Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) (25 page)

Yoshi jammed his eyes closed and accepted the soft kiss she laid on his forehead. In the months they’d been on tour together, he’d learned Becky was a kisser, and was now ready for her lips whenever they came barreling down on his face.

Gus waited for Becky to close the door behind her before approaching.

Yoshi didn’t look at him, instead opting to squint at his reflection, shaking his head every once in a while.

“I see you reacting to the voices in your head again.” Gus smiled. “That’s never good.” He thought about it and then looked towards the ceiling, shaking his head. “On the other hand, you used to
respond
to the voices—out loud—so I suppose we’re making strides.”

Yoshi smirked.

Gus nodded at the door of the dressing room. “You gonna make it out there tonight?”

Yoshi sat forward, slapping his hands on his thighs. “I’m going to have to, aren’t I? Otherwise, Simon will jump out of the shadows, reminding me that I’m under contract for another year of this shit, and that there aren’t enough number one albums in the world to buy my way out of it.”

Gus dropped his head, sensing a tantrum. They’d become easier to detect in the past few weeks.

Right on cue, Yoshi’s voice rose. “
Meanwhile
, the woman I love has completely fucking disappeared and won’t speak to me, but I’m expected to go out onstage and smile and bullshit these people…” He gave up in mid-sentence and motioned to the door, where the chanting of his name seemed to grow louder by the second. Leaning forward on his knees, he buried his head in his hands.

“I know you’re hurting, and I’m just as confused by Aria’s sudden departure as you are, Yoshi.” Gus sighed, uncrossing his arms. “But I’ve got some important news. And I figured, since you’re already upset about Aria, now’s as good a time as any to give you even more fucked-up news.”

Unconvinced that any news could be more fucked up than Aria being gone, Yoshi fell back into his seat, picking the lint off his jeans. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“We found your father.”

Yoshi gasped and flew out of his chair, facing Gus completely once he was on his feet. His eyes doubled in size. He took firm hold of the vanity, causing Becky’s makeup case to wobble. “You…” He faltered. “You what?”

Gus nodded.

Yoshi brought his hand to his heart. “You found…? How did…? What was…?” He swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to keep up with his wild mind. He looked towards the door, then back to Gus expectantly, like an excited puppy. “Is he here? What did he say?”

Gus lifted his eyebrows, shifting and taking a seat on the arm of the makeup chair behind him. “He’s not here,” he said. “And he won’t be.”

Yoshi’s hold on the vanity grew tighter. He tried to speak, but nothing came. Some part of him wanted an explanation, but then he realized he didn’t need one.

“He lives in Austin.” Gus sighed, lowering his eyes. “We, uh… We invited him to the show tonight. Offered to fly him out. Offered him free front row seats. Room and board at the hotel. He, uh…” Gus realized he couldn’t finish, shrugging and meeting Yoshi’s eyes. Then, he just shook his head.

If Becky were still in the room, she’d be in the midst of screaming in frustration, because Yoshi’s eyes glowed again. The moisture threatening the edges of them seemed seconds from tumbling over.

“Did you tell him—” Yoshi’s voice broke, and he covered his mouth with the back of his hand when he felt his lips trembling. As soon as they were still again, he motioned to Gus, but his voice still trembled. “Did you tell him how good I’m doing?”

Gus frowned, covering his stomach with his hand. “Yeah, Yosh. We did. We told him.”

“Does he know that I’m a star?”

Gus’s face collapsed with the same emotion he saw in Yoshi’s, and he nodded.

“Everything I’ve accomplished?” Yoshi’s voice hitched. “Does he know that
sixteen thousand
people lined up tonight, just to see
me
?!” he roared, banging his fist against his chest.

Gus stood tall and tried to speak but nothing came, just a soft sputter. He took a step towards Yoshi, reaching a hand out.

But Yoshi stepped away. Circling the makeup chair and crossing the room, putting several feet between them, he kept his back turned to Gus.

When his body trembled from head to toe, so furiously he’d have guessed an earthquake had come pounding through the room, he clenched his fists for control. When that didn’t work, he wrapped his arms around himself, bending forward when his stomach went sick.

It wasn’t until Yoshi felt Gus’s hand on his shoulder from behind that he faced him again, allowing Gus to pull him against his shoulder just as the first sob escaped his lips.

“All right. Okay,” Gus whispered into his ear, holding the back of his head, his voice ripe with emotion. “I got you, Yosh. To hell with him, all right? I got you.”

“Why doesn’t he love me, Gus?” Yoshi begged, his words mumbled into Gus’s shoulder. He gasped in a shaky breath, his voice sinking to a whimper. “Why doesn’t he love me?”

Gus jammed his eyes shut and tightened his arm around Yoshi. He held him close until Yoshi’s tears rocked both their bodies, until he was fighting tears of his own. Until Yoshi’s left the shoulder of his jacket sopping wet and he didn’t have a single tear left to give.

--

The show went off without a hitch, as it always had. If the fans in the sold-out Dallas crowd had any inkling that Yoshi had fallen apart in his manager’s arms that night, they hadn’t shown it. They sang the words to all his songs, giving every one back to him. He’d yearned to give them the words just as passionately as they gave them to him, but he couldn’t. His mind had taken him to too many places all at once, and by the time he found himself bowing after the encore, he couldn’t even remember putting on the show at all.

His eyes had searched the crowd, looking for that one discerning fan, the one who would surely be disappointed at the half-assed show he’d put on, but that fan hadn’t existed. He’d said good-bye to the crowd and had been met with nothing but blind exuberance, screams of adoration, and words of love. Stuffed animals, letters, and gifts were hurled at him, some coming dangerously close to bopping him over the head before colliding on the stage on all sides of him. At the beginning of the tour, he’d gone out of his way to sweep up all the gifts, letters, and artwork the fans sent soaring onto the stage, but his tour bus was only so big, and with every new stop, it became impossible to keep everything. Gus had promised him that it was all going someplace safe—the stuffed animals to charity, the artwork and letters to a storage location Yoshi could visit at a later date. Yoshi, however, had a nagging feeling it was all going straight to the trash.

He wished he could care, but he didn’t have it in him.

“Aria,” he whispered into his cell phone later that night, leaning forward on his knees and staring up at the moon. A few shards of the grass he sat on snuck through his sweatpants and stabbed his skin. He’d been asleep on the tour bus before the driver had been forced to stop for gas in the middle of nowhere. While his crew caroused the isolated rest stop in the distance, Yoshi had moved to the grassy hill overlooking the moon, which looked massive in the starry night sky.

Tears stung his eyes, and he covered his mouth with his hand when he couldn’t decide what he was feeling. Sadness? Confusion? Rage? Some maddening mix of all three?

“Aria,” he said again, and the tone of his voice confirmed that it was all three. “I don’t understand what the fuck I’ve done to deserve this. To deserve to be completely ignored by you for
three weeks.
At this point, I just want to know that you’re okay. I have no way of getting in touch with you and you won’t return my fucking calls…” He paused when he felt himself going off on a tangent. He couldn’t very well cuss out a girl who was flat-out ignoring him; it would only verify whatever negative feelings she harbored for him, making her close off for good. He couldn’t risk pushing her away any more than he already had.

“I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Bo. Without you, I’m just a shell of myself. A fucking shell and—” His voice broke. “Gus found my father and—surprise, surprise—he doesn’t want to see me. Big fucking shock, right?” The first tear spilled over his eyes as he gazed up at the moon. “Everything I’ve accomplished, and he still doesn’t want to see me. He doesn’t even want to see me so he can attempt to use me for my money. And the worst part? I would’ve let him….” Yoshi exhaled. “I would’ve let him use me, if it meant seeing him. But I guess I’m that impossible to love, that inconsequential, that meaningless. I’m not worth loving. I’m not worth acknowledging. I’m not even worth
exploiting
.”

He couldn’t finish, and he drank in the moon until it burned his eyes.

His voice lowered. “I really need you. I need you so bad right now. More than I ever have, and probably ever will. You’re the only one who—” He swallowed. “You’re the only one who understands. You’re the only one I
always
believed would never leave me like he did. You swore you would never leave, and I believed you. So do right by that vow, Aria, and call me back.” The hardness in his voice nearly won over as he slammed his hand down on the grass and tangled his fingers in the shards. “
Please
.”

When he felt himself teetering on the edge of a meltdown, he ended the call, burying his head in his knees.

--

Carmen smiled as she bounced out of the 7-Eleven with an arm full of Hot Cheetos. They’d always been Yoshi’s favorite, and since she could tell he’d been down, she’d bought him a king-sized bag, hoping to cheer him up. She bumped shoulders with one of the many roadies who had a crush on her as they made their way back to the line of tour buses parked in the quiet lot.

“Damn, look at the moon tonight,” the roadie said, nodding towards the giant moon that peeked over the edge of a grassy hill.

But Carmen couldn’t focus on the gleaming white globe. Her eyes were riveted to Yoshi, sitting on the hill, spine bent, hunched forward like he was seconds from breaking in half. He had his knees pulled up to his chest with his elbows resting on them, raking his fingers through his hair.

“Tell him to come on back to the bus. We’ve only got about five more minutes if we’re going to stay on schedule.”

Carmen nodded her understanding without breaking her eyes from Yoshi. She saw the roadie moving away from her from the corner of her eye.

When her phone buzzed in the back pocket of her cutoff shorts, she nearly leapt out of her feet. Not because the buzzing was unexpected, but because she knew who was behind it.

The same person who’d been behind it for the last three weeks.

She tried to breathe away the anxiety that roared in her stomach as she brought the phone to her ear, listening to the message.

Yoshi’s strangled voice came through the receiver.

“Aria…”

Carmen nearly hung up. She’d been hanging up for almost a week now. The messages were becoming more difficult to listen to by the day. For some reason, this time, she didn’t.

“I don’t understand what the fuck I’ve done to deserve this. To deserve to be completely ignored by you for three weeks. At this point, I just want to know that you’re okay. I have no way of getting in touch with you and you won’t return my fucking calls… I’m just a shell of myself. A fucking shell and…”

Carmen brought the phone from her ear when heat gurgled in her gut. Still, she was unable to stay away, bringing the phone back to her ear.

“Gus found my father and—surprise, surprise—he doesn’t want to see me. Big fucking shock, right? Everything I’ve accomplished, and he still doesn’t want to see me. He doesn’t even want to see me so he can attempt to use me for my money. And the worst part? I would’ve let him… I would’ve let him use me, if it meant seeing him. But I guess I’m that impossible to love, that inconsequential, that meaningless. I’m not worth loving. I’m not worth acknowledging. I’m not even worth
exploiting—”

Carmen ended the call as quickly as her finger would allow her. She almost dropped it to the ground her fingers shook so much.

When she looked up and saw Yoshi rising to his feet, she realized her chest was heaving. As he made his way back towards the tour buses, unaware of her eyes on him, she looked down at the phone and typed a message under ‘Aria’s’ name.

As she typed, she knew it was the message that would end this madness once and for all.

But before she could send it, her thumb trembled over the button.

She looked up again. Yoshi had just disappeared back onto the bus. She knew he would go straight to the rear to join Phil in the studio, where they would write another album filled to the brim with songs about her.

Her.

Carmen’s eyes hardened. She looked down at the message she’d typed. From Yoshi’s end, it would be the first message from ‘Aria’ in three weeks. The first response since the last time he’d seen her. Her gaze danced over the words she’d typed, thinking about how he would feel. Surely he would be excited when he saw her name on his phone’s display. A glimmer of hope would race through him as he unlocked his phone and raced to his text messages. His eyes would blaze over the words like an inferno.