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@eugene_woods big news, readers, and you're hearing it here first!
@eugene_woods as you all know, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES are set to take North America by storm with their upcoming US/Canada "Demons & Darkness" tour
@eugene_woods I'm happy to announce that I'll be covering the entire first leg of the tour, from the kickoff in NYC all the way through to New Orleans!
@eugene_woods but wait, it gets better -- I won't just be covering the shows, I'll be traveling with the band and giving you an inside look at RUN FOR YOUR LIVES on their road to stardom.
@Jack_RFYL everybody say hello to our newest roadie @eugene_woods! He's in charge of Sara's drums from now on.
@eugene_woods @Jack_RFYL I find that the more kit I'm forced to carry, the more negative my reviews get. Just so you know.
Twitter, and some preparatory Googling, had failed to prepare Eugene for the boisterous creature standing in front of him. Jack was all bony elbows and knees, maybe just a few centimeters shorter than him if he'd ever stand up straight instead of hunching his shoulders, and Eugene could tell within seconds that the man was fidgety in the extreme.
"You must be Eugene, good to meet you -- I'm Jack, there's Sara on drums, Maxine on bass, Jody on keys, and Sam's our journeyman roadie." Jack pointed out each person in the cramped backstage area but Eugene got stuck on his last item, offering up a vague, all-encompassing wave hello to the rest.
"'Journeyman roadie?'"
"That's what we're calling it. Like an unpaid internship. Some day our young Sammy will leave the nest and fly off to find his own musical fame and fortune--" Jack punctuated his words by mushing the unfortunate Sam's cheeks with his hands. Sam looked long-suffering. "But he just quit uni this spring so we're oh-so-considerately showing him what band life is really like, and in return he's carrying gear and manning the sales table." Eugene told himself he was watching Jack's mouth just to see how long he could keep talking without taking a breath.
"Jack tells us you're going to be traveling with the band, is that right?" Maxine's accent was a surprise, more American than British.
"From New York to New Orleans, covering the shows and all the behind-the-scene drama in between shows. Consider me your redheaded Canadian shadow for the next couple of weeks."
"Our own personal papparazzo, is it?" Sara sent a single drumstick spinning through the air, up and down, catching and releasing in one smooth motion.
"You've found me out. My secret mission is to uncover all your deepest secrets and splash them across the pages of NOW Toronto." Eugene stared at Sara, delivering his line in a total deadpan. The other band members stared at them both for a long silent moment until Sara finally cracked a smile.
"You'll do, young man," she said. "Now begone, we have a show to prepare for."
Eugene left them alone to get ready, making his way back out to the front of the house. Run For Your Lives wasn't nearly big enough for arenas yet, but much too popular to spend their international tour in dive bars and holes-in-the-wall. Instead the tour would run through an assortment of clubs and lounges, smallish theaters and a few midsize colleges. For the first gig of the tour they'd scored the Bowery Ballroom, quite the promising venue. The Bowery had a rep for giving bands a boost from the small fry to the big leagues.
So to speak. Eugene's editor Shannon told him at least once a week that his penchant for mixed metaphors would be the death of her.
He leaned against the stage, pulling out his notebook and flipping to a blank page to start jotting down some notes. First impressions of the band, setting the stage for the tour, enough to flesh out his writeup of the first show and get his readers interested in the rest of the series yet to come.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam head out to man the merch desk. A few minutes later the house doors opened and Eugene watched the crowd fill in -- excited, a little rowdy, ready for an energetic show. By the time the lights dimmed for the opening act he was jammed up against the stage by the mass of people. It was a great turnout for the band's first Stateside show.
The opening act came from New York; Sam said he'd found local bands for all their shows whose styles meshed well with Run For Your Lives. Punky, messy rock was the order of the night and The Scoobs did a fine job of setting the audience up with a couple covers, a couple of originals, and a couple of what could only be described as marijuana-themed filk parodies. Eugene made a quick note to buy a copy of their CD from Sam at the end of the night.
When Run For Your Lives came out on stage, Eugene's train of thought came coasting to a halt. He'd checked out some photos and YouTube videos of past gigs to see what the band was like, but grainy camera clips were never the same as watching a live show.
Jack was the last one to walk out, and when he did, Eugene hoped his jaw-drop just looked like cheering. Every band had a style, and he'd seen videos of their live performances, but hadn't quite connected the mental dots between the bouncy, nervous man backstage and the decked-out lead singer and guitarist in the videos. Jack's hair was in the kind of tousled, artful disarray that took a half-hour's intense effort and gave Eugene unfortunate thoughts about "bedhead," metal glinted on his fingers and thumbs, and he'd added an amber-pinstriped vest over the brown t-shirt Eugene had seen him in earlier. The vest -- and the smoky, smudged eyeliner he'd put on -- made his hazel eyes catch the stage lights, gleaming.
This -- this was going to be a problem.
Of course it was a good show. It couldn't be that easy, an attractive man who sang poorly or who wrote bad music or who couldn't rub two brain cells together. Run For Your Lives had earned their North American tour, that much was clear, and now Eugene got to follow them around and try not to let on either in person or in his writing that he had a raging hard-on for one Jack Holden.
Eugene boosted himself onto the edge of the stage and flipped his notebook back open as the band packed up, opting to bury himself in sketching out his first review while he wrestled his libido into submission.
"So, what did you think of the show?" Maxine swung by, whacking his shoulder with a loop of cable as she rolled it up. "Everything you dreamed and more?"
"It was good, very good! I liked your cover of 'This Bitter Earth.' A refreshing and different take on it." Eugene smiled up at Maxine.
"Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself. Come on back when you've collected your thoughts and we'll all head out for drinks."
Eugene attempted to console himself with the thought that Jack was surely an obnoxious drunk.
Either Jack was not an obnoxious drunk, or he was on his very best drunken behavior, because three hours (and pitchers) later he had his arm slung around Eugene's shoulder and was practically cuddling up to him.
"Eugene. Gene. Geeeeeeeene."
"What is it, Jack?"
"If Inigo Montoya and Zorro went bowling, who would win?" Jody rolled her eyes.
"Just ignore him."
Eugene turned his head to glance down at Jack and was struck by the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks; he'd closed his eyes, his breathing evened out.
"Did he fall asleep?"
"Probably." Maxine shrugged. "He must like you. Took him a whole week to fall asleep on Sam."
"How did you all end up in a band together, anyway?"
"Collecting our life stories, hmm?" Sara raised an eyebrow at him.
"Hardly. Just curious, and it'll make for good writing material."
"You don't know the half of it." Jody hid a giggle behind her hand, shaking her head at Eugene. "Go on, Maxine, tell him."
"I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that it's all Jack's fault."
Eugene laughed. "Not at all."
"I was in the first year of my residency, working the ER at a hospital in the suburbs. It's a busy night, but not the busiest, and I'm just thinking I might end my shift on time when this total nutter comes in. Blood all over his head, decked out in rave clothing with glowsticks and all, and talking about how there were zombies at the rave that tried to eat his brains."
"That was Jack." Jody said, jumping in. "Obviously."
"Obviously." Eugene nodded.
"I was there that night, too. My neighbor Ed had to bring his wife in, really bizarre accident with a knitting needle, and they brought their little girl Molly because there wasn't time to get someone to look after her. So when I got off work, I came by to get her and take care of her for a little bit. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes after he arrived, because I walk in to see this hysterical bleeding man shouting about 'the walking dead' to Maxine."
Eugene tipped his head forward, trying not to laugh too hard and disrupt Jack, who was still curled up against his arm.
"As it turned out, some of the recreational substances at the rave were, shall we say, not of the highest quality." The blandness of Maxine's expression was impeccable. "No one actually died, but they did look pretty green and several of them had bitten each other by the time the police arrived.
"So that's how the three of us met: in an ER at the start of the 'zombie apocalypse.'"
"What about Sara?"
"Auditions." Sara said. "I learned how to play the drums several years ago, in my rebellious youth, and happened to see an ad in the paper at a time when I was particularly disillusioned with my day job. I decided to give it a shot, on a lark, and now here I am. Finally gave the day job my notice when we announced this tour."
"That was a month or two after the three of us met." Maxine looked down, picking at her coaster. "I'd quit my residency, and Jody--"
"Finished uni and had couldn't bear the thought of living in the real world just yet." Eugene looked back and forth between Maxine and Jody. Bigger stories lurked behind both those pat explanations, but he'd wait to pry further.
"And Sam? How'd he get sucked into all this?"
"He was our biggest fan. Somehow he knew about us from day one. Started out as a volunteer moderator on the RFYLNET forums." Maxine leaned over and ruffled Sam's hair.
"Roffle-what?"
"RYFLNET. Run For Your Lives dot net. You *have* been to our website, haven't you?" Sam looked honestly concerned.
"Of course I have!" Eugene waved his hand, endangering the glasses scattered over the table. "I just hadn't heard it pronounced out loud like that before."
"Sam was doing practically all the forum policing for a while, until we snapped him up and made him an official employee. Now he keeps the website up to date, handles social media, and finds new merchandise for us."
"Handed off the forum moderation to some friends of mine, but I still try to keep an eye on it from time to time." Sam waggled his smartphone, which had barely left his hands all night.
"I see." Eugene offered a half-shrug, looking back down at Jack. "So. The zombie apocalypse comes around and you decide the thing to do is start a band?"
"If I'm going to die in the zombie apocalypse, I'm going to die a rock star." Jack's words were slurred by alcohol and by the fact that he still had his face resting on Eugene's shoulder; through the fabric of his shirt he could feel Jack's lips and cheeks moving.
"You're drooling on me."
"You're comfy. Stop wiggling."
"Stop drooling." Eugene paused as he was hit by an idea. "Is the zombie apocalypse the reason why your guitar is the color of decomposing flesh?"
The fact that Eugene had no idea what he'd signed up for was made clear within the first five minutes of their road trip, when Jack misread the GPS and sent Maxine the wrong way down a one-way street. Jody shrieked, Jack yelled bloody murder despite it being his own fault, and Eugene just closed his eyes and waited for all the noise to die down. Only once they made it on the highway did things settle down, which of course meant that Jack was fidgeting in under a minute.
"Who would do better in a zombie outbreak, Mario or Link?"
"What?"
"I let you get off easy at the pub last night, but this is a band tradition during road trips. And shows. And mealtimes. Serious debates about ridiculous subjects." Sara was leaning forward from the back row to follow the conversation, tapping what Eugene had decided must be her favorite drumstick against the edge of the middle seat. Next to her, Jody slept like the dead with a pair of large headphones, an eye mask, and an oversized neck pillow blocking out all discomforts.
"My money's on Jill Valentine," muttered Sam from next to Eugene, where he furiously typed away at a battered-looking laptop.
"Too easy. It has to be something weird so you have to think about it. Gene, make your case: the plumber, or the ren faire escapee?"
"Uh, I don't know, give me a minute." Eugene rubbed at his chin, staring down at the stained and worn upholstery of the van the band had bought from the shadiest used car dealership Eugene had ever been in. Bad move; he thought he saw something wriggle underneath the front passenger seat.
"Mario. Link would be looking for the magical solutions whereas Mario would just start hitting everything in sight with an iron pipe."
"Solid." Jack nodded in approval. "I was thinking Link because he knows how to use a sword, but you've got a point."
"Isn't Link also usually pretty young?"
"Yeah, but kids are resilient."
Eugene scoffed. "Resilient doesn't help you when a zombie takes a bite out of your ankle because you couldn't bash its head in hard enough."
The first six shows went well. On the one hand, Eugene thought he did a pretty good job at not letting his persistent and powerful attraction to Jack show too much. On the other hand, he was pretty sure the entire band could tell. Including Jack, who definitely reciprocated his interest. Sometimes Eugene hated his nagging sense of journalistic integrity.
Run For Your Lives made it all the way through the Canada leg of the tour without any significant troubles, for which Eugene was happy to take credit when Jack dubbed him their "cuddly Canadian mascot." After that first night with Jack drooling on his shoulder, the other band members had all gotten much more comfortable with him -- with the exception of Sara, who as far as Eugene could tell was naturally standoffish. He wasn't sure why someone of her temperament would stay with a band that might as well be a small but rowdy family. He'd get the story from her, one of these days.
On the way out of Cleveland, the van headed in an easterly direction toward Baltimore, but Eugene started feeling like things were, metaphorically speaking, going south.
"Maxine, can we pull over at the next rest stop? I need to get some air and stretch my legs."
"You got it. Should be coming up in the next fifteen miles or so."
Five minutes later Eugene could feel the sweat beading on his forehead and each gentle rock of the van sent a fresh wave of nausea through him. "Are we there yet?"
Jack glanced back and Eugene tried to smile. "Maxine, drive faster. I haven't seen someone look that green since the zombie apocalypse rave."
"I'm already going 80, I don't think this van can go any faster without falling to pieces. We're almost there, just a few more minutes."
Eyes closed, focusing on keeping the contents of his stomach where they belonged, Eugene started when he felt a hand grab his. He didn't examine too closely the idea that he recognized Jack's touch. "Hang in there, all right?"
They made it to the rest stop, but Eugene only go as far as the outer wall of the restrooms before doubling over and puking his guts out. Jack followed after, standing just out of the danger zone with one hand rubbing his back in slow, soothing circles.
"All right, there you go love, get it all out of your system."
"Thanks," Eugene said when the first wave had passed.
"Don't worry about it." A smile flickered across Jack's face. "God, I'm hopeless. You've just tossed your cookies and I still want to kiss you."
Eugene felt his eyes widen and opened his mouth to reply, but instead had to turn back to the wall and go through another round of heaving.
"That wasn't a reaction to you wanting to kiss me, I swear, I--"
"I know. I'm irresistible."
"OhGoddon'tmakemelaugh--"
After that, things settled into a new and slightly different routine. Where Jack had freely infringed on Eugene's personal space before, now he was downright handsy, and Eugene suspected the only thing saving him from having to actually cockblock himself and Jack both was the fact that they only ever rented two rooms or a small suite for the band to stay in at night, if they bothered to stop for the night at all. Neither of them wanted an audience, even if it was just Sam.
Sam and Jack even switched places in the van, putting him next to Eugene where they could slump against each other when they dozed off. Eugene had woken up more than once to the feeling of long fingers carding through his hair, his head resting on Jack's leg. For his part, Jack fell asleep in the most improbable, uncomfortable-looking positions in the van and yet invariably ended up oozing closer and closer to Eugene over time until he was practically on his lap.
They hadn't actually sat down and talked out the whole not-sleeping-together-yet thing, but Jack seemed content just to treat Eugene like he had zero personal space, and Eugene made a point of neither dissuading him from his actions nor encouraging them.
The tour hit a minor snag in Raleigh.
"What do you mean we don't have an opening act?" Jody said, fretful and tired after another long drive.
"That's the trouble with family bands. If there's a family emergency you lose the whole band." Sam shrugged helplessly. "I didn't line up any backup acts for tonight or anything. What do we do?"
Jack smirked. "I know exactly what to do. Sam, go grab my Epi and get her tuned up. She hasn't seen much love lately."
Sam trotted off and Eugene raised an eyebrow. "You're plotting something, aren't you?"
"Who, me?" Jack said, then let out a short giggle. "Of course I am. There goes our opening act right there. I'll go run it by the manager, you explain to Sam when he gets back."
"Oh, I see what's happening here. You don't want to deal with hysterical Sam so you're making me do it."
"Got it in one." Jack twirled an imaginary mustache and vanished.
When Sam returned, he took the idea about as well as Eugene figured, going tense in an instant and shaking his head.
"No, I can't, I'm not ready, I'm not good with crowds--"
"Sam. Stop. You'll do fine. What else are we going to do? Not have an opening act?"
"No, no, I couldn't, I'm not dressed--"
"Sam, you're dressed better than me." Jack appeared gestured at his own ripped jeans and tonight's too-small t-shirt, in royal purple. He nudged Sam toward the stage with his shoulder. "I cleared it with the manager, they're over the moon that we even suggested it."
"That's just-- I-- what do I play?!" Sam's eyes were as big as dinner plates as he looked at Jack.
"You can't tell me you don't have four songs in that notebook of yours."
"But how do I choose?"
"However you do it, better do it quick. You're on in two." Jack left Eugene there to calm down Sam, who was clearly trying to bottle up his near-hysterical emotion inside. Striding on-stage, Jack shushed the crowd with waving arms, pacing back and forth.
"Sorry, you don't get RFYL quite yet. Ladies and gentlemen, we're sorry to report that there's been a last-minute emergency and tonight's opening band, New Cantonese, won't be able to join us tonight." A wave of audible disappointment swept the room until Jack held up a finger. "However, we were able to find an even more last-minute replacement. He's a brand new act you'll be hearing a lot fro in the future; ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Sam Yao!"
Sam came out on the stage, swaying as if the audience's applause and cheers were physically buffeting him. Looking out over the crowd, his face was the picture of happy shell-shock.
"Like Jack told you all, I'm a sort of last-minute substitution to the lineup. You can usually find me at the Run For Your Lives merch table -- thanks for covering for a bit, Jody! What you probably don't know, because why would you, there's no reason to, is that this is the first time I've -- ever -- performed in front of a crowd that didn't consist entirely of my family and friends and whoever else happened to be within earshot. So thank you. This is -- thank you. I'll start off with something familiar."
Sam's style was more mild and folksy than previous RFYL opening acts, but the audience picked up on his nervousness and cheered him on with every song. He went through five songs, a mix of covers and originals, then got quiet, visibly gathering up his courage.
He ducked his head, waited a beat for the noise to die down. "This is a bit of a slower song, but I'll play one more after this, a faster one to get you ready for Run For Your Lives. This one is for -- for those times when you're just really low and you need someone to talk to, and your family or your friends or your loved ones come through for you, because they really do love you, even if you doubt it sometimes. You might think that no one out there gives a damn, but there's, there's always someone. This one's called 'A Voice in the Dark.'"
New Orleans arrived faster than Eugene anticipated, and passed in a blur of music, alcohol, and the feeling of Jack's fingers twined with his.
He didn't want to leave.
At some point during the night, he finally gave in to inevitability. Pinning Jack against the wall of the third bar of the night's revels, pressing their bodies together, he hesitated for just a beat, a breath apart with parted lips before Jack arched up and kissed him. It felt like putting on old, comfortable clothing, like settling into a chair worn into just the right shape over time. It didn't stop until Maxine pulled them apart twenty minutes later and said everyone was moving on to the next bar.
The next morning, Eugene couldn't decide if he was legitimately hung over or if he just really didn't want to leave Run For Your Lives. Leave Jack. Dragging himself out to the van, he found the whole band waiting for him even though he'd thought it was just going to be Maxine giving him a quick ride to the airport.
Jody was downright tearful when they dropped him off at the terminal, but even Sara looked regretful. Maxine just gave him a knowing look and got out of Jack's way.
The small part of his mind that thought perhaps he'd imagined the searing makeout session of the night before was silenced as Jack actually jumped on him, sending him staggering a few steps back as he struggled to support Jack's weight and get in a good ass grab at the same time, all while he was being kissed to within an inch of his life. He had to let Jack drop after a few moments, his arms giving out, but it took longer for him to pull away and step back.
"I'll see you later, all right?" Jack's voice was wobbly. Eugene didn't even trust his, keeping himself to just a nod.
FROM: Eugene Woods <[email protected]>
TO: Maxine Myers <[email protected]>
SUBJ: FWD: Hotel Reservation Confirmation #CJ395DWMaxine, DON'T TELL JACK. I want it to be a surprise. Settled everything with my boss this morning -- I'm going freelance. I could never have done it before the RFYL article series, they really raked in the hits and pageviews.
See you in Denver!