The Tour (21 page)

“Can you sign my bra?” one asks, pulling her shirt down, exposing the top of her breast.

“Only paper, ladies,” he answers, giving them a version of his side smirk.

“Can you sign my iPad?” the other says, taking out the tablet and handing him a pen. He turns it over, and signs the bright pink case, handing it back to her.

They both ignore me. It seems we all just want Kolton Royce.

But, can I blame them?

*     *     *

Devon drives us to an obscure steel building. I don’t even know where we are. It took us about forty-five minutes to get here. I’ve been reading the lyrics and Kolton’s been humming them, his fingers playing on top of his thighs. I think we’re in ‘the zone’.

When the car stops, Devon gets out and looks around, more on edge than usual. He opens the door and escorts us inside, where it’s warm and smells of popcorn. A receptionist greets us, and then an older man with a round stomach appears and shakes Kolton’s hand.

“This is my Mia,” Kolton says.
My Mia
. I think I’m going to swoon. I’m grinning so hard when I shake the man’s hand, I don’t hear what his name is.

I follow them down a hallway, up a staircase, and down another hall. We walk through a door into a large room filled with so many instruments I could only dream about, and then in real life, lust over at a Guitar Center.

There’s a piano, a DW drum set, a Paul Reed Smith guitar and a Music Man bass, an acoustic electric Taylor, a Fender Stratocaster, and two different Gibson Les Pauls.
Holy shit!

I’m stunned enough that it takes a minute to realize there are four guys standing around, tuning their guitars and chatting. They must be session guys—hired to work with us on the spot. This isn’t what I was expecting. On
The Stage
, we recorded in a little booth. This is a big, huge room. How does it even work?

“We’re going to record live,” Kolton whispers and I nod, though still confused. He wraps his arm over my shoulder and shakes me a little. “Relax, love.” I realize, he’s been calling me ‘love’ as an endearment. The word alone turns me all warm and liquid inside.

The guy with the round belly claps his hands and the four guys turn and start the introductions. All of them, with their direct smiles and relaxed manner of speaking, help put me at ease.

Kolton sits down at the piano. “Mia, why don’t you help yourself to the Taylor? Play it one-time through with me.” I nod and bite the inside of my lip.

“Is it recording?” I ask, looking at all the microphones as I’m walking back to the chair nearest him with the Taylor in my hand.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “Not ’till you’re ready.”

“I haven’t played in months,” I say nervously, strumming the strings. The sound feels like home so I do it again. Kolton starts to play the piano along with me.

“See,” he says, “this change right here,” he points out, showing me a change in the note leading toward the first verse. I nod and make the change, too. He’s good at this. I’m working with an expert. I feel honored.

As we start over, he exaggerates a little with his chin to have me start the first verse.

“I woke up to it. The sound of trees in the wind…” I start, trying the new arrangement Kolton’s created. Soon, the drummer starts, and then the bass and the guitar.

“What about this?” I ask, getting them to stop so I can make a change on the guitar to one line of the verse.

“That’s good, Mia,” Kolton says. “Let’s try the chorus.” He surprises me when we sing it together.

“Call me angel and I’ll be your valentine. Call me angel and I—I—I’ll find the time. Call me yours and I’ll call you mine…”

We try his changes, and we try mine. We harmonize. The light shines in through the windows onto his hair, making it glow around his head like a halo. I watch his fingers as they tap, and he takes a sip from a straw.

We try again and make it better and my heart swells. My fingertips are sore, but it doesn’t matter because my cheeks hurt worse from smiling so hard. I’m mirroring him. There’s nothing like the sound of his voice, especially when it gets raspy and he has to close his eyes to sing.

He listens to me, and I feel heard. It works. Everything we do with this song, all the changes, make it better. It’s not my song on YouTube. It’s something new. A creation that is me and him. It’s like our music version of a baby.

By the time the sun goes down, we’ve recorded our song. There was no paperwork involved, no promises of advances or who gets what share.

When the guy with the round belly, who Kolton calls ‘Sam,’ plays it back to us, Kolton holds me tight and whispers in my ear, “Thank you, Mia.”

I wish I’d said it first. “It’s better than it ever could have been without you.”

“That’s how I feel about me. I won’t be the same without you,” he says. I have to swallow. Is that the truth?

I think about the man he was before we met. His reputation seems like a whispered-in-the-halls rumor now, like it couldn’t have ever been true.

If I’ve changed him, he’s changed me more. I grab his hand, entwine our fingers like tightly weaved fabric. Like atoms held together by heat and earth.

“I want to do that again,” I say to him. A smile brings up the edges of his mouth. But, still, it’s a nervous smile. One that asks, “
Have you made up your mind?”

Next week, I start rehearsals, and then I leave on a tour bus for three whole months. I sincerely hope that song wasn’t our first and our last one.

What Comes Next

W
alking into the rehearsal studio for practice before
The Stage’s
tour, I see a bunch of familiar faces. Some I’m happy to see, and one I’m not.

Kolton flew us back from New York and rented us a furnished apartment in LA to be closer to the studio while I’m rehearsing. None of us wanted to go back to his parents’ house. It gave us cabin fever and the commute would be longer.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, a big grin forming. It’s Kenny, the kid with the stutter who’d lost the first round to me on
The Stage
.

“Y—y—you didn’t hear?” he asks.

“No,” I shake my head.

“It w—w—was a contest online. They c—could bring back one person not in the final twelve, a—a—and I won!” he exclaims. He looks a little older. His hair is cut and styled a little shorter. I think he’s been working out.

“Congrats, Kenny!” I say, and give him a little hug. When I step back, Kolton comes up behind me. I turn around, and realize there’s a scowl on his face—and it is directed at me. I make a face that says,
‘what?’

He takes me by my arm, just above my elbow. “I need to talk to you,” he says. I smile at Kenny, excuse myself with a just-a-minute finger, and walk with Kolton toward the corner of the room. “This doesn’t feel right to me,” he says, looking around.

“In what way?” He just glares at me. “Kolton?” He puts his hands in his pockets and bites the inside of his bottom lip, tilting his head to the side.

“While you’re rehearsing, I’m going to find you an assistant to go on the road with you. Someone older and wiser who can—”

“Watch me so I don’t do things you don’t want me to, like hug harmless Kenny?”

“Don’t do this,” he warns. “I’m helping you. You’re going to need someone with you, besides Manny.”

“
Me
, don’t do this? How ’bout
you
, don’t do this,” I say, pointing a finger. “I think you’re trying to pick a fight with me so you don’t have to feel sad when I’m gone and you can be pissed at me instead. Or maybe you finally realized it’ll be easier to move on with someone who brings along less baggage.” And when I say the last sentence, his eyes close in on me. His jaw sets and then tenses.

“After everything—every fucking thing we’ve been through, you’d say that to me?” his voice rises. People start looking, and he turns his back on me. I feel myself reaching out to him, but my arm never moves. My feet stay locked in place and I let him walk away.

I let him think he’d be better off without me.

*     *     *

After a meeting with the production manager, a forty-ish black woman who exudes warmth and strength, named Jenisha, I practice my fan-favorite song,
“Burn”
by Ellie Goulding. It reminds me of my first session with Kolton when I’d thought he was flirting with Rania Steele, and he got mad when I took off my scarf and my cleavage was showing.

Such an alpha male. I wonder if he’s off somewhere managing my life right now. Choosing an assistant for me, buying me luggage, deciding my future. I can’t really blame him. He does these things out of love.

And I do a lot of things out of fear. Fear that he doesn’t love me enough to put up with my shit. Fear that he’s hiding something from me because I’m too weak to handle it. Fear that he’d be better off with someone who has less scars, physically and emotionally. But maybe that’s what makes him love me—both of us, orphans. Both of us have lived with loss—and now we’ve found one another. It’s like bittersweet luck of the saddest, most poignant, kind.

*     *     *

I’ve practiced several songs. I’ve been briefed on the tour rules. I’ve promised my first-born if something was to happen and I tarnish the brand. I’m thoroughly warned, forewarned, and annoyed. Something about this reeks of desperation and to put the artificially dyed cherry on top, I’ve already had a run-in with Gypsy Dress—the bitchy girl who used to pick fights with me when we were both on Kolton’s team.

Basically, during our recent run-in, she called me a skank, and I replied with a witty comeback to hide the frustration that I’ll have to share any more minutes of my life in her presence.

I’m leaning against the wall, watching Jessie play a new song. It’s going to be the first single of her first album. She really does have something special. The tone of her voice, her willingness to take risks—she’s beautiful.
The Stage’s
team has prepped her for this tour. Meanwhile, I’ve become a hermit, and my ass is bigger than it used to be.

I make a mental note:
Start using the gym at our new temporary apartment.

“Ma’am,” I hear behind me. When I turn, Devon is standing behind me looking stern and very much like security. “Mr. Royce is waiting for you in the car,” he says, and then walks away. Until I’d just seen Devon, I hadn’t realized Manny wasn’t hovering around me today. In fact, I haven’t seen him since Devon dropped us off.