Page 67 of Shame Me
That was when I heard clanging and more shouting as I realized the crew was loading our equipment into the back of the bus. How long would it take for them to finish? As soon as they were done, we’d be back on the road—heading back to Denver, of all places.
Our lips met again as we pulled our jeans down enough to join each other, and my leg hit the armrest on the aisle,but I wanted him, regardless of how we did this and despite everything going on around us. It was wild and reckless—and I didn’t want to stop, because I was finally with the man I’d always pined over.
The bus rocked from the force of something the crew was doing at the back, and my breath caught in my throat. Of all the things I desired, I didnotwant to be caught half naked, like an animal, by any of those guys. I whispered, “They’ll hear us.”
“Not if we’re fast.”
When Zack entered me, there was another metallic bang at the back of the bus—and, had I not been on the verge of orgasm, I might have wondered why the hell they were so rough with our equipment. Instead, the way it made the seat tremble, I gasped—half from trepidation, half from pleasure.
As the crew continued talking and loading the equipment, every clatter outside became almost like a drumbeat, and Zack and I moved against each other’s bodies to that frenetic rhythm. My damp skin kept sticking to the vinyl seat, and my knee ground into the seat. But then it was like I could drown it all out. Here was Zack—my man—speaking to me in a language that was all our own, and even though it was cramped and imperfect, it was like heaven.
Between the adrenaline, that feeling of risk, and the noise and smells of the bus, I went over the edge fast, with Zack following shortly after. For the first time in a long time—or, more likely, for the first time ever—I felt completely alive, as if I had tapped into the energy of the universe…as if Zack and I were one being instead of two, as if our music had become part of who we weretogether.
What I felt for Zack was more than lust. Regardless of the fact that we’d just behaved like a couple of deprived beasts, there was far more to it than that. We had history and we had our music—we’d bonded with our bandmates, our fans, had bared our soulson stage—and we had our years-long friendship and finally, all those factors had culminated inevitably into this moment.
We lay in each other’s arms, still breathing hard, the sweat cooling enough that I knew I’d be feeling the cold temperature down to my bones before long. In my ear, Zack breathed, “I think we’ve officially christened the bus.”
Unable to help myself, I burst out laughing—but, inside, I could feel the weight of what we’d just done…and I got another reminder when the crew slammed yet another case into the back of the bus that we’d almost been caught.
As much as I loved uniting with Zack…I thought maybe I didn’t want to do ithereagain. Time, of course, would tell.
It wasn’tlong before the days all began blurring into one another. This leg of the tour was much less relaxed than the first one. We’d perform and then immediately get on the road to the next venue, arriving in time for soundcheck or doing publicity. We grabbed showers when we could at gas stations, mostly slept on the bus, and lived on fast food.
Hotels were few and far between.
And it wasn’t long before I felt utterly exhausted. But I knew if I dared breathe a word of that to Mick, he’d warn me to be careful what I wished for. I’d wanted to maximize profits and cut costs—and this was probably as lean as it could get.
Zack and I found time for sex when we could…but even that was mostly out of the question. Less than a week in and we were already feeling the toll.
Overall, that didn’t stop the partying when we could, and we got to know the road crew better. And we had reason to. After all, we were playing big shows and lots more of them. But I waskeeping an eye on Zack. Even after our emotional bare-all talk and beginning an intimate relationship, his drinking seemed to escalate rather than decrease. But I told myself he was just celebrating. At least he wasn’t drinking alone anymore, and he’d never shown up drunk before a show since the time in Chicago.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a drink or two before a show.
In fact, the four of us were hanging in Zack’s dressing room right before our call to go onstage in Portland, Oregon—and he pulled a bottle of whiskey out of his pocket, taking a long, slow swig. “You guys want a bite before we hit the stage?”
Instead, Cy said, “Man, where do you keep getting this stuff?”
My question exactly—and yet I’d been holding back asking. But it wasn’t like we had a lot of time to run to the liquor store. Zack just smirked and said, “I have my ways.”
I took that to mean he was paying off one of the roadies, something I had long suspected. “If they get caught buying stuff for someone who’s a minor—”
“And how would anyone ever know if I’m not with this supposed buyer?”
Mick banged on the door. “It’s time.”
Zack slipped the bottle in his bag and we headed toward the stage. I thought some of making up an excuse, like I needed to go to the bathroom or I forgot my lip balm—something super lame—so I could take that bottle and hide it when he wasn’t around to see it, but I knew it was futile. It would be like bailing water out of a boat before plugging the hole.
And maybe during a tour wasn’t the best time to help our friend combat his drinking problem. Logically, I knew drinking was probably partly a coping mechanism for stress, and it had just gotten out of control. Once we had some downtime, the three of us could have a heart-to-heart with him.
Because, clearly,Ihadn’t helped him at all. Still, I appreciated being able to be a comfort to him, and I hoped maybe that helped in a way I couldn’t quite understand.
Once we got onstage, we transformed into Once Upon a Riot, the hot new hard rock band on the rise—and the crowd was energetic and appreciative. At the end of the third song, “No Way Out,” Zack typically hit a high note at the end—but this time, there was no high note. Instead, his voice cracked and the note came out raw and gritty.
The audience loved it—but Braden, Cy, and I knew better. It wasn’t supposed to sound like that.
And then, as the night wore on, Zack wasn’t sustaining a lot of notes like he ordinarily would. Instead, he was cutting them short, almost like he was out of breath. By the last song of the set, he was growling a lot of lines he would ordinarily sing.
The audience ate it up.
