Page 64 of Concerted Chaos

“Can we not stand here in the hall talking about this? Get in here.”

“Wow,” he blurts out as he enters. “This is posh!” He’s right, it’s downright opulent. The guys were each assigned extravagant dressing rooms for this show because a documentary filmmaker has been coming through to interview them, and they want to convey success and grandeur. Not that they aren’t successful. With the exception of Xander, they’ve all been doing extraordinarily well since the break-up. Mason’s audience has shifted halfway around the world, and Devon is trying to figure out his next steps without his partner, but they’re still better off than they were before.

“Just zip me, please,” I tell him when he’s done checking out the mirrors and peering behind the four-panel room divider, where I’m sure there’s a pile of Powell’s dirty clothes. My brother left here in a robe, unwilling to dress for the show yet.

“It’s stuck,” Tanner complains, after fumbling for a moment. “Hang on, a thread is caught.” He kneels behind me to examine the teeth, and his fingers brush against the bare skin of my back, making me shiver. He apologizes.

“Why are you roaming around back here anyway?” I ask, to keep my mind off his fingertips.

“I’m not roaming, it’s just the zipper is awfully low.” His hair tickles my spine as he makes another attempt.

“I didn’t mean your hands, Tanner. I meant why are you backstage?”

“Oh. Umm ... Whitney thinks she left her purse in the green room, so she went back to get it.” His hiss of frustration blows warm air down my dress, and I’m about to tell him to give up. I’m going to have to change clothes and find a seamstress. Someone probably has one available. And if they don’t, Brixley can make an emergency call for me.

Tanner lets out a frustrated grunt, and then, finally a proud exclamation. “There! Defeated the string!”

I am relieved that his triumphant zipping did not result in a torn gown. “Well, thanks,” I say as I turn to face him, and suddenly the space between us is charged with electricity. Why is the air so thick in here? It’s hard to breathe.

“You ... you look pretty. Your hair ...” His voice has gone hoarse and his eyes have taken on an almost frightening intensity. Those are definitely not colored contacts. “Your ... um ... your neck is very elegant.”

I try to take a deep breath, but my dress is tight and the air smells like cinnamon and I don’t like this feeling I have, the way the blood is rushing through my body. We’re too close together.

“Tanner ...”

“I um ... need to find Whitney. See you later?” He swallows and takes a step back, and I unconsciously lean forward before coming to my senses and stepping back as well.

“Yeah, good, you should go do that. I ... I’ll text you. I might be able to get you into one of the after-parties.” The words come out accidentally and I regret them immediately. What’s wrong with me? I don’t want to spend the entire night watching them flaunt their happiness. I almost sound jealous. But I’m not. Seriously, I’m not. Tanner is welcome to date whomever he wants.

“Okay, um, that sounds fun.” He edges past me to make it to the door. “I ... okay. Bye!”

When the door closes behind him, I give myself a moment to regain my composure. I shouldn’t let him get to me like that. I shouldn’t let him make me feel anything.

Brixley is planning to meet me in the green room, and then we are going out the back door, hopping in a limo, and circling the block to the front of the building in order to walk the red carpet. It’s flashy and frivolous but required for the press. I’m going to use her as a shield to avoid answering any reporters’ questions about anything other than who I’m wearing. I promised René exactly how I’ll answer: “This? Why, it’s a René Butón, of course. Who else would I wear?”

So that’s where I am, all dressed up and ready to go, when another security sweep comes through. Devon is filming a dressing room interview, and Xander is off doing whatever narcissists do, so it’s just me, Powell, and Mason at the moment. Powell has an obnoxious tradition of not speaking out loud for an hour or so leading up to showtime in order to preserve his precious voice, so he’s sipping honey tea and tapping a pen against the dry erase board he carries with him in case he feels the need to communicate. Mason is even more obnoxious: he is video-chatting with his baby. Yes, he’s video-chatting a four-month-old, which basically consists of staring at the kid and saying things like “Hey, Cass, look at this, I think Sonit gurgled at me. Urvashi, move the camera closer! Urvashi, can you hear me, babe? Move the camera, he’s trying to tell me something.”

Since neither man is able to speak coherently to other adults, by default I’m forced to greet the security guard and his dog.

“I thought nobody was supposed to be in here yet,” he says crossly. “We haven’t cleared these rooms.”

“They were cleared earlier.” This will be the second sweep, or maybe the third. Mike has gone over it too, though unofficially since he’s employed by Powell rather than the venue. Once this final one is done, the other non-band guests will be permitted to come in. At the moment they’re schmoozing at some cocktail reception hosted by the production company off-site. Brixley texted me from there a few minutes ago, saying she’ll be heading over soon.

“Alright, well let’s let Mitzie check it out again.” The guard tells me, entering the room. Mitzie is not a fitting name for the giant German Shepard he’s got on a leash. She’s pulling at it, like she’s trying to lead him to something important. Concern flits across his face and he orders me to stay out of the way.

Mitzie heads toward the food, so my initial assumption is that she’s not very professional. I’d head straight for the food too. But she doesn’t mess with any of the spread, not even the meatballs. Instead she just sits, nose pointing at the table. The officer follows.

“Do you know how that got here?” he asks, indicating an item between two of the platters.

“The lens? A photographer was here earlier,” I tell him. “He must have forgotten it. I can take it back to him.” If I had noticed it before, I would have called Tanner. He’s being careless. He’s told me how much those things cost, but he was so distracted by the buffet—or by his girlfriend—that he forgot about it.

“Don’t touch that!” He shouts something about a 996-T into his radio, then orders us to evacuate the building immediately. I don’t recognize that code, but Mike obviously does because before we can even react, he runs in from his post outside the door, followed closely by Mason’s bodyguard. I half expect him to throw Powell over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, but instead he grabs my brother’s arm, yells for me to follow, and hauls Powell out the door and down the hallway. Mason’s bodyguard is an ex-linebacker, and he puts his massive body to use, forcing a path for us as we run through the crowd of security personnel that are streaming toward the green room.

We make it to a safe area in the rear parking lot, where the venue staff are now milling about in confusion. Mike directs us to crouch down behind a vehicle while he focuses on the radio chatter. The positioning is easier for the boys than for me—they don’t have yards of silk to keep off the dirty ground.

Vernon—we haven’t been formally introduced, but that’s the name stitched on Mason’s bodyguard’s shirt—draws his gun and is keeping watch over us. I catch a glimpse of Devon huddled with another group of burly guards, and Xander, wearing nothing but a silk robe, is arguing with some of the staff. Apparently, his clothes are extremely valuable, and someone needs to risk life and limb and go get them right now! Don’t they know who he is, damnit?

“Urvashi, I’m fine. I’m sure it’s a false alarm,” Mason is reassuring his wife. He’s holding his phone low so she can’t see any of the chaos surrounding us. She’s not stupid though. I hear her demanding to know why there’s a tire in the background and why he keeps looking over to the side and cringing.

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