Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Cameron

I FREEZE THE MOMENT I step on stage.

Julian watches me from the crowd.

Why is he here? How is he here? Even as I wonder, the scheme unfolds before me. He found the café because of Henry. He found me because of Henry. Sweet, innocent Henry, who never has a bad thought about anyone, who would think nothing of Julian asking about me. Henry must have told Julian about my show tonight.

I have to pull myself together. My bandmates are setting up around me, and they’ll be relying on me as their lead guitarist.

I force myself to stop looking at Julian. I force myself to stop thinking about him. When our lead singer Erin shoots me a look, I nod at her. She steps up to the mic, her bracelets clinking on her wrist. Her purple dreads spill past her shoulders. The crowd leans toward her like flowers searching for the sun, sensing her magnetic energy. It’s what makes her so powerful as a frontman.

Well, that and her voice.

The moment we launch into our first song, all thought of Julian flees my brain. Erin’s voice pulls me out of my head. I follow her lead, fingers flying along the neck of my guitar. It’s barely even conscious. I feel the music more than I focus deliberately on it, my body repeating the notes I’ve practiced so many times. It’s muscle memory that I’ve embedded into my very soul. I’m as caught up in the music as anyone who might be out there listening to us, but everything past the edge of the stage evaporates as we move into our next song with hardly a pause. It’s as though my very heartbeat syncs with Erin’s, our blood pulsing in time with the beats pounded out by our drummer Tim. Beneath it all, Kelsey’s bass murmurs, vibrating in our chests. We’re a single organism for a moment, a single mind, a single heart thumping in time.

I don’t come back to myself until the final chord is shivering off my guitar strings. There’s a beat of perfect silence as the crowd catches its breath. Then it all breaks at once.

The applause washes through me, a tether dragging me from the buoyant, weightless waters of the music back to firm, dry land. I come back to myself in waves to find myself standing on that stage with Erin and all the rest. I take my guitar off over my head while Erin talks. Fortunately, she’s good with crowds and takes care of appeasing them so the rest of us can get off the stage.

I dare not look out at the bar, keeping my head down as I get myself and my equipment off that stage. I did what I came here for. There’s no reason to linger and give Julian another chance to catch my eyes.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be in this bar. He shouldn’t be in Seattle. He shouldn’t be on the West Coast. The cascade of improbability that has led to this moment leaves me dizzy, but at least I get to escape backstage to deal with it.

The bar allocated a small green room for the bands playing tonight. I drag my stuff there and all but throw my gear on the floor. Only my reverence for the musical instrument that has saved my sanity for my whole life stops me. I started playing when I was a little kid. I found my dad’s guitar in the closet and started picking at it, and I haven’t stopped since. Eventually, my parents got me my own guitar and some proper lessons. I loved it, and for a while I actually believed it was getting me closer with my dad. Obviously, that couldn’t be the case with the way he eventually walked out.

Too many troubling thoughts tonight. I almost want to go out there and play a second set to dispel them. Music is the only thing that’s ever managed to clear my head that way. Well, that and really good sex, I guess, but I can play my guitar whenever I want. I can’t exactly do that other thing on demand…

“You ran from that stage,” Erin says when she joins me. “See an ex out there or something?”

I stiffen, no matter how hard I try to remain casual. “No, just tired,” I say.

“I’ve heard you play tired. That wasn’t tired,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

I put my head down and busy myself packing up my guitar. I also have to haul an amp out of here, but I parked right behind the bar, so I won’t have to carry it far. At the moment, I feel like I could run a marathon while holding the thing if it’ll get me away from this bar and Julian. It seems like my bandmates aren’t going to give me that option, however.

Tim slaps me on the back almost hard enough to knock me over when he joins us backstage. Kelsey skips in with her bass and amp.

“Did you hear that crowd?” she says. “We crushed.”

Tim raises his hand and an enthusiastic high five cracks through the room. Tim waves his hand afterward, but the pain doesn’t deter him for long. Soon he’s going for the backpack he left here before we went on and dragging out a lukewarm six-pack. He starts passing the beers around, but I wave mine away. If I down one, I’ll have to wait before driving home, and I want to get out of here as fast as I possibly can.

“Aw, come on, man,” Tim whines. “Just take one. This was a great show. They loved us. We should celebrate. Plus, we have to wait around to move the drum equipment anyway. It’ll wear off before you have to drive.”

“Decent-sized crowd too,” Kelsey says. “That bar was packed, and it’s a freaking Wednesday.”

I can’t disagree, so I stay silent instead. We didn’t expect to draw such a good crowd on a random weeknight. Usually we get a sparse crowd at best, but that bar did look packed from what little I saw of it. Not that I was standing there counting. I certainly wasn’t going to do something like that when it would force me to lock eyes with Julian in the crowd again.

If Henry wasn’t so sweet and kind, I would kill him for this. I’m sure he didn’t know. I mean, he knows that Julian and I bicker any time we’re in hearing range of each other, but he doesn’t know why the guy gets under my skin so easily. No one does. I haven’t ever explained it. To the outside world, it’s aimless, feckless rage. To me, it’s everything.

“Next time, it’s going to be even bigger,” Kelsey is saying while Tim enthusiastically agrees.

Erin steps in to temper them, ever our voice of reason. “We still haven’t heard back from that festival we applied for. Playing bars like this is great and all, but we need a bigger stage — and new material — if we’re going to get some actual attention.”

I swear her dark eyes flicker toward me, but it’s so quick it could be my imagination. I made the mistake of telling her some lyrics had popped into my head the other day. She’s been pushing me to keep writing ever since. Most of that stuff falls on her currently, and it’s a lot to ask of her while she’s also working full-time as a music teacher at a high school.

Suddenly, I wish I’d accepted that beer just so I could busy myself sipping it. Instead, I focus on packing up whatever I left backstage. I should help my bandmates with their gear, especially the drum kit, but I’m increasingly desperate to get out of here. Between Julian and the pressure from Erin to actually finish those lyrics, this bar is becoming downright claustrophobic. I don’t write lyrics very often. I don’t know if it’ll be any good. I only have half an idea how to set it to music. All I’ve done is mess around in my apartment, strumming along while I murmur nonsense. It’s nowhere near ready.

I don’t bother telling Erin that. Everyone wants to celebrate a successful show, and I don’t want to be the guy who kills the mood. Besides, she’ll probably forget about it if I simply don’t respond.

Already, everyone has moved on to reliving the show, rehashing every moment in excited voices. The next band is on, the echoes of their music thumping through the walls of the green room. This is the perfect moment to get out of here, and I make to do exactly that.

“Are you leaving?” Tim says before I can escape.

“I have to be at the café tomorrow,” I say by way of apology. “I wish I could stay and help, but I’m opening. I’ll be up early.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Call out or something.”

“I can’t,” I say. “I just started there. It’ll mess with my co-workers. There’s only three of us.”

“I thought you started back in summer.”

“It was the end of summer,” I say. “And that’s only a few months ago.”

“Whatever,” Tim says.

But Kelsey isn’t letting me slip away so easily. “You’re killing the vibe,” she complains.

“The vibe will be better without me, trust me,” I say.

It’s true. I’m in no fit state to celebrate with people tonight. My thoughts are tumbling around like socks in a dryer. I’ve been called a downer at the best of times; tonight, I am far from my best.

“I really have to get going,” I say.

Erin looks skeptical, but she doesn’t stop me, finally showing me mercy. Tim and Kelsey scowl at me, but that’s nothing new. I’m never the life of the party. If they hadn’t needed a guitarist so bad after their first one bailed on them, there’s no way I would have auditioned for and gotten into The Ten Hours (don’t ask me about the name. Something about how long Erin spent on her first song, I think).

I don’t take a real breath until I get out of the green room and into the hall with my gear. It’s heavy and awkward, but I drag it down the hall anyway. The glow of the exit sign is like the light of heaven beaming down on me. Once I get out of here, everything will be fine. I can get away from here, from my bandmates, from Julian, and go back to my safe, solitary apartment.

I throw my shoulder against the door in my haste to open it. My guitar is on my back. I haul the amp with me as I make a beeline for my car, which sits parked in the lot behind the bar, and pop the trunk to throw my stuff inside. My guitar and amp lie in a messy heap atop emergency blankets and assorted junk. My guitar deserves better than this, and normally I’d handle it with the utmost care, but my heart is beating too fast tonight. It’s like a hungry tiger is tracking my steps, prowling after me through the jungle. My only hope is to get in my car and speed away.

“Cam.”

His voice stops me. I don’t turn to acknowledge him. I freeze while bent over arranging things in the trunk. I straighten slowly, but don’t face him, even when I close the trunk. I clutch my keys in my hand. I could make a break for the door and start the engine, drive off before he can stop me, but it would be pointless. There’s no escaping Julian Brooks. Hasn’t been for most of my damn life.

Slowly, so slowly, I turn to face him.