and say this.” And since there was clearly no stopping him, despite what I feared he was about to say, I let him blurt, “We want you to join the band, Cary.”
Cary didn’t say anything, but he definitely tensed up. I was familiar with the signs by now. Even in this loud, dimly-lit room, I barely had to look at him to know. I could feel his reaction.
“Here’s the deal,” Ash said. “We’re playing our first show in the New Year, with Dirty. Just discussed it with Brody. We’ll be opening up for them at the Pandora Ballroom, just a small, local club show to roll out the new songs, start ironing out the kinks, prepping for tour, and pumping ourselves up. We want you to come join us onstage. If that goes well, we want you to seriously think about coming on tour with us.”
“On tour,” Cary said carefully, like he was actually thinking it over, when I was pretty sure he wasn’t. “Really?” He sounded surprised that they seriously wanted him to do that.
“There’s a reason we haven’t hired another guitarist,” Ash said simply.
“Because you haven’t found the right person,” Cary said firmly.
“Because we found the right person. And we’re waiting for him to realize he wants us as much as we want him.”
I looked at Cary’s face. And I realized how close he already was to needing to get the fuck out of here. It was that fast, how quickly it overwhelmed him. His body was stiff. His jaw was tight. I could practically see the anxiety creeping up, slithering up through his veins like black tendrils of smoke to snuff out everything else.
“Um, hey,” I said. “Didn’t we need to go check that thing?”
When he didn’t respond, I gave his hand a sharp squeeze.
“Cary? That thing?” His eyes flicked to mine and I nodded my head toward the exit.
“Yeah,” he said stiffly. “Let’s go.”
He was already turning away when I said to Ash, “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”
Ash’s eyebrows twisted together as he realized what was happening. “Shit. Taylor. I didn’t mean to—”
I didn’t hear the rest. Cary was tugging me through the crowd. He slid his mask down over his face. I made sure to overtake him, take the lead, and burrow him out of there before anyone else tried to talk to him.
We found Liam just inside the door and he fell in step, escorting us out into the hall.
“Is there a back exit?” I asked him, looking around.
Liam held out his arm, showing me the way as I pulled Cary along—guiding us through the bodies, the lineup of security guys, and down the hall, away from the stairs and the lobby. We pushed through a door into a back stairwell, headed down a flight of stairs and through another door, into a quiet corner of a hallway.
No one was around.
There was a little nook with two armchairs and a table, and I headed for it. We’d just reached it when Cary started shaking.
I raised my hand, gesturing for Liam to fall back. To give us a minute. To give Cary some privacy if he was about to have a panic attack.
“Do you want to sit down?” I asked him. He was hunched over, his hand in his face. “Cary?” I bent over to try to see his face. I slid my arm around his back, holding him close. “Are you okay…?”
He snorted into his hand.
Then he kind of wheezed and coughed, and I slid off his mask. I saw his eyes.
“What the fuck, Cary Clarke. Are you laughing?”
He kind of wheezed into his hand again. “I… can’t…” he choked out.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I started to laugh. “Why are you laughing?”
He wheezed again. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because you’re laughing.”
Then he finally caught his breath and burst out laughing even harder.
I smacked him on the butt with his mask.
Then I fell into one of the armchairs with a shudder and dropped his mask on the table. He was still standing there, his hands on his thighs for support, peering up at me. His face was flushed and he was grinning.
“Christ. I feel like I almost had a panic attack.” I blew out a breath. “Sorry. I don’t mean to make light of it.”
He flopped into the chair across from me and tapped my boot with his shoe to make me meet his eyes. They were kinda sparkling. He looked like he’d just run a marathon or something. He blew out a breath,