Electricity shot through my blood. “Quick. Get my notebook and pen.” I motioned toward the corner where they laid on a table.
Jay, sitting on a green loveseat while texting, grabbed them and threw both in my direction.
I caught them and frantically thumbed through the pages until I found a clean sheet, needing to get the lyrics and melody out before they faded.
Ten minutes later, most of the song was chicken-scratched onto the paper.
“It’s time.” Jay pocketed his cell and stood. “You good?” He raised his eyebrows at me.
Katrina handed me my ear monitors.
“Yeah, haven’t felt this alive in quite some time.” It was the truth. Whatever she’d given me hit with lightning speed. My limbs felt pleasantly heavy and my thoughts slowed, quelling that queasiness that always hit before a live show.
We were opening for Viktor Farrow, which was mind-blowing, but he’d seemed to have taken a liking to me during that radio interview. Yeah, he could be a rude asshole, but under that gruff exterior and cocksure attitude, he truly did seem to care about his friends.
Feeling like a million bucks, I took the steps two at a time and burst onto the stage.
The crowd cheered as we took our places and I smiled, putting a bit of swagger into my persona.
“Hello Mesa Palms. Are you ready to get rocked tonight?”
Wild screams and nods.
“We’re about to give you a never-ending storm of music and good times, then.” I adjusted the mic stand, glancing over the sea of faces upturned in my direction.
Behind me, Jay settled into his seat, giving his cymbals a cursory glance.
Katrina stood in the shadows and watched, holding out two thumbs up.
“Before we get started though, I have a question.” The crowd quietened, possibly sensing the seriousness in my tone. “Has anyone here lost something so profound, so intricately a part of their life that they never realized just how perfect it was until it was gone?”
Several fans in the front row nodded.
“So have I.” A wave of dizziness hit me out of the blue and I stumbled, then caught myself. “Seems I lost my balance, too.”
Snickers and good-natured laughter flew through the air.
Katrina frowned, then glanced at Jay, who shrugged.
I gave them a jaunty wave and swiveled back toward the crowd. “I lost my heart to a girl twelve years ago. When I managed to find her again, I realized she never gave it back. She still owns my heart and I don’t know what to do. To make it worse, I lied to her.”
People shifted, clearly getting antsy for something livelier than a guy drowning in his sorrow.
“But you know what?” I snatched the mic from the stand and strode to the edge of the stage, bending down to meet their stares. “Fuck relationship problems. We’re here to storm sorrows and drown our pain.”
I raised my hand, the signal to Jay and the guitarist to start, and began pouring my heart into our self-titled song,Neverstorm, and kept rhythm on my bass.
CC’s face swam in my mind, the young girl I’d helped all those years merging into the beautiful, independent woman she’d become.
It’s time to let her go. I’ll only drag her down with me even if she changes her mind.I was a cancer, and like all sickness, I needed to be cut from her life.
I rode the calming effects of Katrina’s drug for fifty minutes of our show, already thinking about the next hit. Nothing mattered anymore except the music. The highs and lows reminded my body it still lived, even if my heart didn’t.
Chapter thirty-eight
Terri Kingston
Iflashedmymediabadge at the security guards and sidled up to Angela, standing on the other side of the barricade keeping the mob separated from her fiancée singing onstage.
