Page 90 of Rock Out Together
When they barely lowered their volume and didn’t stop pushing, Dillon said. “I think we should go. This could be dangerous.”
Lizzy didn’t want to leave. She wanted to soak up every second of the attention. Although a huge part of her was relieved to escape the chaos of Blind Fury, her heart broke at the idea of leaving the dedicated fans who were responsible for their continued success. She owed them everything. “Listen to me!” she shouted over the noise. “Listen!” They finally quieted enough for her to speak without yelling. “If you stop pushing and screaming, me and Dillon will pose for some photos and sign some stuff. OK?”
Her offer caused an immediate uproar, but the crowd behaved after she made a motion with her hands for them to quiet down.
“You really know how to handle a crowd,” Dillon commented.
The remark made her inwardly smile because it was validation—something she didn’t get a lot of from her ornery crew of bandmates. After a few minutes of scrawling her signature on every piece of paper, photo, T-shirt, and whatever else came her way, Dillon approached her.
“Look at this.”
It was a photo from one of their early shows. Dillon wasthe focal point. Both of his arms were poised in the air, ready to strike the cymbals on either side of his kit. As usual, he was shirtless, and the overhead lights picked up the sheen of perspiration covering his naked chest and biceps, which highlighted his many tattoos. Sid was in the forefront on the left, and on the right, Lizzy and Zach were back to back playing their instruments. She looked closer at her image. Damn, she was so young. So green in the industry.
“I think it’s Madison Square Garden,” Dillon said.
She studied the photo but couldn’t confirm the venue. “I can’t tell. That was a really long time ago.” It wasn’t the years that made the length of time seem like eons. It was the dynamic in their relationships. She would never play with her back against Zach’s now. He acted is if he were on another level—too good to interact with anyone while he played—but she knew the real reason was that he was intimidated by her talent. Despite the animosity and rivalry, she felt a pang of melancholy as she remembered the old days. Back then, there were no super-sized egos.
“Those were the good old days,” Dillon said, as if reading her mind.
He was still holding the photo as they both stared at it. She glanced up at him and saw the same bit of regret in his eyes that she felt. Although she held a mountain of resentment toward him, it was mostly because he never took her side against Zach and Sid. He never stood up for her. Maybe he was just trying to stay out of the heated exchanges, but it just made him guilty by default.
“Too bad things couldn’t have turned out differently,” Dillon said.
“You’re right,” she agreed, full of sincerity. “I wish the four of us could have acted like adults for five minutes and talk out our differences. But, sometimes, there’s no reasonable way to respond to some people.”
He grunted in agreement. “I hear ya.”
They both knew they were referring to Sid, who was, by far, the most self-centered person on planet earth.
After signing the photo and handing it back to its owner, fans began calling Lizzy and Dillon, waving to get their attention and holding up their phones for a photo of the two of them together.
Posing together wasn’t something any of them ever did anymore, except for professional photo shoots, so the request felt uncomfortable.
“What do ya say?” Dillon asked, pleading with his big brown eyes. “Can we pretend the last ten years or so didn’t happen and take a photo together? For the fans?”
The brick wall surrounding her heart crumbled away, longing for what could have been, and she gave him a small smile. “Sure. If you can pretend you don’t hate me for two minutes, I can do the same.”
He shook his head. “I don’t hate you. And you don’t hate me either. You’re just angry. For the right reasons, but at the wrong person. Just because I didn’t stand with you doesn’t mean I’m against you.”
“Yes. It does.”
“No. It doesn’t. Look. I don’t want to argue. Maybe Sidand Zach don’t care how we end things. But I do when it comes to me and you. Last night meant something to me.”
“Dillon . . .” She wasn’t having this conversation, especially outside in front of a line of fans.
“OK. I get it. You don’t want to talk about it. Fine. Let’s just put everything aside for once and enjoy this moment. We’ll never have it again. This is it, Lizzy.” He waved his hand in front of the crowd. “The last time we’ll walk the line as bandmates. Let’s remember something good about the band.”
She nodded, a rock now lodged in her throat. It was stupid to get sentimental about the demise of Blind Fury because everyone wanted it to end. They made some great music, though. No one could deny that. It just became impossible to work together any longer. It’s a good thing they had a huge backlist of hits that would, hopefully, continue to generate royalties for a long time to come.
Dillon placed his arm around her shoulder, and her gaze shot to him in surprise.
“For the photo,” he explained.
There was a time when all of them posed with their arms over the other’s shoulders, but she couldn’t remember when the last time that had happened. Even during PR photoshoots, they all stood a foot apart. She decided she could make the exception today and slid her arm across Dillon’s back.
His hand immediately tightened on her shoulder, pulling her closer. The tingle that ran down her spine stirred up images of last night, and her neck flushed red hot. Althoughshe still regretted it, she couldn’t deny it was a hell of a sendoff.
“That’s it,” Dillon said. “Pretend you like me.”
