Bad Things (Tristan & Danika, #1)(71)

The all male crew was quick to obey.

I sent her a sidelong glance. “I knew you had your own show, but I didn’t realize that reality stars directed the crew.”

“That’s not the norm,” the one camera guy still on us muttered.

Frankie just grinned and shrugged. “They did it, didn’t they? They’ll thank me later.” She looked at the camera guy. “Tell the truth, Rodney. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“That you haven’t.”

“See. If you know what you’re doing, people listen to you, whether it’s your job to boss them or not. I’m just trying to get the best footage possible. They know it, so they listen to me.”

I laughed, because though I wouldn’t have thought of it, she had a point, because they hadn’t hesitated to follow her orders.

“I’ve found that often the quality you see in successful people is knowing when to take the initiative, and being quick about it. I’ve never sat around, waiting for someone to tell me to take charge. I just do it.”

I considered that, filing it away. I wanted badly to become successful in life, at something. I doubted there was anyone who’d grown up in my kind of chaos that didn’t.

The dim lights suddenly went dark, the camera’s light all that was visible for a long, pregnant pause. The crowd went quiet.

“Dim that light, Rodney!” Frankie said in a loud whisper. “We don’t want to take attention away from the show.”

Proving her words yet again, the camera’s light dimmed.

A spotlight shone onto the stage, illuminating a scantily clad girl with hot pink hair.

My nose wrinkled. “Is she in the band?” I asked Frankie.

“Nope. She must be the opener. The guys must be hooking her up, because I’ve never seen her before.”

More lights went on the stage, illuminating the rocker chick’s band. She started belting out a screaming rendition of some old metal song that I kind of recognized, though I couldn’t have named it. I liked metal, but this wasn’t good metal.

“Is this the kind of music they play?” I asked into Frankie’s ear. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting, at all.

She shook her head, swaying to the ear-splitting noise. “Not at all. She must be f*cking one of them, because she is not a good opener for their brand of rock.”

That made me feel slightly ill.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive. It just slipped out.”

I shook my head that it was fine. She was probably right.

The hot pink haired chick sang three very similar songs before ending the set. I had the thought that I wasn’t enjoying myself. This had been a bad idea.

The lights dimmed again, and I felt sick to my stomach as we waited for the band to come on stage.

Tristan walked on last, though he wasn’t dramatic about it. He simply filed on after the others, taking his place at the front with utter confidence.

The spotlight hit him, and he grinned at the crowd. They cheered loudly, the women’s screams markedly louder. And that was before he even sang a note.

When a hard drumbeat started, the guitars bled in, and he actually began to sing, the crowd went wild.

Watching him like that on stage was like seeing the puzzle pieces all shifting into place. He was perfect up there, and it wasn’t any one thing that made him that way. It was everything about him; the proud posture of his broad shoulders, his confident smirk. He’d been my buddy, and then my lover, but watching him onstage made me see just how powerful he was, what a force of nature his very presence was. Part of me loved it, loved him like this, in his element, and part of me hated it. It was terrifying, because deep down I knew that you could never hold onto a man like this. He would become too big to live a normal life. It seemed inevitable.

His voice was deeply melodic, the song almost romantic, and the emotion in his voice matched the lyrics, which floored me. I’d never seen that side of him. The idea that he had that in him, but I’d never seen it, left a pretty deep wound in me, and it began to sink in that he really only saw me as a friend. He wanted me, yes, or at least he had before our falling out, but not like I needed him to, not like I wanted him. If I’d kidded myself for a moment that my feelings weren’t one sided, those hopes were dashed as he poured his soul into the song.

I’d fallen for him, but he just hadn’t fallen for me. Seeing him up there, getting clued in to all of the pieces of his puzzle, it hit me like a truck. We hadn’t just had a fight. He hadn’t just left because he was angry.

He wasn’t in love with me.

Growing up as I had, especially in my teenage years, had always made me feel a little lost. And I felt that now. Just lost. Who was I? Who was somebody like me even supposed to be? Nobody loved me. It didn’t feel like anyone ever had. So where did that leave me? Going in circles, I thought. Looking for the wrong things in the wrong people. That’s where I was. I wondered if somebody ever fell for me, like really fell, the way I did, if I would even know it. I only seemed to have guys that couldn’t give a damn on my radar.

Still, I couldn’t help but be happy for him, that he had something like this, something so big and special to show the world.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT





I’d gotten my strange wave of melancholy in hand by the second song in their set, which thankfully, wasn’t another love song.