I felt so lucky to be here, to feel alive like this. Adjusting to life in San Diego hadn’t been as difficult as I’d thought. My two little cousins, nine and eleven, were old enough that watching them during the afternoons while their mom was at work was no hardship at all. I met a few friends at my new school and was thrilled to discover my aunt’s house was a twelve-minute drive to this surf spot.
The ocean filled a void in my life that had opened up with the lack of a committed father, the stress of a mentally unstable mother, and the death of my big brother. It was as if being on the water leveled the playing field. Sure, I had been handed a raw deal, but look what I had – this ride, and then the next. Peace was what I’d been missing, and here on the waves, I’d found it.
Of course I knew who to thank for my newfound happiness – the boy with the stupid questions who smelled like seaweed. I smiled. That was another benefit of my new Zen lifestyle. Remembering Keith was no longer painful. Now when I thought of him, I didn’t dwell on what could have been, but instead comforted myself in the knowledge that we’d changed each other for the better. When all was said and done, Keith had occupied only a very short chapter in the story of my life, but it would be remembered as thecrucial turning point – the moment in time when I took back my life. Keith McKallister had not just given me my first love, he’d given me my passion.
“Hey,” a male voice interrupted my daydream. I looked up, blocking the sun with my arm. He was college-aged, deeply tanned, and smiling at me with an affecting grin. “Sick ride.”
“Thanks. The conditions are challenging today.”
“Don’t I know? I’ve been wiping out all day. I’m Drew, by the way.”
“Samantha,” I said, reaching for his outstretched hand. “But everyone calls me Sam.”
Five years later
21
Keith: Yogi
“Excuse me, people. Coming through.”
“No, ma’am. Hands to yourselves, please.”
“Easy, killer, let’s keep the volume levels in the healthy range.”
“Sir, I assure you no one wants to see that… no one.”
The sea of quivering bodies parted as beefy security guards cleared the way for us to make it through the back gates where there would be sanity. As Jake’s star had begun to rise, so had the crowds. And despite the fact that he was just eighteen years old, his followers weren’t all giddy preteen girls – as the middle-aged woman flashing her nipple ring proved. From the very young to the very old, Jake attracted a wide range of music lovers, men and women alike. My job was to keep their hands, feet, breasts, and teeth off him. Not as easy as it sounded, I assure you.
“Hang on, bro. We’re almost there.”
As we pushed through the hordes, Jake dipped his head, acknowledging my words but saying nothing in return. He didn’t need to. I was dialed in, able to understand his wants and needs without clunky conversations slowing us down. Before me, Jake had navigated these shark-infested waters alone. He’d had no one to read his non-verbal cues or make him smile when his day turned to shit. The people assigned to his team in the early days didn’t care about him. He was a paycheck, nothing more, nothing less. Back then, Jake was more a zoo animal than a musician, placed on stage so people could gawk at the boy who’d survived a grisly high-profile crime. The suits didn’t care if he could sing or write or perform. All they cared about was that paying concertgoers would fork out the money required to watch the infamous one-hit wonder perform his hit song, “Deception.”
No doubt expecting Jake to crash and burn after his debut solo flight, the label was intent on milking his notoriety while keeping their expenses at a minimum. Why pour resources into a lost cause? So they dropped Jake into a debilitated tour bus, arranged for a forty-eight-year-old drunk to be his manager/handler, assembled the motleyest stage crew they could scramble together at a moment’s notice, and assigned him Lassen, the most cantankerous bus driver known to man.
But the funny thing about underdogs was you could never really count them out, and while the bosses were totaling up their chump change, Jake was quietly building a devoted fan base. Before the studio heads knew it, their one-hit wonder had morphed into a two- and three-hit phenomenon. Followers arrived in droves, filling concert halls and gymnasiums and then later stadiums and arenas. Jake was a rising star who’d suddenly found himself in an enviable position of power. And to everyone’s surprise, he wielded it.
After just one album, Jake turned the tables on his label, suing and claiming he’d been coerced into signing the contract as a minor. In an effort to avert a public relations disaster, Jake was let out of his contract. He promptly signed a favorable multi-million dollar deal with their biggest competition. It was a shake up heard round the musical world, made more fantastical because it was a kid just shy of his eighteenth birthday who’d choreographed it all. Well him, our two fed up parents, and Mom’s lawyer friend, Larry.
Gone were the sloshed manager, the unprofessional roadies, and the decrepit tour bus he’d shared with the entire band. It was a total overhaul of the status quo. Well, maybe not total. There was, in fact, one unexpected survivor of the purge – Lassen, the jerk bus driver who was hated by all except for the one person who mattered. Jake.
And so as the empty ranks were filled to my brother’s specific requirements, he was handed everything he wanted on a silver platter: a new manager, a professional crew, a private tour bus, and yours truly – personal assistant to the stars – Keith McKallister.
The security guards and I had Jake surrounded as we made our final push through the crowd. I wasn’t paying attention to the people around me until a hand reached out and squeezed my package. Too stunned to respond, I turned to face the culprit, but she’d already dropped my dick in favor of palming either side of my face and aggressively shoving her tongue so far down my throat she was tickling my tonsils. I wished I could say the manhandling disgusted me, but that would’ve been a lie. In fact, the entire Jake-train was forced to stop so I could give my assailant a proper response. Cupping her neck, I pulled her in and planted a kiss on her lips that gave her a glimpse of what she was never going to get.
Then as swiftly as it began, I drew away and kept moving through the crowd.
“Holy shit!” the woman called out. “Come back. Don’t set me on fire, baby, if you’re not going to put me out.”
I grinned, not looking back. There was a certain satisfaction in leaving my accoster in the dust. Chancing a glance at Jake, I worried he might be pissed at my pit stop, but instead, I was met with a smile of mad respect.
“Pirate hair.” I shrugged. “The ladies love it.”
* * *
After making it into the back lot where the busses and semi trucks were parked, the world around us returned to normal. No more grabby hands. No more screamers. Lassen was waiting for us at the door to the bus. He grunted something unintelligible to Jake, who nodded his own weird greeting.
I scratched my head, not understanding their primeval language. As far as I could tell, they genuinely seemed to like each other, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why… or how… or when. Granted, the closest I’d ever gotten to an actual conversation with the man was when a bird unexpectedly splatted on the windshield of the bus.
