A Lush Rhapsody: A Rhapsody Novel Read Online Free Page B

and when my mom was too busy, Savvy was always there.
    “You’re going to be fine,” she tells me before releasing me from her crushing squeeze. “Remember that the whole world isn’t our family. Not everyone is out to force you into a mold that you don’t fit. And for God’s sake, have some fun, rock star. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s your new life, enjoy it, find sexy boys and make them worship your badass self.”
    I laugh. “Okay, okay. I’ll get a little action for you, how’s that?”
    “That,” she says with a big smile, “sounds perfect. Tell me all about it when you get here for the Portland show. Now off with you, before all the hot guys leave you behind.”
    As I walk out of my sister’s pub, and into the damp Portland air, I can’t help but feel like I’m walking into an abyss. This tour should be life-changing—but in only the best ways. It’s the symbol of what I’ve worked so hard to achieve, the culmination of five years of playing music with all sorts of bands, in all sorts of venues. Of struggling to piece together enough gigs and enough shifts at The Dublin Devil that I could feed myself and afford the little apartment upstairs from the bar. I should be jumping with joy about this tour. But instead I’m anxious, and if I’m honest, a little bit scared, because I’m worried that not only will my life never be the same after this, but neither will I.

    * * *
    I arrive in San Diego at the hotel several hours later. We’ve all been given an hour to check-in to our rooms and freshen up, then Joss says we need to meet with the tour staff and all the other bands at the venue.
    The Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, California is the largest in the area, and will hold over twenty thousand spectators. I’ve discovered that for Lush, this isn’t anything exceptional. For me, it’s overwhelming. I think the biggest audience I’ve ever performed in front of is about two hundred, at a summer concert series in the Portland parks. That’s where Dave found me. He’s my manager and Lush’s—I guess I really have to stop thinking of us as separate. I’m Lush now, but whatever. The bottom line is, this place is huge.
    “Yeah, it’s a decent size,” Colin says as he sits down next to me in the first row of seats, staring up at the stage.
    Guess I said that out loud. “No,” I correct him. “It’s huge.”
    “That’s what she said,” Mike pipes up from behind us.
    I roll my eyes. I’m getting used to him, but he’s still an abrasive dick, and I tell him so at least three times a day.
    Colin pats me on the arm. “Breathe, T-squared, breathe.”
    He’s taken to calling me T-squared for ‘Tiny Tully’ because of my size. I’m not sure if I like it, but I appreciate that he’s trying to help me fit in.
    “Oh fuck me,” Mike mutters from behind us as a big group of people comes walking along next to the stage, heading toward our seats.
    “Not a chance,” I answer, even though I have no idea if he was talking to me.
    “You only wish. It’d be an experience you’d never forget,” he shoots back.
    “Yeah, I’ve heard PTSD is tough that way.”
    I hear a scuffle behind me and turn to see Walsh standing behind Mike’s seat, both hands planted on Mike’s shoulders as he scowls and squirms to lunge at me.
    “Settle the fuck down,” Joss admonishes as he arrives and sits next to Mike. “You’re acting like a bunch of preschoolers.”
    Walsh smacks Mike upside the head—lovingly of course—and sits back down behind him.
    “Oh shit,” Colin mutters. I turn to face the seats across the aisle, where he’s looking, and there, in the midst of the sea of the various other bands and crew that have been trickling in over the last few minutes is Rhapsody.
    “Oh. Wow.” I sigh. Because that is one fine-looking group of men. There’s something for everyone in that band. Lean, bulked up, dark hair, light hair, fair-skinned, dark-skinned, if it’s found on a