A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (8 page)

Dylan took a step forward, his eyes burning with fury. He knew he must have looked frightening, but Melody didn’t so much as flinch. She stood her ground as he advanced upon her, until they were standing nose-to-nose.

“What I do and don’t do is none of your goddamn business,” he hissed. “For someone who isn’t interested in me, you sure do keep real good track of all my habits.”

“I’m trying to help you, jackass,” she hissed back.

“If you wanted to
help
me, you could crawl into my bunk, shut your mouth, and spread your—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jesper announced, coming over to physically separate them. “Arguing isn’t going to help the situation. You don’t want to say anything you’ll regret.”

Dylan took a breath and stepped back. Jesper was right. Melody looked like she was ready to castrate him for that last comment, and he couldn’t say that he blamed her. He always lashed out when he got defensive. He
knew
she was right, but there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. He was drowning in every way a man could drown.

“I have an idea,” Tank said, wrapping a beefy arm around Melody’s shoulders. “Why don’t you and I take a super fun walk all the way to the other end of the bus?” Though she still looked livid, she nodded stiffly, and they left. Rip, too, disappeared behind the curtain of his bunk. The guys could sense what was coming, and they knew that Jesper was the only person with the patience and the wherewithal to force Dylan to have a conversation he didn’t want to have.

Once they were alone in the kitchenette, Jesper gave Dylan a hard shove in the chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”

Dylan scrubbed his palms up and down his face, the scratch of stubble on his chin reminding him he needed to shave. “She just drives me insane,” he muttered. As excuses went, that was about as lame and vague as they got.

“I’ve known you almost twenty years,” Jesper said quietly. “I’ve seen you angry and I’ve seen you lost, but I’ve never seen you this pissed at someone. You just won’t leave her alone, you feel the need to either hit on her or argue with her, it’s like middle school all over again.”

“I don’t have the fucking time for this,” Dylan whispered.

“I’m not asking you to explain anything to me,” Jesper said. “I’m not even asking you to deal with whatever’s bothering you right this minute—but you do realize, don’t you, that you’re going to have to deal with it at some point?”

“I’m gonna get it together,” Dylan promised. “I know we need songs. I know Hop is pissed. The writing, it’s just hard, man, and that damn redhead isn’t making it any easier.”

What did he need, exactly? Inspiration? He’d never had a problem with that before. When he was angry, he wrote angry songs. When he was sad, he wrote music to kill yourself by. On the rare occasions when he’d been infatuated (Dylan was sure he’d never been in love, and if he had, it definitely wasn’t all it was cracked up to be), he had written some of his tunes, the ones dripping with lust and desire.

What he really needed was to get out of his own head for a while. Drinking copious amounts of alcohol had done the trick in the past, but it didn’t seem to be working anymore, and it definitely hadn’t worked since
she
had gotten under his skin.

“You can’t keep fighting with her like this,” Jesper said, as if reading his mind. “We need her. And as tough as she pretends to be, she’s not invincible. Pranks are fine as long as they’re in good fun, but you’re crossing the line with her. I have a feeling you might like her on a deeper level. I haven’t seen this from you before, but if that’s what’s happening, you need to embrace that somehow, not let it destroy the band. We need to stick together, if only for the length of this tour.”

“You think I’m in love with that chick? You gotta be out of your mind,” Dylan muttered.

“You’re my partner,” Jesper said. “My brother. I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not going to start now. And I’m telling you, that girl is what we need to be on tour. You love her, you hate her, it’s your business, just get along with her long enough so we can finish this.”

“Snake—”

“Is a loose cannon,” Jesper said firmly.

Dylan sighed. “But one hell of a bass player.”

Jesper chuckled. “No doubt about that. But until the day he is back we have Melody. We need to get along and you being hung up on her is threatening that.”

“I’m not hung up on her, goddammit,” Dylan said.

“Call it what you like,” Jesper said, echoing the exact words of the brunette psychoanalyst groupie. “Just get it together, and fast. If she walks, we’re screwed.” He placed a comforting hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “I’m here if you want to talk. You know that.”

“Don’t get gay with me,” Dylan muttered, embarrassed by Jesper’s steadfast, unconditional affection.

“You couldn’t handle me,” Jesper said with a wink.

“I’d break you in two,” Dylan joked back. He smiled, which seemed to convince Jesper that he was all right. Jesper nodded and headed back to his bunk, leaving Dylan alone.

He sighed. How long had he been pretending, even to Jesper, that he was happy? How long had it been since he’d laughed, really laughed, because he’d found something funny and not because he knew it was expected of him?

He didn’t want to think about it. Mechanically, Dylan grabbed the pot of coffee off the stove and poured half a cup. Then he opened the cupboard above the microwave, and dug around behind the coffee filters and plastic spoons until his hand closed around another bottle of bourbon. He filled the other half of the cup full and took a big sip.

They didn’t have a gig until tomorrow night in Seattle. If he were passed out drunk, he wouldn’t get into another argument with Melody between now and then. It seemed like the best solution at that moment.

**

Melody wanted to punch someone. Tank seemed to realize this, and kept a respectable distance.

“He’s such a…jerk,” she muttered, flailing her arms in frustration. “He’s such a jerky jerk.”

“Those are some high quality insults, missy,” Tank noted.

“What did I ever do to him?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips. “I’ve bent over backward to be civil.”

“I know he’s been kind of a prick, but you being civil is just making things worse,” Tank confided.

Melody’s mouth dropped open. “What? How is that making things
worse
?”

“For a guy, civility is like, the kiss of death,” Tank explained. “It means you don’t even care enough to be pissed off. Civil is worse than hate.”

“That makes no sense,” Melody declared.

Tank shrugged. “It is what it is. I’ve been in love exactly once in my life, and the moment she stopped yelling at me and started using that calm voice—that’s when I knew it was over. If you care about Dylan’s sanity at all,
don’t
be civil to him.”

“I guess I may have taken the polite indifference thing a little too far. I just…” Melody bit her bottom lip, wondering if it would be wise to continue. “Can I tell you a secret? The kind of secret that I will completely eviscerate you if you spill?”

Tank crossed his heart. “I’ll take it to my grave, Big Red.”

“Dylan was my first celebrity crush,” she admitted, spitting the words out quickly before she had a chance to second-guess herself.

Tank laughed. For a solid minute.

“Ohmygodohmygod,” he wheezed, doubled over, clutching his sides. “That is the best thing I’ve ever heard. I have never been more upset that I agreed to take something to my grave, because everyone on this bus needs to know that shit.”

“It was long ago, right when your first album hit it big,” she explained. “I was eighteen, Dylan was twenty-one, I saw him play, and I was hooked. I admired his talent, and that led to an infatuation of sorts. I didn’t really have a lot of crushes. Growing up in this business, with my dad...well, you can imagine.”

“I just imagined.” Tank looked faintly queasy. “Hop scares me.” 

Melody laughed. “Why? You’re twice his size.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tank answered. “That man’s like a Navy SEAL. He could probably kill me with a pen.”

“
I
could kill you with a pen,” Melody said. “You just have to know the right angle to hit the jugular.”

Tank paused, considering her. “Is this a good time to apologize for the hazing?”

“Don’t worry about it. I get it. As long as it’s done with now, we’re good.”

“Whew.” Tank mopped his brow. “So your crush on our Mr. Bennett...”

“God, don’t say it out loud,” she moaned. “It’s so cliché and embarrassing.”

“Everyone gets one rock star crush,” Tank said.

“One,” Melody repeated woodenly. “Yeah.”

Tank’s eyes widened. “You said he was your first.”

“I didn’t say he was my last. And when you’ve got connections...”

“You dirty slut,” Tank said, beaming at her proudly.

“There was this guy. Ian. He was the worst six months of my life,” Melody said. “And we were only together for three. He was only using me to get to my father. I’m pretty sure he was cheating on me the entire time, though I only have proof of the last time.”

Tank winced. “Ouch. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “I’m grateful, really. He taught me an important lesson: that I should have followed my gut. My instincts told me that getting involved with a rock star was a mistake, but I didn’t listen.”

“We’re assholes,” Tank said. “And by ‘we,’ I mean men. On behalf of our species, I apologize to you, Ms. Hopkins.”

Melody laughed, and gave Tank an affectionate punch on the arm. “Accepted and appreciated. But that’s exactly why I have to keep things
civil
with Dylan. Deep down inside, I’m just a dumb girl who would get her heart smashed if I let things get too out of hand.”

“I get it,” Tank said. “I wish I could say you were wrong, or that you should give him a chance, but...” He sighed. “Sometimes I think we’re just not cut out for this whole ‘normal life’ thing.”

Melody cocked her head to the side, intrigued by his tone. “Why Tank, is there a young filly who got away?”

“No. I mean, yes, there is. But...” He scrubbed his palms over his face. “Okay, I don’t normally talk about this shit, not to anyone, except for the guys. It might be a huge mistake to tell you now.”

Melody’s eyes widened. “Just spill the beans already,” she said slowly.

“Alright, alright. I have a kid,” Tank said. “She’s thirteen and—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Melody said, flapping her hands in excitement. “Let the first bomb sink in, please. Tank Stanfield has a
daughter
?”

“Just let me get through it, because I come out looking like a total loser. Her mom and I, we were really young when we had her. I’d only met Snake and Rip a few months before that, and we wouldn’t even meet Dylan and Jesper for another year. But I already knew there was something special about the band. Unfortunately, I was also forming a pretty nasty cocaine addiction.”

Melody gave him a comforting smile. “Yet another cliché.”

Tank laughed, as she’d hoped he would. “Yeah. Between the long hours trying to nail down a record label—and then actually getting a deal—I was a wreck. Her mother told me I wasn’t a good role model. She didn’t trust me with our daughter.” He tried to smile, but it was pained. The guilt in his eyes tore at Melody’s heart. “She was really civil about it. And I didn’t even fight her. That’s how messed up I was.”

“You haven’t seen your daughter in...”

“Four years,” Tank said. Melody could practically see the walls he’d built around himself to keep that admission from wrecking him. “I only got sober about a year ago. I send her presents on her birthday and around Christmas, but I wish...” He trailed off.

“You know, if you’re clean now, maybe you could—”

“She hates me,” he said fiercely, interrupting Melody before she could finish. “My old man bailed when I was a kid; he stuck around just long enough to make my mom miserable. I know exactly what I’d have done if he’d walked back into our house, claiming he’d changed.”

“That’s because you’re a dumb, stubborn boy,” Melody joked. “Your daughter? I bet she’s a lot smarter than you. And even though she might be mad at first, if you really wanted to make it up to her, I promise you, Tank, she’d let you.”

He cleared his throat and averted his eyes, but not before she saw the glimmer of moisture he tried so hard to hide. She put her hand on his forearm again and squeezed. “It’s never too late to make something right.”

“Dylan’s a good guy, you know?” Tank said gruffly, getting a grip on his emotions. “He’s a good guy, he’s just had some bad shit happen in his life. We all have.”

“I know. I’ll try to be a little less civil,” Melody promised with a grin, knowing Tank wasn’t just talking about Dylan.

“Appreciated,” Tank said.

They headed back toward the front of the bus together. Tank veered off to return to his bunk for some alone time, and Melody continued on to the common area. As she approached, she saw Dylan having an animated conversation on his phone. It didn’t look like a pleasant exchange. His jaw clenched, and she instantly felt a jolt of attraction. She scowled at her body’s automatic response.

Dylan hung up the phone and flung it down on the table hard enough that Melody heard it crack. He didn’t even seem to notice.
Don’t be civil.

“What, did the test come back positive?” she asked, smiling to take the sting out of her words.
Not civil. Check
.

“Aw, fuck off,” he muttered, stalking back down the hall and disappearing into his bunk.

“Good job, Mel,” she mumbled to herself.

**

“Remember,” Jesper instructed, a burning intensity in his eyes, “smile and say you’re feeling more creative than ever. That you’re happy to be on the road again. No details about Snake, only that we support him and look forward to his return. Laugh off the hazing stuff, and for God’s sake, do
not
answer any questions about who bought the tampons.”

They were in Seattle now, which was one of Melody’s favorite cities. Jesper was prepping them because a hotshot reporter from some local music blog was coming to do a story on the band’s tour. Apparently, she was especially interested in the new group dynamic, now that Melody had come onboard. Jesper was excited. Melody was not.