The Farther I Fall (3 page)

He couldn't help but watch her walk away toward the bank of elevators. Next week his brother would be out of the picture, and then Lucas would have twelve weeks to try and get behind that cool, brisk facade and find out more about the woman he'd danced with.

“No, no, no. Bloody hell, you lot. At least try to act like you're loading equipment worth thousands of pounds, hm?” Gwen pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose and took a breath. In theory, she knew how this was supposed to work. Her notion of group travel might involve more helicopters and heavy artillery than vans and planes and costumes, but the principle remained the same: get everyone from point A to point B, and keep them fed and relatively rested, ready to do their jobs. The main difference was that the soldiers she used to work with were trained and expected to follow orders and keep things moving in a straight line. This was . . . not that. The phrase “herding cats” kept coming to mind.

It was seven AM and the flight out of—where were they, Boston?—was at ten. She stepped up to grab the other end of the synthesizer case and slide it into the back of the van. Sally, the merch manager, was wrestling with boxes of T-shirts, CDs, posters, and other bits and bobs of merchandise.

Gwen wished she had something more substantial than a T-shirt and a jacket to ward against the unmistakable bite of autumn. For some reason, she'd thought it would be warmer in the States than in London, but clearly she'd been wrong. The sight of Cathy, the lighting tech, returning laden with paper coffee cups and bags of hopefully edible things was welcome.

“You are an angel,” Gwen said, taking a coffee and a muffin. She ran over the day's schedule in her head. New York was the next stop. After that . . . well, shit. She had it written down somewhere.

“Lucas isn't down yet?” Cathy asked. “We're going to have to leave soon.”

“Oh hell,” Gwen said, checking her watch. “Craig went to get him, fifteen minutes ago? Should I go?”

Cathy laughed. “You'd better. They're probably arguing over which guitar strings Elvis used on
The Ed Sullivan Show
, or something equally vital. Go on. You go fetch our wayward artist and my easily distractible boyfriend and I'll make sure nobody breaks anything.”

Gwen snagged another cup from Cathy and one of the bags. She headed back into the hotel. She passed through the lobby and up the stairs until she reached Lucas's door.

Before she could knock, she heard Craig's voice. “I think you're overreacting. It's going fine.”

“She interrupted sound check last night.” Gwen's ears started to burn at Lucas's words.

“You were an hour late,” Craig said. “She was just trying to look out for the openers—”

“No one looks out for the openers. They're
openers
. I'm the headliner, which means I get to stay on that stage as long as I fucking want.”

It had been a stupid mistake; she knew that now.

“She doesn't have any idea how to handle the theater managers, and she forgot all about the PD yesterday until you reminded her.”

Heat crept down her face and neck. Forgetting to hand out the per diem to the crew had been a nightmare. The PD was how they fed themselves and paid incidental expenses. She was lucky there'd been enough cash from the receipts the night before to cover it.

Lucas went on, “I'm just saying, we need a real tour manager here. We don't need some exec's kid sister tagging along pretending to be in the music business. I'm going to call the office today and tell them to give you your job back.”

“How much leverage do you think you have these days?” Craig lowered his voice and Gwen leaned in to the door to hear. “You overdosed on my watch, Lucas. They're not handing me back the keys. You're lucky they let me stay on as front of house.”

“You're going to be doing the job anyway,” Lucas said bitterly. “She doesn't know what the hell she's doing.”

That arsehole. She maybe didn't have all the details down yet, but after less than a week they'd got everywhere on time and the books were balanced. Gwen looked at her watch. Speaking of on time . . . She took a breath and knocked on the door. “Lucas? We're about loaded up. Are you awake?”

“I'm up.” He sounded like a sullen teenager.

“Have you seen Craig? We need to talk about the setup for tonight.”

The door swung open, barely giving her a chance to step back. Craig stood there, his salt-and-pepper hair already a mess from running his hands through it constantly. “Hey,” he said. Lucas perched on the bed behind him in nothing but a pair of jeans and wet hair. Gwen gave him her brightest smile.

“If I'd known you were both here, I would've brought you both coffee. You can fight over this one,” she said, offering it and the bag of food to Craig. “It's terrible.”

Craig handed them back to Lucas. “Come on, Lucas will be down in a bit.”

“Don't be late,” she called over Craig's shoulder. “You know how I hate it when things run late.”

Craig shut the door and they walked down the hall. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Heard some of that, huh?”

Gwen glanced over at him. “Sam is my younger sister, not the other way round.”

“Shit. I'm sorry he's giving you a hard time,” Craig said. “He's not getting his way right now and that makes him—”

“Petulant? Bratty?” Gwen supplied.

“I was going to say ‘cranky,' but yeah, that works.”

“He doesn't like me much, does he?” Gwen said as they reached the elevator.

“Honestly? He does. I'm waiting for him to start pulling your pigtails on the playground.” Craig caught her around the shoulder and gave her a shake. “You're just lucky I decided I like you. I would've made your life hell.” Gwen shoved him away and laughed.

***

In the van, Lucas took up an entire row, where he was curled up and watching the scenery pass by. The flight from Boston had at least been short. Gwen and Craig were in front of him talking about something dull: logistics, making plans. The others filled out the back rows, laughing and chattering.

By all rights, this forced inactivity, this confinement to a small space with other people, should have been driving him mad. It wasn't that he was the kind of guy who normally craved solitude, but since rehab it was like people were a constant source of irritation. That hadn't happened before. When he'd gone through rehab the first time (and the second time), he came out energized and ready to dive back into his life, which was exactly what he did—all of it, including the drugs.

This time he was more tired, more easily rubbed wrong by people. He tried to think of the change as a good thing.

There'd been a guy in rehab old enough to be Lucas's grandfather—a musician too, but long past washed-up—who'd sat him down before Lucas was released.

He had more than a few harsh truths to impart, and Lucas had listened with as good a grace as he could manage then—which wasn't great. One of the things Tom had said was, “A man like you is never alone. Always someone around to party.” For better or worse, the people surrounding him now weren't there to party, and he didn't know yet how to respond to them.

He turned his attention to Gwen and Craig. They faced each other, deep in conversation, ignoring him. Lucas studied Gwen's profile. She narrowly missed “cute” by virtue of having a long, lovely neck and a strong jawline—but the slight upturn at the end of her nose and the faintest dusting of freckles (he'd bet she hated them) would make people continually underestimate her. He had. For all of his bitching to Craig earlier, she was picking things up faster than he'd expected.

He'd been an ass this morning, and she'd overheard it. The embarrassment of it pricked at him, making him even more irritable.

“When we get to D.C. on Tuesday, Marshall is going to try and skim as much as he can off the take. He always does,” Craig said. “And for the love of Christ, don't let him give you a check. Cash only.”

“Bad?” asked Gwen. Her short, sensible nails pried at the upholstery on the back of the seat. There was a slight tremor in her left hand that Lucas hadn't noticed before.

“Rubber wishes it could bounce that high,” Craig said. “We'd get paid eventually, but better to avoid the annoyance.”

“Right. Anything else I should know about?”

“Yeah.” Craig raised his voice enough to make it clear he wasn't speaking to Gwen alone. “Watch out for that bastard behind us. When he's got that look on his face, it means he's about to cause trouble.”

Lucas pulled his attention away from Gwen to Craig. “What look? This is my face.”

“Exactly,” Craig said, and Gwen laughed. Lucas hated Craig right then, for being able to make her laugh.

“Honestly, I was only trying to learn something about Sergeant Tennison,” Lucas said.

“Gwen,” she said. “How many times do I need to tell you?” She smiled blandly, and God he wished he had a way past the mask, to see something of the real her. “What would you like to know?”

“Well, I know the basics,” Lucas said, settling back against the bench seat. “Sergeant Gwen H. Tennison, age thirty-f—or maybe I shouldn't say. You were a medic, so you've got some medical training, but for some reason, you didn't go to medical school. Grades not good enough? Or maybe you felt a rush of patriotism and wanted to serve Queen and country.” Being charming was so much easier when he was high. Sober, he was an asshole.

Gwen glanced at Craig, then turned back to Lucas. Her eyes were flint-gray and infinitely patient, as if she'd listen to him for ages without showing him a thing. She wore the same faint hint of a smile, or maybe a suggestion of bared teeth. “I could dig up my transcripts for you, if you'd like.”

Lucas smiled a slow, lazy smile. “That's not necessary. You won't be removing my appendix anytime soon, so I couldn't care less about your academic qualifications.”

“What do you care about, then?” Gwen asked.

Lucas leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I care about the woman who was willing to practically fuck me in the middle of a dance floor. Where did she go, Gwen?” He took some satisfaction in the way she blushed.

“She's a smart girl,” Gwen said. “She figured out if you spend too long around an arsehole, sooner or later you're going to get shat on.”

A chorus of snickers came from behind him, and he flushed. “Well, if that's what you're into. I'm not one to judge.” She still had on the same infuriatingly calm smile, and he hadn't so much as put a scratch on her surface veneer. He sat back and folded his arms, knowing he was retreating and hating it.

Who are you really?
He would find out, if it took the rest of the tour to do it.

***

From the moment Gwen's feet hit the pavement in New York, she was running. Carrying equipment, helping set up equipment, making sure the theater had what they needed . . . she had more than one occasion to be grateful for the meticulous lists that Craig had given her the first day.

Sally, the merch manager, didn't have enough space for her tables. The theater manager thought the contract rider to provide food in the green room meant a bag of pretzels and some beer. By four PM, Gwen was wishing she'd taken a nap on the plane. Barring that, she was grateful to take a long enough break to watch part of Lucas's sound check.

She almost didn't recognize Lucas in the man standing behind the ridiculously complicated setup of synthesizers, guitar, drum machines, and computers. He was relaxed. He joked with the house engineer on monitors and with Craig out in the sound booth as they worked to get the levels right. This was the third time she'd seen it, but each time Gwen was surprised again at the difference between offstage Lucas and onstage Lucas. Damned if he wasn't capable of being charming when he felt like it.

Gwen heard laughter from the stage and looked out to see Lucas picking up the guitar—not something he used often in the show.

“Not again. One of these days she's going to kill you,” Craig said over the PA.

Lucas grinned, rare and mischievous. He fiddled with the tuning, then started playing a blues riff Gwen would have known anywhere, but never would have expected to hear from him. He vamped for a few bars, then came in with the lyrics to Wilson Pickett's “Mustang Sally.” Gwen folded her arms and leaned against the side of the proscenium arch with a smile. His usual music, the type that made him famous, didn't show off his voice the way this did. Bluesy and a little smoky, low enough to make her feel it in her belly—she could listen to this all day. And watching him play guitar was almost obscene. The way his forearms flexed as he played made her mouth go dry. Then one of the doors to the lobby opened, and Gwen realized who the “she” in question was and laughed.

Sally didn't bother entering the theater all the way; she stuck her upper body through the door long enough to give the stage the bird. Lucas's response was to dirty up the song even more, complete with a few unmistakable groans that had Gwen somewhere between laughing and squirming.

“You'd think she'd stop reacting by now.” Cathy's voice behind her made her jump.

“Does he do this a lot?” Gwen tried to keep her eyes on Lucas while still talking.

“One of Lucas's old bandmates had a thing for Sally. One night after a show he, uh, tried to impress her with that song.” Cathy shook her head. “It got pretty X-rated, and she wasn't amused. Problem was, neither of them knew we could all hear them.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. So now it's kind of a joke.” Cathy grinned. “Well, for everybody except Sally.”

Lucas had moved on to one of his more traditional numbers, and Gwen was able to pull her attention away. “So how
do
you guys manage to have . . . well, any kind of life really, but especially a love life? Um, if that's not too personal.”

“A lot of us don't,” Cathy said. “Come on, I need to go up and check the rigging upstairs. We'll talk as I go.”

Gwen followed her up to the catwalk that stretched across the stage and stood by as she made some adjustments.