Daylight

Pet’s POV

Perfect, I thought, looking at the shocked faces around me.

I touched my lips as if to feel some ripple of the kiss Joe had just given me. It felt like my whole body was humming—never mind my mouth.
Damn, he’s not messing around!
And I admit it, I couldn’t help but look—and feel—a little smug at the whole situation. My smile got bigger when I realized none of them knew my secret yet: that this wasn’t all just an act for their benefit.

“Holy shit,” Mo’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Jesus…Pet, did you…did you really…?”
I smirked. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Smartass,” Sal shot back.
I shrugged, turning away as if to leave.
“Wait just a goddamned minute,” Shoshi said warningly. “What the hell went on here last night?”
I took pleasure in watching Mo and Sal right then; for a moment they must’ve forgotten she was there.
“Oh,” I replied as if it were no big deal, “Joe asked me to stay with him because he got a hotel room last night”—Shoshi’s eyes went huge at that statement—“and Mo and Sal thought it’d be a great idea, so I went.”

There was a moment, a huge, heavy moment, of silence.

Then: “Maureen, Sandra. Sit,” Shoshi commanded in a deadly-serious voice.
With fear on their faces, they obeyed; our manager’s quiet was ten times worse than any yelling would’ve been.
I wanted to giggle, but I knew better. “You too, Petula,” Shoshi added softly.

Shoshi took a seat opposite the three of us.
“Now, I’d like an explanation,” she began, stopping almost immediately when Mo and Sal both tried to defend themselves at the same time. She held up a hand, and they fell silent.

“One at a time, please, ladies…if I can still call you that.”
Then she turned to me. “Petula, what happened?”
I took a deep breath. “After we got here, I took a little run outside, and when Joe caught up, he said he was staying at a hotel for the night, and asked me to come along,” I answered.
Our manager nodded.
“He said everyone was welcome to use the shower there too, so we all went back to the bus to get our stuff, and Sal and Mo told me this was my big chance.”
Shoshi was familiar with the tone of previous conversations. She turned to Sal and Mo, still looking like they were about to be shot.
“Is this correct?” she asked, with no real doubt in her mind.
Sal and Mo nodded, looking at the table.

Our manager sighed. “So what happened then, Petula?”
I shifted a little in my seat for effect. “We all went to the hotel. The girls took showers and left, and Joe and I spent…the evening together.”
Even though they were in trouble, I could see my friends were having a hard time not asking how “it” went.
Shoshi rolled her eyes. “Should I even ask what happened next?” she wondered. “Or do you not wanna talk about it?”
“Oh, I’ll be happy to talk about it,” I replied. “Did you guys see how he kissed me just now?”
The girls nodded again, an odd combination of guilt and eagerness in their expressions.
I leaned forward. “That was just a tiny little fraction of what we did last night.”
Sal couldn’t stand it any longer. “Goddamn, Pet, did you or did you notsleep with Joe?”
I sat up straighter. “I plead the fifth,” I answered, crossing my arms over my chest.

Sal and Mo groaned.
“Jesus,” Mo began, but was interrupted by Shoshi again.
“Maureen, cut it out,” she said sharply, rolling her eyes in frustration. “It’s none of your business what Pet did or didn’t do. The question is, why would the two of you send her off and encourage her to sleep with a guy who, nice as he may be, she barely even knows?”

They looked at each other, then down at the tabletop again. There was no answer.

“I thought as much,” Shoshi remarked. Then she slumped a little in her seat and buried her head in her hands.

I moved towards her. “Shoshi, are you okay?” I asked, laying a hand on her arm.
When she looked up, she was crying. Oh shit!

Immediately aware that we’d all seen her tears, she swiped at them hastily with the back of her hand.
“You know, ladies, this is probably the last time I’ll be doing this,” she said softly. “Refereeing, I mean. I just…just can’t anymore….”
Fresh tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away this time.
“You know, I’m really looking forward to being a mom,” she continued. “And I guess, if I never said it before, that you should all know that I love you like my own. But I’m tired. And I need to know that the four of you are gonna be able to handle this shit on your own. You know, Brian’s awesome, but I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna stand for all this drama.”
She paused and looked each of us in the eyes. “All of you…have to stop pushing each other on this type of shit. Sure, go ahead, push each other professionally, but stay out of the extremely personal stuff. This means, specifically, that you, Sal and Mo, must stop trying to find Pet a guy…and that Pet, you have to find your own way, and not do things just because someone else thinks you should.”
“But I…” I started to say, but Shoshi waved me off.
“I’m not interested in what, if anything, you did last night with Joe McCullough,” she told me. “You’re free to make up your own mind, Petula. So I suggest you use that brilliant brain of yours and not worry so much about doing what other people”—she looked pointedly at our bassist and guitarist—“think you should do. And you ladies have to stop pressuring her. She needs to make her own decisions. You all do. And if your folks couldn’t change your minds about your choice to be in this band and pursue this career, not even I can prevent that.”

Even though I felt I was the one who’d been wronged, Shoshi had still managed to make me feel bad for upsetting her. Which was right.
“I’m sorry, Shoshi,” I reassured her. “I’ll try to do better, and not be such a pain in the ass to Brian when—if—he comes on board. If we’re not too messed up for him to deal with, that is.”
My bandmates murmured similar answers.
Our manager smiled. “Oh, I dunno, I think he may have dealt with issues in the past,” she replied.
“We’re sorry too, Pet,” Mo spoke up. “We’ll try to stay out of things if we can. We just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I told her. “This is the coolest thing ever, being on Warped. But we’re in this together. We can’t forget that, or this tour might be our only one. I can only imagine facing my mom if this blows up in our faces.”
The rest of the girls laughed.

Joe’s POV

I got back to our bus just in time for Tom to ask me where the fuck I thought I’d been.
“Just seein’ Pet to her door,” I answered, tossing him me bag. He ducked and I flopped down on the couch next to him.
“Have a good night, then?” Tom asked me. We were alone on the bus.
I closed me eyes. “Yeah, nice dinner, nice room. Very pleasant,” I answered.
“Hmmmmm…” me brother considered. Then he leant in to me close. “Did yeh shag her, then?”
“No.”
“Ah, bless,” he said, smiling. “You’re such a bloody gentleman, brother of mine.”
“You’re just jealous cos I’m more of one than you are,” I reminded him.
“You have yer moments,” Tom replied.
“That I do, brother, that I do.”

Pet’s POV

A few hours later at Warped, Mo asked to call the first song. I agreed without asking her what she wanted to sing.

I really should have asked her.

“Good evening, Omaha!” she yelled from her mic. “We are the Daylight Bathers, from Chicago, Illinois. My name is Mo, and we have a special song we’d like to dedicate to our manager.”

Mo gave me a sidelong glance, and I knew trouble was brewing. When I cut a look at Shoshi, she didn’t look concerned; Ray was standing behind her with his arms around her waist. What the hell did she care what Mo did?

Mo started the song a cappella, teasing us and the audience: “I…wanna be your…lover baby…I…wanna be your …man.”
Of course, she then ran her hand up and down the mic, caressing it. Then she repeated the line, getting as intimate with the mike as she could, watching me out of the corner of her eye. The crowd was loving the whole thing, naturally.
Mo kept singing, rolling her eyes, wiggling her ass, and watching me. I could see Shoshi cracking up at our guitarist’s outrageous behavior.

What the hell? I started laughing too.

“Tell me that you love me, baby…like no other…can. Love me like…no other baby…like no other…can.”

Tia hit the drums, and the full band jumped in, playing the Beatles’ version of the song.

I wanna be your man, I wanna be your man
I wanna be your man, I wanna be your man
Tell me that you love me baby
That you understand
Tell me that you love me baby
I wanna be your man…

The crowd was hooting at the end of Mo’s performance. She took a deep bow and a victory lap around the stage, still wearing her guitar.

I had an idea. Once the crowd had quieted down a little, I announced from my mic, “There’s really only ONE way to follow a song like that one,” and I called the next song, “Wanna Be.”

I counted off, “1, 2, 3, 4,” Tia sent out a cymbal crash, and we launched in:

I just wanna be touched by you
I just wanna be touched…by you
I just wanna be held by you
I just wanna be held…by you…by you

Wanna be—held by you
Wanna be—touched by you….

I could see Joe out of the corner of my eye. He smiled and saluted me with his beer.

All in all, not such a bad day.