you just start with a morning kiss?”
“That I can do,” I said.
I lowered my mouth to hers.
I kissed her a few times… then I needed to taste her…
The harder I kissed her, the more she pulled at my shirt.
When she stopped kissing me, her cheeks were red.
“I need to eat and figure out how to survive this hangover,” she said.
“I got a little of everything,” I said. “Including more whiskey.”
She reached for the shot of whiskey and downed it.
I was impressed.
She was beautiful and could almost party like a rock star.
She reached for the coffee and a plate of fruit.
I just stared.
And something hit my heart really hard.
I didn’t want her to leave and go back home.
18
BREE
Liv grabbed my hand and pulled.
“You’ve got to see this,” she said as she ran toward the stage.
She looked ready to run across the stage so I pulled myself back and tried to tear her hand from mine.
“I’m not going out there!” I yelled at her.
On stage I heard the strumming of an acoustic guitar.
This show was massive. Like nothing I’d ever seen.
Not that I hadn’t been to a concert in my life, but I never experienced it from this angle before. To see how the show is set up and what goes into it was amazing. Watching the band get on stage with nobody there to do a sound check… the way they just played music and laughed and then broke out into an argument over which guitar was louder or not…
And then the show itself.
Sab walking the backstage halls, twirling his drumsticks, looking deep in thought.
Getting himself a stiff drink and sitting behind what he called a practice pad and warming up his wrists.
For the first time ever, I blushed a little watching him warm up because I knew what his wrists were capable of. That fast motion… my memory jogging back to the tour bus…
The tour bus.
You. Sab. Sebastian…
A tour bus…
Liv broke up my thoughts by pulling at me again.
“We’re not going on stage!” she yelled.
I took off the brakes and I followed her up the set of metal steps that indeed went to the stage.
It was the side of the stage.
Nobody in the crowd could see us though.
We were hidden by a wall of equipment and speakers.
I saw the silhouettes of the band on stage.
When I looked to the drum kit, it was empty.
Then I spotted Sab.
Taking a drink and grabbing a guitar from someone.
He walked by me and was close enough I could see his face.
He smiled at me.
My knees felt wobbly.
“Look out to the stars,” Liv said.
I turned my head and gasped.
There weren’t really stars in the audience.
But everyone (or at least it seemed like it) held up their phones. Their screens were lit up. Their hands moving side to side as Jay strummed the chords to the new song that had a way of breaking my heart.
“Isn’t it fucking cool?” Liv asked me.
I nodded.
It really was cool.
“This song….,” Nash said as he took a breath. “This song is new to us. This song is for our friend, Mitchy. But this song is for you. This is for anyone who lost someone they loved. Even if you didn’t get along with that person, they still mattered to you. This song is for anyone who ever lost anything. And this song is for anyone who is just lost…”
Nash stepped away from the microphone and the band started to play.
It took a few seconds before my eyes filled with tears.
I didn’t move from my spot for the rest of the show.
I got to experience the band and the crowd all at the same time.
Jay ran end to end on the stage, over and over, with women reaching for him like he was the last bite of food in the world.
Dex had this cool looking walk he did. Playing and strutting along, leaving a trail of screaming women in his path.
Reed played bass and bumped into Nash over and over, both of them laughing when they did.
Nash sang and pointed to random people in the crowd and waved.
And then there was Sab.
The king sitting behind the drum kit.
I had no idea how to describe what it looked like.
I had really never seen him play drums before. At least not like this.
His drum kit was high on the stage, so he got to overlook everything and everyone. When he played, it was a fury of movements. I swore there were times when I thought he had four arms or more.
In between songs,