Love Songs & Other Lies(33)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NOW
CAM
Sometimes I forget that the whole reason I’m on tour is to win a competition. To walk away with a recording deal and make an actual living as a musician. The first two shows had felt like every other gig we’ve played in the last two months. We went onstage, did our thing, and the crowds loved it. By the second show, a few of the girls in the crowd were wearing the purple Future X shirts. But now, for show number three—the first live show—I can tell that something has changed backstage. The air is crackling with a certain amount of aggression. Everyone’s on edge. The bands are all focused on the fact that two will be leaving soon. After nothing more than a tallying of public opinion, dreams will be ended. The drunken horseplay that had been filling the back rooms of the previous shows is now just drunken nerves.
As we exit the stage from our performance, I see Pax and Sid—our two bus mates from Caustic Underground—sitting on a ratty couch in one of the club’s two back rooms. Two guys from The Phillips sit in metal folding chairs across from them. Between them is a large wooden trunk being used as a table, and it’s covered with a colorful assortment of guitar picks. The perimeter is lined with glasses and bottles.
I tap the lead singer of The Phillips on the shoulder. “You’re in the pit, man. Jenn wants you up front.” He throws back the shot in his hand before sauntering toward the stage, his drummer following behind.
“What’s this?” I say, taking a seat in one of the folding chairs while Reese grabs the other.
Pax waves a long arm over the table like a magician. “Sit down and find out.”
“I’m in,” Reese says, rubbing his hands together. “Whatever it is, I’m in. What are the rules?”
He looks at me expectantly. I have a stage high from our first live performance—the cameras moving all around us, the screaming crowd that was so much bigger than we had expected. Even as we walked into the venue, there were fans. Little clusters of kids and women, men and teens, waiting by the doors, in the parking lot, by the bathrooms. Someone even asked me for an autograph. Whose life is this? I would do just about anything right now. I feel invincible. “Sure, I’m in.”
“Here’s the deal,” Pax says, setting down a deck of cards that I hadn’t noticed he was holding. “We all start by throwing in a pick.” He picks up a red triangle with a black bird on it and drops it back onto the table. I dig one of my Your Future X picks out of my pocket, and Reese throws in a black Playboy pick as I give him a questioning glance.
He shrugs his shoulders. “What?”
“Nothing, I just forget you’re twelve years old sometimes,” I say.
Reese just rolls his eyes and looks back to Pax, who is shuffling the cards, setting them in piles on the table.
Out in the hallway, bands are being shuffled from one staging area to another. I can hear the overly dramatic voice of the former-rockstar host as he intros The Phillips.
“When it’s your turn, you pick a card.” Pax flips over the top card on the pile closest to him and sets it down for us all to see. He goes through a list of rules that I’m not completely convinced he isn’t making up on the spot. Take a drink for this, give a drink for that. It sounds like a really complicated version of Truth or Dare. Some of the cards require us to find girls to kiss backstage, others let us give out a dare to someone else.
I imagine Reese harassing the entire population of women hanging around backstage. “What is this, a slumber party?” Everyone ignores me.
“What about face cards?” Reese says, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. He’s really into this.
Pax is still running through the complicated list of probably-made-up rules. And they all lead to a lot of drinking—it sounds like a hot mess waiting to happen. Thank God we’ve already played our set. “Walk us through as we go?”
Pax has a wicked look in his eye. “Absolutely. Let’s do this.”
After a few rounds, Pax is the first to pull a kiss card. “Watch and learn,” he says, dropping the card to the floor. We all turn to watch as he makes his way to the other side of the room where three girls are huddled together, holding plastic cups. Their eyes are fixed on the row of doors that lead to dressing rooms for the host and the guest performer of the night. The girls—two blondes and a brunette all in their early twenties—straighten when they see Pax approach. The tallest of them is wearing a purple Future X shirt that she’s cut at an angle across her stomach, and ripped down the neck, revealing a lot of skin. It’s probably not what Vee had in mind when she picked out the T-shirts. Pax leans into her ear, and with a teasing smile, she kisses him. Then she scribbles on a piece of paper and tucks it in his pocket. Pax turns to the other two girls, and they each hand him scraps of paper that he shoves into his jeans for extra points. When he returns to the game, it’s with the blonde he kissed in tow.
“Guys, this is Bri,” he says, as she sits down on the chair next to him.
Her eyes don’t meet any of ours. “Hey.”
If I hadn’t just seen her kiss a stranger, I would think she was shy. Reese draws a king of spades, then lets out an annoyed grunt when Pax tells him to close his eyes and take a pick from the table. He fishes around in the pile and when he opens his eyes and sees the purple pick in his hand, I can’t help but laugh at the tortured look on his face. This may be the best thing to happen to me since we came on tour.