Ch. 1 – Sarah

 

“You are doing so well though darling,” Mom said for the four hundredth time in the last few months. I was living up to my end of a terrible agreement. Other than that I wasn’t doing all that great. Of course the only metric my mother was using was the pay cheque, I was getting one, so I was doing ‘well.’

I had been trying to get off the phone for the better part of an hour. “Alright, well I have to get in for rehearsal now,” I said for the third time. Mom wasn’t getting the hint.

“Well, before you go I want to talk to you about my Christmas present, and why you’re ignoring it.” Mom had got me a year’s subscription to a dating site. If I was going to fully live up to the agreement, I was going to have to start looking for a husband very soon. “I noticed that you weren’t going on, so I went ahead and set up some dates for you. I hope you don’t think that’s offensive…”

I hung up and walked into the hall. I was done talking to my mother for the week. I wasn’t ready to go on any dates. I was too busy, and I was sure that any dates she set up would be horrible. There was no way that I was going to be able to explain all of that without offending my mother and I was already late. So I jumped straight to offending her.

I loved the hall. The Ferringer was a classic rock venue. It had a huge pit area that was surrounded by balcony boxes that came all the way down to the stage. The last balcony box was only five feet from the stage. I had seen a bunch of shows in this theater and they were always great.

I could hear the band playing as I got inside. They didn’t sound good at all, but I knew that we were dealing with a different kind of project. “Doesn’t matter if it’s bad, people will buy tickets even if it’s just to see this train wreck,” Bobby, my boss, had said as he described the reason behind the show. “On the other hand if they can pull it off, well, that’s just a bonus.”

The band was three quarters of a They Might be Rock Hyenas, a band that hadn’t had a big hit in almost a decade, but they still had a following. Their lead singer had dropped out of the limelight and the band had separated. Now they were trying to get the band going again.

“I just need you to keep them happy,” Bobby had said as he gave me the job. I knew that this was a huge opportunity. I wouldn’t normally be given anything this high profile, I had just started with the label five months before. It had been a difficult transition.

I took a few years off after University to tour with my band The Happy Kitty. It was five girls and the open road. I loved it. We never made it anywhere, but I had promised my mother that I would give working in the real world a chance. Luckily this post opened up. It seemed like the perfect opportunity. I was working in the music industry. I thought it would be easy, but working for a record label was nothing like being in a rock band.

Every proposal that I made had to be backed up by statistics and sales records. Individual or original thought was especially discouraged. Everything was based on the idea of ‘it’. Did a song have it, did I have an ear for it. ‘It’ was the only thing that the label seemed to understand. I was getting used to it, but this money first perspective was destroying music for me. I couldn’t even remember the last time that I listened to music for fun.

 “You need to get to the store and buy five hundred red M&Ms,” Bobby said into the phone as soon as I picked it up. That was how I had started my day. I had been sent to fifteen stores since that point. I had bought tons of candy, an inflatable unicorn, and a pair of gold colored shoes, among several other things.

At one stop a particularly angry old woman decided that I cut in front of her in line. “The line starts behind me,” She rasped. She had a cane and an oxygen tube under her nose, the tank was dragging behind her.

“I was here first, and I’m in a hurry,” I said as I turned my back on the woman. I felt horrible about it. The old me would’ve got behind the woman. I would’ve let the woman go even though she was being rude. I felt terrible about it until the woman started to repeatedly smack me in the back of the head with her cane.

“I said, I was here first!” She yelled as she brought down the cane again. I couldn’t even remember what I had been holding in that line, because I dropped it and ran out of the store. It was embarrassing to be beaten up by an old woman, and there was really nothing that I could do about it.

“You’re here!” Bobby said as I walked into the main auditorium. “So where is the meat tray?” Bobby eyed me hungrily. I couldn’t believe that the thing I forgot was the first thing he asked for. I wanted to tell Bobby what happened, but I was too embarrassed. I could almost feel the old woman laughing at me as I hung my head in shame.

“I forgot it, but I have everything else,” I said as I watched Bobby’s face drop. The band was still playing. They sounded fine now that I was in the room. They had also started into an older song, a song they were all comfortable with, and it was helping them sound better. “He’s afraid of the mic,” Bobby was shaking his head. “I need food.”

“I’ll call and order sandwiches,” I said as I tried to make up for my gaff. “I will have them delivered.” I watched Bobby’s eyes light up. I knew that all would be forgiven soon. I like having Bobby as a boss. He had been a lead guitarist for a long time before making the transition to being a band manager. He understood where I was coming from, and why I had trouble being on this side of the business.

“You need to take control of the stage!” Bobby yelled as the band ended their song. “Let’s hear it again. In fact today we’re only playing old songs. I want to hear the songs you’re used to and I want to hear you kill it!”

Bobby sounded pumped up, but everyone else seemed to be completely out of energy. I had had rehearsals like this before in my own band, and I remembered how draining they could be. “I could go out and get everyone coffees,” I offered as I tried to think of a way to pep up the band.

“He isn’t sleepy,” Bobby shook his head as he watched the lead singer struggle with the song again. “He’s used to being the bass player. He’s not used to being the star. He needs to find his edge. He needs to find his passion. Mikey doesn’t know what makes him special.” I knew that Bobby was right, I just didn’t know how we got to that point.

I decided that I couldn’t carry any of the bags I was holding anymore. I turned to walk to the corner and set them down. I didn’t make it one step, before a wave of ice engulfed me. I dropped everything in my hands and took my shirt off. It was so cold from the margarita mix. I decided to run to the bathroom, when I realised I was standing in the main auditorium in only my bra.

I slipped on the mess that I had made and I sent M&Ms spilling all over the floor. I could hear people laughing as I got to my feet and started walking as fast as I could toward the bathroom. I could feel the heat in my cheeks as I slowly turned red.

I took a breath as I stared into the bathroom mirror. I was going to be working with these people for at least the next week. If it all went well I might be assigned to the band for a year. I was going to be the topless girl for as long as I was working with this band. Even if I left they would still be calling me that. “Hey, remember topless girl,” I could already hear them saying. It had already been a long day, but it was about to become insufferable.

 

Ch. 2 – Mikey

 

“I hate this bass,” I screamed as I slammed it against the stage. I was already heading off to my dressing room before the pieces settled on the floor. I didn’t want to stay and see everyone’s reaction. More than that, I didn’t want to hear anyone’s opinion on my performance. I had been onstage at major concert venues since I was 16 years old, but I was never the focus of attention.

Travis was the one that people looked at. He was the one that everyone came to see. Travis was a frontman. He just took to the position. He knew how to connect with an audience. I had somehow convinced myself that I could do the same thing, but that delusion was quickly coming unravelled. I was starting to doubt that people would even show up to hear us play.

I slammed the door to my dressing room. I didn’t even know why I had a dressing room until that moment when I shut the door. I had it so that I could hide. I had it because I was pretending to be a lead singer. I was way more comfortable just being the bass player.

“Hey, is Travis in there?” It was Hank knocking on my door. I hadn’t locked it so he just came in. “Oh, it is you,” Hank teased. “I assumed from the hissy fit I just watched that Travis had come to the rehearsal.”

“Thanks man,” I sneered. I knew that he was trying to make me feel better, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. I needed time to brood. It was part of the ritual of a rock star tantrum. “I just needed some space,” I said hoping that Hank would get the hint, but instead he sat down on my couch.

“Yeah, I know, but nobody cares,” Hank laughed. “You are going to get this, you just have to stop beating yourself up. It’s never going to come if you force it.” I knew what Hank was going to say next. Hank had wanted to hit the road and do a bunch of warm up shows in small clubs before the big show at the Ferringer. It was a great idea, but we were still under contract to our old record company, and they wanted us to start with a big show. It had sounded easy enough, until we started trying to do it.

The closer the show got, the worse my performance became. Today we were four days away from the show, and we had been rehearsing so much my voice was starting to crack. My movements were getting stiffer, and I was having trouble understanding what was going on with my face. I had never realised until recently how weird I looked when I sang. It was like I was having a seizure, my one eye was always blinking for no reason.

“You’re hitting all the notes,” Hank said after he got tired of waiting for me to talk about it. “I think we’re going to be ready, we just need to all relax.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I blew up at Hank. “You’re still the drummer. You’ve been the drummer for the last decade, and now you’re still drumming. Nothing changed for you, so why wouldn’t you feel comfortable?”

“I have moved over to lead guitar,” Randy mentioned as if that was a huge deal. He had already walked past me and flopped onto the couch. I had barely noticed him walk into the room. I was just so absorbed by my own problems, I hadn’t even noticed that I left the door open. “It’s kind of the same, but it isn’t. People pay attention to the lead guitarist, nobody can even name the rhythm guitarist.”

“I know,” I said with way too much emphasis, “Travis was the only member of the band that people even saw, or cared about. None of us even made the cover of one of our own albums before this. We were in Travis’s shadow. I thought I didn’t like it, but I definitely felt more comfortable there than out on stage.”

“Yeah, you gotta stop sucking so hard dude,” Randy said. He and Hank broke down laughing. I wanted to freak out, but as soon as I looked at them I just started laughing.

“I think it’s your shittiness that’s messing me up,” I shot back at Randy.

“Hey guys, let’s just agree you both suck,” Hank said as he stood up and looked through the liquor in my mini fridge. He tossed a Budweiser to each of us and then flopped back on the couch. “Luckily I’m here to hold y’all together.”

“With the world’s worst drumming?” Randy asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, you have united us on that,” I laughed. “We both understand the struggles of an offbeat drummer.”

“It’s my trademark,” Hank said as he chugged his beer. “Come on, I’m going to lap you ninnies in a minute. Here, drink up.” Hank tossed everyone another beer. “We’ve been working too hard. We aren’t some struggling band. We’ve made it once and we’ll do it again. The time to drink is now.”

I took the beer, and I was okay with blowing off the rest of the day to drink, but I didn’t know if I believed what Hank was saying. We made it once, but without Travis we were a completely different band. I don’t know if we have what it takes to be a rock band anymore. I worry that I don’t have what it takes.

“We shouldn’t do this today guys,” Randy said as he crushed the first can of beer on the table. “There are all kinds of suits crawling around here from the label. We don’t want to fuck this up too early.”

“Wuss,” Hank laughed as he pounded back the second beer. I decided that I had to keep up. I chugged the first and then shotgunned the second. Luckily I had my keys in my pocket to stab the can. I had to get ahead. I was soaked with beer spray at the end, but I went and grabbed two more and pounded them.

“Alright, I guess we’re doing it.” Randy said as he shotgunned his beer and I tossed him another can from the fridge. It was the last can, but there was another dressing room with a full-sized fridge to raid. This was going to be a classic rehearsal.

We finished the beer and left the dressing room. We saw the suits milling about the halls. They were all on cell phones carrying file folders. “How the hell do you people work in music!” I yelled. They were making me sick. I couldn’t even look at them. I waved my hand in disgust and I walked quickly into the dressing room.

Hank was cranking up the radio and Randy was raiding the fridge. There wasn’t nearly enough beer in it. “Hey, suits!” Randy screamed out into the hallway. I laughed as five guys came running. “Beer run, we need way more if this rehearsal is going to keep going. Who wants to be the hero?”

A tall kid, he couldn’t’ve been much more than twenty, put his hand up and started walking toward the exit. His suit looked like it was at least a size too big. I’m guessing that it’s his dad’s. We all laughed as the kid ran off.

“Now that’s dedication,” Randy laughed as he watched the kid run. Randy went back to the fridge and got everyone a beer. Hank had found glasses and shot glass, “Jaeger Bombs!” Randy yelled as he saw the supplies set out on the counter of the kitchenette.

Hank had put on “Soup” by Blind Melon. It was a classic album that had no hits on it. Blind Melon put out a much worse album that contained the hit “No Rain.” I had had this argument with Bobby many times, usually after midnight at one of his house parties, but the monumental hit “No Rain” did not make “St. Andrew’s Hall” a better album than “Soup.” The single doesn’t make the album.

It was a fundamental problem in the music industry. A disconnect between the soul and artistry of music, and the business of music. It was a big part of my problem with becoming the lead singer. I didn’t want to worry about the business side. I didn’t want to be the guy that everyone took pictures of. I didn’t want to do all of the press stuff. I wanted to make music. I listened to the critical hit/pop chart failure and I could feel the depression pulling at me. Hank couldn’t’ve made a worse choice.

“Let’s drop the bombs!” Hank yelled and I jumped up. I needed a bomb right now. “Bombs away!”

 

Ch. 3 – Sarah

 

“Oh God,” Bobby said as we heard the music blasting out of the dressing room. “They’re drinking. I think this is a bad sign.” Bobby grabbed my arm and dragged me back stage. He was walking faster than I had ever seen him walk before. “What are you idiots doing?”

“Jaeger bombs, want one Bobby?” The guitarist said. I was watching Bobby as he turned a bit red. He wasn’t as upset with the guys as he had pretended to be out in the hall. “Yeah, but just one. How much has everybody had, should we call it right now and just head back to my place?”   

They dropped the shot glasses into the glasses and started chugging. Bobby was a surprisingly good drinker for an older guy. The others were in their mid-twenties, but they had clearly been partying for much longer than that. They all knew their way around a glass. I was waiting for Bobby to introduce me and watching them laugh and joke around.

I noticed the lead singer. He had been the bass player and backup vocals in the original band. He looked up before I could turn away, and our eyes locked for a second. I looked down quickly. I had to put the file folder I had in my arms against my stomach. I had a fluttering that I couldn’t control. I could feel my cheeks turning red. I was trying very hard not to blush, but it wasn’t working. The worst part was that I could still feel his eyes on me.

“Oh, right,” Bobby said as he finished laughing. He must’ve noticed the lead singer staring at me. “I forgot to introduce Sarah McGilvery. Sarah is going to be handling promotions, and marketing, Sarah this is Randy, Hank, and Mikey.” I stuck out my hand, but I was snubbed completely.

“Tell us what’s in the file folder, and then we’ll decide if we want to shake your hand.” Randy was busy making the next round of drinks, it looked like tequila shots. I decided that now was as good a time as any.

“Well, I had a few thoughts about how to repackage They Might be Rock Hyenas for a new generation of concert goers.” I started, but I could tell that I had already lost them. “What?” I was bewildered. I had a whole speech prepared and things had already gone awry.

“Might be Rock Hyenas,” the drummer said as he took his shot and slammed the glass down on the counter. “The ‘They’ was because of Travis. Every capitalized word starts with the letters of our first names: Might for Mikey, Rock for Randy, and Hyenas for Hank, me.”

“I get it. Great!” I wanted to move on as fast as possible. “So I was looking at your most popular concert tours of the past.  I want to mirror the styles, but bring in some updated twists.” I could see that I was losing them again. They all turned around getting their drinks again. I wasn’t sure if they didn’t like the idea, or if they didn’t like me. “So, anyway, I brought some mock-ups for you to see.”

I spread the designs out on the island so that they could see what I was talking about. The guys looked through the designs. They pointed and laughed, I didn’t feel like I was winning any of them over. Bobby was smiling at me. He was the only one who seemed to be happy with my presentation. I started to wonder if that was just because he had been drinking.

“So you realize that these are only based on Travis’ outfits, right?” Mikey asked as he took another quick look through all of them. “This one was based on his favorite 1930’s era sci-fi movie, and this one was based on the costume of a show girl that he shacked up with for a week in Vegas.” I had a blank stare on my face, but I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. He was angry. His face was filled with emotion. It was completely different than the look that he had when he had been trying to sing earlier.

“I…I’m sorry?” I didn’t know what to say.

“You realize that Travis isn’t here, right?” He snapped. I could feel myself collapsing inward as he walked closer. I was shrinking away into nothing. This was not how I pictured the drawings going. I thought that there would be a positive reaction by at least one person. I thought that Bobby would give me a little support. “Come on, tell me right now, what were you thinking?”

“Well, Travis is still writing the songs and…”

“Get out!” Mikey screamed. He was about two inches from my face. I ran from the room. I forgot to grab my files, and my drawings. I just ran like hell. I wanted to be a million miles away. I wanted to be anywhere else.

Out in the main hall, and heading for the exit I heard my phone go off. “Great work kiddo!” Bobby sent the message. I didn’t even know if I should send anything back. I wanted to send something like, ‘I quit’ but I knew that I wasn’t ready to quit. It had been a bad day, but I still wanted to work in the music business and jobs in this industry were hard to come by.

My phone started ringing. I knew that it was Bobby, but I didn’t want to talk. I couldn’t seem to stop my hand though. Since becoming a suit, my response to the phone had become almost Pavlovian. I had an uncontrollable urge to answer as soon as someone called.

“You really did a great job,” Bobby said before I even said hello. “Go to my house and have the guys get everything ready. As soon as we run out of liquor here we are heading over there. I am expecting you to head up the preparations and setup a guest list.” Bobby was already drunk I could tell.

“A guest list? Who am I inviting?” I had never done anything like this before. I was sure that I could handle the other prep work, but I had no idea how to invite people to a last minute party.

“Call everyone who’s under contract with us right now.” Bobby said, and then I heard him down another shot. I could also hear the people cheering for him as he finished the glass. “Call everyone who’s ever been with us. I don’t know, call everyone in the phone book. I want to shut the block down, and I want somebody to call the cops.”

Bobby left it at that. The phone went dead and he was gone. I went right out the door and started calling everyone in my contact list on the way to Bobby’s house. I was sure that everyone would be busy, but there were a lot of people who wanted to attend a party thrown by Bobby. I assumed it was because as a rookie, I only knew the people on the bottom of the label’s intense food chain.

“Are you kidding me?” Manny said as I told him about the party. “Well, we’re ordering food because I am not cooking for a million people on a moment’s notice. I am putting that all on you too, and you can call and whine to Bobby all you want, but that’s the deal sweetie!”

Manny stormed off leaving me standing there holding the bag. Literally and figuratively, since I was already holding a bag of special request party favors that had been texted to me on the way to Bobby’s mansion. It was only my second time at the house, and I was going to have to organize a party by myself.

I called a catering company right away, and then I started going through Bobby’s rolodex that was full of numbers. I couldn’t even believe my eyes when I saw this thing. It was so old, I didn’t even think that people still used these anymore. I started looking through and calling.

“A Bobby party!” Vince Hanson screamed. He was one of the top acts that the label had signed in the last few years. I couldn’t believe how excited he was to go to the party. I started to get worried. I wasn’t sure I could throw a party that was going to be up to the standards that these people were looking for. I was not Bobby, and I didn’t think that I could throw a Bobby party.

As the caterers arrived and the guests continued to RSVP I realized that this was likely one of the defining moments of my early career. Bobby was going to see if I knew how to run a party. I decided to go through my contacts again and invite some of the bands that I hadn’t been able to get signed yet. The party needed entertainment, and I was going to take full advantage of that.

 

Ch. 4 – Mikey

 

We had stumbled out of the Ferringer at 4:00pm or so. It was still too bright outside. The air was thick with the smell of smog. I hadn’t missed the smell of LA while we were on break. I got used to the concept of breathing again when I was away.

“We need to hit the club, boys,” Bobby said. He was still going strong and he was fielding calls between shots. It was amazing to see him in action. Bobby had been a lead guitarist before he was a manager that’s why we all respected him. He still drank like a rocker. “We just got a quick publicity stunt,” Bobby was swigging right from the bottle as he put the phone back in his pocket. “Sarah is going to meet us there, she’s got the details.”

The limo was already waiting for us when we got to the parking lot. We stumbled in like classic rock baffoons. We were all laughing so hard when we tried to sit up and find space. “You’re on my hand dude!” Randy yelled when I tried to sit down. I pushed him and fell sideways. The bonus was that I landed near the champagne. I started into the bubbly.

“That is going to come back to haunt you,” Randy laughed as he watched me drinking out of the bottle. I didn’t want to share the champagne and they didn’t want any. I had thrown up from mixing like this in the past, but I didn’t care in the moment. I was willing to throw up, as long as I could feel champagne drunk for a while.

We stopped at Bobby’s house and picked up Sarah. We tried to leave, but Hank ran out the door. “I love Bobby parties!” He screamed.

“We’re coming back, it hasn’t even started yet!” I yelled as I watched Hank running circle on the lawn. He had his arms spread wide like he was a plane. I knew that he was going to barf soon. That was always how it started with Hank. He would run or do push ups and feel great, until he didn’t.

“He’s going to burst,” Bobby said as he got out to go help Hank. Randy went with him. I sat back and kept drinking. I knew that I should’ve gone to help, but I figured it would be overkill for three guys to carry him back to the car.

“How much did he drink?” Sarah was in the car. She was right there, staring at me. A few hours before she had both really aroused and really pissed me off, in a matter of minutes. I was both excited and enraged to see her. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I feel great,” I said. I meant it at least in that second. “I’m a complete failure, I can’t be a lead singer, but I can successfully get completely smashed.” I said. I actually felt good about it in that moment. It was one of those times I felt like a poet. I used to try and record those moments thinking that I was losing out every time I forgot a drunken gem. Then I listened to them and I knew conclusively that I was missing out on nothing.

“Well you guys need to sober up, you have to get in a bar fight in an hour,” Sarah seemed really concerned, but I was laughing hysterically. “What’s so funny?”

“I have been drunk for every bar fight I have ever been in.” I was rolling back and forth, sitting low in the seat as I laughed. It felt like it was a good joke, but she was not laughing at all. It made me feel horrible inside. I didn’t know why I cared that she didn’t seem to find it funny. I started to feel more sober and I sat up in my seat.

She wasn’t even looking at me. I was going to try and apologize when Hank fell right onto the floor of the limo. “He can’t be this drunk,” Sarah complained.

“It’s a little late for that,” Bobby said as he and Randy got in the car. We took off. The limo smelled of fresh vomit. The vomit that was all over Bobby’s back. I wanted to ask about it, but I had a feeling I already knew what happened. Randy was a sympathetic puker. If he heard you throw up, he had to join in. I realized that I should’ve gone out instead of him, but it was too late.

“How is this going to work?” Sarah asked as she shook her head. She was looking at all of us in turn. We all just shrugged.

“Well,” Randy started and then he thought for a second. “Well, I’m wearing two shirts, so Hank can have one of mine.

“Thanks Bro!” Hank yelled into the floor of the limo. I kind of felt touched by the whole situation. It was the comradery of the band. We always looked out for each other. “You can have my shirt,” Hank said as he threw his puke covered shirt at Randy. We all started to laugh, except for Sarah.

“You’ve got to relax,” Bobby said to Sarah. “This is a canned fight, we have the winners decided ahead of time. They literally can’t lose.”

“What if they all fall down before they get to the stunt men,” Sarah shot back.

“The stunt men will crawl underneath them, I will count to three and ring the bell,” Bobby shouted the last part and we all cheered. It was an inspiring speech as far as we were concerned. “And we will win the belt!”

“Yah!” Hank yelled into the floor. He was back face down on the floor. The shirt throwing had been a momentary burst of energy. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even speak. I was so ready to have fun, but for some reason every time Sarah looked at me disapprovingly it was killing my buzz. I was getting so angry, what right did she have to judge me?

“You hate me don’t you?” I heard myself shouting at her. She just stared at me for a long period of time. I became confused. “You hate that I am like this,” I wasn’t sure what I meant. I turned and I took another swig out of the champagne.

“I don’t hate you,” Sarah shot back. “I just wish you would bring this passion to the stage.” She was staring at me again, and I was having trouble looking in her eyes. “You don’t think you can be a lead singer, but I know you can, but that means nothing until you know it.” Sarah turned away from me.

“She’s mean,” Hank yelled up from the floor of the car. We rode the rest of the trip in silence. I didn’t know what to say, both to Sarah’s comments and Bobby’s shit eating grin. He thought that all of this was helping. I could tell just from the way he was looking at me. He was trying to provoke me into being a frontman and it was making me sick.

“You think you’ve done it don’t you?” I said to Bobby as we got out of the limo. He patted me on the shoulder and then led me into the club. I hated that he knew me so well. He didn’t even have to answer me. I knew what he was thinking and he knew what I was thinking. It was enraging.

The club was called the Strip, because it was on the strip. I hated the place, but I was glad to have the chance to destroy it. I was hoping to break a bunch of their cups, and pitchers. I hated the people who came here too. It was always the same crowd, even when the people were different the crowd was the same. It was people who wanted to get ahead in the industry. The more I thought about it, being sent here was kind of a step back, kind of an insult.

I glared around the room. There was nobody there that I didn’t want to hit. Everyone looked like they needed a foot broken off in their ass. “Everyone in here, I’m going to need more feet.” I said out loud, and then realized that everyone around me only heard that part. It must have been confusing, but I just kept staring forward. I was hoping that if I didn’t look embarrassed people would just assume that I meant to say it. “More feet!” I added just for emphasis.

 

Ch. 5 – Sarah

 

“Those aren’t the guys!” I yelled as I watched the band disappear into the crowd after a group of random guys they thought looked like stuntmen. In a way it was my fault. I had forgotten to bring the pictures, so how were they to know that the five Asian tourists standing by the bar weren’t the stuntmen?

I tried to run after them, but the crowd was closing in around them. People were trying to talk to the band and Bobby. This place was filled with the exact type of people that would recognize a band that hasn’t performed in years. They were hangers on, they were the exact people that I had promised myself I would never become. I wanted to make it without doing the whole club scene thing.

I guess it had worked in reverse, because I hadn’t made it and here I was in the club. I threw an elbow into an emo kid’s back and pretended I was falling. “Sorry, I just tripped.” I limped past, and then continued on my way. I was squeezing through the wall of people.

“You look like the stuntmen!” It was Hank. He was trying to pick a fight, but when I got up to the bar they weren’t talking to the polite looking tourists. They were talking to a group of bikers. It was always hard to tell in LA whether people were bikers or just into S&M, but these guys looked like the real deal. They were covered in tattoos, leather, and thick chains.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the biker with the longest beard said. He sounded polite and very rational and for a second I thought everything was going to be alright.

“Are we going to fight or what?” Randy said as he punched the older bearded biker in the face. The biker went stumbling backwards. All of the guys in the band were big guys, and they all looked like they could handle themselves in a fight, but they were way more intoxicated than the bikers and after the first haymaker they were clearly being outclassed.

Bobby went in swinging to try and save them, but he was too drunk, too old, and too fat. A young lean looking biker pushed Bobby, and the old manager’s momentum took care of the rest. I tried yelling and screaming, but no one was looking over. The older biker had Randy in a headlock, and Hank was being held by one biker and punched by another. Mikey was holding his own with the lean looking biker until a punch to the gut sent him puking to the floor.

I tried to get the guy off of him, but I was thrown to the ground. “Do you need a hand?” I looked up to see one of the stuntmen looking down at me.

“You have to save them and explain what happened to the bikers. Offer them free tickets for the whole gang.” I said as I tried to rush the stuntmen into the fight. “Come on,” I yelled, but the guys were already leaving. “We’ll double what we’re paying you!”

The stuntmen looked at each other and shrugged. Then they ran into help. I didn’t mention that I didn’t have the power to do that. I watched as they got into the mix and started trying to explain the situation. I decided I should go help with the negotiations. The whole thing was a waste if we didn’t get the right pictures.

“I need you guys to let them beat you up,” I said to the bikers who looked a little sceptical. I explained what had happened.

“I don’t think so lady,” the bearded man said. “I’ll let them go, but I don’t think they could even stand right now.”

“I’ll get you all backstage at the show,” I said as I waved around a mock-up of a backstage pass that I had in my purse. The bikers looked at each other. I knew that I had them.

“I’m fine!” Mikey said as he got to his feet. He was the first one standing so I got a picture of him pretending to punch the younger guy that he had been fighting with earlier. The photo looked so fake but it was the best we were going to get.

“Glad that’s over,” Bobby said as he straightened his suit. He had plaster from the wall he had crashed stuck in his hair. “You guys need to swing by, we’re having a party tonight at my house. I want you all to come.” Bobby had one arm around the old biker and the other around one of the stuntmen. He was just born for this type of work.

I on the other hand was out of breath and feeling completely exhausted. I was already ready for bed and it was only 6:30pm. I tried to get all of the guys moving, but Randy was completely unconscious. “Randy!” Hank shouted. “I think he’s ignoring me.”

Mikey explained to a clearly dazed Hank what was going on and I called an ambulance. Hank rode with Randy and I rode in a cab with Mikey to meet them at the hospital. Bobby said he was going to come, but in a different cab. I noticed right away that his cab headed off in a different direction at the first light. I got a text saying, ‘House is on fire.’ I didn’t believe him, but I knew I couldn’t call him on it.

“So, what was with those costumes?” Mikey asked. I was caught a little off guard, and I wasn’t sure how to answer. I knew that they were a sore spot, but I had really done a lot of research to get the drawings put together. “I mean the kilt? Come on.”

“You’re most popular tour was the ‘Left handed Monkey Wrench Tour’. It grossed $7 million higher than any other show you guys did. I just thought we could try to recapture that magic.” I was trying to look him in the eye, but I blushed when he looked right at me. I was trying to be professional.

“But you’re not taking into account that that tour was the next tour after the ‘Banging on the Walls Tour.’” Mikey looked at me like I should know what he was trying to say. “People knew who we were at that point. We had already been touring. Our fan base had grown by that point so we sold more tickets. They didn’t know about the kilt until after they bought the tickets.”

“Yes, but Travis’s kilt is an iconic symbol of the success of that tour,” I tried to defend my decision. It wasn’t like the kilt was the only design that I showed him. “Before people buy these tickets they will remember the kilt.”

“We aren’t the same band, I’m not Travis,” Mikey said. “If we’re going to work together you have to accept that fact.” There was a silence as we both digested that statement. “I do want to work with you.” He said and it caused an almost involuntary turn. I was now staring at him right in the eyes.

“I want to work with you too,” I said as I licked my lips, somewhat because they were dry. There was an awkward silence that fell between us, as we stared into each other’s eyes. I could feel an amazing energy radiating off of him, and I just wanted to grab a hold of it. We both started to lean in.

“$65.85,” the taxi driver yelled to get our attention. I was already blushing as I turned to handle the bill. Mikey jumped out and headed into the hospital to find the other guys. I was in behind him, but he was gone.

“They’re up on the third floor,” a voice came from behind me. “I was just hoping to get a quote.” It was a reporter, Jeff Dunn. He was with a sleazy magazine called Real Dirt, and they definitely lived up to the name. “What do you got for me? Come on, I saw you come in with Mikey.”

“I got a picture for you,” I said as I texted the picture to the slime ball. He was really surprised, but really he had just saved me a lot of time. I was going to have to set up interviews and talk to major outlets, but he was going to do all of that for me.

“Can I get a quote?”

“Might be Rock Hyenas won a bar fight right in front of me. They’re heroes.” I shook my head as I walked away. I was hoping that that part of the job was going to get easier. I had really racked my brain, and that was really the best quote that came out. I was just not good at dealing with the non-musical side of music.

 

Ch. 6 – Mikey

 

“I’m not Travis,” I said again as we talked about why I was so upset about the costumes. I was trying to stay calm and enjoy the party. After the club, and the trip to the hospital it was hard to get back into the rhythm. I was tired and I really just wanted to go home.

“I know you’re not Travis,” Randy said. He was feeling much better, but mainly because he was still drunk. He was likely going to miss rehearsal in the morning. I could tell that Hank was in rough shape too. He was bruised, but that was nothing new. The main thing was that he was drinking slower than usual.

“I think, if I may offer an opinion,” the large hairy, old biker said as he leaned in to our conversation. “You need to find your own identity. I don’t think that the Travis-style outfits would drive you as crazy if you could find an understanding of your own personal identity.” I was nodding along as he spoke. It made a lot of sense. I sat back and tried to think of what a Mikey outfit would look like. I had never really thought about it. The wardrobe people gave me stuff and I wore it because it didn’t matter and I didn’t care.

I had been an awkward teenager for most of our first run at fame. Now I was taller, stronger, and I had finally grown into the big chin. I was getting girls now without even mentioning that I was in a band. I was not the kid who had played all of those shows before.

The band had finished playing their set and they got off the stage. I hit Randy on the shoulder. “Do you feel up to playing?” I asked. Randy jumped up without a word. I waved over at Hank and he came running. I started to riff on the bass. I was playing a wicked solo. I was a much better player than I had been in years past. Travis had never let me have a bass solo, but I planned to add a few now that I was the frontman. I of course hadn’t told anyone that.

The long intro that I played got a lot of attention. People always went crazy for a bass solo. Especially in smaller settings like this, bass was an instrument that you feel with your whole body. It rumbles and it rumbles deep. I could feel the vibrations and it was only making the solo longer. This was the first time I had ever played a solo like this for the guys, or for anyone.

Randy seemed impressed and he started trying to play off of it. Hank came in with the back beat. It sounded great as we played. I didn’t try to sing, because we were making up the song and there were no words.  It really took the pressure off of me. I could just enjoy the song.

Randy took the lead for a few bars and then we alternated back and forth for a while. It ended up that we played one song for ten minutes straight. When it ended we had a bunch of people moving up to talk to us.

“I thought that was amazing, I got the whole thing on tape,” A man said right before asking for the rights to sell it. I was disgusted as he started talking about selling the song that wasn’t even really a song. It was a jam that might someday lead to song but it was not a song.

“Can you guys play that slower,” One man asked as he talked about a rapper that he represented. “He describes himself as a slow rapper. He raps about anything and everything, but he talks really slowly.” I tried to process that for a second, but then I gave up.

We were going to play another song, but we couldn’t get free enough to play. The stage was crowded by suits and hangers on. I looked over to Hank, and then Randy, they were both ready to pack it in. I left the stage and pushed through the suits. I saw Sarah walking to the door and I ran out after her. I just couldn’t let her leave, not yet anyway.

“I was hoping that you were still here,” I said as I made it over to her. “I wanted to apologize for yelling about the outfits. I just don’t know how to be a lead singer yet.” As I heard the words coming out of my mouth it sounded even sadder to me. I had been doing this my entire adult life, and yet, I was still unable to be comfortable on stage.

“That was really amazing what you guys just did up there,” Sarah said.

“But I wasn’t singing, that’s why it worked,” I explained. I had always been able to play. Even at our first show, back at 16 years old, I was able to make it through the shows. I really did love playing music, and I loved sharing my gift with the world. I just didn’t have the swagger of a lead singer. “I just need Travis to get back in the game.”

“Didn’t you guys try that?” Sarah asked. She had clearly done her homework. “And didn’t the three wasted guys I saw today leave the reunion tour, because of Travis’s drinking?” Sarah looked at me a little harshly. She didn’t understand what we had all been through with Travis’s drinking.

“It wasn’t like he had a few beers at a rehearsal,” I said as I tried to minimize our actions. I got a raised eyebrow from Sarah. “Okay, it was more than a few beers, but it was the rehearsal. We take the job seriously when we need to, and getting wasted is kinda part of the job.” Sarah was still looking pretty skeptical. “You’ll see, the day of the concert we will keep it under a six pack each, and no hard liquor. That’s on the wagon as far as rock stars are concerned.”

Sarah laughed. I loved hearing her laugh. I could feel it right in my chest as she laughed. I was looking at her, because it always made her blush. I wanted her to look up at me, but she was looking down. I took a step closer.

“Aren’t you missing the Bobby party,” Sarah asked. “Everyone keeps telling me how great they are, I would hate for you to waste your time talking to some nobody at a big bash like this.”

“I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything,” I said. Our eyes met and she smiled just a bit. I moved in and kissed her. I felt her hands come up to my cheeks as she kissed me back. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in close.

The moon was high in the sky, and reflecting off the pool that surrounded the big concrete fountain in Bobby’s back yard. As the door burst open and disturbed the serenity of the moment I grabbed Sarah’s hand and led her further into the yard. It was a group of about 4 guys walking out to the pool. I led Sarah to the back gate and we walked out to the road.

“Where are we headed?” Sarah asked. She didn’t seem upset, just curious as we were headed away from Bobby’s front door.

“I want to grab a coffee,” I said as I started to look for any signs of life in the quiet residential neighborhood. “I think we may need to call a cab.”

“Actually, there’s a great little shop that’s only four blocks away,” Sarah said as she pulled my hand in the direction of the shop. I followed her lead. It was a beautiful night for a walk under the moon light.

“So what made you guys decide to hit the road again?” Sarah asked as we walked along the perfectly smooth sidewalks. It almost looked as though they had never been walked on. They were way too clean.

“We, well I… I had to prove to myself that I could do it.” I admitted for the first time. “We made it last time because of Travis, and this time I wanted us to make it, because we were a great band. If you ask anyone about They Might be Rock Hyenas they can tell you about Travis and they know our biggest hit, which is?”

“Banging on the Walls,” Sarah answered dutifully.

“Exactly. This is our chance to make our mark.”

“You sound like a lead singer,” Sarah said with a smile. “I think that you’ll make your mark this time around.”

“I hope so.”

 

Ch. 7 – Sarah

 

We got to the coffee shop and I ordered a cappuccino, Mikey just ordered a coffee. He had told me to watch the expression on the barista’s face. It was amazing, the eyebrows went right up, and there was a sense of confusion all over his face. “Did you want to get a flavor shot with that?”

“No, I just want plan coffee,” Mikey said as I watched a smile trying to break through onto his face. The barista handed him the coffee like it was an explosive device and he just needed it out of his hand as quickly as possible.

“You don’t even put anything in it?” I was horrified. I had accidentally sipped a black coffee once and that was enough to scare me off of it forever. I never wanted to make that mistake again.

“I just like coffee,” Mikey laughed as he took a sip. “I like plain old boring coffee. I don’t know if I am the only one, but I know I’m the only one in LA, because I get that reaction everywhere I go.” Mikey took another sip of coffee and I shuddered as I watched it and thought about that horrible liquid burning its way down his throat.

We got seats by the window, even though there was nothing to look at outside. Our view of the strip mall on the other side of the road was only slightly obstructed by the SUV in the parking lot. “No it’s really romantic,” I joked. “The Jiffy Lube on the end makes it all kind of exotic.”

“Yeah, this is the rock star life style,” Mikey laughed. “Coffees at 9:30…whoa, what?”

“There was a lot that happened today,” I said as I thought about our trip to the club, the hospital, the party and now the coffee overlooking the Jiffy Lube. “I kind of thought you’d be used to it by now.”

“Yeah, you’d think, but I have no idea what I’m used to,” Mikey said as he took another long sip of his coffee. “This all feels brand new to me. It’s like the whole experience before was a part of a different life. Like that Mikey was killed off and now the new Mikey is doing this all for the first time.”

“I get it,” I said as I thought about my own journey to this point. I had completely given up on my old life. I hadn’t talked to Bobby about my band, or my songs, or anything like that since I started at the label. I had wanted to before I started, but I got sucked up in the culture of the corporation and I had forgotten about my own work.

“Yeah, I don’t know how you can take being a suit,” Mikey teased as I finished pouring my heart out. I scoffed, and felt a bit hurt, but he kept going. “I just mean to go from the creative side to the business side. It tends to steal your soul. Bobby is the only guy I’ve ever meet who made the transition seamlessly.”

I thought about Bobby and the way that he just seemed like such a natural agent. I couldn’t imagine him as a guitar player, but at the same time he did seem to be able to move between both worlds. He was loved by the talent and the suits. “I don’t think I could ever be like Bobby,” I admitted. “For me it is either or.”

“It’s a new role,” Mikey said thoughtfully. “You have to commit to it, or it won’t work.”

“So you’re going to be nice to me about it?” I asked, and Mikey wasn’t quite sure what I meant. “I heard you guys yelling about suits all day, and that’s what I am. I’m a suit now. I gave up on my dreams.”

“I’m being nice…”

“Because you want to sleep with me,” I cut Mikey off and watched the smile grow on his face. He was even blushing a bit.

“No…well, yes, but I’m being nice because I know what it’s like when you’re thrust into a new role.” Mikey looked out the window for a second. I knew that the rehearsal and the prospect of taking over as the lead singer was weighing on him. He turned back to meet my eyes. “And just remember that it’s never too late. You don’t have to give up on you dream just because your postponing it.”

We left the coffee shop and called for a cab. Mikey had asked the dispatcher to have the taxi meet us at the Jiffy Lube. As we walked over to the small mechanical shop I was seeing Mikey in a new light. I had already thought that he was hot, and I had seen the clashes of passion that he was capable of, but I was seeing him as a person. It had been a while since I had connected with anyone. I had barely dated while I was touring and I hadn’t had time for a relationship since starting my new job. I felt like I was getting to know Mikey.

“So why Mikey?” I asked as we got to the beach. He had taken off his shirt so that I had a place to sit in the cold sand. He was still trying to get settled. “Why not Mike, or Michael?”

“My name is Algernon Barton Michael Cavendish the third.” I tried so hard not to laugh, but Mikey ended that long name with a corny little bow, and it was all just too much. “My father goes by Bart, it’s kind of a family tradition. We give our kids insanely formal sounding names and then call them by goofy nicknames. We call my brother Bertie.”

“No way!” I was laughing so hard that I had to lay back in the sand to try and get more air into my lungs.

“Yeah, well his name is Rickard Bertram Dagwood Cavendish,” Mikey said as he laughed. He was looking out over the ocean, and I watched the thoughts passing behind his eyes. I was still laying down in the sand as he turned back. We didn’t say anything. I watched him lower his mouth down to mine.

I grabbed the back of his neck and he got on top of me. It felt good to have his pressure against me. My heart was racing as I ran my hands along his chiselled abs. His arms were tight as he held himself over me, and I could feel the muscles bulging out as he kissed down my neck.

The moonlight on the empty beach made it look like a bed of silver. Mikey pulled the shirt over my head and kissed down to my nipples. I bit my lip as I felt them harden under his touch. The wind coming off the water was making my skin extremely sensitive as goosebumps popped up all over my body. Every touch was giving me chills like a million sparks of pleasure bursting at once.

Started pulling off my pants, “No!” I yelled more forcefully than I meant to.

“I’m sorry, I just thought…”

“You were right,” I reassured him. “Just not here. I mean look at all this sand.”

“Is that all your worried about?” Mikey said as he picked me up and tossed my pants on top of his shirt.

“What are you doooo-mmmm,” I tried to ask as he slid inside of me. We were standing in the moonlight, in the middle of a public beach. I thought about asking to leave, but those thoughts left my head as Mikey started to thrust. I could feel him moving all the way in and all the way out with each stroke. “Ummm,” I moaned as I felt his girth stretching inside of me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and my face was pointed up to the sky. I could feel his entire body tensing and contracting as he grunted and moved. Each time the breeze moved across our bodies I shivered with excitement, and anticipation. I could feel release coming as he continued to thrust in and out. I had never felt an orgasm take control of my body like that. As Mikey began to shake and moan, my body was twitching and squirming. He was fighting to hold me in the air.

I got out of Mikey’s arms and walked like a baby giraffe taking its first steps. My legs couldn’t stop shaking. Mikey used our clothes to make a beach blanket and we collapsed on top of them. My heart was racing and I could feel Mikey’s heart beating through his chest. It was amazing to feel so connected to a person. I wrapped my arm over him and laid my head on his chest. I want to hear his heart for a little while longer. I no longer cared about the sand.

 

Ch. 8 – Mikey

 

I was up before the light even started to stream into the room. We had gotten back to her apartment very late, and jumped right into the shower. We made love in her bed before she fell asleep on my chest. That all seemed like an eternity ago, and not in a bad way. The whole night had felt cathartic. It was the first time in a long time that I had been myself around anyone. Sarah just seemed to bring it out of me.

The light of the rising sun had only reached my toe as it streamed into the room from a slit in the curtains, but my arm had fallen asleep hours before. I gently rolled Sarah’s head onto a pillow, and crawled out of bed. I made sure that I didn’t wake her. I went to her kitchen and started looking for food.

She lived like a single person who had a demanding job. There was nothing in the house, but I remembered seeing a grocery store on the way to the apartment. I was desperately hoping that it was open as I found my shirt and pants. I left my shoes and just ran out the door.

As the doors slid open I realised that this was some sort of health conscious nonsense food store. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to find. The whole place smelled of kale and hipster. I started walking cautiously through the aisles. I didn’t recognize any of it as food.

“I’m looking for human breakfast food,” I said to the clerk who was replenishing the unpasteurized blueberry preserve shelf. He looked at me with disgust painted all over his face and pointed at a small section of the aisle that seemed to have pancake mixes. I thanked him and I was pretty sure his handle bar mustache flipped me off, as he scoffed and moved one aisle over.

I walked back to the apartment with a package that I believed held sausages, a carton of eggs, a carton of milk, and the only box of buttermilk pancake mix in the whole store. I came in and closed the door and started to look for bowls and pans.

I stopped when I heard a whimpering coming from the bedroom. “What’s going on?”

“I thought you left,” Sarah said as she dried her eyes.

“You have no food in this house,” I complained. “And I went to that grocery store across the street, and now I know why you have no food in the house. Lay back down and relax, I’m going to make breakfast.”

I headed back to the kitchen. I mixed up the pancakes, and started frying the sausage. I was going to make eggs too, but I decided against it when I saw a book sitting on the table. I felt like a snoop, but the book had, ‘My Songs’ written across the front of it. I couldn’t resist. I flipped through the pages to the last entry in the book. I went back to flip the pancakes, but I held the notebook in one had to read as I cooked.

The song was called, ‘Being Human,’ and the lyrics dew me in right away:

Wearing a mask for the whole world to see,

Trying to find the pieces that make me,

Searchin’, runnin’, buyin’, consumin’

Is this all there is to being human?

 

The song was clearly newer. Sarah hadn’t worked out the musical arrangements, and she hadn’t sharpened the lyrics, as Travis called it. It was the first draft of a song, but it still hit me hard as I read through the verses.

 

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked. I hadn’t heard her coming out of the bedroom.

“I was just reading to help pass the time.” I said as Sarah came and grabbed the book and put it over on her coffee table. I got her a pancake and two of the sausages. They smelled like meat, but I wasn’t really sure how they were going to taste.

I sat down and watched Sarah as she tried not to ask what I thought of the songs. I could see that the suspense was killing her so I decided to let her off the hook. “I really liked your work.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Sarah said as she ate her pancake. I realized as I put the dry pancake in my mouth that I had forgotten a crucial ingredient to a good pancake breakfast. “This is good,” Sarah lied. Even the sausages were awful.

“It’s terrible,” I laughed. “I can’t believe I forgot syrup.” I took the plates away and I took Sarah’s hand. She was a little confused. “Let’s get dressed and get a proper breakfast.”

We ate breakfast at a great greasy spoon that we found as we headed toward the Ferringer. It was a classic dinner and it served a great breakfast. “This is a great dinner, but nothing beats the Billy Bob’s Gas & Dinner…”

“Off the I-75 in Florida!” Sarah shouted. “That’s my favorite…”

“Pulled pork sandwich,” we said at the same time. We sat over breakfast and swapped stories from the road. We had both toured the entire country by bus, so I guess it wasn’t that surprising that we knew the same places, but it was amazing how many favorite places, and foods we had in common. I was already starting to plan a country wide tour of greasy spoons in my head.

“Did you ever try the gator in Louisiana?” Sarah asked with a twinkle in her eyes. I nodded and I waited for her to describe it. I had a feeling that we had the same thoughts about it. It was like we shared a flavor palate. “It definitely doesn’t taste like chicken though.” She said as I paid the bill and we headed for the theater.

I got calls from Randy, Hank, and as we pulled into the parking lot, Bobby. “Just take the day off, I know everyone is tired after that bender,” Bobby moaned into the phone as he finished speaking. He had been holding it together pretty well up to that point.

“Don’t you mean you’re too hung over to come in?” I teased as I listened to what I thought was Bobby puking.

“I will be there in the afternoon if you want to swing by, but feel free to just relax,” Bobby was putting up a brave front, but I knew he was bluffing.

“Okay, see you then,” I said. I hung up the phone as Bobby groaned loudly into the other end. He was not happy about what I had said, but he would never actually said those words. “It looks like we’re on our own for a while.”

I led Sarah into the hall and got onto the stage. I grabbed an acoustic guitar that had been sitting idly backstage all week. Sarah had gone to the lowest balcony. It was eye level to the stage. She had brought her laptop, and briefcase, and she set up a little office in that balcony.

“What are you playing?” She asked as I started tooling around on the guitar.

“I’m just trying something,” I said without looking up from the guitar. I was humming the lyrics to myself as I organized the chords in my head. I was strumming along with the humming, and trying to find the right sounds.

“That sounds familiar, what album is it off of?” It was really driving Sarah crazy that she didn’t know what song I was playing. She was scratching her head and moving her head along to the strumming. I smiled at her. I walked as close as I could to the balcony while still staying on the stage.

I played a little intro, and then looked her in the eyes. “Wearing a mask for the whole world to see,” I sang and watched as the tears came to Sarah’s eyes. She was trying to control herself, and she kept trying to look away, but I was staring right at her. The redder she turned the more I stared into her beautiful green eyes.

She took a deep breath and fixed her shoulder length, blonde hair. She sat up a bit straighter in the chair. She had a perfect hourglass figure and her slightly misty eyes were breaking my heart as I sang her song to her. I jumped off the stage and sang to her up in the balcony from the floor. She looked down on me as I finished the song, and I jumped up to grab the railing along the edge of the balcony. I pulled myself up to her lips.

“That was perfect!” It was Bobby. “I can’t believe the difference!” Bobby was actually charging toward me as I dropped back to the floor. “I mean, there’s a lot to work on, but you’re coming a long way.” Bobby wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. I looked up to see Sarah laughing at me from the balcony.

 

Ch. 9 – Sarah

 

I watched Mikey as he pried himself out of Bobby’s embrace. Bobby was here much earlier than we had expected, but he seemed to be in a very good mood. I was scared to death when I heard his voice booming from the back of the room. I wasn’t sure what he would think of me and Mikey getting together, but he was still smiling.

It wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Bobby had a way of acting happy in front of the talent and then turning on his underlings. I was not coming down from the balcony until I knew for sure he was in a good mood. Let him come to me, I thought as I sat back and started typing again.

“So, you figured out how to bring out that passion,” Bobby said. I gasped when I realized that he was standing right over top of me. “That’s perfect, he might work out after all.” Bobby moved into the balcony and took a seat in the chair beside me.

“We just talked last night, made a connection,” I said. I wasn’t sure if Bobby believed me. His head was nodding, but he had what could only be described as a knowing grin on his face. I didn’t like it, it was way too intense of a look for a boss to give an employee.

“I admire your dedication,” Bobby said as he started pulling something out of the breast pocket of his sports coat. I was insulted, but Bobby pretended not to notice. “I need you to give Sid Glaxil a call, he represents Feed the Rich,” Bobby tossed the card at me. “The band just broke up, they haven’t even released the news yet, but their lead singer Johnny MacAbee wants to give the guys a tryout.”

“What do you mean?” I knew what he was saying. It was a stupid question that I regretted as soon as it came out. It made me sound so stupid, but what else could he mean? “I’m sorry, what I mean to say is, you’re not going to have Mikey stay on?”

“Of course, he’s the bass player, and an important part of the team, but we have a new opportunity here,” Bobby said as he stood up and started to walk out into the narrow hallway that connected the balconies. “Johnny MacAbee has more star power than Travis. He just needs a solid band behind him. Mikey will understand, he’s a big boy, now make the call.”

I picked up the card and grabbed my phone. I looked at them both together, and then separately. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the one to take this away from Mikey. Especially not after the way he played my song. He had what it takes to be a lead singer, and I wasn’t going to be the one to rip away his chance.

“What did you think?” I threw the card and the phone in the air as Mikey walked in and sat down next to me. “I mean, really what did you think? Bobby has been known to blow a little smoke every now and again.”

“I thought it was amazing,” I said as I thought about telling him, but I just knew that it would crush his spirit. Bobby’s opinion clearly meant a lot to Mikey, and I didn’t want to do anything to take away his confidence. I smiled and wrapped my arms around him.

“You touched me,” I said as I tried to find the right words. “Even before you actually touched me, I could feel that song coming right through to me. That was exactly what you needed to do. You were being a frontman.”

“I felt like a frontman,” Mikey said as he took a deep breath. He was staring up at the ceiling and just trying to feel the moment. I could tell what he was feeling. I had been in that place, where the performance felt like it was all coming together. I was so happy for him. I started looking back at the computer and then I heard Mikey rummaging around beside me.

“Why were you going to call Sid?” Mikey asked and my heart froze. Mikey grabbed my phone off the ground and handed the card and phone back to me. “Sid doesn’t even work for the same company.”

“We are looking for opening acts,” I lied. I could see that Mikey was going to question my authority on that area. It wasn’t really something that I had the power to do. “I am setting up a tryout.”

“Awesome,” Mikey said as he got up and took look around the theater. “Well, Sid is a good man to call. He represents a lot of great bands.” With that Mikey headed off to go and warm up and I was once again left alone. I looked at the card and then stuffed it into my pocket.

I tried to focus on working. I sat in the balcony and pretended to type, and then I got out a pad of paper and pretended to write things down. I got out my phone and called my friend Veronica. She had been the drummer of my band. She didn’t answer, but I had a long conversation with her voicemail, trying to sound official the whole time.

“I need you to run the numbers on single sales for They Might be Rock Hyenas, but focusing on digital sales in the last five years.” I was sure that Veronica was going to call the police or have me committed for this five minute long message that didn’t even make sense. At the same time I kind of wished that I could be there when she heard the message. I wanted to see the look on her face.

I had run out of things to pretend to do when Bobby waved me down from the balcony and brought me backstage. “The guys are all here and I have some news for everyone,” Bobby said with a smile. He watched my face fall. “Nothing to do with that, but I need you in here, because you’re heading up the marketing.” Bobby let me walk into the dressing room first.

Mikey walked right over to me and put his arm around me. He had clearly already told the other guys, because they didn’t even bat an eye. Randy and Hank both looked a little worse for wear, after the whole day of drinking. They had got the worst of the bar fight, and it showed in the bumps and bruises all over them.

“Okay guy, big news,” Bobby started out and then something about the look he gave me let me know what was about to happen. I just had a feeling. “Johnny MacAbee needs a band,” Bobby’s words took the wind out of the room. I felt Mikey tense up.

“So?” Hank asked. He was grimacing. I could tell that he didn’t think this was a good idea. Bobby looked from one guy to the next trying to find support for his news, but the guys didn’t seem to think that Johnny MacAbee mattered.

“Well, you guys are a band,” Bobby said as if he was clarifying his statement. “You guys are a band whose fifteen minutes of fame is not going to carry the sales beyond this concert. Working with Johnny gives you guys years of time to tour and play music.”

“You don’t know that, you never know how a product like this is going to take off.” Randy said. Hank was talking about what an ass Johnny was, but Mikey was quiet. He stood there and didn’t say a word.

“Well, guys it’s too late for this, Sarah here has setup a tryout for the band the day after the concert.”  Bobby lied, he had set me up. The whole thing had been a giant setup. “We can’t back out now, and I know this is going to be good for the band.” Bobby wrapped his knuckles on the island counter in front of him and walked out the door.

I could feel the disdain being directed at me. I didn’t need to look up. My head was buried, but it didn’t matter. I knew how they were looking at me. “So that’s the tryout?”

“No…”

“You didn’t…no I get it. It makes a lot of sense.” Mikey started walking away. “This is going to be a major coup for you. Congratulations, you have made the transition to full-fledged suit and it only took you a few months.” Mikey was gone, and he was mad. My legs were giving out, I was so upset. I looked at the other guys for a second, and I knew that they needed me to leave. I was no longer welcome in that room. I couldn’t believe that Bobby threw me under the bus like that.

 

Ch. 10 – Mikey

 

Drinking wasn’t the only thing I knew, but it was the only way I knew how to handle situations like this, and there always seemed to be booze around when I needed it. I had shut myself away in the smaller dressing room. The mini fridge had been restocked. I was on my third beer when the boys came to get me.

“Come on, we’re going to do this!” Hank said as he pulled me up off the couch and started walking me to the stage. I pushed back and grabbed another beer before we left. The guys grabbed one to. “We need to actually rehearse though,” Hank said as he pounded back the Bud.

We walked out to the stage and Sarah was standing right there in the middle of the hall. She walked up to me and started to say something, but I wasn’t ready to hear anything she had to say. “I need to rehearse and I can’t do that with you here.” I pointed to the door and I turned away. I didn’t want to watch her walk away.

I grabbed the bass. It was my practice bass, a G&L ASAT, hollow body with a Tobacco sunburst finish. I didn’t know the color’s names on many of my basses, but this one I bought for myself. I bought it after the cheques from our first tour started rolling in. I just loved how it felt in my hand. I had a bunch of practice instruments, but this is the one that I turned to when I was feeling low. Today I needed it.

“We are sounding great,” Randy said after we finished the first song. It really did sound good, but I knew that my vocals were the only real weak part of our performance. I was trying not to think about it, but the whole Johnny MacAbee thing was messing with me. I could hear his voice in my head. I had met him on five or six different occasions, and I kind of knew him. I really hated the idea of him taking over as singer. He was even more self-obsessed than Travis.

“You can do this,” Hank was trying to sound encouraging and I appreciated the effort, but it wasn’t helping. I felt like everyone was watching me, and judging me. I had brought a few bottles up to the stage and I did a few shots before we started into the next song. I figured I just wasn’t loose enough. If I could just get to a place where I could get past the things that were holding me back, I’d be all good. So I kept drinking.

“We are sounding strong,” Hank cheered as he tossed a drum stick in the air and caught it. He was getting really excited, but I just knew it wasn’t good enough. I had to beat Johnny, and that’s all that I was focused on, so I took another swig. If a few shots had helped how much better would a few swigs be.

My fingers were starting to get heavy and clumsy. I was pretty good at playing drunk, but a concert was different from rehearsal. The concerts were loud and crazy, and as long as you were close nobody cared. It was in rehearsal that people got nit-picky about everything. They were looking for the mistakes and they pointed them out to you.

“You’re way off the beat,” Hank said as he stopped playing. I could feel the deficit he was talking about, and it wasn’t as bad as he made it sound, but I knew I wasn’t on track. I took another swig and then started trying to play even before he got the sticks back in his hands. Hank rolled his eyes and started playing again. Randy gave me a little smile, he was trying to be supportive. Unfortunately, it was making me feel pathetic and I let go of the strings.

I took another swig. “You got relax on that stuff man,” Randy said as I took another drink. “Why can’t you just relax?”

“That’s easy for you to say, no one is trying to replace you,” I said as I sat down on a large speaker. I leaned back a bit too far and just barely caught myself. “Nobody’s complaining about your playing.”

“Nobody is replacing you,” Randy scoffed. “You’re always going to be the bass player, but you may not be the lead singer, but you’re a part of this band.” I waved my hand at him dismissively. ”Hey, man we’re out here for you. We want you to be our lead singer. Don’t get me wrong, but no matter what happens you’re our friend and you’re in the band.”

“Just relax,” Hank said as I took another swig. “Let’s pick this up tomorrow. Let’s just get you home.”

“I’m staying here, quitter!” I yelled for no reason. “I needed you to help me practice and you couldn’t even do that!” I walked off the stage and I headed to my small dressing room. I was waving suits out of the way all down the halls as I made my way off of the stage. There was three times as many suits walking through the halls today. It enraged me, because I knew that it was for Johnny.

“You need to stay out of my way!” I screamed at a young woman waving papers in my face. She had a pen and she was trying to get me to sign something about the confidentiality of the meeting with Johnny. He was a big star after all, and the label wouldn’t want to lose control of the flow of information. The pace of publicity was very important to the suits.

I closed the door. “The meeting is in three days,” The woman called out through the door. I didn’t respond and eventually she made her way down the hall. I could hear lots of people moving around and I was sure that some of them were here to get ready for the show, but just having so many was kind of stressful. It also brought home the fact that the tryout with Johnny was clearly more important than our concert.

I stared down at the bottle. It was Jack Daniels. I had always favored whiskey and it seemed like it was the perfect drink for my mood. I was angry drinking, and whiskey was good for that. “So it’s just you and me,” I said and then I looked over at the mini fridge. “And a few of our best buds.”

“I hear you aren’t taking this well,” Bobby said through the door. I got up to let him in. “I didn’t want to talk, but I figured I shouldn’t ruin my chances by annoying Bobby. He had enough clout at the label to get me kicked out of the band. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realised when Sarah brought me this deal that it was going to upset you.”

“I’m just trying to get myself into a good head space,” I said as I tried not to look Bobby in the eyes. “I’ve been struggling with the lead singer thing and I was finally getting it. I am feeling a bit betrayed.

“Hey, I haven’t betrayed you.” Bobby sounded a bit hurt. “I told you about the meeting as soon as I heard, and I am just trying to help the band make a much bigger profit. I am looking out for you guys, because that’s my job.”

“I know that Bobby,” I said as I went to the fridge and passed him a beer. I needed him to relax. I was stressed out, but I was still going to try and keep my position. “I just don’t like Johnny, and I know that I can do this.”

“Hey, I believe you, that’s not the problem,” Bobby sounded as sincere as he ever did. “This is a business. I know that people hate to think about that, but we’re trying to make money, and Johnny is a proven money maker.”

“But he’s a flake, and he eats wheat grass,” I was trying to think of the other horrible things that I hated about this guy. He was a first class douche, but at the same time it wouldn’t have mattered if he was the greatest guy in the world. We didn’t need a lead singer, we had one, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

I was starting to regret the decision to drink, but it was too late now. I took another long swig and continued to list the many things that I hated about Johnny.

“I hope you aren’t talking about me,” Johnny said as he walked into my tiny dressing room. It had never felt as crowded as it did now with the ego that had just entered. “I came to see you guys perform.”

 

Ch. 11 – Sarah

 

I was trying to process the hurt and betrayal. I wanted to stay and talk to Mikey, but when he asked me to leave, he had made a lot of sense. I was a distraction. The concert was two days away, and he needed to practice. I walked out of the hall and I found the closest ice cream parlor.

I felt so cliché whenever I did stuff like this. It was really the only thing that bothered me about it. I loved ice cream, it made me feel better. The only thing that was missing was my friends, but I had driven all of them away when I started working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“A triple scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip,” I said to the large hairy man in the stained wife-beater. He was wearing a white paper hat on his bald head, to keep the hair out of the ice cream I guess, but there was nothing blocking his long body hair from falling into the vats. I thought about it for a second, but I just needed ice cream.

I sat down at a picnic table outside of the store and I watched the people pass. There was a many in a skirt with a full beard and lipstick. There was a tall thin man offering to show people a card trick. This was the best part about LA, even in the middle of the day the city offered distractions. I ate my ice cream as I watched different groups reacting to the man’s offer of a card trick. No one wanted any part of the creepy man’s offer, but he kept going from one person to the next.

“Hello, Sarah Polly, Frenzied Records,” I had answered the phone and said my name and label that I worked for without even realising it. As soon as I finished that I was surprised to realise that I was on the phone.

“Hey, it’s Veronica,” my old drummer said and scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t expecting to hear from her, but I had really wanted to talk to her. How had she known to call me? “That was a crazy message you left me the other day. I just wanted to check and make sure everything was okay.” I didn’t respond right away. I was still trying to get my head around everything. “Is it okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” I laughed. “Well, no actually.” I had been trying to play it cool, but Veronica was the kind of person who always saw through that kind of stuff. She was always straightforward with people and she knew when people were trying to hide their real feelings. “I was just used as a pawn, and I feel like an idiot.”

“Well, you’ve always been a little naïve,” Veronica said matter-of-factly. I was a little hurt but I knew that it was true. I also knew that I was in a cut throat business. I had to be tougher than this if I was going to survive. “So, tell me what happened.”

I told Veronica the whole story. The beach sex, the fake/real brawl, and the new lead singer. She was a great listener, but I knew that she was going to give me her honest opinion at the end. I knew that I needed to hear it, but I was also scared to death of what she was going to tell me. “So what do I do?”

“Depends, are you eating mint ice cream right now?” Veronica asked. She knew me too well. I had scales of depression and different ice creams to rate the level of pain, and the feelings that I had for the man in question. Mint was the highest level, and I hadn’t even thought about it. It had been so long since I had had a boyfriend that I hadn’t thought about the system in a long time. When I got to the ice cream parlor, Mint Chocolate Chip had been the only flavor that I had even considered.

“Well, if he’s Mint Chocolate Chip then he’s worth fighting for,” Veronica said. I could hear her moving around her kitchen. She was just making her breakfast now. She was still living the same way we had been when I lived there with her. I had had to move out when I got a job. The whole band had been renting a house together, and they all partied too hard for me to ever get any sleep.

“How is everyone?” I asked. I was feeling all nostalgic. I just needed to hear about their lives. I needed to know that they were all doing well.

“Come and see for yourself,” Veronica laughed. “I get that you have a job now, but don’t feel like you have to stay away. You can come here any time.”

“And Tiffany feels the same way?” I asked. The silence on the other end of the phone was all the answer I needed. “What about Gwen?” Tiffany was lead guitar and Gwen played bass. They had been really supportive of the new job, but they thought that I was going to keep playing with the band. They also thought that I would use the new money to finance the band. I got mad but I could’ve handled it better.

“We’re all, for the most part, over it.” Veronica was lying. The words sounded so weird in her mouth as she tried to convince me of something that she clearly didn’t believe. “We all want to see you.”

“Well, maybe,” I said as I looked at my phone. It was Bobby. “I have to go, work is calling.” I hung up without waiting for a response. “Yes,” I said as I tried to keep all of the emotion out of my voice. I didn’t want Bobby to know how badly I had been hurt. I was in a cut throat business and I had to get tougher quick or he was going to pull stuff like this all the time.

“I’m sorry about that, but you had to take the fall and I hope you understand,” Bobby said with an apologetic tone, and yet a complete lack of words like ‘sorry’ or ‘I apologize.’ “I will be moving you to another assignment soon so that you don’t have to deal with any of the fallout, but I need you at the hall right now. Johnny MacAbee is here and I need you to take care of him.”

I agreed to come back. I realized that Bobby was my boss, and that I had a job to do. I was going to remember this lesson though, and someday I would find a chance to get Bobby back. It was a horrible thought, as Bobby had been my mentor ever since I joined the company. I idolized that stupid fat man and he betrayed me.

I was much more upset that he had got in between me and Mikey, but I was still upset about losing my mentor. I ate my ice cream as I walked back to the Ferringer. I was going to help, but I was not running back there like a little dog. I decided that I had to make it back to the old house too. I had to patch it up with the girls. They had been my best friends for too long and I wasn't about to let anything get in the way of that, at least not anymore. I was so mad at myself for letting this job get between us in the first place.

I could see the old concert hall in the distance and I felt a pang in my heart. I was going to have to avoid Mikey, I knew that it wasn't fair to him to be there when he had asked me to leave. Veronica was right, I needed to fight for him, but after the concert. I slipped in the back door and started moving around cautiously backstage. I couldn't hear any music, so I knew everyone was back here. I used a pair of interns Chad and Michael as shields to walk me through the halls.

"Why are we doing this again?" Chad asked.

"I pissed off the band, but Bobby asked me here to babysit Johnny MacAbee," I explained for the third time. The interns were much better at running for coffee than they were at understanding complex emotional problems.

“Okay, but why are you hiding behind us?” I hit the back of Chad’s head. I was done with using my words. I didn’t need to hear him whining while I was trying to sneak through the concert hall.

“You just need to help me, and then maybe sometime I can pay you back,” I said as I looked between their shoulders. We had already been through most of the backstage area. There was only one place that Johnny could be, and I knew that I was going to have to talk to the band.

 

Ch. 12 – Mikey

 

“Ahh! Here she is,” Bobby yelled as stood in the doorway to my tiny dressing room. He had had to move over to let Johnny come and sit on the couch. Johnny had been talking my ear off, and the only thing that I thought could be more painful was if the person that Bobby meant by ‘she’ was the she I didn’t want to see.

I thought that I had made a connection. I thought that she cared about me. She had basically taught me how to be a lead singer in the space of a day. I felt like I owed her so much, and then she ripped it all away from me. It didn’t make any sense. The worst part was there was no excuse she could use. Sarah was in a band, she was a songwriter, she understood everything about the betrayal that she had perpetrated.

“This is Sarah,” Bobby said with a smile that was ripping my guts out. “She’s going places in this business and she is going to see that you have a great time today, right Sarah?”

She walked into the room and I could see the forced smile on her face. That wasn’t the real smile. I was glad to see that she was in pain too. I was trying to control myself, but I was not completely in control yet. I was still quite drunk, and so I was staring angrily in her direction.

“Well, let’s get to the studio,” Sarah said. She was ready to leave. Johnny was about to protest, but she didn’t even let him speak. “I thought it might be good to get in a brainstorming session and try to get some new songs written.”

“That sounds like an amazing idea,” Johnny said as he put his arm around Sarah and led her out of the room. I had known Johnny for long enough to know that he threw his arm around lots of people, it didn’t mean that seeing him do that didn’t take the piss out of me. I was sober instantly.

“Let’s rehearse!” I called into the big dressing room and I headed out to the stage. I heard the guys scrambling out of the room. I could hear Bobby laughing. He was enjoying all of this way too much. I glared back at him and he just shrugged as he kept laughing.

“We can quit any time man,” Hank said as he rubbed his arm. We had been playing the same song for the last hour. “I think I’m going to be playing ‘Blue Streak’ in my sleep tonight.” It had always been my favorite song that we performed. Many people thought it was a love ballad, but it was actually about lighting our farts. We had started performing together as teenagers, what else would we write about?

“I just want to have it perfect,” I said as I took another swig. The alcohol wasn’t touching me anymore. I had been drinking ever since they left, and each drop seemed to only make me even more sober. I was too worked up for the liquor to have any effect. I set down the bottle and started playing the song again.

“We need sleep,” Randy said as he set his guitar back on the rack and headed off the stage. Hank followed. I kept playing, I wasn’t done. I was staring at the bass and the strings. I was trying to feel every note as it passed through me. I broke into a crazy bass solo. I was jumping and moving around the stage. I spun and kicked in the air.

I didn’t normally get too crazy on stage, but I was feeling like getting wild tonight. I kicked over the drums and sent the mic stand flying. I knocked over a couple of speakers as I continued to dance and spin around the stage. I was feeling so good.

“You need to get up,” Sarah’s voice seemed to cut through the fog. I felt her hands as she got the bass off of me. She helped me up onto my feet. “I can’t actually carry you, so I need you to walk with me, but I’m going to help okay?” Sarah threw my arm around her shoulders and we moved off the stage.

“Why did you do that?” I asked as I wiped some drool off my mouth. I had no idea what time it was, or what had happened to me, but I knew that Sarah had come back to check on me. I knew that she cared. So why did she do that to me?

“I didn’t do anything,” Sarah said, “I should’ve told you about why I had the card, but I hadn’t called Sid. Bobby set the whole thing up and then blamed me. He needed a fall guy, and so he threw me under the bus.”

“That’s not what he said,” was the only thing that my brain could come up with. I had never known Bobby to lie. Although the same could be said for Sarah. I had known Bobby a lot longer. I was torn as she laid me down on the couch. “Where am I?” I asked as I felt my own couch underneath me. I had thought that I was still at the Ferringer.

“We’re at your apartment,” Sarah said as she got me a blanket.

“Where’s my bass?” I asked. I needed to know that she was okay. I had had that bass for too long to leave it lying about.             

“It’s on the stage, in a pile of speakers and drums,” Sarah said as she kissed the top of my head. “I have to go and try and clean that up, and then I am going to work.”

“I’ll see you there,” I said as I rolled over and started melting into the couch. I could feel the sleep reclaiming my body.

“I’ve been reassigned,” Sarah said. It jarred me out of sleep, but when I realised what had happened she was already out the door. I got up and ran to the door. She was already gone. My head was spinning. I ran to the sink and started drinking water. I got out two Advil, two Tylenol and a jug of orange juice. I jugged it all at the same time.

I was trying to understand what had just happened. I had been setup by Bobby. As soon as Sarah told me what had happened and that she had been reassigned I knew that it was Bobby. He had done this many times, but never to me. His schemes had always focused on Travis before. Now he was pulling this crap on me. I needed to talk to Bobby, but I needed help.

“Sucks to be on this end of it doesn’t it,” Travis said. I had called him as soon as the light started coming in through the window. “I was lucky, I never really cared about any of those girls, but if you do, you have to tell Bobby that he went too far.”

“I can’t though, I’m not you.” I admitted. I hated to say it, but it was true. I wasn’t in the same position as Travis. I didn’t write the songs. I didn’t play lead guitar. Up until very recently I was just the bass player. “They already want to replace me.”

“There is no way in hell they want to replace you.” Travis seemed even more incensed by this than I was. “Johnny is never going to be the lead singer of this band. He pees sitting down, and he wears eyeliner!”

“I know that’s what’ve been trying to tell everyone,” I said as I thought about all of the things that I had been saying about Johnny. “There’s no way that he can be our frontman, he eats pizza with a knife and fork, and he wears perfume.”

“You just need to show them that you can do this,” Travis sounded really sincere. “As soon as you guys said you wanted to try going out again, I knew that you wanted to be the lead singer. You were nervous about it, but I could tell you wanted it. Just remember that you want to do this. I think you’re going to nail it.”

I hung up with Travis and went back to the couch. I sat down and put my head back. I wanted to just relax, but I was going to have to deal with Bobby and Johnny today. I was going to need to have a good breakfast. I got in the car and headed over to the greasy spoon that Sarah and I had gone to the day before. I needed grease and coffee, I knew that would give me the strength to face the day.

 

Ch. 13 – Sarah

 

“Ahhh! Whoa, what?” I was freaked out by a tapping on my car window.

“Are you okay ma’am?” The police officer was standing outside of my car. “Were you here all night?” The officer was nearly seven feet tall and I had to strain to look up into his face. His dark skin seemed to shine in the early morning light. I was sure he was going to drag me in. I wasn’t drunk, but I was so tired I knew that I had to seem drunk.

“I wasn’t anywhere all night,” I said as I thought about my night. After leaving the Ferringer with Johnny I had gone to the studio to try and do some writing.

“I am really feeling this,” Johnny said as he started twinkling the keys of the piano in the middle of the studio. I had gotten a few notebooks out and my laptop was set up. I was never sure what format my ideas would go toward. Sometimes I needed the laptop in front of me, and I actually sang the words into it. Other times I had to write out the songs word by word.

Johnny had been no help whatsoever. “How do you normally write?”

“I don’t do anything normal,” Johnny had answered, and I had to fight the urge to hit him. It was just such a fake answer. Everything about the guy was so funny that I wanted to puke every time he spoke. “I am just going to hit these keys until a song hits me.”

I watched him twinkle the keys for two hours and we wrote nothing at all. He didn’t even open his eyes once in that entire time. “Well, how do you feel? I mean about the breakup?” I asked as I was just done watching him play the piano nonsensically. If he had only been playing the keys in some sort of pattern I could’ve handled it, but he was just hitting random notes continuously.

“I am feeling fine,” Johnny laughed. “I have known those guys for a long time, but at the same time they are jealous of my talent and I am just done with this nonsense. I am better at music than they are, that’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t think we have a hit song there,” I said mainly to myself. “So how long does this piano playing usually take when you need to write a song?”

“I don’t know I’ve never tried it, but I can tell you I feel something coming on.” Johnny suddenly got really focused. He played three notes, A, C, and G. “What do you think?”

“Yeah, great,” I said. Really it was nothing, but I was happy that he seemed to think we were making progress. “So what’s next?”

“Well, I think it’s about love,” Johnny went and grabbed a note book. I could see his hands moving, but I couldn’t tell what was going on. He was moving really fast. “I think I have it, here.” He tossed me the book. I looked down to see the notes written out over top of a drawing of a heart and the word Love. “Now, just workout the words and I think we have another hit.”

I dropped the notebook and went out of the studio. Johnny followed me. I was supposed to babysit him after all. “Are you going to write it later?” Johnny asked as we headed out to my car. I didn’t answer, but he got in my car anyway. He seemed happy to come along, and didn’t pick up at all that I was completely annoyed by everything about him. I slammed my head on the steering wheel and then I had an idea.

My old house was only twenty minutes from the studio. We headed off for the house. I thought bringing Johnny MacAbee would be a good olive branch. Until they got to know him of course, but by that time I would’ve made up with them. So we got to their house at 6pm and the beginnings of a house party were already starting to form as I arrived.

It had always been a party house, but since the band had stopped touring the parties had been non-stop. Gwen told me that she didn’t even walk into her own room anymore without pepper spray at the ready. “So why do you stay here?” I asked her.

“I love the girls, I love the band, we’re young we should be partying, right?” Gwen said as she passed me another beer. Everyone had been so distracted by Johnny that they didn’t notice that I wasn’t drinking. It felt so good to be around the girls, but I wanted to get back to Mikey as soon as possible.

“Would you come and play with us again?” Gwen asked a she watched Tiffany making out with Johnny.

“I think I need to, but you guys got to cut me some slack,” I said as I thought about everything that I had been through in the last couple of months. Sometimes I am going to put my job first, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you guys.”

“I know, it was a lot of stuff though,” Gwen sighed. “Jealousy, anger, you moved on and we, we’re still here.”

“I miss you guys though,” I said as I watched Johnny taking Tiffany up the stairs.

“Not my room!” Gwen yelled. She turned back to me. “You’re welcome here any time, and you always will be. Just don’t stay away like that anymore.”

I Nodded to Gwen and then looked at the time. It was 11:30pm and I needed to find Mikey and tell him what happened. I had given him his space. He had hopefully cooled off, and now it was time to tell him the truth.

It was after midnight by the time I got to the Ferringer. I couldn’t find anybody at first, but it looked like vandals had gotten inside. I started cleaning things up a bit and I found Mikey under a pile of drums and speakers. He still had his favorite bass strapped around him.

I tried to get him moving, but he was so drunk that he wasn’t even responding to anything. I took the bass off of him, and hit him in the stomach. I beat him pretty hard in the stomach and face, but it was like he was dead. If he hadn’t been breathing I would’ve given up completely. So I stuck my hand in his pants and I pinched his balls…”

“Ma’am, why are you telling me this,” the officer asked as I started acting out the ball pinch with my hands.

“I just wanted you to know what happened last night,” I explained as I continued on with my story. I left out the other pinches that I used to get Mikey’s attention. “And anyways, I finally got him to his feet.”

He was so out of it he didn’t even notice that I drove him home. Luckily he had his keys on him, and he lived at the address on his licence still. It wasn’t all that common with the people that I worked with. Rock stars are a highly transient population. I carried him into the house and got him comfy on the couch.

I headed back to the Ferringer once I was sure he was okay and I started cleaning up. It was a pain, but I made it look like nothing was broken or destroyed. Then I organized his dressing room again. Mikey’s stuff was everywhere, by the time I was done it was 5 am and I drove to the studio parking lot and fell asleep while I waited for the studio to open at 9am.

“A simple, no would have sufficed,” the officer said as he shook his head, “So you are about to go to work in this building?”

“Yes,” I said. It felt good to tell the officer everything. I felt so good about getting it all off my chest. The night had been a real mixed bag of good and bad. It had hurt to see what all of this had done to Mikey. He was destroyed, and I wasn’t even sure that he would remember that I was at his house or that I pulled him off the stage.

“Before you leave, what time is it?” I asked the officer.

“It’s 8:13am ma’am,” the officer put a finger to the rim of his cap and then started to walk away. I thought about it for a minute, and then I realized that I had time.

“Alright, could I put in a wakeup call for 9:30?” I called out and the officer turned and grimaced at me. “Please, please, please!” I begged, and the officer shrugged.

“Fine, but this is a one-time deal,” he said as he stepped a bit closer. Don’t make this a habit.

“Of course not, thank you officer…” I tried to read his name tag, but it was too far away.

“Sexton,” he said as he waved and headed back to his patrol car.

 

Ch. 14 –Mikey

 

I got to the Ferringer and I felt good. I was whistling as I came in the door and I walked right to the backstage dressing rooms. I needed to get there and prepare myself for meeting Bobby and Johnny. I was going to have words with Bobby and I was going to destroy Johnny. I needed to get myself psyched up.

“Yeah we had a great time,” I heard Johnny say as I approached my dressing room. He and Bobby were in my dressing room. “Sarah is a great girl. We wrote a hit song. I mean it isn’t there yet, but it’s so good.”

“She knows how to draw out the best in our creatives,” Bobby said in his sleaziest voice. I wasn’t sure if it actually sounded that sleazy or I was just hearing it that way because I was mad at him. “She has really helped Mikey develop as a singer.”

“That’s great, I love having a good backup singer,” Johnny said, and I fought to not charge through the door. I was getting so worked up. I was never going to backup that asshole. I started walking away and then he mentioned her name. “Sarah was a lot of fun. She took me to a classic house party, it was so epic, and we had a blast. I got laid,” Johnny’s words were too much.

I stormed away, and headed for the other dressing room. I didn’t want to see either one of those guys ever again. I had heard Johnny continue to talk, but I was just done listening to him. His voice was like nails on a chalkboard. I just needed him to leave the building.

“What are you up to?” Hank said as I walked in and started pouring a beer into a glass.

“Homicide possibly,” I said as I drank my beer. It was something I always did when I started drinking in the morning. It was from my ultra-waspy upbringing. If you wanted to do something that was frowned on, like drinking in the morning, you had to class it up a bit to make it acceptable.

“Well, I think you should relax,” Randy said as he tried to take the glass away. I blocked his hand and then pounded the rest of the glass. “We need to rest up, the concert is tomorrow.” Randy tried to get in my way as I moved toward the fridge.

“Well, if I can’t drink then I need to play,” I said as I left the room. The guys actually sounded excited about it as they followed me out to the stage. I started into ‘Banging on the Walls,’ and everything was just clicking. We were gelling. I had found the right register to start my voice in so that Randy could back me up properly. It was actually easy as soon as I started going.

I saw my phone sitting over on the speaker. It was her face. She was glowing on the speaker. I ignored the call, but I put the pain right into my performance. I could feel the emotion flowing through me. I screamed the last words and held them for longer than I even thought I could. It felt great when I finished and I was out of breath.

“That was amazing,” Johnny said as he clapped from the pit. He was standing right in front of me and I hadn’t even noticed him. “That’s the best version of that song that I’ve ever heard and I’ve heard a million versions. I don’t need an audition to know that you guys are the band for me.”

I jumped off the stage and landed in front of Johnny who thought I was about to hug him. He held his arms out and I threw a haymaker into his nose. I grabbed his collar as his arms dropped and I held him in place as I brought down right hands on his face five times. Hank got in my way and Randy wrapped his arms around me.

“You’ve gone crazy,” Randy said as he pulled me away. I struggled for a minute, but then I let him pull me back toward the stage. “Are you okay?”

“This is our band and I am willing to fight for it,” I said as I got myself free and started walking backstage.

“Intense,” I heard Johnny saying as Hank got him up on his feet.

I walked back toward the big dressing room. I was done with the other dressing room. I was going to leave that space for Johnny, and douche bags like him. I needed to be with my boys. I need to be me.

“I’m sorry about Johnny,” I said as I heard Bobby come into the room.

“Johnny who?” He said with a laugh. “You’re sounding tip top out there, so I don’t think anybody cares about Johnny. We’ll find a place for him somewhere, but he’s already heading back to the studio. I told him we’d offer him a solo project.”

“Good,” I said as I poured another beer into a glass.

“I think Sarah is going to be assigned to him,” Bobby said as he grabbed a seat at the island counter. “So it worked out good for everyone.”

My heart sank, it was the last thing that I wanted to hear. I wanted him as far away from Sarah as humanly possible. Even if I wasn’t talking to her, I didn’t want him talking to her either. “I am seeing big things,” Bobby said as he kept talking about my singing. All I could see was that slime ball with his hands all over my girl.

That was the problem though, she was not my girl, and I wasn’t sure how much of what happened was real, and how much was her wanting to get the most out of creatives. She had obviously done stuff like this before to impress Bobby like that. I was so torn. I wanted to go confront her, but there was a ton of stuff to do today.

The first stop was a local radio station. “We are hear with 3 quarter of They Might be Rock Hyenas,” the DJ said as he busily swapped out CDs and organized a playlist on his computer. He wasn’t even looking over at us as he asked all of the standard questions about our musical influences, and what we were trying to say with our music?

“Well, kip,” I was getting bored and tired, “I think that our music is really about alien abduction.”

“Uh-huh,” Kip didn’t bat an eyelash. He agreed with me without looking up. “I’ve always noticed that.”

“Yeah, when I went up in the space ship they told me it was fine,” I explained as I watched the DJ nod. “They said tell the world our message, and that is to Rock out, with our big alien cocks out.”

“A positive message for the kids,” Kip said. Hank was doubled over and Randy was having trouble breathing. We were ushered out of there by security. The DJ hadn’t been listening, but the producers had been listening and they didn’t appreciate it. Bobby smoothed everything over later in the day, but it took a lot of free tickets.

“Don’t worry,” Bobby said when I tried to apologize to him. “That was cool, people will be listening to the other interviews just because of that.” Bobby was having way too much fun. I wanted him to suffer. Every time I saw him I thought about how he got between me and Sarah. Even if she was just faking to get results out of me. It hurt that she was gone.

“I don’t want to do many more interviews,” I said as I watched Bobby scrolling through the appointments in his phone. He definitely had a lot of press lined up for the day. We had been doing a few interviews here and there, before the rehearsals started, but today was a blitz.

“Don’t worry, we only have 5 more radio interviews and a TV show to do, so you’re almost in the clear.” Bobby patted me on the back and helped me into the limo. He was keeping the smile on his face no matter what today.

“I am not going to keep being your trained monkey,” I said. The bluntness caught Bobby off guard. “I know that you brought in Sarah and Johnny just to screw with me. I know that I helped when you used to pull this stuff on Travis, but I am not Travis, and I am not going to put up with this, okay?

“I’m glad you’re being honest with me,” Bobby said as he started passing out champagne. “Honesty is the key to a great manager/client relationship.”

 

Ch. 15 – Sarah

 

“I need you in my life,” Mikey whispered into my ear, as our sweaty naked bodies lay intertwined on the beach. The moonlight was streaming down on us. I felt warm all over my body as I just enjoyed the sensation of lying beside the man I loved.

Mikey laid me down gently on my back and started kissing my neck. I just let the chills sweep over me, and then Mikey suddenly propped himself up and started knocking on my face. “Ma’am! Ma’am!”

“What?”  I said as I rolled down my window.

“Time to wake up,” Officer Sexton said as he started walking back to his cruiser.

“Thank you,” I called after him as I got herself ready to face the day. I didn’t know who my assignment was yet, but I was hoping that it was going to go a bit smoother than my last trip to the studio.

“His name is Kaosopher?” I asked as I was handed a folder. It was all of the notes from the last producer that had worked with him. I was not a producer yet. I thought maybe one day, but today I was just a songwriter. As a songwriter I was going to need to understand the style of each artist that I worked with, and so far I didn’t even understand the name.

“Yeah he is a philosopher of chaos,” the secretary said with the same blank expression that she used when saying anything. I had never even learned the woman’s name. The secretary was not a friendly person, but I felt bad about not knowing her name. I felt like I should, but there was something so soul sucking about the way the woman talked that it acted as a repellent for me.

“I get it now, thank you,” I said as she headed to the studio. I was glad to be back doing song writing. I was much more comfortable with this part of the business. I had to rely on facts and figures for everything else. I didn’t understand marketing and promotions, I didn’t even really know much about fashion and costume design. I knew the stats on costumes that worked in the past.

Song writing I understood. It was a process that I naturally enjoyed and that I had been doing for a long time. When Bobby brought me on he had split my duties pretty evenly between the two sides and I was learning a lot about the business. I appreciated both opportunities. I just liked this side of things more. I sat in the studio and listened to the last album from Kaosopher.

“Geographer, photographer, nah, I’m Kaosopher,” The song started, before there was even any music. “If I see your chick I bus’ a nut in her!”

“Oh God,” I thought to myself as the song started to play. I was sick to my stomach and I was less than a minute in. The song that followed seemed to be about losing his favorite pet, but also about fucking the cashier that sold him the hamster in the first time.

“Oh yeah, that’s it,” it was Kaosopher. I recognized him from the cover of the album. “Start it over, I want to hear the album from the beginning!” The rapper yelled as he jumped into the chair beside me. He was a redhead with corn rows. Kaosopher stretched out his big frame in the chair and nodded along with his own music. I was horrified as I listened to the lyrics, even on the second time round.

“So what do you think?” Kaosopher asked as the final track ended. I had just spent 40 minutes trying not to vomit, but I was pretty sure that that wasn’t the answer he was looking for here.

“Well, for starters, are there any women in the world that you like?” I asked as I tried to search for a point of commonality. I had no idea how I was going to make this work. I found myself wondering if this had been a move by Bobby. He was trying to get rid of me so he assigned me to the world’s worst misogynist.

“Yeah, I love Rosa Parks,” Kaosopher actually looked very thoughtful as he talked about Rosa and her struggles. “So I was thinking like a song in her honor. Like ‘Let’s Screw in the Front of the Bus,’ or something, you know? Really get across that I respect her and everything that she did for the civil rights movement.”

“That’s a starting point,” I said as I got out a notebook. It was a horrible idea, but it was such a huge leap forward that I had to give him credit for it. I was going to need to tweak it a bit, but that was a good start.

“Yeah, I also been working on a song where I compare Mother Theresa’s face to a towel I used to masturbate into,” Kaosopher said it as if that was a fine idea.

“You know she’s a saint now,” I said just to see if that made any difference.

“Yeah, I worked that in,” Kaosopher got ready to rap, and I nearly ran from the room. I wanted to be anywhere else. “Semen dropping into the face of the sainted mother, more spilled in that towel, than in any other!”

“Perfect,” I said as I tried not to choke on the words. “I mean, that sounds like you’re almost there. You just have to take that energy and put it into something, much nicer to women. What if you had a line about how she fed the poor?”

“Like, She feeding the poor, passin’ out mad stacks, But y’all didn’t know she a freak in the sack.” Kaosopher seemed so proud of himself, and the lyrics had mentioned the poor. I felt like it was a win. We kept working until lunch and then I was called away by the cold receptionist.

“You’re going to be working with Johnny MacAbee, on his solo album,” the secretary actually sounded excited. I was surprised to hear the slight emotion coming out of her. “You have to wrap things up with the king of ginger rappers over there and he will be here in an hour.”

I was excited for two reasons. The first was that I was done dealing with Kaosopher. That could not have come soon enough. The second reason was that Johnny being sent here to work on a solo album mean that he was not going to be touring with Might be Rock Hyenas. Mikey had found a way to become a lead singer. I was so excited I grabbed my phone and called him.

It was the second call of the day that he hadn’t answered. I was hoping that he had just forgotten his phone, but then I really expected that he didn’t remember the night before at all, and he didn’t forgive me. I was so upset, but I had to go tell the news to Kaosopher.

“You’re crying?” The redheaded rapper was so touched. He threw his giant freckled arm around me to try and comfort me. “It’s okay, I will continue to request you. You’ve done an amazing job so far and I want to make sure that credit goes where it is due.”

I immediately regretted not waiting until I had stopped crying. It seemed like a no brainer now, but it was too late. I was going to have to work on this horrible and sexist album, and he was going to put my name all over it. I couldn’t wait.

I started to get the studio ready for Johnny. I was hoping that Johnny would take his time, but he was there right away. His nose was still bleeding. “I told him that they were the band for me and then he attacked me.”

“Mikey did this?” I asked as I tried to help take the pressure off of Johnny’s nose. I had worked with several artists with broken noses. It was hard to get their voices right once the pressure from the swelling got to be too much. “I’m going to get you some ice,” I said as I left the room.

As I left the room I heard Johnny trying to sing a song about getting punched in the nose. I started to laugh quietly as I tried to imagine what could’ve set off Mikey like that. I knew that he was upset with Johnny and he didn’t want him in the band, but Mikey was not a violent person.

“He hit me with his fist,” Johnny sang. “Blood splattering on his wrist.” I tried to keep myself under control, but I was so sorry that I had missed that punch. I found the ice and I went back to the studio. I was going to help Johnny write a solo album, I just needed to find a way to respect him.

 

Ch. 16 - Mikey

 

“What am I doing now?” I asked as the hook from the crane was attached to the harness that I had been wrangled into by a crew of at least five guys. They were moving fast and before I knew it I was in a harness and ready to fly. I had a special suit over the harness so it wasn’t visible.

“You didn’t want to do anymore interviews anyway, so I thought this would be more fun.” Bobby laughed as he patted me on the back. “It’s all part of the game, right?”

“I am glad you’re the lead singer,” Randy said as he tugged at the hook on my back. “This looks horrible.” Randy was looking up at the crane and the crowd of people behind us. I had no idea what was going to happen. They had given us one microphone to hold, there was a camera on us, and that’s about as much as I knew.

“So we’re here with 3 quarters of They Might be Rock Hyenas,” the host of the show said. I didn’t know what he meant. I couldn’t see him anywhere. He was somewhere in a studio feeling all safe and not attached to a crane. I felt like saying something to that effect to him, but he didn’t give us much of a chance to talk. He explained a lot of the history of our band, and talked about our show, and then he stopped and moved on to the weather.

We all looked at each other. I knew there had to be a reason that we were here. There had to be a reason that I had been attached to the crane. We were going to leave when a guy ran up with a cue card. He put out his hand and we all got back in position. He started giving us a count, and when he finished the host said, “And now we go out to Might be Rock Hyenas for the weather.”

That’s when the man flipped his cue card over, “Windy?” I said as I thought about what that could mean. There was no wind at all. We were standing outside, and there was no wind, but that’s when I felt the pressure on my back. It took a minute to even figure out what had happened. At that point however I was already in the air flying high over the crowd.

I tried to wave and smile, but I was not feeling steady. I wouldn’t’ve wanted to be one of those people underneath me. I was so close to bursting it was ridiculous. I had been drinking all day and that harness was too tight everywhere and my stomach was feeling tender even though there was no pressure on it. There were so many things going on at once.

It was the perfect ending to a glorious day. I had been a royal prick on every radio interview. I was trying to get to Bobby, but he seemed to be loving it. He smiled all day long as I pretended to sleep through one interview. On the next station I pretended that I didn’t speak English. I just kept saying “No Habla,” to every question until the interviewer got angry.

All of the other interviews had gone about the same, but this last one took the cake. It was like a karmic pay back for the crap that I had been dishing out all day. “How are you feeling up there Mikey?” The host asked through the earpiece, but there was no way to answer. Randy had the microphone. So I just tried to wave at the camera.

It was a great moment for me. Normally Travis was the one who would’ve done this. It felt horrible, but it meant that I was the focal point. I tried to enjoy it. It was much easier when they finally let me down. I got to the ground and I kissed it and then I went and shook hands and signed autographs.

I was so excited I forgot that I was mad at Sarah and I almost called her. I got back to the limo and I looked for my phone, but then I decided that I couldn’t call her. I just wasn’t ready to deal with that. I needed to know that she was with me for me, and that couldn’t happen while the label was still so interested in my future.

“This is Tina Lo,” Bobby said as he walked a young starlet over to the car. I recognized her from something. She had been in a movie recently. It had been a flop, but people liked her.

“I heard you guys at all of my grade school dances,” the 18 year old actress said. It was a compliment and also made me feel really old at the same time. I wasn’t sure which side I felt more the good or the bad. She moved over beside me and a guy who had popped out of nowhere took a picture of the two of us. Tina then got into the limo and then Bobby moved in and helped me get inside of the car.

“I can get in a car,” I said as I settled myself. Randy and Hank were already in the car. “I know what you’re doing.”

“This is good for everyone,” Bobby said as he looked over at Tina. “She needs the exposure, and so do you.” Bobby had a little chuckle to himself. “You’re taking over Travis’s life, you should’ve been expecting this. It all comes with the job title.”

“I guess,” I said as I thought about everything that had happened so far that day. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to get anything passed Bobby. He was ready for anything I had to throw at him. He had been in this business from every side, and he just knew the game too well. I had barely been involved the first time round.

“I’m doing all of this for you,” Bobby said as he rested his hand on the young starlet’s leg. “We need to promote you, and build the band’s brand around you. This is going to be tough, but we’re going to do it, and I need you to be on board.”

“I’m on board,” I said as I watched the cars pass by us on the street. We had reached my apartment. I got out and I heard Bobby say something. I turned and Tina was standing right there. She kissed me and I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. “Oh God,” I muttered to myself as I went inside and I put on my favorite album in the entire world. Primus, “Sailing the Seas of Cheese,” it was a great album, and Les Claypool was the greatest bass player of all time.

I laid on my bed and I let the sounds take over. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the stage at the Ferringer. I went through the whole set. We had finalized it during one of the radio interview stops. It was a tough decision, but they had waited so long to go on that they were done well before they needed to talk to the DJ.

The song ‘Jerry was a Race Car Driver,” came on and I sang along as I tried to unwind. My stomach was still tight. In fact all of my muscles were. I was in no way prepared for the force that was exerted on my body by that crane. I tried a few stretches, but in the end I just needed to relax and close my eyes.

I drifted off to sleep, and I found myself back on the moon soaked beach. We were both moaning and writhing in the sand. It felt so real I could almost taste it. I could feel the curves of her body, and the supple, softness of her skin.

I dreamed about leaving the beach and heading to the suburbs. We had a nice house and all of a sudden three kids came running out of it and they all ran over and hugged me. I was so happy in the dream that I felt happy as I woke up. I got up ready to face the day. I put on a pot of coffee and went to grab a paper from the lobby.

Down in the lobby there were a few other people getting papers and they all turned and stared at me as I grabbed my paper. I looked down and saw me kissing Tina on the cover of the paper. I threw the paper down and ran back upstairs for my phone. I needed to tell Sarah what had happened. That was my first thought as soon as I saw the picture. I needed her to know that I didn’t kiss her, at least not on purpose.

 

Ch. 17 – Sarah

 

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Johnny asked as I let the phone ring through to voicemail for like the sixteenth time. “I mean, whatever’s going on, someone clearly wants to talk to you.”

“Yes, that does seem clear,” I said as I continued working on the lyrics for a song that we had tentatively called ‘Uterus of the Devil.’ Johnny hadn’t been specific with what he was looking for so I was writing a song about my worst periods. That was the mood that I was in today. I was in an angry period type of mood.

I had seen the pictures as soon as I got up, and Mikey had called me a million times since then. I was tempted to answer the first time, but then I remembered that he wasn’t really taking my calls at the moment. I decided it wouldn’t be fair to answer the calls when he so clearly doesn’t want to talk with me. It sounded very vindictive if I was honest with myself, but I was okay with that.

“I wanted to wear white pants on this tour, what do you think?” Johnny said as he looked at his own crotch in a full-length mirror.

“Not while you’re singing this song,” I said as I tried to keep a straight face. I stopped writing for a minute to watch Johnny admire his own junk. I was wondering just how long he was going to stare at his own package when he caught me looking. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he had the wrong impression.

“You know I just got tickets to the show tonight, Bobby compted them to me,” Johnny said as if he thought I would want to go within a thousand feet of the Ferringer tonight. I wasn’t sure why I thought Johnny would know anything about me. “I have six tickets, for the low balcony to the right of the stage.”

“I think I’ll pass,” I said as I looked down at the page again. I tried to look as busy as possible. I knew that Johnny didn’t want to actually work so he would leave me alone.

“What about your friends?” Johnny asked. “I think that Gwen girl really liked me.”

“No, you slept with Tiffany,” I reminded the moron, but he seemed completely unfazed by his own piggish forgetfulness.

“Yeah, I slept with her and I’m pretty sure I can sleep with the other one too,” Johnny said as he opened my phone and started looking through the contacts. I had taken the password protection off of it the other day, because I was so busy and entering the four numbers had seemed like such a hassle. It didn’t seem worth it in this moment.

“Yeah, backstage passes too,” Johnny said and that was it. There was no way that I was changing their minds. I didn’t want to go, but I felt like I had to at least warn the girls about the snake who had just lured them into his trap. It was funny when I thought about how it could’ve all been prevented by a password.

I decided that I was going to have to stay in the shadows. I couldn’t let him see me, or did I mean that I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t know really. I was sure as hell not answering the phone. It was ringing again, and that’s when I realized that Johnny was still holding it.

“Hello, yeah she’s right here,” Johnny said. “No I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to talk to you. You’ve called five hundred times and she hasn’t answered. I’ve had to listen to all of the ringing, and it is throwing my creative train of thought right off the rails…hey, write that down!” Johnny said as he pointed over at me.

“Anyways, no more calls, she asked me to tell you,” Johnny said as he hung up and tossed me the phone. “What?”

Johnny was surprised to see that I was incredibly annoyed. Ignoring phone calls was quite a different thing from giving the phone to another guy to tell off the caller. It didn’t matter what I did now, Mikey was going to think that that’s what happened. I put the phone away and thought of some other horrible things to work into my song. I was smouldering with anger at Johnny, until I realized how into it he really was, he was returning my gaze with one of his own.

“Go home, I need to write on my own,” I snapped and he seemed to clue in that I was actually angry. I tried to focus as he left, but it was no use. I called Veronica.

“Yeah, the tickets, I know I can’t believe it, how did you guys get the tickets their sold out,” Veronica said before I could get any real words out.

“I’ve been working with them on the show for a few days and I don’t know,” I didn’t know what to say. “Remember the guy?”

“Mint Chocolate Chip, yeah,” Veronica said. She was trying so hard to be supportive, but she was really excited about the show too. She was trying to balance it out, but I could hear it in her voice.

“I slept with the lead singer, and I think I might even love him, but now he thinks I tried to have him replaced, and he also thinks that I had Johnny pick up the phone and yell at him.” I tried to explain the whole situation hoping that Veronica would understand and let me off the hook.

“That’s terrific,” she said when I finished. “You need to patch it up. You need to go talk to this man and fix everything. I saw him on the news though and I think you better do it quick, it looks like he is dating already.”

I hung up the phone. I knew that Veronica would understand. She had just given me a ton of advice and information that I didn’t want to hear. She was always tough on people, and so she was always understanding when people got upset with her. The one thing that she wasn’t was wrong. I needed to do something. I just couldn’t stop thinking about Mikey.

I closed the book and I went to my old house. I had stopped on the way for a tub of ice cream. Rocky Road, because it wasn’t really a break up sadness that I was dealing with. Veronica helped me do my hair. Gwen found me some close to wear. Tiffany planned out our leaving the house so that she could knee Johnny in the balls after we were already loaded up and ready to go.

“I can’t believe he wants to move on, and invite me on the date,” Tiffany said as she wrapped up her revenge plans.

“That’s all, you’re just going to knee him?” Veronica asked. “I mean as soon as we have the tickets we could just circle up and kick the crap out of him. That’s what I’d do.”

“Well, he’s taking us to the concert,” Tiff said as she started doing her makeup. We all stared at her with our mouths open. “What I want to look good when I drop him to the ground.” We all started to laugh. It was so good to be with my girls again.

We talked about old times and laughed as we got ready for our date with Johnny. I was having fun, but there was shadow over the whole event. I kept checking my phone to see that Mikey hadn’t called or texted. I knew why, but it was still a bad feeling.

“I’m on the way,” Johnny said after I gave him the address. “Make sure you don’t mention anything I said to your friends.” Johnny asked as if I would actually lie to my friends to help him try to score with one. I felt bad enough for introducing him to Tiffany in the first place.

We all walked out the door when Johnny pulled up in the limo. “Could you get me my ticket?” I asked as he stood up out of the car. Johnny smiled and pulled out the tickets. I grabbed mine and hopped in the car. Veronica was waving hers as she crawled in beside me. Gwen got in on the other side and flashed her ticket.

“Ahh,” thud! We all laughed when we heard Johnny fall to the ground. Tiffany crawled into the limo and we all hugged. It was a perfectly executed plan. “Sarah, can I see you out here?” Johnny asked. I went over to the door, but I didn’t get out of the car. “You told them.”

“To be fair, I told her before you asked me not to, and I haven’t mentioned it again,” I laughed as I went back to where the girls were all sitting. Johnny crawled into the car and we pulled out.

 

Ch. 18 – Mikey

 

“You sent the tickets, right?” I asked Bobby as he came into the dressing room. He went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. He was moving purposefully, and I knew that he was screwing with me. “Could you just answer the question?”

“That question or the first one?” Bobby asked as he tossed his head back and chugged the rest of the can. “Yeah, but I gave them to Johnny, and he’s bringing her with him.”

“Do you hate me?” I asked as I thought about seeing the two of them together.

“Well, I knew she wasn’t taking your calls so I thought that maybe if I gave them to Johnny he would figure out a way to get her here.” Bobby always had a little smile on his lips. It made it very hard to tell when he was screwing with me and when he was being genuine. I decided that I didn’t care about Bobby anymore. I was just going to focus on Sarah. I had to know how she really felt.

“She isn’t taking my calls so set up a date with her and another guy, thank a lot buddy,” I said as I grabbed another can of Bud out of the fridge. I wasn’t about to stop drinking now that we were this close. I had been drinking since I got to the dressing room this morning, and if I stopped now I would probably have a hangover through the show.

“Orange juice,” Hank said as he came into the room. “I need you to eat some food right now and have a glass of orange juice.” Hank had been on a grocery run. We had been without any solid food all day. It was getting close to show time, and we were going to need something other than booze in our stomachs to perform.

“That’s a great idea,” I said as I poured a glass of orange juice and watched Hank start making sandwiches. Hank was the biggest of us, and definitely the most traditionally manly of anyone in the band, but he was also a mother hen when it came down to it. “You’re a good friend,” I said as I took my sandwich.

“Alright, but one ‘I love you man’, and you’re cut off,” Hank teased. Randy took his sandwich and then Bobby moved over. “You’re on your own man, I didn’t buy enough to make you a sandwich.” Hank looked over at me. I knew that he was doing it to be loyal. I had been crying at the guys all day about how Bobby was treating me.

I shrugged and let Hank know that he could feed Bobby. I wasn’t even really mad at this point. Not to say that I wouldn’t get mad about it again sometime, but for right now it was okay. Bobby caught the exchange between Hank and me, and he knew how to read people. I was almost afraid when he got his sandwich and came to sit next to me.

“You’re so mad at me your friend thinks you’d deny me a ham and cheese sandwich,” Bobby said as he sat the plate down on the coffee table. “I didn’t know you felt that way about her, you had only known her for a day…”

“It was a special day,” I interjected. I knew how crazy it was to be this stuck on a girl after such a short amount of time. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the one.

“Well, that’s fine, but just so you know, I called Sid,” Bobby said as he put his hand on my shoulder. “I was trying to fire you up, and I never had any intention of using Johnny, if you stepped up and took the lead.”

I appreciated Bobby telling me all of this. “And so when you said she’s good at working with stars and getting results,” I asked.

“I just meant getting good songs, and performances,” Bobby laughed. “If she was sleeping with all of them I would have to pay her more.” I gave Bobby a weird look. “Do you know what escorts run in this town? It’s like $5000 a night if you want them to be tested.” My expression didn’t change. “Not for me, for clients!”

“As if that makes it better,” Randy laughed.

“You guys have been rock stars since the age of sixteen, you don’t know what it’s like to go without,” Bobby explained. “I don’t really either, but I have always tried not to judge.” We all laughed and nodded along as if we didn’t believe that Bobby didn’t use the escorts for himself. Bobby stood up and walked out of the room. It was the first time I had ever seen him uncomfortable with anything.

“Alright, the doors have opened,” Chad the intern said as he came into the dressing room. We all started yelling and throwing things and he ran away again. The time had been creeping up on us. I was not ready to hear those words. For some reason picking on the interns had always helped to relax us.

“I know we can do this,” I said to the guys and they both raised their eyes to look at me. We all nodded at each other. Hank put on the Clash, ‘London Calling,’ it was one of their more commercial albums, but it was still one of my favorites. We were getting pumped up.

I started head banging and I rammed a shoulder into Hank. He bounced off me and hit Randy, and we started a three man mosh pit in the dressing room. It was just like old times. It felt good to be getting ready for show time with these guys again.

“Alright, I’m coming in,” Johnny said as he pushed his way in-between us. “This is perfect, you guys are going to nail this show!” We all stopped dead in our tracks, and broke away from him. Johnny was still dancing about as if he didn’t know that we had all left.

“So you’re Mikey?” A woman said, she had to have come in with Johnny. “I’m Veronica, Sarah told me all about you.”

“All good, I doubt,” I said as I tried to laugh about it.

“Yeah, it was,” Veronica said with a straight face.

“Then why did she sleep with that guy?” I said as we watched Johnny dancing to ‘Jimmy Jazz.’ It was a slower song with a reggae beat and he was still head banging.

“She didn’t, Tiffany did,” Veronica said, and then she started to laugh, “And then she kneed him so hard he was delirious all the way here.” I was starting to feel like an idiot. “She actually stayed sober at our party all night so that she could go and take care of you.”

“Even though I was acting like a massive tool,” I sighed as I started to realize how badly I had screwed up. I wanted to ask Veronica even more questions, and find out what had really been going on while I was being a douche, but people started pulling me out of the room. “I never dated that actress, she surprised me!”

I was sure that Veronica had barely been able to hear me speaking. I was disappointed, but I was also excited about what she had just said to me. I got into the huddle at the side of the stage. “I’m sorry guys. I know I put everyone through a lot this week, and I’ve been a real pain in the ass…”

“That’s for sure,” Hank teased.

“Yeah, you’ve been a pain,” Randy laughed.

“Whatever, I just mean that we’re going to have an awesome show,” It was time to go. We yelled, “Break!” and we got out to the stage. The curtain came up and Hank counted out the beat. We started with a song called, ‘Freaking out the Squares!’ It had been our opening song for over a decade, but there was no better way to open a reunion concert.

We had added a long bass solo to the song, and we had changed it up a bit, but it was just a fast song that got people going. I looked over to the lower balcony as I played. I saw Veronica, Johnny, and two other girls, but Sarah wasn’t there.

My heart sank, and I was full of pain, but I knew that Bobby was happy. My voice was extra raspy, and I was almost overcome by tears during the opening songs. I had been counting on her being there, and I really couldn’t believe that she hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t that I thought I deserved a second chance. I knew that I had been an idiot, but I had felt so sure that she was going to give me a chance.

 

Ch. 19 – Sarah

We went in through the back door. I still had my keys to the backstage door. The girls were excited, and Johnny had started to walk a bit better. I held the door for him, so that he didn’t have to try and hold the door too. Tiff had taken self defense classes a few years back, and nobody ever expected that she could hurt them like that, but she was a tiny powerhouse.

“I’m going to wish the guys good luck,” Johnny said as he walked towards the dressing rooms. Veronica went with him. I knew she wanted to check out Mikey for herself, but I also knew that as an unintended consequence, Johnny now thought she liked him.

The other girls came with me to the bar. I needed a drink, and they were always supportive of my drinking. Especially when they were drinking too. We got drinks and ordered shots for the balcony. “That’s her,” Gwen said as she pointed across the bar to the actress from the pictures. “Come on,” Gwen waved as we followed the beautiful girl from the bar.

“That’s where we need to go anyway,” I said as we followed her toward the balcony stairs. “But promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Gwen said as she ran up the stairs and caught up to the actress, “Hi, Gwen, I’m such a big fan, you’re here to cheer on your boyfriend.” I had reached her by this point, and I had intended to stop Gwen, but the question was already out there. I wanted to hear the answer.

“Yeah, I guess,” the actress shrugged. “It’s a publicity thing. He’s actually a bit up tight for me.”

“So you guys aren’t really dating?” Gwen asked. It was like a train wreck, I wanted to stop her, but I had to watch. The actress definitely felt weird about answering the questions, and I tried to be understanding, but I almost shook her because of how long it was taking her to answer. She did a quick look around.

“No, we aren’t dating,” She said and then she started to laugh. “That really hot kiss, his manager called him and when he turned I leapt at him. It was the worst kiss in the world, he was in shock and I went so fast I hurt my teeth.”

We all started laughing and I hugged her. Then I suddenly shot back when I realized that I was hugging this complete stranger. She straightened herself up and I started to apologize, but she stopped me. “That was my fault, I said fake boyfriend. I should’ve made it clear I was not a lesbian.”

“Shot!” Gwen said. “That’s exactly it. Come on lezzy, you gotta learn to keep your hands to yourself.” Gwen said as she led the way to our seats. The actress turned around and headed to her seats as well. The look on her face was pity, but I was too happy to care what she thought.

“So, it was all fake,” Gwen looked so excited, but then her face dropped. “What’s wrong now?”

“Well, it doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “There could be a lot of reasons that he didn’t want to make out with that actress.”

“Your right,” Gwen laughed. “Her lips were too full, and her skin was too flawless, and does anyone even like perky breasts anymore, I can’t remember. I mean a minute ago you almost tried to make out with her.” I swatted at Gwen as she dodged under my arm and then started leading the way to our seats.

Gwen went and sat down, but I stopped at the narrow doorway. I couldn’t go in. He would see me for sure and I didn’t want to throw him off. He hated Johnny so much that I just assumed he wouldn’t even know about the compted tickets. Bobby was the one who loved throwing tickets around. I decided that I had to stay out in the hall.

“What are you doing?” Tiffany asked before she went into the balcony.

“I can’t let him see me,” I explained. “I don’t want to throw him off.” I looked down at the ground, I didn’t care if she understood, I was just done explaining it. She sighed and walked past me.

“You’re making a mistake, but that’s the last thing I’ll say about it,” Tiffany said as she hugged me and moved through the narrow doorway and into the balcony.

I took a quick peek out at the stage, but I didn’t poke much more than my eyes out past the wall. It all looked perfect. The show was ready to go, the pit was full of people who were already pushing and jostling for position. The lights went down and I pushed myself against the wall to hide myself away.

The first song was exactly the song I would’ve chosen. It was their classic opening song, and the crowd was already going wild. Mikey sounded great, and I could tell that the crowd was responding to him.

“What are you doing?” Veronica said as she made it down the hallway. “He is crazy about you, and the two of you are messed up for sure, but he wants you here,” Veronica was talking fast and she grabbed my hand. She was trying to pull me into the balcony, but I pulled back and pressed myself against the wall.

Johnny walked past us and got into the balcony. He didn’t say a word to me, but as he passed Veronica watched him suspiciously, “Something, or somebody made Mikey think that you slept with Johnny.”

I actually gagged when I heard that. “I’d sooner sleep with a corn rowed ginger rapper.” It wasn’t true, they were both awful choices, but I was sick to my stomach thinking that Mikey had thought that. Things were starting to make more sense, but I was still so nervous, and I knew that when we did meet again it was going to be intense. Everything between us had been intense.

“I promise I will go backstage and talk to him, but I don’t want him to see me yet,” I said and Veronica nodded and went in through the narrow doorway separated me from the man of my dreams. I was listening out in the halls and the songs were all sounding great and then they played the last song.

“Thank you so much guys,” Mikey said into the microphone, and then the chants started for an encore.

“Encore! Encore!” I needed to see his face. I poked my head out for just a second to see the ear to ear smile that had taken over his face. I held my head out there for just a second too long and I pulled back quickly was pretty sure he saw me.

“Alright, one more song,” Mikey said and a cheer went up through the crowd. “I just need an acoustic out here Chad,” Mikey called over the microphone and my heart literally skipped a beat as soon as I heard his fingers strum those first notes. “This is a song that was written by Sarah Polly of Frenzied Records and I did the musical arrangements.”

He started to play my song, our song and I walked through the narrow doorway and out into the balcony. He was right at the edge of the stage with a spot light on him. I felt the spotlight find me along with every eye in the place. I could feel Veronica stomping her feet and squealing with excitement behind me.

Mikey started to sing,

“Wearing a mask for the whole world to see,

Trying to find the pieces that make me,

Searchin’, runnin’, buyin’, consumin’

Is this all there is to being human?”

When he finished the song I was in tears and I ran out of the doorway and down through the hall. I had to get back to him. I got through security people were literally clearing out of my way as I ran. They all knew who I was now. I ran back and we both reached Mikey’s dressing room at the same time.

He kissed my lips as he lifted me into the air. He walked inside the door and closed it behind him. I started to tear his ripped t-shirt off of him and he had already pulled my dress over my head. It was amazing to be in his arms again. They felt exactly as I remembered them, it was like I had never really left.

He kissed and teased my nipples as his fingers tweaked them. My back was up against the cold concrete wall, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t even really tell where I was, when he played with my breasts like that. He lifted me over his head and buried his head between my legs. I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled tight, and I used the other hand to steady myself on the ceiling.

“Ahhhh!” I was partly falling, but mostly moaning as he licked around my clit and teased the tiny button out. I pulled tighter on his hair as he found the right spot and tried to hold him firm. “Yes, there!” I yelled as he kept hitting it just right. I lost my balance and he brought me down gently onto the couch.

“I love you,” he said as we settled on the couch. “I’m sorry about the photos.”

“I already know what happened, and I love you too,” I said as I pushed his head back down. “Right there!” I squeezed my stomach muscles as the muscles contracted all over my body. I gave a tug on his hair and he came back up to my breasts.

I rolled him over and pulled off his tight jeans. I grabbed his dick with both hands and started to lick around the head. I pressed hard with my lips as I let them slip over the mushroom head of his hard penis. He moaned and gasped as I sucked hard on him for a second. Then I tried to slide as far down as I could.

He lifted me up and put me on my back. Mikey looked me right in the eyes as he pushed deep inside of me. He was wider than any man I had ever been with, and I loved to feel the stretch as he worked his way further and further inside. Mikey was moving slowly and purposefully as he took long strokes. I could feel every veiny throbbing inch of him.

He started to move faster and harder with each stroke. I was moaning and I tried to look away, but he held my face in place. He wanted to look me in the eyes. I was biting my lower lip, and I felt another orgasm starting to build. I could also hear his breath changing, and his strokes became labored. I could feel his throbbing cock as it became more erratic.

I was trying to rock my hips with his strokes to allow more of him inside of me. I wanted to feel him get there deep inside of me. He moved back to my nipples and I could feel his fingers as they made my nipples get harder and more sensitive. I was right there and then I felt him tense up, and burst. The feeling was too much for me. I started to throb all over my body as pleasure radiated through me.

 We collapsed into the couch. Mikey was still inside of me when we laid down and held each other. We were breathing hard, but we could still hear the crowd outside. “Encore! Encore!”

“Well, what do you think?” Mikey asked. “Can you go again?” I slapped at him playfully and then rolled on top of him and started to ride his still hard cock.

“Encore, encore,” I cheered as I rocked my hips to the rhythm.

“Hey, guys it sounds like things have slowed down in there,” It was Bobby on the other side of the door. “Is it a good time to talk about playing another encore song? The crowds been chanting for almost thirty minutes.”

“Should you go?” I asked. I crawled off of Mikey. I knew that this was important to him, and I didn’t want to get in the way.

“Yes he should,” Bobby yelled back.

“That door is thin,” Mikey complained as he found his pants. He got his pants on and kissed me deeply. As I watched him head for the stage, barefoot, and shirtless, I was so happy that we had finally got it together.  I wished that we could get the time back that we missed. “I miss you already.”

 “I miss you too!” I yelled as I pulled my dress over my head and went to watch him play.

“What were you two up to?” Veronica asked. All of the girls had come backstage. We all hugged, and it wasn’t completely ruined when Johnny joined in.

 

Prelude – Sarah

 

Bobby had loved the song, and the world had loved our story. The encore performance, the one on stage, had been captured on a million camera phones. The song went viral, and all of a sudden Bobby was seeing dollar signs.

“I just need the Pussy wagon…”

“The Happy Kitty,” I corrected.

“Yeah, whatever, I need you guys on the road,” Bobby said as he offered me the contract. “I know the perfect tour to put you guys on.” I had already known what he was thinking before he said it. Might be Rock Hyenas needed an opening act and The Happy Kitty was going to be the perfect band to fill that slot.

Bobby knew that I wanted to do it. So he tried to low ball us on the contract, but we managed to put pressure on him, and Mikey wouldn’t hear about it either. Bobby was kept on a much shorter leash now that the band was successful. Mikey was no longer trying to be a lead singer. He was a lead singer, and he was great at whipping up the crowd, and getting a show going.

“What are you doing?” Mikey asked as he sat down beside me. The tour bus was rolling through Kansas. We were playing in St. Louis the next day.

“I’m just watching the flatness roll by,” I said as I closed my notebook. I had written twelve new songs since we left on tour, but the flatness of Kansas was not providing me with any inspiration. I allowed myself time for distraction. I was doing that now.              

The first time I was in the band, I had been too focused on that to do anything else. It was the same with the job for Frenzied Records. It was always the same with me. Whatever I did, I did that one thing and I had not time for anything else. Mikey helped me make time. He was worth more to me than even music itself.

I snuggled under his arm and we watched the grasslands pass by. We talked about our dreams and goals. We talked about the end of the tour. Mikey was going to put out another CD, and The Happy Kitty was going to prepare their debut.

“Married?” I said when he brought it up. “Isn’t that kind of old fashioned?”

“Not at all,” Mikey laughed. “I want the world to know that I am yours. I want to stand in front of everyone and profess my love for you.”

“Well, you pretty much just did,” I said as I looked around. “Everyone that matters to us is on the bus right now.” I had never thought about marriage, but if I was going to marry anyone it was going to be Mikey. He was everything that I needed in another human.

The bus stopped outside of a small hotel. We started unloading the gear. “Who needs a sandwich?” Hank called out as he brought food out from the kitchenette. “Just a little snack to tide us all over.”

“You guys need to stop being adorable in the common areas,” Gwen complained to me as she stretched out her thighs, standing on one leg with the other pulled back to her butt. “I almost lost my lunch when you guys started talking about marriage. I didn’t know he had one of those white picket fence fetishes.” I pushed her over and forced her to break her position.

“I think it’s a cute idea, you could get all of those wedding gifts,” Veronica said as she carried a bunch of bags out of the back of the bus. “You don’t care about marriage and you’re going to be with Mikey for ever right, so presents. That’s what I think.”

“I guess,” I shrugged.

“And then there’s always divorce,” Veronica said as she walked on to the hotel.

Everyone was unloading the bus and checking in. The hotel was nice. It was a newer build and it had a free breakfast. There were no frills, and the pool was a tiny lap pool that could barely hold one of the bands, let alone two. It was nothing special, but it was the road, and I loved it.

“I saw a little dinner up the road,” Mikey said as he put his arm around me. “I think it said all day breakfast in the window.”

“I’m in,” I said as we started walking down the road. The sun was setting and pink, orange, and purple streaks filled the air. There was no place on Earth that I would rather be. We made it to the restaurant and we both ordered eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. Mikey had started to order brown bread, just to try and pretend he was being healthy. As we ate our meals I couldn’t stop touching him. It was still electric, even six months down the road.

 

Blurb

Sarah

I just started at Frenzied Records a few months ago and I’ve been working hard to try and make an impression on my bosses. I want to show them that I can do the job, and that there is nothing more important to me. I want to start dating again, but I can’t do both. I want to stay away from the lead singer of the band, but I feel drawn to him. Every time he looks at me I can’t help, but to blush.

Mikey

I need to figure out how to fill in for Travis. He was such an amazing lead singer, I’m not even sure why I thought I could fill his shoes. As soon as I saw Sarah I knew that I was in trouble. She’s everything that I’ve ever wanted, but she’s a suit. I have been hating on suits since I signed my first record contract at the age of 16. She isn’t like any of the suits that I’ve met before.

 

 

THE END

Get the Exlcusive Prequel “Rock Candy” for FREE at