Page 2 of Whirlwind

I froze. A zombie. Numb.

Everyone got into place while the audience screamed out our names and hooted. My tech handed me my first guitar for the night. Zach’s drum beat out its heavy signal that this was happening, here we were, Freefall. The crowd roared. Myles’s passionate baritone filled the arena in the darkness.“My broken heart can’t beat no more…”

“No more,” I sang on reflex.

Cheers and applause thundered through the arena. Colored lights flashed over us.

Was that what this was? A broken heart? When I’d written this song, I’d assumed what a broken heart felt like.Joke’s on you, motherfucker.

Jude’s bass drove up from somewhere behind me, jolting through me like a burst of octane. I pivoted toward him, grateful for him, and we stood close together and drove down on our notes. The music rushed through my veins and my head shook, my hair in my face.

I jammed down on the chords, sticking next to Jude who whooped as he moved toward the edge of the stage, doing his famed quirky shimmy dance as he played. Screams and shouts rose from the crowd at his feet.

Maybe this was only shock? A broken ego? A broken sense of identity, thinking I had it all under control and I so obviously hadn’t.

I’d thought we were good. We’d always been good, that’s what was so cool about me and Mae. We were pros at this shit. We both knew plenty about navigating the celebrity game board, the full schedules, the abrupt and unexpected changes. We knew the score. We had no crazy expectations or obligations to put on each other. She didn’t even expect monogamy from me since I was on the road, and I knew not to expect it from her either. But we communicated, because you had to if you were going to be in a polyamorous relationship. I’d agreed to it all. I’d thought it was perfect.

Obviously, for me, it was bullshit.

The woman I’d been seeing for over six months just dumped with a single Instagram post for all her 170 million followers and the entire planet to see. And in the next sentence, declared her lust for her new lover because she was being true to herself and to her fans.

I blew air out of my stiff lungs and scanned the crowd. Twenty-thousand people on their feet, yelling, and singing with us in the dark. Tonight, the final show of our first world tour, instead of playing my heart out, a hatchet was stuck in my hollow chest.

I was supposed to be singing some kind of back up here, wasn’t I?

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Myles stalked toward me, his grip on his microphone aggressive as he sang. His long curly hair flying, his ripped T-shirt revealing his sculpted chest and abs, he twisted and hopped up and down, and the crowd screamed. He ripped off his shirt on my final note, like he always did, and it went flying through the air. Screams battled with my guitar. It’s good to have a colorful charismatic front man. For the first time, I was grateful for Myles’s antics.

The applause boomed through the arena. One song down. So many fucking more to go.

My tech zipped out and landed before me, ready for our exchange. I took off my guitar and handed it to him as he gave me the next guitar. I strapped it on, checking the strings.

“Hey.” Jude handed me a bottle of vodka. I took a long swig and its liquid fire flared down my throat, blazed in my belly.

That was more like it.

Jude guzzled from the bottle as I adjusted my guitar on my body. My fingers closed over the polished wood, the frets, the taut strings. That blazing fire slid through my veins, melting everything in its path.

This, now, was mine, this was where I belonged, this was home. And I wasn’t going to let Mae fuck with my head. My fingers grazed the strings, the next song on our setlist erupting from my guitar. A cheer rose up from the crowd for this smug love song.

Joke’s on me.

Myles’s voice rang out as he drove through my lyrics. Verse after verse. Refrain. I moved toward the edge of the stage as I plunged into my solo. Drowning out everything and everybody but this song.

No thinking.

No thoughts.

Just me and the melody.

“We love you, Beck!” someone shouted, their voice rising over the music. “Fuck Mae! Fuck Mae!” they chanted. The pounding in the arena got louder. I withdrew from the edge of the stage, and Myles’s roar took over the song again.

Jude came up next to me, his fingers working his bass as he swung to the music. “You okay?” The side of his warm body pressed against mine as he continued to play in that way we always did together while performing.

“Yeah.”

Jude grinned at me.

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