Heartstrings (14 page)

C
al was
a poor judge given his limited experience on the Sinsationals’ roster, but he thought the crowd seemed all right. They were appropriately enthusiastic and loud. The band yucked it up in equal measure. Blake was in rare form, bringing up the fake bar fight and his shiner again. They played some deeper cuts from their first EP, the only recording Cal had worked on.

And, well, playing lead guitar in a band that regularly sold out arenas? That was cool. Cool enough that Cal let it go to his head, just this once.

The lights went down on the final song of their set, the crowd roaring eagerly. The Sinsationals filed offstage and into the green room for a quick chug of water and a sweat-mop. Blake shed his jacket. Erica shed her scarf. They laughed like nervous comrades in the trenches after the bombs had quieted. They’d made it through.

And they returned for their encore, climbing back onto the stage to the tune of the crowd shouting
one more song, one more song
, the chant driving into Cal’s very bones.

Blake settled his banjo into place for the encore, twanging out a few slow and rattly notes. He wobbled the banjo back and forth, vibrating the tone ring, drawing it out.

Cal couldn’t wait for the encore. The song was an old favorite, a real rip-roaring rendition of an old Hazlewood and Sinatra tune that nobody ever expected.

Plucking out a few low notes on the banjo, accompanied by a gentle rhythm on cymbals only from Carlo, Blake leaned in toward the mic and sang:

“Strawberries, cherries, and an angel’s kiss in spring,

My summer wine is really made from all these things.”

The band kicked into the melody proper, which marched along slow and steady, Cal taking over on rhythm guitar. Zak’s lead guitar jangled pleasantly, evoking country songs of old, the sort you just couldn’t hear live anymore without really trying.

They played “Summer Wine” in its entirety, Blake singing Nancy Sinatra’s part while Erica sang Lee Hazlewood’s. The gender-swapped version not only suited her velvety alto voice, but it made for a hell of a gimmick.

The song was all aching seduction and longing, yet upbeat enough that it made a proper show closer. Cal loved the old chug-chug rhythm of the classics. Though his guitar part was simplistic, he didn’t mind at all.

The crowd adored it, too.

The band joined onstage for a final bow. Cal tossed his pick into the stands. Someone threw a hat onstage as they were walking by and Blake picked it up, depositing it with some ceremony atop Carlo’s bald head.

Carlo tipped his hat to the crowd and wagged his eyebrows.

In the green room, they breathed.

* * *

T
heir moment
of relief was fleeting.

Palmer stepped into the green room a couple of minutes later, while everyone was still brimming with congratulatory backslaps and cracking open fresh beers and laughing.

Cal watched Palmer pull Blake aside, addressing him in a low voice. Blake followed the hefty man out into the hallway. The door shut.

Someone shoved a beer into Cal’s hand. He grinned and sought out Zak, seeking a bottle-clink to celebrate the grand finale of their first gig together. Zak’s shirt was soaked almost entirely through with sweat. Expensive imported ale all the way from Juneau be damned, he was chugging it.

“I can’t believe I did that,” he said after shotgunning an entire beer. “You know—you know why I do what I do?”

Cal grabbed him another beer and took the empty from his hands. He deserved to celebrate.

“Why’s that?”

“Because of the
stage fright
, dude.”

“Need a change of pants?” Lily said, grinning broadly.

Zak shoved her with one shoulder. She shoved back. A side door opened and gradually, the room began to fill with non-Sinsationals. Cal, in-between beers, spotted members of the opening band, a couple venue staff, and—oh God, best behavior—a student reporter.

Why wasn’t Blake back yet?

Concern eating into his good mood, Cal extricated himself before anyone could entangle him in lengthy introductions. He squeezed out of the same door Blake had disappeared through.

The hallway was empty, but he heard voices down it. Walking slowly, ignoring the rising worry in his throat as best he could, Cal stopped outside a small office. The door was open. Palmer and Cal stood just inside it, Patty further into the back. She was speaking rapidly into a phone.

“This is bullshit,” Blake snarled.

The desperate, almost crazed note in Blake’s voice made up Cal’s mind for him. He stepped inside without announcing himself.

Palmer tried to say something, possibly to object to his presence there, but Blake put up a hand.

“It’s all right,” Blake said. Then: “Cal. Shit. You were amazing. I’m so sorry.”

Blake’s eyes were red around the edges. The swollen bit of his eye socket looked worse than ever. And his shoulders were up like the hackles on a dog’s back. Something was up.

“It’s Rhett,” Blake said, answering Cal’s wordless question. “He faxed us a fucking cease and desist.”

“That’s not what the document’s actually called—” Palmer started.

“I know that. But it’s the easiest way to explain it.”

Blake uncrumpled a sheet of paper that Cal hadn’t even noticed he’d been clenching. He smoothed it out and turned it face-up so that Cal could read it over.

The sheet had definitely been sent via fax machine, judging by the poor quality printout. A letterhead with a lion-face logo and the text
Smalls, Koch, and Perrine
adorned the top. The text was short and sweet, written in plain language rather than confusing legalese. Cal skimmed it.

Rhett Ballard, on behalf of Smoky Mountain Publishing, was demanding via these lawyers that the Sinsationals pay statutory royalties for any songs performed that belonged to the Smoky Mountain catalog. The letter promised an attached list of intellectual property, which Cal just assumed nobody had bothered to show him. The letter’s closing paragraph informed the reader that these royalty payments included performances on the current date and that Mr. Ballard would be seeking to sue the Sinsationals’ management for breach of contract.

“Can he even do all this?” Cal wasn’t interested in what-ifs. He aimed the question at Palmer point-blank.

“Some of it, no. Some of it, yes. I’m no lawyer, but I’ve forwarded a copy to our team. They’re burning the midnight oil.”

Cal spoke slow and calm, for Blake’s benefit.

“All right. Assuming it all holds up and we owe him royalties for tonight’s show... I mean, I don’t know how you even calculate that. Can we afford that?”

Palmer actually laughed.

“You have no idea how much money this tour has made. Our coffers are pretty stocked.”

Cal turned to Blake, slowly curling one of his hands around Blake’s forearm. The muscle beneath his fingers twitched and trembled. Blake looked like a deer in headlights. Scared. Petrified. He barely even reacted to Cal’s touch.

“Blake,” Cal said, squeezing. “It’s all right. Even if his ridiculous demand isn’t just an empty threat,
we can afford it
.”

More than anything, Cal just wanted Blake to understand that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. He just had to hold on and wait for the professionals to handle it.

“I’ve. I. I can’t.” Blake stuttered, wrenching his arm free of Cal’s grip. “I’ve gotta get some air. I can’t do this. Not now. Not anymore.”

“Blake—” Cal and Palmer said in unison. But Blake was already on his way out the door.

Cal hurried after him. He heard Palmer speak to his back:

“Stay with him.”

And under his breath, so low that Palmer probably didn’t even hear, Cal murmured, “Of course.”

B
lake thought he needed air
, but after he got air, he still didn’t feel any better. Gulping down cool lungfuls of the desert night in the parking lot didn’t alleviate the viselike grip around his chest.

Lily texted him, something about an after-party.

Getting black-the-fuck-out drunk seemed like as good a coping mechanism as any.

It was official. The guillotine blade was crashing down. He’d lost his handle on his band for good. All that remained now was for Rhett and his legal team to pick over the Sinsationals’ bones like vultures. Because Rhett was right. The Sinsationals as the world knew them were nothing without him. His guitar, his songwriting, his publishing, two albums of material.

Blake took a cab to the address Lily sent: a big, wrought-iron-fronted monstrosity named The Forge
.
He didn’t bother to change from his concert attire, didn’t bother to see if anyone from the band was even there yet. Blake wasn’t the type to take needless risks—not with his life, his safety, his sexual health—but he wanted to get plastered in anonymity and just
give up
for a while.

The interior of the club was done up like some sort of borderline goth industrial outfit, caged panels and metal latticework and heavier music than he was used to. An interesting choice for a country band after-party. But Blake appreciated Lily’s handiwork there: they weren’t likely to be recognized. And if they were, they wouldn’t be fawned over.

It was too early for there to be much of a line outside and as such the inside was still sparsely populated. Blake approached the heavy wooden bar at a pace he hoped didn’t telegraph
get me wrecked please
desperation. When it came time to order, he went for the mezcal and opened up a tab.

A group of women in varying shades of sequins were clustered all together down one end of the bar. A single older guy in all black sat between them and Blake. Apart from that, most of the action was taking place at the private tables and on the dance floor toward the back.

Blake relished the aloneness and took a sip of his drink, alternatingly smoky and biting. He worked his way through two short glasses of it in a hurry.

The buzz came on quick, enough to take the edge off the clenching sensation in his chest. Blake felt like there was a black hole opening inside him, a void torn open in his chest, some part of him irreparably damaged. Losing the band was losing everything.

Even if his lawyers fought off Rhett’s demand for royalties, there was no coming back from this. Rhett was gone for good. As much as Blake wanted to celebrate that—especially for Erica’s sake—he couldn’t stop replaying Rhett’s words from earlier that afternoon.

The band was nothing without him.

Blake’s little house of cards was toppling.

Midway through his third glass of mezcal, someone took the stool beside him. Blake knew this meant incoming conversation, because the bar was flush with empty seats.

She was pretty. Prettier than he was expecting. The woman who sat next to him had bright red hair in an undercut style, the long strands parted sideways to reveal the shaved left side of her head. Unlike a lot of the other women Blake had passed on his way in, she wore pants. Or leggings, rather, skin-tight as they were.

“Pardon my intrusion,” she said with a slow-spreading smile. “But you look miserable.”

“I feel miserable,” Blake said. He wasn’t feeling low enough to spit in her face and scream at her to fuck off. And the mezcal had warmed him up a little. Life was still awful, but it wasn’t awful enough to ruin a stranger’s day over.

“Care to talk about it?”

Blake paused, mulling the question over.

“I don’t know?” he said. Honesty was the best policy, right?

“I’m Kat.”

“Blake.”

They didn’t shake hands or anything, but he quirked a little smile at her. She leaned forward on her stool, propping an elbow on the bar and then leaning her entire body weight onto it. Blake could see the contours of muscle along her arms, revealed by her sleeveless top. Between her lithely athletic body and the smoky makeup she wore, the Blake that did not belong to Cal would have been quite taken.

But since Cal was back in the picture, instead Blake just thought of her as
pretty cool looking.
Which was a sign he was likely growing drunk.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Kat said. “But I feel like I need to tell you a joke or something.”

“I like jokes.” Blake gulped down the last of his drink, the mesquite aftertaste lingering on his tongue.

Down on the dance floor, the song faded out. The track that replaced it thundered loudly through the speakers, reverberating in Blake’s sternum. He liked it, even if he couldn’t place the artist.

“Okay, okay. I’ve got one.” Kat raised her voice over the music, leaning in closer to Blake for volume’s sake.

“Hit me with your best shot,” Blake told her. He motioned to the bartender for another mezcal.

“Why didn’t the lifeguard save the hippy when he was drowning?”

“The
what?
” Blake struggled to hear her over the music.

“The hippy! There’s a hippy that’s drowning in the ocean! Why doesn’t the lifeguard save him?”

Blake blinked once, hard, and burst out laughing. He hadn’t even heard the punchline yet, but the premise itself was so ridiculous he couldn’t handle it.

“Why?” he managed to ask once he’d gotten a handle on himself.

Kat’s deep red lips split with a wide smile. She lifted her glass to him.

“Because he was
too far out, maaaaan.
”

Blake was sure that at some point in his life, he must have heard a joke that was stupider. But he couldn’t place it. And despite the overwhelming stupidity, God damn it was funny. He heaved out a laugh so hard that he had to steady himself on the bartop, planting a hand down. Kat, startled by his reaction, laughed along with him.

Gulping down a nip from his drink, Blake shook his head.

“That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard!”

Yet he was still laughing.

In fact, he was still laughing even as someone sat down on the other side of him, clearing their throat pissily. Blake spun, ready to tell whoever it was to fuck the fuck off, but found himself face to face with Cal, of all people. Which didn’t make any sense.
How did Cal even get here? This totally isn’t his kind of bar,
Blake thought dizzily.

And Cal did not look as happy as Blake felt.

“This guy bothering you?” Kat asked from over his shoulder. Blake was tempted to reply in the affirmative, but even at his drunkest and least happy, he’d never do that to Cal. And he wasn’t halfway to drunkest yet.

“No, he’s my boyfriend,” he said instead. Kat sat up straight, blinking rapidly.

Cal, meanwhile, looked like Blake had just slapped him across the face.

“We... we should talk,” Cal said when he’d recovered himself. Blake tried to figure out the look in his eye, that crease in his brow, the way his mouth had gone all tight around the edges. He couldn’t tell if Cal looked pissed or not. Maybe he was more than just a little buzzed.

“Sure,” he said. “Have a seat.”

Cal looked past Blake at Kat, who had since turned away and ordered another drink.

“Alone.”

Sighing theatrically, Blake downed the last of his glass and set it down. He rose from his stool without a wobble in his step, still level on his feet in spite of the pleasant buzz in his brain. Cal watched him for a moment, then nodded, apparently satisfied in his sobriety.

“Come on,” Cal said. “There’s gotta be a smoker’s patio or something.”

As Cal grabbed his wrist and led him off, Blake turned a wave in parting to Kat, who was watching their exchange with a mildly bemused look.

“Nice meeting you!” Blake called while Cal dragged him away.