I SAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHAOS SWARMING AROUND ME, wondering how long I was going to keep doing this. I refused to accept forty-two as old—although the gray hairs on my head and chin begged to differ—but touring always made me feel old. Even at this point in my career, when I barely had to lift a finger, it was tiring.
My younger self, who’d carried amps on my back and set up my own sound systems, would scoff at how soft I’d gotten. I’d been touring for a long time. Two decades. I’d gone through a few bands, then went solo. Life didn’t look anything like it had at twenty-two, but I wasn’t sorry for it. I’d paid my dues. Overpaid in some ways.
My assistant, Marta, braced a hand on the back of my seat, her other outstretched with my phone in it. “Isabela,” she whispered.
With a groan, I turned it on speaker and threw the phone down on the small, fold-out table in front of me. “Tell me again why you’re not here.”
“I don’t think we need to go over that again.” She paused. “Is everything set?”
My jet was steadily filling with some of the people who made my life on the road smooth. I couldn’t remember every single person’s name, but I recognized everyone.
“What’s the PR girl look like?” I asked.
Isabella exhaled heavily through the phone. “Does it matter?”
“It does when it seems she’s not here and the plane is supposed to be taking off in a half hour. Pretty bad look for her first day on the job.”
It thrilled me that Isabela’s plan already wasn’t working. She couldn’t stand lateness. This girl, this Claire, would be out on her ass before the plane took off.
“Are you sure she isn’t there? She’s young, sort of round, and very plain. She might be blending in with the furniture, so double-check.” Isabela chuckled at her own description while I swung my head around to see if anyone had boarded since I’d last looked.
Right behind my seat cowered a girl, red-faced and a little sweaty. Her brown hair did crazy, tangly things around her shoulders, and freckles covered nearly every spare inch of her visible skin. She wasn’t as plain as Isabela had described, but I saw why she thought so.
She raised her hand. “I’m here.”
I turned back to my phone without a response. “She’s here, Iz, and you were pretty unkind in your description.”
Isabela ejected a noise that had never been made by a human before. “Am I on speaker, asshole?”
“You are.” I glanced back at the girl, and her face was still red. She was either on the verge of tears or seething. If I were her, I’d be pretty pissed to hear my boss say that sort of thing.
“Claire, I’m so sorry. You’re lovely, and I’m happy you made it,” Isabella soothed.
Claire cleared her throat before she spoke. “My Uber was in an accident a mile away, so I walked, which is why I was running late. I’ll be careful when I sit on the furniture, possibly even wear a sign around my neck so no one accidentally sits on me.”
Oh, this one had some balls. “You hear that, Isabela? You were worried about me making trouble for you, and here you are being rude to my new PR girl. Tsk, tsk.”
When she didn’t say anything for a moment, I had a feeling she was doing her breathing exercises—the ones she’d learned during our divorce.
“Claire, I truly am sorry. Are you okay?” she asked.
“I know you are. And yeah, I’m okay. I’m a little sore all over and overheated from walking in the sun, but I’ll survive.”
I took another glance at her, still standing at my shoulder. Her face hadn’t gotten any less red, she was kneading the back of her neck, and didn’t look too steady on her feet. I snapped at Marta, ignoring Isabela’s questions.
“Marta, this is Claire. She looks about thirty seconds from keeling over. Can you show her to her seat and find her something cold to drink? I need her to work on this tour and that’ll be pretty damn difficult if she’s dead.”
Marta eviscerated me with her eyes, but took Claire in hand, guiding her to the front of the plane where the other staff were seated. I liked to be all by my lonesome in the back.
“Is she gone?” Isabela asked.
“Yep.” I tipped my head back, letting the cool air from above hit my face. “I can’t believe that happened.” My lips curved up in amusement.
“I am the absolute worst. I advocate for other women in the workplace, and then I go and do that. Goddammit, sometimes I hate myself.”
“Ah, Iz, you’ll get over it. She’ll get over it. It is what it is.”
“You know, you should really let someone know they’re on speaker.”
“Ah, ah, ah, you’re not going to turn this around on me.” I listened to a few more minutes of Isabela beating herself up before I told her I had to turn off my phone for takeoff.
Maybe her not being on this tour wasn’t so bad. We didn’t see each other often when I wasn’t touring, but when we did, we were either fucking or bickering. While I wasn’t old, I was getting a little too old for that, and so was she.
When the pilot announced we were prepared for departure, Marta took the seat across from me, shooting invisible daggers out of her staggering green eyes.
“Just so you know, your new employee was in a head-on collision less than an hour ago. Her driver was taken away in an ambulance.” Marta crossed her legs and stacked her hands on her knee. “She says she’s fine, all while her hands are shaking.”
Marta was young, probably a couple years older than the girl. When I’d hired her a few years ago, I’d admittedly been thinking about how nice she’d be to look at more than anything. And she was, in a punk rock, emo girl, black hair, and black eyeliner kind of way. It took me a day to realize she’d kick my ass if she caught me looking at her tits. Another day for me to realize Marta batted for her own team.
“I don’t need to know her personal details, just that she’ll be able to do her job.”
She hissed and leaned forward in her seat. “I know you have at least a scrap of compassion in that hollow chest of yours. Maybe you could take it easy on her, just for today.”
That was the thing about becoming friends with an employee: they trash talked like I didn’t sign their paycheck. Actually, not ‘they.’ Marta was the only employee I’d ever befriended, and to be honest, she was the only person I considered to be a real friend. Times like these, though, I regretted the hell out of that fact.
“I have no intention of interacting with her in any way other than professionally. If I should happen to need her professional services at any point today, I’ll let her know. I’ll even smile if that makes you happy.” I bared my teeth, making her shudder.
“Don’t try to smile, Dom. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I won’t make a habit of it.”
She shook her head and settled back in her seat with her ankle resting on her opposite knee. With the slit in her eyebrow, in her vest and cuffed jeans, I didn’t know how I ever thought she was straight.
“How’s Izzy?” she asked.
Marta didn’t like Isabela, and she’d never even attempted to hide her disdain. Her dislike probably stemmed from the time Iz had encouraged me to fire Marta for no particular reason. Marta thought Isabela was a prissy fake who wasn’t out for my best interests.
“She shit-talked the new girl while on speaker phone, so you know, the usual.”
She smacked her forehead. “What a cunt. Jesus. Didn’t she handpick Claire?”
“No idea how the hiring process went down.” I tapped my fingers on my armrest. “How about giving me five minutes of peace?”
She smirked and swung her booted foot back and forth. “Don’t act like you don’t love me.”
“Never said I don’t. I love being alone even more, though.”
Her eyes slid into slits. “Don’t forget I know you, Dom. You’re loud and cranky, demanding to be left alone, then you call me over to do some bullshit errand.”
“Then you never leave,” I groused, my mouth quirking.
Her toes connected with my shin. “Because you ask me to hang out!”
I chuckled and rubbed my beard. “Maybe.”
Marta unfolded herself from the chair across from mine and patted me on the shoulder. “Now that we’ve bonded, I’m going back up front to hang out with the new girl before we take off. I’ll let you know whether she’s tolerable when we land.”
“You do that.”
“You’d be sad if I left and never came back.” She tugged on my ear like the little brat she was. “But don’t worry, you’re stuck with me.”
Marta sauntered away, and I leaned my head back, resting my eyes and vocals. Our flight to Atlanta wouldn’t be long, but I needed all the time to myself I could get. Once the tour swung into full force, alone time would be precious and scarce. In the three years since my divorce, I’d come to realize I craved solitude. At my age, I didn’t see that ever changing.
