* * *
I pretended as if I put her threats out of my mind for the rest of the space between our upcoming show. I wondered if Tate had mentioned something to the crew about my worries because they stopped making jokes about it. In fact, no one really mentioned it at all until about a week before. It was Dallas, of course. We had taken a short break between songs.
“We should dress up. Like, really snub her. She wanted us to go, but we got ready and decided to do the show instead.”
“I actually kind of like that idea,” Cash said. Ronny laughed along with them.
“Oh man, she’ll be so pissed. I’m in. What about you guys?” He glanced at me and Tate. Everyone knew that Tate would follow whatever I wanted to do. He put his arm around me protectively. I hated feeling like I was pushing a wall between us and the rest of the band.
“I guess I’m in. What are we all wearing then?”
The guys all picked suits from their closets. I had to search through my closet and ended up finding a black, tight, strapless cocktail dress. It was simple, just a black, strapless cocktail dress that had a giant black bow across my chest. I paired it with my fishnet tights, and I went out and bought some elbow length silk gloves to match.
The day of the show I was actually excited. We dropped Cara off at Elena’s apartment. We planned on coming home tonight, so we didn’t feel the need to bring the pair along this time. I noticed that the more we performed live, the easier it got to let Cara stay home. It wasn’t ever easy, but Tate wasn’t manic about it anymore. He only checked his phone a couple dozen times now, rather than a few hundred.
The guys all catcalled me as I came out of the backstage bathroom in my dress. I never used to care about who saw me dress, but it felt odd now that Ronny and I were officially over. It felt like gloating almost. Until it stopped feeling weird, I’d keep trying to be respectful of his feelings.
“Damn, you’re fucking gorgeous.” Tate stood and came over to me, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing my ass. I giggled and slapped his hand away. “I like the makeup,” he added when he let me go. I thanked him and glanced at the mirror on the wall.
I had opted for a maroon lip and darker eyes than usual. With my hair longer again, I had used Morticia Addams as inspiration when choosing my stage look tonight.
“Anyone watching us tonight and comparing Tierney with you is going to forget about her completely,” Ronny smirked. His eyes were shadowed with thoughts he wasn’t supposed to have for me anymore. I smiled but didn’t say anything to him.
“Seriously, if she sees you, she’s going to be so jealous. I love it,” Dallas added. I rolled my eyes. I crossed my arms. Maybe this wasn’t as good an idea as I had originally thought. It felt gross to attempt to upstage her. And was it really upstaging when we were in two different music genres, doing two totally different events tonight? Yes. I tried to justify my actions, but I couldn’t. I was being an asshole.
Nerves hit my stomach more than usual as we waited our turn. We were the last act before the headliner, so we had been given a longer set time. People had been buzzing about us being added to the show on social media. We were actually gaining fans of our music. People were purposely coming out to see us. That meant something. I had to remember that. That was our end goal. We couldn’t let them down.
Finally, we were called to the stage. Under the stage lights I could hear my thundering heartbeat in my ears. The blood rushing through my body was hot with nerves as we got our equipment onto the stage as quickly as possible.
When we were ready, I stepped to the center and closed my eyes. People were screaming for me.Me.
“Jim-my, Jim-my!” Two syllables, so simple, yet so fucking powerful. You know what? Fuck Tierney. I was done letting her hold me back. She wasn’t a part of my life anymore. It was just as much her fault as it was mine. She made sure of that when she started dating Jules.
Ronny’s bass line started and I smiled at the crowd.
“How are we tonight? All you Homewreckers out there, let me hear you scream!”
The dancing bodies calling my name did as I asked and I leapt into the air, launching full force into our set.
It was almost an out of body experience. It always was when I was on stage like this. As a drummer things were different. They were fun, it was what I loved, but there was no real… glory. This, being the one everyone was looking at, it was a feeling like no other. I understood why my mom and dad loved it so much. Why Tierney craved it. It was addicting.
As I moved around the stage, singing, dancing, entertaining the crowd, all thoughts of my life outside of that moment slipped away. The rush of people dancing along with me was thrilling. I didn’t care about anything else. Why should I?
We went through all our songs but the last one on our set. It was the only new one on our list. We hadn’t played this version live. I glanced at Ronny who was staring at me intently, waiting for me to approve it. My eyes swung across the stage. Dallas and Cash seemed unaffected, naturally. My stomach fluttered nervously until I caught Tate’s smile. He beamed from behind the kit, tossing me a thumbs up. I smiled back and spun back to the fans, launching into a full electric version of Ronny’s song to me.
‘I Shouldn’t Love You’, would always sound better acoustic and from Ronny’s voice, but I also loved our new version. The words were the same, the melody and rhythm matched the original. The passion behind it was different now though. The first rendition was a desperate plea to be seen. Now, it was a beautiful goodbye to a love that should have never been, but alas, happened.
When I sang those last lines, I found tears falling slowly down my cheeks. It wasn’t for Ronny though, not in the sense that it should be after hearing such a song. It was about how happy I was that things had worked out. While we weren’t lovers anymore, we were still friends. I never thought in a million years that we could make that happen.
The crowd roared for us. We bowed, said our goodbyes, and then hurried to get off the stage for the headliner to get their turn.
Once everything was packed up, locked up, and we got paid, we headed back into the club to hang out backstage with the other bands. The headliners were local and invited us to a party after the show.
The beer was flowing, the music was blaring, and the laughs were abundant the rest of the night. Happy endorphins were flowing through me as I sat cuddled in Tate’s arms and bullshitted with other musicians, just like old times.
The final band of the night finally came through the doors and announced that they were packed and heading out. Their guitarist told everyone he’d text his address for the after party and everyone began shuffling out.
I followed my friends out of the room but was stopped by a member of security.
