“You got a person to meet for pizza and more,” Marcus said. “I hope you guys are all back as soon as possible with a producer who realizes what you’re all capable of.”
We all shook his hand on the way out—our first ally in the studio, and someone who actually knew what voice work was. Total bonus.
Double bonus: gay and aware of what a dick Frankel was.
The five of us headed for the front of the building, and I yanked the door back out of Taylor’s hand. “Wait. Are we going to take the train? We’re not going to be able to hide like this. We’re dressed like…”
“Boyband stars?” Luis laughed.
“Yeah, Luscious Locks Luis, we are,” Bryce said. “Do you want to take a car?”
“I think we’d better,” Grant said. “Otherwise it’ll take us like three hours to get there.”
The car was around in just five minutes and we were on our way to the pizza place. I was glad they all agreed to the car. We were currently too recognizable in theseworkclothes and I was tired of being accosted by all the fans. Sometimes, we needed to just get across town and get some damn pizza.
Walking into Leonardo’s, it was hard to miss Angela. She had a head full of rainbow braids that hung to the middle of her back. She was drinking a diet Coke and saw us right away.
Grant trotted a head a moment and wrapped his arms around her. “Auntie!”
“Grantie!” she teased him back. She looked up at us and motioned us over. “Come on, I ordered you each a pie. I know you’re all growing boys!”
We gathered around the table and pulled up chairs. Angela was the aunt we all wished we had, but only Grant had been lucky enough.
“All right,” she said, folding her hands on the table after the waiter dropped off pitchers of beer and soda. “What on Earth made you text me this morning?”
“Frankel,” Taylor said.
“Are you still trying to produce with him?” She turned her lip up and gave a grim look.
“He’s been good for the past three albums,” Luis said. “And he’s encouraged all of us to grow our abilities. All of us except Austin, and we just can’t ignore it anymore.”
“Iknowwhy he’s doing it,” Angela said, “but I want to hear you say it out loud. Why do you think he’s doing it?”
“I’m gay and he figured it out,” I said. “So he thinks that he can punish me for being gay—never acting on it in public for the past eight years—by making me less than my bandmates.”
Angela tapped her nose. “I’m also sorry you feel like you can’t be out to your fans. I’m sure that Frankel pushed you to that.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. Or not only that. I have reasons.”
So many reasons. There were so many closet cases who would try to take advantage of me if they knew. Hell, even if they didn’t know, they were still coming after us. All five of us had been propositioned and groped at some point—and it was terrifying.
“Be that as it may, you boys need to evolve this. Take control like the Monkees did. Except, please don’t make a movie likeHead? Even if Nicholson comes to you personally?”
“Not on a hard bet,” Bryce said. “But that’s what I was thinking of. The Monkees were one of the original manufactured boy bands, and we still sing the songs they made popular. So why can’t we all use the instruments we’ve been pretend playing that we can all really play, and take it up a notch? God, I’d love to play the keyboard onDown Babyon stage.”
“Can you imagine our four part harmony?” Luis said, wistfully.
“Or, what about that sick shred onGratuity?” Taylor asked. “I’ve been dying to put that out there. Putting my classic Gibson on the speakers? Man.”
“Are you hard?” Bryce teased.
“Like you wouldn’t die to do that Flea thing you do bouncing around the stage around me,” Taylor answered.
“Oh, talk dirty to me, guitar boy…” Bryce said, with a shiver.
“So,” Angela said, interrupting us before we really got going, “you need to shop a new producer. I know I’m only unofficially your agent, boys, but…if you want, we can make that official and I’ll search it out on the down low. We might have to do the whole thing on the down low, you know what I mean?”
“The studio were booked into, Sonic Boom?, is really nice,” I said. “The sound tech was great and agreed with us that Frankel is just terrible. He told us we could reach out to him or his boss to work something out.”
