On the Run (Vagabonds #1) Read online

  Christ. We hadn’t even perfected any songs yet, and she was worried about how she looked.

  “You stayin’?” Vicki asked.

  “I came to get my guitar case.”

  “Aw, c’mon, girl. Yeah, he’s a fucking douche”—I almost laughed because she said it loud enough for him to hear and obviously didn’t care if he did—“but we’re not here for him. We’re here for the music.” Her words struck me, and before I could fully process the emotions they made me feel, she added, “And you’re the music, babe.” I blinked, realizing she was right. Peter was a tool, a step.

  Well, maybe. I still needed to ask him some questions.

  I simply nodded and Vicki chuckled. She knew she’d hooked me. She hugged me again and then dashed back to the drum kit where she tapped out a little beat.

  Barbie started walking toward the mike as Peter said, “Ah, Kyle. Imagine my surprise. To what do we owe your return?” He paused. “Or is this your return? Are you just here to get these girls’ hopes up or are you going to commit?”

  Man, it didn’t take him long to get me seething again. My blood felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice, but I did manage to maintain some level of calmness. I didn’t shout my words. “Do you think you can try to be less of an asshole?”

  He attempted to smile but, instead, it looked more like a sneer. “Ah. I suppose you’re speaking of the way I addressed you all yesterday and tried to spur you on to greater things.”

  “Yeah. We’re not whores, Peter.” I paused, looking at Barbie. She was wearing some t-shirt that had stripes cut out of the back from the neck to the waist. It was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra. She also wore cutoff shorts and her ass almost hung out. The white cowboy boots and hat balancing the ensemble looked ridiculous. “Well, at least I’m pretty sure we’re not.”

  Barbie raised an eyebrow before I redirected my attention to Peter. He said, “Something you need to understand, Ms. Summers: I am not your friend. I am not your mommy. I am your producer, and my job is to make sure you do yours. I am fairly confident that I’m correct when I say you know nothing of the music business. Therefore, in that regard, you will need to rely on my expertise in these matters.” He took a moment, and I was certain it was for dramatic effect. “I am well aware that you and your cohorts are not whores, Ms. Summers.” He took a deep breath, looking at each girl before returning to me. “Are you familiar with the concept of boot camp, Ms. Summers? Drill sergeants?”

  I shrugged. “I saw Full Metal Jacket once.” He nodded. As if that explained everything. “We’re not soldiers, Peter.”

  He raised both eyebrows before replying. “Aren’t you?” I frowned. “You are waging war, young lady. You and your troop here will soon be fighting. You’ll be fighting to be heard, to be loved, to be worshipped. And don’t think for a second that your competition is anything to be taken lightly. Oh, no. If you think you can just strap on your guitar and call it a day, you’ve got another think coming.” He pursed his lips, moving his eyes from me to each girl and pausing, as if to ingrain on each one of us the ideas he was selling as gospel. “If you’d rather just fuck around, go home. If you’re going to commit, you need to do it one-hundred-and-ten percent. Nothing half-assed. What we’re doing here isn’t for pussies.” He took a deep breath. “You got me?”

  Uh…okay. So he was going to dismiss his brutish behavior by comparing himself to a caricature of a person thought to be that way. Whatever. Fine. I’d already been sold, already written my check for the merchandise.

  And he knew it.

  Still, I wasn’t going to let him get off scot free. “All right. Let’s say we buy your brand of bullshit.” I could see Kelly’s face in my peripheral, and she was shocked that I dared to be so flippant with our “drill sergeant.” Time to take my boyfriend’s advice and ask the question. “How the hell do we know you’re on the up and up?”

  It was one of the few times I would ever see Peter’s face show any kind of emotion. His eye twitched and then he blinked several times before he responded. I’d touched a nerve.

  Good.

  “I suppose you don’t. Did you Google me?”

  Admittedly, I hadn’t even thought of that. But I was feeling feisty. “Anyone can put any kind of shit on the internet. You of all people should know that.”

  He smiled then. Actually smiled. But there was no humor in it. Then he nodded. “Give me a week. Once you girls are ready to record, we’ll go to the studio and you’ll see that my brand of bullshit, as you so eloquently called it, Ms. Summers, is authentic.”

  Time would tell…but I was committed, for better or worse.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  AND SO THE days went on. We kept practicing religiously, six days a week. Peter continued being a supreme dick, but I managed to tune him out for the sake of the band. We girls seemed to really hit a stride, and we not only learned Liz’s song but composed a couple more based on some of Liz’s ideas, and Barbie got to pen some lyrics for those.

  We got really good, and in just a few weeks’ time.

  One night after rehearsal, Decker came over to visit again, and we did our usual. He’d been doing some weightlifting camp thing for football, so he was busy most days too, but we were horny as hell, typical teens, and we couldn’t wait. We’d kiss for a minute or two while stripping off our clothes and then get busy. When we were done, Decker would usually pass out. I’d grown used to that. If I wanted to talk to him, it had to wait until he’d awakened. So I started working on my social media while he slept. I figured I needed a Facebook page and Twitter account. (I considered a MySpace page, but it was almost dead even back then.) Peter had told us we’d have a band website when all was said and done, but he recommended that we establish our web presence.

  Ha. He was talking to teenagers. We had that shit down pat.

  So one night, a day or two after the summer solstice, Decker and I lay in my warmish bedroom, he sleeping, I tapping out stuff on my phone. I didn’t quite feel like I had a handle on Twitter, but I had to keep trying. I knew I’d get better at it the longer I played around with it. That evening, I was tweeting silly stuff and retweeting tweets from my favorite bands when I heard a noise elsewhere in the house. I had music playing low, so I sat up and turned it off. That was when I heard a female voice.

  Ah. Mom. Okay. I lay my head back down and started swiping the phone screen again.

  But then I heard a male voice. Not just any male voice—my dad’s voice.

  I suppose I should have expected it, especially after the way my parents had been flirting with each other at the restaurant earlier in the month, but I hadn’t given it much thought. Some small part of me felt happy, because my mom and dad had always seemed to be a couple that was meant to be together. Of course, I felt that way because they were my mom and dad.

  But oh, shit! I had Decker in my room. I’d been getting away with exploring my sexuality around my mother, mainly because she’d been doing something similar, but I knew I’d never get away with it with dad. I panicked, not knowing if dad would come to my room and demand whose truck was outside—or anything. I had no clue how my father would react. So the first thing I did was get up and rush to my door, checking to make sure it was locked, and then I ran back to my bed. I whispered—but it was a loud whisper. “Decker. Decker! Decker. C’mon. Wake up.”

  He finally blinked his eyes a bit, signaling to me that he was coming around. “What?” he asked in a normal voice.

  I shushed him before I said, “My dad’s here.”

  His eyes grew wider. He knew exactly all that implied. “Your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  We both knew without discussing that our first order of business was getting clothes on. If my dad burst into my room, there would be no denying what we’d been up to if we were both completely naked and in bed, our clothing strewn all over the floor. Without a word, we got dressed, handing each other various items of outerwear belonging to the other when we f
ound them. We were quieter than I’d expected us to be, so my nerves weren’t shot by the time we were done.

  I could hear them downstairs still, a good sign. Decker was tying the laces of his sneakers. “Guess I should go.”

  I could feel the blood drain from my face and I was a little louder than I should have been when I whispered, “No!” He looked confused. “If you just traipse out the front door, my dad will skin you alive.” I didn’t know that it would be that bad, but I had no idea how dad would react. That was but one of several possibilities.

  “Okay. Then what? I’m not climbing out your window, Kyle. I know they do that in the movies, but it doesn’t work in real life.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I had to think—hard—and then it came to me. “I’ll get them out of the house for a while. Once you know we’re gone, give us another minute or two, and then just head out the front door.”

  I saw him give it a little thought before he nodded. “Okay.”

  “Don’t forget to lock the door behind you.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I kissed him and then grabbed my phone and tiny purse. “Not your bedroom door, right? Lock the front door?”

  “Yeah.” I grinned and then unlocked my door but realized I’d better check my hair and makeup before stepping out, so I ran to the dresser quickly. I smoothed my hair down, but my makeup looked okay. I blew Decker a kiss and slipped into the hallway.

  Assessing my bearings, I listened for a moment before moving. My mom and dad were still somewhere on the ground floor and, as I walked down the stairs, I realized they were in the kitchen.

  I set my purse on the living room couch before heading into the kitchen and forced a smile on my face. It wasn’t that I didn’t want my dad there or that I didn’t want mom and dad talking with each other again and happy. It was that their timing completely sucked. But, I suppose, I should have seen it coming.

  “Kyle,” mom said. “We have a visitor.” Yeah. She had no idea.

  “Hi, dad.”

  He smiled. “I hope it’s more than visiting.”

  Mom paused. “I’m still thinking about it.” Good for her. I was glad to see she’d grown some balls. I knew she wanted him back; I’d heard her crying herself to sleep more than once, but after what he did to her, he needed to sweat—and if she chose not to take him back, I supported her decision.

  I needed to steer them out of the house. “So…what have you guys been doing?”

  “Your father took me out for a lovely dinner at the French restaurant.” Oh. Brownie points. Mom’s favorite restaurant since we’d moved here was that place. Well played, dad.

  It was my opportunity, though. “You guys wanna go out for ice cream?”

  Before she could answer, mom asked, “How did rehearsal go?”

  “Fine.” But back to my ever-important question. “Well?”

  Dad shrugged. “I don’t see why not. You’re not too full, are you, honey?”

  Honey? God, it was like they’d never been apart. I couldn’t deal with it. “Sounds nice. Haven’t spent much time with my girl lately.”

  Yeah, and there were lots of reasons for that. I had been avoiding them both, but my rehearsal schedule had also kept me away a lot. I was home earlier tonight than I had been all week, and that was because we’d “broken through,” according to Peter. Whatever the fuck that meant.

  In less than twenty minutes, we were sitting in the Olde Ice Cream Shoppe on historic Main Street, dad with a vanilla cone that had a chocolate candy coating, mom with a hot fudge sundae, and me with a banana split. I hadn’t had dinner and, after that hot sex with Decker, I was starving.

  “So…tell us about the band, Kyle.”

  “We’re called the Vagabonds—it’s me and four other girls. One on vocals, another on drums, one on bass, and me and another girl on guitar. We play rock.”

  “I’d expect nothing less.”

  “And Peter says we’re going to be famous.”

  Dad said, “Peter? Who’s Peter?”

  “We need to meet Peter.”

  “Who’s Peter?”

  “Peter’s the guy who recruited me—a music producer. He wanted to create the next big band. And we’re really starting to sound good. We’re getting used to each other, learning how each other plays, figuring out each other’s strengths and weaknesses and—oh, you guys gotta hear us.”

  Dad hadn’t touched his cone since we’d begun talking. “How old is this Peter guy?”

  I shrugged. “I dunno. Pretty old.” I scooped up some ice cream with strawberries dripping off it. I’d eat the pineapple and strawberries first and save the chocolate for last, just like I always did. “Maybe a little older than you guys.”

  Mom frowned but didn’t say anything. “I think a meeting is definitely in order.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I focused on one half of the banana. It felt like I’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire…but once they met Peter, they’d know they had nothing to worry about.

  I had no idea how far into the flames I’d fallen. Dad finally took a bite of his ice cream and we enjoyed our cool treats in silence for a few moments, basking under the ceiling fan in the shop. But my dad was nothing if not a thinking man, and in retrospect I wonder if I should have kept talking nonstop about the band. “So whose truck was that in front of the house tonight?”

  Mom tilted her head. I tried my hardest to keep any kind of expression off my face, but I immediately thought of Decker and imagined him peeking through my curtains, waiting to see my dad’s car drive down the road and out of sight before he made his way down the stairs and out the door. I scooped up some ice cream and pineapple covered in whipped cream and pretended like dad’s question didn’t register with me. Mom answered him, though. “The grayish-silverish truck?”

  “Yeah. The one in front of the house when we got home.”

  “I think that’s Decker’s truck.” She paused. “Isn’t it, Kyle?”

  I swallowed my mouthful of ice cream and blinked, inhaling and trying to think of a way to talk myself out of this…but there was no way I could. Mom didn’t have my back here—obviously. She’d already told dad who the truck belonged to. I was well and truly fucked. I looked up and nodded weakly, but then I allowed myself to tap into those reserves of anger I’d been feeling off and on for the past few months. My parents had no right to judge me, not after all the foolish bullshit they’d caused. So I set my jaw and said, “Yeah, that was probably Decker’s truck.”

  Dad blinked. “And who’s Decker?” It was a night of surprises for the man.

  Might as well hit him with all of it. “Decker’s my boyfriend.”

  Yep. There it was. Dad’s neck was getting red. He was pissed. “Can anyone tell me why your boyfriend’s truck was parked outside our house but he wasn’t inside?”

  Mom’s eyes got wide before she began giving the sundae underneath her hand her full attention. Yep—I wasn’t the only bad girl here. Mom had been a negligent parent; otherwise, I might still be a virgin. Well, you and I know that’s bullshit, but that was how she was feeling and definitely how dad would make her feel if he thought about it too much.

  I could take care of all that with distraction. Because mom and I might have been little slutbags, fucking and bedding guys while the old man was away, but it was his own fucking fault. I was not going to be made to feel like a criminal, and okay. So mom was guilty of being permissive and letting me do whatever the hell I wanted, but she was in her own cloud of misery. As far as I was concerned, it was my father’s fault, and if he wanted to be an asshole about it, he could go to hell.

  Besides, I’d learned a thing or two about myself…and I loved sex. There was no putting the genie back in that bottle.

  Oh, there it was—all the anger and frustration and hurt rose to the surface and it couldn’t be contained. I still loved my dad, though, and even respected him, so I managed to keep it low. “Yeah, dad, I can tell you why. Decker was in my room. And I knew you’d blow it all out of p
roportion just like you’re doing. So I suggested ice cream and told him to get the hell out of there while we were gone.”

  I couldn’t save mom, though. Dad turned to her and gave her a scrutinizing eye. “Have you been allowing this?”

  Mom shrugged and gave him a weak smile before averting her eyes and scooping up another spoonful of ice cream. “It seemed harmless. Decker’s a nice boy.”

  Dad snorted. “Yeah, he might be, but all boys have only one thing on their mind.”

  And that was the night dad officially moved back home.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  IT WAS ABSOLUTELY bizarre how my family acted like nothing had ever happened. Dad moved all his shit back in (clothes, books, toiletries, and laptop), and it was as though he’d never left. Mom and dad even acted like that time in their lives had never occurred.

  But I didn’t forget.

  Fortunately, the Vagabonds kept me busy enough that my family’s amnesia didn’t stress me out like it could have. One evening near the end of June, we were rehearsing late and Peter said, “All right, whores. I think we’re about ready to record.”

  I think we were all shocked. We hadn’t expected that day to come, especially because Peter was always so vocal about how badly we sucked and how we’d never be able to do anything right. He had attended all our rehearsals, even though he’d left early for some and had spent most of the time on his phone while he was there. He’d look up once in a while to give us direction, to tell us what we were “fucking up” or something we needed to “fix” or change. Positive encouragement was nonexistent from the man and yet I still believed in him. Recording? Well, he’d made me a promise a couple of weeks earlier that I’d see how legit he was when we moved to the studio. In spite of the fact that he was a horse’s ass, he did seem to know his stuff…and that was how he’d slowly earned my—I don’t know that I could call it trust, but we’d moved into an uneasy symbiotic relationship.

  “Woohoo!” Vicki threw her sticks in the air. “Time to fuckin’ celebrate!” She jumped up from the kit and made her way across the garage to the seemingly innocuous refrigerator. She opened the door and pulled out a bottle of a beer I’d never heard of before called Paulaner. She wrapped her hand around the lid and twisted, but nothing happened.