More Than Comics (4 page)

“Dan is handling the negotiations now,” he said, referring to the band’s manager, who had been their mentor on
The Sound
. “But we’ve basically locked in a two-album deal with one of the labels. We plan to start working on new songs as soon as we get back from the tour.”

“Wow, that’s wonderful. It happened so fast!” I took a sip of my Diet Coke. “I’m
dying
to see you perform live. I watched the show on TV, of course, but it’s not the same.”

He picked up a chopstick and twirled it like one of his drumsticks. “So you’re coming tonight?”

“Definitely.”

“You probably need another ticket, huh? For Andy?”

I played with my napkin, avoiding Hector’s gaze. “No, just one. I’m flying solo for a change.”

“No? I thought you’d be here with him.”

“He’s at Comic-Con somewhere, I think, but not with me…” I’d been hoping to avoid talking about Andy. Or thinking about Andy. The wound was still so raw. But Hector deserved to know the truth. “We broke up a few days ago.”

The chopstick hit the table with a soft clatter. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” I sucked in a breath, trying to keep my voice steady. “It was a mutual thing. We both figured it was time to end it now that we’ve graduated. He’s moving to Dallas and I’m moving to New York, so it’s for the best, really.”

Hector was silent for a moment, and I couldn’t read his expression. “You were together for a year. That must be rough.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “It’s weird not talking to him anymore. I know we both have to move on with our lives, but it’s hard saying goodbye to someone who was such an important part of mine for the last year.”

I dropped my gaze to the table, wishing I hadn’t said so much. I’d always been pretty open with Hector about my personal life, but now it felt wrong, like I shouldn’t be discussing my ex with him. “Anyway, it’s over and I’m ready to move on. What about you? You
are
single, right? Or did I mislead your fans at the panel?”

“No, I’m not seeing anyone.”

Of course not. Hector had been single for the entire time I’d known him. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew it had something to do with his past. If he hadn’t told me by now then I figured it wasn’t any of my business. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder…

The food arrived, steaming plates of pad thai and prik king. We changed the subject back to work, to discuss ideas for a fourth
Misfit Squad
book. Miguel wanted a proposal with the first few pages and an outline for the rest, which I’d already written up and sent to Hector so he could start on the artwork.

“I put a few rough sketches together,” he said. “If you like them, I’ll get to work on them ASAP.”

“Do you have time? You’re on tour for the next month...”

“I’ll make time.”

He pulled his sketchbook from where he always kept it—tucked under his shirt in the back of his jeans—and flipped it open. He angled the page toward me, careful not to get it too close to the food.

“Wow, this is perfect.” I slid the sketchbook closer to me. Hector always brought my scripts to life in ways I never expected, that were even better than I had imagined. He took my ideas, my story, and infused himself into them with his artwork, so the final version was truly a collaboration between us. Each book of
Misfit Squad
had both of our souls in it.

A waiter carrying a tray of food bumped my elbow and I dropped the sketchbook on the floor. Hector and I both reached for it but I managed to grab it first. Except now it was open to a different page.

This one had a drawing of a beautiful girl. It was in black and white and more realistic than his comic book art, and you could see the care Hector had taken with it. The girl was smiling, her head slightly tilted, her long blond hair (or I assumed it was blond, from the shading) flowing around her shoulders. Pieces like this reminded me just how remarkable of an artist Hector was. How he could capture someone so perfectly with just a charcoal pencil and infuse so much emotion and beauty into a simple drawing.

And then I realized the girl was
me
.

Hector reached across the table and snatched the sketchbook out of my hands. My eyes jumped to his face, and he looked pained. Like someone had just punched him in the gut. Was he worried I wouldn’t like it? How could he possibly think that?

“Hector, that…that was stunning.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, shoving the sketchbook back in his jeans.

“I didn’t know…” I stopped, taking a breath. “I mean, I never realized you’d drawn me before.”

He shrugged and took a long chug of his water. “I draw everyone,” he finally said.

Maybe that was true, but I
knew
Hector’s artwork. I’d seen hundreds of his drawings, both art for
Misfit Squad
and random sketches he did for fun. There had been something different about that picture of me. Something special. Something more…intimate.

“Hector, do you…” I faltered, trying to come up with a better way to ask the questions threatening to burst out of me. “Is this…” No, that wasn’t right. I tried a new approach. “Why didn’t you ever show me?”

He still wouldn’t look at me. “It’s not a big deal.”

That didn’t answer the question at all. My fingers tightened around the chain at my neck, the metal biting into my skin a welcome distraction from how uncomfortable this moment was. “Are there others of me in there? Can I see?”

“No!”

His harsh response made me jump. I banged my knee against the table, causing the silverware and plates to rattle, and he cringed at the sound. The ease of our conversation had vanished and tension had built a brick wall between us. But the more he evaded my questions the more my curiosity grew, and the more I
needed
to know the answers. Why wouldn’t he just tell me?

“It’s just, I know your art,” I said, before I could stop myself. “And that drawing seemed like it
meant
something.”

He visibly tensed and one of his chopsticks snapped in his hand. “Jesus, it’s just a fucking drawing. You’re reading way too much into it.”

“Am I?”

He tossed the broken chopstick on the table and pushed his plate away. “It doesn’t mean anything. I draw lots of people. Friends. Family. Random people on the street. That’s all.”

God, this had all gone horribly wrong. Hector was closed off about his emotions on even the best days, but I’d never seen him like this before. I had to back off. I didn’t want to—I wanted to get
something
out of him. But I cared about Hector as a friend before anything else, and I could tell he desperately wanted me to drop this.

I plastered on a smile and made my voice light. “In that case, you should draw that guy over there in the Halo helmet and pink tutu and nothing else.”

Hector laughed. I could tell it was forced, but at least things returned to some semblance of normality between us. Even if I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been lying.

CHAPTER FOUR
HECTOR

I
n our dressing room, Jared bounced up and down on his heels and shook his hands out while doing his vocal exercises. I wanted to yell at him to sit down and shut up because he was making me crazy, but I couldn’t mess with his pre-show ritual. That would only fuck things up for the entire band, and we were already on edge as it was.

Tonight was the first concert on
The Sound
tour, featuring the top four bands from the show. Our first performance in a giant stadium in front of over ten thousand people. We’d been rehearsing for the past week, from the minute
The Sound
had ended, but we’d had a lot to practice. Not just the songs either, but things like the order we played them in, the transitions between them, where Maddie and Jared stood on stage, even what Jared said to the audience—it was all scripted down to the second. We had so much to learn in a very short period of time, and that had resulted in some serious growing pains. We were used to that after the whirlwind that was
The Sound
, but I didn’t think anything could really prepare a band for something as massive as this.

I wasn’t nervous about tonight’s show, not exactly. The waiting was what killed me. I wanted to get out there and play already, not sit around on my ass while two other bands went on before us.

Knowing Tara might be in the audience only made it worse.

I stretched my arms and neck, forcing myself not to check my phone again. It was almost time for our set and, as far as I knew, Tara still hadn’t arrived. I had to accept that she wasn’t coming. Not after what had happened at lunch.

After our fight—or whatever the hell that had been—I’d insisted on paying the bill, despite her protests, and told her I had to head to the stadium for the sound check. She’d promised she was coming to the concert, but I hadn’t heard a single thing from her since then.

Thank god she’d only seen the one drawing. If she’d flicked through the rest of my sketchbook she’d think I was a stalker or something. I
did
have pictures of my other friends in there, too. Hell, I’d just done one yesterday of Maddie playing the guitar that Jared wanted to keep. But I had more drawings of Tara than anyone else. And like she’d said, they were different.

Whenever I missed her, or after we video chatted and her smile was still fresh in my mind, I had the urge to sketch her. Any strong emotion made me want to draw, to let it out through my art. Jared told me it was the same for him when he wrote music. And Tara always made me feel more than anyone else—no matter how hard I tried not to let her in.

But I’d never shown the drawings of Tara to anyone. There was something more…private about them. They were for me and no one else. She wasn’t supposed to ever find out about them.

I broke down and checked my phone again. Nothing. Dammit.

“You okay?” Maddie asked from her spot on one of the couches, where she idly strummed her acoustic guitar. With her low-cut red top, black leather pants, and geeky glasses, she looked smoking hot, like some kind of sexy librarian.

“Yeah,” I said, shoving the phone back in my jeans.

Jared sank beside Maddie, sliding an arm around her waist. The two of them had been joined at the hip ever since they’d officially become a thing during the finale of
The Sound
. Now they were completely unbearable 24/7, like five minutes apart would kill them. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for them. I just didn’t want to see them making out every single minute of the day.

I’d been kind of a jerk to Maddie when I’d first met her. After Jared had nearly broken up our band by sleeping with Becca, our previous bassist, I’d told him I didn’t want another girl to replace her. I’d thought Maddie was just another of his groupies, looking for an excuse to get in his bed. And like I’d predicted, the two of them had hooked up and nearly ruined our chances on
The Sound
.

But Maddie surprised me by being a great guitarist and, even with the drama, I grew to really like her. Not to mention, I realized how much Jared had changed because of her. He was better when she was around, happier than I’d seen him in years, and he obviously loved her. Now I couldn’t imagine not having her in the band.

“Is Tara here yet?” Maddie asked.

“No. I don’t think she’s coming.” I shrugged. “Whatever.”

Jared arched an eyebrow. “I think Hector’s not telling us something.”

I glared at him. “
I
think you’re annoying as hell.”

“Aha! That means I’m right.”

“Ooh,” Maddie said, setting her guitar aside. “What do you think he’s hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything!”

“Something must have happened when they had lunch,” Jared said. “He pouted all through the sound check.”

“I did not.”

Jared was usually so wrapped up in himself that it always surprised me when he noticed shit like that. Then again, he knew me better than anyone, even Tara. Best friends were such a pain in the ass sometimes.

“No? You kept coming in a measure early on the ‘Somebody Told Me’ bridge. That’s not like you.”

Unfortunately, he was right. I’d been totally distracted during our sound check and it had thrown off the entire band. I needed to get my head together before we went on stage.

“Nothing happened.”

“Is that the problem?” Maddie asked, her voice concerned. “You
wanted
something to happen with Tara?”

“No!” The way she looked at me implied she knew my secret, but until this week I’d never even mentioned Tara to Maddie. Not even Kyle knew how I felt about her. Only one person did. “Let me guess. Jared told you.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “I think it’s cute that you’ve loved her all this time. It explains a lot, too. Like how you never talk about girls. Or seem to notice they exist at all.”

“I can’t believe you,” I growled at Jared. “That was private. You’ve broken the bro code, man.”

He gave a slight shrug. “She figured it out. What was I supposed to do?”

“It was kind of obvious,” she said, her fingers tangling with his. “How was it meeting her in person for the first time?”

“Weird.”

“Uh huh…”

“And good.” I looked away, my teeth grinding together. Why were we still talking about this? “But mostly weird.”

The door opened and Kyle came in, wearing a hoodie over his dyed-black hair. His sleeves were rolled up, showing off the tattoos on each arm. He passed a bottle of water to each of us and plopped down on the other couch.

“Where’s Hector’s girl?” he asked.

“Shit, does
everyone
know?” I muttered.

“Pretty much.”

“She’s not coming.”

“No way,” Maddie said. “I saw how she smiled at you during your panel. She’ll be here.”

I grunted and crossed my arms, hoping that signaled the end of this conversation. Jared opened his mouth and I knew he was going to continue bugging me, but I was saved by a knock on the dressing room door.

Kyle hopped up and opened it. A security guard stood on the other side, one finger on his earpiece. “There’s a blonde with a backstage pass who says she knows you guys, but she’s not on the list.”