TWENTY-ONE
BISHOP
I looked out on the throng from the wings.
They were buzzing excitedly after our opening act. I knew there’d been a lot of online speculation about this concert after my last little guitar smashing performance.
Everyone wanted to see if Bishop would lose it again. Everyone wanted to be there for the spectacle. I grinned at them, flicking my tongue between my teeth. I loved feeding off their energy and expectations.
When people expected chaos, I was at my best.
I jogged out onto the stage and yanked the mic off the stand.
“I’ll be your Bishop for the evening. Faust welcomes you to the Paradiso.” Then I roared the last bit: “Who’s ready to worship your Rock Gods?”
* * *
I was drenched in sweat by the time I slammed the mic back into the stand and swung my guitar over my shoulder after the encore. Well, after the second encore.
They couldn’t get enough of us tonight. It felt like the energy after the viral video had taken us all to the next level. The intimate venue had helped. Plus, the old church was hella echo-y and the sound reverberated back and forth and through your fucking bones.
Just the way I liked my music.
Just the way I liked my life.
Barely ordered chaos. Pounding. Nonstop.
Luna was on fire behind me. Like she had some kind of demon energy inside her she’d been waiting to unleash on her drums.
When we all met up backstage, I wasn’t about to sit around and try to tame myself for fan meet and greets. No fucking way.
I was ready to spend the adrenaline the crowd had whipped up in far more productive ways.
I clapped my hands and then rubbed them together. “All right, crew. Let’s go out tonight, regroup, and get back to our old selves.”
“Sounds good to me,” Cash said quickly and I clapped him on the back.
“That’s the spirit.”
Reaching out, I tugged on Luna’s fingers and made the closest I could manage to puppy dog eyes at her. “Pretty please?”
She rolled her eyes at me but grabbed my hand back. “Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?”
I grinned at her. “Not possible. Come on. You’ve never seen the red-light district and that’s the real sin.”
God, I loved the way her closeness made my body react. In fact… If I was honest with myself—and that was something I usually tried to avoid—I’d missed her during our week apart.
Not that I sat around pining for her or anything. My days had been packed as always. My Insta proved that.
I’d gone surfing with some surfing buddies. Then skydiving with my skydiving buddies. The next day I went out to eat with my foodie buddies, then out on a binging spree with my drinking buddies.
It wasn’t a bad way to spend a week. There was no spare moment free. I spent them all experiencing every pleasure known to man. Well, apart from sex. But we’d fix that tonight, wouldn’t we?
I grinned and snuck a glance at Luna’s ass. Damn, my girl looked hot in those black skinny jeans, her round little ass so tight.
Part of me wanted to drag her back to the hotel suite right now… But no, I had a plan for tonight. And plans were plans. Until I didn’t want them to be, anyway. “Come on, I called a car.”
Mason didn’t look happy but he followed Luna, and Luna followed me to the alley out back of Paradiso.
We crowded into the small euro van. It was a tight fit, but the ride was short anyway, maybe only ten minutes.
Luna had her face stuck to the window the entire time, exclaiming every time we crossed one of the bridges over the many lit-up canals. She was like this whenever we visited a historic city. I’d been dragged to so many castle ruins and ancient standing stones and shit—let’s just say I was glad to be in charge of the itinerary for tonight.
“I had no idea so much of Amsterdam was water!” she said. “I didn’t have time to buy a guide to the city like I normally do.”
“Thank God for that,” Tank muttered under his breath.
“What?” Luna asked.
“Nothing,” Tank said hurriedly. But Mason just smiled at her fondly. He pretended to be such a Boy Scout but that was a load of bullshit, wasn’t it? It drove him crazy that I could see right through him.
He had the same darkness inside him that I did. No matter how much he tried to make up for it with his whole choir boy act.
The van came to a stop.
“Oh look,” I said, “we’re here.” We all poured out.
The streets were busy even at 10:30 at night, just like I knew they would be.
“What now?” Tank asked, edging closer to Luna as passersby charged past. The guy was a giant and it was never a bad idea to head through any seedy part of a metropolitan city with your own personal bouncer in tow.