Booker (Courting Chaos Book 3) Read online

  Booker

  Courting Chaos Book 3

  Copyright © 2019 by Heather Young-Nichols

  Cover Art by Colbert Creative Design LLC

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Booker

  Getting lost in the music remained the best part of being in a band. For me at least. I’d been doing this for almost nine years. Sure, sometimes being on the road got tiring and dealing with other band members could be a pain, but the music kept me going. Some people had given me shit over the years about being the bass player, as if we didn’t count as much as the others. I’d given them the finger and moved on because the best of the best knew the importance of an excellent bass player.

  The importance of decent bassists was the exact reason I’d even joined Courting Chaos in the first place. Or temporarily filled in, I supposed since I hadn’t officially become part of the band yet. For all I knew, I’d remain the interloper who hoped to one day become permanent forever.

  Courting Chaos fit me perfectly and they’d never sounded better than with me there, if I said so myself. Yet I still hadn’t gotten an official offer. But I didn’t want to go anywhere else, so I’d hang out with them and help repair the band’s reputation, which had been marred by their last bassist, who happened to like his girls more girl than woman. His proclivities disgusted the rest of the band. The pedophile had gotten booted and the guys had gone through their fair share of bassists before I’d been called in. Now I wanted to stay.

  On stage, I maintained my normal reserved nature. I played. Got lost in the music. The same as off stage. I certainly didn’t like to be the center of it all. Dixon Dodge for sure loved to be the center of everything. As lead guitar, he had the spot. Though our lead singer, Ransom Drake, and the drummer, Cross Rhodes, weren’t far behind. I might’ve been a year older than the three of them, but I was definitely the new kid.

  I snagged a long drink from a nearby bottle of water while Ransom and Dixon interacted with the crowd. Cross and I didn’t do too much of that and only if those two dragged us into it. We saw that part as their job, not ours, and they loved it anyway.

  We moved into the last song with as much excitement as the first. Maybe more. The fans really seemed to love the last song on the list. We always ended on the same one, Courting Chaos’ first hit. We played at full steam until the last notes echoed through the arena. Ransom thanked the crowd for coming, encouraged them to drive safely, we each gave a wave, and the lights went dark. We followed the reflective tape until we were able to get through the door into the much brighter backstage area. Shows always ended much too soon for my taste.

  “Great show,” Ransom said as he slapped me on the back.

  “Yeah it was,” I said. We made it to our dressing room, just missing the crowd of people who always followed Kissing Cinder, the headliner of this tour, around backstage. They’d been popular for a couple of decades and it was just luck that I’d ended up on this tour in the first place. Bad luck for the band with Drinkswine but good luck for me.

  The four of us entered our dressing room but could still hear Kissing Cinder out in the hallway. Being around them still gave me an excited, giddy like a kid on Christmas morning kind of vibe. They’d been the biggest band in the world almost my whole life. Certainly, since I’d dropped out of high school to start touring at sixteen. Though I would’ve thought after nine years of band hopping that I would’ve found one that stuck. The nomad life was my destiny, I supposed.

  “Coming to the afterparty?” Dixon asked.

  I didn’t know he was talking to me until he said it again.

  “Oh… uh… I’m not sure.”

  “You have to,” he said, sounding more like a whiny teenage girl than the lead guitar player of Courting Chaos.

  “I’m not sure I have to,” I countered.

  “Even the grandmas are coming.”

  I snorted. He meant Cross and Ransom, who’d recently stopped coming to most of the afterparties due to each finding themselves in relationships. Cross with Indie Cinderstone, the daughter of the lead singer of Kissing Cinder. Ransom with Indie’s best friend, Bellamy.

  After all the shit they’d been through on this tour, supposedly their breakout tour no less, the guys deserved a little happiness, and they each seemed to be disgustingly happy with their ladies.

  “No Indie or Bellamy tonight?” I asked. Sure, Ransom and Cross still came out once in a while but usually when the girls had something else to do. That also typically meant that Cross would be bunking back with Ransom at least for the night.

  “Girls’ night,” Ransom said. “Whatever the fuck that means.”

  “I’m guessing not pillow fights in their underwear,” Dixon answered.

  Cross snorted. “Probably not.”

  “Pity,” Dixon replied.

  Instead of letting Dixon take the conversation any further in that direction, I grabbed a towel and headed into the shower. Unlike the other guys, I wanted something to eat before going to the afterparty. Which I didn’t want to go to, but I sometimes felt that to be part of the group, I needed to do as the group did, and since all of them were going, I also had to. Mostly, I wanted to be Courting Chaos’ permanent bassist, which meant I had to play the part sometimes even when I didn’t want to.

  Besides, I couldn’t be worse than their last one. Eric Drinkswine still plagued the band every now and then, but luckily, Lawson had recently informed the four of us that Eric took a plea deal for sleeping with the underaged girls. The rest of the band had no idea he’d been doing it. Now that he was taking the deal, hopefully he’d fall into the rock ’n roll has-been dungeon and the stench of him would blow off the rest of us. I hadn’t been around for any of that drama but just being in the band now sometimes got me questioned about it.

  I stayed under the hot water as long as I could. The spray washed away the hard earned sweat I’d gotten on stage. This place had amazing water pressure which wasn’t always a guarantee. Once I decided I’d hid out long enough, I shut the water off, grabbed my towel, then began to dry off. After tying a second towel around my waste, I ran the first one over my head to soak up some of the wetness from my hair then dropped into the bin as I walked back out to the main room.

  Someone knocked on the dressing room door, three short taps, followed by Lawson coming through. “Here’s your food,” he said, handing me a bag teeming with the best aroma of perfectly cooked burger, melted cheese, and deliciously crispy fries. Yes, I could smell it all, whether it be my keen nose or the fact that I was absolutely starving.

  “Thanks, man.” I gave him a nod as I took the bag from him then found the nearest seat and dove in. He left right away, saying he had to go talk to someone. The man ran around a lot but I didn’t pay attention to most of it.

  “Damn, that smells good,” Dixon said as he came around the corner from the showers, towel-drying his hair so I couldn’t see his face, but he for sure smelled my food.

  “It is good,” I said through a mouthful of juicy meat.

  Dixon rested the towel around his neck and put his hands on his hips. “Th
at’s really mean.”

  I laughed but pushed the bag toward him. “Lucky for you I ordered extra.”

  “Oh, bless you.” He dropped down beside me. He didn’t waste any time digging in.

  Dixon and I had gotten to know each other pretty well since I’d joined the tour. Ransom and Cross shared a buss, so that meant Dixon and Eric had shared a bus. I’d taken Eric’s spot in the band, so I’d taken his spot on the bus. Though there were still things Dixon and I didn’t know about each other we’d still formed enough of a friendship to be comfortable with each other.

  After we finished eating, Dixon left after saying something about finding Lawson. I didn’t ask why. Instead, I leaned back on the couch, crossed my arms over my chest, and closed my eyes. I wasn’t tired exactly, but those moments of rest were still refreshing. After this show, we actually had a few days off in a row. Unusual, but not unheard of.

  “Get your ass up. We gotta go,” Dixon called into the room. I hadn’t even heard the door open and had no idea how much time had passed. If I’d fallen asleep, which I wasn’t sure of, it could’ve been hours. Though it felt more like minutes.

  “Coming, Dad.”

  Dixon laughed. “You know fucking well that you are our dad.”

  I snorted as I stood up. They said that because I was the quieter one. They also tended to forget that I’d been doing this a lot longer than they had. It had lost some of the excitement. I still loved it. I just wasn’t the same starry-eyed kid I’d been when I’d started.

  “Is that what you’re wearing?” he asked.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  He shook his head, as if he didn’t know what to do with me. I just laughed in return. The guys gave me shit for my Star Wars shirts, but I didn’t give a fuck. They served their purpose and I liked the movies.

  “Let’s go.” Dixon waved his hand my way, as if I wouldn’t know he was talking to me. There wasn’t anyone else in the room. Cross and Ransom had barely stopped into the dressing room after the show. I assumed they wanted to grab a bite with their girls though I’d been told it was a girl’s night. Sometimes, I was curious about how all that worked between them but never enough to ask.

  Still, out in the hallway, Cross and Ransom were already waiting for us and they seemed to be showered with clean clothes on so they must’ve done something.

  We all climbed into the same SUV, which pulled out once we were all inside. I leaned back and closed my eyes, trying to block out the chatter from the other guys and thinking about what I was going to do with a couple of days off. Typically, everyone scattered in their own directions. I just didn’t have one to go in.

  The club was packed for this unofficial afterparty that I’d been assured would be kept lowkey and most people wouldn’t even know about it. Fail. It was wall-to-wall people, but us being “the talent” meant we got an area with a little space. Like a VIP thing. People could still approach us and two women didn’t waste a minute fawning all over Dixon, who ate it up like candy.

  Three approached me one-on-one, only to be politely dismissed. I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want to give them any false hope. I wouldn’t be hooking up with anyone tonight.

  “You don’t like women?” Dixon asked.

  “I like women just fine.”

  “Then what’s the deal?”

  “No deal,” I said honestly. The middle of a loud club wasn’t exactly the ideal place to inform him that I’d rather meet a girl the normal way, not hook up with someone random for one night where I’d get sex and they’d get to say they’d been with a member of the band. Or worse, have them be clingy when they didn’t realize it had been a hookup and thought we’d been starting a relationship.

  I’d done that shit since I was sixteen years old.

  Instead, thank you to whatever in the universe made it happen, my phone vibrated against my leg, saving me from having to give any explanation at all. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and waved it toward Dixon so he’d know where I was going when I stood up and walked away. Though when I got through the throng of people and stepped outside, the buzzing had stopped. I’d missed a call from my dad and had to seriously consider if I’d call him back or not.

  Unfortunately, I knew I would. There was only one reason he’d call in the first place. I couldn’t ignore that.

  “Booker,” he said instead of hello. That was how he always answered the phone, at least with me.

  “Missed your call,” I said.

  “Yeah, your mom wanted me to get ahold of you.”

  I stood up straighter. My mom was the reason I’d always call him back. It wasn’t that Dad and I didn’t love each other—we just didn’t always see eye to eye. Didn’t agree on a lot, actually.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “Well, she caught a summer cold, which turned into pneumonia. We caught it early, but we’re at the hospital—”

  “Is she OK?” I began to pace and rubbed a hand roughly over the back of my head as concern filled me.

  “Yes. Calm down. She’s on antibiotics now. It’s a known complication and they’re not even keeping her. Just with her recovery rate, these things hit her a little harder.”

  I released a breath of relief. “What can I do for her?”

  “Well… ” His voice trailed off. The first sign I’d likely not enjoy what came next. “She says she remembers you saying something about having some days off.” He sighed. “She wants me to ask you if you could come home for a visit for a few days.”

  Fuck no. The last thing I wanted to do was go home. Small-town life hadn’t suited me as a teenager and it didn’t suit me as an adult. But this was my mother. How could I say no?

  “I’ll check some flights and be there tomorrow.”

  Chapter Two

  Paige

  Walking around the Coyotes’ property was one of my favorite parts of this job. I’d been here a month and it still took my breath away. The large property in northern Michigan was covered in trees, insulating us from the rest of the world. At the top of the hill, which we wouldn’t be climbing today, I could see out into the horizon and sparkling waters of their blue lake. I didn’t know if the lake was actually theirs, but given the amount of money the Coyotes had, I assumed it was.

  Marina loved her daily walks and wasn’t about to let something like pneumonia stand in her way. I’d had to do a lot of negotiating just to get her to agree to let me push her in a wheelchair rather than walking the whole path, but I wasn’t taking her any other way. First, I’d said no straight out since she was sick. She countered with a great argument. It was summer. It wasn’t like she’d catch another cold and the doctor at the ER had said that fresh air would do her good, but not to overexert herself. Which was how I’d gotten her to agree to the chair.

  As Marina’s home health care nurse, I’d gone to the hospital with her and her husband, Joe, to ensure I received the aftercare instructions firsthand. Nothing was going to get missed while I was around.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Marina asked as we came to a stop in what I’d come to know as her favorite spot. A small area had been cut out of the trees along the path. In the clearing, you could see the Coyotes’ house some distance to the left and the blue waters to the right. At the center, there were a couple of benches and a place big enough for a fire.

  “The entire place is beautiful,” I told her. “Peaceful.”

  She nodded. “I’m getting back on a horse one day.” Marina said it so matter-of-factly that I had to believe her. If I had any say in the matter, she’d for sure get back on her beloved horse.

  “I know.”

  “So what’s on tap for today?” she asked, giving me as big a smile as she could with the left side as droopy as it was. Though I noticed it was somewhat less limp than it had been when I’d gotten here a month ago.

  “Well, I’d originally put together a revised physical therapy schedule for us, but after talking to the doctor last night, we agreed that you shou
ld have a couple of days off.”

  Marina groaned, and I knew the protest was coming.

  “Don’t argue with me,” I said with a sigh. “You can do the things you’re able to on your own. The stretches, the range of motion, but we’re not doing strength exercises or anything else until you’re feeling better. Probably three days.”

  Her eyes narrowed on me and I thought that at another time getting a glare from Marina Coyote would’ve made a person squirm, but not me. I’d worked in a busy, inner-city ER. Nothing scared me anymore.

  “I thought I’d find you two out here.” Joe Coyote, Marina’s husband, arrived at just the right time. “Giving Paige a hard time?”

  “Always,” I answered for her.

  “I just want to get better,” Marina said quietly.

  “I know,” he said just as quietly as he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “And you will.”

  The moment seemed so personal, so intimate, that I did my best to make myself invisible. Which meant walking to the far side of the little alcove. It wasn’t very far—it didn’t put much distance between us—and I’d still be able to see and hear them. But it at the very least gave the appearance of privacy with me outside of their personal bubble.

  “I got a text from Booker,” he told her. “He landed and will be here in a few hours.”

  She grinned again but then asked, “Can he afford the time? Are these the days off he told me about?”

  “Yes. It’s not like he punches a clock, Mari.”

  I didn’t know a lot about their son. Wait, that wasn’t true. I knew more than I should’ve, but not from Marina and Joe. They talked about him the way any parents would. Marina always beamed with how proud she was of him, but Joe spoke of his son as if he were young and still finding himself. But Booker was twenty-five. He’d been in several bands. Bands, I’d learned, whose songs I’d listened to, and was now possibly Courting Chaos’ new bass player. I assumed he’d already found himself.