42. The Taste of Ink #2
Jordan bends down to me next, her hair flat and glossy, a black-water bayou pouring down her back.
Her cheekbones glow lanterns in the dark, mouth all velvet curves, all lush, all model.
She points out the cuts on my face.
Celie gives her the rundown.
They laugh.
I roll my eyes.
They move on.
“Lawd, I ain’t even ready for Sunset Decay,” she says, bourbon eyes burning. “Whole strip been buzzin’ all night. And you mean to tell me you brought ‘em all the way out from Wisconsin?”
True story. After the night I met Andrew, I found their video in some corner of YouTube—county fair stage, hay bales stacked behind them, crowd of fifteen, all chewing funnel cake.
“Yeah. They don’t know how the hell they got here.” I slipped them the slot and sent them an email as if Venom, flights, and hotel were a contest they won.
They’re too small-town to question it.
I don’t want Raymond knowing I’m backing these guys. I don’t want him anywhere near Sunset Decay.
“All they know is that they’re here. All I know is, if they choke, that’s on me.”
The bouncer ushers us through the side entrance, and the narrow staircase groans as it carries us up.
Balcony smells like whiskey and sweat,
but it has a perfect view of the stage.
Below, label rats pause mid-gossip, eyes glancing up at me. A&R reps go still, hands frozen on their phones when they catch me in the box.
I knew they’d all come crawling. Every rat, every scout, sniffin’ around, needing to know how a garage band from Ashland, Wisconsin landed this stage.
But one look at me in the balcony,
and blood drains from their questions.
Now it makes sense.
Out there on the strip,
nobody knows me.
But in here,
rats, scouts, and managers know.
I’m the heart that wrote their anthem.
The pen that bought their cars, their houses, their rehab. The ghost who never signed her name, but bled hers into theirs.
The most famous nobody
from LA to NYC.
The server drops drinks on the sticky table. Early-2000s punk snarls through the speakers, hyping the crowd for what’s to come.
Jordan scoops up her drink, glossy crimson nails catching the light. “So when’s Malik showin’?”
“He's on his way.” Celie grins. “Gotta gas himself up. Big night ahead.”
“Don’t do it,” I beg her. “The rectum’s not designed for that. Objects are supposed to leave, not enter. It’s a one-way exit only.”
Celie slaps Jordan’s thigh with a cackle.
“See what I mean.”
“Dead serious,” I say. “And your vaginal canal? Right fuckin’ next door. Cross-contamination city. UTI, yeast, the whole shebang.”
Jordan laughs into her straw. “You really just said cross-contamination like it’s Chipotle.”
“Yeah.” I lean in. “Enjoy that with a cranberry juice IV in urgent care.”
Celie bursts out a laugh, drink spraying.
“Cranberry drip, oh my fuckin’ God.”
Jordan waves her hand between us. “Wait, wait—hold up.” Her eyes widen. “Not one man’s ever put his finger back there? Not even circled a tongue?”
“Circled a tongue?”
My stare falls deadpan.
“Around my asshole?”
Jordan’s face softens into pity.
“Baby, you lyin’.”
“Please.” I wince. “I’d rather lose a finger than explain to the ER how my vagina got strep throat.”
Celie smacks the table, finger stabbing the air at me. “Six-Point-Five’s tongue gon’ end up in that bootyhole, just you watch.”
Jordan throws her hand up.
“Mm—manifestin’ it for you, bitch.”
I stir my drink, ice clinking. “Nah. Only ones near that hole is Scott and Charmin.”
Then one strum—
The lights slam down.
Drums pound—
fast, reckless, hitting my chest.
The lights burst across Sunset Decay on the stage, and suddenly the floor’s shaking with ghosts of Warped Tour and burned CDs.
But it’s not a cover band. It’s not nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia.
These guys gutted the sound, rebuilt it with lyrics that taste like right now.
It’s familiar. It’s home.
It’s melodies that make no apologies for surviving twenty years of copycats.
The crowd surges forward.
I’m lunging to my feet, the song yanking me to the balcony rail, my chest leaning over, my heart split between memory and hunger for a band that will rip this decade wide open.
It takes me back—
growing up backstage
with Sharpie lyrics across my Vans,
cigarette smoke in my lungs that didn’t belong to me.
Merch tables were my babysitters.
Tour buses were my jungle gyms.
Soundchecks were lullabies.
Feedback was thunderstorms.
And Dad—I grew up watching him light up over bands like Trash Romance.
Some part of me believed I’d never feel that same gut instinct, that I’d inherit the label but not the gift of discovering talent.
But Sunset Decay’s right here,
and I hear Dad all over again—
cigarette ash, gravelly Chicagoan voice,
pointing the Newport cherry at me:
Sonny, pay attention. These kids got it.
They’re 2004 heartbreak
set on fire with 2024 gasoline.
Screaming-from-the-gut kind of shit.
Writing pain with a pulse.
Music that doesn’t care if it sells.
Music that just wants to bleed.
My chest pounds,
the crowd screams below,
and the band tears through it all, and—
I get it, Dad.
For the first time,
I fucking get it.
I wipe my palms against my thighs,
but it doesn’t steady me.
It doesn’t stop the way my throat tightens. Because standing there, watching them, I know exactly who I want to rebuild Soundwave with.
Sunset Decay.
As the song fades,
the last chord drifts in the smoke.
The crowd’s screaming after the first song dies on the floor.
Noah doesn’t move right away.
He lets the moment simmer—
black hair dripping sweat,
shoulders rising and falling,
clutching the mic stand to keep himself standing.
Then slowly, he looks up, hair falling into a face—high cheekbones, wrung-out eyes cutting straight through the haze—until they catch my gaze.
The whole room’s still cheering, losing it, but there’s a pause between us.
His hand slips from the mic and falls at his side, knowing I’m not just another pair of eyes in the dark.
I’m the reason he’s here.
The set’s still ringing in my ears when I enter the green room.
Inside, Sunset Decay's real bodies
instead of pixels.
Four guys in their early twenties from a small town where bloodlines stretch across backroads, and the accents drag their r’s.
They’re sunk into the couches, shirts sticking, water bottles clutched in fists, chests heaving, eyes glazed.
They look different in this room.
Not a band that just tore up a stage like born gods. Here, they’re mortals—lungs burning, skin flushed, sweaty hair in their faces, staring at the floor, in shock at what they just did. And it lights up my chest seeing them small, human, raw.
‘…You’re fuckin’ brave…’
I keep hearing Andrew say in my head, the looping line that got me this far, gave me the courage to reach out to these boys, to take the chance to get them here. And maybe I’m not brave, but I’ll keep pretending I am if it means doing right by Soundwave, Dad, the music.
I breathe in deep. “Hell of a set. Crowd’s still buzzing,” I tell them as I walk in. “You guys still alive? Or did you leave it all onstage?”
They glance up at me, the stranger barging in on their space, with confusion slashed across their faces.
“Aw, thanks,” the drummer says, wiping his face with his shirt, his cheeks pink. He throws a glance at Noah, then back at me. “Uh... yeah, we’re fine. Just… wow. That was crazy.”
The bassist laughs, shaking his head. “I thought I was gonna puke up there. But yeah, I’m good.”
Noah’s slouched forward, elbows to knees, sweat streaking down the sides of his face. “That was you. Up on the balcony.”
“Yeah, that was me.” I sit on the arm of the couch and try to keep my nerves and excitement in check. “So… what’s it feel like, Sunset Decay playing on Sunset Boulevard, bleeding all over a stage that held half your heroes?”
I’ll never know.
The stage isn’t my home.
The shadows are.
I like staying untouchable.
I like feeding the stage
without letting it feed on me.
I like everyone else catching fire on my words.
That’s the magic for me.
Noah’s chest’s still heaving. “Felt like—shit, it—it felt like my whole life was leading to those twenty minutes.” He pauses, stunned, still shaking his head.
“Like if I died walking offstage, I’d be fine with it.
” He forces a laugh, scratching the back of his neck.
“Uh—yeah, that sounded dramatic as hell.” He raises a hand toward me. “Just grateful to be here.”
The guys laugh, clapping his back,
telling him to shut up.
Noah parts his hands, palms up. “Don’t even know what I’m doin’ here, honestly.”
“No, you do,” I say, with a warm glow in my chest. “You’re here because you deserve to be here. Because your music belongs in front of more people.”
The drummer has his shirt twisted in his nervous fist as my gaze swims across the four of them. “I paid your way to LA. Got you that slot here. Venom. Because people need to hear your music.”
The bassist leans forward. “Wait—you paid for all this? The flights? The slot? All of it was you?”
The drummer snorts, disbelief in his laugh. “Shit. I thought it was some promoter deal.”
The blond one taps his bottled watter against his knee. “We can’t get booked outside county lines. And you… got us in at Venom?”
Noah’s the only one who isn’t smiling,
face struck, still staring at me.
“Why? Who are you?
“Why’d you even give a shit about us?”
Before I can answer—
The door swings open.
The drummer chokes on his water.
The bassist’s mouth drops open.
The blond one blurts out first,
“Holy shit. That’s Eli Stone.”
Eli walks in, fingers full of rings, hair falling messy, looking cut out of a poster, not a plane seat.
He goes around the room, clapping shoulders and shaking hands.
“Y’all tore that stage up. Raw as hell.” He blows out a breath, impressed.
“Reminded me of Trash Romance back when we still smelled like Miller Lite and ashtrays.”
The guys laugh, still speechless. “I don’t even know what to do with my hands right now,” the drummer mutters.