“Nate Nash! Nate Nash! Nate Nash!”

The familiar chant sounded lackluster. Nate peaked out from the wings of the stage to see the arena. The first thing he saw was the black covers hiding the empty rows. Lots and lots of empty rows. The next thing he saw were the empty chairs not covered by the black material. There were a lot of those too.

The warm-up crew was doing their damnedest to whip the somewhat disappointing crowd into the usual frenzy, but it was hard work. The pre-show band had gotten a better response. Nate didn’t even know their name, hadn’t bothered to listen to them, and avoided the catering area when he knew they were in there. It was a dick rock star move, but he couldn’t help it. His world was falling down around his ears and the last thing he wanted was to see the fuckers that were going to replace him at the top of the food chain.

His gut cramped and he forced down the bile that had risen in his throat. He didn’t want to go out there and face that crowd. He didn’t want to feel his career slipping through his fingers. This whole tour had felt like one big fucking disappointment. His album sales were shit and they couldn’t even fill the stadiums he was booked in to. The reviews for his shows were dismal and he felt like one big giant fraud. What the hell was he doing?

Nausea rose and he ran for his dressing room, barely making it before he voided his stomach into the toilet for the fifth time that day. He had nothing in his stomach except alcohol and a couple of pills Gina had slipped him to calm him down. He’d needed more and more pills with each show and she just kept handing them over to him like they were candy. He knew it was fucked up, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t perform without them.

There was a knock on his door. “Nate? It’s Gina. You need something?”

He didn’t answer. The woman was like a fucking vampire sucking him dry and leaving him addicted to her. What were those people called - the ones that were like blood bags for vampires? That’s what Nate felt like when it came to the woman who had discovered him. She knew just how to stroke his ego so that he would offer up his veins to her. He was surprised he had anything left to give. He felt like a dried out husk and yet she just kept demanding more.

The sad fact was that even though he knew this, even though he knew that she was his worst nightmare, without her he’d be nothing. He’d felt like a nothing for his whole life and Gina had been the only one to believe he could be someone, be something, and she had made it happen. Gone was the skinny kid that everyone patted on the head affectionately and said, ‘you can be whatever you like,’ while smirking in that knowing way that told him he would always be nothing. He was the youngest of four boys, three of whom had been over-achieving alpha-male super-humans, born into a family of over-achieving-alpha-super-humans. He had been the baby and had always been treated like the baby and had been the one that no one ever expected to be successful. The over-achieving-alpha-super-human genes had played themselves out before they got to Nate. He was decidedly average, disappointingly normal and no one had expected anything of him.

Gina had seen something in him, though. Gina had dragged him out of mediocrity and shined the bright lights on him. She had made him a rock star. Unfortunately even she hadn’t been able to hold back the ordinary that clung to him like a bad smell. It had only been a matter of time before the shine had tarnished on his superstar status. A gold-plated turd was still a turd and while she’d been able to fool the public for a while and convince them that he was some sort of rock god, it seemed that the truth had finally been let out of the bag.

The knocking on the door started again. “Nate? I have someone here I want you to meet. I was going to wait until after your show, but she’s really eager to meet you.”

Nate got to his feet slowly. He washed his mouth out and ran some cool water over the back of his neck. He knew what Gina was offering him and like the slut he was, he’d take it and lose himself in the haze of sex to get him over the stage fright that had been getting stronger and stronger with each show.

“Come in,” he said as he unzipped his jeans and sat down in the big chair in the dark corner of his dressing room.

The door opened and a blonde walked in with the biggest tits he’d ever seen. She smiled vampishly at him and dragged her eyes down his body, her eyes lighting up when she saw his open jeans and the tip of his cock poking out. She sashayed over to him, her tits barely moving. They seemed to hover of their own accord as she sashayed closer to him. They were mesmerizing. She wasn’t wearing a bra and he knew that because she was wearing a tight tank top with over-size armholes that left a good-sized portion of side boob bare. Her nipples were hard peaks and his eyes were drawn to them involuntarily.

“Nate—”

He shushed her. The last thing he needed was to hear her talk. He shifted in his chair and pulled his now erect dick out, stroking it a couple of times as he watched her approach. She smiled hungrily and dropped to her knees between his thighs. She took hold of him in two hands and he let go, leaning his head back against the chair and closing his eyes. She gripped him hard, just the way he liked it, and then her wet tongue swiped across the tip. He sighed and let the tension go from his muscles. She slid him into her warm, wet mouth and he groaned appreciatively. The girl had skills.

Her tongue teased him as she sucked. One hand reached into his jeans and fondled his sack while the other stroked him. She took him all the way in her mouth until he could feel the back of her throat and she hummed. The vibrations shot through him and he felt his release gathering in his spine as his balls pulled up tight. She slid his pulsing cock from her mouth and licked the vein on the underside before taking him all the way back in again. When he bumped the back of her throat, she swallowed, her throat constricting around him and causing his eyes to roll back in his head. She squeezed his testes and sucked hard as she dragged her lips back up the length of him. He grabbed handfuls of her long blonde hair and held her still as he lifted his hips and fucked her mouth. She hummed again or maybe it was a protest, he didn’t know, he didn’t care. He came hard, filling her mouth with his hot seed and she swallowed it down as he slumped back in the chair and let go of her hair. She licked him clean and then looked up at him with a self-satisfied look on her face. Her eyes were a little wet from nearly choking on his cock, but he liked the look on her.

“I’m gonna need another one of those,” he said, his voice raw. “But first I gotta go make some magic.”

“I’ll be here waiting for you,” she replied, standing gracefully and removing her top. Her tits winked at him and he knew he would be fucking them later that night.

He stood to his feet and zipped up. He gave her a wink and sauntered from the room. The high from his orgasm would get him through the initial songs until he fell into the euphoria of performing. Once the stage lights and the music surrounded him, he’d forget that the pedestal he was standing on was crumbling under his feet and he’d feel alive again, if only for a moment. His shitty life would be waiting for him at the end of it all, but at least he had something waiting in his dressing room to look forward to.

Nate stepped out of the van and looked around the dustbowl before him. The festival was in various stages of being erected and in the heat of the day it looked like an abandoned theme park. A Ferris wheel stood to the side, not quite fully put together. The shell of the main stage was crawling with workman who cursed and shouted to one another. The smell of cooking meat filled the air as the food vans prepped for the thousands of hungry festival goers that were already lining up at the gates. It had been years since Nate had been to a music festival, but nothing had changed.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” Wade said as he slapped Nate on the back.

Nate grunted and nodded noncommittally. He had fallen a long way since the days of touring sold-out stadiums. Seeing this was a reminder for him to not take anything for granted - not his success, not his fame, not his talent. He was slowly beginning to realize that he did have talent and that he didn’t have to pimp himself out to have success. All that stuff with Gina and Rocksteady hadn’t been real - this was real. That other shit had been manufactured and fake. No wonder he’d felt like a fraud. It hadn’t been him at all and at the ripe old age of twenty-seven he was finally discovering who the real Nate Nash was. It had taken a mighty fall from grace, but it had stripped him bare in the process and he felt reborn.

Now he just had to prove to everyone else that the real Nate Nash wasn’t washed up and that he did deserve the Grammy nominations he’d received for his second album. He had betrayed his fans with his third and fourth albums, and his fifth - a greatest hits compilation - wasn’t going to win him any new fans. He hoped that him being here and playing his new stuff, the stuff he had written himself without the interference of his former recording label, would go a long way to repairing the damage he’d done and rebuild some of the trust he’d broken with his fans. The rock star of the past was gone and here was the real Nate Nash, prepared to pay his dues and build his tattered career from the ground up.

“Come on,” Wade said, “your trailer is over this way.”

He might not be the megastar he once was, but he still had money and that meant he had a trailer to hide away in when he wasn’t playing. The festival was three days and he had several sets. Most of them were on the smaller stages placed around the venue and he had one set, on the final night, on the main stage. He had two and a half days to win some fans so that that final performance wouldn’t be a complete cock-up. He had wondered time and again how many people were coming to see him just so they could see him make a fool of himself. They were the ones he wanted to prove wrong.

Nate grabbed his battered acoustic case and followed Wade across the dusty field. The little grass that was left had been ground into the dirt from the trucks and boots of the bump-in crew. He hoped it didn’t rain. The dust bowl would turn into a mud puddle without much coaxing and that wouldn’t be fun for anyone.

Nobody paid any attention to him as they walked across the grounds towards his trailer. It was an odd feeling for him; for so many years he had been dodging the media and was inundated with autograph hunters and women who wanted a piece of him. That had all started to fall away after the launch of his fourth album and the failure of his last tour. Now nobody knew his name, or if they did they weren’t impressed. For the first time he realized what Mabel and Wade had being trying to tell him. His fans were gone. They had moved on to other artists who could give them what they wanted. It made him feel empty and afraid. The old feelings of mediocrity and ordinariness that he had pushed against all his life threatened to suffocate him.

He felt the panic rise in him and he quickened his steps. How was he going to perform when he knew the crowd would be, if not hostile, then at least unresponsive? This was going to be a nightmare. He would look like a fool and he would be laughed off the stage. He had been exposed as the fraud he always believed himself to be.

He began to pant, his breathing labored as a full-blown panic attack set in. He couldn’t do this. Gina had been the one to hand him his career on a silver platter and now he was expected to stand on his own two feet and drag himself out of the shit heap that he’d flung himself into. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t even know where to start.

A large hand clamped down on his shoulder and he looked up into the concerned eyes of Derek.

“You okay son?” the big man asked, his voice a deep rumble.

Nate didn’t need to answer. He knew Derek could read the panic in his eyes.

“Come on,” he said, slapping him again to get him moving.

Wade opened the door of his trailer and Derek practically pushed him up the stairs and through the door. Nate collapsed on one of the bench seats and dropped his head between his knees, dragging in big lungfuls of air. Someone handed him a bottle of water, the cap already removed, and he drank greedily. When the dizziness had subsided and he felt he could breathe again, he looked up. Derek and Wade were both staring at him with pity in their eyes. Fabulous. Just what he needed from the head of his new record label and his agent…pity.

Mabel burst through the trailer door and the attention mercifully moved from Nate. She looked ready to burst and a smile split her mouth which was not something they saw every day on Mabel’s face.

“‘No Good for Me’ just hit number eight in the charts!”

Nate jumped to his feet. “What?”

The song had debuted only a couple of days ago to coincide with the first show of Lily Ames ‘Long Hot Summer’ tour. It was credited as a Court’n Jacks song featuring Nate Nash and they would be playing it on the tour with Lily. Nate had already seen a recording from the first show where Stevie and Jace had killed it as a duet. They didn’t need him, it would seem.

“How is that even possible? We don’t even have a video.”

“I had the guys at the studio splice some of the footage together from your recording sessions.”

Nate remembered only too well the last recording session they’d had and he hoped to hell that they had remembered to turn off the video equipment at the end of the song. He and Stevie had fucked each other senseless after everyone else left. Hopefully that hadn’t been caught on camera.

“Yeah, but CMT is screaming for a real clip. Marci has already been blowing up my phone hoping we can schedule something next week when you’re in the same city as the tour.” Mabel looked at him expectantly.

He blew out a breath and slumped back on his seat. He didn’t want to see Stevie, not yet anyway. He still hadn’t spoken to her since the night he left her high and dry at the gig. They’d left to start their tour the next day and Nate had been too chicken shit to do any damage control.

“Just get some shots from the tour,” Nate said, running his hand through his hair and closing his eyes.

“No way, man,” Derek said shaking his big, bald head. “This song is the shit and we need to respect it with a clip that everyone will go nuts over. We want to YouTube the shit out of it.”

“Maybe you should check with Court’n Jacks before you go making plans. I don’t think they’ll be too cool with having me back on the scene.”

“I’ve already spoken to Marci,” Mabel said, getting in his face. “They’re fine with it, it’s you that’s being the pussy here. Grow up, put your big boy panties on and get a clue. This is your chance and I am not going to let you fuck it up.”

Mabel was a short little thing with curves for days. She had dimples when she smiled and looked like a fucking kewpie doll. By looking at her it was easy to assume that she was sweet and shy. Except the one thing Mabel wasn’t was sweet. She was a bulldog with a mouth that would make even a sailor blush. She didn’t take Nate’s crap and didn’t blink before telling him where to shove his whining and complaints. She was nothing like Gina, who did nothing but blow smoke up his ass for five long years. Mabel was what he needed in his life to get him the hell out of his depression and back on with the job of rebuilding his career.

“Do you think sharks go about whining and complaining because their girlfriends were mean to them? No, they don’t. They get up and they go around biting shit and reminding everyone that they’re a goddam fucking shark. It’s time to be a shark Nate.”

“Fine,” he replied, pushing to his feet and pacing the small space that felt even smaller now with the four of them in it. “Fine. Set it up. Just don’t expect me and Stevie to get on. I know she’s pissed at me and that woman can hold a grudge for long god-dammed time.”

“You haven’t told her yet?” Derek asked.

“No,” he said with a huff, “I assumed you would.”

“You’re an asshole Nate Nash,” Mabel said, throwing her hands in the air.

Derek just shook his head and Wade stared at Nate like he had grown a second head.

“She doesn’t know why you didn’t show that night?” Wade asked.

“No,” he snapped. “I’m going to lie down and try and get some rest before my set.”

He stormed down the short hallway and slammed the door behind him before collapsing on the bed. He wasn’t ready to face Stevie yet, not until he got his shit together and his shit was definitely not yet together. He was even more nervous now about the set tonight. He could hurt their song if he bombed and then it would be another reason for Stevie to hate his guts. Just what he needed; to hand her more ammunition to annihilate him with.

He rolled onto his back and tried to do some deep breathing exercises. He could hear the deep rumble of Derek’s voice and the higher pitched one of Mabel, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He knew they thought he was a pussy bitch and that was fine because the truth was, he was indeed a fucking pussy bitch who was terrified of fucking up his last chance at making something of himself. He knew he would have absolutely no chance with Stevie unless he could prove to her that he was a different guy than the one who left her stranded five years ago. His greatest fear was that he wouldn’t be able to do it. It had been that fear that had led him to making all the absolutely horrendous decisions in his career, which had led him here to the cesspool he now found himself in. He was crippled with fear that everyone in his life had been right about him and that he was destined for ordinary. Fear that he would never be enough. He had been given a second chance to prove himself and he was grateful, but it also added a new fear to the others that circulated his brain. What if he was never good enough? What if he was never worthy of having Stevie in his life?