Page 67 of Resonance
So much for expectations. I chuckled at the thought at the same time I realized I was helpless against it.
And I didn’t like that.
* * *
“How we doin’,Little Rock?” Ryder swept his arms up, and the roar of the audience became a riotous ocean of sound. The turbulence crashed over me, through me, a riptide tugging me down. I was frozen. Out of touch. No amount of practice could’ve prepared me. A leaden sense of déjà vu warred with overwhelming dislocation. The guitar around my neck was an albatross. A boulder. A cement block.
And I was going to drown.
My stomach roiled and I dragged in a deep breath as Ryder glanced over and paused, reading the stricken tension in my body. Our first ever arena show years back, it’d been the opposite. I’d been the one throwing out the lifeline that time.
Concern flickered over Ryder’s expression, quickly tamped down as he stepped toward me, the well-oiled showman. He pushed the thin mic aside and met my eyes as he said, “Nita’s basement.” A familiar touch point. “Got it?”
I let my mind rub over the memory like a stone and then grab hold of it. I nodded. “Got it.” Rolling my shoulders, I adjusted my guitar strap and exhaled, slow and measured.
Our set list began with some of our easier songs, and Ryder had been the one to order them that way when we were putting it together. I’d known what he was doing. I’d thought about kicking up a fuss and letting pride get the better of me, insisting that it didn’t matter and I’d keep up fine.
But now I was grateful for the consideration and forethought, and as we opened with “Only Mine,” I felt the gears in my head loosening, my fingers flexing and limbering over the guitar strings. When Ryder angled toward me after the first verse, a gauging look in his eyes, I tipped my chin in acknowledgment that I was fine.
By the second set I was in aether. I’d never known properly what to call it. Some people called it the zone, but that’d always sounded too focused to me, which was the exact opposite of what I felt. Instead, I was aware of the audience, connected and responsive to the current that ran between us, but my body was nothing but notes, my blood nothing but lyrics, and my pulse the thumping bassline that steered it.
Someone clappedme hard on the back as we walked offstage. A bottle of water appeared in my hand as if by magic. When I squinted in search of the giver, another invisible set of hands took my guitar. I’d forgotten that, too, how much success had meant that all the little tasks shifted to someone else. There was even a tech who tuned our guitars before we took the stage. I wondered how the hell I’d filled the extra time before. Drinking and partying, I supposed. And the other thing I’d filled it with was leaning against the wall across from me, grinning.
“How’d it feel?” Ryder tipped his water bottle to his mouth for a long swallow.
“Weird.” I consulted the buzzing sensation humming through me like a plucked string vibrating, noted the faint sense of dizziness. “Not bad.”
Ryder grinned as he shouldered off the wall and tilted his head toward the corridor that led to the green room. “Welcome back, D.”
* * *
I duckedinto the hallway when I could, away from the cacophony of voices and scent of fried food, and pulled out my phone.
“Sooooo?” Owen answered.
“So… it was good, I guess.”
He chuckled. “‘Good, you guess.’ I’ll bet it was awesome. I already pulled up YouTube to see if anyone snuck some footage, but there’s nothing posted yet.”
“I froze for a second up there. Thought of you.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“I didn’t mean that meanly, just that it’s one thing to talk about stage fright and another to be reminded of exactly how it feels. Still sucks.”
“Oh. Well, yeah.” Owen paused. “So did you snap out of it?”
Ryder’s PA, Barrett, opened the door and peered into the hallway until he found me and gave me a pointed look. I lifted two fingers and he nodded, closing the door. “Yeah. We used to have this trick between us, Ryder and I. If one of us was flailing, we’d say ‘Nita’s basement.’ She was a friend of ours, and we used to practice at her place a lot because we both lived in tiny apartments and she still lived with her parents. Anyway, kinda stupid, but apparently still works. I haven’t thought of that basement in years, but the second he said it, I could smell the dank air, see the old futon and beanbag chairs. Always quiet and dark down there.” I realized I was rambling and pulled up short.
Owen was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “I’m glad it worked.”
“Where are you?”
There was another short pause and hesitation in his voice when he replied, “At the shop. I stayed a little late. I got kinda lost in doing a new display idea I had the other day. Hope that’s okay.”
I pictured him sitting on the floor of one of the aisles, records scattered around him, the choppy ends of his hair all over the place, lips puckered in concentration as he sorted through sleeves. I pressed my lips together, but the smile I was fighting tugged the corners anyway. “Of course it is. You set the alarm, though, right?”
“I set the alarm,” he droned in a monotone, then exhaled a breathy laugh that went straight to my groin. “Did you wear the jeans tonight?”