Focus on the music and you won’t make a fool of yourself here.
“It’s great when you’re locked in and finding the groove. It’s terrible when the songs are flat and the crowd is booing you. One of my first gigs was up at State and the students started throwing their trash at us. We’d played a few times in the dorms and at one frat house and thought we were hot shit. Ben Tausch was my singer and he felt that rehearsing would make our sound stale and since our jam sessions were so lit, we should wing it. But he forgot the lyrics to the Radiohead song we were covering, and Ian broke his drumstick halfway through the set.” I can’t help but laugh at my own hubris and idiocy. “We’re lucky they didn’t throw the chairs at us.”
“May and I wrote three apps that failed before we wrote Peep. And even then, we thought it was too similar to other stuff out there,” Landry shares.
“What set it apart?”
“File compression. We reduced the file transfer size of a high-quality video so that it uses exponentially less data. Streaming videos are the future and any tech that can deliver it faster and cheaper is going to be popular. We stumbled on it almost by accident.” She shrugs like her thing wasn’t some huge deal.
But it is. I did my own share of googling. Her little app sold for eight figures. She might have more money than me.
“May took off about three months ago to tour the world,” Landry adds. “She’s currently in Asia.”
“And you feel like you should’ve gone with her?” There’s a wistful quality to her words.
“Maybe?” Her mouth twists into an uncertain curve. “I’m a bit of a homebody, and the idea of riding wild ponies through Mongolia is something I don’t mind reading about, but I can’t say I want to do it.” She peeps at me under a set of long, pale lashes. “That probably sounds boring to you.”
“I can’t say I’m interested in riding ponies, either.”
“But you’re on tour,” she points out.
“No one likes going on tour. It’s a necessary evil. A musician likes to perform. He likes the feedback loop between him and an appreciative audience. He might even enjoy the different crowds, but touring itself is the devil. You’re tired all the time. The cities start to blend together. By the time we reach Arizona, someone’s going to think we’re still in Texas.”
“Is that why Davis has the name of the city inked on his palm?”
“That’s right.” I gave that tip to him after the second night. You never want to get caught thanking the wrong town. It’s a surefire way to turn locals against you.
“Still, this is the most adventure I’ve had my entire life.” She shoots me a rueful smile. “The one good thing Marrow did is push me out of my comfort zone. If it weren’t for him and Davis—and you, I suppose—I’d still be in my parents’ basement.”
“That would’ve been a real shame.”
We dig into our breakfasts after that, talking more. She shares a little more about her family and how she hopes her folks return with their relationship glued back together. I tell her about my mom, living out in LA, trying to win a contest on who can have the most plastic surgery done to her body.
I’ve never met another person so easy to talk to. I could sit here all morning, doing nothing but watching her smile and eat.
By the time breakfast is over, I’m throbbing with need, but I do the only thing I can—I get back on the bus, change into running gear, and sweat out my lust as best I can.
I run the next morning. And every morning after for the next two weeks. It’s the only way I can cope. I don’t allow myself time alone with Landry. It’s too dangerous. During the day, I crash or jam with Davis or talk to Rudd about the marketing.
It’s the early morning hours that are a problem.
Like me, she’s up early. I don’t know if she can’t sleep or she just enjoys the time out of the bus. For me, it’s getting my ass off the sardine can. The run tires me out.
She waltzes around innocently, blissfully ignorant of how she’s tearing me up inside.
Only Ian guesses that my balls are bluer than a Smurf.
It’s cold comfort that Landry’s having fun. She doesn’t hesitate to get out of the bus anymore. No dark shadows lurk behind her eyes. Her smile is ready and beautiful.
Objectively, I know I shouldn’t be having breakfast with her each morning. I don’t do this sort of thing with any other band member and I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t with her. But I can’t give it up. These are the only times I have with her away from it all. In random cafes across the south, out in public so I won’t be tempted to put my hands all over her.
So I suffer. It’s exquisite torture.
We’ve fallen into a routine. We know each other well enough to order breakfast for each other. Large stack of blueberry pancakes for me, syrup on the side, accompanied by hash browns and an extra order of bacon. She never orders meat with breakfast but enjoys stealing two pieces from my plate. She only orders a Denver omelet.
“Mike told me you were a creative genius,” Landry says during today’s breakfast.
“Who’s Mike?” I blink because she’s so damned gorgeous. Idly I wonder what she’d do if I dragged her across the table and onto my lap, then kissed the daylights out of her.