Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

FREDDIE

T he last of the gear had been packed into one of the trucks. We’d brought three of our own to handle all transport of the equipment, gear, and extras in case we needed to repair or replace any of it. The drivers had all been heavily vetted. Jasper offered them a separate contract for handling these routes, including bonuses for each city, and paid time off when Boo-Boo took breaks.

Considering the guys would be on the road more than home in Braxton Harbor, it seemed a reasonable exchange. All three were more than committed and we had two backup drivers amongst us if anyone got sick. Vaughn could handle one of the trucks, and Jasper would fly out to take over the other if necessary. I was almost dead certain Rome knew how to drive one, but he didn’t say and no one asked.

Then again, if Rome wanted to drive one, he’d just climb up in the cab and get it started. A laugh escaped me because that really did fit. One of the outer doors to the practice theater we’d been using for this break creaked as it was opened letting in street noise, the faint stink of exhaust, along with Vaughn and Rome.

I frowned at the sight of both of them, but Vaughn just waved off my concern. “She’s sleeping in with Liam this morning. Since he has to leave after lunch, we’re giving them the day.”

Relief crashed into me and I blew out a harsh breath. Rome bumped my shoulder on the way back. The guys limited contact most of the time. I’d known, but I hadn’t really noticed until we were on our way back from Pinetree and taking care of Boo-Boo was the priority.

The guys never crowded me, never started wrestling with me. Hell, they’d have those wrestling matches all the way around me, but I wasn’t involved unless I involved myself. The only one who actively didn’t hold back to grip my shoulder or give me a hug was Jasper. Somewhere in my brain, Jasper had been marked firmly “safe,” even if I trusted all of these guys with my life.

Rome paused to look at me even as Vaughn stayed where he was. He hadn’t moved away from the door yet. Fuck…

“I’m being weird,” I admitted and Vaughn shrugged.

“Not really,” he said in an even tone that insisted I believe him. “But you look worried.”

“Not worried,” Rome countered, and when I glanced at him, I found him really studying me. He even held my gaze for a long moment. He wasn’t one to stare, but I didn’t withdraw. “What’s wrong?”

I opened my mouth to say nothing, but then swallowed the lie unspoken. Maybe not a lie so much as a distinct untruth. “I’m worried about Boo-Boo.” It was wrong to talk about her when she wasn’t there to defend herself and at the same time, I didn’t think she’d admit to this one.

Fuck, I wouldn’t . That thought crystalized for me exactly why I was worried. Boo-Boo was a beautiful mirror, she was all the good things even with the shadows and the cracks, of survival and rising above it all. I wanted to be those things but…

“What’s up?” Vaughn asked, bringing me firmly back to earth and I folded my arms.

“It’s hard to put it into words,” I admitted. It was an instinct, a gut feeling. They could go with that sure, but I wasn’t sure that would tell them what they needed to know in order to do something about the issue.

“Do your best,” Rome said and he turned to grab one of the wooden crates that we weren’t taking with us. We’d consolidated. So he dragged it over and sat on it.

“Need coffee?” Vaughn offered. It was kind of funny, we all brought coffee in the mornings that we knew Boo-Boo would be right there, but I didn’t expect her to be here so I hadn’t…

Shaking off that thought, I scrubbed a hand over my face. The need to fidget was there, but I didn’t have anything to chew on or smoke or snort. All good things to not have, cause they usually get me into trouble. I settled for flicking my knife out and letting the blade dance over my fingers and began to pace.

Restlessness invaded every muscle. Rome waited, an oasis of calm on one side while Vaughn settled in to lean against the wall. Where Rome was calm, Vaughn seemed almost peaceful—no, it wasn’t peace. It was patience. He could, and would, wait for as long as it took me to figure out what to say.

It helped that the theater was quiet, the darkened stage areas offset by the low lighting in the backstage area. The smell of sawdust and sweat, that was how Boo-Boo described it. Back here was where the magic rested and prepped to be on the stage. It had to be a little dirty, a little grimy, and very real because when she was out there, she wasn’t.

Her little laugh when she’d explained it held a note of apology. Not that she had anything to be sorry about, but she worried I wouldn’t understand it. On the one hand, I hadn’t— not fully. But I didn’t need to be the one who understood. It was always about her and what she needed.

But right now? Right now, her words resonated as they whispered to me from the past.

“Back here, it’s the most real it ever gets. You see the running makeup, smell the sweat, and taste the hot lights and feel the sawdust where it clutters the corners. It’s reality, in all the ways that reality makes it a little dirtier, a little grimier. Then I step out there… and all of that melts away as I become the fantasy and I fly. It’s the yin and the yang of the theater. I love it so damn much.”

“I’m going to be real with both of you right now, and I accept that you may not see things the way I do and that’s cool. But I know you don’t see what I do and I think—no, I know you need to at least hear it. She needs all of us.”

I cut a look at Rome, and he nodded once. “You see Starling differently. We know.”

No questions or demands for proof. Just quiet, perfect acceptance. I raked a hand through my hair. It was getting longer and I needed to get it cut, but the one barber I trusted was back in Braxton Harbor. Maybe Boo-Boo could give me a hand…

Still dancing the blade, I continued my pacing. “She’s pushing herself really hard. Our last two breaks weren’t really breaks for her.”

Not that they weren’t aware. The three of us were the primary ones on this tour with her. We went city to city, Vaughn inspected every installation of her equipment. He went over it with a fine-tooth comb before every performance and if even one thing was off, he made the techs do it again.

No accidents on our watch.

Rome and I took turns being with her backstage throughout the prep and performance. There were a few other dancers on the tour. Most of whom she’d interviewed herself or had worked with in the past. The history with them helped, but I didn’t know them and I wasn’t trusting them with her.

More often than not, there was a line after a performance when we were leaving whether we had breakdown or not to get ready to move on. She always made time to talk to her “fans,” particularly the kids. Those she gravitated right toward and I got it. I just hated the crowd.

“It was worse in the beginning,” I said. “I think she had something to prove to herself.” As much as she loved the performance, I wasn’t so disconnected that I didn’t see the hours and hours of work she put in. One of the other dancers, one of the guys, asked if she wanted a partner like she used to work with and she said no so fast, I didn’t even have time to think about that question until now.

Back and forth I went, aware of the two of them listening, and at the same time, just letting my thoughts go where they needed to go. There was something here and it had been chewing on me for weeks.

“She’s doing better—I think. Or maybe I should say, she was doing better until we went to Prague.” Going to Prague was something we all absolutely had to do. I’d never had a passport before, much less left the country. But we’d all gone, it had been a group effort. We went to help Ball-Cracker and Milo find their siblings.

Fuck… a new sibling. I was still rolling that fact around in my head. Doc had called to say that the kid had shown up in Braxton Harbor with Milo and Lainey. He wanted to stay with us. Right now that didn’t mean on tour, but it could mean on tour.

I’d met Theo, briefly. He was—he didn’t look like Em or Milo—and fuck that wasn’t the point right now. My thoughts kept going scattershot. I stopped mid-pace and scowled at the floor. The path I’d cut through the dust reminded me that maybe getting someone to sweep up these places needed to be a priority, or would that mess with how it smelled?

“Wow,” I said aloud and then shook my head. “Sorry, apparently I’m all over the place.”

“We’re fine,” Vaughn said. “We have at least four hours before someone will be looking for us.”

The delivery was so droll and dry that I laughed. “I always forget that you can be a dick.”

“Happy to remind you,” Vaughn said easily enough.

I snorted, then blew out another breath. “I think she is better about some things, but she’s pushing herself again. I want to tell her to take a real break, not one where she tries to do everything in the few days she’s supposed to have off or be everywhere for everyone.”

There it was, it clicked .

“The last break we took at home, she didn’t slow down for a day. She went on the road with Jasper. She went to the mechanic’s shop with Kel. She even took turns to go with Doc to the new houses. Liam came in on that flying break and she left with him for meetings. By the time we got back on the road, I don’t think she had a real day off.”

That was also not counting all the hours she spent in her studio. At least two hours every single day, whether she was training a routine or just training. She argued she had to because that was what it took. But what was that cost to her?

“After Prague, I think she needs it more than ever. But even if we plan to go home, Theo is going to be there now.” If I was Boo-Boo’s baby brother, I’d want to know her too. I’d want her attention, hell, I wanted her attention now but she had so many demands.

“You think she’s spreading herself too thin.” It wasn’t a question. Vaughn lifted his shoulders. “I don’t disagree, but Freddie—she misses the guys and I think she needs that time with them even at the cost of not taking a break.”

“I know she misses them.” She never hid that from any of us. Her excitement when she saw them was so genuine. I also knew she didn’t relax as well as she did when we were all home. One of us was with her every night on the road, sometimes it was all of us. I didn’t like to hang out through the sex part. Sometimes it was fun, but other times…

Right not about me.

“But I think she’s demanding more of herself and now she’s adding new routines.” Which was what this break had been about. “She wants to challenge herself.”

For some reason, those five words scared the piss out of me. They had from the moment she said it aloud this week when she’d been testing a new routine on a pole that dangled with no silks.

“Challenge herself,” Vaughn repeated and he cut a look past me to Rome and when I glanced at him, I found him wearing the same expression.

“That’s what she told me.” It wasn’t betraying a confidence. I’d cut out my tongue before I did that to her, but she’d mentioned it in passing and I needed to not be the only one who heard the problem present in those words.

Vaughn blew out a breath.

“I’ll talk to her,” Rome volunteered and I raised my brows. At my skeptical look, he shrugged. “I can be blunt.”

Yes. Yes he could.

“If she needs a partner to challenge herself,” he continued. “I can do that too.”

The profound relief that crashed through me had me flipping the knife closed. He put the two parts of it together and that was the part that had been haunting me. I got that she refused to let fear dictate her life, but the last partner she had when she performed had been a brutal, abusive piece of shit that should have suffered even more than he did before we killed him.

“Better?” Vaughn asked and he made no effort to cover his own relief. “Also, Rome, if you’re going up there too, we need to work out new engineering so it’s safe for both of you.”

Since my next step had been to call Ball-Cracker or Milo or both, yes, I felt a lot better. “I want to help her too.”

“Let her teach you to dance,” Rome said as he stood and straightened. “I want coffee now.” He was heading to the door and I stared after him. Vaughn chuckled but pushed the outer door open for Rome.

“C’mon, Freddie. Coffee and food. Then we can plan the next few days…”

Let her teach me to dance?