And one thing I know, watching her live: with the right songwriting and the right guys backing her up, she’d be unstoppable.
I glance around the stage at her band. I don’t recognize a single one of these guys. I guess that’s not surprising, since I’ve gone out of my way to distance myself from the whole music scene, but these guys are pretty green, mostly just chunking out guitar chords. Seems like there are a few veterans they could have tapped for this gig who’d at least be trying to keep up with Lucky. And whoever’s writing for her has never had a creative or original thought in their lives. Her fucking producers aren’t doing her any favors. They’re obviously banking on her talent to do all the heavy lifting.
When I glance at the bassist, a tall, skinny Asian guy with hair all down his face like he thinks he’s some anime character, I find him looking at me, and there’s not the awe in his expression that I usually get from noobs. I’m having a hard time deciding what I’m seeing there, so he makes it clear for me when he moves closer to Lucky and presses his shoulder into hers as they play. Lucky smiles at him and it’s like a boot to my gut.
Fuck, am I jealous of this kid?
I shake my head at myself and back toward the soundboard, but before I make the shadows, Lucky spins and sees me. I know she’s a pro when I catch the expression on her face, something straddling anger and surprise, but there’s no hitch in her voice or her guitar. I send her a salute and, now that I’ve been discovered, I cross my arms and lean against the scaffolding instead of tucking into the gloom.
For the rest of her set she shoots me furtive glances as she sings and my grin grows every fucking time. She’s feeling me. By the time she intros her final song, “More Than Nothing,” the house is nearly full. Some in the crowd are still finding seats, but when she hits the first guitar chords of the song I recognize from the tape I watched of The Voice finals, a roar goes up from the audience. The energy on the stage and in the arena turns electric, and where Lucky was killing it with the crap she was singing before, now she’s stepped it up to a whole new level. The place is wired and everyone’s moving. In about three seconds flat, she’s got eighteen thousand people on their feet. They may have come here for Roadkill, but she’s got them wrapped around her little finger.
I glance at her bass player, who’s actually almost doing this song justice for a change, and find him full-on glaring at me now. He sidles up to Lucky and she presses her back against his as they play. When he turns and dips his face into the hair on top of her head, I’m about an inch from going out there and ripping him off her. But she shrugs off him and starts moving toward the edge of the stage, playing to her audience.
Lucky. How did this girl get so deep under my skin in one day?
I think back to yesterday, what it was about her that caught my attention backstage. She was curled up on the sound crates, her forehead on her knees. I couldn’t even see her face, but something about her grabbed at my nuts.
Or was it my heart?
Do I even have one of those?
When she lifted her head, there was something in her expression…some mix of deep sadness and helplessness that is so opposite from every vibe she sends when she’s out in the world. All her insecurities were right there on the surface. She looked so fucking vulnerable.
I wanted to help her.
But then she started with the sass and my focus took a whole new direction—went straight to my dick.
But at the root, that’s what it is…the reason I feel so invested. There’s no fucking question I want her, but more, I want to protect her from this world.
My world.
Me. And all the assholes just like me. Which is every fucking guy in this business, from the frontline all the way down to the riggers.
When I was her age, I’d just left home. Not too long later, I was on the road with Grim, playing seedy bars and fucking seedy women. Grim’s a decent guy, but I was never anything other than an investment to him—the thing he thought was going to make him rich. The fact that he turned out to be right doesn’t change the other fact. He was never really looking out for me.
No one was.
In my rational mind, I know Lucky’s not alone, but does anyone really have her back? Her manager is looking out for her career, but that’s because Lucky is her meal ticket. I glare out at the stage. Her band wants to fuck her and her producers would fuck her over in a New York second if it’d make them a profit.
She’s like I was, wandering in the jungle without a gun. And, fuck, there were times I could have used a gun.
I take a deep breath and shove myself off the scaffolding. That’s what I’m going to be for Lucky: the gun I never had.