jaymarawrites-blog

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 24 - Sangria

“How is it with Michael?” Tara didn’t waste time. She never did.

“You know,” I shrugged.

We’d been on the road all of fifteen minutes. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about how I was going to approach this with Tara. I just hadn’t made a decision. But in reality, I knew any decision I made would probably be a distant memory when we got talking. I’d be better off not stressing about this on top of everything else. Or maybe I actually needed this to focus my stress on.

“What the fuck made you want to go on tour? You’re old and married. I thought you didn’t have to put in those groupie hours anymore.”

“It’s been long enough I forgot how much touring sucks. We thought it would be fun to travel together again. Turns out it’s not so romantic when you’ve got years of togetherness behind you.”

Tara flipped the switches to roll down both of our automatic windows and I sat up straight. “You roll down windows now?”

“Today I do.”

“What about your hair?” I teased. A half-ponytail sat up high on her head, but Tara was always too worried about her hair to roll down windows.

“The tour smell is more important than my hair right now.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, lifted my arms over my head. “Really? That bad?”

“Jesus Spenser!” Tara contorted her face. “I can’t tell if your pits smell like pussy or your pussy smells like pits but Jesus fuck put your arms down!”

A deep, guttural laugh tumbled from my mouth and tears came to my eyes. A feeling of weightlessness came over me. It felt so fucking good to be home, even if we weren’t quite home yet, even if it wasn’t technically my home anymore. It felt so good to be on my way back to a world before L.A., a world before the band, and a world before Michael.

I propped my feet on the dashboard and sunk down into the passenger seat.

“Mama Dukes?’

A slight wrinkle in her forehead betrayed the arch of an eyebrow behind her sunglasses. “I’m just glad you’re home. She can concentrate all her bullshit on you now.”

“Fuuuuuck.”

I loved my mother, but it was much easier to miss her than it was to live with her. Or even in the same state.

“We’re doing mani-pedis tomorrow, the three of us.”

I relaxed my head into the headrest. “Nice.”

“But you need to fix this shit first.”

I looked over at her.

“I mean, is it literal shit or what? I will put you in the shower myself and hose you down if I have to. We’re not putting lipstick on a fucking warthog, here.”

I laughed again. “Fuck off.”

The closer we got to home, the more I felt myself melt into the passenger seat. Everything stressful was being left behind on the bus, in Seattle, and tomorrow all my problems would be moving on to another city. As long as I was here, with family, I could relax, I would be fine.

And who said I ever had to go home anyway?

Tara’s boyfriend dragged my suitcase up the stairs to the second floor of the house, to my old bedroom, where he and Tara had cleared out boxes and other storage items for my stay. When I visited the house Mama Dukes never acknowledged her tendency to use my room for their sundry items and I pretended I didn’t know she did it. It didn’t matter to me how she chose to make use of space in her own home, but for some reason it seemed to matter to her that I see it as it had been.

I checked the time on my phone and saw a message I hadn’t noticed when I received it.

Chris Kane Cell Safe travels

A cold wave rolled through me and I pocketed my phone. I didn’t know if I liked that or not. I didn’t know if I wanted to revel in the fact that Chris had thought of me today or if I just wanted to turn all Chris-related thoughts off. It was hard to think of Chris without thinking of Michael, after all. And the whole point of being here was not to think of any of it.

I pulled the phone back out of my pocket, stared it down for a moment, and set it on the nightstand before leaving the bedroom.

Tara, Ronnie, and I had already congregated around the kitchen island when Mama Dukes made her way through the front door, arms full of groceries. Mama Dukes had hardly cooked a meal since my dad had retired, but she always used my visits as an excuse to keep snack foods in stock.

Tara and Ronnie took the bags and set to work putting packages of Double-Stuf Oreos and Sun Chips and Kudos bars in the pantry and bottled water and diet soda in the fridge. Mama Dukes wrapped me up in her arms and said, her voice soft like pancakes on a Sunday, “You are just lovely but you look awful.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’m just exhausted.”

“Well.” Mama Dukes dropped her weight into a chair at the island like it was more than it appeared. “I hope you’re not too exhausted for Filomena’s.”

I grinned. Filomena’s hadn’t been my favorite place to eat since I was in high school, but Mama Dukes still had it in her head that I would eat three meals a day there if I could. I was always afraid correcting her would hurt her feelings. Filomena’s was still a perfectly fine place to eat, after all, and I had all the time in the world to eat anywhere else I wanted while I was here.

“I could be persuaded to go to Filomena’s.”

“Do me a favor, though, Spense,” Mama Dukes said. “Shower first.”

A relaxing shower was the perfect segue into a quick nap. Clean and damp, I threw on one of my oversized tees and tucked myself right into the queen-sized bed. A real bed I got all to myself, with no threat of Michael’s rummaging around waking me up.

Until the vibrating of my phone on the nightstand interrupted my dozing.

I wanted to ignore the phone, but I also wanted to turn off the vibrate setting. Ugh. I picked up the phone and couldn’t help but see the texts.

Michael I love you. Have a good time.

Sam Nabhani Cell Be well - you’re not missing much here. Catch you back in L.A.

Chris Kane Cell Did you make it safely? Are you feeling better

Vibrate setting off. Sound off. Chris’s texts were the only ones that begged a response and even he wasn’t getting one. I’d spend the rest of night imagining what I might respond, no doubt, but I wouldn’t do it. Not yet, not tonight.

A couple of sangrias through dinner I don’t think I could’ve picked Chris out of a lineup. It was okay. That was how I wanted it. Tara kept the drinks coming, Mama Dukes and Dads paid, and Ronnie wanted to know more and more about L.A. I was drunk enough to tell him the things he wanted to hear, about driving by movie sets and doing makeup for Marilyn Manson who was a big sweetheart. But I was lucid enough to leave out the things no one wanted to hear, about Xanax coladas, the homeless outnumbering rats. Avocado toast with sprouts.

Back at the house the drinks kept going. Tara had the place fully stocked with the sweetest supermarket wine, indistinguishable from Welch’s grape juice. And Tara played her iPod through a speaker and we did karaoke even though we didn’t have instrumental karaoke tracks, a microphone, or the song lyrics, and what we didn’t know we made up even louder.

For the night, if only this night, I had no ties outside of this house. Outside of Mama Dukes, Dads, Tara, and even Ronnie. Ronnie, tonight, was dearer to me than my own husband and my husband was the furthest thing from my mind as Tara and I made “Africa” into a duet. This was the kind of night my family thought I had in L.A. on a regular basis. They had no idea that I was typically at home, alone, while the rest of the city partied with strangers because how could you meet the people you needed to know if you were content to know the people you’d already met?

Mama Dukes retired when Dads found The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a movie channel and Dads retired when we refused to turn off the iPod. We played 90’s hits and tried to get them to sync with the movie and the last thing I registered before passing out was Leatherface clasping his meaty arms around Sally’s waist and dragging her through a banging screen door to Billy Corgan rasping “Today.”

I hadn’t looked at my phone in close to twelve hours.

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 23 - Window

Tara wasn’t actually whisking me off to Seattle. Rather, she was picking me up in Seattle and taking me home, to my parents, to a suburb about forty-five minutes away. Her car was waiting outside the venue when we arrived. Tara would do anything for you if it made her feel in charge, and I was more than ready to hand my life over to anyone who wasn’t me.

When the bus swung into the parking in the back of the venue I caught a glimpse of her leaning against the hood of her red Civic. She straightened and crossed her arms over her chest as the bus doors opened. Sunglasses shielded her eyes but I could tell from the set of her jaw that she had her game face on. The face she made when she wanted a borrowed article of clothing returned right now or she would take it back herself, even if you were wearing it.

I gathered up my bags and purse from inside and hauled them off the bus with me, stopping and starting as a couple of crew guys in need of caffeine staggered in front of me. I dropped my bags at her feet and hugged her, washed in relief. My baby sister by nine years was a couple of inches taller than I was and bigger overall. The age gap between us was just wide enough that growing up I’d taken it upon myself to be her second mother any time we left the house. For school, for church, or just to watch her wreak havoc on the anthills in the backyard. Between the bubble I’d created for her that saved her from many hard and disappointing life lessons, and having surpassed me in size, Tara was as protective of me now as I’d been of her then.

Tara pulled back from me and wrinkled her nose. “Why do you smell like dead flowers?”

“I haven’t showered in two days. For real.”

“You’re one musty-ass bitch.”

“I know.”

I leaned into her again and we watched crew and band set into automatic motion. I couldn’t help but wish the Echo Eclipse van was here, that I could get one last glimpse of Chris before leaving. Last night had felt entirely surreal. It had all happened so quickly. I would have been convinced I’d imagined it if I hadn’t been up most of the night with knots in my stomach. Renzo hadn’t said anything, of course. Logic told me he wouldn’t. Personal drama interfering with the tour would be the last thing Renzo would want, but the fact that I couldn’t know for certain tore at my insides. Any satisfaction I might have felt after my encounter with Chris was completely counteracted by this anxiety.

I just needed out.

Michael rolled my suitcase over, squinting behind his sunglasses, skin crinkling around his eyes. He greeted Tara and kissed her on the cheek.

“She needs a break,” he said with his tight smile. “She needs a spa week or something. Touring’s no fun when you’re an old and married.”

“Well, if she needs a break she’s got it.”

Tara started loading my bags into the trunk of her car and I turned back to Michael. It was easy to act like I would miss him when we wouldn’t be together again for close to a month. In this moment I even felt that I would miss him. The fact that I’d done something traitorous that I needed him not to know made it easy to focus only on that parts of him I loved. They were the parts I didn’t want to lose.

“You’ll be okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m actually looking forward to it.” I hesitated before saying, “Just, no good can come of me doing any more of this tour with you.”

“That’s fair.”

He cupped my face in his hands. Pulled his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and returned his hand to my face, squinting. His lashes were short but dark. The crows feet that had always formed when he smiled didn’t go away anymore when he stopped, and they grew deeper every day. The tiniest mole dotted his left cheek, as if he’d made a wrong move with an eye pencil. I used to kiss that dot goodnight every night we spent together, for years. But I hadn’t done it in a long time now.

Michael brought his face closer still, said low, “I love you. More than anything.”

“Sure,” I said. I’d meant it to sound teasing, but it just sounded like I was conceding a debate without really changing my mind. I placed a hand on his face and ran my thumb over those short lashes, the crows feet when he smiled. It was best to leave it like this. I knew this was the right thing to do. “I love you.”

I kissed him once, twice, three times before relinquishing him. He turned away and waved his fingers over his shoulder at Tara. I got in the car without seeing him walk away.

“Get me the fuck out of here,” I said, fastening my seatbelt. I sunk down low, wanting to be done with it all: done with the tour, done with these people, done with every choice I’d made over the last couple weeks, good or bad.

Tara’s always freshly manicured fingers turned the key in the ignition. She twisted her head around to check her blind spot, straining her voice. “You got it, ho.”

Coming up to the turn out of the parking lot, Tara put on her signal and waited to turn. As we sat, I recognized the Echo Eclipse van turning into the parking lot, passing Tara’s car, close enough that a passenger in each vehicle could touch hands briefly, brush fingers in passing. I straightened up and examined the tinted windows, knowing I would see nothing.

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 22 - Smudge

Michael and the guys were doing sound check inside the venue. I kept my head down and clutched my purse tightly, trying to make as little noise and take up as little space as possible. It was hard to go unnoticed in my squishing flip-flops, soaked through with rain water. I’d squeezed the corner of my shirt out as much as I could outside the door but the improvement was minimal.

I tracked down Renzo, who was huddled in a corner yelling over all the noise into his phone. If anyone had the key it should be the tour manager, I figured. I wasn’t about to interrupt his one-sided conversation and he wasn’t about to pause, but he made eye contact with me as I came closer to him. I dug my keys out of the bottom of my purse where they’d sat unused since the beginning of the tour and jangled them in front of my face, shrugging. He turned away and continued his yelling at the wall.

Abel, having apparently seen the failed exchange, walked up out of nowhere, unhooked the carabiner from Renzo’s belt loop in a sweeping motion and tossed it with attached keys to me.

“Thanks,” I said, both relieved and embarrassed to face him. But he didn’t look at me once. It was typical Abel, but it didn’t make me feel better.

On the bus I took some jeans and a long-sleeved tee into the back lounge to change. I was chilled from the rain and wanted to wrap up and get warm. I didn’t know what to do beyond that, but this was still more of a plan than I’d had all day.

The warmth of the fresh clothing was delicious. I went to the bathroom to squeeze out my hair and re-pile it on my head. My face was a smudgy mess but had fared better than expected. I was dabbing my towel around my eyes and jumped when I heard slamming into the side of the bus.

“Jesus,” I muttered to myself, stumbling out of the bathroom. I knelt on a couch in the front lounge and pulled aside the curtain just as an enormous hand slapped the glass in front of me three more times in quick succession.

“Fuck!” I yelled involuntarily.

I stumbled up to the driver’s seat and sincerely wished I’d paid more attention to how this bus worked. My memories of the big yellow bus I rode for two years of high school included an either real or manufactured image of the bus driver still wearing her Giant Foods button-up, reaching out to some kind of lever she swung more than pulled to open the doors with a rush of air. I saw no lever here. I saw shiny black buttons and switches that made little more sense than swarming insects.

A couple of lighter slaps on the doors and I looked up. Chris stood outside, hood drawn up over his head. He pointed upward, which drew my attention to the words “OPEN/CLOSE” printed on a small lever over the doors. I flipped it and the doors opened with that familiar hiss.

My cheeks were on fire before the doors had completely opened. “Sorry, I couldn’t figure it out.”

“No problem.” He was smiling despite his soaked clothing. He shrugged and asked, “Can I, uh, come in?”

“Oh?” I was embarrassed by the surprise in my voice. “Oh, sure.”

I stepped back into the front lounge to make room. He hunched over at the shoulders to climb up the couple of stairs onto the bus. His six-foot-plus form fit easily, but I’d noticed his tendency to do this. To compress himself, bend himself, slink into corners or step aside when space was limited. I wondered if that was true only on a practical level or if maybe it was true metaphorically too.

Inside the bus, facing me, he pulled himself up to his full height again and pulled off his hood.

“Here, hold on -” I fumbled through the doorway back to the bunks and grabbed one of the towels I’d just used to dry off. Brought it back and handed it to him. “Sorry it’s still damp. I got caught outside and -”

“Oh, shit, I thought you were just hanging out on the bus ‘cause you weren’t feeling well?”

Yes, that had been my story.

Chris ran the towel over his arms and neck in an exaggerated way that made me realize he didn’t see the need for it but felt that he had to make use of it now.

I bought myself another moment by taking the towel back and throwing it on the bathroom floor.

“Thanks. So. You’re feeling better?”

I shrugged. “I thought getting out would make me feel better - fresh air - but it caught up with me. I actually feel worse now.” It wasn’t a total lie.

“Shit. Sorry.” He put his hands in his pockets. Took them out again. “Yeah, I heard they left you on the bus you were feeling so bad.”

“Who said that?” I’d thought Sam was going to take care of this for me, but now here Chris was with my number and checking on me on the bus. Fucking Sam.

“Michael told me.”

“He did?” Again the incredulity in my voice made me cringe internally.

“Yeah. He said if I was looking for you you’re on the bus. Said you could use some company if I wanted to check in on you.”

“Michael said that?”

Chris lowered his eyes to the floor. Shoved his hands back in his pockets again and nodded. “Yeah. Michael said that.”

Softly I said, “Okay.”

And I knew I’d just admitted something. I hadn’t intended to. But my tone, my volume, the way I’d dropped my eyes just as he had. The way the word felt in my mouth, like a slimy thing I’d coughed up and now it sat between us.

“Look, I wanted to talk to you.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “And I’m not really sure what to say.”

I waited with my eyes on his boots as he shifted his weight from one to the other, then back again.

He muttered under his breath, to himself, “This is so fucking awkward.”

I gathered a deep breath as he tossed his hair out of his face. “It’s okay. I mean -”

“No.” He flexed his hands for emphasis. “No, it’s actually not okay. I don’t - I mean I can’t -”

I looked at his face reflexively. His eyes were squeezed shut. “Can’t what?”

He flung out one arm. “This shit!” He lowered his voice. “I can’t.”

Was this happening? Was this real? Was Chris saying this to me right now and did it mean the only thing I could think of? Were we doing this? I couldn’t be entirely sure, I thought. But somehow I was.

My voice was low. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t -” He exhaled sharply through his nose. “I’m just not this person! I don’t do shit like this.” He ran a hand over his face. “I’m not a bad person.”

His words lodged themselves in my chest and sat there, heavy. “Am I?”

“What?” He jerked his head up, actually looked at me.

“A bad person? Am I a bad person?”

“I don’t know.”  His shoulders sagged in defeat. “Are you?”

This burned. It cut, it pierced, it stabbed me in the heart. It hurt.

“Know what? Fuck you.” I pushed pass Chris and reached for the lever to open the bus door again and he caught my hand just a moment too late. The doors hissed as I pulled away from him.

“You can’t leave,” he said.

He wanted me to stay. A calm went through me that I hated myself for. “Why not?”

“It’ll look bad! You can’t leave all worked the fuck up like this! Think about how that looks.”

I was even angrier now that my momentary hopes had crumbled. “Maybe it just looks like you’re a dick.”

Chris wedged himself back between me and the door, planting his feet wide. “You can’t. I’m sorry I said it, okay? That was fucked.”

I took I breath.

“So what am I supposed to do then? Stay here with you?”

He lowered his voice. “You haven’t had a problem being with me so far, have you?”

My jaw dropped. “What is your problem all of a sudden?” Was he trying to blame all this - all this nothing - on me? Nothing had happened, no one was at fault. But who had touched who at the venue last night?

“What is my problem? You! Is that not totally clear to you? You! You are my fucking problem!” For once I noticed the heat rushing into his face. “This tour is the opportunity of a lifetime for us! It’s a motherfucking dream come true! We’re supposed to tour with Second Chance, be cool with them, be cool with the label. It’s supposed to be our shot! This is what we’ve worked for. Not just me - Adrian, Kyle, Smith, Tyler. They’ve worked so. Fucking. Hard. I can’t fuck this up for everyone! I can’t fuck this up for all the people I care about by fucking Michael March’s wife!”

So there it was. And a part of me thought I wanted it, but now I felt ill. Chris covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath.

After a long pause I ventured, “That seems maybe a little extreme -”

“You know that’s exactly where this was going.” He dropped his hands from his face. “Don’t act like you didn’t.”

God that was presumptuous but God was that what I wanted.

I hesitated before opening my mouth again. “I just didn’t know you saw it that way.” I paused. Said more quietly, “But I hoped you did.”

“Stop,” he breathed. “It doesn’t matter.”

I gathered myself and took a step toward him. “Doesn’t it?”

“No,” he said firmly. “It doesn’t. I can’t do this to Michael. And I know you don’t want to hurt him, either.”

“We haven’t done anything to hurt him. Here -” I gestured to the couch. “If you’re so concerned with how this looks, have a seat and I’ll do your makeup as long as you’re here. It wouldn’t look great for you to have been here with me so long with nothing to show for it, right? Here, let me start your primer. Everything is fine.”

He collapsed onto the couch in exhaustion. I grabbed my makeup from my bunk and returned, half expecting him to have jumped off the bus while my back was turned. But he was there, looking defeated, eyes on his feet. I sat on the couch next to him and faced him with my legs tucked under me. Wordlessly turned his shoulders to face me and he brought one leg up on the couch in front of him.

With a faint pang of guilt and a much stronger wave of excitement I pushed my brushes away.

I used my fingers. He closed his eyes automatically and I ran the cream over eyelids veined like flower petals. His face was instantly expressionless, submissive. I took my time spreading the primer over his upper lids, mindful of every brown lash that brushed against my finger.

I spilled the pale foundation over the back of my hand and he opened his eyes.

“You’re using your fingers.”

“This is easier sometimes.” Lie. He didn’t know the difference.

I dipped my fingers into the foundation and ran them over his cheekbone, rubbed them in small clockwise circles over his face -

He seized my wrist with enough ferocity to startle me. I met his eyes, equal in ferocity. “I know what you’re doing.”

I swallowed and parted my lips to speak. And he kissed me.

And it was done.

When he pulled me close, one enormous palm on the back of my neck and the other on my outer thigh, the weight of it all rolled off my shoulders. The heat working through my body pushed out every anxiety I’d been feeling only an hour before. This was what I had feared and now that it was happening, now that the dam had broken, the line had been crossed, there was no going back. There was no undoing this. And it was such a relief to do something so definitive, even if it was definitively wrong. Maybe especially for that reason.

Chris pulled his face away and pressed his forehead to mine momentarily, strands of his hair falling between our faces. “Do you feel good about this?” he breathed. His tone was neutral but it felt like an accusation.

I was leaned forward, my hands pressing my weight into Chris’s thighs. “I don’t know. I only know that this feels good.”

And he kissed me again. It was happening. This wasn’t an isolated incident. We’d acknowledged it and continued on just the same.

He leaned closer still and wrapped his arms around my lower back, pulled me closer and suddenly I was up on my knees tilting my face down to his. His tongue was in my mouth or mine was in his and my hands were on his face, in his hair, and the corners of my mouth turned up into a smile or maybe his did and he grabbed me just under my hips and pulled me onto his lap so that I straddled him.

I studied his face for a moment through a few strands of my own hair that had fallen out of a messy bun. He smiled. The first sincere smile I’d seen since he stepped onto the bus. I pushed a stray lock of hair off of his forehead. And I was afraid to look any longer, afraid to say anything, to hear anything he might have to say. Afraid of anything that could change the moment, as if the slightest change, the slightest movement, would throw everything off, ruin it all. And as if he understood this, he pulled my face down to his again. He pulled me close with his forearms bracing my back, moved his hands to my outer thighs and squeezed all of me that he could gather into his palms.

I felt him jump under me at the slamming sound outside the bus. Maybe I jumped too, but I only registered the sensation of his body tensing momentarily underneath mine before he grabbed my waist and stood, lifting me off of him and to my feet in one movement.

I stepped quickly over to the stairs as Renzo stepped onto the bus. My chest and face burned furiously at the realization that I’d left the bus doors open when I threatened to leave.

Renzo didn’t come all the way inside, just planted a foot on the top step and grumbled, “I need the keys back someday.”

“Shit, sorry.” I brushed past Chris, still awkwardly on his feet, and ran into the back for the keys. Deliberately not looking at him.

I realized a moment too late that may have looked worse.

I brought the keys back up front to Renzo, waiting in exactly the same place. I held them out to him as he held my gaze and made no move to take them. After a beat he said so that only I could hear, “I knocked because you seemed busy.” Then took the keys and left.

I turned back to Chris, who was already pulling his hood back over his head and walking toward me, toward the door. I reached out and touched his shoulder to stop him before leaving. I opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say.

He took my hands in his and exhaled. Wrapped them around his waist and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, resting his chin on the top of my head. I buried my face in his chest. His smell was a generic men’s deodorant or body spray that would’ve been called “Ocean” or “Surf” but I made a mental note of it in that moment in case I never smelled it again. Or never smelled it on him.

“You’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

He placed a hand on my face and gave me a restrained kiss. Pulled me into him. Kissed me deeply but with finality.

“I’m so sorry,” he said and kissed me one last time, quickly. “This never happened.”

He stepped off the bus with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. I watched him through the bus doors take quick strides back inside the venue, hunched at the shoulders.

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 21 - Clouds

I hadn't left the bus when everyone else had, when we'd pulled up to the venue. I'd stayed and watched through the window as everyone spilled out, as the crew began unloading the equipment. Only after everyone had scattered did I venture back to my bunk.

I wrapped myself in a thin sheet, pulled it up to my chin. Tossed and turned for a few moments knowing all the while it was only a matter of time before I gave up. I needed only decide what to do next. How best to kill time for the next…? I double-tapped the tablet to activate the screen. What, seventeen hours?

Seventeen hours.

I focused on my breath. Inhaled counting to three. Exhaled counting to three. How many times would I need to do this to get through seventeen hours?

With the AC off I couldn’t lie here much longer anyway. I became aware of sweat pooling under my arms, behind my knees.

I got up again. Went to the bathroom and took a sink-bath to freshen up. Wiped down with a washcloth. Re-piled my hair on top of my head and washed my face. Ran one of the baby wipes between my legs in an effort to wipe away what had happened with Andie.

I pulled on denim shorts and a tee I’d cut the sleeves off of, imagined the feeling of the wind billowing inside the shirt. Grabbed my purse, slid my feet into flip-flops, and perched oversized sunglasses on my nose.

When I stepped off the bus the sun was blinding, as it always was. On tour I felt like a vampire, always moving from one dark location to the next. There was only but so much light we got on the bus and we usually kept the curtains drawn to keep it cool and keep the glare off the TV screen. We braved moments in the sun to wander into dark, cavernous venues, or the sunlight scattered us, roach-like, into dimly-lit restaurants, cafes, and bars. Out in the sunshine, I could barely glance at the glaring whiteness of my arms.

I moved quickly but kept my eyes on my phone. I hoped a look of determination would prevent anyone whose path I wandered into from trying to engage with me. I searched the location of the nearest coffee shop. Half a mile in the opposite direction. But I wasn’t planning to walk through that social-emotional minefield again, nor did I want to run into anyone else who may have gone for coffee straight off the bus, now that I thought about it. I’d find something in this direction or circle the globe trying.

None of the shop names on my phone meant anything to me. Nothing along this strip was a recognizable franchise, most locations had people-names - Francesca’s, Emilia’s, Peter Paul - and I peered through storefronts to see what was inside. Whether I could get an iced coffee, a shot, or a cruelty-free makeover.

Three blocks later I was nearing the point that I didn’t care. I just needed shade.

I finally took refuge at Mikey’s, a spot I decided to stop at from a block away when I noticed outdoor seating under candy-striped umbrellas. I thanked my good fortune when I came close enough to see that Mikey’s was a fro-yo place, everything vegan. I gave myself the usual pat on the back that I did when I wandered unintentionally into a vegan meal or product. I hadn’t gone out of my way to find it, but kudos to me for supporting it. Today I needed the kudos.

There were only a couple of kids in line ahead of me. Teenagers, I’d guessed. The three of them wore black and were engaged in enthusiastic conversation, two customers with the cashier.

“I couldn’t get tickets,” the cashier was saying as I passed them to serve myself. Half of her head was shaved and when she bobbed her head up and down the wild curls she had left rippled.

“We got them first thing. I can’t miss it, and I’m dragging him with me.” The girl slapped the boy on the back and grinned at him.

I’d hoped they were just a couple of punk kids I could ignore but it was hard to imagine they were talking about any other show. I couldn’t get a free moment to clear my mind no matter what I did.

With a bowl of Orange Dreamsicle I approached the cash register. The two kids, unwilling to give up their conversation, stepped to the side when the cashier reached out to weigh my bowl.

“I hate you,” the cashier was saying. “You have to come back and tell me how they were. I’ve never seen them before.”

“Me, either,” the girl gushed. “Chris Kane is so fucking sexy - do you think he looks like that in person?”

My breath hitched at that. I was so used to overhearing the exact same conversation about Second Chance, multiple times around every venue, that I hadn’t realized they weren’t talking about Second Chance at all. And the things that were usually said about Michael were now being said about Chris. I snorted to myself. They were even being thought by Michael’s own wife.

Fuck.

I kept my head down and paid an exorbitant price for my fro-yo, then stuck a couple of singles in the tip jar, careful to turn away quickly when the cashier thanked me. I always felt stupid trying to go incognito - people rarely noticed me without Michael - but I didn’t want to risk it, especially today.

I sat at one of the tables in front of the shop, shaded by an umbrella, and propped my feet in the chair next to the one I sat in. I focused on my breathing again and wondered if eating my fro-yo at the same time was interfering with the deep breathing, then decided that wondering about it too much was definitely interfering. I tried to be mindful of my time outdoors. Mindful of Alejandro’s Bistro across the street, mindful of the plastic thongs wedged between my toes, mindful of the clouds that sped across the sky.

Mindful of the sky as it opened up, and the rain that dropped down in buckets.

God. Dammit.

Thunder rumbled through the sky and I could swear I felt it in my body. The wind picked up and suddenly the umbrella wasn’t keeping me entirely dry anymore. I huddled into the table as close as I could.

A text alert appeared on my phone. My chest seized, that same nervous sensation I always felt, when I saw the message. I unlocked the phone.

Its Chris. Sam gave me your number hope that’s ok.

Got your msg its no prob feel better

Without allowing myself to think too much of it I saved the number. Typed Chris Kane. Turned off the screen and shoved it into my purse.

Fuck.

The rain continued to pour down around me.

I took my phone back out and checked for an Uber. A couple were free in the area but by the time they got here the rain would be over. It couldn’t keep this up for long.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I requested the Uber anyway. Despite the fact that calling for an Uber would guarantee the rain would stop as soon as it arrived. My ride was three minutes away for the next five minutes according to the app, until it arrived.

The driver was kind enough to leave me alone for the minute it took to get to the venue and I tipped her extra for that courtesy.

It wasn’t until she drove away that I realized, standing in the still-pouring rain, that the bus was locked. I had no way of getting back on without going into the venue first to look for someone with a key. My clothes soaked through, my pride demolished, my entire life completely out of hand.

And I had nowhere to hide.

I checked my phone. About sixteen hours.

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 20 - Damp

Suddenly the only person I felt comfortable with was Michael. As soon as I'd asked to sit in the back lounge with them, Mason had left us without protest. Without waiting for a response from Michael. I knew there was no way they would continue working with me in the room but I didn't know where else to go. The irony that Michael was currently my safe place was not lost on me.

Mason shut the door behind him and Michael stretched the length of his body out on the opposite couch, putting aside his notebook. He propped himself on his side, head in one hand, stray curls tumbling across his forehead. I took mild comfort in the fact that he hadn’t tried to leave with Mason.

"What's wrong?"

I just had a strange homoerotic encounter with the person I've been able to rely on most since this tour from hell began, and I still want to fuck a man who idolizes my husband.

"I'm not feeling well. Maybe I'm getting some motion sickness."

"You've never experienced motion sickness on a bus before. Not even back in that godforsaken van."

"I was younger in that van, though."

"We all were."

We sat in silence for a while. A comfortable silence. If I could clear my mind for more than a moment at a time, it almost felt companionable. Michael turned onto his back and clasped his hands behind his head.

"I still love you, you know," he said.

"I know." I didn't want to question his use of the word "still." I didn't want to give him the opportunity to explain what he loved me in spite of. "Do you know that I love you?"

"I do," he said, and I marveled that he hesitated less in saying this than I had in deciding it.

Michael turned to me. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No."

"All right." He stood and I surprised myself again by wishing he would stay longer. But I wasn't going to ask. Instead I watched him leave and pull the door behind him.

A moment later my chest seized when the door opened and I feared Andie was behind it. It was Michael again. He didn't reenter the lounge but held out to me my blanket, a pillow, and my tablet, bunched up and extended in one fist like it was damp and he didn't want to get wet.

I took my belongings and thanked him. His expression was resigned, calm. Not necessarily kind but not cruel, either. God knows I certainly knew what cruel looked like on him. He said nothing but pressed his lips together in acknowledgement, and again closed the door behind him.

I knew I wouldn't sleep.I couldn't focus long enough to read or even watch anything on my tablet. I had the fleeting thought to cover myself with the blanket and finish what Andie had started, but I wasn't comfortable with that, either. I tossed and turned the sleep of the restless without the concession of sleep.

Finally I propped myself on my side, tucked the pillow under my head, and propped my tablet up against a bundle of blanket. I typed Chris's name and "gif" into the Google image search, search terms I'd only recently thought to put together.

The first few gifs could be read like a book. By a blind illiterate. From a mile away. The first few gifs caught Chris in his element, much the way I had seen him in the barbecue restaurant at the beginning of the tour. He made eye contact, smiled a big smile that fell just short of a goofy grin, and at the last moment arched an eyebrow, curled a lip, tossed his hair. He was flirting. Whether or not he meant to, I felt confident that Chris was flirting in these gifs. Flirting with the interviewer, flirting with the camera, and in a few gifs even flirting with someone offscreen. But there was no question that I'd seen these expressions before, these gestures, and he directed them at everyone around him.

Except for me, of course.

And I felt so stupid. So incredibly stupid. How could I have entertained for a moment that he might be even remotely attracted to me? I was as bad as the girls who asked Michael to sign their tits, then had it permanently inked into their skin. I was as bad as the girls who attended every meet-and-greet on their coast and burst into tears all over again every time they caught sight of him. My utter disgust with myself was thick in my throat.

I flipped over to videos of Echo Eclipse and muted the volume. I started at the top of the list, the most popular of the more recent videos, and worked my way down. I marveled again at the dramatics. Gothic backdrops, smoky makeup. I marveled again at how Chris worked the camera. Video after video, he was absolutely feral. A wild creature caught in a trap. A dead ringer for the man I watched perform night after night, but a far cry from his awkward antics.

It was strange. I’d been in front of enough cameras to feel certain I would be more comfortable and confident in front of hundreds of fans cheering me on than I would a select group of people whose job was to critique and correct my every move. But the opposite seemed to be true for Chris. The animal twisting up his face and shrieking silently on the screen before me was no one I’d ever met.

I don't know how much time went by before the door opened again and I again found myself in an instant panic. Sam entered the lounge and helped himself to the opposite couch before smiling at me.

"Mind if I read in here?" He held up his book.

"Only if it's not Hemingway." I patted myself on the back for managing a joke.

"Abel and JD and Mason and them are playing cards up front. It’s a louder pastime than you might expect."

I nodded and wondered if Andie was playing, too. If she was carrying on like normal.

"And Andie said you weren't feeling well so I figured I'd come check on you anyway."

My face flushed at this. I didn't like the idea of my name in Andie's mouth after whatever it was that had just happened. I liked even less the idea that she was fabricating excuses for the utterly bizarre position she'd put me in.

"I'm fine," I said. "Maybe a little cabin fever, but it's okay."

"If you're feeling a little claustrophobic I'd think you'd want to come out front, not shut yourself in the back."

I shrugged this away. "Maybe."

Sam opened his book and pulled out the receipt he was using as a bookmark. A thought occurred to me.

"Sam, do you think you could do me a big favor?"

He glanced up at me over the rim of his glasses. The only time he wore contacts was onstage.

"I'm really just trying to lay low right now. Till I'm feeling better. I'll be leaving when we hit Seattle -"

"I heard."

"- and it'll be good to get off the bus and see my family. Do you think you could apologize to Chris for me? And tell him I won't be available for tonight?"

Sam turned back to his book and flipped a page. "I don't have his number but I know someone here does. Ask Doug. Or Abel, I know Abel has it. Get his number and then you can just tell him yourself."

I didn't know how to reply to this, how to argue sensibly why I shouldn’t have to contact Chris directly. I studied the chips in my pedicure as if the answer were hidden underneath. But I didn't need to say anything.

"I'll tell him," Sam said after a moment.

I looked up at him and he was looking at me again, but now seeing me. Maybe seeing everything.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You don't need to worry about it. I'll tell him myself."

Mercifully, Sam said nothing more about it.

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 19 - Cotton

We spent most of the next day on the bus. The first couple of hours on the road I sat in the front lounge reading through Ted Bundy's trial, first escape from prison, and eating too many chocolate chip mini-muffins. It would've been a perfect morning if it wasn't spent in a mobile closet for ten. And if I could have kept my concentration on the book.

My legs eventually felt as restless as the rest of me. The only safe place to stretch out my legs on the bus was in my bunk, which is where I was going until I noticed Andie in hers. I rolled in beside her, pinning her against the wall. Her eyes were closed but she made as much room for me as she could under her rumpled sheets, then threw one arm across her face, hiding her squint in the crook of her elbow.

"Are you awake?"

"I am."

I stretched my legs out long, pointing all the way through my toes, and pulled them back in as a muscle cramp threatened one foot.

Andie turned to face me, her back against the wall. She knew enough to lower her voice as much as she could when asking, "How are you doing?" She said it so quietly I may have even imagined the words. I may have simply read her lips, my brain may have filled in the rest. The amount of discretion required just to talk to a friend made my heart heavy.

Michael was nowhere around. He and Mason were in the back lounge working. He hadn't come back to the room this morning except to pick up his belongings before we checked out of the hotel. He'd been strangely pleasant but said little other than to say that he'd gotten a lot of writing done, that he'd had a sudden burst of inspiration and that he could already see the thematic trajectory of the next Second Chance album. I was afraid to ask.

Michael may have been out of earshot and fully distracted, but on a tour bus you were never alone. Some of the crew were in their bunks, though none were adjacent to Andie's. I wasn't paranoid enough to believe that anyone on the bus was interested in my personal business, but in such close quarters you didn't need to be interested in someone else's business to know it all.

How to answer Andie's question, though? How was I doing?

Meeting Andie's eyes I shook my head as much as I could turned on my side like this.

Andie shook her head in return and widened her eyes to indicate a question. I pulled her bunk's curtain.

I beckoned her with one finger to indicate I was coming closer. She shifted toward me and I toward her until the bumps and curves of our bodies were pressed together. I laid one cheek against hers to get closer to her ear and whispered, "I need to get off this bus."

I felt Andie's face shift under mine as she nodded.

It felt good to say something honest, and there was so much to be honest about. I was feeling suffocated and smothered in a way that a break from the tour bus wouldn't help. It was mental, I knew. Emotional. But that didn't make it any easier. In fact, maybe that made it harder.

"Can I tell you something?"

Andie nodded again.

I lowered my voice so far that I wasn't even sure I was making noise. "I have a crush." I watched my confession whisper through the fine blonde hairs escaping Andie's bun and waited for another nod of acknowledgement, but there was none. There was a pause instead.

Finally Andie whispered, her breath warm against my neck, "I know." And the words were smothered between my hair and her pillow.

I knew that she knew. At least, I knew that she knew that much. But that wasn't all there was to say, I just didn't know how to say the rest. I couldn't put it into words if I could barely pinpoint the feeling.

Andie pulled her face in further, into my neck. Her breath tickled the sensitive skin behind my earlobe and shot heat into my abdomen. "What else?"

I didn't know what more to say. How to articulate it. What else? I folded my hands over my chest to close more of the space between us. I closed my eyes and held his image in my mind. Some images I'd been flipping through on my phone before immediately clearing my history. Some I'd hoarded from my brief interactions with him. Some were fantasies I'd invented for myself.

"I need to leave." My lips grazed Andie's ear. "He touched me."

I wanted to say so many things. To tell her everything that had transpired, everything he'd said, everything he'd done. How he'd only touched my hand with his but that it was the most intimate touch I'd felt in years. I wanted to tell her how every moment of it had felt. How the thought of it even now burned my insides. How thinking of his lashes, his mouth, the gentle tapering of his torso under a slim-fit tee brought flames to my neck and deep in my belly.

But I couldn't risk saying all of that here.

"He touched me, and I want him to do it again."

The heat spread through my body turning that moment over in my mind again and again. I hadn't forgotten what he'd said, how he'd dismissed me so abruptly, but I also couldn't accept it. He'd touched me deliberately and I marveled at how a gesture could simultaneously be so innocent and yet so damning. Did he want me, too? Did he think about me? Was he on his bus right now, in his bunk, running his hands over his own body and imagining they were mine? I didn't claim to know the answer to that, but I knew the question was valid. And that was enough to excite me beyond anything I'd felt since before I married Michael.

And then there was Michael.

"I let Michael fuck me last night," I breathed. "For the first time in months."

"You did?" Even this quietly I heard a note of surprise in her voice.

I nodded.

"Why?" Even more incredulity in her response and I realized how it must have sounded, that she wasn't connecting it the way I had.

"Because I wasn't fucking him." I felt her neck and face relax into understanding underneath me. "I was fucking Chris." I took a breath. "I want to fuck him so badly."

Andie readjusted her positioning slightly and laid one manicured hand on my chest. She whispered into that same sensitive spot behind my ear that shot flames through me, "What would you do to him?"

I tucked one hand between my thighs and applied slight pressure. "Anything." More pressure. "Everything."

She lowered the fingers she'd laid on my chest. My nipples had sprung through my shirt as persistent as the ache between my legs. She ran an unusually un-ringed index finger in a wide circle over one awkwardly sloped breast. I jumped slightly in surprise but relaxed into it immediately. Readily.

"Like what?" she asked.

I closed my eyes and felt her narrow the circle she traced. I couldn't tell if her groin was on fire, too, or if all the heat was radiating from me.

"I want to trace every inked outline on his body with my tongue. Over his neck, down his ribs. Across his hip bones."

Andie narrowed the circle she drew further, running the point of her tapered nail just around my areola. She pressed her lips into the base of my neck and formed the words, "That can't be all."

I let my hand slide up the leg of my cotton shorts and ran my fingers lightly over my panties.

"I want him bound, I want him gagged. I want to lick his lips to his neck to his thighs."

Andie's nail made a tighter circle.

"I want to suck him until I feel his body clench, until he's just about to come, and then stop."

Her tongue ran over my earlobe as her nail brushed directly over my nipple. I inhaled sharply and had trouble caring if anyone heard me. My fingers pressed through my panties and I ground myself into my hand.

"I want to leave him alone, tied up and helpless, just long enough to come down from it. Then suck his cock again, and leave him again. And then do all of it again."

She flicked her nail over my nipple again.

"And again."

And again.

And then she pinched down, hard, between the middle joint of her index finger and her thumb.

"I want to fuck him," I breathed. "I want to fuck him so hard, but I want to get fucked harder. I want him to pound me raw, but I want to ride him raw, too.”

Andie pinched harder still and my mouth remained open but I could no longer form words. Everything I would’ve said flashed through my mind silently. I wanted to be held close in his arms, but I wanted to sink my teeth into his flesh and draw blood. I wanted to gaze into his eyes, but I also wanted him blindfolded and restrained. I wanted to feel him moving slowly inside of me, but I wanted to ride my clit over the piercings studding his lower lip until they tore both of us. I wanted to bring him pleasure like he’d never felt before, the kind of pleasure I’d convinced myself he could bring me. And part of me resented him for making me feel this way. That, I realized, was the part of me wanted to destroy him.

“You’re right,” Andie said and removed her hand, placing it over my own, between my legs. She pulled her head away from me so that we were face to face again. I felt the heaviness in my own eyes, but hers were wide in an expression that bordered on condescension. “You do need to get fucked. And -”

She yanked her bunk curtain open, exposing us to the open air and the rest of the bus.

“You do need to leave.”

And she giggled like she’d just received the most delightful news.

I jumped up from Andie’s bunk and tried to hold my arms over my chest nonchalantly as I darted to the bathroom. I lowered the toilet lid and sat. What the fuck had just happened? I had iced over entirely when Andie pulled back the curtain, and now my soaking wet panties felt foreign to me. I unrolled several sheets of toilet paper and pressed them between my legs, trying to think about anything else. I felt vaguely nauseous. How long could I stay in the only bathroom for ten people? However long it was, it wasn’t long enough.

I sat, elbows on my knees, forehead in my palms. Thinking nothing. Unable to think of anything beyond taking my next breath. And the next, and the next. What would I do now? More importantly, where would I do it? There was nowhere to go, nowhere to be alone.

I heard Andie’s voice, high and lilting but faint, and guessed she wasn’t in her bunk. I cracked the door and peeked out. Her voice seemed to be coming from the front lounge. Laughing, casual. Like nothing unusual had happened. Some of the crew were still in their bunks. Jimmy was readjusting his position in his bunk. It was eerie. It was as if nothing ever happened.

Until Andie would return.

With that realization I hurled myself past the bunks and stopped just short of throwing my entire body weight against the door to the back lounge. I knocked loudly, desperately, but I knew better than to walk in while Michael was working.

The door opened to Michael sitting back on the couch, notebook in hand. Mason looked up from his guitar in what seemed to be the briefest of pauses.

“Please let me sit back here with you for a while?”

I took Michael’s hand awkwardly, holding both his hand and the ballpoint pen in it, and screwed my face up into the most desperate expression I could muster. I met Mason’s eyes, knowing he was more likely to concede.

“Please?”

Tears welled in my eyes, confounding me utterly.

“Please.”

~~~

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

"Like Rats" is just one thread of a novel I've been working on. If anyone is interested in reading further for me as I continue working, DM me your e-mail - the feedback and reactions are invaluable.❤ 

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 18 - Razor

Three steps into the hotel room and I exhaled breath I'd held locked up in my chest through the elevator ride to our floor. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so relieved to see Michael, and God only knew when it might happen again.

Michael laid in bed in his black boxer-briefs, propped up on pillows, comforter bunched around bare feet peppered with small tattoos. His attention was on his phone. He was old enough to be utterly confused by any social media beyond Facebook. He'd put in his hustle back when MySpace was the only medium to consider. He held his phone in one hand while navigating the screen with the index finger of the other.

I pulled my shirt off and tossed it onto Michael's head. He swatted it away in irritation without acknowledging me. No doubt the phone took all his concentration.

I bent over to meet his eyeline and he finally looked up from the phone with his eyes only, eyebrows arching an impatient question.

I kept my eyes on his as I began unbuttoning my pants. I felt my face freezing into an expression of utmost seriousness, the same face I'd made when I'd told him years ago that being married gave him no right to my body and that the more he grabbed it without my permission the less I was able to bear his touch. That I couldn't imagine ever wanting to sleep with him again. It was an expression, I realized, that represented all the cruelty I was capable of. I realized I was committing an act of blatant cruelty now, and that this knowledge wouldn't stop me.

"I need you to fuck me."

I pulled my jeans off and stood before him at the foot of the bed, gauging his reaction while he gauged my seriousness.

"What is this?" he asked slowly and placed his phone next to him on the bed.

I straddled his lap and ground in hard, placing my palms on his bare chest in such a way that pushed my breasts together and forward, enhancing the cleavage only inches from his face. Suspicious or not, he was hard. I'd already won.

"This is me. This," I said, taking his hands and planting each palm on my ass, "is your wife. I need you to fuck me. Hard, and now."

He straightened and pulled me in tighter, locked his arms around my hips, dipped his head and brushed his lips over my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined straight black hair sweeping over my arms, hot breath and cold steel rings grazing my body.

"You smell so good -"

"Don't," I snapped. "Don't say a word. Just fuck me, and don't say a fucking word."

Slender fingers tugged my bra down below my breasts and I unfastened the front clasp impatiently, picturing heavily tattooed hands, close-bitten nails, cupping them instead.

Michael hitched up my legs with one arm and lowered me slowly onto my back, kneeling between my legs. He wasn't a large person, but with my eyes closed he was strong enough to feel like one.

He ran his nails up and down my thighs and I knew what was coming next. I knew his routine.

"You don't need to do that. I just want to be fucked, fast. Here -"

I yanked my panties down around my knees and didn't bother with them further before turning over onto my stomach and rocking back. Michael pulled my hips back against him and squeezed at the flesh of my hips before I felt him peeling off the little he was wearing. He ran the nails of one hand down my back as he pushed into me.

I was overcome with relief. Relief at the friction between my legs, relief that I wasn't looking at Michael's face. Relief at the wide palm I imagined grasping my hair, running over my skin, holding my hips in place as he slammed into me.

My own fingers reached between my legs and pressed, circled, rubbed until I found an angle I couldn't bear to relinquish.

All too soon I felt the friction inside me slowing, heard the strangling noise Michael made when he finished. But I wasn't finished.

Michael pulled out with merciful speed, didn't try to prolong it like I feared he would, like he usually did. He squeezed my ass once more, stood, and walked to the bathroom.

I collapsed onto my side, rubbing my middle finger over my clit harder and faster as images spun through my head. I imagined running a finger over one full, pierced lip. Tonguing the indentation of a cupid's bow. Feeling silky hair spill through my fingers. Bunching and grasping at it possessively. Running my nails up the back of a long, tattooed neck.

A hand on my thigh shocked me out of these visions. Michael had returned from the bathroom. I swatted away his hand. "Don't touch me." I ignored the harshness in my voice, focused only on the sensation he'd interrupted and pursuing it further.

Michael rolled away and I tried to conjure the images again.

A long, lean body pressed against mine.

I relaxed my legs and opened my hips further. My hand cramped in urgency.

Razor cheekbones grazing my inner thighs.

Silver hoops running over my very core.

I convulsed with a gasp but didn't slow my fingers. I let them linger, let it hurt. Felt the raw pain of my need, felt it throb against my hand. After a series of smaller convulsions, I squeezed my hand between my thighs and curled into myself.

"Are you finished now?"

I looked up to see Michael leaning one shoulder against the wall outside of the bathroom. He was still entirely naked, arms crossed over his chest, over the heart tattoo.

I was breathing deeply now, recovering. Under his gaze I pulled the hotel sheet over my chest and looked away.

In my periphery I saw him pull on his underwear, his track pants. I turned to watch him pull a black hooded jacket over his bare torso.

"Where are you going?"

He took a deep breath as he slid his feet into his sandals. Jacket unzipped, the dim hotel light cast a shadow over subtle abdominal muscles. "I think I'm going to go write."

I glanced at the clock radio next to my head. "It's three in the morning."

"Mason never sleeps." He shoved his wallet in his pocket and opened the hotel room door, then turned to me. Backing out he said, "But the next time you feel like fucking Chris, do keep me in mind."

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 17 - Cement

Second Chance was two songs into their set and Michael was sufficiently distracted. It was safe to leave my vantage point in the wings.

I pressed myself into a dark curtain as J.D. and a couple other crew members ran by. When I had a clear shot I exited to the main hallway that ran through a relatively large backstage area. At this venue Second Chance and Echo Eclipse each had their own room to prepare in, which was rarely the case.

I’d had the foresight to bring my travel blanket and book off the bus, and I thought I might even chance a nap on the sofa in the green room Second Chance was using. The entire backstage area was throbbing with their set, but their music had lulled me to sleep more than a few times over the years.

I started toward Second Chance’s room and turned a corner past the bathrooms. The crew ran back and forth purposefully, skittering around Chris, who sat on the floor against the wall, legs crossed underneath him. He didn’t see me. He was still in full makeup. His head rested against the wall, face upturned, wet hair bundled at the nape of his neck, and I watched his eyes close. He didn’t open them again.

I heaved a heavy sigh at the decision I’d already made. Rather than turning into the Second Chance room I walked over to Chris and nudged his knee with the toe of one boot. His eyes opened and he seemed alert if exhausted. His smile was weary and, I suddenly realized, forced. This had been the wrong move, but now I had to say something.

“Are you good?”

“Yeah.” Another forced smile. “Just reminding myself why I’m on tour in the first place.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, really, I’m recharging. Listening to them, I mean.” He gestured in the direction of the stage, of Second Chance. Of Michael.

I tuned back in to the persistent beat I was so used to tuning out.

“I need to recharge sometimes,” he said, “especially touring with children.”

Chris was older than Adrian and Kyle by a handful of years, and Tyler by nearly a decade, but I’d thought Smith was closer to Chris in age. “What about Smith?”

Chris snorted and rubbed his face with both hands, smoothed his hair back. “Okay, three children and one raging diva.”

I laughed.

Chris placed a hand on the floor next to him. “I’d ask if you want to join me but you’re probably sick of the music.”

“No, it’s fine.”

I sat on the floor next to him, crossing my legs under me like he had, allowing my knee to touch his. I relaxed in, allowed the music to wash over me, tried to hear it like he did. Tried to imagine Second Chance’s music as my only friend in the world, as a part of my own identity. It was hard to do when the music was all but forced on me, when it dictated my entire life.

Mostly my focus was absorbed by the point of contact between our bodies. I was scared to move, to even twitch. My abdominal muscles contracted in an effort to keep my leg from wavering. I was afraid any movement would draw attention to the fact that we were touching, and then it would end.

I wasn’t ready for it to end.

My breath stopped in my lungs as I realized the side of Chris’s palm was touching mine. Our hands were pressed into the cement floor, not overlapping, not touching in any obviously deliberate way. But his hand was now touching mine where it hadn’t been a moment ago. Without looking, without saying a word, I pressed my hand further into his, almost imperceptibly.He slid his pinky closer until the heavily-tattooed finger was resting on top of mine. I was frozen but his touch burned like fire. This was real, this was happening.

Something definitive was happening.

We sat like this, silent, through an entire song.

When the song ended Michael addressed the crowd, his voice ringing through the hallway. The words were indistinct but the moment they reached us Chris pulled his hand away and into his lap, and after a beat he stood.

I looked up at him. It was a reflex. I wouldn’t have risked meeting his eyes otherwise. He was staring at the floor, holding the hand that had touched mine in the other as if it hurt.

His eyes didn’t move when he said, “I actually want to be alone if you don’t mind.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, but my scalp prickled with the thought that he shouldn’t have invited me to sit, then.

His eyes met mine finally but they were empty, nothing behind them. As if reading my thoughts, he said, “I was trying to be nice.”

My eyes followed his back as he disappeared into Echo Eclipse’s green room.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 16 - Glass

A while later the lightness I was feeling carried me into the green room where Echo Eclipse was preparing. I would only have to go through this twice more after tonight. In fact, in this moment I was optimistic enough to believe that maybe I could get out of it on Thursday and Friday, too. Maybe I could spend these last few days passing the time with Andie and Sam. Maybe it would be a nice break from reality after all. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel had completely changed my perspective.

But when I walked into the room and saw everyone preparing as usual except for Chris, that Chris’s nose was only inches away from the mirror as he drew seemingly arbitrary black lines on his face, I stopped in my tracks. Was I not supposed to be here? More importantly, could I turn around and leave without anyone thinking much of it?

In the time it took me to have that thought everyone had looked in my direction except for Chris, who made eye contact in the mirror and turned quickly away, and Smith, who didn’t bother. Chris finished penciling a crooked black stripe below his eye and turned to face me.

“Did you not need me tonight?”

He shrugged. “There’s other stuff you could be doing and you kind of got forced into this. I thought I’d get started, but I think I fucked up.”

“I assumed you were going for a football player look.”

Chris snorted. “Is it that bad?”

“No. That’s the good news about your fanbase. They’ll go for anything you do and anything you wear.”

“Can you fix it, though?”

“Sure.”

He pulled up a plastic chair next to a table where I sat my makeup bag. I pulled out a makeup removal wipe and rubbed it over Chris’s face in a circular motion, then concentrated on the black around his eyes. He squinted his eyes and pressed his lips like a toddler having his face cleaned and it warmed me internally. Then I squashed it down.

“You should actually pay close attention to what I do this time,” I said.

He responded quickly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it right.”

“No, I mean, I’m going home early.”

Chris jerked his head up to look me in the face.

“Not home home. We’ll be in Seattle in four days and I’m staying there for a bit. That’s where I’m from. It’s where my family is.”

“Oh.” He looked straight ahead again. “I didn’t know. I thought you were here for the whole tour.”

I pushed his hair behind one ear to dab the beauty blender up to his hairline. I held a lock of black hair briefly between two fingers before letting it slip away.

“Nope.”

In the corner, Tyson and Adrian were arm-wrestling. Adrian was winning. Tyson’s gym time hadn’t paid off yet.

Chris cleared his throat.

“When did you leave Seattle?”

“When I moved in with Michael.”

“Oh.”

I blotted concealer over the dark circles under his eyes. They were already more pronounced now than they had been before the first show. The toll of touring was quick.

“Yes, I made the wise decision to move right in with a person I’d been having a long-distance relationship with. A touring musician, no less. I’d had a couple of jobs in L.A., I’d been in and out a few times, but I was really still based in Seattle before moving into the house we’re in now.”

“That’s brave.”

“More like stupid.”

“Oh?”

“Relax your eyebrows. Yeah, in reality I didn’t even know the person I was deciding to live with. I’d stayed with him before and even toured a little bit, but that doesn’t mean anything. No one is ever themselves on tour.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. I really don’t.” I found myself sighing audibly. “Turns out long distance is even worse with a public figure. You don’t know them in their day-to-day life, but instead of just lacking some important information, there’s enough speculation out there that you fill in the gaps with whatever you want to believe.”

I could feel myself vomiting words I never would have said if I didn’t know I would be leaving soon. But I hadn’t said anything untrue or unfair.

I added quickly, “Michael happens to be a really great person, so I got lucky. But it was a stupid thing to do and could have turned terrible.”

“Sure. You could’ve ended up with Tim Lambesis.”

I laughed. “The guy that hired a dude to kill his wife, right?”

“As I Lay Dying, yeah.”

“Jesus.”

I ran my nails over Chris’s scalp, pulling his hair back from his forehead, checking that everything was blended at his hairline.

Chris tensed and a shiver ran through him.

“God, sorry. I just got a chill.”

“That’s okay. Just glad I wasn’t doing your eyes.”

“It’s those nails. They feel good but I bet you could do some damage.”

My face felt hot and I stepped away, turning my back to him and pretending to puzzle over my brushes.

“I’ve always loved Michael,” Chris offered.

For some reason this made my face burn hotter. “Yeah?” I called over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I got into Second Chance big when I was in, like, middle school. They’ve been my favorite band ever since. They made me want to be in a band and make music. I wanted to be able to give people what they gave people.”

“And now you do.” I turned back to Chris, hoping I was in better control of my coloring.

“Now I try,” he murmured.

“You do. I’ve seen you play, I’ve seen your fans. They adore you, all of you. You make them genuinely happy and I know I don’t need to tell you that sometimes music is all a person has.”

Chris snorted. “No shit.”

“Be still.” I was blending a dark purple into his eyelids. “What were you doing before the tour?”

“Working.” He drew the word out like it was a challenge to say.

“Where?”

“Walmart. Fucking Walmart.”

“Oh?” I couldn’t help but pause momentarily. I imagined the same creature I’d seen captivate hundreds of people in small clubs checking prices in a blue vest and a sadness passed through me. But this was how it worked, I reminded myself. This was how artists got by. They didn’t all move right from their childhood home to their husband-to-be.

“It’s not the worst thing I ever did. Mostly stocking. They didn’t want people looking at me.” He flexed his hands to display the ink that covered them, covered his fingers and disappeared up his sleeves.”I just put in my headphones and worked for hours straight with no one else to keep me company.”

The picture was bleak, but clear. Working a shitty job for minimum wage. This tour was easily the best thing that had ever happened to him.He probably thought this tour would change their lives. And who knew, maybe it would.

“But now you’re here.”

His eyes met mine momentarily while I swirled a small brush into the black eyeshadow to line his eyes. He turned his gaze upward as I brushed underneath his lower lid.

“Now I’m here.”

An uncomfortable pause was assuaged when everyone yelled out as Kyle took a turn beating Tyler at arm-wrestling. “My arm is just tired after Adrian!” Tyler protested.

With everyone else occupied, I lowered my voice to ensure only Chris would hear. “Look, you’re a better man than I. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.”

“Is it that bad already?”

I eyed him momentarily. It must have seemed that I was studying my work, but I was studying him, trying to determine what had brought on all the questions. Two nights ago he wouldn’t have spoken to me upon pain of death, and now he was interested in making conversation again? It didn’t make sense.

But maybe he was experiencing the same time limit-induced word vomit I was.The fact that we wouldn’t be stuck together as long as I’d anticipated had made me relax with him. Maybe he’d sensed that Michael and I were both on edge and recognized that he’d become somehow tangled up between us. And so now maybe he was relaxing, too. Maybe we could finally have a normal conversation and say normal things to each other.

“I can’t stand being around Michael anymore.”

Or that.

“I mean -”

Jesus Christ, had that just come out of my mouth?

To my surprise, Chris shrugged. “Touring is a lot of time together and no time to yourself. Nobody wants to be around another person all day every day.”

I exhaled my relief, grateful he’d misunderstood. For his service I would contour the shit out of him. He had killer cheekbones already anyway.

“Exactly. Before we lived together, touring was still uncomfortable and inconvenient, but I just wanted to be with him constantly. Even if he was always busy, even if we never got any time to ourselves, I just wanted to be with him and be part of his life. And then I realized just a little too late that now, all of a sudden, we were married and my life depended on him and his work. Meanwhile, that was still all this was. Me sitting in the middle of his life and wondering how I got here.”

“That’s heavy.”

“Not really. Everyone’s got something like this they’re trying to untangle.” I hadn’t realized it was an invitation to share until it came out of my mouth.

“Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t bite, and maybe that was for the best.

Raising my voice back to a normal volume I said, “Lips?”

“How about just go pale like this? Really dead-looking?”

“We can do that, but pale lips tend to make people’s teeth look a little dingy. Just like the black lipstick makes your teeth look whiter.”

“So then I’ll have disgusting corpse teeth. Whatever.”

I involuntarily flashed again to the zipless fuck.

I actually looked over my work this time, twirling a lip brush between my fingers. He made me think of kids’ movies or illustrations in children’s books, where a crescent moon is personified as a floating face with a chin pronounced enough to hang from. His face contoured, his cheeks were more hollow than usual, his chin was sharp. His cheekbones could cut glass.

“God, you look fucking ferocious. I did good.”

Chris got up from the chair and pushed Smith out of his path to the mirror. “Shit…” he stopped in his tracks, then crept slowly closer to his reflection. “This is fucking unreal.”

“I know, right?”

His fingers hovered over his face, in awe but afraid to touch anything. Then he stepped back and wrinkled his nose, raised and lowered the dramatic brows, watching his facial expressions from different angles. “Are you watching the set tonight?”

Now I raised my brows and sputtered, “Yours?”

“Yeah.” He whirled around from the mirror to face me. “No, I mean - Sorry. I’m not expecting you to. I just asked because you’ve been watching them so far.”

“I have?”

“Watched the set, yeah. I saw you jump into the wings at the last show, after it started.”

I’d been caught again, and I didn’t know if it was worse being caught by Chris or Michael. Having been caught by both, I supposed it didn’t matter. But how did I explain the sneaking?

“I didn’t want to be in the way.”

“Sure, how dare you listen to our set.” He smirked.”We can always use more fans that are, you know, old enough to drive.”

I laughed at that. They did seem to have a shocking number of fans in the teeny-bopper demographic. I supposed that was what happened when a group of good-looking guys made music together, regardless of the genre.

“If I’m not in the way I’ll hang out, then.”

“Not in the way. You’ll only be around for - what, one more show? Two? At least get nice and sick of us first.”

I was working on it.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 15 - Glitter

I was surprised when Michael volunteered us for the coffee run. He hadn’t spoken to me much over the last couple of days. He smiled and greeted me if other people were around, and they always were, but we never interacted otherwise. I doubted anyone noticed, though; I knew from experience that being on tour could give you the worst alone-in-a-crowd feeling.

After all the equipment was settled at the venue and the merch table was set up, people broke into groups for the interim before doors opened. Abel, Adrian, and a few of the crew found a local gym and threatened to make a man out of Tyson yet, who, in his very early-twenties, I’d gathered was the youngest in either band, maybe the youngest person on this whole tour. Chris, Smith, and Kyle had gone off together to “get some work in” before they were scheduled to appear on a local radio show. Michael, Sam, and the rest of Second Chance had just finished sound check and a couple of phone interviews.

Michael made the offer of coffee as soon as he had a spare moment and several people accepted. A couple of the crew offered to come along to help carry but Michael declined the offer. “I’ll take Spenser. We’ll have a mini-date.”

He smiled that audience-pleasing smile at me again, but I didn’t know for whose benefit.

I grabbed my bag and tried to breathe through the constriction in my chest, trying to visualize a lumpy sailor’s knot loosening with each breath.

We exited through the venue’s back door and shrank from the sun. I pulled sunglasses out of my bag. Michael was already wearing his, oversized, and draped a lightweight hood over his head. His “incognito” look was even more dramatic than his onstage look.

“There’s a Java House a couple of blocks over. I don’t know if you noticed,” he said.

“No…”

I was confused. Michael walked along, face turned to the sun, like he was enjoying the stroll. Like nothing weighed on him like the weight I was carrying. We walked slowly, as if we were out simply for the fresh air.

Finally Michael spoke.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

I looked up at his profile as he stared into the sun. His squint deepened the crinkles around his eyes. His face was relaxed otherwise, void of tension, void of emotion. I saw no anger, no sadness, only an openness I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know how to interpret it.

I didn’t have a response, only waited for him to continue. Or not.

“You were right,” he said. “You should not have come with me. You knew it was a bad idea and I didn’t listen. And I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” I was still trying to get my bearings.

He let another few moments pass.

“You can go home if you like.”

He glanced at me then and I wondered if it was to gauge my reaction.

I kept my eyes on the sidewalk before us where the sun bounced and glittered. Java House was just up ahead. I remained silent. I must have seemed deep in thought but, in reality, I hardly had a thought in my head. Or maybe I had too many thoughts, and I was struggling to pin down just one.

My knee-jerk reaction was to refuse. I’d told him it was a bad idea, I was right, he was sorry, and now he would have to deal with it. But what was the point of that? What was the point of punishing myself to ensure that Michael would suffer, as well?

He didn’t push me to respond.

He stepped up to the Java House door ahead of me and held it open with one hand, readjusting his hood with the other. Most people didn’t recognize Michael in public like this, but most people also realized that maybe they should. Playing to audiences from hundreds to tens of thousands over two decades had affected his demeanor, the way he carried himself. He was confident, graceful, and never second-guessed himself: the hallmark of a person who should be recognized.

At the register, Michael went through the orders that were scrawled on the back of a receipt, muttering to himself halfway through, “J.D. writes like a serial killer, so he gets what he gets.”

At the far side of the room a twenty-something faced us and propped his elbows on his table, trying for a candid picture or video with his phone and failing at discretion.

This happened all the time. People tried to be discreet about their picture-taking, as if they weren’t in tremendous violation of our privacy and personal space. After this many years we knew when it was happening, but luckily for them Michael rarely cared.

We stood in the corner waiting for all of our drinks. I noted a couple of others conveniently turning our way with their phones. Michael must have known but he never looked at them. When we were first together I’d loved the way he stood, stoic, just daring them to acknowledge him. Now I knew he’d never intended to address it in the first place and it had worn on my nerves.

When it was ready Michael balanced two cardboard drink carriers in his arms while I carried one and an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie I’d decided on at the last moment. He backed himself into the front door and waited for me to pass. I thanked him.

I still wasn’t sure what to say to him, but the walk back to the venue wasn’t long enough for me to sort my thoughts.

“Do you want me to go home?”

“I saw you the other night,” he said en lieu of an answer.

“I saw you, too.”

“No. I saw you the other night watching Echo Eclipse’s set.” My ears burned and I thanked every god I could think of that they turned red in the sun anyway. “It was basically the same set they did in San Diego. I suppose you’re a fan now?”

“Yeah. They’re good.” I nearly lied about wanting to see how Chris’s makeup looked or how it held up during the set, but had the foresight to realize how sorry an excuse that would be.

I couldn’t pinpoint why I’d watched their set again. I’d just wanted to. I’d slipped into the wings during the first song and rushed out as they closed, before I could come into contact with any of them as they came offstage. I certainly hadn’t watched them out of obligation. Chris hadn’t insisted like he did before and neither did anyone else.

In fact, Chris hadn’t said much of anything to me that night before the show. Working on his makeup, I tried to talk over the thudding of my heart, but every attempt I made at conversation yielded clipped responses at best. Chris had spent most of the time yelling past me to other people in the room or walking past the door. I eventually took the hint and stopped trying to engage him. The most he said to me all night was when he checked his makeup in the mirror and said to his own reflection, “It’s great. Thanks.” Then he’d promptly turned away and absorbed himself in further preparations.

I didn’t realize Michael had seen me watching their set, of course, but I hadn’t expected to need an excuse, either. I hadn’t expected Michael to notice I was missing.

Fortunately he didn’t wait for an excuse now, either.

“I want what you want. I’m obviously not good at determining what that is, so I’m leaving it up to you. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I would love it if you stayed, but if staying would make you miserable, then that would only make me miserable, too.”

He was dancing around the fact that we were both already miserable, and would certainly continue this way.

But wouldn’t going home to avoid being miserable here just prolong the inevitable? Wouldn’t we still be miserable when the tour was over and Michael returned? What was the logical conclusion here?

“How would that look, logistically? What would we tell everyone?”

Michael shrugged the armful of drinks. “We can say a job came up that you didn’t want to turn down.”

“But what would that be? I haven’t taken a real job in months, and what little I had on my schedule was cleared for this tour. I’m not even in town. It doesn’t seem reasonable.”

“Family emergency?”

“I can’t fake a family emergency with Andie and Sam.”

Michael looked to the ground for a moment, then raised his head again. “I’m sure Andie already knows everything there is to know. I can’t imagine you’ve kept everything to yourself.”

I opened my mouth to make some vague protest despite not knowing what it would be, but Michael cut me off.

“I don’t blame you. Everyone needs someone to talk to.”

For the first time I wondered who he’d been talking to.

“Look,” he continued, “We’ll be in Seattle in four days. You could stay there a while.”

I nodded slowly. “You’re right. That’s a good idea. I’ll have Tara pick me up. Spend some time with my family.”

“They’ll understand you wanting to visit with your family.”

“And I’ll just say I got some work up there, or I’m exhausted after all the traveling.”

“Or, if you’re up for it, you could even join us again.”

“Sure,” I said. “Maybe.”

But I knew I wouldn’t.

At the venue we were swarmed with people grabbing for drinks without bothering to read the names on the cups, taking gulps of drinks, spitting them out, yelling out to ask who ordered the low-fat-skim-soy-bullshit. I laughed to myself at the spectacle.

Then I laughed out loud.

Then I laughed louder when Sam took the cardboard carrier from me and asked what was so funny. I doubled over, engulfed in laughter. I shook my head several times, breathless. “I don’t know!”

Sam squeezed my shoulder and laughed with me, at me.

With only four more days of touring ahead of me, I felt light.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 14 - Coffee

I lay in silent awareness of my body, resistant to opening my eyes and accepting consciousness. One hip ached as it often did if I’d lain on one side too long. My shoulders were hunched up and tense, bunching up muscles in my neck and upper back. One hand was tucked between my knees and the other arm was thrown dramatically over my head. Michael always said I looked like I was vogue-ing in my sleep.

Michael.

Michael was not in the bed next to me.

With all the touring Michael had done and all the nights I’d spent without him, it was strange how wrong it felt to be waking up without him. It was wrong because of the simple knowledge that this morning I was actually supposed to be with him. I wondered if I acted like everything was normal, if everything could be normal. What had really changed? Michael and I were not in a good place now, but we hadn’t been in a particularly good place yesterday, either. Maybe I’d overreacted.

But I couldn’t accept that. At least not yet. Nothing had changed, but somehow everything had. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I knew that Michael hadn’t said any of that to hurt my feelings. He’d known enough to realize it would hurt me even if he didn’t understand why - that’s why he hadn’t wanted to have the conversation to begin with. But the entire foundation of our relationship had shifted, and now I was seeing everything with new eyes. Every moment, every memory, everything we had shared was different now.

Do you love me yet?

Sometimes it felt like those words were all I had left of the Michael I fell in love with. Sometimes those words were the only thing keeping me warm. But it had all been a lie. The person I’d thought he was, brash and bold, beholden to nothing and no one, had suddenly evaporated into thin air. That person had never existed. Michael had always been the cloying, simpering, obsequious mess I saw in him now.

This whole thing was a lie. My life: one big lie.

I opened my eyes.

I lay diagonally across the queen bed, on top of the comforter I always coveted from the sleeping compartment on the bus. A complete waste. Andie was properly snuggled under the comforter of the bed she shared with Abel. Everything was so white, so bright, even with the lights out. I realized they’d left the curtains open.

I slipped off the bed as quietly as I could. I was experiencing the classic emotional hangover. I wanted to forget that that night before had ever happened, and in this bright white moment I could almost imagine that it hadn’t. Suddenly grounded to this room, this moment, this freshly awake feeling, my conversation with Michael seemed so far away. I felt so displaced from it. It felt as if I could forget all about it for as long as I didn’t have to face him.

I used the bathroom as quietly as I could. In the mirror my makeup was smudged dramatically. It was a look I actually aimed for sometimes, but the knowledge that my face hadn’t been washed since the day before made me cringe. I took a tube of toothpaste resting on Abel’s shaving kit bag and squeezed the sparkly blue gel onto an index finger, then rubbed it in brisk circles over my teeth, gagging as I rubbed the insides of my molars. Then I picked gingerly through Abel’s bag, then through Andie’s travel bag, until I found floss.

Each attempt at cleaning myself up made me feel even grimier.

I opened the bathroom door to Andie leaning against the wall, braless in one of Abel’s undershirts and boyshorts.

“Sorry,” I whispered. Abel was still sprawled on his side of the bed, mouth open, exhaling breath I just knew was sour to smell. “I’m going to get a coffee.”

“Wait for me,” Andie’s voice bounced off the bathroom tile as the door shut behind her.

I used the full-length mirror to pile my hair on top of my head. My attempt to secure it in a loose bun only made it look greasier, so I pulled the hair tie out of a small tangle and tied up half my hair, twirling the bulk of it around one hand so it hung together down my back. I gathered the tail of my oversized tee and tied it in a knot over yoga pants I had to straighten. I tied my hoodie around the strap of the canvas bag I used as a purse and waited on Andie outside the bathroom door, ignoring the fact that I looked homeless.

“No toothbrush.” Andie had appeared in the doorway again. Even groggy her voice was light and lilting. She pulled a pair of sweatpants and a sweater on over Abel’s undershirt, then tucked her feet into a pair of pink slippers. She grabbed a key card from the desk and we left the room, Andie closing the door with a light click behind us.

The elevator seemed louder in the early morning, with no people or sound around to muffle it, and the elevator door gave a squeal when it opened only two floors down, where Chris waited for it. Andie’s eyes brightened. Chris looked from one of us to the other before stepping inside, and I turned my eyes to the floor.

“Good timing,” Andie said. “We have fifteen minutes of continental breakfast left. That’s just long enough to make a couple of waffles before they close up.”

“Do they have waffles?” I asked.

Andie blinked. “I don’t know.”

I glanced at Chris. Andie and I leaned against the back of the elevator, facing the door, and he had pressed himself into the corner next to the buttons indicating floors of the hotel. He was engrossed in whatever was happening on his phone. Rather than bringing the phone to his face he held it at waist-level and bent over it, hair hiding his face, disappearing inside of it, inside himself.

When the elevator doors opened into the lobby, Chris and I automatically turned right as Andie turned left. I continued in the same direction, walking backwards, and called to Andie, “Where are you going?”

“Toothbrush!” She shrugged and walked off in the direction of the front desk.

That left me with Chris. I glanced at him and he glanced at me and we redirected our eyes quickly, but my chest froze over mid-breath.

The continental breakfast should be just around the next corner.

There should be no obligation to speak.

It was only a few dozen steps.

It wasn’t weird to walk in silence.

My brain was on overdrive, I was feeling paranoid. Chris sauntered along next to me, through the lobby, past the check-in desk and business center, showing no evidence of discomfort.

I’d forgotten how to swing my arms.

I slowed slightly, allowing Chris a pace or two ahead of me as we turned the corner from the lobby into the nook set up for the continental breakfast, but he stopped in his tracks just before it came into view. Instead I slammed into a wall of Chris and, mortified, took several steps backward.

“Sorry,” I muttered, simultaneously horrified and grateful to have an excuse to say something to him, to break the silence.

He didn’t acknowledge me, his back remained to me, and he was frozen in place for another moment as I scrambled around him to see what had happened.

Seated at a small table for two, chairs perpendicular to each other leaning over a notebook together, were Michael and Mason. Michael’s raised eyebrows fell when he turned his gaze from Chris to me. Me entering the room with Chris. Mason’s expression was blank as ever, but his eyes glanced between Chris and me as though he were following a conversation in progress.

Chris dipped his head in greeting and continued on toward the coffee. But I knew he’d stopped just a moment too long. I knew how it looked. Factually, nothing had happened, least of all what it may have looked like, and if Chris hadn’t stopped and practically cowered under Michael’s gaze there would be no problem. But the pause was an acknowledgement of guilt and discomfort, even if I didn’t understand what precisely Chris felt guilty for.

But I had my own guilt to worry about.

When Chris walked away I felt abandoned. I didn’t know what to do. I silently thanked my good fortune that Mason was here with Michael, that I wouldn’t have to pretend to have a happy breakfast with Michael in case anyone else showed up.

But what else would I do?

I wasn’t going to sit with Chris. Was I going to sit awkwardly at a separate table? Did that look even worse?

I scampered over to grab a dry cereal and a handful of grapes, not because I wanted to eat them, but because I couldn’t stand motionless and alone any longer than I already had. And with a small plate of fruit and a single-serving box of cereal I realized a little too late that I hadn’t actually acknowledged Michael at all.

He seemed unworried now, turned back to Mason, but I was sure I’d hear about it later. He wore a black tank and sweatpants and his hair was undisturbed by sleep. Mason, to his credit, wore the exact same black jeans and rotating band tees at all hours of the day, for all occasions, onstage and offstage. Both were back to being engrossed in Michael’s notebook, Mason sipping a coffee and Michael what I knew was green tea.

Saying something to him now would benefit…. I took a look around. No one. No one here, at least.

Andie rounded the corner wielding a toothbrush wrapped in plastic. I approached a table in the middle of the room, equidistant from Chris, flipping through his phone and drinking coffee, and Michael and Mason. I called over to Andie, loud enough for everyone to hear, “They’re working. Let’s sit over here.”

Andie, thank God, nodded and patted Michael and Mason each on the shoulder, passing them on her way to the pastries. Like normal.

With a small plate of mini-muffins and cantaloupe, the corners of Andie’s mouth turned down as she sat across from me. “Is it okay?”

I nodded. I didn’t know what specifically she was referring to, but I nodded nonetheless. It was fine. It would have to be.

Within the next few minutes Adrian and Smith had arrived and were hunched over coffee with Chris. The others, I’d heard Smith say, were still sleeping.

“Michael!” Adrian called over and my head shot up automatically. Michael’s shoulders turned toward Adrian before his face did as he finished scribbling something in his notebook. “Do you know your wife might be as talented as you are?”

Adrian’s grin was warm, and he turned it toward me

Michael nodded slowly. “She is.” After a pause Michael’s lip twitched and he called back to Chris, “Your makeup was flawless. Will you do it again tomorrow?”

Chris looked to me, then back to Michael, shrugging. “No. It was for fun, not for like -”

“But it was perfect. Best you ever looked,” Adrian said.

“For what that’s worth,” Smith said into his coffee.

“Is there any particular reason you wouldn’t want to do it again? She’s not going anywhere,” Michael said. This felt distinctly like baiting, but I didn’t understand the purpose. And I didn’t particularly enjoy being talked about as if I weren’t sitting here listening to the exchange.

“No,” Chris said quickly. “No, it was great. I just didn’t think… I mean, yeah, just if you guys are busy I don’t want to -”

“Before a show?” Michael raised his eyebrows again. Chris must have known what he said was stupid. Obviously Michael and I wouldn’t be busy - together - before a show, when he would be warming up, getting dressed, styling his hair to look as though it hadn’t been styled at all.

“Yeah.” Chris looked down at his hands in his lap. “Yeah, I mean if that works.”

Michael turned a smile to me that I didn’t return, then winked.

“Sure,” I said, holding Michael’s gaze. “That works fine.”

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 13 - Ice

It was two o’clock in the morning and I was standing in front of a hotel room door that was not my own, every belonging I could comfortably carry gathered into my left arm while I knocked with my right.

This could go one of two ways, I realized: Andie could answer the door and I could slip into her room discreetly or, just as easily, she and Abel could be asleep - or out? - and I could stand in the hallway, in my pajamas, clutching the things I’d taken from our room till morning and have to explain myself to everyone who walked by.

For fuck’s sake, please, Andie, I silently begged and knocked again.

She hadn’t responded to the texts I’d sent her, and when I’d called it had eventually gone to voicemail. But I tried again. The listened to the ringing through my phone and glanced around the hallway.

At the far end of the hall a middle-aged woman walking in my direction found her room and slipped in the key card, glancing up at me in the process, which only added to my humiliation.

I turned back to face the hotel room door again as Andie’s voicemail repeated her name and beeped.

I piled my things on the floor next to me and sat against the wall, legs crossed underneath me. The canvas bag I used as a purse gaped open, overstuffed with tissues, books, makeup, lotions, so I draped my hoodie over it. My chest was tight but I was still in too much shock to cry or even feel as much anger as I knew I eventually would. My concern with finding a place to go had overshadowed my fury with Michael and on some level I was grateful.

I redialed Andie, determined to redial as many times as it took. On some level it was even satisfying. The longer it took to get hold of Andie, the more and more justified my anger with Michael felt, and it was satisfying to have specific incidents to hold against him no matter how tenuously he was connected. I stretched out on the floor, against the wall, and pillowed my head with my purse and hoodie right next to Andie and Abel’s door, settled into the warmth of my resentment.

I dialed Andie again.

“Spenser?” I perked up and it took a moment to realize it hadn’t come from the phone, which still rang in my ear. It was in the hall with me. My head jerked up in instant relief until I met Chrs’s eyes.

“Shit, sorry,” I said and immediately shook my head at myself while jumping to my feet. Sorry for what?

“You look comfortable. Are you…?” He gestured at the door. “I was going to ask if you were hanging out with Andie but I guess if you were you’d be… in there. So… just chilling in the hallway, then?”

I fumbled. “I was supposed to see Andie, but she forgot or something. I keep knocking and calling but she’s not around.”

“I got this.” Chris pulled his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie. He tapped his thumb over the screen several times, then raised his smile to me again and slid the phone in his back pocket.

Moments later the I heard the deadbolt sliding inside the door and it opened revealing Abel in track pants and a fresh tee, blonde hair wet and ruffled in all directions like he had just toweled it dry.

“Hey, man.” He beckoned Chris inside and raised his eyebrows at me. “It’s a two-fer.”

“I knocked but nobody answered, and Andie’s not answering her -”

Stepping into the room I saw Andie, lying in bed on her side, back to me, wearing massive headphones and staring at a tablet screen.

“I guess she forgot I was coming by.”

Abel gestured toward her. “There she is.” I didn’t get a warm feeling from the implication that I should bother Andie with this information, not him.

I approached Andie and she flipped toward me, causing me to jump. “Jesus,” I muttered.

“Oh my God, I saw your reflection on the screen and first thought it was something in the movie,” she laughed.

“No such luck.” I dropped my things on the floor beside the bed and sat down next to her.

“Why are you still up? You guys are usually pretty good about getting your sleep on tour. You know Abel and I are always wired after but you guys are usually asleep by now.”

I answered honestly: “I don’t know.”

The whole evening was out of hand. I thought back to only thirty minutes earlier, and how content I’d felt lying in that bed, savoring the feeling of a plush space, or any space outside of the tour bus. I’d been ready to enjoy the kind of easy camaraderie I’d felt with Michael on a good day. And now I searched my memory for the moment the evening had turned, the thing that had been said or done that had taken us past the point of no return. And then I mentally took a step back to look at the bigger picture. Maybe I’d been fooling myself. Maybe I was playing at contentment for a moment in time, but Michael and I had passed the point of no return long ago and I was stupid for thinking we could spend an evening in peace and comfort. Maybe it was only a matter of my finally realizing it was over.

Maybe it had already been over for a long time.

Andie must have read my expression and for once I was glad for her perceptive skills. She studied my face with a frown and seemed to know immediately not to ask about Michael. Her smile reappeared and she said, “Here -” removing the headphones she’d hung around her neck. She propped herself on her knees on the edge of the bed and dug through one of her bags on the floor. She pulled herself back up, earbuds in hand, and repositioned her tablet, propping it up against a bunched up hoodie on the edge of the bed. She handed me the left and kept the right for herself.

A couple of taps later the tablet screen displayed a list of movies to choose from. I tapped Steel Magnolias and Andie smiled. I put in my earbud and shrugged. “My life is a horror movie right now. I need something different.”

We lay on our stomachs diagonally across the comforter; at least I’d get to enjoy Andie’s bed if not my own. Over the tablet I saw Chris settling into the chair he’d turned away from the desk against the wall. Abel had propped open his laptop and was sitting on the corner of the bed on the far side of the room. Chris hunched over, elbows on knees, and they both watched the screen intently. I took the earbud from my ear long enough to identify airhorns, cheering, self-serious commentators, the unmistakable sounds of a hockey game.

“Hockey’s on at two o’clock in the morning?” I called over.

Chris remained fixated on the screen and Abel called back, terse, “Winter Classic doc.”

“He just got it and he’s very proud,” Andie said, making a show of failing to suppress her amusement. With the guys’ attention fully absorbed by the documentary, Andie turned back to Dolly Parton and Sally Field on our tablet and ventured the question, “How are you feeling?” Like it was safer to ask if she didn’t look directly at me.

“It’s an off night,” I muttered back.

“Would you prefer to talk or to forget?”

“Forget, please.” I had to consciously redirect my gaze to the movie in front of me. I kept finding my eyes on my hands, on the sundry travel items Abel and Andie had scattered across the night table, on the desk, on the dresser. The guys.

Chris and Abel were now talking more than they were listening to the documentary, but Abel gestured at the screen, indicating they were still talking hockey. Abel hit Chris playfully in the shoulder with the back of his hand and Chris dropped his face into his palms, shaking his head and laughing. He must’ve had a habit of biting his nails, I noticed. There was barely any nail left to have painted black. He scratched the side of his head through the hair gathered back into a ponytail and I cringed at how sore his fingertips looked.

Chris and Abel went quiet for a moment and turned their full attention back to the laptop. Chris propped his feet up on the edge of the bed, tilted his chair backwards, and regathered his hair into another low ponytail, looping a hair tie around it, then clasping his hands there. He was long-limbed, tall and slim with a wide wingspan, and in all black all the time he was an imposing figure. An imposing figure that was entirely mismatched with his personality, his affable nature.

“How long has it been going on?” Andie asked abruptly. For a moment I thought I’d missed something she’d said.

“Has what been going on?” I’d said nothing to indicate that Michael and I were having problems, but Andie was the most perceptive person I’d ever met. I wondered how much she’d deduced on her own. I offered no information; I wanted her to have to say it. I wanted her to ask directly: how long had Michael and I been in a downward spiral?

“This,” she said, finally looking me in the eye, and cocked her head in Chris’s direction.

“Whoa, what?” Just like that flames engulfed my face. What I knew must appear as embarrassment or confusion I felt, underneath everything else, as guilt. Guilt that I knew exactly what Andie was referring to. She was perceptive, but she wasn’t psychic. She tended to notice things first, things no one else noticed, but she didn’t pull them out of thin air. Regardless of what was going on with Michael, I felt guilt that I was emitting something to indicate an interest in anyone other than my husband. I tried to push away the memory of watching the Echo Eclipse videos on the tour bus, how I’d turned away and hidden it from Michael as if it were pornography. Or an old love letter.

Andie simply stared at me, into my face. Her expression was completely open. It held no judgement or disapproval, only concern.

I checked myself before opening my mouth to ensure that my response was honest, not defensive. “This is nothing. This isn’t a thing. Don’t worry.”

“I wouldn’t be worried.”

I blinked. My question was implied.

“I’m never worried when the people I care about are doing what they need to do to take care of themselves. No one knows your life like you do. No one else knows you from the inside. I’m happy when you’re happy and I’m glad for whatever makes it happen.”

I couldn’t help smirking at her despite her sincerity. This kind of openness made me uncomfortable, and Andie was reading a little too much a little too readily into... whatever it was she saw.

If I was being completely honest with myself, something I was out of practice with, then I could acknowledge that yes, I had taken a liking to Chris so far, the little I knew of him. On a superficial level he was appealing. He had the ostensibly dark and brooding look I was attracted to, but without any obvious emotional baggage. On a personal level I found him delightful. He seemed genuine and our conversation had been easy, but it was the type of easy conversation I struggled to interpret. Were our interactions so easy because of a natural chemistry, or were his interactions with everyone else equally pleasant because he was so disarming?

And what did it matter anyway? The fact that these questions occurred to me was reasonable enough. I could admit to myself that I had a bit of a crush on him based on the few interactions we’d had, the little bit I knew about him so far. But that was harmless enough. To puzzle over the answers to these questions, though, was ultimately pointless. I pushed them from my mind.

“There’s really nothing, Andie. And I think I’d be honest with you about it if there were.”

Her mouth smiled but her eyes didn’t in an expression somewhere between condescension and pity. “You can protest all you want, that’s fine. You’re not the one in question, you’re not the one I’m getting a strong sense from.. It was all Chris.”

My face was on fire all over again and I was doubly embarrassed that my embarrassment showed so obviously. “He said something?”

“Is there something to say?”

“No. I didn’t think so, I mean.”

“No,” Andie said. “He didn’t say anything. But he may as well have been wearing a neon sign when you two walked into the room.”

“We didn’t come here together. We weren’t together. We just ran into each other in the hallway.”

“It’s not that,” Andie said. “Have you noticed Chris is a friendly person?”

“Of course.” I exhaled my relief at conceding this with confidence, that this was a definitive statement I didn’t feel any guilt about. Chris was a friendly person, that was all. “But from what I see he’s friendly with everyone. Extremely friendly. It’s like he goes into every conversation assuming the person he’s talking to is a new friend. It’s kind of impressive.” Each word was a brick in the wall I was building between myself and Andie’s accusation.

“It is, and you’re right. He is incredibly friendly.”

I nodded and searched her face, wondering why this didn’t feel like a conclusion to the conversation.

“He’s one of the nicest people I’ve met,” she continued slowly, “And he hasn’t looked at you or spoken to you once since you walked into the room.”

My stomach dropped. She was right. But it didn’t necessarily mean what Andie claimed it meant. In fact, chances were the opposite was true.

“So you’re suggesting,” I began, “that there is something going on here because I’m suddenly the only person Chris has no interest in talking to? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Methinks he doth protest too much, or whatever the saying is.”

“He could just be having a weird night?”

We both glanced at Chris instinctively. He was pointing at the laptop screen, shouting and laughing along with Abel.

“I don’t think so,” Andie said.

I studied my hands as I picked at the pilling on the hoodie I held in my lap. “All you’re convincing me of is that he’s got some kind of beef with me now, and I wouldn’t’ve noticed it otherwise. So thanks for that.”

“Is there any reason that would be true?”

“There are a million reasons in the world people have had beef with me when I didn’t even realize it. This isn’t any different. Maybe he didn’t like his makeup so much after all and doesn’t want to tell me. Or maybe I was in the way during their set or something.”

I suddenly questioned whether or not I had actually been invited to watch the set at all. Had Chris insisted or had I misunderstood and invited myself? I was humiliated and wanted nothing more than an excuse to leave. But where would I go then? And how many more people needed to know that I wasn’t trying to spend the night with Michael?

“Really, now that you’re making me think about it… I can think of a few reasons he might be irritated with me. People are weird. And you barely know him, either, so I don’t know how you can act like you know what he’s thinking.”

“I don’t. People are weird. Acting like you’re irritated toward another person can be a cover-up. Deciphering human interaction is a game of determining whether a person’s behavior is sincere, or whether it’s a disguise for the feeling that directly opposes the one they’re expressing.”

“That’s profound and all, but sometimes people also do and say what they mean.”

“Rarely. Rarely do people mean what they do and say. Even if they think they are.”

“I can’t wrap my head around you right now. I love you, but you’re painful to talk to sometimes.”

“See? You’re irritated with me so you’re being polite about it. You’re brushing this off not because you actually disagree, but because you want time to contemplate it yourself.”

Right.

“Wrong. I don’t want to think anymore tonight. Let me just curl up and numb my brain with this movie.” I lay on my side, tucking the hoodie under my head and angling my body toward the tablet again.

“Sure. Let me know any time you want to talk.”

“Will do.”

I curled into myself. Onscreen Julia Roberts was dying and I wasn’t tearing up. I glanced up at Andie and saw her attention was fixed on the movie. I turned my attention back to Chris, who seemed to laugh when cued by Abel.

Moments later, Chris glanced over at me. When his eyes met mine the entire world seemed to shatter to pieces around him. Then he turned his eyes away just as quickly as I did.

And my stomach filled with ice.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 12 - Ink

“Do you remember it? That first show I was at with you?”

Michael had emerged from the bathroom with one hotel towel around his waist, using another to towel off his hair. I rolled toward him and stretched out my legs again under the fluffy white comforter, reaching all the way through my pointed toes. Nothing felt more delicious than lying down in a comfortable bed after a long day, especially on tour. It was such delicious fatigue that I didn’t even dread Michael climbing in with me.

“Well. I know it was in 2007.”

“Obviously.” I rolled my eyes and let the gesture roll the rest of my body onto my back. I felt good tonight, and I’d let that warm feeling extend to Michael.

“I believe it was Springfield,” he said and grinned like he was proud of himself.

“Springfield?”

“Yeah, you know. There’s a Springfield everywhere? So my best chance of guessing correctly is Springfield? Get it?”

“Except that I don’t think we’ve ever been in a Springfield together, not once, not on tour.” I closed my eyes and sighed, suddenly tired with a new and less comfortable level of exhaustion.

“I know. It was a joke.”

“Got it.”

Michael turned away from me before removing his towel. He was relatively modest even in front of me and I couldn’t remember if that had been true before or after sex had become a special occasion for us. It was hard to believe we’d once been able to fuck like it was our job even after a show and Michael insisting on meeting fans afterward. We’d ripped off each other’s clothing the moment we entered the hotel room and had no use for it again until we left the next morning. I would lie in bed, blissfully sated, and watch Michael walk completely naked to the bathroom for a glass of water and study the amorphous inked shading of his arms and back in the dim light, trying to pick out specific images before he disappeared from sight, then again on his chest and arms as he returned to me before slipping back under the covers, before slipping back around me.

I realized for the first time that I didn’t just miss that time; I was lonely for Michael himself. Just not the Michael that presented himself to me day after day now, not the real one.

“Remember?” I asked the ceiling. “I was still in Seattle and I flew down to San Francisco to start the tour with you? It was the first time I got to watch you from the sidelines.”

“I suppose so.” I could hear him rifling through his suitcase and took heart that he wasn’t trying to come to bed entirely bare.

I could feel my body becoming heavier and sinking further into the bed. I’d forgotten the rush I felt at a live show and how it carried into the rest of the evening. It had made me begin to appreciate Michael again. It had made me kind.

But the more my kindness went over his head, the faster it faded.

“You don’t remember? Truly?”

He turned back to me in red boxer briefs and a white undershirt, palms open in defeat. “Truly? I’m tired. I’m truly exhausted and I truly want to sleep.”

Any tenderness I’d been clinging to this evening evaporated.

I sat up, pulling the comforter around my waist defensively, as if I would prevent him from using it. “Michael, I don’t understand you!” I was alarmed by the shrillness of my voice but persisted. “You claim that you want to be closer, spend more time together, be more intimate, but things like this - you don’t even remember the day I fell in love with you!”

He hung his head.

“I do.”

“You do remember? Then why did you lie?”

“Because I’m exhausted and I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“You don’t want to - I didn’t ask you to talk about it, I only asked if you remembered? So the answer is yes, it’s that simple.”

“I remember. I remember, okay? Yes, we were in San Francisco and it was December 6, 2007, and you were wearing black jeans and a long-sleeved thermal under your Appetite for Destruction T-shirt and I thought it was kind of cute that you were dressed more modestly than maybe any woman who had ever watched me perform. Your hair was blonde then but your makeup was heavy, like you were trying to wear your credentials on your face, like that would make me finally give in and let you do my makeup, because you were always bothering me about that. You would sit just behind me so that I would see your face over my shoulder, studying mine and waiting for me to make a mistake so you could correct it or tell me how to avoid it the next time. And I remember that I got on the stage and received a reception, a roar, like I’d never heard before. And I thought ‘This will show her. If she’s not impressed by this, then nothing will ever be good enough for her.’”

He paused. I was collecting my thoughts, trying to formulate a response, but then he continued.

“And by the end of that set, that show, the first show of our biggest tour to date, I knew I didn’t need you to love me because that feeling was all I needed and as long as I had fans who loved me, who loved my art, I would be okay. And I supposed it worked because as soon as I stopped needing you, you started needing me.”

The words he’d said to me after that set, the words that were forever burned into my memory, the grin that accompanied them, curdled in my memory.

Do you love me yet?

I felt my face contort in confusion. “So when you proposed you didn’t even love me?”

“Of course I loved you.” Michael sat on the very edge of the bed, as far from me as he could, turned away. “But back then I may have partially loved you for the wrong reasons. One of the things I loved so much about you was how much you admired me, how much you loved me. Don’t you understand? I’ve been trying to connect with you properly ever since then.”

“I think,” I began slowly, “that you and I have different ideas about what it means to connect properly.” I realized I was hugging my legs close to my chest and released them, sat up taller. “I don’t think connecting properly is expecting you to be the center of my universe, or hounding me for sex all the time.”

He was still turned away but I could feel him freeze, could feel his breathing stop.

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

“How would you describe it?”

The few seconds of silence that followed contained eternities.

“If I were a different person I might call you a frigid bitch.”

The words were a sucker punch to the gut.

“But you would never.” I sucked in my breath and stood. Crossed the room and pulled an oversized tee out of the suitcase. Pulled it on over my cami. One step at a time. Picked up my purse. Grabbed my hotel key and a hoodie. Slid on my sneakers without tying them.

Opened the door without looking back.

And suddenly I was in the hallway with no idea what to do next.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 11 - Liquid Liner

Andie joined me in the wings for Second Chance’s set. I pulled up the same chair I’d sat in for Echo Eclipse and pulled another plastic folding chair alongside mine. It was too loud to talk much but I appreciated having her there. As if I subconsciously needed moral support, even if it was silent.

The crowd had begun cheering between sets and a fresh wave of whistling and screaming began every time anyone from the crew walked onstage. When the lights went out, the screams grew louder still. New applause and whistles for each band member’s entrance: first Pelly with a quick wave, then Abel, and Andie hooted and clapped harder. Next was Mason to even more applause. They began the opening of “Hated Heart,” their usual opener, and Michael stalked across the stage as he sang the opening lines.

The crowd blew up.

From where I sat I could see a small portion of the audience, mostly the fans pushed up against the barricade, but it was the same sight I always saw. In every venue, in every city, in every country the view from this seat would be the same: mostly women in their twenties and thirties in front, shrieking, the occasional fan in tears, all of them with arms extended to Michael whether he was inches away or clear across the stage.

It hurt my heart that they wanted him so badly. I knew that he deserved better than I was able to give him, but I just didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have the same passion for my own husband that millions of strangers had.

I remembered seeing Second Chance from the wings for the first time, or at least I thought I did. The memories ran together, to be honest, but there was one particular show I at least thought of as the first show I saw as more than a “fan.”

I’d prodded at him beforehand, making suggestions for his makeup that he refused to hear. Watching him bent over his makeshift makeup counter, carefully lining his eyes with black liquid liner, I’d reminded him, “You know I do this professionally, right? And I’m right here? With nothing to do?”

He simply repeated for the millionth time, “I have to do it myself” and removed the bobby pin that held the flat-ironed hair out of his face.

Then he turned to face me. He wore black pinstriped pants clasped by black suspenders over a thin black tee with black boots. “But I will borrow your lashes.”

Admiration still vastly outweighed exasperation then.

Second Chance was always an energetic band and my obvious newfound interest in the band meant I’d looked up videos of their older shows and seen a couple of their high-energy performances already, but this show was another level. Michael was on another level.

Second Chance took the stage and Michael remained frozen at the mic stand until the band went into “Hated Heart,” when he snatched the mic, spun twice, jumped onto the drum risers for two beats, high-kicked off the risers and landed in a crouch, and sang the opening on his knees before crawling toward the edge of the stage.

The crowd was just as hungry for him then.

He maintained that energy level for the duration of the set. I was in awe. The entire performance was just that: a performance. A menage of swirling, leaping, kicking, sliding, and crawling. A couple of times I thought maybe I’d caught his eye from where I stood - and I stood through the set, the idea of sitting never occurring to me once - but realized it must have been impossible to see me or anyone or anything that distinctly with the lights in his eyes as they were.

When they finally wished the crowd a good night and jogged offstage to towel off and grab more water, Michael grabbed my face between his hands and kissed me deeply if quickly. He was covered in sweat that came off on my lips and I licked at the salt he left behind as he grinned and said, “Do you love me yet?”

This show was burned in my memory because the question haunted me, and the question haunted me because I’d decided yes, before he’d even asked the question, yes. Now I was in love.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 10 - Lipstick

Chris checked his teeth for lipstick in the mirror one last time before tailing the rest of the band out of the dressing room.

I followed a few paces behind, texting Michael. He wouldn’t be looking for me anyway. He’d be working on his hair now, and soon he’d be too focused on his vocal warm-ups to notice if the club burned down around him.

watching EEs set see u after show love u!!!

At the end of the hallway they stopped abruptly and I stood back. They released a guttural roar in unison that I couldn’t understand and did what looked like a five-person fist bump before proceeding into the wings where they stopped again.

Tyler took the stage first and sat behind the drum kit to little audible acknowledgement.

Kyle and Adrian next, together, to some enthusiastic hooting and whistling.

Last to enter in silence was Smith, which evoked shrill yelps and shrieks from the crowd. I laughed to myself. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I supposed with his hair’s habit of flopping over one blue eye at a time, his tight-fitting clothing, his wide smile and cheekbones that required no contouring, he was the closest thing to a Tiger Beat cover model the metal scene had. I watched from behind Chris as Smith settled his guitar strap over his shoulder.

The screaming for Smith hadn’t died down when they went into their first song and Chris swaggered to the microphone. The swagger seemed out of sync with the music; the driving bass made it seem as if he were moving in slow motion. He grabbed the microphone from the stand in one hand while moving the stand aside with the other. His hair hung in his eyes as he bobbed his head for a couple of counts, and then he lifted his chin, lifted the mic to his face and released a feral screech I recognized from one of the videos I’d seen earlier.

I seated myself in a chair next to a folding table that supported piles of cords and sundry contingency items: guitar picks and strings, towels, duct tape, extra copies of the set list, a value-size pack of room-temperature water bottles with plastic wrapping ripped down the middle. I tucked my chair at the end of the table to keep myself clear of the roadies’ and stage crew’s path. Throughout the set, they scrambled back and forth like swarming ants, into the wings, backstage, and quick sprints onstage as needed. Had I wanted to duck out early I don’t think I could have without being bowled over.

It didn’t take long to see what the fans saw in Smith, or what else. In addition to his obvious good looks, the way he carried himself onstage was equally appealing. For the set he’d put on a pair of black jeans and a black button-up, both slim-fitting and he’d limited the requisite makeup to heavy black liner. His perfect beach hair fell past his shoulders, textured but not greasy, and I made a mental note to watch what he did to it before the next show. His style was unostentatious. He stood in position at the far side of the stage, never more than a few steps away from where his copy of the set list was taped down. Not that he seemed uncomfortable: rather, he seemed relaxed. Much as I loved Mason and his guitar tricks, Smith didn’t need tricks. His movements were natural and he did some impressive headbanging when it was appropriate - his hair was meant for it - but no part of his performance seemed affected in any way by the audience. It was as if he were playing for himself, alone.

Chris’s swagger continued throughout the set. His movements were heavy and deliberate. Maybe it was because he’d been touring only about half as long as Second Chance, but Chris interacted with the crowd in a way that was completely different from the way Michael did. Michael’s entire set was always a performance, and an interactive one. He acted for them, serenaded them; more than one reviewer had noted that Michael’s “onstage performance of a rock concert was like he was in a Broadway show” and it always made Michael proud. Even now, Michael continued to stand on the guardrail and lean into the crowd, extending the mic to the fans. He flipped into the crowd and initiated circle pits. He climbed the venue’s internal architecture. In short, he was venue security’s worst nightmare.

Chris seemed to be more calculating. Every few songs he walked up the the edge of the stage, reached back to a fan who was reaching for him, and took her hand momentarily. And they were usually the girls. As he did this his eyes were usually on people in the back, as if he were embarrassed to look directly at the person he was touching. Then he would retreat to being just out of reach until, a few songs later, he approached another group of fans pressing themselves into the guardrail. As if he needed to meet a quota.

This was striking: the difference between the Chris I saw in the music videos and the Chris performing in front of a crowd. He seemed self-conscious now. His movements were almost awkward. As he came closer to the side of the stage I was seated on, I looked into his face, his eyes, and saw that he seemed to be just as in awe of the crowd as they were of the band. His face was wide and open, like he was seeing this view for the very first time.

I smiled to myself again, wondering if he was equally in awe of the audience every time he got onstage.

But then, where was his feral side, the side I’d seen in all those videos? The reach of editing didn’t extend that far, did it? There was no way someone this shy and reserved could be that good of an actor, surely.

The set felt much shorter than it actually was. Before I realized it, Chris was thanking Second Chance for having them and announcing that this would be Echo Eclipse’s last song.

I rested an elbow on the table in front of me, pushing some coiled up cords out of the way.

Chris rested one boot on an amplifier and crooned the intro to the last song before the music came in. When it did, their hair swung in unison, like plumage on a murder of crows.

I drank in this last song.

Chris hitched up his black jeans before approaching the crowd one last time. He took the hand of a young girl in the front row and held it long enough to, I imagined, squeeze while he gazed into what I could only assume was the bar area in the very back.

I thought of a girl I’d known in school who once shared her secret for giving presentations in class: the best way to seem to be making eye contact is by not making eye contact at all, but to stare at the back wall through the entire presentation. I thought Chris must have known this trick.

Once more he perched one leg on the amplifier, straightened his black denim vest, and growled into the mic.

He sipped at an uncapped water bottle during the breakdown, then poured the rest over his head and I mentally crossed my fingers that the makeup would hold up.

And only moments later it was over. Chris thanked the crowd one last time before walking off. Smith, Kyle, and Adrian came to the front of the stage and threw out their picks, and Tyler did the same, throwing his drumsticks.

Chris was beaming leaving the stage, his eyes down, fists clenched as if he were ready to pump them in excitement. Passing by he made eye contact apologetically, as if he’d run into me. He placed a hand on either side of my neck, his thumbs lightly touching my jawline, and planted a kiss in the middle of my forehead. “That was fucking amazing!” he hissed, and continued passing through.

I staggered backward as the rest of the band walked by. Kyle nodded at me as he punched me in the shoulder. I followed them out of the wings at a respectable distance and watched them disappear into one of the rooms down the hall.

“Babe.”

I jumped when a hand grabbed my arm. Michael’s hand.

I spun around. Michael’s dark hair was curly and he pushed it out of one eye. His carefully manicured stubble shadowed his sharp jaw. He was wearing his black jeans and tee with rolled-up sleeves. I was in love with him again for a split second, for just a fleeting moment before he smiled at me and the adoration turned my stomach queasy.

“Are you watching our set?”

Shit. I was out here now. I couldn’t tell him I’d watched the Echo Eclipse set but had no interest in his.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Did you see Echo Eclipse?”

“I just caught them, yeah. They were great.”

Michael’s lips tightened and he nodded. “Good, good.”

“I’ll get out of your way now, but I’ll be in the wings for your set.”

“Maybe wipe that off your face first,” he said, gesturing with one upturned index finger before walking off in the opposite direction.

I touched two fingers to where Michael had pointed, in the middle of my forehead, and came away with a smear of black lipstick.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 9 - Grease Paint

Echo Eclipse had made themselves comfortable in the cramped dressing room. I didn’t know them yet, not even well enough to match the person to the instrument, but I’d developed visual mnemonics to differentiate. The one whose head was shaved underneath a long sweep of brown hair and the one with the round face sat in folding chairs, hunched over a phone, sharing earbuds. The small one was sprawled out on a ripped leather couch, playing a game on his phone. The young one stood in front of the wall-sized mirror smearing his arms in black grease paint.

Chris was squatting on the floor when I entered the room, hunched over a pile of bags and rumpled clothing, drinking from a bottled water. I knocked on the open door to avoid having to announce myself.

I couldn’t find a place for my hands on his body that felt natural when Chris greeted me with a casual hug; he was so tall, so long in the torso. I couldn’t reach around his neck easily but I avoided hugging him around the waist. I lifted my arms underneath his and pressed my palms between his shoulder blades, into his sleeveless T-shirt.

He reintroduced me to the rest of the band, which I appreciated. I’d only recently been able to recognize the band to tell them apart from the crew, and I was shit with names.

Kyle with the round face shared earbuds with Adrian with the long sweep of hair.

Tyler, smearing black over his body, smiled at me in the mirror.

Smith gave a single wave without looking up from his phone.

None of them paid further attention to me.

I shoved my makeup case onto a folding table amid Subway sandwiches, loose cords, tape, and bottled water.

“You brought makeup?” Chris asked.

“It’s my job.”

“Right.”

I gestured at the sleeveless tee he wore. “This is what you’re wearing onstage?”

“Nah, I got another one I’ll put on afterward.”

“You should put it on now. I don’t want you smearing your makeup or getting it on your shirt.”

He shrugged, opening his palms to me. “It’s usually fine.”

“Look, am I doing this or not?” I half-smiled to hide slight exasperation.

“O-kay,” he drew out in concession. “I guess we’ll do it professionally then.”

Chris pulled the sleeveless tee over his head, tugging it over his face by the front collar and pulling the back collar all the way over his head. I caught inked plumage along his ribs before averting my eyes. I stared hard at a snag in the gray-green carpet though my attention remained on his skin; my eyes focused on the floor but saw only skin rippling over his ribs.

“Can I sit here?” he asked, now wearing a black sleeveless tee that wasn’t much different from the first, placing himself in a plastic avocado-colored chair in the middle of the room. “Since the smallest fucking person here is taking up the largest piece of furniture?” he called louder, reaching over and smacking the toe of one of Smith’s black boots with his massive palm.

Again without taking his eyes off of his phone, Smith saluted him with a middle finger.

“You’re fine if you sit up straight.”

Chris rolled his shoulders back and sat on the edge of the chair, at seated attention. I unrolled the fabric case I’d tucked my brushes into, unzipped my pouch and started pulling out the various tubes, jars, and palettes.

He gestured at my set-up. “Did you study this or something? Like, go to cosmetology school and turn someone’s hair purple?”

“Only if they wanted it. Put this around your neck.” I threw one of Michael’s old towels at Chris before dabbing my fingers into the blue-tinted primer. I started in the middle of his face, underneath one cheekbone.

“No, actually, it’s all kind of self-taught trial and error kind of stuff. Now there are all these tutorials on YouTube, it’s easy. I’m old enough that I just missed all that. I had to learn by making myself look like Pennywise a few hundred times first.” I finished adding primer to his forehead, then continued on to his chin.

“I hope you’re done learning then.”

“Never,” I snorted. “I promise not to learn too much on you, though.”

I screwed the top back onto the primer and Chris maneuvered in his chair trying to see his face in the mirror, past Tyler smoothing the black paint over his neck.

“There’s nothing to really see yet. It’s just primer.”

He sank back down into the chair. “I don’t know what that is. I definitely never used it before.”

I poured foundation onto the back of my hand. “It’s just like getting your face ready for everything else. It helps it stay on better. Sit up.”

“I don’t use brushes when I do this either,” he said, noticing the brush I’d swirled through the foundation before I began buffing it over his nose.

“Can you do some kind of makeup magic to make my nose look smaller?”

I smiled despite myself. “You don’t want that. Your nose is fine.”

He was quiet for a moment while I buffed the foundation around his lips. I buffed around his forehead and temples and he asked, “Does this mean if this goes well you’ll do my makeup again?”

“I’m certainly not going anywhere. Close your eyes.” I dusted some iridescent eyeshadow over one lid.

“How did you get suckered into doing this again if you’ve done it once already? I mean, how did you fall for this if you already know what touring is like?”

Now the other lid.

“The bus helps.” I feared it was an obvious lie.

“Enough?”

“It helps.”

I began coloring in one eyelid with a black eyeliner pencil and jumped when Kyle suddenly roared with laughter over the phone.

“What are they watching?”

“Martyrs.”

“Oh?”

Chris waved one hand dismissively and opened his eyes while I reached for a stiffer brush to rub in the eyeliner. “Yeah, there’s something wrong with him.”

“Let me believe it’s the American remake and I can forgive the laughter.”

He closed his eyes again while I worked. “No shit, though, I wish we had a bus with a shower and all. I’ve definitely had a set or two that were pretty ripe because we didn’t make it to the next stop in time for a shower.”

“That sounds miserable.”

I suddenly flashed to Erica Jong’s so-called “zipless fuck” and the Fear of Flying heroine’s desire for the artist even after seeing the skidmarks in his underwear.

Chris continued, “And there’s been times when I did shows in the same clothes without washing them, worn the same makeup the next night.”

“Good thing you’re in a band. The glamor overrides the smell, I assume.”

“I hope?”

“I mean, I’m sure it doesn’t bother the Echo Eclipse groupies.” I wasn’t exactly sure whether or not Echo Eclipse even had groupies, but surveyed the face in front of me and thought that they must.

Chris laughed good-naturedly, showing his teeth. “Groupies? I don’t think any band had groupies since the eighties. I know we don’t.”

“None at all?”

“No way. ‘Stans’ sure, a few. But nowadays it’s like you never heard of a band, you basically follow them on tour, or they’re getting a restraining order against you.”

“Any restraining orders, then?”

“Someday, maybe,” he said, comically wistful.

I began blending a darker brownish shadow into the crease of one eye.

“What about you?”

“What?” I stepped back, puzzled.

He opened his eyes again. “Any stalkers? Isn’t that a thing?”

“I’m a woman in the internet age and I’m married to Michael March.”

“Too many to count, then.”

He shut his eyes as I began blending again. “But a fraction as many as Michael, and mine are a little less scary.”

“Yeah? I can’t even think about the shit he must see over the years.”

“The young ones are some of the scariest, too, which is funny since he’s in his forties. He likes to say that in the beginning, before all this social media, the worst thing a fan did was cry or scream or try to forcibly kiss him at a signing, and that’s a relief now.”

“Yeah.”

“But we disagree about the worst thing a fan has done.”

“What is it?”

“I think the worst thing fans do is when they cut themselves and send Michael their razors. Before we met he actually received an envelope once, but it was tucked inside a small, like, courier envelope. The envelope inside was brown all over, just covered in blood. Michael didn’t handle it himself, obviously, but they told him the bloody razor was inside and a Polaroid of where this fan had carved ‘Michael’ into her arm. Big ropey scabs.”

Chris was silent for a moment, then said, “Not the point, but with all that blood how could they make out the Polaroid? Didn’t the blood mess up the picture?”

“I said the same thing! We actually had a big fight about it when we were dating. I laughed at the fact that it was obviously staged, not like some fan put this together in an act of desperation. And I swear to God it’s like he was insulted! He got all mad at me for like interpreting his life or something like that. But that was the most offensive part to me: the fact that it was all kind of staged like that. So manipulative. This person’s desire to create this scenario was more offensive to me than if it had been real.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty sick.”

“Right?”

“So what does Michael think is the worst thing a fan has done?”

I rolled my eyes and reached for the eyeliner again, this time to line his eyes. “This has happened more than once, but sending used panties in the mail.”

“That’s some Motley Crue shit.”

“It definitely happens. Like, still.”

“Do you think they ever just buy them and send them, or do you think it’s real? Like, do you think they really wear them around and send them?”

“Some of them, absolutely. Some actually arrive crusty.”

Chris widened his eyes.

“Stop, I don’t want to poke you. One fan sent these crusty panties - like crust dusting the envelope and everything - and I swear to God the smell will stay with me forever. But that wasn’t even the worst part! She included this letter that was just a detailed description of her maturbating to the ‘Solace in Silence’ video, but it went on for three pages.”

“Most of the time I couldn’t fill a postcard.” He shrugged and I couldn’t help laughing. “That’s pretty groty, though. I’m surprised you’re not as bothered by that as he is, or more bothered by that than the bloody razor.”

“Oh, God no. I don’t care about the panties. I totally get it.”

“You get it?”

“Fuck, yes.”

“Really.”

“Absolutely.” I lifted the lid on the loose translucent powder and grabbed the fluffiest brush. “I get the idea about being absolutely infatuated and having no outlet for it. I get being so tortured by these unrequited feelings, and you feel like you’re going to burst, and it’s so ridiculous and impossible that all you want is for them to know. And it builds to the point that you want to make it known in the biggest, bravest way possible, make as much of an impression as you can. And making an impression on a celebrity isn’t easy. If I were them, I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Too bad you’re not an Echo Eclipse fan, then,” he smirked.

“Who says I’m not?”

“What, you did your homework for the tour or something?”

“I did my homework for your makeup. I’m into it. The videos are intense.”

Chris released a breath that was half laugh and half embarrassed sigh.

“No, stop for a second so I can do your lips.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s still talking.”

He parted his lips obediently. I ran a liquid black over his lips, tipping the silver rings in his lower lip first one way, then the next. I painted under his two rings with a lipliner brush. His lower lip was full and I was careful to cover it all before making clean edges. I made points at his cupid’s bow and slid carefully along his upper lip, and without thinking I glanced up at his closed eyes. When they opened on me I looked away quickly.

“One more thing.” I pulled a tissue from my purse and draped it over his lips, then brushed more of the loose powder over the tissue. “It should stay better like that. But let me know if I need to touch it up.”

“So you’ll be around then? Are you going to watch our set?”

I hadn’t thought about it, but now I suppressed a smile. “I can do that if I’m won’t be in the way.”

“If there’s room for randos that won radio contests there’s room for you. I’ll be all high-maintenance, like ‘I need my makeup artist on standby.’”

I laughed.

“So I’m finished then?”

“You should be good.”

Chris jumped out of his chair and elbowed Tyler out of the way to study his face in the mirror. I cringed as I noticed Tyler smearing the black grease paint around his eyes. Chris widened and narrowed his blackened eyes, stretched the skin over his upper lip and examined either side of his nose in the mirror, then sneered.

“This is sick.” He turned back to me and laughed, delighted, and his teeth were shockingly white against his black lips. “This is fucking sick!”

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue

[jaymarawrites-blog]

LIKE RATS - 8 - Honey

I sat with my legs up in the front lounge of the bus. In the yellowed pages before me, purchased on the road for $0.50 at a used bookstore, Ted Bundy had just abducted a girl by a lake and a hoard of witnesses had noticed nothing unusual. I looked up from my book to see Michael emerge from the bathroom, a honey-colored towel around his waist. The nautical stars tattooed into his abdomen disappeared into the front of the towel, and pagan symbols scattered across his legs below, no cohesive pattern or logic to unite them. The door to the bunks stood open and I watched him disappear through it, heard him sling his toiletries into his bunk.

I shouldn't have been on the bus. I’d be spending more than enough time there over the next couple of months and I should have been savoring any time I could get outside with my face in the sun and feet in the dirt. But I had lingered outside too long with Andie and forced myself back onto the bus for some relief. I didn't tan, I baked, and it would probably take a day to see the extent of the damage.

Sam was reading diagonal from me, his Converse propped up on the seat next to me. I loved Sam so I forgave him his taste in literature. It was elitist. He found no value in most of what I read, though he would never tell me so. He only read whatever had just won a snobby literary prize and got a real hard-on when a book he’d already read and approved of won something major.

Now he was poring over Hemingway, which meant he had just quit a book. He’d told me once, “When I'm disappointed with a book I quit reading it and go back to Hemingway. To remind me what a book is supposed to be.” My eyes rolled hard at that one.

“Babe,” I said, grabbing and shaking the toe of his shoe. “I’m going back to the graveyard for a bit. I’m doing Chris’s makeup so I’m going to check them out real quick before I head over. I’ve legit never even heard of them before now.”

Sam didn’t look up from his book. “Research, then?”

“Please. Music videos.”

“That’s valid research. Those guys are alright.” He nodded his head in approval. “Pastiche is a legitimate art form.”

“Whatever. Thanks in advance for the hotspot.” I smacked the sole of his shoe with my paperback before stepping through the open doorway.

I passed Mason napping in his bunk and Andie watching a movie on a tablet before stepping back into the graveyard. Michael was halfway dressed. His track pants were in place underneath the towel still wrapped around his waist. He pulled a Depeche Mode tee down over his head before uncinching and pulling off the towel. With this many years of touring under his belt and so many of them in vans and RVs, he had made an art of maintaining modesty. I’d never known anyone else in the band - or the crew, or the tagalongs like me - to be so conservative on tour. If I hadn’t known Michael I would’ve said it was an impossibility.

I squeezed by him to get into my bunk. He was in the zone already. He hardly even noticed I was there. I sunk down in the bunk and propped on my stomach the tablet I kept under my pillow.

I did a Google image search and was glad I did. Chris’s makeup preference was different from Michael’s. Michael had always gone for an androgynous look: he’d worn his wavy black hair halfway down his back for years, or bundled it into a messy bun secured with chopsticks. He wore heavy makeup, particularly heavy eye makeup, but it was feminine. Fake lashes, glitter eyeshadow. Inspecting these images I saw that Chris preferred more of a goth/Misfits look, bordering on corpse paint. He appeared with heavy black circles around his eyes, black lipstick at times, his face even paler than his natural pallor. His arms and neck were painted black when he performed, and I wondered why he would cover all that hard-earned ink.

A YouTube search yielded a number of music videos and at first glance they seemed fairly polished. The videos spanned all of their albums and the band members changed as I clicked through them. How had I never seen this band before? I returned to the top of the list and ensured that the tablet was muted, then clicked on the first video in the list.

This was an entirely different experience from the person I’d sat across from at dinner the night before. That person had a warmth about him; he’d smiled through the whole meal. People tended to smile around Michael, of course, and it was no secret that Chris was a fan of his, but it hadn’t been the gushing of a fan. I remembered Chris’s interaction with the server; he wasn’t a long-time fan of hers, certainly, but had treated her the same.

But this.

This version of Chris was sinister. Wicked. I’d seen many bands. Many, many bands. Typically, it was apparent the look, the vibe, the sound they were shooting for, and typically they were overshooting. Comically overshooting.

This was something else, something real. Something genuine. Not only Chris - every one of them. There was no cringe-worthy mugging for the camera. No superfluous hair tosses, no menacing snarls. Their presence was sufficient.

And Chris.

I turned onto my side in the bunk, my back to Michael, propping the tablet on a bunched up bit of blanket. Blocking Michael’s view of the screen.

I clicked over to the next video, then the next. The ease of Chris’s movements carried into the videos. How many singers had I seen in my lifetime that seemed not to know what to do with their bodies? That needed a guitar to hide behind, whether they knew how to play or not? Chris dominated every frame he was in. His stature lent itself to dominating: he stood taller than anyone else in the band, and his lean frame made him seem taller still. His body language was entirely un-self-conscious, entirely present. Every ounce of passion he had fueled every snarl, every grimace.

And his face. His eyes. Chris had a sneer that flipped my stomach, and a smolder that could melt steel. A smolder that took me entirely by surprise and pulled at my chest. I had to remind myself of the camera’s presence, that I wasn’t looking into eyes that could look back.

A sudden self-consciousness swept through me, followed by an intense resentment. It occurred to me, in the back of my mind, that watching Chris with my husband next to me was traitorous. I hadn’t meant it to be, but the fact of not being able to look away from Chris made it so. But the shame was fleeting and resentment prickled my back, where I could feel Michael’s eyes. I curled tighter around my tablet as the next video began automatically.

***

When I left for Echo Eclipse’s dressing room backstage, Michael was doing the vocal warm-ups that made my skin crawl. After years and years of this I could have done them myself. I called out that I was leaving and he waved me away without opening his eyes. He could have been waving at anything, really.

I left with my makeup case under one arm.

~~~

Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue