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  “You don’t have to keep doing that,” Mel told me after the second time.

  “I do because you’re with me and I don’t accept that type of behavior.”

  Mel nodded and stuck by my side as I’d asked of her. It made me wonder if it really were possible to have a relationship and still be able to keep my career. So many couples in the music industry didn’t make it because of the time apart and the jealousy that comes from the constant touring and gossip.

  “I like having you here with me,” I leaned in to whisper in her ear.

  “It’s not so bad,” she insisted. “I thought things like this would be a bit different.”

  “A constant rock-n-roll orgy again?” I asked, to which she laughed, but the blush on her cheeks said that was precisely what she’d been picturing. “Maybe when we were much younger, you might have seen things like that, but not necessarily from our band. We had our wild and crazy moments, but most of us also enjoy privacy.”

  A throat clearing caught our attention. No sooner had I turned my head than another woman in her thirties, who was barely clothed, stood there grinning widely at me. “I was a part of those wilder days,” she insisted, obviously having overheard our quiet story time. “Do you remember me?” She asked, taking me aback because this woman could have been a super model in her younger years, but life hadn’t been as kind as her makeup was trying to lead us to believe.

  “No offense, but I wouldn’t have been the one,” I explained. Once I realized Kendra and me would never happen again, I was no monk, but I preferred discreet, quick flings. I was never into the groupies because I don’t share well and I couldn’t get past the things I knew about other bands and their members. No way I was dipping my wick anywhere near where they had gone, even with triple protection.

  “No, I’m sure, it was you. You’re the sexiest one,” she mentioned with a wink, even as her eyes shifted toward Mel and narrowed on her briefly.

  “Okay, well,” I stood and helped Mel to her feet too, once again taking her hand in my own. “We’re done here,” I stated clearly. “Deacon,” I shouted above the din in the room. “I’m out,” I told him as I pulled my girl along and tipped my chin toward my son on the way. He could follow or stay. His choice. He followed.

  “Mel, want me to walk you back to your bus now?” My son, the little shit-stirrer, asked her.

  Melanie opened her mouth to answer, but I squeezed her hand to throw her off and responded instead. “I’ll get her back, Chev. Go, enjoy yourself.”

  Chevy glanced back toward the room full of fans and groupies and grimaced. “Nah. Think I’m just going to the bus to FaceTime Opal, if she’ll answer.” He mumbled the last few words, making me feel horrible for my son’s situation. Opal was trying to shut the kid out, and he was having a hard time facing the reality of it.

  “Be safe. Take security to the bus with you, I mean it.” The demand was non-negotiable, and he knew it.

  “I know,” he told me before turning his attention to Mel. “Have a great rest of your night, Mel. You deserve it.” There was no denying that my son cared a great deal for the beautiful woman at my side. That was made even more clear as he sent me a warning look. My own kid had already had a talk with me about my intentions toward his friend. I’d laugh, but he had been completely serious when he said if I broke her, he’d return the favor for her.

  “Good night, Chevy. Thank you for making me take a night off and do this,” she told him. “I had a wonderful time,” Then, I watched as my son hugged Mel and my heart opened up a little more towards her. He already loved her. I could see it now. Hell, he may even have grown to love her a little more than me in all of our time together. If that were the case, I couldn’t even blame him. Mel was something special. I just had to find a way to prove to her that I felt that way and meant it.

  12 - Changes

  I sat down to lunch with Gabe, something that had become a ritual for us over the past week since my ‘night out’ at the concert with Chevy. We were laughing about something Wen said when my favorite teenager joined us. Only he looked absolutely sullen.

  “Why the long face, honey?” I asked him, while noting the purplish circles under his eyes. “Are you in pain?”

  “Not the kind you mean,” he admitted before finally looking up into my eyes. “I think I need to go home,” he whispered to me. I glanced quickly at Gabe and back again, not wanting my flagging attention to distract Chevy.

  “You know you’re free to go home any time, right?” I asked him just as quietly as he spoke to me. This conversation was no one else’s business. Maybe not even his father’s.

  “You remember how you told me to keep fighting? If Opal was who I wanted to be with, I should give her space and not give up?” The tortured look in his eyes was destroying my heart. I slid my seat closer to him so that our knees were touching and I could reach down and take hold of his hands.

  “I remember.”

  “She’s gone,” he hissed out quickly, as if the two words burned his mouth just by voicing them.

  “What do you mean she’s gone?” My heart ticked up a few beats, automatically thinking the worst.

  “Not like that,” he quickly amended when he noticed my agitation. “I mean, shit, I wouldn’t know if she was. Opal is ghosting me. She’s ducked out of all social media, or at least blocked me from it, and she blocked my cell number. Her mom is refusing my calls on their home phone, and even her emails keep getting returned undeliverable.”

  “Oh, Chevy, I’m so sorry.” I let his hands drop into his lap and instead, I reached over and wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him close so I could whisper in his ear. “No matter what happens, I need you to remember that you are worthy of anyone you set your sights on. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that person will know what’s good for them. I told you to fight, and I meant it. Go home, check in on her, in person. If she still refuses you, then there needs to be a lot of thought put into what you want your future to look like. It could mean waiting weeks, months, or even years before she’s in a place where she can come around and move past her injuries and see you for who you are. If you want to wait, then that’s what you do.”

  He hugged tighter to me and I could hear him sniffling as I also noted the room was clearing out around us. “If you decide that you need to move on, I will be here for you. I’m sure your mom and dad, and all those lovely siblings of yours will as well. As much as it can hurt to admit defeat, sometimes that’s what needs to happen so you can move on to a healthier relationship. I know her accident was the catalyst of this, and you feel responsible for that, but if that’s the biggest reason you’re holding on, then maybe it’s time to let go. At least for now,” I tacked on the last when he stiffened in my arms.

  “That’s the last message she sent me,” he admitted. “It said that I needed to let go of her for now.”

  I leaned back so that I could look him in the eye. “Maybe that’s exactly what she needs then, even if it hurts you.” He nodded and swiped the sleeve of his shirt across his eyes.

  “I still have to go home and try first,” he told me with the most conviction I’d heard from him yet. It was my turn to nod, because I knew he would need to do that too. You can’t have closure without that face-to-face conversation. I only hoped she would give him that much. “Thanks, Mel.” His voice sounded broken, as if he’d already been crying quite a bit before he came to see me. “You think you could make sure my dad’s okay while I’m gone?” I smiled at that request.

  “I’m pretty sure that your father is a grown man and can take care of himself,” I told him as I turned to look at Gabe who was smiling despite the concern I could see in his eyes. “But, I’ll keep an eye on him and see that he doesn’t do anything terribly stupid while you’re away, okay?”

  “Sorry,” Chevy pushed out as he turned toward his dad and let go of me.

  “Don’t apologize. Go see if you can talk sense into your girl.”

  “You’re not disappo
inted that I’m leaving?”

  “I’ll miss the shit out of you, Chev. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t try to go get right with your girl though. You know what went down with your mom and me. If either of us had tried just a little harder, things may have turned out differently. Even if we hadn’t ended up back together, I might have been able to be in your life a lot sooner. Don’t leave those stones unturned, but if the time comes when you need to bury that stone, I’ll be here, waiting to help see you through, okay?”

  Chevy tipped his chin up at his dad, then glanced between the two of us, back and forth, for a few minutes. “If it weren’t for what happened to Opal, I’d say that I was lucky to have been in that accident.” I gasped as he spoke. How could anyone consider themselves lucky for something like that? He smiled sheepishly at me then. “If not for the accident, I probably wouldn’t have spent as much time getting to know my dad, he most likely wouldn’t have bought a house in Georgia, and we definitely wouldn’t have met you, Mel.”

  He looked away for a minute before speaking again. “I thought about it all night, last night, and I just couldn’t wish those things away.” Quieter, in almost a whisper he added, “Not even so that Opal would have use of her legs again.” The desperate look in his eyes was bordering on self-loathing then. “Does that make me horrible and selfish?”

  “No, honey, it just makes you human. You already lost your legs before you were even born, you got them back at 18. It’s understandable to not want to give them up again.”

  He turned to his father then, catching my meaning. Not having his father in his life left a hole – something missing – for years. While not the same, it was like Opal having to figure out life without an important part now too.

  “I love you, Mel,” he told me before wrapping his arms tightly around my neck. “Thank you,” his whispered words choked me up.

  “Love you too, Chevy. Now, get out of here and go find your future. I’ll see you soon, and I’m always here for you, no matter what, no matter where.”

  “No matter what, no matter where,” he parroted. “I’ll hold you to that.” Chevy stood. “I already booked everything, and there’s a car waiting outside to take me to the airport,” he finally told us after a few minutes.

  “Who arranged all that?” Gabe asked, warily.

  Chevy grinned. “You know I am an adult right?” Then when his father gave him a look, he actually broke out in a small, crooked grin. Half-hearted as it was, it made me feel a little better about him going off alone. “Phoenix helped me set everything up, including security at both airports to get me through without any trouble, just in case.”

  “Good,” Gabe told him with a nod.

  “Travel safe, and be careful. I wish you the best, Chevy. I hope she comes to her senses, but if she doesn’t, you’ll still be okay, I promise.”

  “I know,” he told me as he hugged me one more time. “You were, so I’ll be just fine.”

  I squeezed him extra hard before letting go after that comment. I was going to miss the boy being here. The majority of my days were spent helping him stay fit, watching him practicing with the bands, and then having him test out lyrics to new songs on me. One day, he was going to surpass even his father in this industry. I couldn’t wait to see him succeed like that, but at the same time, I worried about what this life would do to him. He wasn’t my own child from my womb, but damn if I didn’t love him like he was.

  ~*~

  Two days passed in the quiet chaos of the tour. Chevy was gone now, Gabe had to cancel our lunches twice in a row, and I was about to die from boredom. A swift knock on the side of the little bunk cabin I was in alerted me to someone’s presence. I poked my head out of the curtain to find Calista there, smiling at me.

  “Hey lady, what are you up to?”

  “I’m…” she paused a moment, sighed, then started once more. “Um, I need…” Again, another pause and then she started babbling uncontrollably. “IthinkImightbepregnant.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I asked as I tried to wrap my mind around what I thought she said.

  “I think I might be pregnant.”

  “When was your last period?” I asked.

  Her shoulders rose and fell as she bit her lip. “It’s never normal when we tour, thanks to the workouts, stress, and whatever. I haven’t had a period since we left.”

  “Okay, I don’t suppose you could narrow down when you might have gotten pregnant?”

  She shook her head. “Wen and I fuck like rabbits when we get the chance. We were together again for a few months before we left for the tour, then while we’ve been on tour, we’ve spent all of our hotel stops together and snuck away to back rooms whenever we get a chance after shows.”

  I laughed at that. “Okay, that was way more than I needed to know about your sex life. So, basically, you’re saying you could be weeks or months along? What makes you think you’re pregnant now?”

  She gripped both of her boobs in her hands, then winced. “First of all, these hurt like a bitch. But then the past couple of days, I’ve started throwing up if I smell food cooking or a particularly raunchy stagehand.”

  “Okay,” I mentioned as I pulled my phone out to consult some facts. “Sounds like you’re probably between 4-8 weeks, maybe.” I held up my hand when she went to say something. “Please, don’t take that literally. I could be way off, but that’s usually when women start to notice symptoms of pregnancy.” I’ll see if Phoenix can take me to a store in a little while and I’ll grab a couple of tests for you. We can go from there. In the meantime, eat some crackers in between meals, keeping something on your stomach at all times helps to keep the nausea at bay. Ginger drinks help as well. I’ll grab some of each and stock the back room of the bus.”

  “Thanks, Mel. You’re a lifesaver. Now, how the hell am I going to announce this to Wen?” She asked, a giddy look moving across her face.

  “You might want to wait on that, just in case you have some other issue and you’re not actually pregnant,” I advised.

  “Right. Okay. Yeah, I’ll do that. It’ll give me time to think of the best way to break the news. Obviously, I can’t just shout it out at the concert because we’ll never get any privacy. Besides, Wen’s wife will be back in the picture before I could spit the entire sentence out.”

  “Wen’s what?” I asked.

  “His wife,” she told me. “Don’t worry, they’re legally separated, but she tends to pull him back in by using their daughter against him.”

  “He goes back to her?” I asked, shocked.

  “Not because he loves or wants her, but because she’s fucking crazy and will literally threaten to hide his daughter from him.”

  “That’s awful,” I hummed out.

  “It is, and it’s worse when I have to watch him actually go back to her. He loves his daughter, but being a rock star isn’t exactly conducive to being a present parent, so the courts aren’t necessarily jumping to award custody in his favor.”

  I didn’t really know what to say to that. It struck a nerve that someone would use a child against a parent in that way, but also that the poor child was stuck in a crazy tug of war that the courts couldn’t judge properly due to someone’s job requiring travel.

  Thanks to running into the town to grab pregnancy tests and supplies for Cal, I was the one who had to cancel lunch plans with Gabe on the third day. It didn’t take long at all to get to the store, but traffic made me later than I thought in getting back to the Filmore in Miami Beach, Florida, where the bands were performing that night. It was one of the smaller venues on the tour, which was a nice change of pace, but the smaller venue did nothing to help with the traffic situation. As it turned out, Calista was right. She was definitely pregnant and swore me to secrecy until she was able to give Wen their good news.

  Ever since Chevy had made me sit through an entire concert side-stage, it had become a guilty pleasure of mine. I wouldn’t always stand where I could be seen by the performers on stage, but I stil
l got close enough to watch, listen, and feel the energy of the crowd. It was there, in the dark recesses of the side-stage while watching the women of Dusty Rose perform that doubt started to creep into my veins.

  There was a woman who had found Wen standing there, watching Cal with an enamored light in his eyes. It was clearly written all over his face, the love he had for her. “Wen!” The woman who had joined him all but shrieked to pull his attention away. When he turned and blinked, surprise, then devastation flitted across his face.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, so now I need a reason to come see my husband?” She asked, tone snippy.

  Wen reached down, grabbed her arm, and tugged her away from where anyone on stage could see. Fortunately for me, it was a bit away from where I stood, hiding in the shadows. “You know damn well that isn’t the type of relationship we have.”

  “You mean you don’t want your precious little fuck buddy out there to know I’m here?” She asked in a way that made me feel sure she was playing some evil, twisted game.

  “What the hell do you want, Janet?”

  She leaned in closer to him, but Wen took a step back, which plastered him to some stacked up equipment cases. Janet ran her fingers down his chest. “I miss you, baby,” she cooed to him, her emotions seeming to shift as swiftly as the stage lighting. “Our daughter misses you. We want you back home with us,” she told him with a pout of her lips as she turned her face up to him.

  “What the fuck, Janet? I’m literally on tour right now, earning the money that pays your bills.”

  She jerked her shoulders up and down slowly, as if she didn’t care where the money came from. “It means nothing if you’re not there to share our lives with us.”

  “I don’t want to share my life with you at all, Janet. You know that. You also know that I’d bring our daughter along for parts of my tour if you would allow it.”