Always Page 9

  The laughter died in Justine’s throat. She went silent, knowing perfectly well how this whispered conversation was going down. This girl had something, either drugs or sex, and she wanted to share it with either Ash or Dillon. Maybe both. Any minute they’d disappear for an hour or so, just to show up later, bleary-eyed and freshly-fucked.

  All the liquor she’d drunk abruptly turned sour in her stomach. Justine wanted to go home. Not just back to the hotel, but home, back to LA, and forget these months and these boys had ever happened. She was seconds away from shoving her way out of the booth and out of the noisy bar when Dillon looked to the side and met her eyes. For once, she didn’t try to pretend she didn’t notice or didn’t care. She stared back, willing him, just this once, to say no.

  An emotion she couldn’t name flickered across his face for an instant. Embarrassment, contrition, an apology—she wasn’t sure, and then it was gone again. Ash slapped his shoulder and tilted his head, inviting, leading him away. Dillon paused for a second and then shook his head. She couldn’t hear what he said, but it looked like “Not tonight.”

  Then he turned away and headed back to the booth. The air left Justine’s lungs in a rush. Ash caught up to him a second later. She couldn’t make out the conversation, but it seemed clear Dillon wasn’t up for whatever it was Ash wanted to go do.

  “They’re better when you’re around, you know?” Rocky murmured quietly in her ear, too low for anyone else to hear. She startled and turned to face him.

  “Who? What do you mean?”

  “Ash and Dillon. Ash gets into ten kinds of trouble just walking out the door, and Dillon always goes along with him because… hell, that’s just who they are. The two of them, always. But when you’re around,” Rocky tilted his head towards Dillon, who was weaving through the crowd, making his way back to the table. “He doesn’t always. And if he says no, every once in a while Ash says no, too. So thanks. For what it’s worth.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not doing anything. I don’t control them.” Then she gave a bitter little laugh. “Sometimes I think it would be nice if I did, but no. I can’t make them do anything.”

  “Dillon respects you. They both do. That’s power, even if…” He trailed off, like he wanted to say something else but didn’t want to cross a line. She knew, though. Rocky was smart and observant. He could tell how she felt about Dillon just looking at her face. She was a little embarrassed at her show of weakness, but if anyone were to know, she was glad it was him.

  Finally, she finished his sentence for him. “Even if he never feels for me what I feel for him.”

  He turned to her, searching her face with his surprisingly sharp blue eyes. “He’s—” He shook his head and then took a deep breath. “First, you’re too good for pretty much every loser in this outfit. Second, he cares more for you than maybe you realize. It’s just—”

  She held up a hand to cut him off. “Yeah, I know. This is not the time or place. There’s no room in his life for that right now.”

  He squeezed her shoulders. “Smart girl. You just watch yourself, tough stuff. I don’t want to have to scrape you up off the floor. I will. But I don’t want to.”

  She gave him a weary smile, tired of reassuring everyone that she was okay and could take care of herself. Tired, because it wasn’t true and it was too late. “Don’t you worry about me. You just look out for them.”

  He swiveled his head to look back at Ash, still chatting up the girl, not as ready to give up on whatever escape she offered as Dillon had been. “I’m doing my best. He doesn’t make it easy.”

  Justine wanted to ask him how bad it really was. How close to the edge did Ash go? Was it really under control, just a bunch of boys having fun or were they in real danger? But Dillon slid into the booth next to her and she couldn’t. When Rocky looked back a second later, all his intensity was gone, he was their happy, laid-back friend again.

  “You killed it, just like I knew you would,” he said. He was all smiles and bright eyes, like the conversation with Ash and the mystery girl didn’t just happen two minutes and twenty feet away. Justine wasn’t in the mood to pretend anymore tonight, though.

  “Who’s your new friend?” she asked, tipping her chin up at the girl, still talking to Ash.

  Dillon waved a hand at them, but didn’t look. “Just some girl. A fan. She wanted to hang out.”

  “Huh. Looks like Ash is game.”

  “Ash is always game.”

  “But not you, huh?” She didn’t know what was up with her, why she was pushing this when it was clear Dillon wanted to leave it alone.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Right. Not tonight.”

  All it meant to her was that while he wouldn’t break her heart tonight, it was only a matter of time before he did it again.

  May, 2008

  When she spotted Justine weaving through the crowd, Emily shrieked and started pushing aside people much bigger than she to get to her sister. Justine saw her at the same moment and began rushing towards her, too. They met in the middle, surrounded by the usual backstage hangers-on.

  “You were amazing!” Emily folded her into a fierce hug, rocking her back and forth.

  “Thanks. Did you guys have good seats?”

  “Oh my, God! The best!”

  Their parents had caught up to them by now, being much more polite about forcing their way through the crowd. Emily released her to her mother’s waiting arms.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I am so proud of you,” Justine’s mother hugged her and then leaned back to stroke her hair out of her face. “I cried! I said I wasn’t going to cry and I cried.”

  “She cried,” her father chimed in. “I knew she would.”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  He opened his arms for the next hug. “Hi, baby. You were magnificent.”

  Unexpectedly, Justine felt her eyes well with tears. Over three months on the road cavorting with rock stars and industry bottom-feeders and a hug from her dad was all it took to bring her to tears.

  They were playing San Francisco, which was close enough to Sacramento to feel like a hometown gig for Justine. Her parents had driven in and she got them, along with Emily, seats in the VIP section. It was only the love and support she had from her family that let her be as fearless as she seemed to be out in the world. They were the safe place she could run to when she was tired of being tough.

  They were just discussing driving back to the hotel together for drinks when strong arms closed around her waist and Justine was lifted up off the floor.

  “Hey, sexy girl!” Ash shouted, bouncing her up and down in his arms.

  She slapped at him in annoyance. “Ash! Put me down! These are my parents!”

  In an instant, she was on the ground again and Ash was completely sober. Well, as sober as he could be when he was likely anything but.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. James.”

  Justine laughed. “Jesus, relax. They’re not those kind of parents. Ash, this is my mom, Marietta, and my dad, Tom. Mom and Dad, this is Ash. You saw him perform tonight.”

  Marietta James reached out with both hands to grasp Ash’s, shaking it enthusiastically. “So nice to finally meet you. You were just wonderful.” Marietta was over fifty, but with her wavy blond hair and her thin, bird-like frame, she seemed much younger.

  “Fine performance,” Tom James chimed in. His dark hair was thinning, but Justine’s bright eyes and animated face were inherited from him, as was her impressive height.

  “And this is my sister, Emily.”

  Ash’s eyes flickered with interest. “You have a sister?”

  Justine pinched his arm. “Behave. She’s way too good for you.”

  “I’ll decide that,” Emily laughed, but she gave Ash’s hand nothing more than a casual shake. She’d heard enough about Ash’s backstage antics from Justine to cure any minor celebrity crush she might have once had.

  “Did you all enjoy the show?” Ash asked, putting on his very best mann
ers.

  “We did,” Marietta enthused. “We’re so proud of Justine.”

  Ash smiled broadly at her. “You should be. She’s very talented.”

  “Nice to see more people than me saying so,” Emily said.

  “She’s a genius.” Justine spun around at Dillon’s quiet interjection. He’d appeared behind Ash while the introductions were happening.

  “Oh! Mom and Dad, this is Dillon. Dillon, this is my mom and dad, and this is Emily, my sister.”

  Emily thrust her hand out towards Dillon before her parents could. “Nice to meet you, Dillon. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  Dillon raised his eyebrows at Justine. “Is that so?”

  She grinned and ducked her head.

  “Yeah, seems my sister thinks you’re the one who’s a genius.”

  “Emily!”

  “What? You’re his biggest fan. No harm in him knowing it.”

  Emily cast Dillon a look that held a message, or maybe a warning, if he didn’t know better. But then she smiled and the moment was gone.

  “We were going to head back to the hotel for a nightcap. You boys care to join us?”

  “Dad, I’m sure the guys—”

  Ash slung his arm around Justine’s shoulders, cutting her off. “We would love to, Mr. James.”

  “Good, good. And you just call me Tom. None of that Mr. James business.”

  She turned to Dillon and murmured, “You don’t have to. If you have plans.”

  He smiled at her and tucked his hands in his pockets. “No, it’s good.”

  She smiled back. “Good. Because I want you to come.”

  Half an hour later, they were ensconced in a large red-upholstered booth at the bar in the lobby of her parents’ hotel. Ash was telling a story, a crazy incident with an uptight hotel clerk in Des Moines. It involved a lot of shouting and waving his arms. Emily and her parents were laughing uproariously. Justine and Dillon were more subdued, since they’d actually been there for the traumatic incident of Ash’s underwear and the concierge, and it had been considerably less funny at the time.

  “Your parents are great,” Dillon whispered.

  “Just parents. Nothing so special about them.”

  He turned to look at her. “They’re here for you. And they obviously adore you. It’s pretty special, in my opinion. Rare, too.”

  Justine remembered the little he’d told her about his childhood, how rough it had been. Compared to him, she had to acknowledge her childhood was pretty idyllic. He watched her parents with something like reverence on his face, and it made her heart hurt.

  “So you’re from Sacramento. How did Justine land in LA?” he asked when Ash stopped for breath.

  “Well, Justine always sang,” Marietta began. “She sang before she talked. Remember, Tom, the way she’d sing along to the radio when we were driving in the car? She couldn’t say words yet, so she’d just open her little mouth and make all these sounds like on the radio.”

  “Mom…” Justine groaned.

  “Hush,” Dillon shushed her with a smile. “This is good stuff. So you guys aren’t upset she’s hanging around rock bands all day?”

  Marietta smiled at her daughter, overflowing with pride and love. “It’s where her calling is. You know,” she turned to Dillon and touched his arm, like they were confidants for years. “I’m a school teacher and Tom is an accountant, but we’ve always had a love for the arts.”

  Tom tapped his chest. “Artistic souls. Just happened to be good at math.”

  “We knew both of the girls would be artists,” Marietta went on, casting an indulgent smile at Emily. “When Emily was four, she repainted her entire bedroom with finger paints. The most amazing mural you’ve ever seen.”

  Ash chuckled. “My dad would have killed me if I did that.”

  “Oh, no!” Marietta exclaimed. “She had something to express and that’s how she wanted to do it. That’s when we knew she was an artist. We signed her up for art classes so she could work it out on paper and not the walls. It was all fine then.”

  “And Justine was the singer?” Dillon prodded.

  “Always our little songbird,” Tom said.

  Justine sighed. “Dad.”

  “We knew right from the start where your path would lead.” Then he turned to Dillon. “All through high school, every dime she got she spent on music. She had walls of CDs. She always knew what she wanted, didn’t she, Mare?”

  Justine’s mother nodded. “We knew she wasn’t staying in Sacramento. We weren’t even surprised when she came home in high school and told us she was moving to LA as soon as she graduated. And now look at her!”

  Dillon turned his head, his dark eyes sparking with amusement. “Now look at her.”

  “Our girl is going places,” Tom said with absolute conviction.

  “That’s something we can agree on,” Dillon said. “She certainly will.”

  “This calls for a toast!” Ash shouted. Justine and Dillon exchanged a glance. Everything called for a toast with Ash.

  “I’ll say so!” Tom enthused, lifting his glass.

  Marietta and Emily clinked their glasses.

  “To success,” Tom said.

  “To setting the world on fire!” Ash shouted.

  Justine could see in his eyes that he wasn’t talking about just her.

  Dillon was strumming his guitar and singing in a ridiculous falsetto nasal whine, imitating a boy-band hit all over the radio stations that spring.

  “Oh, hey girl, you know you make me rock this club out—”

  Justine doubled over with laughter. “Oh God, please stop! I’m sorry, Dillon, but I never need to hear you sing about rocking a club out. If you sing ‘put your hands in the air’ next, I swear to God, I’m flinging myself off this bus.”

  He laughed, too and the song filtered away into a finger-picking riff. Parts sounded familiar to her, little phrases and note progressions she recognized from other things he’d been working on while they toured. At this point, listening to him play was like listening to him talk. It was all one language with them.

  Justine loved music as much as Dillon did, but they saw different things in it. She loved it on a deep emotional level. Songs would bring her to tears, lyrics would obsess her, even if she couldn’t always articulate what moved her. She fell in love with the tapestry of a song. But Dillon saw the whole and every nuanced detail that made it brilliant. He could tease the music apart into threads and show her exactly why she loved it.

  The bus hummed along yet another indistinguishable stretch of interstate. They were on their way to Buffalo, or maybe Hartford, or some other city she couldn’t remember right now. It hardly mattered since the venues on the other end were all so similar. Most of the time, they could be anywhere.

  Being on stage, honing the act and her performance in front of enthusiastic, consistent crowds, had been an amazing experience and one she’d always be grateful for. But these moments—on the bus, backstage, in a hotel room—were the ones she really lived for. Right now, Ash, Rocky, and Paolo were crashed out in the bunks, David was away in the back somewhere, and JD and Eddie were playing Halo on the TV up front. It was just Dillon and Justine, as it had been so many times before. They whiled away these hours of tedium listening to music, playing together, working on Dillon’s songs, or just watching TV and bullshitting. It hardly mattered. They were the best hours of her day. And nothing on earth compared to watching Dillon play. His fingers were strong and agile as they moved across the strings, the muscles in his forearms flexing with each movement. He always bent low over the guitar when he played in private, almost one with the instrument.

  “When did you start playing?” she asked absently, throwing an almond in the air and catching it in her mouth.

  He shrugged, not looking up. “Seven, maybe? Eight? I can’t remember.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “Nobody. One of my mom’s boyfriends left a guitar behind when he moved out. Best part of him, fran
kly. I taught myself. Eventually I went back and learned how to read music, so I could write stuff down for the band.”

  “I bet your mom was impressed.”

  He snorted dismissively. “Not really. Probably didn’t even notice I’d learned.”

  “I’m sure it’s—”

  He abruptly cut her off. “Hey, you need to help me with this.”

  Justine knew a diversion when she heard it, and Dillon’s mother was clearly off limits for discussion. “Help you with what?”

  “This chorus thing sucks and I can’t figure it out.”

  “You played that for me yesterday. It sounded great.”

  “No, the harmony thing. I want it to open up at the end with a bunch of voices but it sounds cheesy right now. Like a Disney cartoon.”

  “Like that’s a bad thing.” Dillon scoffed and she kicked at him. “I’ll have you know I can sing all of Beauty and the Beast by heart. But it’s not important right now. Play it for me again.”

  He did, approximating the vocal split with a chord and humming. His songwriting still blew her away, even when she was helping him do it. Half the time she was so busy marveling over what he was doing she forgot she was supposed to be listening and contributing.

  She squinted and cocked her head. “You’re right, it’s too happy. Try D minor there?”

  He played the chord again. “Oh, wait—” he muttered, and then bent low, strumming one and then another dozen chords, each a variation on the one before, each one closer to what he wanted. The last one, the one that finally made him smile, was so poignant that her heart hurt. She swallowed around a lump in her throat and tossed her uneaten handful of almonds in the trash.

  “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “That. What you just wrote. It’s like the whole world’s heartbreak in a guitar chord.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “Totally a compliment. But seriously, I think that’s it. You got it.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded, running a hand through his hair. “It feels good. Hey, I was playing around with those lyrics we were writing last week. Remember the ones? I changed some stuff. See what you think.”