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"What are you doing?" the photographer screamed.
"Um," Ty said, looking at Inya.
"Not you, him," Kyle said, pointing behind Ty.
Ty looked back at the roadie, who was rolling a giant speaker behind them. The kid stopped to wipe his brow, then realized that everyone was staring at him.
"What?" the kid said.
"What? Are you kidding me? You're rolling that thing right through my shot."
The kid, Eddie, Ty suddenly remembered the roadie's name, looked confused.
"I have to get this on stage," Eddie said.
"Well, go a different way! We're trying to shoot here."
"What other way?" Eddie said.
"I really don't care," Kyle said.
"Look," Eddie said, as he sized up Kyle and was clearly not impressed. "The truck is there," he pointed to the left. "The stage is there," he pointed to the right. "Therefore," he said, with exaggerated emphasis. "The gear has to go through here. Okay, princess?"
"Well, Inya is that okay, if the gear is rolling through the shot?" Kyle said, clearly deciding to pretend the princess comment didn't apply to him.
Ty snuck a glance at Eddie and saw the roadie grinning widely.
"Ty," Inya started to say, but Ty interrupted her.
"I told you shooting here was a bad idea," Ty said. He didn't feel bad about it, not at all.
"Can't they just—"
"No, they can't, Inya. They have to unload the gear now. There's going to be, like, fifteen thousand people here later, expecting to see a concert they spent their hard-earned money for and we can't make them sit around waiting because you wanted to shoot an ad today. I told you this was a bad idea."
Inya jumped off the crate she had been sitting on and put a pouty look on her face. Eddie stood there staring at her. Ty was used to the roadies checking her out and the fans and MC and everyone who came into contact with her, but today, with the dress she was wearing for the shoot which consisted of barely enough fabric to cover anything, it was especially annoying.
"Eddie," Ty barked at him.
The roadie looked half glazed over from the vision of Inya in front of him, who was now standing with her feet wide apart and her arms folded angrily across her chest.
"What?" Eddie replied.
"Weakest link," Ty said.
"Fuck," Eddie said and turned back to the speaker.
The stage manager was fond of screaming at anyone he thought wasn't working hard enough and telling the crew, "There is no room for the weakest link on this tour." The mangled cliche didn't make a lot of sense, but nobody on the crew liked being criticized in front of the other guys. Eddie started pushing the speaker towards the stage and Kyle studied the rolling speaker intently, with his hand on his chin.
Then he announced, "Okay, I think I got something. You guys move," he said, motioning to Inya and Ty off to the side.
Kyle barked at his assistant, then made some adjustments on the camera the woman handed him. Another large speaker came rolling through the hallway and Kyle started frantically shooting. Relieved to have a break from the shooting, Ty found a wall to lean up against. Inya followed and glared at him.
"What?" Ty said.
"This is important," Inya said. "You could be a little more supportive."
"I am being supportive," Ty said. "I said I'd do the shoot. I'm wearing the clothes."
Ty looked down and wished he hadn't. The more time he spent in the clothes for Inya's menswear line, the more he hated them. They had already had one big fight that morning, about yet another crazy print pair of pants she had wanted him to wear for the shoot. Instead he was squashed into some ridiculously tight skinny pants that he couldn't wait to get out of and would never wear again. His junk wasn't likely to forgive him anytime soon, either.
"We need this Ty," Inya said, then leaned in closer. "The line isn't doing well. I told you that."
Ty was familiar with the situation. Apparently Inya's gold touch didn't extend to men's clothes. It might have, if the clothes had been anything the average guy had wanted to wear. And if the prices weren't completely ridiculous. Inya was the primary investor in the line, but the other investors weren't happy with the lack luster reception the line had been getting.
"I did everything you wanted Inya," Ty said. "We're shooting, right? Like you wanted? But I can't shut the crew down for this. I don't have the authority anyway."
"I do," said a voice off to the side.
Ty turned to see Steve standing there. Ty wasn't sure how much he had heard. Inya turned around and Steve smiled at her.
"What do you need, sweetheart? Just tell me and it's done."
"Thank you, STEVE," Inya said. "I don't know, Kyle said he had something. Kyle, can you come here when you're done with that?"
"I think I'm good," Kyle said, coming over to three of them. "Look at what I got," he held the camera out and Steve and Inya bent their heads over to look at it. Ty didn't bother to try to look.
"See," Kyle said. “I'll just use these rolling shots as background, with the delay I used, it will be blurry, but I like it. Then we photo-shop you guys on top of it. What do you think?"
"It looks awesome," Steve said.
Ty rolled his eyes, but managed to keep from groaning out loud.
"I like it too," Inya said.
"So are we done then?" Ty asked because he couldn't wait to get out of those damn pants.
"Actually," Kyle said and this time Ty did groan out loud. "I really want some shots with some color. The shot is dark, she's in black, the colors would really pop, but you know..."
Ty did know. Kyle had been witness to the heated discussion Ty and Inya had had earlier.
"Come on, Ty, please?" Inya said and her eyes started looking all watery.
Ty couldn't believe it. She was actually going to cry over the photo shoot.
"How about one of the shirts, okay? I could do that," Ty offered as a compromise.
Inya promptly burst into tears.
"Oh my god, Inya, what is it?" Steve didn't waste anytime and grabbed Inya, wrapping his arms around her protectively.
"It's nothing," Inya said, sobbing. "The line, it isn't doing as well as we hoped and I really wanted this ad to showcase some of the more vibrant colors we have, but Ty doesn't like them."
"Of course he likes them," Steve said. Inya had her face buried in Steve's shirt, so she couldn't see the smirk on his face, but Ty could. Clearly. "How could he not like them?"
"He doesn't," Inya said. "He wouldn't wear them for the shoot."
"Well, could I do it? I don't mind. I'm sure if you designed them, they are amazing."
Ty had to work really hard to suppress his groan this time.
"I mean if Ty doesn't mind, that is," Steve continued. "He doesn't seem to really like shooting clothing ads, but I've never done it, it would be fun."
"You would do that?"
"Of course. I have nothing to do this afternoon anyway."
"More like nobody to do," Ty thought angrily. It was common knowledge that the roadies had at least two pools going regarding how many chicks Steve would bang on the tour. One for the total and one for the day he broke a hundred. Ty had asked, after being offered the calendar and declining to take part, how they were keeping track. "Oh, no problem," he had been told. Steve knew about the pools and was more than happy to make his conquests public.
"Is that okay, Ty?" Inya said. She reached her hand up to her face, which prompted Kyle to scream at her not to touch it.
"You know," Ty said. "Maybe that's for the best. I'll change and hang around for...moral support."
"Thank you," Inya said, and she left Steve's side, finally, and hugged Ty. When she let go Ty kept his arm around her waist.
"What do you think, Kyle?" Inya asked.
"Your makeup has to be totally redone, Inya. What were you thinking?"
"Sorry."
Kyle sighed and muttered something that sounded like, "Why me?" then screamed, "Margo!"
The woman Ty had seen earlier who was in charge of the clothing materialized from the shadows.
"Yes?" Margo asked, then after glancing at Inya, she said, "Oh my god, what happened?"
"Never mind," Kyle said. "Inya, go wash it all off, they'll redo it all. Christ that will take an hour, Margo, change of plans. Can you use the clothes we have with this guy?"
Inya took off. Margo sized up Steve, then Ty, then tugged Ty's sleeve, to pull him next to Steve.
"They're about the same height. I could pin it in the back. It could work."
"Good," Kyle said. "You, Steve is it? Go with her. You have any problems with any of the clothes, I don't want to hear about it, okay?"
"I'm sure the clothes will be fine," Steve said, and he trotted obediently behind Margo. "Whatever Inya wants," he tossed back over his shoulder, for Ty's benefit.
"Where can I have a cigarette?" Kyle asked Ty.
"Outside, fifty feet from the entrance, I think," Ty said.
"Are you kidding me?"
"State law," Ty replied. "I can show you. I'm going back to the bus anyway to, er, change."
Ty had almost said, "Get these fucking clothes off," but he censored himself. The way he saw it Inya, Steve and Kyle were going to be happy little trio with Ty out of way. Which left Ty with no other option other than to monitor the damn shoot the rest of the afternoon. He'd have to find some way to make this up to Inya, but he had no idea what. And he wasn't a hundred percent sure he had anything to apologize for.
Ty went back to the bus. As he walked into the bedroom, he caught a glimpse of himself and almost laughed out loud. He looked completely ridiculous. He got undressed as fast as humanly possible and then went into the bathroom to wash the gel out of his hair. It took longer to rinse the crap out of his hair in the sink than he would have thought and by the time he was done, he was wondering why he hadn't just jumped in the shower.
Back in the bedroom he pulled on a pair of jeans and opened up the closet. The first shirt that caught his eye was a blue flannel and he pulled it out of the closet and put it on. Inya hated that shirt, but Ty wasn't thinking about that as he went back into the bathroom to dry his hair with a towel a little more and brush it. It was one of the two shirts Sara had given Ty on Valentine's Day and Ty realized he hadn't seen the other shirt, the red one, in a long time. He wondered what had happened to it.
Ty found Inya getting her make up done.
"Oh, that you'll wear," she said, when she saw him.
Ty reminded himself that Inya was very stressed out. Maybe after this ad was published the line would start picking up steam and she would calm down, finally. The makeup artist turned to look and when Ty caught the disdain in his eyes, Ty made up his mind. He was done with the photo shoot.
"Look, I know I said I'd watch the shoot, but we've been working on a new song and I forgot we said we would work on it today."
It wasn't the complete truth. Dale and Ty had been working on the song, the one that Ty had first conceived during the fashion show and they were ready to work up the full arrangement with Nate and Mack, but they had planned nothing for that afternoon. Ty generally didn't plan on doing anything when Inya was traveling with him other than, well, being with Inya.
"It's fine," Inya said, in that way that made it impossible to determine if it really was fine, or if it really wasn't. "We have Steve."
"Okay," Ty said, and tried to bend down to give her a kiss, which got him swatted away, by both Inya and the makeup artist.
Ty gave up and turned and walked away from them. On the way out he passed Steve and Margo.
"You're crazy, man. These are great clothes," Steve said as they passed.
Steve was laughing as he said it and Ty was pretty sure he didn't mean it at all.
"They look good on you, man," Ty replied. "They make you look very...punchable."
"Go ahead, punch me," Steve said, at which Margo exclaimed, "God no!"
"No, it's fine," Steve said, reassuring Margo, "Go ahead, Ty. Ruin the photo shoot for Inya for a second time in one day."
Ty didn't move.
"I thought so," Steve said. "Come on, let's go find Inya and get this done."
Ty stood watching them walk away from him and it took every ounce of his self-control not to run after them, tackle Steve to the ground and beat the shit out of him, once and for all.
"Fuck it," Ty thought. Steve could have the photo shoot, which he didn't want to be in anyway. Inya would be back in his bed that night. And that settled, Ty went to find his friends, to try to turn the waste of a perfectly good afternoon into something productive.