Riff (Road Kings Book 2) by Julie Kriss

Author:Julie Kriss [Kriss, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Julie Kriss
Published: 2022-06-08T18:30:00+00:00

Seventeen

August

Neal

The Detroit show went about as expected. A storm front had moved in, and it pissed rain. We were in a venue that held three thousand, and we’d sold it out. The building was almost eighty years old, and with the rain, the heat, and the crowd, it was like playing in a musty sauna.

The Detroit crowd was rowdy from the jump. There were police lights outside because of fights in the soaked parking lot, and security strong-armed at least one drunk guy out mid-show that I could see. They also evicted—much more gently—a girl who insisted on watching the show without a shirt on. The crowd heckled security when they made her leave.

Stone was in a mood, which set Denver off. There was no one slower to anger than our lead singer, but even he was edgy and sharp tonight, unwilling to put up with Stone’s grumpy bullshit. The tension made Axel go quiet, like a kid whose parents are arguing, and for the first time on this tour, I felt serious worry about him. This was the oppressive kind of night that would make any addict want to use, and getting supply had never been a problem for Axel. He probably still had contacts in every city. I watched him stare into the distance before the show and pulled out my phone, texting Brit. I don’t like his mood. Please be here when we finish and be careful. Watch his phone. She texted back that she got it. Axel might be mad if he found out, but fuck it.

Stone wanted to rearrange the set list and Denver said no. I had to referee, because Axel didn’t have the bandwidth for it, and I sided with Denver. Of course I did—our only hope of salvaging the night was to make our lead singer even moderately happy. That made Stone mad at me, but Stone was always miserable anyway, so who cared if he didn’t get his way? He stayed pissy, but he stopped just short of throwing us curveballs onstage. So we actually played a pretty good show, even though the crowd was a bunch of assholes. With perverse determination, we went long, playing until we’d converted them and they were screaming along with the songs instead of at each other.

I was soaked in sweat, exhausted, and worried about whether Axel was going to end the night by offing himself, either by mistake or on purpose. For the first time, I wondered if the tour had been a good idea. I also wondered if we should have taken our backer up on his offer of bigger, better venues this time around. The last thought was because Raine was here, seeing this shit show firsthand.

Raine was here. She was here. Part of me couldn’t believe she’d showed up, that we’d done the things we’d done. Part of me thought I’d go backstage to find that she’d left hours ago, heading back to the airport and back home to her normal, well-organized life.

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