“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” I growled, taking a menacing step toward the bombshell drug dealer.
“Because I didn’t sell it to him.” Her eyes flicked to Calix. “You know I wouldn’t. I told him no.”
I still really wanted to hit her again, but when I glanced back at the twins, Toby gave me a small nod.
“I bought it off one of the roadies.”
Then I’d find him and make him pay. Before I could charge off again, Calix gripped my shoulder. “Easy there, killer. How about you let me handle this?”
I glanced between him and Lainey, whose eye was darkening into a satisfying purple.
“I’m not apologizing.”
He huffed a laugh. “Didn’t ask you to. Just go back to the bus with Tobias and let me deal with this.”
It felt wrong to walk away. Wasn’t it my job as their manager to solve these kinds of problems? Although, if I were being honest, giving the supporting act a black eye probably wasn’t the best way to manage things.
I still wasn’t sorry.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Harvey
The crowd screamedas the stage lights flared and I strode on stage. Otis stumbled over his cord as he retrieved his bass without making eye contact with me. The stage wings were empty tonight. Tatum had opted to stay on the bus with Tobias, who was suffering through day three of withdrawals, and behind the drum kit, Brock was a presence that didn’t belong.
Nothing felt right.
Looking at Calix, you’d never know it, though. He worked the crowd into a furor, strutting and showboating as if it were any other night.
But I could see how we were coming apart at the seams. Brock fucked up the tempo in “Different Shades of Gray”, and Otis forgot an entire riff during “Deeper Underwater”.
Sweat trickled down my back as I took a deep pull on a bottle of water and positioned my capo for “The Lies We Live”.
The noise from the crowd was deafening as I plucked out the opening riff, and Calix ground out the lyrics like he was chewing on ghost peppers. The song felt more raw than usual, and I wondered if almost losing his brother had finally made the Grinch grow a bit of a heart.
Or maybe it was our manager. While I wouldn’t say he was friendly with her, he had definitely been less prickly, and they’d definitely fucked.
I could tell.
Speaking of fucking, it seemed like Calix had plenty of options in the crowd tonight, if he were interested in taking them up on the offer. A group of girls on the floor to the right of the stage lifted their shirts in unison, jiggling their tits like they could hypnotize our lead singer. Or maybe they were on offer to any of us. One of them noticed my attention and winked. A couple of weeks ago I would have been all over that shit, pulling the hottest one up onstage to show I could. Fucking her and leaving her in the dust as easily as we moved from venue to venue on this tour.
It was a shock to realize the appeal of that had worn thin.
Instead of engaging with her, I scanned the crowd and found a couple of young guys holding signs that offered their asses to Calix to be destroyed.
Good luck with that.
A couple of older women stood farther back in the crowd with “I heart Otis” T-shirts, and another group seemed to be team Tobias. Despite their favorite band member’s absence, they still seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Good.
At first, I didn’t notice the disturbance in the crowd.
Maybe I’d become so accustomed to being the cause of the controversy that I didn’t notice when I wasn’t the center of attention.
Yeah, yeah. Self-centered, conceited, call it what you would, but I liked people to notice me.
