But instead he met Crusty Pete Dillingham.
The story of that night is now part of my own personal legend. My dad went to see a show at a local dive bar. When they started the show, nothing came out of the speakers except ear-splitting feedback. The tech ran backstage in a panic. While everyone else was covering their ears, my two-hundred and sixty-pound, bearded father vaulted the stage like an Olympic high jumper and ran back to switch out the mis-plugged cables.
"The first thing I noticed was that his stack was a mess. The second thing I noticed was the stench." My dad would always grin at this point, slapping Crusty Pete on his back.
"I thanked him and told him we just lost a guy," Crusty Pete would add, gamely playing his part in the story. "And if he could get his fat ass up early enough in the morning, we'd have more work for him."
Pete introduced my dad to Bash Gills, the drum tech extraordinaire. He was slumming it in between tours, picking up club gigs here and there. But once his real gig started up again, he'd be able to use a guitar tech that was as fast on his feet as my father.
Right here in the story, Bash always made a point to look up and down my father's considerable bulk. "How the man eat so much and still move so fast, I'll never even begin to understand. It defies both logic and physics." Then my dad would guffaw like it was the first time he'd ever heard that joke, and me and Jaxson would roll our eyes so hard they may as well have fallen out. Then we'd start laughing at each other’s, reactions, goaded on by our shared experience of being teenagers in the weirdest fucking place to be a teenager… ever.
I smiled at the memory before my heart could catch up with my head. And when it did, I felt the sick, hollow feeling that always hit me when I thought about Jaxson Blue. And since I was always thinking of him, I was sick and hollow pretty much always.
The feeling remained as we taxied out into the runway. I scrunched low in my seat, grateful for my tiny frame as I nestled close to the window. The guy sitting next to me ignored me completely, putting in his headphones and promptly falling into a drooling, open-mouthed sleep. Something about the way he completely overlooked me, like I was part of the plane itself, made me think of my stepfather again.
After living out my childhood in the background at Graham's house, playing second fiddle to Graham's kids and losing my mother to being Graham's wife, I then lost my mother for real. The ovarian cancer that took her was swift and merciless, transforming her from tired, but still vital, woman to gasping shell in a matter of eight months, start to finish. She succumbed when I was fifteen, and suddenly Graham looked up and noticed I was there.
"Liliana, I know things haven't always been great between us," he started to say at the kitchen table the night after her funeral.
But I’d had enough. I held up my hands to ward off his apologies. "You don't have to say anything Graham, I've already called my dad."
"Your… dad?" Graham spat the word.
"Yes… my father."
"Liliana, I raised you. I'm your father."
My grief was still way too fresh for me to stay cordial. "You didn't raise anything, Graham. I raised myself while you weren't looking."
His face got really tight around the eyes right then. He sagged his head into his hands and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "Lily, I know it hasn't always been easy…"
"No shit," I said, loving the way his eyes darted back up to stare at me, shocked that I had the gall to swear at him. "It hasn't been, but it's about to get a hell of a lot easier for you Graham. I'm out of your hair. It's all been arranged."
My suitcase was already packed. When my buttoned-up stepfather stood at the door and watched my grizzled, tattooed father bundle me into his beat-up van, I thought I caught the glimmer of tears in his eyes. For one moment I almost went back to him. My father, the man whose genes I shared, was a complete stranger to me. At least the tight-ass man who was waving goodbye was a known quantity.
But by then, it was too late to look back. I blinked back the tears and repeated "fierce" to myself until I felt slightly better. We started rolling backwards, but there were no engine sounds…
"Stupid piece of shit, start!"
I knew he was swearing at the van, but it was too late. I had already jumped in terror at my father smacking the wheel. I jumped so hard at the anger in his voice that for once in his life, Nails Nesbit noticed me. His huge, ham hock of a hand came out of nowhere to cover mine. "Hey Lily," he said, raspy, but gentle. "I know I ain't always been around like I should've, but you need to know that I will never hurt you, you got that? None of this scaredy-cat shit with me, okay?"
"Okay," I said tightly.
"Good. Now, check your mirror for me?"
"All clear… Dad."
Nails shot me a look of surprise. His eyes were nearly hidden under an explosion of untrimmed eyebrow hair, but I was startled to see that they were the exact same shade of brown as my own.
I had never noticed that.
"Okay Lil, let's hit the road."
The fact that a world tour is no place for a fifteen-year-old never crossed either one of our minds. Doing things properly really wasn't my father's strong point.
Except, for some reason, now it was. For some reason, after all these years, he was going to be a proper married man, and wanted me there with him. It was almost sweet… as sweet as Nails could ever be.
"Fierce," I muttered to myself, and then fell asleep.
Chapter Six
Jax
The sound guy looked like he had never actually gone to sleep last night. Not that I could really judge him. Ever since my mother dropped the bombshell of her impending marriage in my lap, my nights had been filled with tossing, turning, and really frustrating hard-ons about seeing Lily again. Sleep seemed like something I'd have to wait for until after the wedding.
I did have to give Annie credit. Once she makes decisions, there was no dithering around. The happy day was scheduled at their home in two weeks.
And somehow, Nails had convinced Lily to come early to help prep. Every time I tried to clear my head, that thought came by to hit me over the head with an anvil. Lily was coming back.
Lily was landing today.
I had studio time that I couldn't get out of. My labeled booked this time weeks ago, before any of this bullshit happened. So now I had to be a goddamn professional, even though I felt like I was ready to crawl out of my skin.
The bleary-eyed tech—I think his name was “Raven” or “Crow,” or something like that—whatever his name was, he flicked on his mic, and his gruff, whiskey-soaked voice came through my monitor. "Okay Jax, were ready for you."
I nodded. The guitar track that I had laid down last week came blaring in through my mic and I began counting the beats. As I counted, the words that I had written last night played over and over in my head. One good thing about insomnia: it gives you time to write.
Annie was watching me from the booth, leaning against Nails. Two blonde chicks that followed me here giggled as I made eye contact with them. But my eye went right to the bottle of Jack. I held up my hand. "Can you start again please?" I asked the monitor.
Blackbird sighed and grumbled a bit, but dutifully rewound the track. I took a quick nip from the open bottle. These words… the feelings I put down… writing it down was supposed to get rid of the pain, not make it worse. But singing it forced me to feel it all over again, and that was a bad thing. It took another long pull as the guitar track wailed in my ears. Then I opened my mouth to sing.