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The show they played that night was a pathetic mess, and everyone knew it, but no one - except for the people who had paid money to come see them - cared. They fucked up badly. Every song sounded sour. Ben's voice gave out at least seven times, and he clutched the microphone as if for dear life and took deep, heaving breaths. Everything went wrong.
Ben felt broken and relieved when the show finally ended, and with a minimum of applause the audience rushed out into the cool night air and the band trudged backstage. Roadies rushed past them, carrying amps and guitars and hauling them into the back of a van.
"This is the worst night of my life," Kieran said sullenly.
Shitty performance or not, there was still a fistful of groupies waiting outside that needed to be tended to. A few carried packs of beer and Ben didn't doubt a couple had some illegal substances stuffed in their bras.
"Let them in," Didz shouted. With a grimace, Jon opened the door to those that hadn't already wormed their way into the damp-smelling backstage room. Ben tensed with anger. Didz wanted to party? Ben wanted no part of it. Clenching his teeth in disgust, Ben fought his way past giggling groupies and stumbled outside. Shakily, he lit a cigarette.
The night was silent and cool. Every so often, the airy rush of a passing car reached his ears from the highway a couple hundred yards away. The breeze stirred the leaves on tall trees and the air smelled clean. He had all of this to himself, if only for a few minutes before someone realized he wasn't inside getting drunk with the rest of them.
"Where are you, Tom?" Ben murmured, staring at the lit end of his cigarette. "What kind of twisted fuckwit would steal you from us?"
Two cars passed. It sounded like they were racing each other.
"What are you thinking right now? Are you missing me? Are you scared for your fucking life?"
The highway was quiet, but a nearby streetlamp buzzed and flickered to life, spilling sickly orange light onto the sidewalk.
Ben ground his palms into his eyes, willing himself not to cry. That wouldn't do for some half-drunk groupie and her giggly best friends to wobble outside and find him sobbing like a bitch on the pavement outside a club. That wouldn't do at all.
So Ben started walking, slowly at first, and then quicker. He didn't know where he was going or why he was walking, but he knew he had to go. He knew he had to move.
He thought about Tom as he walked. He imagined Tom's toothy grin, the childish giddy way he laughed. Ben already missed his wild hair, his intelligent eyes, and his strong hands. He imagined Tom's slender hips in his tattered jeans and the fumbling way he tied his shoes. He remembered the way he juggled Didz's sunglasses over his head to taunt him and the way he crossed his eyes and flipped old ladies the bird.
"Bellamy," Ben sighed, his voice choked with frustrated tears. "I miss you. I need you here so fucking much. Please don't be dead. Please... whatever God is up there... don't let Tom die. Please don't let that happen."
Ashamed of himself, he wiped away the trail of tears on his face with his shirtsleeve.
The rough purr of a car engine drew near and suddenly a red pickup truck slowed to a stop beside Ben. It was too dark to see the people inside - Ben realized he must have been walking for quite a while, since it had darkened considerably and the club was no longer anywhere in sight - but the voice that spoke was male.
"Hey, babe, you need a ride?"
Ben blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, fucking hell! Sorry, man, thought you were a chick. Sorry about that. Jesus. Cut your fucking hair."
He fought back the urge to laugh in the man's face, and instead leaned forward. There were two guys in the car he could see now, and the one in the passenger seat was wearing a baseball hat. He was the one who had spoken. The driver was laughing too hard to speak.
"I do need a ride though," Ben told them.
The two men glanced at each other, and the driver wiped away tears of laughter. The one in the baseball hat who had first propositioned Ben shrugged. "It'll cost you."
"I've got money." Ben was lying; he didn't know if he actually had any money in his pockets. He was wearing a pretty expensive watch though, and judging by the weight in his back pocket he was probably carrying his wallet that had all his cards in it and maybe a couple dollar bills if he was lucky.
"Where you headed?" the driver asked.
Ben hesitated a half-second. "I'm going to Connecticut."
The one in the baseball hat whistled. "That's gonna cost you big time. That's like a six-hour drive."
"Matt, you sound like a fuckin' pimp," the driver said.
"Shut up." Matt turned back to Ben and spoke in an exaggerated drawl. "Well, sir, as you can see, there's no room up here. But you can take the bed of the truck. You can just kick all the crap out of the way and it'll be like a five-star hotel."
Ben exhaled softly, and then turned and started for the back of the truck, but Matt leaned out the window and snapped his fingers.
"Hey!"
"What?" Ben made a face.
"Money first."
Matt and the driver - whose name Ben overheard as being Landon - haggled briefly about what the going rate would be. Twenty dollars an hour was too high, but ten was too low. They settled on fifteen.
Ben sighed. Fifteen times six... that was like a hundred dollars. No way Ben had a hundred dollars. He doubted he had ever had more then twenty bucks in his pocket, even on his luckiest day.
He fished his wallet out from his back pocket and sifted through it. A couple wrinkled one-dollar bills... His driver's license, a business card from record executives he had never bothered to throw away... Ben sucked in a breath as his fingers grasped the wallet-sized picture of Tom that he had long ago taped to the inside as a joke. Tom was wearing a tiara on his head and someone - probably Jon - had drawn a smiley face on each nipple.
Tears threatened again, and Ben took whatever money was in his wallet and handed it brusquely to Matt. "Take me as far as that will go."
Matt counted the bills with all the ease and casual confidence of a card dealer at a casino. Ben's insides twisted.
"You have seven dollars here, dude," Matt scoffed. "That's gonna get you to approximately the end of this highway."
Landon sighed heavily. "Dude, just leave him alone. Give him back his seven dollars. I'm the driver here anyway." He jerked his thumb at the bed of the truck. "Now or never, man."
Ben grabbed his seven dollars from Matt and clambered into the back of the truck. He'd find a payphone somewhere and call Michael and tell him he was safe. But Ben knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try and find Tom. If Tom turned up dead, Ben's conscience would eventually kill him with "what ifs." What if he had stayed behind and watched Tom in Connecticut? What if he had left his cell phone on so Tom could call him in a time of need? What if he hadn't tried to go back and find him somehow?
Landon drove fast over the smooth highway, and the wind whipped Ben's hair mercilessly around his face. He stared at the road passing fast under the wheels of the truck and tried hard not to think about Tom.
CHAPTER 3
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