“Because our logo is awesome.” Trey lifted a fist for the requisite knuckle crash. Brian humored him, but he wasn’t feeling particularly celebratory.
“We’ll have a convoy of groupies following us everywhere we go.” And maybe a few freaks who sold celebrity photos online without any consideration for a person’s privacy.
“So the roadies can sell them T-shirts when we stop at rest areas,” Sed said with a shrug. Of all his bandmates, Sed had the greatest following of groupies. There were probably dozens of listings for his pictures on that fucking website. Brian wondered if there was a way to legally shut the site down.
“And we can auction off the utilization of Trey’s lips for beer money,” Eric quipped.
Brian knew Eric was joking, but the very idea of prostituting out his best friend made him queasy. Hell, he was being oversensitive. He guessed everything that had gone on with Kev and Gail had gotten to him more than he’d realized. Yeah, he’d been mostly concerned for Myrna’s safety, but the entire ordeal had made him wish he was a complete unknown.
An unfamiliar, feminine voice entered Eric and Trey’s round of jesting, and Brian looked down at an incredibly petite young woman with platinum blond hair underscored by a layer of cobalt blue. He’d never seen her before, but she acted like she belonged on the bus.
“Who’s this?” Brian asked when everyone had settled down.
“Our temporary FOH,” Sed said.
Brian’s jaw dropped. He’d have been less shocked if someone had claimed she was the fucking queen of Venus. “Our new front of house is a chick?”
“Thanks for noticing,” the young woman said as she extended her hand in his direction.
He shook her tiny hand slowly, staring at her in utter shock. It wasn’t so much that she was a chick that had him frazzled—she looked so young. So inexperienced. Dear lord, who had they hired to handle his sound on stage, some intern still in school? Which of his bandmates had been thinking with his dick instead of his head when they hired this cute little thing?
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and glared at Sed—who was supposedly in charge of all this logistical type stuff. “How did we end up with her as our FOH? I thought Marcus was going to stand in for Dave.” And while Marcus was nowhere near as skilled as Dave, at least he was familiar with their live show. Fuck. Did they just pick this chick up off the side of the road? There was no way someone this young could be experienced with running a live show as front of house.
“I have a degree in audio engineering,” the pixie-faced woman said. “I graduated in June.”
His suspicions had mostly been correct—she didn’t have much experience. “As in June of this year?” he asked incredulously. Not even five months ago she’d been sitting in a classroom.
He seriously did not need to add to his list of worries. What the hell was Sed thinking hiring someone straight out of school?
Trey grabbed Brian’s arm. “Dave’s little sister,” he said. “He trusts her with his trade secrets. No one else. Just her.”
At least he knew where they’d found her.
“Yeah,” Dave’s sister said. “He gave me thorough instructions on how to set up and run the entire show.”
Well, wasn’t that just peachy? Now nepotism was to blame for this sure-to-be fiasco.
“But our set list is changing to accommodate the new single,” Brian reminded them all. Maybe remembering how complicated “Sever” would be to pull off live would help his band mates remove their heads from their asses. “Totally uncharted territory,” he added, hoping they’d see this his way. Marcus should be running the show. Brian didn’t care if Dave’s little sister assisted the more experienced sound engineer, but she shouldn’t be in charge. What the hell? “Piano intro. Bass solo. A vocal duet.”
“I’ll make it sound awesome!” The blonde thrust her fist in the air. “Just you watch.”
Brian lifted an eyebrow at her. What was this, third grade? “Dave needs to work out the new mix, not some freshly graduated coed. Ummmm.” Brian looked down at the woman, realizing that they hadn’t been fully introduced. “What’s your name, miss?”
“Reb.”
“Reb, I need to have a little meeting with my band. Would you excuse us for a minute?” He looked at the exit, hoping she’d take his cue. He had a lot of not-very-nice things to say about this situation, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. It wasn’t her fault that his band mates were thoughtless idiots.
Her bottom lip trembled, and Brian felt like an asshole for discounting her without giving her a chance, but this was business, and he was not willing to compromise his career as a musician to appease anyone.
“Of course,” Reb said. She headed toward the exit.
Eric stopped her before she could leave the bus and asked her to move his car, which lead to all sorts of teasing nonsense about Eric having a crush on the woman. Brian didn’t have the patience for it though. “I didn’t call a band meeting to discuss Eric’s nonexistent love life,” Brian said. “How could you guys just hire her without consulting me?”
“You were unreachable,” Sed said.
“That’s bullshit, Sed. You could have called me.” Unless Trey hadn’t told him where he was and well, he had turned his cellphone off. “This isn’t some trivial decision you make on the fly. Have you even seen her work?”
Sed crossed his arms and lowered his head guiltily. “Well, not exactly, but Dave vouched for her. That makes her okay by me.”
Brian could not believe his ears. “Of course Dave vouched for her. She’s his sister.”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
He really had to say it? “Find someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. How about that?” He was beyond annoyed now. Now he was pissed.
“I think we should give her a chance before we fire her,” Jace said. Dude was so quiet, Brian had forgotten he was present until he spoke.
“I agree.” Eric sided with Jace. “I think Reb will do fine. Dave wouldn’t throw her off a cliff without a safety harness.”
Why was everyone ganging up on him? Brian was the voice of reason in this situation—didn’t any of them see that? “Does Marcus know about this?” he asked.
Everyone turned their gazes away.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Brian said with a sigh. “You know Marcus wants the FOH position. As monitor engineer, he has seniority.”
Sed shook his head. “I’d agree, except Dave’s coming back. We’re not giving Dave’s job to Marcus. We owe Dave that. This is just temporary until he gets back.”
Brian’s heart panged. He hadn’t seen Dave for several weeks and the last time he’d seen him, Dave couldn’t even turn his head without assistance. Brian rubbed a hand over his face. “You know I hope you’re right, man, but let’s face facts: Dave’s paralyzed. How likely is it for him to return?”
“He can move now,” Jace said, and Brian could see the hope shining in his dark eyes. “We saw him a few days ago. He was moving. Wasn’t he, guys?”
Trey nodded. “Yeah. A little.”
Trey looked down at his hands and flexed them into fists. Brian knew he was thinking of the time when he’d lost mobility in his hands after his head injury. Brian had refused to give up on Trey. He supposed he owed Dave the same courtesy.
“We’ve got to give him more time to recover before we do anything hasty,” Trey added.
Eric smiled hopefully at Brian. “So we’re going to give Rebekah a chance then?”
Brian could feel his resolve crumbling. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Rebekah was capable of running the soundboard for their live show. But maybe not. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“I have a bad feeling about your face,” Eric said, “but we still let you hang around.”
Brian suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and instead crossed his arms over his chest as his nice side warred with his practical side. What was the worst that could happen? They could suck like a black hole, lose the respec
t of the entire music industry, and be sued by thousands of disgruntled fans for mental distress. But in reality, they’d probably just sound a little flat.
After a long moment, he nodded. “Fine. We’ll give her a chance. I just hope I won’t be saying ‘I told you so’ in three days.”
Eric beamed. “Great. I’ll go tell her.”
“Nope. I’m going to tell her,” Trey said, and the pair dashed off the bus.
“Am I missing something?” Brian asked Sed and Jace.
“Eric likes Rebekah,” Jace said with a grin, “and Trey just likes fucking with him about it.”
“So let me guess,” Brian said. “It was all Eric’s idea that we hire her.”
“We all decided,” Sed said. “But it was in front of Dave, so we couldn’t very well turn her down.” Sed clamped a hand over Brian’s shoulder. “It will be fine,” he said. “And if it’s not, we’ll have a good reason to fire her without looking like a bunch of ungrateful assholes.”
“So how was your honeymoon?” Jace asked.
“It was great for the most part,” he said and brushed past them to put his overnight bag in his new bunk.
“Which part wasn’t great?” Sed asked.
“The part where a fan followed us around, took pictures of us, and sold them to Myrna’s ex-husband.”
“What?” Sed asked. “Is Myrna okay?”
Brian nodded, trying to ignore a ridiculous twinge of jealousy that snuck up on him. He knew Sed was just concerned for Myrna’s safety, but the history between him and Sed always made Brian wonder if someday Sed would try to take Myrna away from him. Most of him knew that Sed would never try anything that reprehensible, but part of him still worried that they’d fall into the old pattern of Sed sleeping with Brian’s girlfriends. Girlfriends but not wife, Brian reminded himself. Marriage was sacred to Sed. He wasn’t a guy who took such things lightly.
“I’m surprised you left her in Kansas City by herself,” Sed remarked.
“They locked up her ex again,” Brian said. “Hopefully, this time it’s permanent.”
“She’s a smart woman,” Jace said. “She can take care of herself.”
Brian nodded. He knew Jace was right, but the knowledge didn’t stop him from worrying.
“So did you get her pregnant yet?” Sed asked.
And that was yet another thing for him to worry about.
Chapter Eleven
Myrna dropped her purchases in the foyer before locking the door behind her and activating her new and elaborate alarm system. She did this not because she was afraid to be in her apartment by herself, but because she had promised her unduly concerned husband that she would always, always engage all the locks and set the alarm as soon as she arrived home.
According to her calendar, she should have started her period the day before. But she hadn’t! So considering herself officially late, she’d stopped by the pharmacy on her way home from work and picked up an early detection pregnancy kit.
She pulled the box from her sack, which also contained her usual monthly supply of tampons and sanitary napkins—she hadn’t wanted to be too optimistic—and sat on the sofa to read the instructions. Seemed easy enough. Pee on the tip, see how many lines show up after several minutes, and be consumed with joy or utter devastation, depending on your particular situation. She could do this. No problem.
In the bathroom she was careful to follow the instructions to the letter. She set the completed test on the edge of the sink and stared down at it, her heart trying to strangle her, her eyes strangely achy, and her stomach doing backflips in anticipation.
One blue line appeared, indicating that the test had worked properly.
“Come on line number two,” she said, her hands curling into fists on the cold edge of the porcelain sink as she stared down at the white stick. “Come on line number two. Come on. Come on.”
Her vision blurred with tears when no amount of coaxing made the second line appear.
She wasn’t pregnant.
She sat on the edge of the bathtub taking slow calming breaths. It will happen, she told herself. Just be patient. There’s always next month.
Or the month after that.
Or the month after that.
She wrapped her arms around her clenching stomach and leaned forward. She had to tell Brian. He would want to know, even though the news wasn’t what they’d been hoping for. She wished he was with her so she could tell him face to face. No, that wasn’t why. She wished he was with her so he could hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. But he was on the road with his band. And she was here. Alone.
She scraped the failed pregnancy test into the wastebasket next to the toilet and retrieved her phone from her purse. She checked the time to make sure he wasn’t onstage and then called his number.
Trey—of all people—answered on the third ring. “Hi, Myrna. Watcha doin’?” he said in a teasing tone.
“Hi, Trey. Can I speak to Brian please?” There. She sounded perfectly normal. Not like she was dying inside.
“Oh, he’s much too busy to talk right now,” Trey told her.
“Give me the phone,” she heard Brian say in the background.
“Are you knocked up yet?” Trey asked.
Myrna’s heart shattered into a million pieces and she tried to speak, but the only sound that escaped her was a strangled sob. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks, and she sniffed loudly, gulping for air.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” Brian said into her ear.
“My period was late . . . and I thought maybe . . . so I took a pregnancy test.” She took a steadying breath that was anything but steadying. “It was negative.”
“We have plenty of time,” he said gently. “We’ll keep trying.”
“How am I supposed to get pregnant with you gone all the time?” She hated herself for saying it the moment the words left her lips. It wasn’t his fault that she was thirty-five and all of her eggs were dried-up, faulty husks incapable of producing the son he wanted.
“When will you be ovulating again?” he asked.
“Ten days or so.” If her stupid, ancient ovaries were even capable of ovulating.
“I’ll get on a plane and I’ll be there to take full advantage of you. I promise.”
She sighed and wiped the tears from her eyes on her suit jacket sleeve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just got my hopes up too high.” And had crashed and burned over the lack of a simple blue line.
He was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “Myrna, we have to come to terms with the idea that we may never have a baby.”
“Don’t say that,” she blurted out.
“Sweetheart, I know you don’t want to hear it and I can only think of one thing more wonderful than making a baby with you.”
She couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than holding a child she’d made with the love of her life. “There is nothing more wonderful than that.”
“There is,” he said.
“What?” If he said “playing live in front of fans,” she was going to reach through the phone and throttle him.
“Loving you for the rest of my life.”
Her eyes flooded with fresh tears, and the only response she could manage was a sniff.
“You’re my heart, Myrna. I’m sure having a baby will add to my love for you, but nothing will ever take away from it. With you in my life, I’m already blessed beyond reason, so if a baby is meant to happen for us, it will happen and if it doesn’t, we still have us. You are more than enough to make me happy.”
She nodded, so glad her husband was good at this emotional stuff.
“Myrna?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Will you love me less if I can’t give you a baby?”
“Of course not!” How could he even ask her that?
“Then quit beating yourself up.”
“Okay,” she said, a feeling of serenity washing over her. Everything would work out
for them whether they were gifted with a child or not, because they had each other. She wondered why that hadn’t occurred to her until he’d said it. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Brian. I love you.”
“I love you too. Now you better get all rested up, because in less than two weeks I’ll be back in your bed, fucking you senseless