Screw this. This is not what I need to hear tonight. Not now. Not when we really need to show some solidarity. “We’re in this together.” I say, sounding like a party political broadcast. “We’re going to make it together. Don’t even suggest otherwise. I’m serious, Joel.”
Joel gets a hard look in his eyes, which tells me he’s going to press the point regardless. This bastard’s the most stubborn of the lot, Dane’s a hot-head, but he can be reasoned with if you can get him to cool off, Knox is amiable and amenable as long as you approach from the right angle, but Joel only backs down when he’s been irrefutably proved wrong.
“Don’t pretend that you weren’t imagining the same thing. We’re super close, Nate, but we’re not there yet, and she could make the difference. Knox is our main liability. Think what Paradise Kiss could be, if it was you, me, Dane and her. We wouldn’t need to be playing support for fucking Black Halo we’d be headline our own international tour.”
I allow myself a momentary fantasy of what that would be like. Us bigger than Black Halo, fuck yeah, it’s totally what I want. And deep in my guts, I know Joel is right. Knox is the weak point in our whole operation, while Ms. Trevaskis could catapult us into the stratosphere. Too bad my heart’s in charge of this operation.
“It wasn’t what I was thinking,” I lie. The possibility of us getting rid of Knox has never once entered my head as a serious option. I’m not about to abandon my roots. Joel on the other hand is ready to make whatever sacrifice is necessary. I can see it in him. The last twelve months have changed him. He’s grown in confidence, recognised that we’ve a chance to make it big. He’s started believing in the dream I’ve spun.
“What, you expect me to believe you were checking out her finger-picking and flapping techniques with a view to something other than recruiting her?”
I expect him to believe whatever the hell I tell him to believe.
“I was checking out her curves.”
“The hell you were.”
I give him the look, because actually, she’s curvy in all the right places, and nicely top heavy.
“Nate.” His hot breath stings my cheek, and I step away from him, rubbing at my skin to remove the sensation of his nearness. I wade forward, moving closer to the stage, shoving a path through the audience, as the song reaches its crescendo. Joel tags along behind me. Obviously he missed the fact that I was moving because the conversation was done.
“Nate, this is serious. We need to talk about Knox. It’s no good, you constantly side-stepping the issue. He’s a problem, and you making like we’re blood brothers and that we don’t leave anyone behind—”
“We don’t leave anyone behind.”
“—is bollocks.”
Several of Bitch Slap’s more obvious fans give us evil glares. For a second or two, it looks as if things could get ugly, but Joel comes and butts his head up against mine, and it becomes apparent that we’re having a disagreement that no one needs to get involved in.
“Look, I’m not saying we should make the cut this minute, but it’s going to come to that, and you know it. Christ!” He tugs a hand through his abundance of brown curly hair and sighs theatrically. “When it happens, it might be that you’ll look back and realise it would have been more humane to have done it sooner. It’s going to sting like fuck if we hit it big and then you give him marching orders.”
“Joel, it’s not fucking happening. Ever.”
He sneers, showing me his pearly whites. “Yeah, well we can all reflect on that when Graham Callahan decides to sign Bitch Slap instead of us.”
“For fuck’s sake keep your voice down.” The crowd here don’t need to know that Black Halo’s manager is in the audience. If Jessie gets wind of it, we are seriously fucking screwed, because that woman will do anything to see us fail, and/or steal our prize from under us.
“Are you so sure she doesn’t know already? They didn’t just pull this set out of their fannies.”
“We’ve got this,” I say, trying to sound confident, but the conviction that I had before the show began has all but evaporated. One glance across the room over the heads of the crowd is enough to elevate all the fears Joel is doing his damnedest to sway me with. Graham Callahan is watching Bitch Slap perform with a smile on his face, and pound signs in his eyes, and as much as I want to tell myself it’s because they have tits and nicer butts—I notice the lass playing keyboard has hers hanging out—I know Graham Callahan has more integrity than that. Black Halo make him pots of cash, and he’s not going to saddle them with a crappy support act—not that Bitch Slap are—just because he gets off on the fact they have thighs and curves and sweet baby Jesus, au naturel hairy muffs.
And the keyboard player has taken her knickers off.
My thoughts are derailed, and the night might just have been saved after all, because if there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure that Graham Callahan wants, it’s a low maintenance supporting act. With all the unwanted press attention and fuck ups Black Halo have suffered over the last few months, I reckon he’s looking for a bit of stability. No manager wants to be attending bail hearings at the crack of dawn following every show because the band members are being done for public indecency.
-4-
Loveday Trevaskis
The set ends and we pile off stage, wet with perspiration and probably in good need of a shower. Cooling off and getting squeaky clean will have to wait for a while though, because we have people out there baying for more, and while we’re not in a position to give it—the line-up tonight doesn’t factor in encore performances for virtual unknowns—it’d be idiotic not to take advantage and go flog our wares and sign T-shirts.
I have my lucky Sharpie all at the ready.
“I thought we agreed you were going to keep your knickers on,” Jessie berates Ivy as we stow our instruments and head out front with our box of goodies. Most of the bands have dedicated merchandise sellers, but they also have larger followings, and apparently plenty of volunteers to stand in a foyer all night looking vaguely bored, instead of living it wild while watching their favourite acts.
Jessie co-opts the only bit of prime real-estate left, which just happens to be right next to Paradise Kiss’s table. The girl from earlier, the one Jessie almost slogged in the teeth while she was aiming for Dane, gives a squeak of alarm when we muscle in, but she doesn’t object to the trestle table of goodies we set up, or the oversized poster we unroll and fix to the wall behind us so that it’s overlapping the black and white image of Paradise Kiss. The way Ivy pins it, I’m rocking out face to face with Nathaniel Darke. A buzz rolls through me at the notion. I wonder what sort of sounds we’d make.
“You know he’ll be crap in bed.” Jessie taps me on the shoulder. “The ones who think they’re hot always are. They’re not prepared to put the effort in.”
