On the Road: (Vagabonds Book 2) (New Adult Rock Star Romance) (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

DANA FORTMAN WAS a tough, spirited lady, and I liked her right off the bat.  I could tell she was CJ’s mom—they had the same dark eyes and dark hair, but she seemed to have some Latina blood.  She looked exotic and beautiful—and too young to be his mother.

When she opened the door, she took me by the hands and pulled me in her house, CJ right behind me.  “So good to meet you, Kyle.  Chuckie’s said a lot about you.”  She hugged me then, and I felt warm.  CJ had been talking about me to his mom?  That had to be good, right?

“Nice to meet you too.”  I wasn’t going to lie and say that CJ had told me a lot about
her
—because he hadn’t.  She took our coats and then invited us into the kitchen.  It smelled amazing.  My nose picked up a subtle hint of cumin in the air, as well as the more powerful aroma of cooked chilies and onions, and I saw a bowl of tortilla chips on the table with smaller bowls of salsa and guacamole beside it.  CJ leaned against the fridge and I stood next to him.  He made sure not to touch me.  At all.  Hmpf.

“It smells great in here, Mrs.—”  I paused, because I knew CJ had said their last names were different, but I couldn’t remember what hers was.

“Fortman, but please call me Dana.”  She turned for just a moment, her face breaking into a big smile.  She was wearing big gold hoop earrings, something I didn’t think I could personally pull off, but she looked great.  She was about my height and build, so CJ towered over us both.  “And thank you.”

“Sorry about forgetting your last name.”

“Don’t be.”  She laughed.  “Chuckie had to tell me more than once that you were a girl.  You know, ‘cause he’d say something about Kyle, and I kept thinking you were a boy.”

I smiled.  “Honest mistake.”

She turned back to the stove to stir the pot and said, “I got remarried after Chuckie’s dad left and took my new husband’s name.  He died in a car accident a few years ago.”  Oh, God.  I didn’t know what to say to that, but she wasn’t pausing for me to react.  “But Carl Slavin is a pox upon humanity, a real bastard of a human being.”  Her demeanor became angry and I wasn’t sure how to react, but she softened immediately when she turned to look at CJ.  “The only thing he was ever good for was providing me the sperm for the sweetest baby in the whole wide world.”  She pinched CJ’s cheek.  “My little Chuckie.”  I’d almost forgotten that CJ wasn’t known as CJ to everyone.  That name had been a fairly recent change for him but I’d always thought of him as CJ.  I was going to have to get used to hearing her call him
Chuckie
.

He grinned.  “I love you, mom.”

“Love you too, my boy.  Now, why don’t you get something to drink for the two of you and then we’ll eat?”

“Want a Corona?”  He was asking
me
?  Wasn’t I too young?  I almost started laughing but his mom started talking.

“I’m all outta beer, my boy.  I’ve got some Jose Cuervo.”

“Nah.  What else you got?”

“Diet Dr. Pepper and I saved some regular Dr. Pepper for you.”

He asked his mom, “You need one?”

“Nope.  Got one.”

So CJ got us both a soda out of the fridge and we both tried the chips with the salsa and guacamole.  I wasn’t sure if they were homemade but they were delicious.  “Can I help with anything?”

“No, Kyle.  You just sit.  I’ll bring the food to the table.”

It was a hell of a spread.  A pan of enchiladas and another of tamales and some green chili.  She filled up our plates—didn’t ask what we wanted—and we sat to eat.  There was no way I was going to tell her I wasn’t a fan of tamales—they’d always seemed a bit overrated.  But smothered in her green chili, my tamale was a delight.  After the first few bites, I said, “This is amazing, Dana.”

“Thank you, Kyle.”  I saw her wink at CJ as she used her fork to cut a bite off the enchilada on her plate.  “Chuckie’s been telling me you are in that band I was hearing about earlier this year.  The Vagabonds?”  I nodded but couldn’t say more because she then asked, “Are you the singer?”

I saw CJ shake his head.  “No.  Lead guitar.”

“Oh.  That’s impressive.”

I grinned.  “Thanks.”

“How long have you been playing guitar?”

“Since I was twelve.”  I was already tired of answering that question for interviewers and…well, interviewers, but I didn’t mind telling CJ’s mom.  She seemed genuinely interested.

“That’s about the age I saw Chuckie start developing an interest in music.  His sperm donor had left an old bass guitar in the basement.  I’d sold all his other crap in a yard sale but I thought I might make more money on the bass by selling it on eBay or taking it to a music store.  I hadn’t gotten around to it.”  She winked at CJ.  “Glad I didn’t.

“Poor kid had begged for music lessons—piano, guitar, whatever—and I couldn’t afford shit.  So it was like he was meant to find that bass that day.  We didn’t have the internet back then but his grandparents did, and he managed to find a few sites that had basic instruction.”  I knew how it went.  All you needed was for one or two pros to give you a few tips.  If CJ was anything like I had been, he’d absorbed it all like a sponge—and every musician became a potential teacher.

“Anyway, you know the rest.  Let’s talk more about you.”  So we spent the evening mostly with me under the spotlight, telling CJ’s mom about my childhood, teen years pre-Vagabonds, and then the formation of the band itself.  We talked a lot about the music scene as well—she was a hard rock and metal fan, so I knew where CJ got it…only his band had stepped it up a notch.

By the end of the evening, I had fallen in love with CJ’s mom.  She was funny, ballsy, and sweet.  So fuck CJ.  He and I could be
just friends
, but so could his mom and I.

On our way back to his place later, after dessert, dishes, and a lot more chatting, CJ said, “Damn.  My mom’s never taken a shine to one of my girlfriends like that.”

I kept the snarl out of my voice.  “That’s because I’m not your girlfriend, remember?”

He chuckled.  “You know what I mean.”

No, I didn’t, and I wasn’t going to ask.  All I knew was that my heart was pulled to him, and I knew it was going to hurt when he left.  It would be even more painful if I thought about how little I meant to him…and that night, lying in his bed next to him, I wondered how I’d allowed myself to become such a fucking doormat.

* * *

I took out my anger on my poor guitar.  The Vagabonds started recording in mid-November, and I knew that meant that things were smoothing out with negotiations among all the stupid parties who didn’t really care about the art—it all revolved around the bottom line:  money.  We were the ones making the music but it seemed like we were the last to ever see the cash.

Still, I felt more alive when I was playing than when I did anything else in my life, and it was a solid reminder to me about what really mattered.  It was good, because it helped me resist at least one booty call.  My phone rang one night after a recording session that had gone a little later than usual, and I saw that it was CJ.  Liz, Barbie, and I were still eating our TV dinners and I was feeling good about what we’d done that day—so good, I wasn’t in the mood to feel high with CJ and then, afterward, lower than low.  Talk about an addict.  So, my drug of choice—my guitar—was strengthening me.

I got a short text from him too and called him back later.  “Hey.”

“Hey, babe.  You wanna come over tonight?”

Yeah…I was an easy lay but not good enough to rate as a girlfriend.  I wasn’t feeling it—in fact, I was feeling a little angry about it all.  But I didn’t feel like arguing, either.  “No.  Sorry.  I’m pretty tired.  We had a long rehearsal today.”

Ha.  I could hear the disappointment in his voice.  I suppose it wasn’t fair of me, because he’d never made any pretense about his intentions.  I think I was angrier at myself than at him, because I’d allowed myself to feel more for him than I should have.  If I’d been able to keep my emotions out of it, I would have been all right—because CJ was fine.  “Yeah, I know how that goes.  Maybe tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  Well, in spite of feigning fatigue, I stayed up half the night writing my first song.  My first
real
song—not just an attempt.  And it wasn’t just some guitar riffs—I wrote the words and all the music.  It was too bad our album was already set in stone, or I’d ask my bandmates to consider this song as well.  But maybe we could play it on tour.

I was already feeling much better.  That was what my guitar could do for me.

And the song “Wipe Your Muddy Shoes on Me” was born.

Chapter Thirty-six

I SPENT THE night with CJ before he and Death Crunch hit the road for their second tour.  He’d told me his mom was going to check on his place twice a week and pick up his mail.  She was also going to make sure his bills got paid, and he told me she’d given him grief about it, asking why he hadn’t just moved back home.

Our lovemaking that night felt a little melancholy, but I’m sure it was all in my head.  I was sad because I knew I’d lose him now that he was going out on tour.  He was going to belong to the women of the world, probably a different one every night, and I couldn’t let myself think about everything they would do to him.  I thought he might feel a little sad too, but I’m sure all that shit was completely in my wild imagination.

And that inspired me.  The first week in December, I searched online for a reputable tattoo studio with an artist who did amazing work, and then I went to see him.  I told him I wanted a guitar as my first tattoo, but we talked more, and he was inspired and asked me to send pictures of both my guitars.  Then I had to see him in a week.

What he’d drawn was more than I’d envisioned—it was a depiction of both my guitars tilted at angles, almost leaning on each other in a human-like fashion (but crossed at the necks), and he wanted to put it on my upper arm.  I was all for it, but I thought I’d have to be completely hammered to endure the pain.  Well, I didn’t realize at the time that I was going to have an outline done first.  So, after the first drunken visit, I had to go back a few days later for the fill in, and I had to drink again because I was even more paranoid it would hurt.  Fortunately, Liz didn’t mind driving me, and she was getting some ideas for her own tats.  She did wind up getting a tragus piercing while she was waiting for me the second time, so her visits weren’t completely wasted.

We also talked about the need to buy more guitars.

A few days after that, we finished recording our second album.  This time we’d spent a lot more time recording, and the mixing was going to take longer as well, but our new agency informed us that we’d be touring by February.  The idea was to release our first single and video sometime in January, before the entire album would be done.  In fact, the new album wasn’t going to be released until March.  That was okay, because now the world knew who we were.  We had no worries that we could draw a crowd based on our past performance.

We also didn’t know who we were touring with yet, but we were told that we’d headline some shows and provide support for others.  I frankly didn’t give a shit.  I just craved being onstage again.

Liz—man, she had an innate and keen business intellect, and I wondered if it was in her genes.  Seriously.  The woman seemed to have a natural sense of how to guide us.  That past summer, she got her GED (and I didn’t even think to ask
why
, especially when I learned that Kelly had done the same thing—and so had I so I could shut my parents up), but in the fall, once her lawyers and our agency gave us the go ahead, Liz hired an online company to create our merchandise.  She spent her own money, but we now had full ownership of our logo and our name (apparently, those had been owned by the slime dog Peter) and she wanted to make sure we were earning our fair share of the money.  She had all the merchandise linked to our website (where we’d make more money due to direct sales), but all of it was also sold in lots of online stores.  She hoped those sales would better supplement our incomes.

Soon, it was the new year and I was eager to get on the road.  CJ and I texted frequently and it sounded like their second tour was even more exciting than the first.  I was happy for him and the band, because I knew the feeling that I could only get from being live onstage while hundreds of people rocked at our feet—singing our words with us, banging their heads, dancing and moshing.  It was a feeling that I couldn’t get from anything else, because it wasn’t just like a big party.  We and the audience were sharing something more than that—it was deeper and more meaningful than a mere night of revelry.  It was emotional and spiritual.  Yes, really, and if you’ve never been to a concert where you’ve felt connected to the audience and to the people onstage performing their art, I’m sorry.  You don’t know what you’re missing.  The only other times I have felt that connected to the universe is when I’ve been next to a river meditating…or right after making love with the right guy.  So I’m sure you can see why the road had such a draw for me.

But I also knew it had its dark side.  I hoped that this time, with a little wisdom and experience, would be different.  We would have better people guiding us this go-round and we ourselves had the benefit of age.

However, not all of us were on the same page anymore.  It was the Friday before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Kelly asked if we could all meet for dinner.  She said she wanted us all there because she had some important things to discuss with us.  Liz had taken the call but assured Kelly all three of us in the house were on board, and Kelly said Vicki had agreed to meet as well.  Liz invited them to come over to our place, and she said she’d serve snack foods (instead of making a big dinner) so we could have a little bit of a pre-tour celebration party.

But Kelly’s news didn’t feel like something we should be celebrating.  It felt like something heavy.  I knew Liz had picked up on that too, because she seemed more uptight than usual, but, as expected, she was outwardly as calm as ever.  But she knew as I did that something was definitely up.  When Vicki arrived, I could tell she had a bad feeling about it as well.  Barbie, though—she was off in fucking Barbie Land doing her usual self-absorbed thing.  I was glad we’d be on the road soon, but it wasn’t like I was going to escape her.  She’d be there to drive me fucking crazy on the road too.

When Kelly got there, I could tell she was nervous.  She was normally all smiles.  Well, it wasn’t like she wasn’t smiling, but I could tell a lot of it was forced and nervous.  I could feel a vibe coming off her, kind of like how you feel when you’re sitting in the dentist chair and he’s getting ready to drill you.  You just want the moment to be over.  And, after we all filled a plate with chips and dip and little cookies, I was ready for the shit to hit the fan.  What the hell was Kelly holding inside?

The big living room somehow felt smaller as we all settled in to various chairs or the couch.  Kelly sat on one of the overstuffed chairs and set her drink on the end table next to her.  Liz, ever the polite hostess, said, “I know Kelly has something she wants to say, but first I just wanted to thank the four of you for joining me on this journey.  I know the past year has been really hard.  We’ve learned a lot, but we’ve grown a lot, and I love you all.  You’re my sisters, and I am grateful to have you in my life.”

Oh, Liz, well played.  It was then that I knew for certain that our songwriter knew just as I did that something was up.  She wanted to deliver a preemptive strike to whatever Kelly was planning.  But I could also sense the resolve in Kelly by the way she clenched her jaw.  No matter how persuasive Liz might have been, Kelly had already made up her mind and was just trying to find a way to tell us whatever the hell it was she needed to say.

By the time the words spilled out of her mouth, I’d already figured it out.  “I, uh…I’m quitting the band.”  I just wanted to know why.  I heard Barbie let out a melodramatic gasp, but none of us said a word.  I think we were too in shock.

I could tell she wanted to say more, but Liz finally—quietly—asked, “Why?”

Kelly breathed in slowly, looking down at her plate of tortilla chips, before she said, “I’ve enrolled in college…and I start Monday.”

This…made absolutely no sense to me.  We were making money.  We were living the dream.  And life could only get better from here on out, right?

Right?

All of a sudden, the floodgates to my mouth flew open.  “College?  What the hell are you going to college for?  We’re getting ready to go on tour.”

“I don’t expect you guys to understand.  I—”  She paused again, struggling with her words.  “I got my GED last summer, you know, and I’ve been thinking, long and hard, and I had long conversations with my mom and dad.  I know the Vagabonds are awesome.  I know you guys are going to win over thousands of more fans, but while we were recording this next album…I dreaded going on the road again.  I can’t do it.  I know you guys love it, but it’s not for me.  It’s not
me
.  It’s not who I am.  Okay, sure, I can play bass.  I bet there are hundreds of other girls here in Colorado who can too.  But I can’t do this.”

Liz clamped her jaw shut.  She was angry, but her eyes didn’t show it.  She had to be the coolest person I’d ever met.  She kept her emotions tucked away like a person hides a precious necklace in a seemingly innocuous box.  It was rare that I could tell anything Liz was feeling, but damn…her jaw gave her away that day.  Kelly kept talking—nervous energy driving her speech—explaining that she wanted to become a veterinarian, that the past year had made her really think about what she wanted to do with her life…and being a rock star wasn’t part of that equation.

Her time speaking gave Liz enough time to form her words into coherent—and diplomatic—sentences.  “Kelly, no one here begrudges you your heart’s desires.  That’s why we’re doing this in the first place…but why are you telling us
now
?  We go on tour in a month.”  I could tell she had so much more to say, but I’ll give her credit—she was going to use the uncomfortable silence to her advantage, compelling Kelly to speak once more.

“I know.”  She swallowed and looked down at her plate again, and I knew right then that she wasn’t going to eat anymore.  Her appetite was gone.  “When we got home last summer, I just kind of chilled, and then I looked back on the whole experience and realized how much I hated it.  Really hated it.  I thought it would be fun and that I would love it, but I fricking hated it.  But I thought maybe it was the shit we endured—you know, Peter, Andrew, the drugs and stuff.  That wasn’t it, though, because then we started rehearsing—and, and…it was like torture for me.  But then I thought maybe I was overreacting.  Recording was torture too, though, and I had to force myself to come here every day.  That made me realize that I really didn’t want to do this—and maybe I needed to take another look at my life.  So, long story short, I talked to a career counselor and I took a couple of tests—you know, to assess my interests and stuff—and when the big one suggested I look into doing something with animals…I knew I’d found my dream, my passion.”  She was looking at us then, and her eyes had lit up.  I forgave her at that moment, because I could see that she was as excited about her future career as I was about mine, and she was as sure about it too.  How could I—
we
—deny her the chance to be happy and feel fulfilled?  “Still…I thought I’d wait till after tour, but I talked to mom and dad this week and they told me I shouldn’t put off what I really wanted to do, especially since I was so miserable.  They could just see it, how every time we had rehearsal or whatever, that I dreaded going.  This tour would
kill
me, guys.  Kill me.  I just can’t do it.”  Her eyes got wet with the promise of tears, but she held them in.  “I know it’s so last minute, but I applied for the university here on a lark and they accepted me.  I haven’t spent a dime of our earnings, so I can pay for school and it’s what I want to do.  I
need
to do this.  I—”  And then…then the tears dropped from her eyes, replacing the words spilling from her lips.

The five of us hugged in the living room then, and we all wished Kelly well, but what the fuck were the Vagabonds supposed to do now?