Rock All Night(64)

“Walkin’ On Sunshine.”

“Light My Fire” by the Doors.

“American Girl” by Tom Petty.

“I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett, although he changed the lines to it being a girl next to the record machine – and changed the age from seventeen to nineteen, the age I was when we first met in Athens.

I would like to think I had something to do with the song selection.

I refuse to put an emoticon in here, but you can imagine my smile as you reread that last line.

It was like all Derek’s joy and raw, sexual power from the night before infused everyone around him. First it raced through his bandmates, and from there it built higher and higher as it washed over the audience like a tidal wave of sex and throbbing sound.

There were women around me sobbing in ecstasy, they were so overcome.

It was a little unnerving. Like being in the middle of a herd of wild animals that might stampede at any second.

Despite how much I was loving the show, I decided to follow Derek’s advice, and made my way out of the pit and towards backstage.





53




Once I got close, though, my worrywart nature took over, and I decided to check out the bus first to make sure my things were still there.

The crew knew me by now, and directed me out the back of the auditorium. I found the tour bus being guarded by a big, bearded roadie, and he let me aboard.

Utter and complete relief. All my stuff – my purse, my wallet, my phone, my computer, my luggage, Ryan’s Zoom digital recorder – were exactly where I’d stowed them, in Derek’s personal closet.

There was a message on my phone from Glen, my editor at Rolling Stone, but I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that conversation about journalistic ethics, so I just stowed the phone again and vowed to call him later.

I took just a couple of minutes to throw on some light makeup in the posh bathroom, then put my purse back and turned to exit –

When I saw Miles standing at the head of the bus.

He did not look happy.

In fact, he looked sort of like a serial killer in a horror movie. I guess it was that ‘face tilted downwards, staring at me from beneath his eyebrows’ look of homicidal rage he had going.

I actually screamed a tiny bit because he startled me so badly. I hadn’t been expecting anybody, and then when I turned around, BOOM there he was, fifteen feet away.

I put my hand to my chest and smiled feebly. “You scared me.”

He kept his head down and kept staring at me from underneath his brows.

Not a word in reply.

Then he started walking slowly towards me, his fancy shoes click… click… clicking on the bus’s laminate floors.

If this really had been a horror movie, I would have wound up dead in the next two minutes.

But, thank God, it wasn’t a horror movie.

…at least, I was pretty sure it wasn’t.

Just in case, though, I tried to talk my way out of getting killed.

“Miles, I’m so sorry, I tried to get him to call you – ”

He slashed out an accusing finger. “YOU – SHUT – YOUR – FUCKIN’ – MOUTH.”

I shut my f*ckin’ mouth.

His steps didn’t alter at all in their cadence. Just that click… click… click, slow and steady, like a metronome of doom.

As he got closer, I started to back away slowly, afraid he might jab that outstretched finger through one of my eyeballs.

He lowered his arm, but he got right up in my face.

Well, as much as he could, anyway, being five inches shorter than me.

But he was still plenty intimidating, that was for sure. And he was close enough for me to smell the bitter coffee on his breath.

“This band is a multi, multi-million dollar operation,” he said in a voice seething with restrained fury. “It is a machine. A machine which I am in charge of keeping running. But I already have two f*ckin’ monkeys throwin’ wrenches in the works whenever they can. I do NOT need another f*ckin’ monkey egging one of the other ones on.”

“By ‘two monkeys’ I’m assuming you mean Riley and Der– ”


“NOT ANOTHER FUCKIN’ WORD!” he screamed, so close to me that I could feel the dampness of his breath on my skin.

I nodded silently, absolutely terrified.

He stared up at me, his eyes almost incandescent with rage. “Listen to me carefully, Ms. Reynolds. You might have been able to skate through life before this on your looks, wasting other people’s time and patience – ”

Suddenly more angry than scared, I opened my mouth –

And the Finger of Doom shot up into the air, just an inch away from my nose.

I closed my mouth.

After a moment’s pause, Miles continued in a low, threatening tone of voice – but kept the Finger of Doom in place.

“And you might have gotten away with it, because you’re a pretty little thing. But I swear to God, if you ever put me in this position again… if you EVER put me in ANY position where I have to wonder if that multi, multi-million dollar machine of which I am in charge is about to blow up, because of YOU…”

He paused. The silence was unbearably malevolent.

“I.

Will.

Fuckin’.

BURY.