“Bullshit, little girl,” Marcus growled. “You’re paranoid.”

“This isn’t about us, you jerk. This is about the band, the music, and the ten thousand people who paid to be entertained,” Rebekah continued. “Get your self-important head out of your ass, and do your fucking job. If you have a problem with me, we’ll take it up after the show.”

“Damn, baby,” Eric said to himself, “I love it when you exert your authority. Makes me all hard.”

The crowd broke into raucous laughter. Sed turned and quirked an eyebrow. Eric’s face fell.

“Shit, I forgot I have a live mic,” Eric said.

The crowd laughed again.

“I see the problem,” Marcus said into the feed going through everyone’s earpieces. At least the crowd couldn’t hear him or Rebekah’s hot little tirade. Marcus’s voice was significantly more humble when he asked, “Do you want to start from the top?”

“They’ve got it fixed now,” Sed told the crowd.

Jace struggled to remove his bass and get back to the piano. Jon was beaming when he returned to the stage with his bass. He got to play twice tonight instead of just once.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Rebekah said into their feed. “‘Sever’ from the top.”

The rest of the show went over without a hitch. Afterward, Eric grabbed a bottle of water and waited for the crowd to clear out of the arena before going in search of Rebekah. She was probably still upset about what had happened at the beginning of the show, and he had the powerful need to comfort her. And then to dress her up like a naughty cop so she could exert her authority over him.

He finally found her backstage cringing beside Marcus. Sed had them both cornered and was in berate mode. Eric had suffered under Sed’s wrath more than once. It wasn’t fun.

When Rebekah tried to speak in her own defense, Sed raised a hand. “I don’t give a shit whose fault it is. This isn’t going to happen again. Do you understand?”

Rebekah bit her lip, struggling to maintain her composure.

“Don’t yell at her,” Eric said to Sed.

Sed glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not yelling.”

Eric lifted an eyebrow. “Sounds like yelling to me.”

“Touring is hard enough without a feud going on between my soundboard operators.”

“It won’t happen again,” Marcus said. “I found the problem and fixed it.”

“If the two of you break into an argument during a show again, you’re both fired. Capisce?” Sed continued.

Rebekah nodded sullenly.

Marcus flung his hands out, his palms at chest level facing the ceiling. “Sed, I’ve been with this crew for four years. You can’t—”

“Marcus, I wouldn’t care if you were my own father. You fuck up another Sinners’ show, by neglect or on purpose, you’re out of here. End of story. No argument. Out of here.”


“This is fucking bullshit.” Marcus glared at Rebekah before storming off.

“Way to defuse a bomb, Sed,” Eric said.

“Do you have a better idea?” he asked.

“Yeah, don’t drag Rebekah into this when you know she had nothing to do with it.” Eric wrapped an arm around her back and tugged her closer.

“Then Marcus would think I was singling him out, and he’d get even more pissed at her.”

Eric glanced at Rebekah, and she nodded in agreement.

“Sed’s right.”

Eric sighed loudly and shook his head. “Sed’s always right.”

Sed grinned like a shark. “Well, we’re all in agreement on that.”

“I’ve got to tear down the equipment,” Rebekah said, squirming out of Eric’s sweaty grasp.

“Will you dress up as a cop for me later?” he asked.

She glanced at Sed and flushed, then turned her gaze to Eric and said, “You have the right to remain silent.”

He chuckled. “I think I want to waive that right.”

“I know a great soon-to-be attorney,” Sed said. His fiancée Jessica was in her final year of law school.

“If Jessica wants to participate in our scenario, I would not object,” Eric quipped. It earned him a thump in the forehead from Sed.

Rebekah tilted her head back for a kiss, which Eric gave eagerly.

When they drew apart, she patted his butt before returning to work.

He watched her until she was out of sight and then turned to find Sed grinning.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just happy for you.” Sed clapped him on the shoulder and directed him toward the tour bus.

Eric was happy for himself as well. There was still one thing that continually ate away at him though. It was past time that he spilled his guts to Sed. Sure, Sed would be pissed for a while. He might even hit him, but it had to be better than this constant cloud of darkness hanging over his subconscious for almost three years.

“Sed?”

“Yeah?”

“Sed, there’s something I need to tell you about me and Jon.”

Sed’s head swiveled, and his eyes were the size of saucers. “You and Jon? No fucking way.”

It took Eric a few seconds to realize why Sed was so shocked.

“Ew. No, not that. Shit, where did that come from?”

Sed released a long breath through pursed lips. “Sorry. Now that I’m not getting it on with three or four different girls a night, I’ve been noticing Trey’s activities more. That guy will fuck anyone.”

Eric laughed. “You’re just now noticing that? He actually has excellent taste and a lot to choose from on both teams.”

They paused in the corridor that led to the stadium exit. “So now that my mind is out of the gutter, what were you actually trying to tell me?” Sed asked.

“Do you remember when the old bus broke down outside Phoenix and the cash that we kept in the lockbox for emergencies was sort of missing?”

“How can I fucking forget that? Jon used every penny we had to buy drugs. That was the last straw. We had no choice but to fire him.”

Eric winced. “Well…” Eric was starting to reconsider this confession. Maybe it was better to let Jon take the blame.

“Well, what?”

“There was this lady at a gas station near Tucson. She laid this sob story on me about running out of gas and having no food for her two little kids. They were in her van all sweaty and hot because it was frickin’ almost a hundred degrees that day. Crying that they were thirsty and hungry. So…” Eric sighed. “I didn’t have much cash on me. So I gave her the money out of our lockbox.”

“All of it?”

“Yeah. I figured she needed it more than we did. We were almost home. We had some great gigs lined up. I knew we’d make the money back in no time. And then the bus broke down, and we were stuck without a dime. I was going to tell you, but Jon said you were already pissed at him, a little more wouldn’t hurt. Next thing I knew, Jon was out of the band, and we were stuck without a tour bus. We had to cancel a bunch of shows. Lay off some of the crew. It kept snowballing from there.”

“Jessica dumped me.”

Eric winced. “Yeah.”

“At least, I thought that’s why she dumped me. Turned out it was really because I was a conceited ass, but at the time, I blamed Jon for wasting all our money, so I couldn’t pay her law school tuition.”

“I’m really sorry. If I’d have known, I wouldn’t have given that lady the whole five hundred dollars. I just felt bad for her, and her kids were so cute.” Eric peeked at Sed through one eye. “Did I mention they were hungry and thirsty?”

“You gave some stranger five hundred dollars?”

“Yeah, I know. She could have gotten gas and food and stuff for a lot less. I probably should have given her a hundred bucks or so.

I’m just…”

“A generous sucker. Yeah, I realize that.” Sed wiped a hand over his face. “There wasn’t five hundred dollars in that lockbox, Eric.

There was eight thousand.”

Eric stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “I don’t think I heard you right. I know there was only five hundred in there.

I took it. Emptied the whole thing.”

“Which was a fuckin’ bonehead move.” Sed slapped him in the arm. Not even hard enough to hurt. Shouldn’t he be more pissed?


Maybe it was because so much time had passed, and everything had turned out al right. Eventually. “Ever wonder why Jon was so willing to take the fall for you?”

“He was my best friend.”

Sed shook his head. “He didn’t want you to know that he’d spent seventy-five hundred dollars on his drug habit. He’d just gotten out of rehab, remember?”

Eric nodded.

“Remember what landed him there?”

“He took the band’s ATM card and cleared out the checking account to pay for one of his weekend benders.”

“And all of the crew’s paychecks bounced.”

“Yeah, that was a mess.”

“So I had to start paying everyone with cash.”

Eric glanced at Sed, trying to reconstruct past events with this new information. “He took all the payroll money?”

“Good morning, Eric. Glad you’re finally waking up.”

“So all this time, he’s been making me feel like shit to hide what he did and—”

“Keep you under his thumb.”

“That asshole!”

“I’ve been trying to make you see what he’s really like for years.

You’re so blind when it comes to those you care about. You’ve always been as faithful as an abused dog.”

It was true. Eric couldn’t deny it. He wasn’t sure he appreciated being compared to a dog, but he’d been called worse. “So why did you let Jon fill in for Jace? Why is he on tour with us now?”

“Because you wanted him to be.”

“Since when does anyone listen to me?”

Sed chuckled. “All the time, Eric. Where would Sinners be without you? Not where we are today, that’s for sure.”