jasper
Day 32
I was off my game.
No one other than my inner circle would have noticed the slight shift in my stage presence. The crowd were at their usual obsessive, crazy level – they hadn’t picked up on a thing… but it still didn’t feel right.
We all knew what was playing on my mind.
Hannah.
I’d never played a show without her.
I glanced side of stage to the spot she always occupied. It didn’t matter which venue, which town, she always had a similar spot.
Not tonight.
Tonight, there was nothing but empty space.
Charlotte even knew to watch from somewhere else this time.
I sucked in a deep breath and sung with Park through the chorus.
He was carrying me, like he had been all night and I’d never been more grateful for my best mate than I was right now.
The crowd went wild, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
There was no adrenaline pulsing through my body.
There was no hard-on in my jeans.
There was no excitement running through my veins.
All of this, it was nothing without her.
I looked out into the mass of nameless, faceless bodies that made up the crowd and found myself searching for her. I knew she wasn’t there, but dreams were free.
I could picture her smiling face; I could imagine her laughing, her head falling back and her eyes shining bright.
I could see her beaming up at me from in the crowd.
I was hallucinating harder than a thirsty man in a desert.
“Jasper.”
I could hear her voice.
I blinked once, twice…
She laughed again and blew me a kiss.
“Jasper.”
A hand landed heavily on my shoulder and shook me from my daydream.
“Jasper.” This time it was Parker’s voice.
I scanned the crowd again, but she wasn’t there – she never had been.
“Sorry…” I shook my head. “I zoned out.”
“We can flag the encore if you wanna get out of here.”
“No.” I cleared my throat. “Let’s give the people what they want.”
“Railroad?” he prompted.
That was what we had planned to close out the night with, but it didn’t seem right now.
I shook my head. “Let’s do ‘Crazy’ instead.”
He knew as well as I did that playing our previously unheard song was probably not our best idea, but he also knew I was struggling right now.
Somehow playing this song felt like something I needed to do.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, fuck it, man, let’s do the damn thing.”
“We’ve got something a bit special for you all tonight.” Parker’s voice boomed around the stadium.
The crowd screamed back in response.
“Who wants to hear something new?”
The roar was deafening this time.
He chuckled into the mic. “I’m gonna take that as a yes.”
I took my spot on my stool and closed my eyes for a moment, picturing Hannah’s face.
This song was for her, and I was going to smash it out of the park for my woman.
“You ready, man?” Parker asked as he sat down on the stool next to me.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He nodded at me and we strummed in time with one another, forming the rhythm of the song.
I dropped into the first verse, the words flowing from me like water in a raging river.
Every emotion I’d been keeping locked down tight, poured out of me now.
I sang about the woman I loved like it was the last chance I’d ever have.
I could hear Park harmonising with me, I could feel the energy of the crowd, but in that moment, it was just her and I.
I didn’t even realise the song was over until I stopped playing, my mind might have been a thousand miles away, but my hands were on auto pilot.
The crowd went wild, I could hear them screaming my name over and over, but it was as though I was experiencing the entire thing through a fog.
“Holy shit, J, that was epic.”
Because it was for her.
I nodded at him once.
I need to get out of here.
Parker must have sensed that I was done for the day.
“Thank you, beautiful people, and have a good night!” he yelled into the mic.
We went through the usual figurative song and dance that wrapping up a show entailed, before leaving the stage, the deafening roar of our fans ringing in my ears.
Charlotte was the first face we saw, as always, and the pang in my chest from knowing that Hannah wouldn’t be next to her came in full force.
“That was amazing.” She pushed up onto her tippy toes and kissed Parker on the cheek.
“Seriously, Jasper, you really killed that last song.” She smiled up at me with sad, sympathetic eyes.
“Thanks, Little Red,” I mumbled as Park tucked his wife into his side.
He glanced backstage and his expression turned hard. He nudged my shoulder.
Shit.
I strode off in the direction of Joe, one of the suits from the record label that produced our albums.
“Go wait in the dressing room, okay, legs?” I heard Parker instructing Lotte.
“Are you two fucking kidding me? What the hell were you thinking going out there and playing your next single? That shit is meant to be under wraps!” he roared.
The dude was fuming. The vein in his neck was enlarged and pulsing.
“Do you not understand the way business works?” he barked the words at us.
He turned back now that we were both following him and stomped off in the direction he’d come from.
This was on me. I was the one that wanted to play that song.
I needed to play it… for her.
“It wasn’t about business, Joe, it was just something I needed to do.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay then,” he replied sarcastically. “If you needed to do it, Jasper, then it’s all fucking fine and dandy.”
“What the hell is your problem, man? It’s not going to change the success of it, if anything it will add to the hype. You heard the crowd, they ate it up.” Parker had been walking slightly behind me, and now he moved to go around me – closer to Joe as he spoke.
He was pissed. I knew he had gotten sick of being told what to do a long-ass time ago.
My arm snaked out and landed against his chest.
He caught my eye and I shook my head ‘no’ at him.
Him going all agro wasn’t going to help the situation. This had been brewing for a while now, Joe and I didn’t see eye to eye anymore than he and Parker did, but we had to be careful.
Parker knocking him into next week wasn’t going to be a great plan.
No matter how good it might have been to watch.
Either something needed to change, or someone was going to have to go.
“It’s called building suspense, Sloan. You should take ten minutes to look into it,” Joe snapped.
I could almost hear Parker’s teeth grinding together.
“If we want to play a song that we wrote, we god damn will, Joe,” I told him, my voice quiet, but leaving no impression that I was anything other than dead serious.
He stopped in his tracks and we both followed suit.
He turned around slowly, almost as though he was doing it intentionally for dramatic effect.
“Not if it’s a song that’s going on an album I’m producing you won’t,” he snarled.
His bald head was covered in a shiny layer of sweat – he was feeling the pressure big time.
We were at a cross roads now. We all knew it. This was the moment things got resolved… or the moment they all turned to shit.
Parker looked at me, his eyes questioning. He didn’t even need to ask.
I nodded.
“We’re out, Joe,” Parker stated. “We’re terminating the contract, effective immediately.”
Joe’s jaw slackened, and a look of regret flashed in his eyes before an arrogant expression replaced it.
“Well, bad luck, boys, you can’t just quit.”
Maybe he is as stupid as he looks.
But we certainly aren’t.
“Actually, we can. You might think we’re just thick, tatted-up musicians, but the thing you forgot is that we’ve got really smart women behind us… there’s an out clause, Joe, and we’re using it.”
His face went a deep shade of purple. “It went through our lawyer,” he hissed.
“Yeah, well maybe you should get a new one of those,” I drawled.
He was so angry now, his whole body was vibrating with rage.
“Couple of punk-ass little rock stars,” he sneered. “You’re not even worth my time.”
He stormed off, muttering a string of curse words.
“Oh yeah, I’m sure all that money we’ve been making you was a real god damn inconvenience!” Parker yelled after him.
“Good luck making this look good on your résumé, Joey boy,” I added with a smirk.
We both stood watching him walk away – the smoke coming out of his ears nearly visible to the naked eye.
“We’ve got this… right?” Parker asked me after a few minutes.
Neither of us had moved, we were just standing there motionless, letting reality set in.
I nodded. “Hell yes, we’ve got this.”