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TWO MONTHS ON
LEVI
I GLANCE AT MY BABY boy in his little bassinet and stroke his head.
“Levi, what are you doing?” Brie comes in from having her make-up done. She looks amazing. “You need to be out on stage already.”
“I don’t wanna leave him,” I say, biting my bottom lip. “What if the headphones don’t actually cancel out the noise?”
“They will. Now go! Cooper and Zed will not wait forever, and Ash will still be here when you get back. He’s not going anywhere. His legs are far too short.” She stares down at the baby in question and wrinkles her nose.
I pull her into my arms. “I didn’t know I was marrying a comedian.”
“You haven’t married me yet. There’s still time for me to fall in love with Cooper or Zed,” she shrugs. “Though Kit, he seems pretty cute too.”
“Funny.” I bury my face in her neck and breathe her in.
“Jesus, you two need a room,” Deb says, glancing up from her phone.
“Deb, you have got this, right? I mean, Ash is not some little lap dog you can shove in a corner and ignore while you scroll your Instagram feed,” I say slowly, as if I’m talking to a kid. “He’s an actual human child, who might cry, and need affection. You do remember what that is, don’t you?”
“Oh, fuck off, Quinn. I know how to take care of an infant. I’m dating Zed, remember? But if that kid shits, he’s on his own.”
Brie shakes her head. “Go. I will be here virtually the whole time.”
“Yeah, but not the whole time. We’re still gonna have to leave him with Mrs. Hellfire over there for half a set. We should have hired a nanny.”
“Levi, there are twenty thousand Frenchmen out there who will not wait for you to hire a nanny at the last minute.” She wipes her lipstick off my cheek and presses her forehead to mine. “I love you, my annoying rock star, but get out of here.”
“Why don’t you just call me daddy? ’Cause you know I’ll be owning that arse on the tour bus later.”
Deb makes a gagging sound from the corner. She’s like an angry cat that someone forgot to feed.
Brie’s mouth twists up in a grin. “Now who is the comedian?”
“See you out there.” I spank her arse, and she shakes her head. I grab Ash’s tiny hand, and even in sleep, he clutches my finger tightly. Then I gently ease free and turn away from the loves of my life and head toward my other great love—music.
I exit the green room and walk the hall, meeting Coop, Zed, and Kit—who looks a little green at the idea of playing a venue filled with thousands—backstage. Ali stands beside him. You’d think she’d be here supporting her husband, but you’d be wrong. She’s here for Kit. She’s still banging on about being his manager, something that Coop isn’t so happy about since she won’t manage us as a band. Her exact words were, “Why the fuck would I want to manage a bunch of overgrown teenagers?”
You gotta hand it to Red, she sure knows how to keep a man on his toes.
“Ready?” Zed asks, jumping up and down and twirling his sticks like he’s got OCD. Which of course, he does. He’s just never been diagnosed because his mum was a hippie.
“Yeah, totally fucking ready,” I say, and my gaze slides to Ryan. We share a long look that I wasn’t sure we’d ever be sharing again. Not after he married the woman I loved. Not after Ash died, but here we are. “Speaking of ready, you look like you’re gonna hurl chunks, Kit. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m good,” he answers as if on autopilot.
“There’s a bucket we keep backstage—you know, if you need it.”
“He’s fine,” Ali growls. “Stop psyching him out.”
I hold my hands up in surrender and grin at Ali. She punches me in the chest, and I throw her a wink before heading out on stage into the darkness that’s filled with twenty thousand people all screaming our name. The rest of the band follow and take up their positions. And then the lights go up, and a sea of human heads bob and eb before us.
“How you doing, Paris?” Coop growls into the mic. A cheer goes up from the crowd. “I can’t hear you.”
They shout again, louder this time, and I grin and look at my brothers. And we are brothers—we’re a band, a family. And while some of us have had some slightly incestual relationships in the past—I wouldn’t change any of it. The pain, the heartbreak, my attempted suicide ... nothing.
Except for the part where my best friend is pushing up daisies.
“Paris, you’re breaking my heart.” Coop plays with the crowd a little more. They stomp their feet on the ground, and it sounds like thunder rolling in, only I never felt a storm as mighty as this. Coop laughs. “That’s better. This is called ‘Blow’.”
Zed leads us in and the next eight minutes are spent doing what Taint does best, rocking the fuck out as we play one song after the other.
“So, Paris,” Ryan drawls into the microphone, “you might remember we put the call out for you guys to wear Ash’s shirt, little tribute for our brother who’s no longer here.” The cheers go up again, and I suddenly find it hard to swallow around the lump in my throat. “Jim, can we lower the lights?” The lights dim, just enough for us to actually make out the sea of faces, and more importantly, their shirts.
I step up to the mic, staring at the ceiling of the arena. “Jesus, Ash, are you seeing this?”
“Look how many beautiful pairs of French tits your face is on right now,” Coop says to the sky. I slide my finger over the fretboard and mimic a wolf whistle with my guitar.
“That’s one he hasn’t been on before,” I say, and another cheer goes up.
“Fuck yeah!” Zed screams into his mic.
I glance out at the crowd again and read the handcrafted posters a few fans are holding. We Love You, Ash, and RIP, Ash, and Ash Cohen rocked my world. I shake my head. God, he’d both love and hate this shit. All he ever cared about was the band and the music, and that we were successful enough that he got to play for the rest of his life. A life that was cut way too short.
“We’ve got one more really important thing for you guys to do right now,” Coop says. “We want you to sing so fucking loud that he’ll hear us all the way from heaven. Can you do that?”
A roar goes up. I step up to my mic and say, “This one’s for you, brother. Tu me manques.”
Zed counts us in to Ash’s song, “Cover Me”, and I swear the cheers are so loud and the voices so clear from the audience, that I bet all of Paris could hear them.
“So, you guys know that Levi here is now an honorary Frenchman, right?”
Cheers of “Vive la France” fill the stadium.
“Yep, came here to escape his life, and fell in love with a French woman. They just had a baby.” He pauses to let that sink in, though most of them likely know. It was front page news.
To my surprise, the screen behind us flashes from my face to a picture of Brie, Ash, and me at home, all cuddled up in bed together, sound asleep. Those fuckers took it from my phone, and while I’m shirtless with a baby on my chest, my woman’s rack is squeezed into a too-tight white tank, and I can see her nipples. I frown and shoot an irritated glance at Ryan, who’s busy ogling my wife-to-be like everyone else in this room.
“Aww. Get a load of that, would ya? Have you guys seen his woman? I mean, she’s fucking hot. Like smoking hot. Way too good for this guy.” He jerks his thumb at me. “If I weren’t already a married man, I might even—”
I step up to the mic. “If you like your balls where they are, do not finish that sentence.”
Coop laughs. “Calm your tits, Quinn. I mean no disrespect.”
“I’m pretty sure all you mean is disrespect.”
“It’s true,” Zed says. “He’s got no manners.”
“Right?” I say, turning to face the world’s greatest drummer. “Yeah, this one might look like a teenage dream,” I point to Coop, “but do not trust that face, ladies.”
“Anyway, this schmuck is punching way above his weight, but don’t take my word for it. Let’s bring her out.”
My Angry French Girl heads out on stage in a long black dress, smoky black eyes, and hair that’s been braided back from her face like some fucking stunning Viking woman. I get a boner just looking at her. Not ideal in these jeans. But I don’t think anyone is looking at me right now.
She smiles, and slays every man in the room, probably some of the women too. “Bonsoir!”
“On t'aime, Brielle!”
Roadies scamper across the stage, bringing a seat for her, and getting her mic’d up. She takes her cello from the stand and sits, smiling sinfully at me as she nestles the instrument between her splayed thighs. I grin and shake my head. Thanking fuck I have a guitar slung over my crotch, so my massive erection is covered—mostly. Brie winks at me, and I throw my head back and puff out a breath.
“Aww, aren’t they cute?” Coop says. “I think Levi might have a little problem.”
“Fuck you, Ryan.”
He laughs and grabs the mic stand. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the brilliant and equally fucking ... hot, Brielle Kagawa.”
“Soon-to-be Quinn,” I correct, as my lovely hopefully-she-doesn’t-get-tired-of-my-dumbarse-and-will-one-day-be-my-wifey rolls her eyes and turns to nod at Zed who counts us in.
I play the whole rest of the set hovering near my woman. I can’t help it. I’m possessive, I’m too close, and all I want to do is take her backstage and fuck her till she screams, but a gift like hers should be shared. Besides, she’s smitten as fuck, and we’re completely vibing off one another. Everyone else disappears.
Ryan has a couple more digs at my expense between songs, and when he starts in on Zed for fucking his sister, I join in. Kit—the poor bastard—doesn’t throw up, but spends the entire show looking as if he might, and before we know it, Zed is counting us in to our last song, and then we’re standing on stage looking out on a human sea of twenty thousand fans. It was a long, wild, fucked-up journey to get here, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
“Paris, you’ve been amazing. We’ve been Taint,” Cooper Ryan says. “Thanks for the ride.”