It wouldn’t be fair to anyone.
And it wasn’t like any of them liked me that way. I’d been called “little sister” a million times and been given the nuggies to prove it.
So I stayed silent. Except when I was on my drums. Then I was very, very loud. I raged at the world for a thousand things. Nothing was more cathartic than losing myself in my sticks.
But the concert was over now and I just had to distract myself until next time. Speaking of…
I turned my back to the room, yanked my sweat-soaked tank top off over my head, and tugged on a fresh black one. I felt eyes on me when I turned back around.
Bishop’s dark eyes were piercing mine. “Where are you going?”
“Out. You aren’t my keeper.” I yanked on a cap to cover my blue and pink hair. “I’ll be back to the bus in time. Don’t worry.” I headed towards the door.
“Luna, you get back here,” Bishop ordered.
I was tired of him acting like the boss of me. So I flipped him off, grinned, and opened the door to the flood of screeching groupies.
Pushing the security guard to the side, I gestured inside. “He’s all yours.” I slipped out as they mobbed the door.
Bishop wasn’t the kind of guy to just let things pass. At the moment, I didn’t give a fuck. I hurried down the back hallway of the arena, then shoved out an exit door.
Cool air blasted my face. God, that felt good after the heat of the show. I put my arms up over my head and breathed in. If only the breeze could do anything to soothe the other heat that was plaguing me…
I shook my head and started hoofing it down the sidewalk. Thank God I got to wear Doc Martens to our shows. High heels were the bane of my existence and I was glad I wasn’t that kind of rockstar.
“Hey, Luna,” I heard from behind me. It was Mason. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
I stopped and closed my eyes, taking another deep breath to calm my nerves.
“Where are you going?”
I spun on him, so not in the mood. “None of your fucking business, God! You guys aren’t my fucking older brothers. I don’t have to let you know where I am 24/7! I’m not in the mood.” I’d heard it all plenty of times before.
I knew what I was in the mood for and it wasn’t something any of my sexy bandmates were willing to give me. Not Bishop, not Mason, not any of them. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried. So I’d mapped it before the concert and found a bar just a block down from here.
If Cash and the rest of them could get their jollies on after a concert… well, I was an equal opportunity sort of gal. And this itch I had inside me… I was gonna go crazy if it didn’t get scratched soon.
So… sorry, not sorry. I couldn’t care less about the slightly hurt look on Mason’s face at the moment. I turned forward again and kept going. I needed to find a man who wouldn’t look at me like a little sister tonight.
It wasn’t their fault, I knew. When they met me, I was a little street runt.
I’d been a skinny, starving 18-year-old when they first plucked me off the streets at my most desperate. I had just been kicked out of foster care on my birthday three weeks before, and it wasn’t as if there’d been a lot of food to spare at Mimi’s anyway. She wasn’t a bitch. I think she cared about the kids she fostered, once upon a time. But by the time I got to her, she’d taken on too many kids without enough rooms, and I was assigned a social worker who couldn’t give a good goddamn about any of it.
It was a better situation than other places I’d been, though, so I didn’t complain. But eighteen was eighteen, and Mimi gave me a plastic bag with a few clothes, fifty bucks, and said here’s the door, don’t let it hit your ass on the way out.
I just didn’t expect it. I thought she’d let me stay till I finished high school.
But then boom.
I had no place to stay. No friends, really, since I’d always been moved around every couple years and never had a chance to make any. So I took a bus to the city, bought sticks and a drum, and started busking.
The only reason I got away with what virtue I had left intact was because I was a light sleeper and a fast runner. It saved my bacon more than once those few weeks. They were my only useful skills in addition to drumming, which I’d picked up during freshman year when I happened to land at a public school that had a marching band. When you can’t play any other instrument, they put you in the drum corps. I took to it like a fish in water. It was the happiest I ever was until that point.