Page 2 of Reckless

Miles snorted. If he admitted anything he’d never hear the end of it. Bluntly, it wasn’t any of Maddie’s business if he was interested in Harlow. Or why. Maddie would want to try to draw parallels between anyone new and his last serious relationship.

No one knew better than Miles that nothing was the same, least of all him. Harlow was a musician too, and in a way that was so joyfully confident that it rung his bell. It got under all his well built and very jaded defenses and made him feel things.

Just from some video and audio. Christ. What would it be like when they finally got face to face when the first show of the tour rolled around in two months? Something good, he hoped. Certainly something to look forward to.

He might have a growing something for Harlow, but more importantly, Above Me was perfect to open for them. One thing he would not do was make this about his dick. He wasn’t an asshole. This business was hard on everyone, but young talent coming up like Above Me most especially. Miles knew it wasn’t vanity that he understood what a potential break it was for them to open on an arena sized tour. The exposure could catapult them into the next level of their career.

Maddie knew him well, so he kept it genuine and hoped she backed off. “Interested first and foremost in her band opening for our band during our upcoming US and Canada tour.” He finished off the second half of his bagel As Omar Marquez, their lead guitarist, and Silas Best, their drummer, came in. Miles paused to say hello to two of his oldest friends.

Omar tipped his chin. “Morning. Feels like it’s going to be a good day. Flirted with that cute dude who moved into the condo across the hall. Turns out he’s a radiologist at Swedish. My mother will finally be happy if I manage to date a doctor. She doesn’t care if it comes with a dick. It’s the degree.”

Knowing Omar’s very driven mother, Miles was more inclined to think she just wanted Omar to be happy, but there was no denying she was very opinionated in her desire that he date someone with anactualcareer since he was out therewasting his potential playing music like a teenager instead of being a grown up.

“We’re talking about Above Me,” Maddie said as Silas joined them, grabbing some food.

“Still a total yes from me,” Silas said before he gulped some juice.

“Definitely a yes. Was there a problem?” Omar asked Maddie.

“No,” Miles answered with a look at Maddie.

“I was just saying it had seemed he had a tone talking about Harlow. I mean, she’s gorgeous so it’s not like I’d have blamed him. I was just trying to figure out what was happening,” Maddie said.

Troublemaker.

He rolled his eyes. “I like her. I’m fairly confident you all will too. Maddie hasn’t met her because she didn’t travel as often with her dad, but I’ve hung out with Harlow several times backstage. She knows this world and appears to have worked hard to achieve the success they have so far. As a band they know what it is to be on tour. This is going to be just fine. And, as Maddie mentioned and I’m sure you two noticed since you’ve seen the video of their concert, she’s not hard to look at. I think it’ll be easier on us all that they won’t have as steep a learning curve.” Miles shrugged and hoped they’d move on.

Maddie and Miles had grown up together, part of an extended family spanning two states, two rock and roll bands—now three—a cookbook author, several artists, and no small number of tattooists. They were a big, noisy, colorful bunch who loved one another fiercely. There was a protectiveness the adults of the family acted with toward these children, now adults themselves, who were out in the world making art of their own. Miles knew he could get advice from anyone in Maddie’s family just as easily as his own. It meant something.

No. That wasn’t entirely true. It meant everything.

Sometimes it was like being from a country most people thought they knew about but felt mostly made up. Being the child of famous people held a spotlight on you, shaped your personality in ways most others could never truly understand.

Citizens of that crazy nation were small in number but fierce in presence. It was a group Miles was proud to be part of, though he still struggled at times with the responsibilities and stresses of life in the public eye.

Harlow was one of them. That got to him even though she wasn’t the first famous person’s kid he’d known. Something about her just stuck in his brain even though he’d known her before.

Things were different for them all than it was when they were teens backstage at whatever festival their fathers played in.Hewas different.

“I say we contact Jeremy so he starts working on that and get back to rehearsing,” Silas said. They’d had six months off before they’d started working on their most recent album and were currently in the build up for a summer tour and a fall leg in Europe.

All of them had that restlessness found in the weeks leading up to a tour. That sense of anticipation laced with anxiety and celebration that got a person through the long nights to come.

Finishing up the last of his food, Miles made a quick call to Jeremy, who promised to get in contact with Harlow. Once that was finished, he turned off the outside world.

Their rehearsal space was north of Seattle in Edmonds. It was an easy enough drive for Miles, who lived on Bainbridge Island, and the others who lived, at least part of the year, in the Seattle metropolitan area. It happened that a mutual friend had leased it for several months and the band who’d been slotted in had imploded and broken up. The space wasn’t fancy. It was located in a weird little warehouse district within easy distance to an excellent pho place, a deli and a Greek diner but close to nothing else really, so they were left alone and could come and go whenever.

It was unreal. That’s what it was. More than anything else, the fact that he was there with his band, rehearsing for a multiple months long arena tour had been a result of hard work, yes. But it was just magic. Plenty of bands worked hard. For years and years. Grinding away and it just never came together.

He hoped to never take it for granted.

Miles snapped open his guitar case and pulled his bass free, pausing to attach a new strap before slinging it on so he could tune it up and be sure all was well.

It was, of course. He’d never allow it to be otherwise. But it was the ritual of it. The step by step of making himself and his instrument ready to create that mattered to his process.

For a few minutes they tuned and tightened and got themselves situated before Maddie called out, “Wake Up,” not as an order, but as the song they would start playing.

It rolled over him as Omar’s guitar started off with Silas’s drums and he slipped in, laying the bassline that would take the open into his lyrics.

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