“Well, all of the other guys are busy playing, so it had to be one of us.” He slicked back his sweat-dampened hair with a hand and flashed me a smile. “Need you to see something.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.” He chuckled.
I chuckled along with him. “Wow. Yeah. I’m really going to miss you after I kill you and throw your body off the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“C’mon, don’t be like that. You don’t like what you see, I’ll make sure you still get to the airport with plenty of time to make your flight.”
“How do you know about that?” I leaned an elbow on the window ledge, trying to keep my cool. Not really succeeding. Outside the city lights sped by.
“Same way I was waiting for you to make your escape,” he said. “Sam.”
“Ah.” Trust the superspy security guy to be a step ahead of me. Jerk.
“Anyway, they figured I’d have a better chance at sweet talking you into coming along.”
“Did they now?” I showed him my teeth. It could have been misconstrued as a smile, but as previously noted, Vaughan was no dummy.
“Liz, please. If I didn’t think it’d be worth your while, no fucking chance I’d have let them talk me into this. I got no desire to have you hate me.”
I sighed determinedly. “Look,” I said, putting on my best laying-down-the-law voice, “all I want right now is to get all of this behind me as fast as I possibly can. I’m sick of being here. I’m sick of the band, and rock ’n’ roll, and most of all I’m sick of smiling through it all. I do think you’re sweet, and kudos to you for trying whatever you’re trying. But I am officially over it. I am so past over it.”
“Huh,” he said, sitting back in his seat and smiling out the window at the Manhattan lights. “I guess I’m the opposite, aren’t I? It’s all over for you and you can’t wait to get away. It’s all over for me too, and I just keep trying to squeeze out another few seconds from my fifteen minutes of fame. Your strategy does sound better. Figures, what with your psychiatry degree and all.”
“Psychology,” I corrected absently. I’d forgotten I wasn’t the only one who was dealing with a breakup of sorts. “I heard you guys were finishing, but it’s hardly all over for you, is it? I’ve seen you up onstage. You’ve got it going on just fine.”
Vaughan smiled sadly. “You’ve never really seen the rock ’n’ roll life, have you?” he asked. “You just got vaulted into the penthouse without getting a taste of the industry. For every Stage Dive there’s a hundred Down Fourths. A thousand. We had one or two hits. We backed up a major band. If we’d held on to that and managed to score a major label contract, who knows? Maybe it all would have happened. Rock superstars, platinum albums, and the cover of Rolling Stone. But we couldn’t keep it together. Too many egos and pissy little arguments, to the point we’re barely fucking talking to each other. Luke’s off to bigger and better things, sure. But for the rest of us it’s back to square one. At the end of the day, the last ten years don’t mean shit. I’m tired, Liz. Tired of sleeping in shitty hotels and always traveling and playing shows, trying to make enough to pay for just a little more studio time. I want to go home and see my family, wake up and actually know what town I’m in. I want to see if there’s a better way to do this that doesn’t cost me my sanity and fuck with my liver every night of the week.”
“You’re right, I never thought of any of it like that.”
He scrubbed at his face with his hands, gave me that same sad smile again. “I love the music. Always have, always will. But maybe the constant push to get big enough to play stadiums isn’t for me.”
“Maybe not.”
“Maybe I’ll find a girl like you who isn’t already pregnant and is all over finding me bare-ass naked. A girl who won’t even think about asking me to cover up.”
I laughed, covering my face with my hands. “I really hope you find her, Vaughan. You’re a great guy. You deserve the best.”
“Thanks. Anyway, enough of my shit. Come with me to the concert,” he said, his voice quiet. “Maybe it can be the last crazy thing you do with a rock star. Maybe it can be the last crazy thing I do as a rock star.” He smiled, but his eyes looked sad.
Resigned.
Slowly, also resigned, I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. “I better not miss that flight, Vaughan.”
“You come along with me and don’t like what you see or hear … the minute you say so, I’ll get you out of there and it’s a Stage Dive limo straight to the airport. Deal?”
“You know, you should get out of rock ’n’ roll and do psychology,” I grumbled. “Deal.”
*
Backstage hadn’t changed any. Lots of busy people and equipment on the go.
With no fuss we made our way through security, one of Sam’s men appearing at my back. No one questioned us further once he was there. Vaughan took control of my luggage—more in case I tried to make a run for it than to be helpful, I think. I’d never imagined being in this position again—access to all areas, escorted down hallways and up stairs to the side of the stage. I wasn’t a girlfriend anymore. I wasn’t anything.
So what the hell was this all about?
The band were playing “Last Back,” a hit off the previous album. Anne, Ev, and Lena were over on the other side of the stage, weirdly enough. I was pretty much on my own, apart from some sound guys and Pam, the tour photographer. She was a nice woman, married to Tyler, one of the favored sound engineers. They’d both been with the band for ages.
When Anne saw me, she cocked her head curiously, giving me a wave.
I waved back but stayed put.
The song came to an earsplitting crescendo, finishing with a staccato frenzy of belted chords. At point-blank range the noise shuddered up through my ankles and quivered my spine. The fans went wild.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” purred Jimmy, in full leading-man mode, standing front and center on the stage. Clad in black pants with a black button-down shirt, the cuffs rolled back to reveal some of his ink. “Got something special for you tonight.”
Lots of screaming from out in the stadium. I covered my ears, but too late. Holy hell. Inside my belly, the squirmy sensation came again.
Huh.
“Benny-boy, our bass player here, has a little something he’d like to say.”
And I’d been trying so hard not to look at him. My face felt brittle, my eyes hot and hard. He handed over his favorite bass, the Gibson Thunderbird, to a roadie. His gaze strayed over to me as he walked up to the microphone. He knew I was there. Even in the darkness outside the footlights, he saw me.
Jimmy gave his shoulder a squeeze and then stepped back. Ben moved a hand up to cradle the microphone, but his eyes stayed on mine, his face sideways to the crowd. I shouldn’t have come. Sweat poured out of my palms, from within my clenched fists. Far more than the night air could account for.
It would be okay. This was nothing special, surely. Just some weird variation on a rock star good-bye. These guys, they always did things big. Maybe there’d be a sorry-it-allwent-to-shit song just for me. How sweet.
Ben wore the typical black boots, blue jeans, and a faded gray T-shirt with some band name on it. His usual uniform. Man, if only he’d stop staring at me. It was like he held me immobile. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Hey,” he said, his voice filling the night air, magnified however many thousand times. Once again the crowd went wild. Some started chanting his name, screaming out I love yous and the like. Who the hell could ever compete with this? The mass adulation. The worship of a crowd of this magnitude. I’d never stood a chance.
“Know there’s been a lot of shit in the papers lately, gossip about my becoming a father.” The long dark hair on top of his head had escaped whatever styling product they’d used. It fell around his face, strands catching on his beard. “I wanted to set things straight tonight.”
More mania from the crowd. General confusion from me. This all could have been done without my presence. Easily. Hell, he could have held a press conference tomorrow, when I’d be on the other side of the country, licking my wounds and rebuilding my life. Why this? My emotions had been through the mill enough already.
I turned to leave but Vaughan caught my arm, halting me.
“Give it one more minute,” he said.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” I turned, not so barely holding in my temper. Not even sorry I’d sworn. Fucking Ben fucking Nicholson. Well he could just fuck right off, couldn’t he? Yes he fucking could. Not a single fucking fire truck needed to be involved in the entire process.
I looked back to find him staring straight back at me, dark eyes searing into me, despite the distance. One fucking minute, that’s all he had. And I’m pretty damn certain by the set of my lips he knew it too.
“I love you, Lizzy,” he said.
Everything stopped. It was like the world held its breath. I know I did, stunned.
“I was a fucking idiot not to say it to you sooner.” His hand tightened on the microphone, the lines of tension embedded deep in his face. “Shit was just changing so fast and I … I got scared.”
Talk about making a public statement. Holy hell. The beat of silence dissolved, and the screaming and cat-whistling of the crowd came close to drowning out his words. As for me, I could barely believe my ears.
“You can have my time, and you can have my attention,” he said, words slow and deliberate. “Sweetheart, you can have whatever the fuck you want, I promise. Whatever you need. No more holding back, no more fear. And if you still feel you have to get on that plane tonight, then we’re doing it together.”
I sucked in a deep breath, what with my body urgently needing it and all. White dots receded and I saw him clearly once again, standing before me, offering everything. I swayed slightly, the squirming sensation inside stronger this time, more definite. Vaughan and the security guy each grabbed an arm, keeping me upright.
Ben bolted across the stage toward me, grabbing me carefully around the waist and shifting me onto the stage, beneath the heat of the bright lights. I could hear the crowd screaming, but they sounded distant, otherworldly.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ben, eyes panicked.
“She’s moving,” I said, one hand on his shoulder and the other on my belly. “She’s moving, Ben. I felt her move. Our baby.”
He buried his face in my hair, keeping me close, taking my weight.