"Truce?" I asked Kyle after rehearsal. It was the lead-up to the second to last show. The theme for the show was a chance to sing with all three judges. We had to arrange a cover that would work for everyone. The judges had three different styles, blending was going to be hard. Everyone was psyched up, and no one wanted to go back to the hotel. Instead, the entire cast sat in the parking lot with a barrel bonfire and no cameras. The nine-to-five TV crew had already gone home for the night. Only the streaming cameras were waiting for us at the hotel.

Normally, I'm the first to leave or the first to not stay at the hotel if I have to choose, but this time I hung out. Asher was there, Zoey was there and everyone wasn't being set up to snip at each other. The vibe by the fourth song we sang together in full campfire sing-along was fun. Like band camp fun and not weird band camp sex fun, but normal band camp fun.

When I saw Kyle head to the small cooler of drinks, I followed him. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. But I was sick of the passive-aggressive snipping and the casual hate from his fan base. Kyle looked up from the cooler after he got his drink. The disgusted look he gave me the night I rejected his offer filled his expression.

"Truce," I repeat it again. Then I extended my hand to Kyle.

"Seriously, we got off on a bad footing, but I'd love it if we could have a truce?" He really hasn't stopped doing low-key dick shit. Yeah, he's being a little ass, but he's young. Seventeen with all cameras on him and Paulie and Slither Records drooling all over him. His ignoring me sucked because we work together in a sense. The dirty looks weren't fun either. But what really sucked was the wild, ugly way his fans talked about me. His not saying shit about it was pretty damn unprofessional. But he's seventeen in a high-pressure situation. Plus, we got off on a weird foot.

Kyle took my hand and shook it. He smiled at me and relief filled his expression. Maybe he didn't know how to fix it either. "Sure, truce." He bobs his blonde head, yes and his British accent made the simple words sound fancy. We talked for a bit about music artists we both like and when he left to sit by Lucia, he passed by Asher. Lucia was right about Kyle. He wasn't perfect, but he wasn't totally awful. Just a really young kid in deep.

Asher came to sit by me, and with Zoey on my other side, it was magical. I wanted to extend this time and make it a new normal. Whispers of what it would be like on the road with Asher and Zo if we won. That imagined world where I could have more that seemed so unattainable. But maybe....

All of us sitting in the Arena parking lot on blankets around a barrel fire wasn't an everyday event. Asher, Camille, and Adam have professional, fancy, powerful careers in music. Even if the three judges were around our age. I kind of wonder if Asher ever did something like this. It's kinda PG singing along. It's very band kids but so damn fun.

"Did you settle it?" Asher asked me.

"Yep," I wanted to say more, but I was hesitant. We talk all the time but also we have this contestant distance. I can't figure out where I stand with him and the more I think about it, the more I think I'm over-analyzing things. It feels like the first year of college again and it's Wheelz again. And I can't explain to my new friends why I feel so old all the time... because it will bring the mood down.

Asher put his hand on top of mine.

***

https://youtu.be/zwYBaqu9-y8

The parking lot was completely dark, everyone but us was back at the hotel. With the stars in the sky, the dark was reaching down to us with tiny bright spots in the distance. On top of the stranger danger van next to the tour bus on a blanket. Yeah, different, but I like it.

"Thanks for squaring things with Kyle," was not the expected topic from Asher. I thought he was done talking about Kyle. But then again, we were surrounded by everyone at the campfire earlier. So maybe he couldn't say what he wanted.

"Seems like the right thing to do." I didn't want Kyle's TikTok fans to hate me anymore. It was self-interested, but a good move. Being rude back to him never sat well with me in the first place, which is why I never was.

"Kyle was supposed to be on my team but things changed," his matter-of-fact statement caught me off guard. Shit, Asher is dropping bombs.

"I thought the judges didn't know who would audition?" I fished for more information from him. A part of me never understood why I was on his team in the first place. Zoey made sense, even with her R&B parts. There was a Rockness to her.

"We knew. Paulie was pushing Kyle and Zoey for Team Rock." I was taken aback and my oh really eyebrow came up. Is this the reason for Paulie's hostility towards me? I fucked with his master plan. I dance around the words to articulate the question I really want to know.

"Then you picked me to screw over, Paulie?" I didn't realize the hurt in those words until I heard it out loud. It was laced with a level of insecurity I hated hearing in myself. It didn't matter if he did or didn't. Really.. But...

"No, that's not why I didn't pick Kyle. I picked you because Kyle reminded me of myself." Heat rushed into my cold body and I fought the hot tears that wanted to come. I wanted away from Asher. It was the worst of outcomes. I had to get away now. Before I said something stupid. Blurted how much he matter... blurted how I wish he picked me for me. Because it all came rushing in. The reality of my situation. That it was causal, and I cared about his regard just a little too much. I pulled away from him, getting up from the roof of the van.

Asher's arms wrap around me tight holding me in place and pulling me roughly against his chest. I pulled away again, my back rubbing against his hard chest. It wasn't a hard pull, but it was insistent. I was done. I didn't want to know what he might say because the pressure of a casual hookup was too much for Wheelz. My Wheelzy ass was never a casual hookup type person, to begin with. Asher brought his big body in closer, wrapping the blanket tighter around both of us. Combining the layers and sharing heat. Puffs of white came with every word he spoke. That smokey spicy scent that was Asher, in a nutshell, was tight around me. My shoulders relaxed into his touch. "I was a sixteen-year-old kid emancipated so I could control my own life. Had to get away from my dad at any cost. It's California. The options for jobs for sixteen-year-olds to do to make rent weren't huge. I slept on Rux and Teddy's mom's couch. It couldn't stay that way forever. Plus, the emancipation process wasn't complete." His words were filled with the weight of time and limited options.

"My brother had a semi-successful music career and left me behind. Paulie listens to one of the demos we made before he left to work as a drummer with another band. Paulie was Dustin's agent, and he really liked the music. It was doing well on social media and Paulie sign me at an even younger age than Kyle. All I had was my brother, and Paulie, to depend on. And Tucker..."He followed up on that man's name like a curse. The way he said it had a kind of putrid malignancy to it. I'm not sure why, but that pain broke through a lot of my bullshit. I was caught up in my insecurities. Although, I'm kind of Wheelz at times that insecurity wasn't something that my mother instilled in me. My mother was always in the Queen's camp and she raised me to act like one. My hand wrapped around his, holding me tight. With his lips coming to my neck and his words brushing against my birdy tattoo.

"My brother's popularity translated into a career for me, and then our band became popular. The only problem was my brother had a habit. He was always functional and did his work in bands he was the sit-in drummer for. But giving him more access to power, and money gave him more access to drugs. I didn't know what to do or who to trust. I had show commitment and pressure to perform. I was sixteen." He peered up into the night sky like it had all the answers. Instead, it was both alive and dying at the same time, like all the stars in the sky. Both are alive and dead before we even know it, even though they burn so brightly. His lips brush against my neck again, returning to keep going. "It only got worse the more popular we got."

"The fame killed him." Said Asher. His hair brushes against my birdy tattoo, tickling my neck. If didn't know better, I'd say that tattoo was a lifeline for him because he was always drawn to it.

"So, no, I didn't pick Kyle to spite Paulie. I didn't pick you out of something weird at all. It was more that I could have never picked Kyle because Kyle reminded me of me too much." He sighed. "I picked you because I thought you were... mesmerizing."

"You obviously don't realize I'm Wheelz." I laughed at his description of me the first time he saw me.

"Wheelz, huh? With a Z, it's like a cherry on top." Asher smiles into my neck.

"With a Z," I agree with him. The worseness of the Z at the end never stops, making it more awful. I feel his smile against my neck. Fucking a mistake telling him about Wheelz. But he was charming when he smiled.

The smile that I so loved to feel against my neck faded.

"Asher?" I try to turn around again, but he holds me in place.

I reach behind me and put my hand behind his neck. Moving my thumb back and forth soothingly. But it wasn't enough. The smile didn't return. The silence of the night surrounded us.

"Asher?" He didn't answer me again, and I wanted to turn around, but he stopped me. The tip of his nose buried into the back of my neck. "Tell me about your brother." That's a non sequitur. We've not talked about Maurice much. Here and there, but not tons.

"Well, he's older than me by a lot, like you and your brother. He took care of me growing up. He's a full-time firefighter." Why did this feel like I was doing a school report and it was show and tell time? I almost want to check to make sure that I'm not having some weird dream. That I'm going to fake waking up naked in front of the classroom. Even with our short conversation, it was a little weird. I never expected him to meet my brother. Asher doesn't seem like the relationship-type guy. So, it's not like we were going to have a family moment. He always carefully avoids conversations about his mother or father. Whenever his brother comes up, it brings him down quickly. But maybe this time it's something Asher wanted to talk about more. It reminds me of telling a stranger something you wouldn't tell a close friend?

"What was Dustin like?" I ask the question, but it had the weight of a bomb. It was like in one of those old movies where they set off a bomb and you watch it explode in slow motion.

"Dustin......" The name had a taste to it the way he said it. As if Dustin was alive and the name breathed that life into him and not just his memory. "He was a whirlwind of sound. A constant beat followed him. He stood up to my asshole dad and left as soon as he was eighteen. Got a music career and everything." His lips rubs against the back of my neck a little cold, but his warm breath followed the small touch. "The band saved my life." It was the first time he talked about his father with me. I held my breath at his words to see where this would go. "He saved me, but I couldn't save him." What does that mean? The OD or...?

"It's hard." It was empty words but also true. Saving someone else might simply result in destroying yourself in the attempt.

"No, .... that's not it," Asher said with a sad sigh.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I knew... I didn't say anything, but I knew..."Asher's voice was tiny.

The silence expanded between as vast as the void of space ever-expanding. I didn't understand what he meant. A part of me was a little scared to understand. Asher shook behind me, but it wasn't any colder. It was bad whatever it was filled with the guilt that weighed down his words.

"It's my fault," Asher said.

...

Before Asher was making small movements. I could feel his slow breath in and out against my back from his broad chest. His nose would sometimes rub against my ink. His lips would graze the little bird absentmindedly while he talked to me. He held me tight and here was a present. But now he was like a dull, lifeless thing. Asher held his breath. All his movement stopped. The soft touches were gone. He was pulling away from me and yet still holding me at the same time. It was weird. For such a big broad shoulder man, he sounded so small when he said it was his fault.

...And nothing came.

I waited for more of him, but nothing came and I let the silence hide what he wanted to hide. But it stretched between us. Until finally...

"I knew Dustin was a heroin addict... I knew from the start it wasn't a simple habit. I didn't say anything to anyone. I just wanted out." He buried his cold face into the back of my neck. His hot breath words spoke so quietly behind me that I had to strain to hear him. "We went from city to city and he was always high. Dustin was completely out of it, except for the beat was always good. Until even that started going. He was like my mother and, just like my mother, he'd kill himself. If it wasn't for the drugs, he would have been sad all the time. But... I knew what would happen to Dustin someday, and I didn't say anything." And... his mother committed suicide... And his brother OD'd. An OD'd that he's admitting to me wasn't a simple overdose, it was a suicide. I didn't breathe. I held on to the air so I didn't gasp. Shit... When I turn my body to try to hug Asher, he didn't let me turn around. He simply held me closer under the blanket. The dark sky stretched out to us on top of the Van like we were Astronauts lost in space among the stars.

"Dustin was high when Mia's mom went into labor next to him in bed with their second child. Mia was four years old and was at her grandparents. No one was at the house except Dustin. When I came back to the house in the morning. I was away just for a few hours for an interview. It was only a little while. The TV was left on in his room. When I knocked, no one answered, so I cracked open the door and didn't look in. I was just going to see if I could use my phone to turn it off. But that smell of copper. It smelled like a penny left out in the sun in a heat wave. I knew something was wrong. When I open the door and went in, Dustin was high and covered in her blood. She had already passed next to him."

"........she bled out...." His voice cracked on the words.

"Mia's mother was a fan. He hooked up with her after a gig and she ended up pregnant. Mia's mom was a nice woman. She was his biggest fan. But Dustin, for her, was always bigger than life. He was always Dustin Kells. He was never just Dustin. She was so pale every drop of her life's blood was on that bed covering both of them like a shroud."

"Dustin. He was out cold... high as fuck. And she was completely gone." His hand shook against my middle.

"My brother was just like my dad. He ruins everything he touched." I couldn't help flinching at Asher's words. He said it with a kind of inevitable deep-down truth that was undeniable. It also explains a lot. Was he pushing away his niece? Shit...

That kind of stuff you can't tell anyone but a stranger. It reminds me of a time when I was young and we were at the drugstore with my mom. You can tell a stranger something. You would never tell someone you know and is that who I am to Asher sometimes? My brother and I split up in the store and wandered the aisles. My mother went to the pharmacy counter and was talking to the pharmacist. I remember looking back and thinking my mother, who was bigger than life for me, looked so tiny. Did I grow up or did she... I walked slowly up to the counter. With every step up the aisle, it felt more narrow. As if the shelves were closing in on me.

My mom's shoulders were shaking, and she told the Pharmacist she had cancer and she was scared. My mother never said that to us, even when she was on her last breath and had peace about her. But to this stranger, she said the quiet part out loud and broke down. My world kept shrinking to that old man behind the counter and my mother as my eyes got blurry. The old man lifted his head slightly and our eyes connected.

He reached out to my mom and took her hand. Deep down, I knew my mother didn't want me to hear it. She waited until neither of us was around. I nodded at the Pharmacist and walked away. Wandering the store aisle as lost as any child. Then my brother found me and it was time to go.

Asher's words had that kind of feel to it. The same way my moms had. The kind of thing you really can't tell but have to say to someone. Sometimes, like the pharmacist did with my mom, at that moment, you just need a hand.

He repeats... "It's my fault," Asher said it as if I was supposed to blame him. That somehow I'd tell him a hard truth, that he was selfish and it was his fault.

"Asher, you aren't going to believe me, but it's not your fault." He didn't move or answer me. "How old were you? Sixteen when you got that first contract. The adults in the room were Paulie, Tucker, and Dustin." That didn't change his hold on me.

"Wait, the first time I remember reading Dustin going to rehab was after your third album. How old were you?" I asked him, confused.

"Seventeen and a half. It was the first time I got Dustin into a program. It didn't work out." Guilt was thick in his voice.

"I can't tell you that you were way too young to put that on yourself. If I try to tell you that sometimes you can only save yourself. It probably won't change your thought process." I frown because it was fucked up. He was way too young at that age to do tons of stuff to offramp an addict. Sometimes it is what it is. I had more. I can't tell you this to make you feel better stuff, but I settled on saying, "You loved your brother. You can hear it in your voice. You fought for him. Asher, you didn't abandon him."

"I didn't." He said with his lips against my neck, and I could feel every word. I got the fact he realize that he at least fought for his brother. Sometimes forgiving yourself is hard. My mother died of cancer when I was a kid. There wasn't more I could do. It wasn't within my power at all, but I still had to forgive myself as weird as that sounded. Once I did, I started to realize it wasn't needed.

He finally let me turn in his arms, facing him. Placing my hands just under his scruffy chin, I kissed him on the top corner of his right cheek. Just like the first night, we were together. After everything went down, we were listening to his music, and I felt like he needed it. I held him close and kissed him again. I'd hold him as long as he needed.