Ransom(38)

Don’t be such a loser. He just performed for two hours. Of course he wanted a shower.

Realizing he’s watching me intently, I look away, feeling uncomfortable about my outburst. I turn and check out the room. It’s a lot smaller than the one we just left, consisting of only one couch and a small table. “Where are we?”

“We change back here,” he says, gesturing to a second door. “There’s a shower in there. It’s a little more private than the main dressing room.”

I don’t know what to do with my hands. I feel awkward and clumsy suddenly.

“Come here,” he says, taking my hand and leading me to the couch.

I sit next to him, looking at his feet. He’s wearing worn black Vans, and I’m pretty sure they’re the same pair he had when he left last winter.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You seem like… scared of me or something.”

I look up into his familiar blue eyes. “No! Of course I’m not, Dalt. I’m just… I don’t know. Feeling bad. I missed you.”

“But you’re here.” He smiles. “So nothing to miss now, right?”

I giggle. “True.”

“So I’m freaking out here a little bit, Dais. You haven’t seen us perform in more than a year, and after your first concert, you burst into tears as soon as you see me. How should I take that?”

I laugh heartily. “I was just slightly horrified that you played that cover of ‘Long Train Running.’ I mean, the Doobie Brothers, Daltrey? Seriously?”

He smacks my knee. “We kicked ass on that cover.”

I shrug, nonchalantly looking at my fingernails. “If you say so.”

“Come on, Daisy,” he says, his tone mock-serious. “Tell me you loved our show, or I’m going to have to go cry into my beer.”

“You were… okay. I guess.”

He throws his hands over his heart and grimaces. “You are cruel, woman.”

I grab his hands, laughing. “You were insane! Seriously, Dalt, I’ve never heard you guys like that before. How’d you get so good?”

His whole face lights up, making him look a lot more like his fourteen-year-old self. “You liked it? Really?”

“Of course I liked it! I’m serious. You guys have improved like crazy. What, are you taking some kind of musician steroids or something?”

He chuckles. “I think we learned a lot from Grey Skies. And it helps to have better equipment and sound systems, you know? Things weren’t really top of the line back when we played at Dave’s Bar and Billiards Emporium.”

I smile at the memory of the dingy little dive the boys had played in Stubenville. It seems like ages ago. “It was more than that. More than just better sound quality. You guys were tighter. More energetic. There was just something… more.”

He looks a little shy. “I think the audience does something to us. Amps us up or something. I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels better up there, you know? And tonight…”

“What about tonight?”

He meets my eye. “Tonight was our best show in ages. Maybe the whole tour.”

I laugh a little. “Well, then, I guess I got lucky when the girls picked the dates they wanted to—”

“No, Daisy. It was better because you were there. I was better. Because I knew you were up there. I mean that.”

Heat rushes to my face. He’s looking at me so intently. It makes me feel scared, deep in my chest, but it’s an entirely different kind of fear than I usually feel when someone is looking at me. I get the feeling that he’s trying to tell me something, something really important. I can only stare back, frozen in the power of his gaze.

“What happened to you, Daisy?” he whispers. “Where’d you go?”

“Things got bad, Daltrey. After you left.” I’m not sure why I’m telling him this. I was planning on putting it off for as long as possible. But in this moment, I feel I owe him at least some small part of the truth.

His eyebrows pull together in a frown, and I can’t help but notice the little scar above his eye. I’m tempted to reach out and rub it with my finger, the way I did with the magazine photo.

Instead, I close my eyes and blurt, “People started talking shit about me. I know that doesn’t sound like all that big of a deal, but… it got really bad. I couldn’t go online, couldn’t answer my phone. It was constant.” I hear him release a sharp breath and open my eyes.

His face is tight with anger. “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.”

I shake my head. “Please, Daltrey. Let me just tell you what happened, okay?”