“Play me one of your new ones,” I say as she begins strumming.
She does and I close my eyes and listen. Lilah’s every bit the singer I am, but her real talent is in finding combinations in her head that totally work, but don’t seem like they should. After the first, she does another that I haven’t heard, but then segues directly from that into one of our oldest, and I can’t help but to sing along.
The guys in the corner all start shoving each other and pointing. By the next song, one of our subway favorites, some of them are out of their seats and standing near the bar.
“You’re no fucking exchange student,” Greg says, and he’s clearly drunker than he was half an hour ago.
“No entiendo,” I say, pulling one of the only things I ever learned in Spanish class from the recesses of my mind.
Bran is out on his feet. “If you’re here to tip the ladies, then be my guest. Otherwise…”
He doesn’t even need to finish before the kid is backing off. “Christ, man. I’m just want to know if she’s really Lucky?”
At his use of Tro’s nick name, acid rolls up my throat from my stomach. “Don’t call me that.”
He turns toward his buddies. “It’s fucking her! I told you!”
Bran takes an annoyed breath, then gets in the guy’s face. “You want to sit and listen, you’ll have a story to tell all your college buddies. You want to make a scene, you’ll get your ass tossed. Up to you.”
“It’s really her, though?” he asks, squinting past Bran at me. “I’m right, right?”
“That depends,” he answers. “Can you behave yourself?”
Greg nods emphatically.
“What do you have in your pocket?” Bran asks.
He pulls a wad of cash from his pocket and a twenty falls to the bar. Bran scoops it up and slips it into our jar. “Perfect. Now sit down and listen.”
The guy and his friends go back to their table. Lilah plays another of our oldies and we sing. When we’ve run through most of our old repertoire, she starts on the song Tro wrote—the one he made me sing onstage when we played San Francisco.
I feel my throat constrict and I can’t sing.
“Go ahead,” she coaxes.
I shake my head and am surprised to feel tears sting the corners of my eyes. I don’t cry. Ever.
But after everything with Billie, the thought of Tro, how he showed me a side of himself that I’d never even guessed at, makes something deep in my chest ache. It turns out nothing in that life was real. But, in my heart, I wanted Tro to be.
Chapter 27
Tro
The stage under my feet shakes with the thunder of the crowd as the last notes of our encore echo through the cavernous space.
I pump a fist in the air. “We love you, Rome!”
Another roar goes up as the stage lights are doused for the final time this tour. Tomorrow afternoon, we film a video in Pompeii, and the next morning we’re on a plane home.
That is if Grim doesn’t kill me in my sleep tonight. Which I’m pretty sure he’s been plotting since I put him in the hospital.
He’s got two black eyes and three stitches across his left cheek. He’s wearing them like a badge of honor. The doctor said with his concussion he shouldn’t be playing, but he is. All night he’s cut me glances and I know what that fucker’s thinking. Him dying on stage would be his final fuck you.
We pile off the stage and I don’t even have to make an excuse tonight. No one’s spoken to me since Zurich. Grim and Jamie gather up the sound guys and they’re talking about where they want to start the party as we spill out into the night. They all load in the car and Jamie sends me a plea in his gaze. He’s like Switzerland, trying to be neutral, but I know he’s pissed.
I turn and head up the sidewalk, happy for the walk.
“You’re a fucking *!” he yells as the car speeds past me, but there’s none of Grim’s malice when he says it.
I don’t turn around. Or slow down. He might be right, but I really don’t give a shit. Better a * than an asshole, which is what I’ve been for the last few years.
When I get to the hotel, I head straight to my room and close the door. I find my guitar in the corner and my fingers run automatically over the strings in the song that’s imprinted on my brain. I tweak the few notes tying the bridge to the chorus, then jot them down along with the last line of lyrics. As I look it over, I have the sudden, overpowering need to play it for Lucky.
I open Skype and stare at the yellow status circle next to Lucky’s name. She’s blown off my texts. She doesn’t want to hear from me. Me blowing up her Skype isn’t going to change that.
I set my phone down and play the new song straight through for first time.
“The beast isn’t content to admire from afar.
It dwells deep inside, the child of obsession.
The taking begins, insidious and perverse.
Suffocating me with enduring possession.
“The living façade that others despise.
Ravaging my soul, watching through my eyes.
The lower I am, the higher its rise,