Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Page 3

  She turned to us with a full smile, and her stare caused my stomach to do backflips again, something I’d never felt until Reagan Moore stood in front of me with that glowing smile; piercing, dark-blue eyes; and those damn boots practically waving hello. It was so hard to look at her eyes instead of her long, built legs that begged for my attention. “I’ve been a fan of you guys for quite some time, and I knew once I heard your EPs that I wanted you guys to open for me someday. So badly. The fans are going to love you just as much as I do, I know it. You never forget your first arena show, so enjoy it. It’s one for the record books.” She raised her glass. “And, everyone, today is Blair Bennett’s birthday, so that means we have to sing and embarrass her.”

  Her manager, Finn, came to the table with a giant chocolate cake, the number two and four candles already lit, and in white icing, it said “Happy birthday, Blair.” She was definitely right. I was embarrassed that all those people looked at me and sang “Happy Birthday,” but it was a good embarrassment. I only expected some beers with Miles and Corbin on the bus ride to Vegas, which had happened, and then my birthday would go completely unnoticed in the shadow of the excitement of the first show of the tour and the fact that this was my first birthday with Gramps gone and no family around me.

  But the gesture was really sweet, given the fact Reagan Moore and I hadn’t exchanged more than ten sentences up until that point.

  An hour and a half later, Miles and I consumed our preshow shots of Patrón and Southern Comfort. We stood in the darkness of the side stage, calming our pounding hearts with deep breaths. Miles drummed on his black skinny jeans as I plucked each string of my Fender to make sure they were perfectly in tune, then wiped my clammy hands on my faux leather pants. Miles and I practiced at least four hours a day, and being confined to a bus while traveling all over the country, I was eager to go out and take the stage, strum my first chord, use my looping station, and play all the other seven instruments I brought to wow the fans. As much as I was excited and bursting at the seams to get out there to play, I also felt so hollow knowing that Gramps wasn’t alive to witness this. When I told him that Reagan Moore wanted us to open for her, his smile took up his whole face, and his dark brown eyes sparkled in the fluorescent hospital lights. The first round of chemotherapy drugs ran through the tubes into his body, and it was only a matter of time before he started to feel the awful side effects of it, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. He reached for my hand, clasped it tightly, and said, “I haven’t been prouder of you than I am right now. My little Piglet is going to be a rock star.” And his voice repeated that same comment from wherever he was in the universe, bringing tears to my eyes that I forced back down in my throat because I couldn’t afford to have mascara run down my face.

  This performance was for Gramps, the man who raised me, the man who always encouraged my love of music, the man who taught me everything about life, and the strong, intelligent, caring person I hoped to one day be.

  This is for you, Gramps.

  The lights of the arena hid us in darkness until my Fender ignited the lights for our opening song. It was our job to warm up the crowd for Reagan Moore. In three years, our band made three EPs and we were currently working on our first full-length album. Our song “Tomorrow”—a song about procrastinating and drinking on the beach instead of dealing with the real world—never failed as the opener. And it didn’t fail that night in Las Vegas either. Just a few measures in with the wailing of my Fender, the lights burst on and revealed the thirteen thousand people exploding into a cheer I knew I’d never forget. I remembered Reagan’s pep talk and took in the sight of the faces in front of me and the bodies extending to the far back of the arena, phones in the air, glow sticks bouncing around in the low and high levels; all of it only encouraged me to run up and down the stage to hype up the crowd, encouraged the adrenaline to pump faster, and my fingers to push harder on the strings for extra oomph.

  By the end of the seven-song list, I found myself hammering away at the Fender on top of one of those five-foot speakers on the end of the stage, teasing the crowd on the floor and the lower level as I improvised some riff, feeding off their energy and loudness that pierced my in-ear monitors. The crowd on the floor shifted over to me, their hands in the air, sweat sticking to their foreheads a tad less than mine, and their cheers begging for more. As the last chord rang out, I thought, damn, this is fucking amazing. Now this is a high.

  That night in Las Vegas, I realized that my love for music and performing might be the cure I needed to sew my life back together. The energy the crowd gave off was addictive. It was even more addictive when they sang the words to our songs right back at us. As an opener, I kind of assumed many people out there in the audience used my stage time as a buffer between bathroom and beer breaks and the main show. And sure, plenty of people did that. Seats were still empty around the arena that slowly filled up the further into our set list we got. But with about three-fourths of the seats already filled with fervent fans, the sounds of them singing to us was a magical cocktail of all the right emotions for me to feel hopeful about the next year on tour. As much as it hurt to know that Gramps was gone, and he wasn’t here to witness the biggest show we had to date, I knew that he would kick my ass if I didn’t take every detail in or fully bask in the glory that was performing in front of people.

  And that was what made me smile when I fell asleep in my bunk that first night. This tour? I knew it would save me and put me back on track for this little thing called life.

  Chapter Three

  Boys. I hated them.

  Corbin and Miles were velociraptors when they slept. Miles would say it was because of his deviated septum, but honestly, I was sick and tired of people in Southern California blaming everything on a deviated septum. It was liberally self-diagnosed as with doctors diagnosing kids with ADD in the nineties. Deviated septum or not, the dude kept me up at night and really needed to go to a Walgreens to find some breathing strips. Or a sleep clinic. He needed to go to the sleep clinic.

  The cadence of their snoring refused to be in sync, and it was the hellish version of the Jurassic Park theme song in the bus. How our bus driver, Tony, was able to even drive through those snores was beyond me. I guess if you lived life as a hippie in the sixties, going on tour with all the rock ’n’ roll greats, you learned to live through any kind of madness.

  The sun was my enemy in Salt Lake City. For someone who only had four hours of sleep, that bright, strong Utah sun felt as if I was being smote in a Catholic church.

  I opened the storage door on the side of the bus to grab as many instruments as I could. My Hummingbird, mandolin, ukulele. I almost had the electric violin when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jumped straight up to find Miles’s crew crush with the nice eyelashes laughing at my flinching.

  “You’re doing my job,” he said with a smile, pointing to the gear.

  He held out his palm to save me from carrying any of my instruments. I guess we really weren’t in Kansas anymore. Gone were the days of me and Miles shoved in a hand-me-down white passenger van with all of our equipment to load and unload, and hello to the days Reagan Moore hired two full sleeper coaches of roadies to do it for us.

  I handed him the instruments. “Right, sorry about that. I’m still getting used to this.”

  “I’ve been with Reagan since the beginning, and I’m still getting used to it.”

  “Just be careful with this one. Most prized possession.” I pointed to the Hummingbird case.

  “I’ll handle it with all the love and care. Promise.”

  Then Miles’s beau walked away, and I almost felt bad that Miles was still on the bus, missing his chance to gawk at his dreamboat. But then speaking of dreamboats, out of nowhere, Reagan’s blond hair grabbed my attention more than the bright summer sun. She smirked at me with her eyes hidden under her black Gucci glasses, and she clutched a steel coffee container in her hands. My scowl must have given something away because when she looked a
t me, she laughed.

  “Late night?” she said, and I could hear the caffeine humming through her perky voice.

  She was decked out in yoga attire that could definitely serve as a shot of espresso for me. The mandala, ocean-printed yoga pants hugged every muscle of her quads and calves while her black racerback tank top showed off those arms. Now I understood how she seamlessly jumped off that enormous stage without a grunt.

  Any remaining moisture in my mouth was sucked up by Reagan Moore in her yoga outfit. How did I sign up for that yoga class?

  “Yeah, uh, I guess you could say that,” I answered through my arid throat.

  “Too much Southern Comfort?”

  “Oh, no. More like Corbin and Miles make it sound like we’re living in Jurassic Park in there.”

  She laughed. “Yeah…sometimes I have FOMO with no bus mates. And other times—like this one—I’m totally glad that I don’t. Especially boys. They’re loud.”

  “And they smell,” I added.

  “And they sweat constantly.”

  “And they never put the seat down.”

  Reagan laughed and tucked a stray hair that didn’t make it in the ponytail behind her ear. “If you ever need to escape the snoring, I have a noise machine that I don’t use because well, not to brag or anything, but I have a whole bus to myself. Don’t really need it.”

  “Ouch,” I said and threw a hand over my heart. “Rub it in a little more, will you?”

  “Hey, I’m just saying. Oh, and coffee. I have more coffee.” She jiggled her travel mug, and I could hear the coffee sloshing around in it.

  “Oh my God, coffee. I need some.”

  She offered me her mug. “Take the rest. I don’t need any more. It’s my second mug.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. It’s yours.”

  I gladly accepted. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Swing by after the show, and the sound machine is all yours.”

  She winked and headed back into her bus.

  With that wink and the blazing sun, I melted right in my spot.

  * * *

  I went and got that noise machine the next night after we finished our Denver show, where we took full advantage of the legalization of weed. Miles set aside his “deviated septum” card for the “I smoked too much” card when it came to providing an excuse as to why he sounded like a T. rex in heat. The ceramic llama cookie jar that we carefully wrapped in a blanket for extra padding and stored on one of the three empty bunks was now filled with edible gummies, suckers, and plenty of buds, like a stocking on Christmas morning. The only downside to all of the weed was that Corbin’s and Miles’s bodies really reacted well to it when it came to sleeping. And that meant a cacophony of snores.

  So, when the meet and greets were over and while the crew packed up the stage, I decided to take advantage of Reagan’s offer. I knocked on her bus door, and Martin, her driver, called to her somewhere in the back of the bus that she had a guest, and I watched her messy bun make its way over to me. She’d already changed out of her concert attire into her more comfortable pj’s, a loose Bonnaroo Music Festival T-shirt from last year and neon green track shorts that showed off those damn legs.

  It was a struggle to look her in the eyes.

  “So, I’ll make you a deal,” I said and held up an unopened bottle of rosé and a pan of homemade lemon bars I baked for my bus before the tour. “These delicious treats for that noise machine?”

  “Wow, wine and lemon bars? Did you make those?”

  “I did. I like baking and thought I’d give the headliner a stash, so they’re all yours. We ate some of them, but I also made a lot, so these ones are yours.”

  She accepted the pan with a grin. “Thank you, Blair. That’s really sweet of you. I might have one right now.”

  “Go for it.”

  “And the wine? I’ll be honest, I’m kind of shocked that you have rosé.”

  “What’s wrong with rosé?”

  “Nothing at all. I just expected you to offer, like, tequila or weed or something else.”

  “Oh, I totally have all those things if you want me to get some—”

  She raised her hand. “I’m kidding, Blair. I would have never taken you as a rosé chick. Or a Southern Comfort gal, more importantly.”

  “Janis Joplin always drank SoCo before her shows,” I explained.

  “So SoCo is rock ’n’ roll?”

  I paused for a moment to think about it. “Well, I don’t know. Janis Joplin liked it, so maybe.”

  “Your sleeve tattoo?” She gestured to my right arm, which was designed with textured black flowers and geometric mandalas coiling from about an inch from my wrist up to my shoulder. “Pretty rock ’n’ roll. Your nose piercing? Pretty rock ’n’ roll. Your Fender? Definitely rock ’n’ roll. SoCo? Not in the slightest.”

  “The fact that Janis Joplin didn’t fall into any rock ’n’ roll cliché or stereotypes makes SoCo rock ’n’ roll,” I said.

  “Whatever you say, SoCo girl. Come on in.”

  When I stepped in her tour bus for the first time, I inhaled cleanliness. I almost forgot what that smelled and looked like because living with boys meant that man musk would quickly take over. And man, did man musk quickly suffuse. I found myself spritzing perfume at Miles’s and Corbin’s bunks every morning as if splashing holy water on a possessed body. But Reagan’s bus smelled like the inside of a candle store and looked like a Beverly Hills mansion on wheels. Mahogany cabinets in the kitchen, tiled floors, LED lights lining the path to the master suite. A sectional couch in the front. Two matching recliners next to it. A kitchen table with loveseats serving as the booths. A freaking electric fireplace.

  I was afraid to walk on the tile because my flip-flops probably had specks of dirt caked on them, and her bus was so clean and beautiful. I noticed ocean breeze-scented air freshener beans on the granite countertop as I twisted the cork out of the bottle. Though she appeared to act like a normal twenty-three-year-old, it was the little things that reminded me she was anything but. Little things meaning her designer glasses, roadies to carry all of her tour equipment, and twelve-bus tour parade on the highway. And now her sumptuous set of wheels. Yup, her tour bus was exactly what I would expect an A-list celebrity tour bus to look like inside, and I definitely wasn’t worthy enough to be in it.

  “Is that a Winnie-the-Pooh tattoo?” she said and gestured to the back of my left tricep.

  I poured us some wine into the plastic wine glasses. “Winnie and Piglet to be exact.”

  She laughed and took a generous sip of her wine as if she needed it for fuel. “That’s pretty adorable.”

  “My grandpa used to sing ‘Return to Pooh Corner’ by Kenny Loggins to me every night when I was little. He always called me his Piglet. It was my first tattoo. He wasn’t a fan. So, it’s not a surprise he wasn’t a fan of the sleeve or the nose ring.”

  “Okay, that’s actually pretty adorable. But not rock ’n’ roll.”

  “Man, you’re giving me a beating tonight. And here I thought you were nice.”

  “I am nice. You just have to go through initiation. I like to blame it on my brothers. All they did growing up was tease me, so it’s a sign of endearment.”

  She gestured for me to sit down. So, I opted for one of those recliners as she took a lemon bar and then stretched out on the sectional. She bit into the dessert, closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let out the soft moan that activated my brain.

  “God, Blair, this is amazing,” she said in mid-chew behind her palm. “The crust on this…perfection.”

  Could she take another bite and moan again? Talk about perfection.

  “I’m glad you like it,” I said and pulled a large gulp of wine to wash away all those carnal thoughts.

  “You bake a lot?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, my grandma got me into it. She owned a bakery for the longest time when we used to live in Nashville.”

  “Nashville baby?”


  “Yup, up until I was thirteen, and then I became a California teen.”

  She put her hand on her heart. “Aw, we’re both going to have the same hometown shows.” She took another bite of the lemon bar. “Hmm, God, between this and your birthday cake, I’m really gonna have to do some serious yoga tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for the cake, by the way. It was really sweet.”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, please. It’s your birthday! Everyone deserves a cake on their birthday.” She swallowed. “And a crowd of thirteen thousand people.”

  “It was quite the birthday to remember.”

  “We’re three shows in, and everyone loves you guys. Like, I’m completely amazed by you guys. You know how long I’ve been a fan?”

  I blushed and hid my cheeks behind my wine glass. It was pretty great being complimented by the most popular musician in the music business. “How long?”

  “For at least two years. Isaac Ball got me into you guys.”

  “Oh yeah, Isaac. I cowrote with him on his last album.”

  “I know. When it came out, we grabbed some dinner, and he raved about you. The very first song, ‘Tomorrow,’ had me instantly hooked. And I had no idea that you played, what, eight instruments?”

  “Right on the dot.”

  “List them.”

  I looked up. “Piano and guitar. Learned from my grandpa. Played violin all throughout school. First chair violin in the symphony orchestra right here.”

  She laughed and took another sip of wine. “So rock ’n’ roll.”

  “Hey, let me bust out the electric violin I have, play a couple loops, and then change your mind.”