“And I’m ready to bang,” Owen said from the back of the bus.
Nothing new there.
Shade flipped through Adam’s notebook, excited to find several pages of scrawled words. His stomach turned when he came across a drawing of Melanie’s friend Nikki, and rage pulsed through his skull. It wasn’t the work that upset him. The details of the drawing were remarkable and if it had been of a woman he didn’t know, he would have appreciated the meticulous care Adam had taken in his sketch. The subject matter, on the other hand . . . Shade couldn’t tolerate that. Half of Nikki’s beautiful face and flawless body was torn and decayed—her guts were spilling out, bits of muscle and lengths of bone showing through the gaps in her flesh. The sketchbook dropped from his suddenly numb fingers.
“What in the hell did you do to Nikki?” he yelled. Hadn’t the woman been through enough? If she ever saw this drawing of herself, it would destroy her already delicate psyche.
“Isn’t that awesome?” Gabe said. “That’s the sketch I was talking about. It would make a fantastic album cover.”
“It’s sick.” But maybe it would make a fantastic album cover. If the woman depicted weren’t easily recognizable as someone they all knew, he’d have thought the drawing was badass. “How could you draw a living person all torn apart like that?”
“She is all torn apart like that.” Adam pulled the sketch pad toward himself and began writing a new song on a blank page. “You’re just too blind to see it.”
Had something else happened to the poor woman? And why hadn’t anyone told him? “What do you mean she’s all torn up like that?” he yelled, not sure why he was so upset. He wasn’t interested in Nikki, but he had slept with her. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. Anything else bad to happen to her, he corrected.
Gabe grabbed Shade’s shoulder. “He doesn’t mean literally.”
Thank God.
As the tension on the bus diminished, Adam’s creative spark ignited into an inferno. Everything fed the fire within him. He was soon using every thread of conversation—even ridiculous ones—as inspiration for additional songs.
It felt so good to have the band all together, creating and joking around. Shade had forgotten what it was like to relax and enjoy the guys’ company. He hadn’t realized how tense things had become between them until that tension eased. He recognized that it hadn’t been his insistence that had smoothed things over. It was Adam’s palpable relief to be creating again.
Maybe Adam and the rest of the band had been as worried about their creative future as Shade had been. Maybe Shade didn’t give the guys enough credit. He knew Adam didn’t work best under pressure, but what did they expect? That Shade would take the back seat and wait this shit out? He was incapable of relinquishing control over the band’s success. They all had to know that about him by now.
Shade wasn’t sure what had unleashed Adam’s creativity, but whatever it had been, he was grateful it had stirred Adam’s soul. He couldn’t help but wonder if Adam had returned to his heroin habit, but Adam’s pupils weren’t constricted, his skin wasn’t flushed, and he hadn’t sniffed his nose or scratched at his skin once. Shade had been around junkie-Adam enough to know what to look for. Adam wasn’t high. At least not on heroin.
The entire band was in a good mood when Sally eventually came to get them for the show. Shade couldn’t help but notice there were no longer any women on tour, which in his current state of mind proved that women were more trouble than they were worth. He was through with romantic relationships. Gabe’s chick seemed more interested in keeping her friend in one piece than being with him; Melanie had abandoned Gabe to return home with Nikki a couple of hours ago. Shade wasn’t sure what had happened to Adam’s girlfriend. They’d been together the last he knew, but maybe her unexplained absence was why he was spewing dark hatred in the form of lyrics. And Owen wasn’t messing with his iPad, buying useless tokens for the woman who’d supposedly stolen his heart. Kellen hadn’t returned from his weekend with his pretty composer, and Owen seemed much more interested in where his friend was than what his maybe-girlfriend was up to. Was it wrong of Shade to feel connected to these guys because they were all romantically miserable at the moment?
“You know, if it were me,” Owen said to Gabe as they headed down a long corridor toward the backstage area, “I’d get them both in bed and let my dick sort that shit out.”
Shade chuckled. Owen’s answer to everything. His dick.
“The problem with that,” Gabe said, “is that Nikki would be more interested in Melanie’s pussy than my dick.”
Owen slapped him on the back. “That’s not a problem in my book.”
“Mine either,” Shade said with a grin.
“So Melanie and Nikki are lovers?” Adam asked, his dark brow knitted with confusion.
Gabe shook his head. “Melanie isn’t interested in Nikki that way, but Nikki is in love with her. Or she thinks she is. Maybe she’s just confused.”
“She didn’t seem confused when she and I invited a waitress to our room last weekend for a little girl-on-girl action,” Shade said. “Nikki went straight for the pussy, no hesitation. Had that chick coming in twenty seconds flat.”
Gabe scowled at him. “Yeah, thanks. That does not make me feel any better.”
Shade shrugged. “It made me feel pretty good.”
“They live together now,” Gabe said, wiping a hand over his lean jaw. He really seemed to be torn up about this. Didn’t he realize this was the opportunity of a lifetime? “Nikki moved into Melanie’s place this week.”
“I’m sure Melanie will keep her legs closed even when your dick is a thousand miles away,” Adam said.
“Nikki will wear her down eventually,” Shade teased. “That wicked tongue of hers is very persistent.”
Gabe shoved him in the shoulder. “Not funny.”
“Still not seeing the problem,” Owen said, shaking his head.
When they reached the backstage area, Adam and Owen settled their guitars in place. Adam immediately began fingering a new rift that made Shade’s heart thud with excitement. The man’s talent was astounding. He seemed to pull amazing music out of nowhere. Or maybe it was housed in his soul.
Kellen rushed backstage and reached for his guitar, but paused when he noticed the band gazing worshipfully at the lead guitarist.
“Nice,” Owen said, mimicking Adam’s string of notes on his bass guitar.
“Yeah, I like that,” Kellen said as he listened to them play. “I assume your writer’s block is gone.” He grinned at his fellow guitarist.
“Yep.”
“Well, keep it up.” Kellen whacked Adam on the back. “Sounds great.”
Kellen then greeted Owen, who began talking a mile a minute. Adam had quit playing his new riff to answ
er his phone, so Shade turned to Gabe.
“You’re not really worried that Melanie is going to dump you for Nikki, are you?” Shade asked.
“Not much I can do about it if she does. So how did Tina take the news about you and Amanda?”
Shade hadn’t told Gabe anything about the situation with Tina or Amanda, so how had he known to even ask? Now was not the time to discuss this. They had to be onstage in a few minutes and focusing on Tina or Amanda was sure to put him in a foul mood again.
“Not sure what you’re talking about,” Shade said with a shrug.
“So Tina just hit you in the head for fun? She still doesn’t know?”
“She knows,” Shade admitted, “but I broke it off with Amanda.” He lied to save his ego further bruising. “I got what I wanted from her. Didn’t seem smart to piss off Tina for a mediocre piece of ass.”
Even referring to Amanda that way ate at him, but Gabe wouldn’t harass him about it if he thought the breakup was Shade’s idea.
“You don’t mope like a teenage girl when you dump a mediocre piece of ass,” Gabe observed before heading up the steps to find his place behind the drum kit.
Perceptive jerk, Shade thought darkly.
He turned to see if the rest of the band was ready to take the stage. Owen and Kellen were still chatting as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, but Adam had disappeared.