Okay, excited it was.
Ten
Chaos.
Toni had expected the meet and greet to be thrilling, but things had gotten completely out of hand. Her idea of making this a media event had only added to the mayhem. The band didn’t seem to mind the extra attention, or maybe they were used to the insanity, but security was struggling to keep those with legitimate VIP passes separate from those trying to sneak in separate from those who had heard the radio broadcast and had a protester in tow separate from the press. It was a valiant effort, but they ended up with a big mix of crazy. Toni had no hope of keeping up with most of it, so she decided to stick near Logan, who had taken it upon himself to screen the fans with protesters. Toni had her camera rolling and her voice recorder running and was doing her best to get the blasted release forms signed by anyone who might end up recognizable in her footage and jot down notes at the same time. While Toni was the Queen of Multitasking, everything started to run together in an indistinguishable mix of unfamiliar faces and garbled words. She hoped events weren’t always this overwhelming for the band. How did they put up with this day after day?
“So have you ever actually listened to any of our songs?” Logan asked a woman holding a sign that read Exodus End Should End Now.
“Our church group has studied your lyrics,” she said, her eyes bugging out of her head as they shifted from Logan to Max, who was laughing at something a fan said, to Dare, who had a three-foot circle of space around him and a completely inapproachable look on his face. The church woman actually squeaked in terror when the sexy lead guitarist’s eyes met hers.
“We have lyrics?” Logan glanced at Toni. “Is that what you call the words Max belts out?”
The woman tore her gaze from Dare to look at Logan. “What?”
“I don’t think this one is acting,” Logan said to Toni. He’d already discovered three of the “protesters” had been fans in disguise. It hadn’t been difficult. Eventually they started gushing about being in the presence of musical greatness.
“Why does your church group study Exodus End’s lyrics?” Toni asked, stuffing a release form into the woman’s free hand.
“Its evil message corrupts our children.”
“Can I ditch the lady now?” asked the fan who’d somehow talked her into joining him backstage. Maybe he’d succeeded because he was a boy of fifteen or so who had the most innocent-looking face. Well, except for the nose, eyebrow, and lip piercings. “She’s nucking futs.” The woman gasped and the kid glared at her. “What? I said ‘nucking futs.’ Clean out your ears, old lady.”
“How did you get her to come backstage with you?” Logan asked.
“I told her I wanted to be saved. Can I go talk to Mills now? He’s my idol.”
“Good luck with that,” Logan said. He slapped a backstage pass into the kid’s hand and nodded in Dare’s direction.
Logan tilted his head at the church lady and scratched his jaw with one finger. “So which songs did you analyze? I’m trying to remember which ones have an evil message.”
The woman glanced nervously at Toni. Toni was sure it was because she looked “normal.”
“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Toni asked her.
She looked at Logan. Really looked at him. Her expression softened. “Maybe if he cut his hair,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
Logan laughed. “I cut several inches off of it just a few weeks ago, but I’m not going any shorter. The ladies like to pull it when . . .” He lifted his eyebrows suggestively, and Toni finally found a woman who could blush more crimson than she did when Logan teased.
“Well, I never,” the lady gasped, a hand trembling at her neck.
Logan scowled. “That’s unfortunate. You really should. Not that I’m volunteering. I’m thinking about getting a steady girlfriend.” Logan moved his gaze to Toni. “A sweet girl who gets easily embarrassed. Has brains. Mismatched socks. And big boobs.” He held his hands out two feet in front of his chest. “Really stacked.”
Toni smacked him in the arm, but her heart was smiling. She’d never expected him to consider her girlfriend material. She tucked the idea in the back of her mind. She’d get all goofy about it later when some stranger wasn’t shaking her head in disapproval.
“Did your whole congregation come to protest the concert?” Toni asked the woman.
She shook her head. “Some of ’em don’t blame the band for Jeff’s suicide, but that sweet boy changed when he started listening to Satan’s music.”
Toni’s heart rose to her throat. “I’m so sorry. Did you know Jeff well?”
She nodded curtly. “He was my grandson’s best friend. At least when they were boys. They grew apart in junior high. Didn’t even talk to each other in high school. Our Timothy still cared, though. He still cried when he heard the news after Jeff shot himself. Thought maybe he could have been a better friend to Jeff. And then maybe Jeff wouldn’t have . . .” The lady broke off, pulled a tissue out of her pocket, and dabbed at her eyes. She noticed that Toni’s eyes were also leaky, and she reached into her purse to offer a second tissue to the bleeding heart beside her. Feeling foolish but no less empathetic, Toni dabbed at her eyes with the proffered tissue.
Logan reached out and squeezed the woman’s shoulder. “My condolences. I know how hard this is.”
“How could you possibly know how hard this is, rock star?” she sneered.
“When Vic killed herself, I thought the pain of her loss would kill me too.”
Vic?
Logan glanced at Dare, who was talking to the kid with the shiny new backstage pass.
The woman covered Logan’s hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry about your . . .”
“Friend,” Logan said. “She was our lead guitarist’s high school sweetheart. They dated into their twenties, so we all knew her well. Everyone thought Dare would marry her someday. When she lost the baby . . . The doctors said her hormones were off balance and that’s why . . .” Logan swallowed and closed his eyes.
How had Toni missed that in her research? She wrapped both arms around Logan and hugged him as hard as she could. Dare Mills was next on her list.
“If it makes you feel better to have someone to blame, I completely understand,” Logan said to the woman. “I can’t hold that against you if it makes your grief easier to bear.”
“That boy,” she said, nodding at the young Exodus End fan she’d accompanied, “he reminds me a lot of Jeff. I guess that’s why I followed him in here.” She smiled as she watched the kid chatter excitedly with his guitar hero. “He looks happy to be here. I’m glad I could give him that.”
“Well, since you’re here, you might as well have a beer. I promise we won’t sacrifice any goats in honor of Satan tonight.”
She laughed. “It’s not nice to poke fun at a helpless old lady.”
“Helpless? I don’t see a helpless old lady. Though you must be terrified to be in the same room with Max, and who can blame you.”
Toni chuckled and finally released her hug. Logan wrapped an arm around her to keep her from moving away.
“Which one is Max?” the woman asked.
“That tall one over there in the leather pants.”
The woman craned her neck and gasped when she caught sight of Max in a crowd of female admirers. “The tall one with the short hair?”
“Yeah, he’s our lead singer. He comes up with most of our evil lyrics.”
“Now that one is easy on the eyes,” she purred.
Toni bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh.
“Go introduce yourself,” Logan suggested. “He’ll get a kick out of it.”
“I think I will,” she said, stopping to grab a beer out of the nearest cooler as she wandered off in Max’s direction.
“I didn’t think I’d ever get rid of her,” Logan said before stealing a kiss. Someone lifted their cellphone to take a picture. Logan spun toward the camera and pulled Toni behind him. She understood why he wouldn’t want anyone to have photographic evidence of him kissing her, but it still made her chest ache and her ire rise. She pulled out of Logan’s grasp and marched toward Dare. She still owed him a hug. She couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to lose an unborn child and have the baby’s mother commit suicide over the tragedy. No wonder he tried to keep strangers at a distance.