1
Sweat. Booze. Arousal.
Those three things saturated the air until suffocation was inevitable. But no one cared. They were high on the sensations, the lights, and of the atmosphere of seeing one of the greatest musical groups of this generation perform—Twisted Feather.
Tanner Mason looked to her left, saw the thick throng of bodies practically pulsating, trying to get impossibly closer, and inhaled deeply. This wasn’t her first concert, but it was probably one of the most electrifying. She looked to her right, saw the same thing, and had to force herself to just breathe.
The show was sold out, and although it was a small venue compared to what this band normally played anymore, claustrophobia still slammed into her like another entity.
"Isn't this great?" Zoe, her best friend since the fourth grade, nearly screamed beside her, but she kept her gaze trained forward. In just minutes the band would step on that stage, one that was made up of four guys Tanner had grown up around, but hadn't seen in the last five years.
It had only taken that small window of time for Twisted Feather to jump to stardom, to become one of the biggest bands in the world, and she had watched it all play out on the television and by reading it in the papers.
"It's wild." Tanner looked at Zoe. The excitement on her friend’s face was tangible and surrounded them in their own little bubble of joy.
"You haven't seen anything yet." Zoe clasped her hands together in front of her mouth, and Tanner swore she saw her body shake from excitement.
“How many times have you seen them?” She knew Zoe had probably told her at one time.
“Just a few times honestly.” Zoe lifted one shoulder in a shrug and turned just her head to look at Tanner. “I can only make it to the ones in Colorado, and when they come here it is usually in the bigger cities.” Zoe looked forward again. “But this little concert isn’t even half the excitement that you will feel if you went to one at those big arenas.”
Tanner had seen Zoe like this before, many times in fact, and it always was because of Luke "Beats" Davidson, the drummer for Twisted Feather. But she supposed having friends that were also guys, and spending nearly every day hanging out with them, and listening to them practice in their parents’ basement, would have eventually had one of them falling hard for a rocker.
But Zoe wasn’t the only one that had fallen hard for a bad boy, and although Tanner had done a good job of keeping her emotions buried all this time, it was hard to now, seeing as she was so close to the band. No, she wouldn’t allow herself to think about the past, because that was where those memories should stay … right?
The lights started to dim, and the crowd went wild. Tanner was pushed forward, but surged backward just as quickly as the people in front of her retaliated. No way were they giving up their spot to see this limited engagement performance that had brought the band to their hometown. She had only been back in Brookstone for a week, but that hadn't been nearly enough time for her to settle in.
Finding a job after graduation, especially one as a graphic designer, wasn't as easy as she had originally envisioned. Now she was back home living with her parents, and hoping that she wouldn't be another twenty-three-year-old with a college degree bagging groceries at the corner Shop & Save.
Zoe wound her arm through hers and leaned into her so she could speak right in her ear. "I am so happy you got that stick out of your ass and decided to come with me." There was a teasing note in Zoe’s voice, and she nudged her with her shoulder.
Tanner scowled, but it was all for fun. She couldn't deny she had been a grump when she first returned home, but there was a part of her that felt like a failure. If she couldn't find work in her dream profession in the big city where she had lived for the last five years, no way in hell could she find a job in this rinky-dink town.
"I got a couple of backstage passes in the mail, and nearly freaked.” Zoe looked at her and grinned. “I haven’t actually talked to the guys in like … forever. They have been so busy since hitting it big.” Zoe shrugged, and although there was that euphoria still in her friend’s voice, there was also a longing that Tanner had heard many times over.
Tanner didn't know what was sadder, watching her friend pine after a guy that had never seen her as anything more than another one of the guys, or watching the heartbreak that covered Zoe's face all the times she had seen Beats with another girl. To those four rockers she and Zoe were just another one of the buddies that hung out and drank beer behind their parents’ backs as they played music.
But she supposed that happened when people grew up with each other. Hell, Tanner had watched all four of the members on TV and in the paper with their arms around scantily clad women, looking drunk, and ready to do a bunch of nasty shit.
Those women were beautiful and famous, with bodies that were thin and perfectly calculated to drive a man insane with lust. Of course the nasty images that filled her head were ones Tanner had conjured up and not actually been witness to. But why else would the guys hang around women that wore barely there clothing and let their big fake tits hang out, if not to screw them?
She had heard and seen enough in the tabloids about rock stars and their weakness for drugs, alcohol, and sex, that there was a part of her that worried she didn’t know the guys who had once been her best friends.
But Tanner still hoped that wasn’t the case with Twisted Feather, because even though all these years had passed, she didn’t want to see them corrupted. They were stars, and with that lifestyle came a lot of changes. Temptation was an evil, arousing force that sucked a lot of people down.
What Zoe didn't know was that it wasn't just time that had separated Tanner from this town and the band about to take stage. One drunken night had sealed her fate when she had given her virginity to Twisted Feather’s lead singer and now international bad boy, Jackson "Jacks" Lorde. Tanner had tried hard to bury that memory deep inside of her, but it never really stayed hidden. No amount of alcohol or passing time could have numbed that experience.
So after it was all said and done, she had run from her feelings for Jacks, and from what could have been something more. Regret was a strong force, but fear was stronger. She had been afraid, scared of ruining what they had shared, and at eighteen she hadn’t known how to deal with it. Now it seemed so frivolous how she had reacted, but she couldn’t change the past.
The lights went off completely for a solid second, but the freaking out that happened all around her wasn't from panic, but from excitement. God, they must have crammed as many bodies inside of Rosco’s as they legally could. It felt like there wasn’t any room to breathe let alone move.
The longer the lights stayed off, the wilder the crowd became. And then, right there in the center of the stage shone a single spotlight. The fact that the band was performing at Rosco's, the largest, yet still small by average standards, bar in Brookstone, was a bit surprising. This "limited engagement" was only for the residents of the band’s hometown. Tanner supposed it was a nice tribute to where the guys had once called home.
Sweat trickled down the space between her breasts, and she exhaled slowly. And then there they were, four bodies taking the stage like they owned it, and Tanner supposed they did, in every way possible. The crowd should have gotten even rowdier, but instead the room grew eerily quiet as the guys took their places.