Take Me to Paradise (Sinners on Tour 6.5)

“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.”