The Daymakers, page 18
The label had okayed soft-launching my presence on the guys’ socials, not officially, but dropping me in the background with some carefully curated photos, always in the mask. Sitting around in the dressing rooms, or candid photos at sites. They put me in the same class of people as Shep—a person who was always around the band, but not part of it. Some people had made the connection that Toy was Dreamer.
The conjecture about why I was also in a mask was wild, though, with some people speculating that I was the band’s muse, others saying that I was trying to join them as a back-up vocalist, or that I was someone’s sister/girlfriend/lover. A source close to the band said that Royal had called me his girlfriend. No guesses to who that source was.
Whatever it was, the mystery of my appearance had both perplexed the female fans and given the male fans something to put in their spank bank, according to Whitt. Shep had been extremely unhappy about that, hence the security guard accompanying me.
People began to surround us, the closer we got to the entrance, and the security kid was beginning to sweat.
“Dreamer?” someone called, and I looked over my shoulder at a girl who was probably too young to be at this concert by herself. Giving her a soft smile, I hoped she had a parent somewhere.
When a woman in her late thirties hovered a few feet back, I relaxed. “Yeah?”
“I like your new mask.”
My smile turned into a full-blown grin. “Really? I made it myself.”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “Yep, right down to hand-wrapping the stones.”
She thrust a poster at me. “Can I have your autograph?”
Blinking at her, I was glad the mask hid some of my shock. “You want my autograph? I’m not part of the band. I can’t sing a single note without sounding like a dying cow.” I didn’t want her to think I was joining The Daymakers, and then hate that my name was on her poster forever.
She shrugged. “I don’t care. You’re still cool.”
Gah, I was going to cry. “Oh. Okay, sure.” I took the sharpie from her and signed the poster down in the bottom corner. It felt weird, signing my name. I put a little moon and stars beside it, and a bubble of happiness settled in my chest. Giving her back the sharpie, I grabbed a wrapped rose quartz I’d hung on a chain around my neck and pulled it over my head. “Here. Have this for luck.”
It seemed dumb, but this girl had given me something and she didn’t even realize it. Giving her something small in return seemed like the least I could do. She took it, then launched herself at me, hugging me around the waist.
I blinked in shock, unsure what to do. I looked at her mom, who was holding back laughter as she nodded. So I hugged the girl back until her mom finally called her away. She waved and skipped off into the arena. She looked about fourteen, and that was a rough age, but I could see how she’d be all about The Daymakers. I wasn’t sure they were overly appropriate, but hey, I wasn’t someone’s parent.
My parents had me carrying meth in my Little Mermaid purse back when I was six, like the world’s youngest drug mule, so what did I know about acceptable parenting?
The security guard ushered me through the crowd, and I kept my head down until we were in the backstage area. This part was usually the same, no matter where the guys played, their roadies having it down to a fine art by now.
Some of them I knew by sight now, and I waved politely. Shep didn’t let anyone get too close, trying to keep the chance of me blowing everything to a minimum. I’d missed seeing the guys before they went on stage, but that was okay. I was happy to stand off to the side and just watch. The vibe was good here tonight, and I knew that meant the band would feed off the crowd.
As soon as they stepped onto the stage, the crowd roared. It was deafening. A lot of the roadies wore earplugs if they didn’t have earpieces in. I wasn’t going to be around the tour long enough to develop long-term hearing damage, so I just sat back and appreciated the absolute rush of live music. I couldn’t imagine how much better it would be from the stage, with the crowd singing my music back at me.
Shep appeared and lifted me onto the equipment case behind us. His eyes continued to roam around the back of the stage for people who didn’t belong, but soon enough, the guys’ set began, and you couldn’t help but be transfixed.
They always started with one of their most popular songs. It had an upbeat rhythm and was very much a fuck you to modern society. It always sent the crowd into a frenzy. The moshpit started early, and I hoped to hell that the girl and her mom were in the seats, not on the floor.
I knew the band’s setlist almost as well as they did now, and when they segued straight into their second song, this one slower and more angsty, about love and loss, I wondered who Poet had written it about.
There was so much I didn’t know about them, or their lives, but I knew the sounds they made when they came. I knew the taste of their sweat on their skin. I knew the lines of their shoulders, and the sound of their laughter.
I didn’t know their names.
Didn’t know what their faces looked like.
Didn’t know about their families or previous lovers, or if they had wives back home.
Holy shit, what if they have wives back home?
I turned startled eyes to Shep and grabbed his shoulders. “Do the guys have wives and families? Why didn’t I ask that?”
Shep looked at me like I’d lost my damn mind. “You think I’d let this happen if they had partners at home?”
I shrugged. I didn’t have much faith in humanity in general, though I had to admit, I had a little more faith in Shep. “That didn’t answer my question.”
He rolled his eyes. Even sitting on the equipment box, I was only nose to nose with him. I had the sudden thought that I wanted him to stand between my knees and kiss me silly.
Goddammit. Why did I want the one I couldn’t have? I was my own worst enemy at times.
Huffing out a disgruntled noise, he shook his head. “None of them have significant others. Not since Knight and his ex.”
“The beautiful ex,” I grumbled, still feeling woefully inferior.
Shep gripped my chin. “She was pretty on the outside, but ugly where it mattered. She hated that Poet and Hero were in a relationship and had no interest in her. Hated that she had Knight and not Royal. Was disgusted by Poet’s prosthetic, though we all shut her down the one time she mentioned it. She apologized later, blaming being drunk, but she was a vicious bitch. You’re a hundred times the woman she is.”
I swallowed hard at his words. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me while not having sex with me. “You don’t really know me.”
“I know you more than you think.” He scoffed. “Besides, a fucking rabies-infected raccoon would be a hundred times better than that demon.”
I laughed, but it was muffled by the sounds from the stage. “This one is for all the daydreamers out there,” Royal called, then went into their sexiest song. It was a song made for fucking, the bass line strong and slow, and Royal crooned out the words like he was trying to tempt the whole crowd into bed.
They’d all come willingly too.
When he walked over to Knight, the guitarist turned to face him, leaning back and playing that slow rhythm and rolling his body toward Royal like he was fucking him. Honestly, when they did this little performance, my whole body got hot, and I didn’t think I was the only one.
Knight reached out and grabbed the side of Royal’s button-up shirt between notes, tearing it open, making the crowd scream. Royal smirked, and as his eyes bounced to the side of the stage, they snagged with mine.
Tonight, I was going to bring that man to his knees, and he was going to beg me for it.
I blew him a kiss, and he grinned as he walked back to the front of the stage, his hand running down his body until he cupped his dick. Knight cast me a quick look and winked.
Fuck me. I was in over my head with these guys.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ROYAL
I looked at the little girl in front of me, grimacing at the fact that Knight had practically dry-humped my leg on stage while this kid was in the crowd. Shouldn’t she still be watching the cartoon channel? Instead, she was thrusting a poster at me.
“I think your band is just the best,” she gushed. I signed my name over my body on the poster, but a small signature in the corner had me raising my eyebrows at the girl.
“When did you get this?” I asked softly, smiling to soften my words.
“Before the concert. Dreamer’s so nice, and so, so pretty. I hope I’m as pretty as her when I grow up. And she gave me this!” She pulled a necklace from around her neck, showing me the gemstone on the end. “My friends are never going to believe me.”
Her mother motioned her daughter forward to take a photo, and I gave my trademark smirk. “Look, now you have photo proof.”
The line was long, but when the girl leaned forward conspiratorially, I was too interested in her next words to shoo her along to Knight. “Is Dreamer your girlfriend?”
I shook my head. “Dreamer is the bravest person I know, but she’s not mine. Prettiness is great, but you should want to be as tough and as loyal as her too.”
The girl was nodding furiously. “I will! Thank you, Royal.” She bounced along the line and was quickly replaced by another fan. Then another. I was riding the high of a great show, so I took my time talking to people. They’d been a great crowd. They deserved a little extra from us tonight.
By the time we were done, I was exhausted, and Poet’s limp was pronounced. I needed a hot shower, a beer and sleep. I’d probably rub one out, because she’d been waiting for us when we got offstage and she looked…
I let out a shuddering sigh.
She made my heart beat faster and my breath stall in my lungs, and that wasn’t something I was used to feeling. She was a temptation. She was a problem.
None of that mattered, though, because I still wanted her. I’d been so good the last couple of weeks after I’d seen her breakdown in New Mexico. Watching her struggling and terrified had shocked the hell out of me, and fucking with her now seemed wrong. She’d seemed so tough until that moment, so capable of taking my shit and throwing it back at me tenfold.
Now, screwing with her felt like kicking an already injured bird. One that you wanted to pick up instead. Nurse back to health. See spread its wings once more.
Watching her piece herself back together had made me respect her. Watching her laugh and play house with men I considered family made me look at her in a different light. However, logic was never far away, and it told me one of us had to keep our head, since the rest of them were smitten, all with one girl. Even Shep.
It was a disaster waiting to happen. I’d sat beside Poet’s broken body in hospital when we were teenagers, and I told him that I’d never let him get hurt again. Charlotte was the first time I’d come perilously close to breaking that promise, because even if I got rid of her now, Poet was attached. So was Knight, and not just as a rebound. They’d be heartbroken.
Yeah, and you wouldn’t exactly be happy either. Don’t use them as an excuse just because you don’t want to send her away yet. The voice of reason was an asshole sometimes.
We stepped onto the bus, and then she was there. She had beers in her hands, her blindfold on. A smile stretched across her face, and it was like the sun was shining on us, even in the late-night darkness.
“You guys were amazing tonight,” she said enthusiastically, and I took a beer. The guys did too, the only difference being that they all swooped down and kissed her. One after another, like the fact they were kissing the same lips wasn’t inciting even the smallest amount of territorial jealousy.
Bullshit. There was no way they could just be okay with it. It’d be one thing if she was just a convenient hole, but over the last few weeks, they’d treated her differently. They’d treated her like she was special, important.
Reaching out, she walked forward until she found the couch, sitting down softly. She’d changed from the dress she’d been wearing earlier into little silk pajamas which hugged her tight little ass like a dream. Though she’d been a dream in that dress too. She’d looked like all my black-cat, emo-girl fantasies come to life. It had been hard not to push her against the wall and bury myself inside her right there, backstage.
I didn’t know why I was resisting the urge—it was her entire purpose on the tour—but after New Mexico, using her honestly felt wrong. I wanted her to come to me. Wanted her to want me.
I hated that she’d made no move to seek me out. Women threw themselves at me left and right, even my friends’ girlfriends. Groupies. Music execs. My dad’s friends’ wives. The teachers at my boarding school. For as long as I’d been a man, girls had offered to get down on their knees in the hopes I’d give them a taste.
But not her.
She didn’t ignore me. She talked to me like she wanted to know everything about me. I couldn’t tell her anything big without giving away my identity, but I found myself telling her about the first song I ever wrote. When I realized I could actually sing. My favorite food. She had a way of dragging information out of me, and if she wanted to find a different career, she could be an interrogator for the CIA.
Knight sat down beside her, pulling her into his lap. “Thanks, babe. They were a great crowd.” He nuzzled her cheek. “It helped that you watched us from the side of the stage. I might have performed a little better to impress you.”
I rolled my eyes at my guitarist. To think there was a time he’d been as much of a manwhore as me, and now he was fawning all over her. We were going to have a band meeting soon where I reminded them all that this was a temporary situation, before they got in too deep.
We debriefed about the set, about the tour in general, and I noted the way Shep watched Charlotte from the side of his eye. The longing there was honestly painful to see.
Knight stretched, his arm tightening around Charlotte’s waist. “I’m exhausted. Who’s in your bed tonight, love?”
She chewed her lip, resting her cheek against his temple. “I thought, maybe, Royal would like to sleep in the bigger bed with me tonight?”
I swallowed hard as everyone turned to look at me. I opened my mouth to say something clever, but nothing came out. Her jaw was set in a challenging line, a little curl to her lips like she knew she had me. Like she thought I’d chicken out and foist her on one of the other guys.
This was what I’d wanted. I’d wanted her to come to me, but now I was flailing.
I was the lead singer in one of the world’s biggest bands. I didn’t flail just because a pretty girl wanted to ride my cock.
“Sure, Toy. Whatever you want.” I kept my voice casual, like my heart wasn’t pounding in my chest. She stood, sashaying straight down the hall as if she could see clearly. She looked over her shoulder and smirked, and I was transported back to the first day I met her—to the Charlotte who was full of bravado and sensuality, who’d put me in my place with a few sharp words and her thumb between my lips.
I felt like a dog, panting after her and coming to heel at her command, but my dick was already aching to be inside her. It meant nothing, just roleplaying. If she wanted to play dominant, I’d make her work for it.
I avoided the guys’ eyes as I walked down the bus after her. Either they’d be laughing at me, or subtly threatening me not to do anything stupid, and I didn’t want to acknowledge either of those responses.
Her room was the cleanest space on the bus. “Keep it tidy, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “I need to be able to walk around in the mask without tripping over and breaking my neck. Besides, it’s a holdover from my foster days. Easier to see when something’s missing if you know exactly how everything goes.”
Fuck me. There was a whole world between our lives up until this point.
She walked to the small closet and opened it with sure fingers. Finding the drawer she needed, she pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. “I made you something. Well, I made you all something, but you get yours first.”
She handed me a soft pleather mask, brass studs holding all the parts together. Other sections had been stitched, like over the nose. It curved up, and I knew it would sit halfway back on my skull. Small horns stuck up from the top, and it was honestly, really fucking cool.
“I used Helen’s molds of all your faces, so hopefully they’re more comfortable to wear around, so you aren’t in full balaclavas all the time. Sorry it took me so long. There was definitely some trial and error involved.”
They kind of looked like Daredevil masks, and Hero was going to lose his shit. He’d loved comic books when we were growing up.
“This looks great.” I pushed it to my face, but my fingers failed to buckle up the straps at the back. They criss-crossed over the back of my head, holding it tight to my face like a second skin. It fit perfectly. “Can you buckle me up?”
She turned, sliding off her own mask. It was good to see her eyes. Not that I’d admit it. She stroked her fingers through my hair, and I resisted the urge to lean into her fingers. “Pretty.” She buckled the two straps tightly, before I spun and kissed her. Hard.
She gasped against my lips, but quickly met my fervor with passion of her own. Her tongue battled with mine for control of the kiss, and it was hot as hell. Eventually, she tore her mouth away.
“On your knees, Royal,” she gasped out, and I could see her trying to cling to her control. I smirked, giving her a moment to right the persona she was trying to portray tonight. “You might be the golden boy of the band, but tonight, I’m the one who needs to be worshiped. Can you do that?”
My first instinct was to battle her for control, but when she pushed on my shoulders, I found myself lowering to my knees. It put me nose to navel with her body, and she buried her fingers in my hair, pulling my head back sharply until I was forced to look up at her.
