A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (10 page)

“Jesper,” Rip said with an apologetic tone.

“Why didn’t Tank make it?” Dylan whined. They all knew Tank’s hangover cures went down the easiest. Jesper’s worked faster, but they tasted like turpentine with a Tabasco kicker.

“Because sound check is in an hour,” Tank said. “You don’t have time to gently ease back into this world.”

It took a moment for the words to make sense in Dylan’s brain. “You mean tomorrow’s sound check?” he asked slowly. “Seattle?”

“Seattle,” Rip said, speaking slowly, as if Dylan had a traumatic brain injury.
And it kind of feels like I do
. “You, ah...you went on quite a bender.”

Dylan scrubbed his face. The little gnome clashed a pair of cymbals together. “Why did I...”

Then everything came back in a rush. The sudden, stabbing pain in his ribcage put the gnome’s attempts at torture to shame.

Emma.

Tears pricked at Dylan’s vision and he blinked them back frantically. He remembered the phone call, the tears in his sister’s voice, the way she’d begged him not to cut the tour short to come, not yet, because cutting the tour short meant the worst was upon them, and she wasn’t prepared for the worst, not really. Neither was Dylan. He’d never been good with reality; he’d just gotten better at avoiding it.

“Shit,” Dylan said, realization washing over him. “The interview.”

Jesper popped his head inside the bunk. Dylan now had three band mates staring down at him, making him feel like some kind of animal on exhibit at the zoo.

“You owe Melody a new car,” Jesper informed him.

“What? Why?” Dylan tried to remember why on earth he would possibly owe Melody a car, but it was all a blank.

“Because she saved your ass,” Jesper said.

“Our collective ass,” Tank added.

“If you go down, so do the rest of us,” Rip agreed.

“Why was I going down?” Dylan asked.

“Dude,” Rip said gravely. 

“
Dude,
” Tank repeated with more emphasis. “You had a full-blown nuclear rock star meltdown.”

Dylan automatically checked the top of his head.

“Relax, Samson,” Rip snickered. “You didn’t go Britney Spears. Your beautiful mane is safe.”

Jesper glared at him. “But you did set your old guitar on fire.”

Gasping, Dylan looked around, as if the guitar in question would magically appear. “Is it...gone?” Even the thought of that hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. Why would he set the one material possession he cherished above all others on fire?

“Melody saved it,” Jesper said. “She burned her hand in the process.”

“Shit,” Dylan muttered. She was a bass player. Her hands needed to be in top condition, and she’d had to put herself at risk because he was a drunken idiot.

“That’s not why you owe her, though,” Tank said. “I mean, it’s
a
reason, but it’s not
the
reason.”

“What else did I do?” Dylan asked, feeling dread flooding through his stomach. They all knew how he felt about that guitar. If there was something he should be more concerned with, Dylan was terrified to know what it was. 

“You broke a window on the bus,” Tank said. “We have to spend a few extra hours in Seattle getting it replaced, which means we’ll have less than an hour to do sound check in Boise.”

“Is that why my elbow hurts like hell?”

Tank nodded.

Well, that didn’t sound too bad. They had the set list for the show pretty refined, and though Dylan was reluctant to admit it, Melody added something extra to every damn song and knew all of them like the back of her hand.

Unfortunately, Tank wasn’t finished.

“Oh, and you took off all your clothes. And the reporter got a picture. Not exactly the kind of shot you want someone seeing in a blog,
especially
if that someone is Hop.”

Dylan winced. “So, uh...what exactly did Melody do to save my ass?” he asked. She must have offered to sell the reporter her first born—and the reporter had probably turned her down, because a naked rock star setting fire to his favorite guitar was exactly the kind of tale that printed money for the teller.

“You should read this,” Jesper said quietly, handing Dylan his tablet.

The headline read:
Girls Gone Wild Over Ian Humphries?

The words swam before Dylan’s eyes—it was quite a lengthy article. He blinked and shook his head to clear it, focusing on the larger sidebar quotes instead:

“I was young and stupid, and he was older and bad for me. I almost lost myself in him.”

“Serena decided she wanted him, and Serena always gets what she wants.”

“I don’t care that she stole Ian. I care that she stole my band.”

“Hop already hired a publicist for us,” Rip said. “Right after he tore her a new one.”

“What?” Dylan asked. “Why?”

“Because she didn’t tell him why she gave this interview, dumbass,” Tank said. “I know you’re hungover, but keep up, man.”

Dylan took a huge swig of Jesper’s awful turpentine remedy, shuddering as it burned its way down his throat and into his belly. Of course, her father knew that Melody wasn’t the sort of trash-talking, publicity-seeking person who would happily provide a juicy story like this to the press. She had bartered the story to the reporter...so that the reporter would give up the story of Dylan’s drunken-asshole antics.

He sighed and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So what you’re saying is, she risked her fucking playing hand to save my guitar, aired her dirty laundry to save what little remains of the band’s image, and took a tongue lashing from her dad to save
me
?”

“In a nutshell,” Tank concluded.

Dylan sighed. “I’m fucked.”

**

After rushing to make it to sound check on time, the theater told them that the fire department was insisting on a pre-concert walkthrough. Since they had an extra hour to kill, and the bus window Dylan had broken was still undergoing repairs, they had settled into the backstage green room to kill time.

Rip was on his laptop, surfing the band’s official website, logging into the chat room anonymously to troll fans and haters alike. Tank was using his free time to catch up on
American Idol.
Melody had politely asked him to turn it down, and he had responded by cranking the volume way up. Dylan had offered her a smile of commiseration, but she’d seemed wary of the gesture. And he couldn’t say that he blamed her for that.

He’d been a massive prick from the moment she’d come onboard, and he’d behaved like such a drunken jackass last night, that he wouldn’t be surprised if she was plotting to quit the band. He had given her zero reasons to believe he’s anything other than an asshole so he’d have to prove himself to her. He would be less of an insensitive dick even if it killed him.

He glanced down at his phone, where he had pulled up the blog article, and started reading again. It was almost addictive, looking at Melody’s thoughts. He was studying her, figuring out what made her tick—but unlike the women he’d studied in the past, he wasn’t doing it with the intent of getting in her pants. Well, he wasn’t doing it for
only
that intent.

As he read, the shadow of a song began materializing within him, something sweet and sour with a killer melody...but it was just a nebulous idea, and its details eluded him. The more he read, the more Dylan found—much to his surprise—that he really wanted to
know
her. He wanted to know Hop’s daughter, the awesome bass player, the amazing woman who had put herself on the line just to save a bunch of guys who’d treated her like crap. He wanted to know why she put a splash of color in her hair, and he wanted to know what the hell she was doing right now.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, brain-to-mouth filter clearly offline.

She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Knitting,” she said simply. So she was—she sat quietly, her hands working to create something from a ball of yarn that sat in her lap.

“Isn’t that something little old ladies do?” he continued. So much for his vow to be less of an insensitive dick.

“Yo, some asswipe in Austin says we’re the West Coast’s answer to Bon Jovi,” Rip announced. “I’m explaining to him all the reasons he’s wrong.”

“Bon Jovi’s a good band,” Tank noted. “Aw, Jesus, they’re gonna vote Tanya off tonight. Son of a bitch, she’s the only idiot in the whole competition who can hit an F-sharp.”

“I’m not knocking Bon Jovi. They’re great,” Rip conceded. “But comparing us to them is like comparing Metallica to the Beatles.”

“That comparison is sacrilegious,” Melody told him.

“Then Lennon would have loved it,” Rip argued back. “What should I tell this idiot?”

“Stop arguing with fans,” Dylan moaned. “I don’t know what’s worse, when you pick on the trolls or pick up the fan girls.”

“You’re just bitter you didn’t think of it first,” Rip boasted. “I know! I’ll post that there’s a leak of our new album on the Internet. They’ll waste hours trying to find it.”

Dylan flinched, but no one saw him, wrapped up as they were with their television shows and Internet chat rooms. No one except old eagle eye with the knitting needles, of course.

“You okay
?” she mouthed. That simple gesture was so sweet; she was so aware of his desire to keep his humiliation quiet. Dylan felt something inside his chest break a little, and his breath caught in a strange, exhilarating new way. He couldn’t speak, but nodded to her slightly, holding her gaze until she returned it to the red and purple yarn she was knitting.

Even though Rip was using the potential of their new album to screw with people online, Dylan wasn’t sure there would
be
a new album, not at the rate he was writing. He had his songwriting notebook out and open, the empty pages taunting him.

“Hey, Grandma, you do know you can buy sweaters now, right?” Tank said, noticing what Melody was doing.

“Hey, little girl, you do know you’re not
American Idol’s
target demo, right?” she shot back.

“I could have won this thing if we hadn’t gotten our record deal,” Tank bragged.

Melody’s eyes widened, excitement coloring her cheeks. “Please. Please tell me you auditioned for
American Idol
and that there is footage of this somewhere.”

“Yes and yes,” Dylan confirmed.

“Oh my God. I need to see this,” Melody said gravely.

Grateful to be distracted from all the songwriting he wasn’t doing, Dylan whipped out his phone and pulled up his videos.

“Aw, man,” Tank whined, “you’ve still got it?”

“Dude, I have hard copies in my apartment and backups saved to the Cloud,” Dylan said. He offered his phone to Melody. “Enjoy.”

She picked up her knitting supplies and transplanted herself onto the couch next to Dylan, grabbing the phone excitedly. She was so close. He took the opportunity to sniff her hair—he hoped he was covert enough that no one noticed him doing so—and sighed. Coconuts and pineapple, just like that toxic green drink she’d spilled on him the night they’d met. Melody was tropical beaches and fresh fruit, and miles of smooth, creamy skin just begging to be touched—

“Ohmygod, you’re singing Foreigner,” Melody squealed, and Dylan’s attention was drawn back to his phone. On the screen, a much younger Tank, pre-gym membership, was belting out Foreigner’s most famous ballad, assuring the world that he wanted to know what love is.

“I’m telling the guys on the forum that’s Tank’s favorite guilty pleasure song,” Rip said, fingers flying across the keyboard.

“I hate you all,” Tank moaned.

Melody grinned at him. “You won’t say that when you’re rocking the most kick-ass hand-knitted hat and scarf set in all of rock ‘n roll.”

“The words ‘hand-knitted hat and scarf set’ do not belong in the same sentence as ‘all of rock ‘n roll’,” Dylan observed.

“Seconded,” Rip agreed, with much more bite in his tone than was strictly necessary.

“You guys suck,” Melody said, wincing as a knitting needle grazed one of her burnt fingers.

Dylan felt like a jerk for the tenth time that day. “Are
you
okay?” he asked her quietly.

She smiled at him. “I’m fine. I just have to be more careful. I’m still sort of clumsy with the needles.” She nodded her head at his arm. “What about you?”

“Same,” he said. “Look, I’m really sorry—”

“It’s fine,” she said, letting him off the hook with an easy kindness that Dylan envied. “We’re both walking wounded.” She looked at him carefully, as if deciding how far she wanted to push her luck. “You seemed upset yesterday on the phone,” she probed gently.

He had to tell them. He knew he had to tell the guys what was going on (they loved Emma, too; she was the unofficial band mascot), just in case…in case something...

“Yeah. I talked to Grace,” he said quietly. All of a sudden the clacking of the keyboard stopped, and
American Idol
went silent.

“Who’s Grace?” Melody asked slowly.

“My sister,” Dylan said. “My niece is…sick.”

“Sick?” Melody repeated. He could see the same expression in her eyes that he saw in everyone’s when he told them. There was the hope that Emma just had a cold, the certainty that it must just be a simple seasonal bug.

“A rare heart defect,” he confirmed, watching the sadness settle over her, dimming her bright green eyes as her heart went out to a little girl she didn’t even know. There was another painful crack in his chest. “She, ah, isn’t doing well.” He looked up at Tank and Rip. The worry on their faces was only a fraction of what Dylan felt.

“Is she…?”

Dylan didn’t let Tank finish the question. “She’s gonna be fine,” he said, even though Grace hadn’t said anything like that over the phone.
You might want to prepare yourself,
was what she’d actually said, with enviable fortitude in her voice. She was so unlike Dylan, so much stronger than he was. Grace had practically raised him, even though she’d only been three years older.

“How old is your niece?” Melody asked.

“Eight,” Dylan said, his voice breaking. Eight years old. It wasn’t fair. An eight-year-old little girl might not live to see her ninth birthday, yet assholes like him and Snake got to make one terrible decision after another, seemingly without consequence. Every time he thought about Emma, who struggled just to breathe at times, he got mad. He was mad at himself for being so far away from the only family he cared about; he was mad at the doctors, for having no answers; and he was mad at God, for being so heartless.