When he brought the boys back to the bus, Eli handed her an access-all-areas laminate on a lanyard. Iris smirked as she examined it. “My best friend would have an absolute heart attack if she could see this right now,” she told him.

“Yeah? She’s a fan?”

“To say the least. I can’t tell her about it, of course, and I never would. But it would be so funny to see her face. She has a raging crush on you.”

His grin was surprisingly sheepish for a man who should be used to women having raging crushes on him. “I’m sure we could arrange for her to get a souvenir somehow,” he said. “You’d have to come up with a believable story.”

“Well, she’s pretty smart and has a devious mind. She knows what I do, but not who I do it for. She would put two and two together and figure it out.”

“A devious mind, huh? Sounds like my kind of woman. Honestly, Iris, I couldn’t give a shit less about whatever NDA you have with Heidi. If you want to send a picture or whatever else to your friend, I really don’t care.”

“Heidi is my boss, though. I abide by her rules.” Yeah, that was probably the wrong thing to say, and his mouth formed a tight line. “I know Sara would never betray my confidence. I just . . .” She looked helplessly down at her laminate, which showed the artwork for Aesthetic Ruin’s latest album: a model-beautiful woman’s sultry face, appearing in the heights of ecstasy. But rivulets of blood streamed from her hair while her bright red lipstick and black mascara were smeared all over cheeks. It was rather gruesome.

“Always do exactly what she says?” Elijah finished for her, bringing her attention back to his face.

“Why would I not?”

“I guess that’s why she and I had our issues. I didn’t kiss her ass enough.”

Iris seethed. “I wouldn’t say that I—”

“You get in line and pucker up like everyone else, and you know it.”

“What about you? All these people here? What would you do if any one of them refused one of your commands?”

“They’re here to do what I say, but they’re not here to shape their entire lives around me. Once they’re off this tour, it’s not for me to say what they do. I don’t care if you want to tell your friend where you are.”

“It’s easier this way,” she insisted. “If I told Sara I was talking to you right now, she would drive me nuts. Besides, I’m on Heidi’s clock just like all those people out there are on yours. It’s fine, honestly. It’s no big deal.”

He shrugged, rubbing his stubbled jaw with one hand as he regarded her with those smoldering, strangely hued eyes. Iris shifted from one foot to the other as warmth spread up her cheeks. It hadn’t quite dissipated from earlier. “What?”

“Do you never live dangerously?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t. Why should I?”

“Because it’s fun sometimes. You might like it.”

“Not if it puts my livelihood and my future in jeopardy. Please don’t try to get me in trouble. I feel like that’s what you’re trying to do.” She couldn’t parse out what was going on behind his eyes, but it didn’t look well-intentioned. Then again, a guy like him could hardly ever look innocent.

He held both palms up in a “not me” gesture. “Hey, we had an agreement. I even shook on it. We’re all good.”

Yeah, she hardly believed that. His words brought another flash she didn’t want to entertain at the moment: the way his hand had felt wrapped around hers while the cool blue pool water dripped from them as they made that agreement. Warm, strong, lightly callused from all the instruments she knew he could play. His shades had been pushed to the top of his head, his eyes a prismatic, blazing green in the sunlight. She’d swallowed thickly, and he’d only released her hand after one too many seconds. By then, her blood had been racing.

“Thanks,” she said with a little more sarcasm than she’d intended.

“And as much as I’d love to stand here and bicker with you, I have to get ready. I’m taking the boys over with me. I just wanted to give you that in case you decide to come too.”

Did she want to? No. Never. She was scared to death. Heidi would be none the wiser if she remained on the bus for the next handful of hours, but Heidi had stipulated total surveillance, and Iris didn’t want to give Elijah one single reason to get her caught in a lie.

She looped the lanyard around her neck. “I’m coming,” she told him with far more confidence than she felt.

––––––––

IN HIS LONG, STORIED career, he’d done it all. Leather and studs, even sequins on a dare. Face paint. Crazy masks. He liked to mix it up sometimes, but now in his old age, he would rather keep it simple. Black pants and a ratty black Nosferatu T-shirt did him just fine tonight. Leather made him sweat like a whore in church.

You’re only thirty-seven, asshole. That’s hardly old.

Goddamn, it felt like it. Tomorrow, his entire body would be on fire with the stress of performing, yet he’d have to go out there and do it all again for another sea of facelessness. He’d sprained ankles, thrown out his back and neck, busted his ass, busted his lip, damn near knocked himself out cold. More than once. He’d dragged himself straight from bed to perform before, so sick he could hardly see, and then gone straight back. He’d battled through hangovers so bad he thought his head was going to explode from the noise. The only time he’d ever canceled a gig was on doctor’s orders to rest his vocal cords, and when Heidi had called him frantically thirty minutes before they were scheduled to take the stage in Vegas to tell him her water had broken three weeks early with Dylan.

In all other instances, the show must go on, no matter how sick he was, no matter how depressed he was, no matter the circumstances of whatever funk he was in.

He was definitely in a funk. His boys were here to see him, though, so all should feel right in the world. At least that part of this felt whole.

Eli held no delusions that he still loved his ex-wife. He didn’t. What he had loved, and missed to this day, was being a part of something bigger. Lately being with Seger and Dylan only threw into sharp relief the fourth piece that was missing in his life. But it was difficult to find anything real when he was out here adrift in a sea of fake.

Iris stood in a shadowed corner, as she had since he’d led her into the building, her eyes somewhat large and fixed as pre-show chaos brewed around her. His bandmates stood with him, his brothers, the four men who had seen it all with him and stuck together through various addictions, in-fighting, divorces, kids, lawsuits, feuding wives, deaths, and everything else life had thrown at them on this crazy, awful, beautiful ride.

It was a miracle they were all still here and, for the most part, liked each other, with few exceptions.

Each of them knew his role and had his act down to a science. Eli thought they sounded better, tighter, than they ever had. He, on the other hand, sometimes listened to his vocal changes over the last few years and despaired. It wasn’t that he sounded worse, or even different. Not really.

He sounded tired.

Skinny arms looped around his hips and he looked down into the face of his younger son. “I love you, Dad,” Dylan said, those big innocent eyes seeming to see into his soul. He had to shout to be heard over White Zombie’s “Electric Head, Part 2” playing over the speakers, entertaining the masses while they waited for the headliner to go on.

“Love you back, buddy,” Eli shouted back, brushing his son’s hair back from his forehead. He knew these moments with him would soon be rare. Seger stood aloof to his right, arms crossed, watching the stage hands run to and fro with disinterest. Eli stuck his fist out. Seger glanced over and bumped it with his own. “Love you too.”

“Yeah,” his oldest said nonchalantly.

Iris took a few tentative steps forward. “So, um, what am I supposed to say? I don’t know the etiquette. Have a good show? Break a leg?”

“How about ‘Don’t fuck it up’?”

“We’re gonna fuck it up!” Jason bellowed upon hearing him. A chorus of cheers went up in their immediate vicinity.

“Okay. Don’t mess it up,” Iris said pointedly, the dark wing of one eyebrow cocked with disapproval as she swung her gaze from Jason back to Elijah.

He scoffed. Jesus. His kids had heard him say “fuck” a million times, and a lot worse. They knew what they weren’t supposed to say yet. Dylan backed away from him, stepping to her, and Iris linked her arms around him from behind. It was such a natural, affectionate action on her part that it gave Eli pause. She gave him a tiny smile, looking timid and so out of place it was almost laughable. Like a nun in full habit had wandered up to watch side stage. Actually, nah, she looked more out of place than that, because at one point in their career, they’d had nun costumes as part of the set—even though it had been strippers wearing them. He chuckled at the memory, and then the guys were pulling him into their pre-show huddle, all of them arm-in-arm as the house lights went down and the roar of the crowd turned deafening.

Jason, Travis, Quin, Russell. They’d been up, they’d been down. They’d been through shit as deep as the Pacific. But they’d started as poor Indiana trash, and now they were here. He looked at all their faces and felt an intense rush of love for them all. Except maybe for Quin. Of them all, he was the one who had let fame and fortune go to his head too much . . . only he’d never really had the fame he thought he did, and he’d burned through the fortune as fast as it rolled in. If there was internal drama at this point, it was usually Quin’s. His immense talent and the fact that he’d simply always been there were the main reasons he was still around, so as long as he kept showing up, doing his job and not fucking up too badly, everyone kind of suffered him.

Eli didn’t even have to ask; it would’ve been Quin’s groupies who disturbed Iris as she arrived earlier with the boys. He didn’t necessarily want that shit around them, either.

They broke apart, and Quin sidled up beside him as they waited for their cues. “Your nanny’s fucking hot, dude,” he said, throwing a leer back over his shoulder. “She gives off a hot-for-teacher, schoolmarm in the streets and freak in the sheets vibe. Like if I do something wrong, she’ll make me do it over again.”

Yeah, how about you stay the fuck away from her, Elijah thought, then frowned at himself. Not because he’d had the exact same thought about Iris, but hadn’t he sat brooding by his pool at home only a few weeks ago, imagining all sorts of debauchery he could get her caught up in so she would stay out of his hair? Hadn’t he been planning that very thing?

“She’s not my nanny,” he grumbled, which was practically a yell over the noise. Russell had taken his place behind the drums and the cheering had swelled again, the stage lights going crazy as the audience did the same.

“Maybe she can be my nanny. She can spank me when I’m bad and send me to my room.”

“Christ, man.”

Quin, laughing, hit a soul-jarring note on the guitar strapped around his neck and swaggered out onto the stage.

Elijah cast a glance back at the trio standing in the shadows, Iris with her arms still protectively around Dylan, Seger standing by her side. He was almost as tall as she was. She gave Eli a weak smile.

He turned back and pinned his gaze to the spot he would soon occupy at the front of the stage. His blood roared in his ears, adrenaline cresting in his veins. This was his high now, after drugs and sex and everything else had failed him. This was all he had left. Besides his kids, all he had to live for. Music might have damned his soul long ago, but it had also saved it at the last possible minute. He would be forever grateful.