Running with Scissors (7 page)

or not, this was madness. They were performing tomorrow

night. A little over twenty-four hours from now, they’d

be taking the stage in Denver, playing for a crowd that was

already impatient for Running with Scissors to get the fuck

through their set so they could see Schadenfreude like they’d

paid through the nose to do.

Jude rested his bass on his leg and positioned his hand on

the neck. He absently warmed up, plucking his way through

a few scales. The medical tape was gone now, revealing raw

fingertips, but they didn’t seem to hinder his ability to play.

Shiloh handed him a tattered page. “Here’s the set list for

tomorrow night. Where do you want to start?”

Jude’s lips quirked as he scanned the list. “The bass line for

‘I Never’ was pretty complicated, wasn’t it?”

“You tell me.” Shiloh shrugged. “I’m just a lowly singer,

remember?”

Jude laughed. “All right. Let’s start with that one.

Everything else is fairly simple, if memory serves.” He handed

the list back to her. “I don’t suppose you’ve got recordings, do you?”

“I have them on my phone.” She pulled her iPhone out of

her pocket. “Everything we ever recorded.”

“Good. Could you play ‘I Never’ for me?”

She cued up the song, turned the volume to max, and

hit Play.

As the song started, no one spoke. Eyes closed, Jude

bobbed his head and tapped his foot in time with the

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music. No, that wasn’t right. His chin dipped and his fingers

drummed in time with the bass line, but his foot tapped in

time with the percussion.

When the track was almost over, Jude put his fingers on

the strings. Without opening his eyes, he said, “Play it once

more?”

Shiloh restarted the track.

This time, Jude played along. At first, his fingers skimmed

over the strings but only grazed them, not drawing a sound

from the bass beyond the faintest hiss of skin over steel.

Then he actually started playing, and almost immediately

fell into perfect sync with the track. His tone, his tempo—it

blended perfectly. Even when he screwed up a note once,

it was subtle, and Jude recovered so quickly that A.J. wondered if he’d imagined the slip.

“Stop the track,” Jude murmured.

Shiloh pressed Pause, and the music stopped.

Except it didn’t. Jude kept playing, and it was as if

everything on the MP3 had shut off but the bass line.

Then he too stopped. “Okay. I think I’ve got it.”

“You think?” Shiloh laughed. “I don’t know. You want to

try it a few more times to make the rest of us feel better?”

Jude chuckled. “Let’s see how the set goes, and we’ll work

on whichever ones need it.”

Each piece was the same routine. Jude listened to the

track. Then he played alongside it. Then he played alone. And

every fucking time, he nailed it. A.J. had heard the stories of Jude as a musician, and seeing—and hearing—was definitely

believing.

Once Jude had been through the entire set list, he went

through it again. This time Richie joined in, and A.J. tapped

out the percussion on the table. It wasn’t perfect, but he was

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quickly becoming convinced that it would be enough for

Jude to learn the piece and hold his own onstage. A few more

hours of this—assuming Jude’s hands could take it—and he’d

be golden.

All the while, Connor watched silently from the sidelines.

His expression was neutral, his gaze shifting from his coffee

cup to his bandmates to something outside. He was difficult

to read, but at least he didn’t seem so hostile at the moment.

People could say what they wanted about him—when it came

down to it, he was a hard worker who put his career and his

band ahead of most things. If A.J. had to guess, he’d have bet

money that no matter how much Connor would’ve liked to

choke Jude, he was grateful as hell for competent fingers on

strings right then.

A.J. was grateful too. Whether anyone liked the solution

or not, Running with Scissors had averted a crisis, and they

had Jude to thank for it.

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he rol ing rehearsal gave Jude some hope that things

t might level out with his bandmates, but that hope

didn’t last.

He hadn’t even finished retaping his fingers before a

heavy, conspicuous silence set in. As soon as the instruments

were back in their cases, everyone had dispersed to their

various seats, putting as much space between each other

as their confines allowed. The “leave me the fuck alone”

radiating from Connor was damn near visible to the naked

eye, which was no surprise. And Jude supposed it wasn’t

much of a surprise, either, that Richie kept his headphones

on most of the time, Vanessa wouldn’t look at him, and even

Shiloh kept her distance. A.J. buried his nose in a Kindle and

didn’t talk to anyone unless he had to.

As he surreptitiously watched his bandmates—his

childhood best friends—from behind his sunglasses, his mind

went back to their optimistic early days. Back when they’d all

practiced until blisters turned to cal uses, dreaming about an

inevitable future with Running with Scissors in lights on the

sides of stadiums. Shiloh coveted a shot at playing Madison

Square Garden. Connor would’ve sold his soul for Wembley.

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Richie and Wyatt wanted to headline one of the big festivals

like Coachella.

And time and again, they’d all fantasized about what it

would be like to cruise around the country in a tour bus. They’d imagined themselves playing practical jokes on each other,

stopping to take ridiculous photos in front of landmarks,

and creating new music while the scenery rolled past. Icy,

uncomfortable silence hadn’t been part of the agenda.

Which meant that right now, damage control needed to

be a little higher on Jude’s agenda. He needed to figure out

a way, little by little, to reconcile with everyone. There was

no point in approaching Connor yet, but maybe he could nip

some of this tension in the bud.

So, when the bus pulled into another rest stop and

everyone wandered off, he stepped outside for a cigarette

and waited for his opportunity.

Vanessa was the first to return. She glanced at him, then

lowered her narrow-eyed gaze, stuffed her hands in her

pockets, and hurried past him.

“Vanessa, wait.” He dropped his cigarette on the pavement.

“Can I talk to you?”

She turned around, glaring at him. “About what?”

“About—”

“Actually, I don’t care.” She put up a hand. “Whatever it

is, I’m not fucking interested.”

He sighed. “Vanessa, please. Can—”

“Don’t even try to get put out with me.” She stepped

closer, lips pulled back across her clenched teeth. “Let me

guess: you want to make things right and smooth everything

over so we can all have peace and quiet. Am I close?”

He gulped. Then nodded.

“Yeah? Well, you can kiss my ass.”

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“Look, it—”

“Do you have
any
idea how much you fucked us back

then? Any idea at al ?” She threw up her hands. “StarFire

Records was at that festival, Jude. StarFire. Records. And

you know what? They were looking for us. So were Vista and

B&I. They’d heard our demos, and when they found out we’d

gotten one of the unsigned slots at RockClimb, they were

going to be all over us.”

His stomach clenched. “Yeah, I knew they were going to

be there.”

“Did you know we tried to contact them after the

festival?”

He winced.

She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “They’d all

signed other bands at RockClimb. The guy at StarFire even

said if we’d been there—”

“I get it. I do. I really do. And if I could change—”

“You can’t change it,” she snarled. “That’s the fucking

point. You can’t. The only reason we have a record deal now

is that Shiloh and Kristy begged and pleaded with Hurricane

Records to give us the fucking time of day.” She shook her

head, lips contorting with disgust as she held his gaze. “We

could have been with StarFire, Jude. All you had to do was

suck it up and deal with Connor for one more fucking week,

and
we could have been with StarFire
.”

Before he could say anything else—and she probably

would’ve cut him off anyway—Vanessa spun on her heel and

stomped onto the bus.

His shoulders slumped. Okay, so maybe damage control

was going to be harder than he thought. As the other band

members came back, he couldn’t even look them in the eyes.

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I screwed you guys out of a StarFire deal. I’m sorry. I don’t
know what else to say.

Once they’d all come back, he joined them on the bus,

put in his earbuds, and listened to anything that drowned out

the lack of conversation.

When it came time to stop for lunch, they were well into

Colorado and not too far from Denver. They were ahead of

schedule, so there was no reason they couldn’t stop, sit down,

and have a relaxed meal, but the consensus was fast food.

No one was objecting to anything that could be acquired,

brought on the bus, and eaten with minimal interaction.

After his spat with Vanessa, Jude had to admit he was grateful

for that today.

As he picked at his cooling fries, silence echoing in his

ears whenever his MP3 player changed tracks, he cast subtle

glances at his bandmates. What he needed now was an ally.

Maybe he couldn’t bury the hatchet with the entire band at

once, but one-on-one, it was possible.

Connor was obviously not an option. A.J. was a stranger.

Vanessa was out of the question for the time being. Richie

avoided conflict and confrontation at all costs.

Which left . . . Shiloh.

Her back was to him now, though, her own earbuds

separating her from the tense silence, and there was no privacy on this bus. He’d have to wait. But if he had a shot at making

peace with anyone, it was her.

He just had to find the opportunity and hope she was

willing to hear him out.

51

Jude didn’t find his opportunity until that afternoon.

Kristy, Connor, and Vanessa had gone off to deal with

some issue or another with the venue, and Richie and A.J.

were hanging out with Schadenfreude’s roadies.

Shiloh was alone at the table on the bus, typing away on

her phone beside a steaming mug of tea.

“Hey.” He stopped beside the table. “Can I talk to you for

a minute?”

Shiloh thumbed the handle on her cup, but nodded. She

tapped her throat and shrugged apologetically.

“Yeah, I know. It’s okay.” To save their voices, she and

Connor both stayed almost completely silent in the hours

leading up to a show. Shiloh had nearly fucked up her voice

beyond repair a few years ago, so she was extra careful now,

and it wasn’t unusual for her to go on vocal rest for a full

twenty-four hours before performing.

He slid in across from her and folded his hands in his lap.

“I think . . . I think I’m the one who needs to do the talking

anyway. Just stop me if you want to.”

Shiloh nodded again.

“So all this tension, it’s . . .” He swallowed. “Connor’s not

the only one who isn’t thrilled about me being here, is he?”

Shiloh bit her lip. Her eyebrows pulled together, and the

way she held his gaze seemed to ask,
What do you
want
me
to say?

He rested his folded hands on the table. “I get it. I do. And

there’s no way I can change what happened. What I did. All

I can say is that I’m sorry. There’s . . . I can’t say that enough.”

She lowered her eyes, her expression offering nothing.

Not sure if he really needed to say more, or if he just

needed to fill this uncomfortable silence, Jude went on.

“I fucked up, and nobody knows that better than I do.

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I’ve been kicking myself ever since. Connor and I, we weren’t

happy, and I . . . I should have just called it quits with him

instead of doing what I did. At least that would’ve done

minimal damage to the band. And believe me, if I could go

back and change it, I would. In a heartbeat.”

Without meeting his eyes, she picked up her phone and

started tapping on the screen. He gritted his teeth, thinking

she was ignoring him and responding to a text.

Okay. Message received. Apparently you don’t want to—

But then she turned her screen toward him, and on the

notepad app, she’d typed out:
Why?

He swallowed. “Which part?”

She typed again and held up the screen.
Why did you quit?

Jude took a deep breath and pushed a hand through his

hair. “Because I felt like an asshole. For cheating on Connor,

and for letting my thing with him cause so much strife within

the band. It was a stupid, shortsighted thing to do.” He paused.

“Leaving the band, and cheating on Connor in the first place.”

Shiloh nodded, as if to say
Go on
, but he wasn’t sure

what there was to add. Any explanation he gave would just

sound like he was trying to rationalize things that had been