Crazy Love(7)
“Do you want to ride with us?” Lionel asked as Krista followed them out the front door.
“No, I’ll meet you guys over there.” Krista had to let Bear back in and make sure he had food and water. She might even call her sister Haley to come pick him up and bring him back to the house they shared.
As she watched the ambulance pull away from the curb, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. Taking a deep breath, she tapped on the phone icon next to Chase’s name.
“Deep breaths,” she told herself. Deep breaths.
* * *
Chase walked off the stage to the sounds of the crowd cheering his name. His shirt was barely damp, not drenched in sweat like it would have been if this were a Midnight Rush concert. Since he hadn’t been doing those shows, he’d been noticing how much more easily he got tired. He’d been spoiled since those huge arena concerts had doubled as insane workouts. Now that those shows weren’t happening, he needed to figure out some kind of exercise regimen.
His solo music was much more low-key than the rock music his band played. In fact, half his set consisted of only himself and a guitar or a piano. Which was why he felt that these smaller intimate venues, meaning a few thousand instead of twenty thousand plus, suited the feeling of the music so much better than the stadiums Midnight Rush had played.
Marcus, his manager, had other ideas. Of course, from a business standpoint, the larger the venue the better. More seats meant more ticket sales which meant more money. Marcus was a good manager, which meant he liked to make money. He had a job to do, and so did Chase. Chase’s job was to put out the best product possible for his fans. The only way he knew how to do that was to put his foot down about this next tour.
It wasn’t going to be an easy sell, but Chase hoped that Marcus would come around to his way of thinking. Hell, his manager should be happy that he was even doing this solo project. When all the other members of the band had decided that they’d needed a break from the exhausting hamster wheel of writing, recording, and touring they’d been running on for almost a decade, Chase had been the only one who’d still wanted to stay running on the wheel.
He was also the only one out of his bandmates who had not gotten married and started a family. They all had wives, girlfriends, kids. He was alone.
Crew members and fans with backstage access greeted him as he made his way through the musky old building heading towards his bus.
“Great show!”
“You killed it out there!”
“Man, did you see that crowd? They couldn’t get enough!”
Chase smiled and nodded to each one, thanking them as he passed. The two men on his security detail alerted whoever was on the other end of their transmitters that Chase was offstage and on his way.
As he walked between the two large men whose job it was to keep people away from him and make sure everyone stayed at arm’s length, a feeling of total isolation welled up inside of him. Sure, he had just played for thousands of fans and he’d had people standing backstage who had waited hours for just a glimpse of him. But they didn’t really know him. He felt more alone than he had in his entire life.
Which was saying something.
He could remember days, if not weeks, as a young child that he would spend in his room, just desperately trying to stay out of his father’s way when his old man had been laid off or between jobs. Emptiness and loneliness was all Chase had known. He’d thought that was what everyone’s life was like.
Until seventh grade.
Chase had known all the Sloan girls in elementary school. Not only was he good friends with their cousin Alex, he’d been in a play with the oldest Sloan girl Haley in fourth grade. He’d played Danny to her Sandy. Krista had been a year behind him and Haley, and although he had always thought her freckles were cute and even as a ten-year-old had wanted to run his hands through her golden-red hair, he hadn’t really talked to her that much. But then, on the first day of seventh grade, she’d shown up at Great Oaks Middle School, and the moment she walked through the gates of the school, Chase’s twelve-year-old heart had felt like it’d stopped beating. The world had felt like it’d stopped turning. Time had felt like it’d frozen.
The only thing he’d seen was her.
That morning, he hadn’t talked to her, but during the first four periods of school, she was all he’d thought about. Then, when he’d walked out of Mrs. Alvarez’s fourth-period science class to go to lunch, he’d seen her coming out of the gym from P.E., also heading to the cafeteria.
He’d brought his lunch, but when he’d seen her getting in line, he’d immediately tossed it in the trash and decided to spend his hard-earned lawn mowing money on a school lunch. After pushing his way to position himself behind her in line, he’d struck up a conversation. He couldn’t remember what he’d said to her, probably something completely lame, but he did remember that his hands had been shaking as he’d grabbed the plastic school tray. They’d eaten lunch together that day and almost every day after that until he’d graduated eighth grade and moved on to high school.