We always opened with my favorite cover. It wasn’t a typical way to open a show, but we weren’t a typical rock band. My sister and I made the decisions, sometimes with some input from our dad, who was our manager, and sometimes from our band, but ultimately it was Carmen and I. Our dad had been a studio musician for as long as I can remember, and when Carmen and I decided to make it official, and become professional musicians, he supported us. As the lead singer, I picked a lot of the songs based on how I was feeling, but we always opened with “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard. Every. Show.

The guys in our band hated doing it. They thought it was stupid to open with a cover to begin with, and on top of that, playing an 80’s hit wasn’t what they wanted to play at all. From my perspective, it was the perfect opportunity to get the crowd tuned up, and it also gave Carmen a killer drum beat to work with. We felt like the vibe for the night was set from the first song, and yeah, we were songwriters, but some people had already gotten it right, and it was such a crowd pleaser. In addition to all that, it gave me a chance to get to know the crowd a little, while really warming my voice up; it highlighted our style out of the gate and always set a tone for a show. We’d been doing it so long that it was tradition, and changing it made us both feel superstitious after a while.

“Okay guys, do you want to just do one run through of the whole thing and bang it out, or do you want to break it up and be here all day? Your choice,” I offered to the group in front of me. Scanning the band, I watched them all look at each other, trying to decide if one run through, start to finish, was better than spending all day off and on at the venue we rented practicing.

“That depends,” our bassist, Mike, blurted out.

“On what,” I grinned. It made no difference to me what we did, but I liked letting them have a say in a handful of things.

“On whether or not you have the set list ready,” he smirked at me.

“Well, it’s your lucky day, gents,” I sang. Holding up a piece of paper with the songs and outline my sister and I put together, I said, “Right here in my hot little hands is just the thing you’ve been waiting for.” As I dangled the paper in front of them and they all pretended to rush me for it, I laughed, fully enjoying the enthusiasm of the group. I twirled around, then tossed it for them to catch.

They huddled around each other, reading the songs off, nodding their heads in approval, for which I sighed a breath of relief. “This is the best one yet!” Johnny, the guitarist, exclaimed.

“Well, we’re happy if you’re happy,” Carmen teased. “Okay, guys, .Are we settling in for the long haul, or do you wanna do a sound check and try to run straight through the whole thing?”

“Run through,” they said, practically in unison.

Carmen glanced in my direction and gave me smirk. “What?” I asked her.

“Nothing, you just picked a winner. It’s gonna be our best tour yet sister,” she replied.

I lunged in her direction, scooping her into a hug. “We picked it together. It’s our band,” I semi-scolded her.

“Okay, if you say so,” She gave me a slight eye roll and that same signature smirk as she made her way to her drums to get situated.

I had two guitars I played during most gigs. An Ovation, which is an electric acoustic, for our acoustic set and a handful of songs; it’s also what I played and practiced and wrote on. I also had a classic black and white Fender Stratocaster. That’s the one I played on stage a lot, because it was what I grew up playing. I didn’t play lead guitar when I had one of my guitars on stage anyway; it was damn near impossible for me to walk and chew gum, let alone ‘perform’ with a guitar and sing. I just didn’t multitask well like that on stage. For the softer acoustic stuff, it was easy, but for our ‘big show’ songs, our high energy songs, I just couldn’t do it.

We all went over to our instruments to get ourselves ready; tuning up, talking to, or whatever ritual each of us had. Me, I played my guitars so often, even just sitting around strumming on them, that they were usually already in tune anyway, but I still checked. On a sound check slash run through day, we could take our time, but we also wanted to make sure the sound was right, timing wasn’t an issue, that kind of thing. It was also the perfect time for us to make any changes or adjustments we wanted in the lineup.

While it wasn’t our first tour, it was our first headlining tour. It was a big fucking deal. We weren’t selling out stadiums or anything yet, but we had enough of a following that we weren’t the opening act anymore, and in a handful of cities where we were popular, we did sell out at the venues where we were booked. That was so surreal to me; performing full time, going on the road, and selling out mid-size venues. It was a dream come true for us. If our dad hadn’t encouraged us, we probably never would have gone for it. Well, Carmen would have. She was a risk-taker. She was fearless. I preferred to weigh the pros and cons of literally everything I did.

When this band started, Carmen was already playing drums freelance with a couple different bands where she could get gigs and exposure, but she didn’t have a regular band. She knew from the day she was born this was for her. I, on the other hand, had some misguided belief I needed to go to college, even if that was a back up and music was in my heart. She basically waited for me to graduate and not have a job before approaching me about forming our own band. I was reluctant to go full-time into music, but after some sister time playing together, and writing some songs, I never looked back.

We started the run through, only pausing briefly between songs to make some minor adjustments. After about seven songs, just shy of halfway through, I saw a man sitting in the back, watching us. Well first, I noticed his tanned, muscular arms, painted with colorful tattoos that caught my eye. As I sang the high-speed, fierce “Killer Heart”, a song Carmen and I wrote on a whim, I tried to ignore his piercing eyes. He studied me while I belted out the melody, distracting me with his stare, causing me to stop mid-song.

The band took a moment to realize I’d stopped, when I placed the microphone back to my lips. “This is a closed rehearsal. You shouldn’t be here,” I announced to the stranger, and the rest of the venue, which was essentially empty except for us and our sound guy.

As the stranger stood up, walking toward the stage where I was standing, I noticed his beautiful white teeth as he grinned at me. Reaching for the badge around his neck, he yelled up to me, “Actually, I do belong here. Name’s Ryan. Ryan King.” He slowly shifted his smile to a smirk, placing his hands in his front pockets with a shrug. His smug attitude was infuriating.

“And what is it you’re to be doing… Mr. King,” I continued talking to him through the mic.

“Well sweetheart, I’m going on tour with you.” I snapped my head back to see Carmen raising her hands at me, mouthing, what the fuck is going on? As I started to respond to her that I had no clue, this King guy explained, “Look, I work for the Independent Rock out of San Francisco. We’re an up and coming magazine on music. Our focus is bands that bring back real rock and roll, and this was all worked out with your manager. Didn’t you know?” He was still grinning at me, clearly aware I had no idea about any of this.

Irritated that I did not know what he was talking about, I ignored his question and turned to walk to Carmen at her drum set.

“What the fuck is going on, dude,” she snapped at me with a little snarl.

“This guy says he’s with some magazine and he’s going on tour with us. Apparently, he worked it all out with Dad.”

“Are you kidding me? That sneaky motherfucker,” she hissed.

“Yeah, tell me about it. But, it sounds exactly like something he’d do,” I replied, raising my eyebrow to her and pursing my lips.

“It sure does. So, now what? We’re in the middle of a rehearsal.”

“We’ll break, and call Dad. Regroup in an hour and finish the run through?” I said, questioning her.

“Yeah, fine,” she huffed. then turned her attention to the rest of the band “All right, guys, we need to take a break and make a call. We’ll regroup in an hour, okay?”

Grumbling, they meandered off. None of us really wanted to break but honestly, we needed to call our dad and find out what the hell was going on. This was so typical of him; making decisions without talking to us. In all fairness, they were always good decisions, and they benefited both our brand, and us but it was annoying as hell to have things sprung on us, especially hot dudes skulking in the back.

Walking back to the front of the stage, I addressed the reporter, or writer, or whatever he was as he stood in the same spot, waiting for me. “Well, Mr. King, come on up here. We’re going to go give our manager a ring, so we can get on the same page and set some ground rules.” By this time, Carmen had walked over and was full-on attitude; eyeballing this guy so hard it made me want to laugh.

“Easy with the laser beams, sister, you’re gonna catch the dude on fire, and I suspect this isn’t his fault,” I teased her, starting to giggle. I was annoyed, but not especially mad, because a writer going on tour with us was probably great PR. I just didn’t care for my father setting shit up without talking to us.

She laughed gently. “All right, all right.”

As the writer walked toward us on the stage, I once again took note of his masculine features. A chiseled jaw, offset by the smirk he wore, he was devilishly good-looking, even though his presence was disrupting my rehearsal.

“You can call me Ryan,” He extended his hand to me as he approached.

“Ryan, I’m Miranda. Miranda Royal. This is my sister, Carmen.” I paused, my hand still in his, admiring his tattoos along his forearms. “I’m guessing you already knew that though, eh?”

Carmen gave him a half-hearted handshake as he turned his attention back to me. “Yes, I did,” he chuckled. “But it’s great to meet you. Sorry about the confusion here, but I promise you I’ll stay out of your hair. I’m here to observe, chronicle, maybe do a few interviews. The idea is to get to know you on stage, but also to really get a glimpse into the women behind the music.”

His charm was working it’s magic on me, and he’d been standing in my presence for no more than five minutes. I was going to need to keep myself in check; he was way too hot to be a writer, and it had been a long time since I’d had that little spark. Shake it off, Miranda, Shake it off, I repeated to myself silently as I smiled and motioned for him to follow us backstage where we could call our dad.