Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin by Mariana Zapata
"I invited him out," the voice I recognized as Julian's deep one spoke up.
“This has nothing to do with you, man. This taint stain knows he had no business coming here but he did anyway,” Eli explained before pausing.
My ex let out a sigh that I’d heard one too many times over the years. “Look—”
"Shut the fuck up and get out. I don't want to see you, and Gaby doesn't want to see you either." I swear to God my brother growled. "Go hide or die, I don't give a shit what you choose. Otherwise I'm going to take a shit on your face right after I knock you out for breaking up with my fucking sister over the phone, mangina."
Sacha poked me in the back at that moment, snickering quietly, and I couldn't help but snort a little too. Leave it to Eli to come up with mangina.
"Gaby's a big girl, Eliza,” I thought I heard my ex say.
But he couldn’t be that stupid, could he?
“What the fuck did you just call me?” Eli snapped, and I had my answer.
This asshole just called my twin by the nickname only I could use. If I wasn't going to murder him for simply showing up to the concert, I was now going to do it because he messed with Eli. Nobody messed with my brother.
Pulling the curtain aside so roughly I might have torn it, I spotted my ex sitting on one of the long couches with his arm draped around a pretty brunette. What struck me first was the fact that the bastard had on a shirt I'd bought him for Valentine's Day a year ago. Seriously?
"Gaby," Brandon muttered with wide blue eyes.
I felt my ears start to heat up from how angry I was getting each second that passed by. "Brandon."
It was only when I felt Sacha's fingertips dip into the band of my jeans, brushing at the small of my back that I calmed down enough to think rationally.
In months past, I’d thought of a hundred messed-up things I would have loved to happen to Brandon. Everything from hooking up with a transvestite, to losing his dick from some kind of strange man-eating bacteria, had waged its war through my imagination. I didn't hate him, really, but he would always and forever have a spot on my Shit List. But when I felt my new friend tug on the back of my jeans, I realized that I wasn't the same person that I'd been a few months back. Even a month back.
Though the flesh and the flakes that comprised the shell of skin were the same, I felt stronger than before. I didn't need Brandon, and I really was better off without him. We'd had a good relationship but in hindsight, he wasn't the kind of man I wanted to be with forever. Our interests were too different and… I guess something had been missing. We didn’t have that easy camaraderie that came so naturally to my demons and I. Hell, even Sacha and I had instantly taken to each other’s humor. He'd loved me, I think, but it wasn't enough to erase the fact that I'd always been second—sometimes third or fourth—in his life after his shitty-ass band. It was just that our breakup had come out of the blue. I’d asked myself a thousand times if the signs had been there that things were falling apart, but no matter how much I over-analyzed it, there really hadn’t been a sign.
Really, it was okay. Whatever his reasons were, I didn’t care anymore. I cried, I grieved, and like every Barreto before me, I was going to move the hell on with my life. I was happy, regardless of whether I knew what I wanted to do with my life or not.
But more than ever, I wanted Brandon’s ass torn up by a dozen hung porn stars.
"Let's go outside," I told my ex in a voice so calm I didn't know I was capable of.
His eyebrows furrowed as his face went a little pink. "What?"
"Come outside with me, Bran," I said, indicating with my head toward the exit. "We should talk."
Those eyes that I'd once cared for narrowed in my direction. He knew me; he knew that even if I was calm, he'd crossed the fucking line calling Eli my nickname for him. Some things were unforgivable. His brunette girlfriend tugged at his hand as she shook her head.
I shot my brother a smirk; he was standing there with a flushed face and rigid jaw. All signs of the devil inside of him were visible, waiting to burst out and destroy. "Come on, Brandon. Let's go. I'll only take a minute."
"Baby," the girl whined softly.
I'd never been clingy with him and maybe that was my mistake, but I couldn't find it in me to bother wondering if that had been a factor in our split. If Brandon had wanted to talk to someone, talk to one of his fans, I'd never cared. I figured if he wanted to cheat on me he could do so any time he wanted and there was nothing I could do about it. But this bitch was going to learn that I definitely didn't want his pimple-butt ass. "I don't want his pickle dick." I glanced at Eli when I said it. "I just want to talk to him for a minute, and I don't want to embarrass him in front of everyone."
Sacha tugged at the back of my pants again, his fingers dipping deeper into the area between the denim and my panties. "Gaby," he warned.
"I didn't know you'd be here," Brandon cut off Sacha. "I figured I could avoid—"
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. He thought he could avoid Eli? Oh, please. "I don't care," I piped up in a sing-song voice. "Get off the bus and talk to me. You owe me." I wanted to add a “motherfucker” at the end but I kept it to myself.
He knew he owed me. I didn't bother waiting to see him get off the couch; I glanced over at Eli once more before I turned around. He was clenching his fists and staring at Brandon like he could kill him by looks alone. I passed Sacha on the way out, circling his wrist quickly with my thumb and index finger as best as I could. I didn't meet his eyes, but it wasn't because I was embarrassed that he'd learned that I'd been dumped, much less over the phone. It happens to every girl. I think. Maybe without the phone part. Touching Sacha was more to just tell him that I was fine. That I wasn’t going to do anything I’d end up regretting.
In no time, Brandon was tumbling out of the bus after me, closing the door behind him. Four months had passed since the last time I’d seen him and of course he looked exactly the same: his dark hair was perfectly styled, the facial hair that he kept just long enough to be called a beard the same as always, and his body was still just muscular enough to be considered fit. Was he good looking? Yeah, but who cared? I could go online and find thousands of guys that were just as equally, if not more, attractive as him.
I could look at the guys on tour with me.
Brandon stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes boring into mine. "Gaby, I'm—"
"Shut up."
Brandon’s eyes widened at my snappy tone, and I didn’t miss the way his shoulders reeled back in surprise. “Why are you being like this?”
Why was I being like this? Seriously? “Are you joking? Or are you really asking me why I’m pissed off that you’re here?”
“This isn’t a joke,” he replied.
“Of course it isn’t a fucking joke. You’re here, and you shouldn’t be. What’s difficult to understand about that?” I snapped.
“Baby, you’ve always been so sweet—”
My vision went red. He’d gone there with the b-word. Holy fuck.
“This isn’t how you usually act—” he kept going, oblivious to the fact he was this close to getting shanked.
Honestly, if there wasn’t steam coming out of my ears, I would have been surprised.
This isn’t how you usually act.
Baby, you’ve always been so sweet.
Gaby, what are you doing with your life?
I can’t do this anymore…
Everyone had his or her breaking point, and I’d reached mine.
“You broke up with me! On the phone! Out of the blue! All you said was that you didn’t want to do this anymore and some shit about me not knowing what I want to do with my life and how it affected your artistic vibe, you prick. I spent two years with you—two years! And in five minutes you kick me out of the place you had asked me to move into with you six months before. I’d told you I didn’t want to live with you and you told me how much fun it would be, how much you loved me, how it was inevitable. Six mon
Under normal circumstances, I wasn’t one to go on a rant or a tirade of any sort. Well, unless it was around my family members or Laila. But the words had been bottled up deep in my chest for months now. All the questions and the frustration over what had happened to my doomed relationship just exploded out of me in this hateful, screaming demand.
To give him credit, Brandon put his hands on his forehead and sighed, his gaze going down to the ground. “I did love you. I’ll probably always love you, in a way. You’re great—”
I put my hand up to stop him from continuing on with a list of traits he admired because, frankly, I didn’t give a shit what he liked about me. “We hardly ever fought, and we’d talked on the phone the night before like everything was normal. You just cut me perfectly out of your life after so long, and I never heard from you again. Then a week or two later, I find out you have another girlfriend already? It just caught me out of the blue, do you understand why that pisses me off?”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, babe.” He slid his hands down his face with a shaky exhale. “I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did. I swear I didn’t have sex with her while we were still—”
I had to rewind the words that came out of his mouth and go through them again.
When I did, my ears went hot and my brain just kind of short-circuited for a split second. Not once had I even thought that he’d cheated on me. I really hadn’t. Brandon thought he was a catch but not once had he ever been the type of guy that I imagined texting eight other girls while he had a girlfriend. That wasn’t like him. We’d gone on a date the day after we’d met. I guess I had just thought he’d done the same thing again.
But this…
“You didn’t have sex with her while we were still together…? But you started talking to her while we were…?”
Anxiety crossed his features so quick it was amazing. He might have even stopped breathing before he began stuttering. “Well…”
I wasn’t even mad, per se. I wasn’t. What was done was done and whatever. I cleared my throat and got the knot out of it. “It doesn’t matter.” The words came out of my mouth a little rough, a little weird. He’d started talking to other people before we’d even split up.
But my pride, my pride couldn’t handle it.
I picked up the imaginary pieces and balled them up.
"It really doesn’t matter anymore, but I will cut your balls off with my eyebrow trimmers if you ever talk to Eli like that again. You walked out of my life, and I don't care if I ever see you again. My brother doesn't want you around, and you better believe that the only reason your face is still intact is because you came out here with me."
"I'm sorry, baby," he said quietly, using that same damn nickname that was stabbing a spike into the back of my neck. "I didn't mean to hurt you like that."
I shrugged because how else could I respond that didn’t include me punching him right in the eye for being a piece of shit? "I don't care anymore, Brandon. But I want you and your girlfriend to get off the fucking bus. Go watch the show from wherever you want but stay away from me."
He opened his mouth to say something else but he must have understood how serious I was because he closed it. Nodding, Brandon looked away. I took a second just to look at the guy I'd been with for two years.
Brandon was good-looking and tall and lean, but now, I didn't look at him the same way that I used to. None of the physical crap really mattered in the long run. A part of me wanted to focus on everything that he wasn't, but there wasn't a point.
He’d made me look like an idiot. More than anything else, that was something I couldn’t ignore.
I sucked in a breath and smiled in his direction, letting the anger bubble inside of me. It was in that moment that I asked myself what I would regret more later on sitting in my bunk: being an adult or making myself feel better.
And I knew. I knew deep in my heart what exactly I would regret more. A smile easily crawled across my face as I said, “Thank you for seeing things my way.”
He eyed me suspiciously for a second before nodding, his own little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry for everything.”
I nodded.
Then I took two steps forward, holding my arms out at my sides as if I was going to give him a hug… and when he started to lean in, I went onto the tips of my toes and punched him almost as hard as I could right in the throat.
He made this choking, puttering noise as he bent over at the hips, but I wasn’t looking at him any more.
When I pivoted around to head back toward the venue with vindication in my veins, I happened to look up at the windows of the bus to see my brother and Sacha with their faces pressed up against the glass, looks of amazement on their faces. I waved.
There. Now I could go to sleep tonight. Otherwise I would have lay in my bunk with my hand fisted and called myself a coward for not going for it.
The rest of the night went by pretty uneventfully. Laila had apparently made friends with Carter, from the way I found him behind the Ghost Orchid merch table, sitting right next to her. During a break between songs, she asked me loud enough for Carter to hear, “What happened?” All I said in response was, “I punched him in the throat,” which made her burst out laughing and led to Carter asking if it was Mason I punched.
Once she got herself under control right around the time Ghost Orchid went onstage, she kept slapping my shoulder when she got excited. It was a slower night than usual so I had a lot of time to watch their set and The Cloud Collision’s. Sacha moved across the stage so effortlessly and with so much energy it was electric. Even if he wouldn't have one of the most striking faces I'd ever seen, it would have been impossible to keep my eyes away from him. He was a performer in his blood.
Most importantly, he was my friend. When Gordo had stayed inside after he found out Brandon was around, Sacha had been the one to go find him with me because he was worried I would do something bad. If that wasn’t friendship, I didn’t know what was.
At some point in the middle of their set, when he usually got chatty with the audience, telling them some short story about the road or his life, I realized that if anything—Sassy, in his black pants, light blue button-up, and skinny navy tie—was a loyal bastard.
"Do you know what I hate?" he asked the roaring audience in front of him. They screamed all kinds of things in response.
"Pussy!"
Sacha shook his head and pointed in the direction of where the person had screamed. "Nope. I like that."
"Guys in skinny jeans!"
He shrugged dramatically. "Whatever, man."
A couple other people screamed other random things until he waved them off, pressing the microphone really close to his face like he was going to tell the thousand-plus people in the audience a secret. He held up one finger, which he pointed straight ahead almost as if he was pointing at me in the back.
"Pickles," he screamed and then extended his middle finger, still pointing straight ahead. "And dicks!"
Immediately, the loud bang of the bass drum picked up, signaling the start of another song.
I almost pissed my pants from laughing so hard.
* * *
I was in love with the world and with the men in my life the rest of the night.
Why hadn’t anyone told me that being loved and cared for—albeit in a strange way—could be so awesome? I felt like someone pointed a wand at me and cast a spell that was all rainbows and unicorns. My brother called Brandon a mangina, and Sacha followed that up by calling him out in front of a thousand people. What more could I ask for?
As soon as Carter and I got done loading the dolly with bins and tearing everything down, we made our way out of the venue. Laila had left minutes ago, explaining that she had to be up early for a class she was teaching and her mom didn’t want to pick her up too late. With a flurry of hugs and promises to text me the next day, I said goodbye to my best friend for the next two month
I saw Eli first, standing with his back to me after loading his drum cases into the massive trailer. With three long steps, I launched myself on top of his back, wrapping my arms around his neck to kiss his cheek. "I love you," I told him, pinching his cheek.
"Fuck, I'd love you if you lost ten pounds before jumping on my back again," he huffed, hoisting me up higher on his back with one hand.
"Whatever," I muttered, pinching his cheek again. "Thanks for standing up for me, Eliza."
"Somebody's gotta do it, Flabby. If I would have known you were gonna punch him in throat, I would have taken it easier on him, you fucking psycho." He laughed. “I swear to God, seeing you do that almost made me cry.”
I snorted, the curiosity killing me. “What happened after I left?”
“He sure as hell didn’t say anything when he got back in the bus. He waved at his girl and got the fuck outta there, but not fast enough because I made sure to laugh right in his face. Sacha had to go into his bunk from how hard he was laughing.” He snorted. “Mason was pissed off he missed it.”
It hit me right then that I hadn't seen Mason all night. He'd gone out of his way to ignore my text messages, but then he also hadn't been on the bus when the Pickle-Dick incident went down. I knew that son of a bitch. There's no way he would have just sat back and done nothing. "Wait. Where was he?"
I could feel the rumble of my brother's chuckles from beneath me. "I think it's better that you don't know just in case the cops ask."
"E!"
A hand smacked my ass really hard and I yelped. Not surprisingly, Mason stopped right next to us, smirking. "That's my payment for tonight, my ball-and-chain,” he said with a fake leer.
"What did you do?" I hissed, but really I was obscenely interested in what he'd done. I'd gladly trade a bruise on my butt to find out.
He shrugged. "Let's just say Brandon is going to need three new tires and a car wash, Flabs. He had it coming.”