The Bad Boys of Summer Anthology(213)

With that, he walks out, shutting the door behind him as I finally break down, feeling like my whole world has been ripped to pieces in one short afternoon.





Chapter Thirty-One

Joss



It’s five minutes before the show and I’m waiting in my dressing room for Mel. The guy who never had a preshow routine now has one. I meet Mel in my dressing room, we walk hand in hand to the stage, and I set her up in her seat, give her a kiss, and go on. I’ve gotten used to it. I like it. Where the hell is she?

When Walsh finally sticks his head in three minutes before the show’s supposed to start, I’m pacing up and down, sick with worry.

“Hey, bro, what the hell are you doing?” he asks. “We’ve got to get out there.”

I stop my lap around the room and look at him for a minute. “Have you seen Mel?”

“I don’t know, man. She’s around somewhere. On the catwalk maybe. She’s getting some new angles for shots tonight. Joss, dude, we’ve really got to go.”

“Yeah,” I concede. “Coming.” I grab my bottle of water and follow Walsh out of the room.

When we reach the stage, Mel isn’t in her seat. I’m pissed but also worried. The whole thing with Dave earlier wasn’t tied up as tightly as I’d have liked. I’m afraid she’s upset about it and might do something nuts. Like leave. I look up at the catwalk—the section of metal grid that crosses the air above the stage—no sign of her.

“Miguel!” I shout to a roadie who’s walking by texting on his phone.

“Yeah, boss,” he says, pausing in his frantic tapping.

“You seen Mel?”

“Um, yeah. She went back to the hotel, but she said she’d be around for the show.”

Back to the hotel? Without telling me? My heart pounds a frenetic beat in my chest. Visions of Mel hopping on a plane back to Portland have me breaking out in a sweat.

“Find her,” I direct Miguel. “Figure out where she is and get her here. Don’t take any excuses. Tell her it’s an instruction from her boss. The next time I see this chair,”—I point to Mel’s seat—“I want to see her little ass sitting in it. You got it?”

Miguel looks like he’s trying to keep from smiling. He’s doing a shitty job of it. “Gotcha boss. One redheaded photographer, ass in chair, coming up.”

I nod curtly at him as I take the microphone being handed to me by a backstage tech. The lights in the house go down and I hear the booming voice of the announcer echo through the venue.

“Memphis, you’ve been waiting, and it’s time!” The crowd goes wild. A roar begins at the back and rolls up to the front before a second wave of sound surges forward. “It is my pleasure to introduce The. Hottest. Sensation in rock and roll. The band Rock Steady magazine calls ‘rock’s future.’ The men who’ve been taking the country by storm—Joss Jamison, Walsh Clark, Mike Owens, and Colin Douglas. Memphis! This! Is! Lush!”

The lights onstage go up, highlighting Walsh, who’s seated at his drum set, banging out a heavy flourish of rhythm. Mike, Colin, and I jog out onstage, waving to the audience. Mike and Colin get set while I raise an arm in the air and say the world’s most clichéd opening line. “Memphis! Are you ready to rock?!”



We’re midway through the first set when I glance offstage to find Mel finally in her seat. A rush of relief washes through me followed quickly by intense anger. I can see by her body language that she’s not okay. I stroll around stage a little, working my way closer to her, trying to get a better look at her expression. She refuses to look me in the eye, and I feel my frustration rising.

Mike notices that I’m looking at Mel and subtly shakes his head at me. Colin’s on the other side of the stage and Walsh is focused entirely on his drums. Neither one of them seems to notice my agitation.

As the song comes to an end, I head back to center stage. “You know, normally at this point in the show, I’d ask you all to give us a rhythm for She Snake…” I hear people screaming, “She Snake!! She Snake!!”

I laugh. “But I’ve run out of water,”—I hold up my half-full water bottle, hoping they can’t see how much is in it—“so I’m going to ask to have the lights brought down for about two minutes and we’ll be right back.”

I hear grumbles starting and girls screaming, “Don’t go, Joss!”

I chuckle. “Two minutes, and I promise we’ll play an extra song to make up for it.” That gets them, and they start to cheer. I hold a hand up and motion to the lighting techs to bring the lights down as I turn and stalk offstage. I see Mike and Walsh out of the corner of my eye, both watching and wondering what the hell I’m doing.

I get offstage, double-checking that the mic I’m holding is switched off, then hand it to the nearest roadie. Everyone is watching me, not knowing what to think, as I’ve never veered from our planned show before.

When I reach Mel, she’s looking at me with her blue eyes big and round, her hands clenched in her lap.

I put a hand on either armrest of her barstool, boxing her in, then lean down and talk in her ear. “Where the hell were you before the show?”

Her head jerks back a little in surprise. The anger in my voice is impossible to miss.

“I had to go back to the hotel for another camera.” She sounds miffed, incredulous. Somewhere deep inside I know I’ve stepped over a line here, but I can’t seem to stop myself. The idea that she might have left me is so overwhelming I’m ripped to pieces from it. Shredded, like something that’s been through a meat grinder.

“And you couldn’t give me the consideration of letting me know that?” I keep my volume low, but there’s no disguising the unchecked emotion in it.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” she hisses out, glancing around at everyone standing there as if I’d hit pause on a streaming movie.

I struggle to get my rage under control. Seems like I’m always struggling to get something under control when I’m with Mel.

“I was worried,” I finally say, trying to soften this explosive moment I’ve succumbed to. “And I thought we had a preshow routine. It’s kind of tough to go onstage and perform when your girlfriend seems to have vanished.”

She looks at me as her sweet mouth opens then snaps shut. She’s speechless.

“We’ll talk about this more after the show. Don’t. Go. Anywhere.”

She nods mutely.

I cup the back of her head and kiss her hard on the lips before I take the mic back from the roadie and say, “Well, what’s everyone standing around for? We’ve got a show to finish.”

Mike shakes his head and sighs. The crew members shout instructions to bring up the spotlights and we stroll back onstage, where I keep my eye on Mel the whole time and realize that if she ever does decide to leave me? I’m totally fucked.





Chapter Thirty-Two

Mel



If my humiliation weren’t complete already, Joss stopping a multimillion-dollar concert to chastise me would have finished it off. However, Dave’s words earlier pretty much took care of any self-respect that was lingering. My self-loathing is so high by the time the guys give their encore I can barely look anyone in the eye as the crew all start to congratulate one another on a show well done.

Joss is in front of me before the lights from the stage have completely dimmed. I cross my arms and stare down at my lap.

“Hey,” he says softly as the chattering goes on around us. He puts a finger under my chin and gently lifts my face so I’m forced to look him in the eye. “Can we talk?”

I twist my head away from his touch. “Not sure what there is to talk about,” I mutter.

“C’mon, Mel. I know you well enough to know you’re pissed at me for my little temper tantrum earlier. Which,”—he holds up a hand as I open my mouth to tear him a new something or other—“is completely understandable. I was out of line. But I’d like to know why you disappeared on me. So can we please go somewhere and talk?”

“What do you want from me, Joss? You want me to wear a leash? Or maybe a tracking device so you’ll always know exactly where I am?”

He scratches the back of his head and looks abashed. “Okay. We’ll do it here. I was a douche. I panicked and I overreacted. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t change the fact that you kind of vanished on me. I mean, you’ve never done that before.”

I stand up, trying to bolster myself for what I’m going to do next. “You know what? I don’t think this is going to work. I’m here to do a job, not stroke your rock star ego. Maybe it’d be better if we put this on hold at least until the tour is over. We can talk about it more then.”

Joss’s face turns hard, his jaw set. “What?” he booms. Luckily, when I look around I see that most of the crew and band have drifted away, heading back to the green room for the after-party.

I scope the area as I look for how I’m going to make my grand exit. “You heard me,” I announce. “I don’t think this is going to work—you and me being involved. I want to take a break until the tour’s over.” I tip my chin up, trying to project everything I’m not feeling—confidence, firmness, decisiveness.