that’s how it feels some days.
“It’s good.”
He continues to watch me, picking up on my vibe. The very fucked-up vibe I happen to be mired in ever since that little angel stepped into my life in the middle of her million-watt ray of sun.
I was distracted during the interview this morning and I’m not in the mood to play this show. I’m doing my best to let my flask of whiskey loosen me up.
What’s she doing? Is she going out? What if people see her? What if she’s not there when I get back?
Both my brothers are perceptive and in tune with what’s going on in my life, since they’re so much a part of it. Kade is almost freakish about it. He’s less than a year older than me and has always been good at reading me in ways my other siblings sometimes can’t. “You all right?”
“If I can get through this show, I’ll be fine.”
A couple of groupies come up to me. Their laughter grates against my already-frayed nerves.
One of the girls sidles close to me. She has long dark hair and is wearing a very abbreviated cowgirl outfit. She touches my arm but I move away. I don’t want her touching me. Only days ago, I might have invited it. I probably would have invited it. She reaches for my hand but I grab my flask and take a sip. I can’t handle her touching me right now. At all. My reaction is bizarre but I have to move away. Her cheap perfume is gagging me. I walk over to the corner, to get some space from all the people around me.
Something fucked-up is happening to me.
I want her. Her hair and her touch. That reddish-gold silk and that naked golden beauty in the sun. Drinking my cum. Covered in it, smiling. The rippling softness of her pussy as she comes against my thick, bursting cock.
Goddamn it.
I want to do it again. Now.
I try to think about the songs. I go through the playlist in my head and sling the guitar strap over my head. I have twenty-seven guitars—my lucky number—and each one of them has its own sound. Kade knows the line-up tonight and he’s handed me the Taylor Dreadnought 110 that plugs in. It’s the guitar I took to Ruby’s house a few nights ago and I’m glad. Maybe some of her stardust still clings to it.