10. See You At the Show
JACKS
As Roman wraps up the last bit of his soundcheck, he pulls off his headset and heads to the side of the stage toward us. He stops for a moment, rubbing his chin before continuing, then gives a slight nod to Sticks as he approaches.
"Who's the new girl?" Roman asks. "With the camera?"
"That's Skye," Sticks says. "Jacks hired her. Hot, right?"
Roman shrugs and looks back at her.
"She's your photographer, huh? She any good?"
"She's talented," I say. "Wouldn't have hired her if she wasn't."
He scoffs and chuckles slightly.
"You would hire any sad case that gave you puppy eyes, Jackson."
For many reasons, I don't bother responding to that.
"At least we don't have to look at his grumpy ass in the audience every show," Sticks says, pointing to Roman's photographer. He's a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair, a matching mustache, and a seemingly permanent scowl.
Roman answers with just a grunt before walking off to the dressing rooms.
"Is he that much fun all the time?" Sticks rolls his eyes.
"Pretty much," I say. "He sees himself as an artist, too good for my bullshit music apparently. He's royally pissed that I'm closing out the show."
"Le artiste is le píssed," he says in a truly terrible French accent.
"Apparently he wanted to be the headliner, but the label wanted me. So he's even more irritated with me than usual."
Roman and I used to butt heads a lot, mostly creative differences. By that, I mean he saw me as a talentless buffoon who kept getting the solos he wanted. The other guys in the group were all very non-threatening to him. But he and I ended up competing for the spotlight a lot, and he often resented me for it.
Sticks is standing beside me watching the roadies set up our gear. We can just see Skye leaning against the stage and snapping shots of the setup process.
"So what is the deal with Skye?" he asks.
Oh great. Everyone's asking about Skye today.
"She's engaged," I say, crossing my arms.
"I heard that, actually. You wanna elaborate on that?"
"What do you mean?" I raise an eyebrow and look toward him.
"You gonna play coy or you gonna tell me why you're all goo-goo eyed over this girl when she's got a fiancé back home?"
If there's one thing I know unequivocally, it's that I do not want Sticks to know anything about my feelings for Skye. He's not a bad guy, but he can't keep his damn mouth shut when he's high—which is almost all of the time—and he loves to mess with me. Exactly who I don't want to share my inappropriate crush with.
"No goo-goo eyes here, man. She's cute, okay? That's it. Nothing is going on."
He gives me a half scowl that tells me he doesn't believe a word I've just said.
"Is that the story you're going with?"
"No story."
"You sure about that, Playboy?"
"Positive."
He smirks and walks out on stage where his drum kit has been set up. That look in his eyes can't possibly be good.
SKYE
Sticks walks over to his kit and pulls a set of drumsticks from his pocket. At the last soundcheck I watched, he just hit the cymbals a few times and tapped the bass pedal, but today he seems to be in an unusual mood. He immediately starts showboating, throwing his sticks up in the air, pulling out all the tricks and hitting the drums with precision at lightning speeds.
Jacks walks out on stage in a loose black sleeveless shirt and black distressed jeans, chuckling to himself as he watches Sticks. Sticks smiles at Kaylani and I as we watch from the pit.
"Save it for the show," Jacks says with a shake of his head.
Sticks replies but I can't make out what he says; he just smirks at Jacks before looking back to me and winking. I snap a few photos as he continues to showboat, managing to get one with his drumstick midair.
"Jacks," Kaylani calls, gesturing to Sticks to stop drumming. "You're on vocal rest today so we'll keep your mic tests to a minimum and use Roman's levels as a baseline. I just need to run through some of the specifics of the stage with you."
Jacks walks over and sits at the edge of the stage between Kaylani and me.
"Hey," he says with a smile. "What's up, Kay?"
She flips through pages on her clipboard and shows him some diagrams of the stage.
"This theater is a bit different," she says, pointing to the paper and then to a section of the stage. "Use the pink tape for your marks when you play 'Sideline' and 'Touch'."
She continues going over details for a few minutes, then Jacks returns to center stage. He sings a quick line from one of his songs into the mic; his voice is smooth and echos through the mostly-empty theater.
"Right monitor?" he says, pointing upward as he makes eye contact with the sound engineer.
"Did you want to run through that cover?" Sticks asks from behind him.
"No," he replies abruptly. "Um... vocal rest."
"Yeah sure," Sticks says with a smile. "Vocal rest."
As they wrap up, Sticks stands up and walks to the edge of the stage just in front of me. He reaches out with a drumstick in hand.
"Here ya go, darlin'," he says, handing them to me. "A souvenir."
I laugh and thank him, then Jacks grabs him by the back of his shirt and pulls him away.
"Ignore him," Jacks grumbles as he tugs him off stage.
*****
Jacks is on fire tonight—or maybe he's just always this good. His voice is flawless and he struts around the stage in a barely-buttoned black silk shirt with ease. He's made for this; made to be a performer. The music and the love from the audience seem to feed his soul.
The crowd here is particularly wild; at least one woman threw her bra onstage during the first song. Jacks's eyes went wide for a moment but he laughed it off. I guess it's not the first time that's happened to him.
The song ends and Jacks smiles at something he sees out in the audience. He points and grabs the mic off its stand.
"Hey, Riley!" he says with a smile. "I see it's your first concert tonight!"
I turn to see who he's referring to and spot a little girl, probably no more than six, on her father's shoulders. She has light blond wispy ponytails holding a bright pink sign that says: I'm Riley, This is My First Concert. The girl screams and nearly starts to cry, shaking her sign up and down.
This is going to make for a great picture.
Click.
"Hey Las Vegas," he says. "Could you all help me bring Riley up here so we can make her first concert memorable? What do you think?"
Everyone cheers wildly and little by little Riley and her dad make their way through the crowd to the front of the stage. Kaylani immediately gestures to security to let the girl on stage and a guard just lifts her onto the stage beside Jacks.
"Hi, Riley," he says to the girl, who is practically sobbing at this point. She hugs his legs and he laughs and gives her a pat on the shoulders. "Are you a fan of mine?"
He holds the mic up for her but she just nods frantically.
"What's your favorite song?"
"Upside Down," she says into the mic. The crowd bursts into a mix of gasps and laughter, because that song isn't exactly G-rated.
Jacks's eyes widen slightly as he looks out knowingly to his fans. His shoulders begin shaking with laughter as the crowd laughs and hollers.
"I didn't expect you to say that," he says. The crowd laughs as he pretends to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. "What's your second favorite?"
"The neon lights song."
He smiles and nods.
"Well, how would you like to help me sing it?"
She nods and jumps up and down.
He turns around and cues the band and in a moment an upbeat tune starts playing. Jacks begins singing and the crowd loses it.
♫ "Blazing, colorful, Everything is wonderful, I wouldn't want anything else."
Everyone in the theater seems to know the words and they're all singing along. The little girl is twirling and singing as she dances beside Jacks. He jokingly even throws in his own twirl and I manage to catch it on camera.
This is gold.
When he gets to the chorus he crouches beside her.
"Walking the streets at night, Now everything is bright, I see my world shining," he sings. He holds the microphone between them for the last line, which they sing together. "Like neon lights."
The girl looks like she's having the time of her life and his fans seem to love it. I feel butterflies rising in my stomach as I watch them.
I shouldn't be feeling butterflies over Jacks. Stop it, stomach. I'm engaged. Knock it off.
But the butterflies don't seem to want to stop.
Damn.
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