Page 2 of Sycopation
Carl craned his neck back to take in Mish, his immaculately styled blond hair shifting into imperfection. “Because without a fucking drummer and with this—” he waved at the tablet “—making the rounds, we have to control the damage.”
Wemeant the record label. Itnevermeant the band.
God, the band. They needed the tour the label dangled in front of them, needed it far more than Ray needed his dignity or ego. “Fine. I’ll do it.” He rarely drank anyway, and he did need help—some way to keep from destroying the chances they’d been given.
Silence. Carl sat back against the ugly hotel chair and stared at him. Mish sank down to the bed. “Ray, honey, are yousure?”
He nodded and locked eyes with Carl. “But I’m not admitting I’m an alcoholic when I’m not. I’ll—say something about anger management. Or stress therapy or something.”
Carl raised his chin. “That would be an acceptable alternative.”
“And we need to put out a call for a drummer. Schedule auditions.” God, where they would find someone who could play as well as sober Kevin, Ray didn’t know. But theyhadto.
“We’ll have that ready to go, once you make your statement.”
Wonderful. Ray swallowed bile and the urge to throttle the man across the table. “Guess I better go write one, then.” He rose, put his back to Carl, and marched out of the room.
Outside the run-down hotel, the air was hot and dry. Scrub and dust and too much sky as far as the eye could see, plus the ever-present roar of the nearby highway. They were somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t even sure what state they were in—only that it was off the beaten path so they could avoid the press.
He hoped, anyway. Because he probably looked like shit. Felt like it. Wanted to scream or curse or cry. They’d made it this far, the strange little band he’d put together. Dom, his best buddy from high school. Mish, the red-haired, bass-playing crooner he couldn’t stop watching at a bar because her performance had been so exquisite, and Kevin, the kid on YouTube who’d rapped sticks against whatever he could to beat out such intricate patterns.
He’d brought them all together and they’d done the impossible.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and stared at the wavering heat mirage in the road. Kevin hadn’t survived the pressure of a surprise hit, all the publicity and touring. Maybe that was Ray’s fault—he’d gone on and on about practices and looking and sounding their best. They hadn’t had a break in months. Hell, it worehimdown.
Like Kevin, he’d turned to his favorite vice after too many sleepless nights. Once he’d discovered which of the men in the road crew didn’t mind being drilled down into a mattress, meaningless sex had become his escape from the stress of being in the spotlight nonstop. He didn’t worry too much about being caught. The gossip sites expected gratuitous sexual exploits from rock stars, and he’d been open about his sexuality from day one. The crew had kept silent about it, though.
On the nights he’d fucked the stress out of his nerves, he slept.
Ray wiped the sweat from his brow and paced.
He didn’t know what to write.I’m sorry I’m such a shitty bandleader. I didn’t ask for this. It’s hard.That wasn’t any good. Sounded like a whiner, and he could just imagine the responses.Oh yes, you poor thing, becoming famous is so very difficult.
He kicked a stone across the parking lot, and much like with lyrics, the right words began to form and merge and break apart and connect. He whipped out his cell phone, opened the note app, and started typing.
He didn’t know how long it took to write the damn thing, only that the door to his hotel room opened and closed twice. The second time, boots scuffed against the pavement, and Mish’s Doc Martens came into view underneath his phone.
“Honey, you’re going to fry to a crisp or drop from heat exhaustion if you stay out here any longer.”
He typed the last words and looked up. “I’m done.”
Fleeting horror shimmered like heat across her features. “The band?”
“God no.” He rocked back, and maybe she was right about the heat. Or it was the stress that had his head spinning. “My apology to give to the press.” He handed the phone over to her.
It took her far less time to read it than he’d taken to write it. When she finished, her shoulders dropped. “You sure you want to do this? It’s bullshit.”
“It’s bullshit that will allow us to get a drummer and keep going. This is—a little thing.”
Something in his voice must have given him away, because Mish stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug. “Oh, hon. Don’t do this for us.”
At five foot nine, he could press his eyes against her shoulder, so he did. “But Iamsorry.” Sorry he couldn’t keep them together. Sorry he couldn’t keep himself together.
The words might be bullshit, but the feelings behind them weren’t.
CHAPTER
TWO
