Tyler & Stella (Tattoo Thief) (7 page)

“I wish it had never happened, if that’s what you mean. I wish I’d never met Dixon Ross, never gotten pregnant, and never had to sever ties with my parents. I just want to put all of that behind me, pretend it never happened and start fresh.”

“But it did happen. Cutting out a part of your history, no matter how painful, isn’t that like cutting out a part of your body? Something that makes you, you?”

“I think of it as moving forward. If you can’t forgive, at least forget and get on with life.”

Beryl
hmms
and I can tell she’s unconvinced. But I don’t need to convince her, only show her that I trust her with this secret, and try to earn her trust again.

Beryl checks the time on her phone and I know she’s got to go. I should go back to work, too, but I’m afraid how we’re leaving things still isn’t right.

“Gavin and I are flying out to Oregon tonight and we’re going to finally get some time together, just the two of us,” she says.

I give up on my coffee and drain the rest of my water. “You’re lucky your uncle’s giving you the time off. I’m covering another concert on the Fourth of July, but at least it’s a good one.” I tick off the bands playing at Indie Day: The Ruins, Shaken Heart, and Quatrain.

Beryl’s smile encourages me. “Make it count. Do enough of the right thing enough of the time and it will change your course. I promise.”

I grab the check before it hits the table and Beryl nods a silent thank-you, but it looks like something else is bothering her.

Finally, she spits it out.

“When I found out that you left with Tyler last night, I was pissed. I was afraid you’d take advantage of him for another story.”

“He offered!” I sound defensive. Of all the things I expected her to confront me about during our lunch, I didn’t imagine Tyler would be one of them. “He showed me their practice space for another story.”

“Last night? That’s pretty late to be giving an interview.” Beryl’s brow furrows.

“I wasn’t sure if it was really about a story, or a booty call, or what.” Beryl gives me a sharp look. “But don’t worry. It wasn’t. A booty call, I mean. He obviously had no intention of that.”

“Then what did he want?”

I duck my head again, my face flaring from last night’s embarrassment. “He wanted to protect you guys. He thought if he gave me a story, I’d stay away from writing bad stuff about you and Gavin. But you’ve got to believe me. I’d lay down in the street before I’d hurt you again.”

“I believe you, Stella. But don’t mess with Tyler, OK?”

I think of the way I felt when I was near him and an involuntary tremor passes through my body. He does something to me on the most primal level that I can’t ignore.

“I know you’ll be careful about your next article. But I’m more worried about Tyler. He doesn’t have the”—she searches for a word—“
experience
you do. He started getting cute around the time Tattoo Thief got wickedly popular, so he’s not great with girls. Don’t lead him on.”

I shake my head. “I’m sure it’s not like that. He’s already made that clear.”

Beryl sits back in her chair. “Oh. Well, Gavin told me he’s been hurt before. If you jerk him around it’ll get difficult for all of us.”

“Don’t worry, Beryl. I don’t intend to go anywhere near him.”

EIGHT

I debate whether I can smuggle a flask into the Indie Day concert and ultimately decide it would look bad if security found it on me. I’m afraid they’d strip my media pass.

I settle for downing several pre-function shots in Neil’s apartment before I head to the venue, a massive stage set up in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The night is alive with shouts from partiers and I hear the crackle of small fireworks as I walk in fairly sensible shoes to the venue.

See? I’m learning.

My media pass doesn’t grant me full backstage access, but I’m led to a trailer where several other reporters stand around swilling top-shelf booze. Wow. They’re treating us well. Usually the best I can hope for is that a bartender will slip me free drinks.

I order a vodka tonic and then another, daring the server to card me. Even though I’ll be twenty-three this year, being short means people often underestimate my age.

The PR lady for the main act, The Ruins, is making the rounds, handing out signed swag and CDs with the band’s latest music and photos. They’re up after two openers, Quatrain and Shaken Heart, both bands I recognize from my time on the second-string music circuit, and I’m encouraged because I’ve reviewed both of those bands well.

Maybe I’m doing something right.

PR Lady tells us The Ruins’ band members will trickle in later to answer questions while the opening acts perform, but I want to write about the music more than the personalities, so once the opener starts I leave the trailer and walk through several security gates to the main stage area.

Other than a lone photographer, I’m the only member of the press here so far.

The crowd gathers behind a wavy orange plastic fence held up by metal stakes. There’s a five- or six-foot gap between the fence and the stage for media and security, giving us up-close access.

I groove with the first opening band, Shaken Heart, noting how they’ve become tighter and more polished since I wrote about them several months ago. The lead singer looks amazing in her new pink hair and sparkling mini-dress, and sweat glistens on her skin as she sings about heartbreak and hope.

I feel my off-the-shoulder black shirt sticking to me on this humid night and sweat trickles down the back of my leg beneath my skirt. The sun is fading and I’m desperate for a breeze off the water to cool me down.

When the next band, Quatrain, takes the stage, the pitch of the audience’s roar rises higher. Everyone’s in an amped-up party mode this Fourth of July, no doubt anticipating the headliner band and fireworks after dark.

More photographers and reporters filter in around me. I use my phone to capture a few Instagram photos and a Vine video, sending them to
The Indie Voice
’s social feeds. Being a reporter is never just about writing for print—there’s also social media, the news blog, the website, and a dozen special advertising sections to fill.

Even though my full article isn’t due until tomorrow, tonight I still have to feed the beast.

I stuff my phone back in my purse and jot down impressions in my tall, skinny notebook while Quatrain’s members gyrate on stage.

They’re selling sex—sweaty, hard-edged and uncensored—and it’s impossible not to connect with their intensity.

I get bumped from behind by the crowd, which presses harder on the flimsy plastic barrier. The stakes holding it up bow forward, shrinking my safe passage between the crowd and the stage.

I press my body close to the stage and let the burly security guards push back the crowd, but the guards are like a few dozen sandbags against a tidal wave of people.

The sunset is deep purple shot with fiery red when members of The Ruins explode onto the stage, and in the crowd it’s pandemonium. A sea of faces illuminated by stage lights are panting, screaming, and practically foaming at the mouth in their enthusiasm.

I turn from the crowd to observe the five rockers who favor pyrotechnics and staggering stage setups when they play the largest arenas. Their sound is different tonight. It’s richer, and it takes me a moment to figure out why.

There’s an extra member. My eyes zoom to the tall, lanky bass guitarist who grins widely through a duel of instruments with another guitarist.

Tyler.

I stumble back a few steps from the stage, trying to get a better view of him on my tiptoes. Immediately, I regret it as crowd members jostle me, screaming and reaching as far as they can past the barrier toward the band.

I pull away from them and tap another journalist, a heavy older guy I recognize from a few of the larger gigs I’ve covered.

“What’s with Tyler?” I yell in his ear to be heard over the crowd and The Ruins. “The bassist from Tattoo Thief?”

The man turns to the stage to spot Tyler in the back, on the opposite side from where we are. “Guest appearance,” he shouts. “He’s sharp. Really adds to the sound.”

I’m open-mouthed with surprise as Tyler plays through the first half of the set. I should be reporting on the way The Ruins is playing tonight, with big departures from their recordings that make the songs feel fresh, but all I can do is stare at him.

The way he swivels his hips when he’s playing a long chord. The way his dark brown hair falls across his forehead when he’s looking down and concentrating. The way he closes his eyes as the lead singer croons a ballad, just feeling the music.

And, oh God, the way his button-down shirt is wide open, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, giving me a clear view of the tattoos on his forearms and his smooth pecs.

I want to push his guitar away so my eyes can travel down from his chest, across those abs and into the dangerous zone below his navel. Watching him like this—sweaty, singing, totally immersed in the music—is pressing all kinds of buttons in me, some that have never been pressed before.

I’m frozen in place while every living being around me moves to the pulse of the music. Maybe that’s what catches Tyler’s eye. As his gaze travels from the back of the crowd to the front of the stage, he sees me.

And he stares.

My face heats with the same mixture of want and shame I felt two nights ago when he played me.
He played me.
That fact reminds me that I’m angry and hurt, but it doesn’t stop the chemical reaction in my body to his presence.

For long seconds that feel like years, Tyler and I plunge into a staring contest, his expression betraying nothing—not pleasure, not disgust or anger or whatever he feels for me—as his eyes bore into mine. I barely hear the screams as the lead singer, Felix Crow, dives into the audience to crowd-surf, which makes the mosh pit of people at the front even more alive.

The song changes and Tyler has to look away as The Ruins regroups and Felix crowd-surfs back to the stage. He’s deposited over the fence only a few feet from me, in the gap for media and security. Felix brushes past me to run to stage right, up a set of stairs and rejoins the band onstage.

It’s after dark and I’m blind from the night if I look anywhere but the stage, although I can see the lighted outline of the Brooklyn Bridge behind it.

Whatever hope I had of the night cooling down seems foolish now—the lights and the crowd have only made the atmosphere thicker, more heated, and I wipe sweat from my neck.

A strong, stark guitar solo kicks off the next song and Tyler plays at the front of the stage, walking so close to the edge that the journalists and photographers could reach out and touch his shoes.

“Let’s give it up for Tyler Walsh from Tattoo Thief, joining us tonight on bass!” Felix whips the crowd into a frenzy as Tyler teases sounds from his instrument that sound like they’ve never been played before.

Tyler’s a good showman, connecting with the audience at every level from the front row to those in the far back, and he works his way across the stage from left to right.

I’m mesmerized by his fingers, by the way his whole body engages in this dance with his instrument. His hips buck, his back arches, and his arms flex with effort as he plays.

It’s one of the most erotic displays I’ve ever seen and my knees nearly buckle when he stops in front of me, still playing, taking the melody to a perfect high.

I hear a
boosh
and silver sparks jet from twin canisters on each side of the stage, the first in what I imagine will be a massive display of pyrotechnics. It won’t be long now. When this band is done playing, people will stay in the park and party beneath fireworks lit from the waiting barges in the East River.

Tyler throws his head back and plays the final notes of his solo and I want to reach out and touch him. No, I
need
to touch him. My neck hurts from craning to look up at him so long and I’m exhausted from the sweaty night, but I can’t look away.

When the band transitions to a ballad, Tyler remains where he is, his body looser than when he played the intense solo. His posture shifts and his eyes seek me again as he steps toward a microphone to add his voice to the chorus.

Felix Crow belts out a line and Tyler and the rest of The Ruins lean into the chorus. Tyler’s eyes never leave me.

Threads become a rope

And lies become a story

Innocence lost

I came to tell you sorry

Too late.

The rope, the knot, the noose, the loss

Bound up tight, I come undone

Truth is the cure but a bitter medicine

What’s broken can mend

Love that’s lost can be found again.

I squirm under Tyler’s direct gaze as he sings about second chances. He could be singing to me, or maybe it’s all in my stupidly hopeful brain.

Emphasis on stupid. I filed a bland little story about Tattoo Thief’s practice space yesterday but Heath hasn’t published it. I didn’t write anything bad about Gavin, Beryl, Tyler or anyone from Tattoo Thief.

I also didn’t write a story that
mattered.
And for that, I hate myself a little. I let him get under my skin and he got exactly what he wanted.

I hate that my body is betraying me, stirring with yearning for a guy I met barely forty-eight hours ago. Tyler’s brown eyes narrow with intensity as he looks at me. My skin blisters with need and I want to believe that I’m not the only one affected by this chemistry.

I drag my eyes away from him and will myself to look at something else. I’ve never believed in love at first sight, only lust. You can’t possibly take one look at a person and know you love them.

Can you want to bang the hell out of them? Sure. But fall for them? No way.

I lock eyes with Tyler again as he performs. Somehow in this chaos we’ve created a quiet little connection held together only with our eyes.

The rest of the crowd falls away behind me, the lights blur behind Tyler, and I find myself cataloging the little tiny things about him that I want to believe only
I
notice.