CHAPTER TWO
“Guys, next interviewer is here.” Katie, our manager’s assistant, poked her head through the door as she called into the room.
“Let him in, then! We’ve been waiting an extra ten minutes,” Jules said, taking another gulp of his beer.
“Her, actually,” Katie said archly, opening the door wider. It was a good thing she’d given us the warning; I was at least prepared to see a woman walk into the room. What I wasn’t prepared for was a cute-looking girl with short, magenta hair and dark eyes, and a body that could have come out of a Playboy from the 60s. Her cheeks were almost as pink as her hair, and she was wearing a tight Unsung Zeros tee shirt with a pair of jeans that fit her like a fucking glove and a beat-up pair of Docs that had to have come from her older sister or something—they looked that ancient. “Unsung Zeros!” I snickered at the excitement in Mark’s voice. “Holy shit, I haven’t seen one of those shirts in like, ten years.”
“Did you get it from your sister?” The woman rolled her eyes at Alex’s question.
“Nope, I just went to an all-ages show. Pompano Beach Skate Park let in five-year-olds, they weren’t going to keep a teenager out.” The woman slung the strap of her bag around to her front, taking a quick breath that strained the fabric of her shirt. She smiled. “I’m Olivia Grant from Record Spin, by the way.”
“At least they sent us a cute interviewer,” Mark said, grinning at Olivia.
“But are you any good?” Jules pulled himself up off of the console, leaning back in his chair.
“I’m not really the best person to ask,” Olivia said. She glanced around the room for a moment until they landed on one of the few unoccupied chairs. “After all, even if I was bad, would you expect me to say so? That’d doom the interview right from the start.” I snorted. Olivia grabbed the chair and pulled it into the middle of the control room.
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Katie said, ducking back through the door and closing it behind her.
“So,” Alex said, looking at our interviewer speculatively. “How are we going to do this?”
“You guys have been doing interviews since eight o’clock this morning,” Olivia said, glancing at each of us in turn. I fought back the urge to grin at her. Feisty, feisty. Might be fun. For an instant, a flash flitted through my head: she’d be totally in control in bed; not afraid to tell a guy what she wanted. I imagined her underneath me, head thrown back, dark eyes closed, magenta hair tousled and mussed against my pillow, moaning out. She probably gets soaking wet at the drop of the hat, if you kiss her just right. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how an interview goes by now.”
“Well yeah,” Dan said, uncrossing and then crossing his legs once more. “But we want to see how you handle the situation. Your—like—original spin on the concept.” Olivia grinned, and there was the devil of a glint in her dark eyes that made me want to grab her and kiss her just right, right then.
“How about this?” Olivia opened her bag and took out a recorder. She tucked one foot underneath the rolling chair and propelled herself a little further into the middle of the room. I glanced around at my band mates: we were all more than a little intrigued at her movements as she plugged two microphone into the machine, pointing them at the opposite ends of the room. “We’ll chat. You can ask me questions—though I don’t promise to answer—and I’ll ask you questions, and whatever ends up being relevant to my article goes in.”
“What if we want something to not end up in your article?” Olivia looked sideways at Jules; he always hated interviews.
“Then say ‘off the record’ and I will make sure it never gets transcribed.”
“But if it’s recording, then by definition it’s on the record.”
“I’ll give you a copy of my edited recordings before I submit them to the magazine, so that you know it didn’t make the official record. How about that?” I looked at Jules sharply, and I knew Alex was doing the same—but for a different reason.
“That’s fine,” Jules said with a shrug. Olivia pressed a button on the recorder and it let out a beep.
“If you guys would take turns saying your names and your willingness to be recorded, we can get started on this,” she said, pushing back from the machine and looking around the room at each of us.
We each took turns doing as we were asked. “Can we ask you a question first?” Olivia snorted, shaking her head with a smile.
“One or the other of you have asked me about four questions by now,” Olivia pointed out tartly.
“Yeah,” I said, getting into the teasing mood, “but that was before the interview started.” Olivia looked at me and raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch.
“Okay,” she said. Her tongue darted out over her lips. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Are you single?” I stifled my laughter at Dan’s question.
“I am,” Olivia said, pink-red color lighting up her cheeks again.
“Come on guys,” Alex said, his voice a bit sharp. “Let’s keep it a little bit professional, right?”
“I just wanted to get my chance in before Nicky charms the pants off of her,” Dan said with a shrug. I saw Olivia’s blush deepen, and there was something so cute about it. She glanced at me and I saw her eyes narrow distrustfully for just a fraction of a second.
“Since I’ve done my research,” Olivia said, turning her attention back onto Dan, “I think I’m pretty safe in regards to keeping my pants on.”
“Oh!” Mark beamed, throwing his arms up in a victory pose. “Let me get you some ice, Nicky.” I rolled my eyes.
“That wasn’t a burn,” I said, throwing my spare lighter at Mark.
“Can we get started on the actual interview conversation now?” Olivia glanced at each one of us. I could see how difficult it was for her to push down the embarrassment she was feeling.
“Yeah, let’s get to work on this,” I agreed.