Chapter 10
Alice
Maison Publique
God, I was so nervous. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time. In my last band I’d been the only girl—I’d had three guys to hide behind. It might’ve turned into a clusterfuck at the end, but I’d never worried about being on stage with the guys. I’d known if shit went down, they’d all protect me.
Until they didn’t.
But this was so different. Three women setting up a stage drew a different kinda crowd.
We hadn’t even started playing and the catcalls were already starting.
“Oh yeah. Bend over again, baby!”
“I get the blonde. She looks kinda slutty. You can have the brunette.”
Considering there were two brunettes, I wondered which one he was talking about. But I wasn’t planning on finding out.
No way were we loading up in the parking lot without security. This could get ugly fast.
“A chick band? No one said it was a chick band. Fuuuck.”
We hadn’t even played yet, and we were already building a fan base. That was sarcasm, by the way. Misogynistic assholes.
“Please tell me they have more security than the two dudes at the door,” Bailey said in my ear.
I shook my head. “They’re the only ones I’ve seen. Lark! Come here a sec!”
She was talking to the guy in charge of the sound system and waved a hand at us.
“I remembered this place looking classier,” Bailey murmured in my ear.
She wasn’t wrong. I’d been to Maison Publique before. We came a few weeks back to watch a band. And with the stage lights sparkling and the music pulsing, it’d been fucking magical.
Tonight, it looked dirty, grungy, and missing all that gloss of the last visit. The red material on the walls sagged sadly in places and the gold fixtures didn’t sparkle at all. Holy shit, was that a cockroach?
I inched away from said bug. “Maybe it’ll look better when they turn the lights down?”
“What’s up?” Lark asked after she bounced onto the stage, eagerness and happiness glowing from her.
I turned to her and crossed my arms. “What’s the security situation? Are we going to have help after the show?”
“Of course. They have six guys on a regular night and two more come in for shows. I made it part of our contract that we get a security escort after the show. Jon signed off on it.”
Jon, the bar manager, who’d been absent all during set up. Okay…
“You guys remember the setlist?” Lark asked with a shoulder shimmy. It was like she couldn’t stop moving—she was so amped up.
Meanwhile, I was hoping not to lose my dinner onstage.
I count down on my fingers. “We start with ‘ Don’t Cha’ then T Swift’s ‘ Me ,’ then a Tin Gods song—we settled on ‘ Nowhere to Hide ,’ right?”
“Right.” Bailey nodded, her eyes no doubt as wide as mine.
“Then we cycle through a few original songs before the break,” Lark finished for me, then named three of our songs.
“We’ve got this, girls.” Lark beamed, her visible optimism impossible to look away from. “Take a few breaths and don’t forget to have fun. This is what we’ve been building toward. We’ve got this.”
Bailey’s shoulders heaved with her deep breath before she put her hand out in the center of our little huddle. “Monarchs on three?”
“Monarchs soar on three?” I gave them a little smile, placing my hand on top of Bailey’s.
“I love it.” Lark shimmied before placing her hand on mine. “One, two, three—”
“Monarchs soar!” we yelled like goofballs.
I grinned back at my friends and only felt a little self-conscious as I settled behind my drums.
Okay, that wasn’t true… I felt a lot self-conscious.
Then I picked up my sticks, nodded at Lark and Bailey, counted down, and started the driving beat of PCD’s ‘ Don’t Cha .’
All my nerves disappeared as I lost myself to the music.
There’d been so much debate on what would make the perfect setlist. We wanted upbeat dance songs. Lark had been adamant that ‘ Don’t Cha ’ was perfect to start with—since it was a burlesque-y song and we were playing Maison Publique. Personally it wasn’t my favorite song, and I saw a few rolled eyes, or at least I think I did—it was hard to tell with the stage lights. But as we transitioned to Taylor Swift, it felt like we had the crowd on our side.
Of course Lark’s bubbly personality easily won over anyone on the fence about us. After the first song, she introduced us to the crowd.
“And we have the awesome Bailey Butler on guitar. Give everyone a little wave, Bailey.”
I could see Bailey’s red cheeks from here, but she still gave them a wave.
“And on drums we have the amazing Alice Rose. Alice?”
Instead of waving I did a little drum call in response then waved my sticks.
“Yeah, Alice.” Lark fanned the crowd on before giving a little husky laugh into her mic. “I don’t know if you all know this about us, but the three of us have a little something in common.”
She drew the words out in her sexy way that I’d never be able to duplicate. There was a reason why Lark was our frontwoman. I swore she had the whole crowd leaning forward just picturing us all on a huge bed with a threeway dildo or something.
“We all work for the Tin Gods and have for a few years. I do backup vocals, Alice is their drum tech, and Bailey works merch. We met over a year ago on the road and bonded over our love of music and homesickness. Not to mention the fact that we were three girls on the road with a rock band. We didn’t have a lot of friends to choose from.”
“Screw you.” Bailey laughed. “That is so not how I remember it. You know you wanted to be my friend. I’m awesome.”
“Sure, sure, love.” Lark blew Bailey a kiss then turned back to the crowd and they laughed. “Anyhow, in tribute to our overlords, we’re going to play a Tin Gods song. Any Tin Gods fans in the audience?”
The crowd roared their approval.
I picked up my sticks, counted out, and then hit the opening beat of ‘ Nowhere to Hide .’
It was all so magical. Lark had the crowd in the palm of her hands. They didn’t even mind when we transitioned to our original songs. By the second verse of ‘ Lost Boys ,’ the crowd knew the chorus and some were singing along.
I had the biggest grin on my face as we ended our first set.
“Thank you!” Lark beamed. “We’ll be back for our last set after a little break so don’t go anywhere!”
The stage lights went dark, and someone gave a little shriek. My heart raced before Lark’s bubbly laughter rolled over me, and I grinned again.
“That was awesome!” She squealed before tackle-hugging me out of nowhere.
I didn’t even have a chance to get off my stool. All I could do was hug her back. Then a third set of arms came around us as Bailey’s laughter warred with Lark’s.
“So amazing! I feel like I can fly!” Bailey laughed.
“Drinks on me!” Lark yelled in my ear.
I didn’t feel like drinking, but I let them pull me off the stage anyway.
We didn’t even make it to the bar. The second we got off the stage we were swarmed. Mostly guys crowded around us, all full of pretty compliments and offering to buy us drinks. We talked and laughed with them as we tried to make our way to the bar.
Someone gave Lark a sharpie and she was signing t-shirts, cocktail napkins, and even one guy’s very firm chest.
Finally after a few minutes, a few bouncers showed up and dispersed the crowd, then led us to the far end of the bar where Lark ordered a round of espresso martinis for us.
“Whew! That was crazy.” Lark grinned.
Judging by her smile, I thought it was more like a lifelong dream achieved. “You were great, Lark. You had them eating out of your hand by the second song.”
“Did you hear how they were singing the chorus of ‘ Lost Boys ’ back to us?” Bailey squealed. “Our words! They were singing our words!”
“Yes!” I high fived Bailey like a goober. “So amazing!”
“Did you see the chest on that last guy?” Lark pursed her lips like she had a secret.
Bailey rolled her eyes. “Did you get his number?”
“He slipped something in my pocket.” Lark dramatically patted her very short skirt. “Oh that’s right. I don’t have pockets. I guess he was copping a feel.”
My eyebrows went up. Some guy tried to do that to me, and I would’ve clocked him. Like last week with Keegan. No thank you.
“His friend was pretty cute…” Bailey tilted her head as she looked past the bouncers who were guarding our little end of the bar, keeping the crowd away from us.
I sighed. “We go back onstage in fifteen minutes. No jizz stains.”
“I would never.” Bailey placed her hand over her heart and sounded so sincere.
I just shook my head. “No judgement here. But those stage lights are brutal. So keep the bodily fluids to a minimum. Or maybe save them for after the show.”
“They look pretty strong too.” Lark tilted her head. “I bet we could convince them to help us tear down before we leave.”
“Good point.” I pointed a finger at Lark and moved it between them. “No bodily fluids until after we’ve torn down. Do not leave that shit up to tiny, little ol’ me. I won’t be happy.”
“Hey, we’re the three musketeers. All for one and all that. We won’t leave you to do all the work.”
“Yeah, we’re just leaving you to shore up our plans for an after show.” Bailey raised her eyebrows. “Unless you want to see if they have any cute friends?”
I shook my head. “I’m good. Go enjoy our adoring public. I’ll be here.”
“You sure?” Lark asked as she slowly backed away. “This is the fun part, after all.”
“I’m good. Really.”
“See you in ten!” Bailey promised as she and Lark bounced away, leaving me with three espresso martinis and the back of a large bouncer for company.
I would’ve laughed, but a voice came from behind me that made my blood freeze.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t little Alice Rose. Look at how far you’ve come.”
I didn’t turn around.
I couldn’t.
The last time I’d heard that voice it’d been telling me how worthless I was.
How our management deal falling through was my fault.
How much better they would be if I got the fuck out.
“What? You can’t even say hello to your old boyfriend?” Parker Webb, lead singer for Alien Attraction AKA my old band, drawled.
“ Fuck off .” The words were bitten out even as my heart raced.
He couldn’t do anything to me here. I mean, I’d come so far. I was a stronger woman now.
So why did I feel so damn vulnerable?
Also, what was it with me and douchebags at bars? This was twice in as many weeks.
I was mentally promising to never step foot in another bar when my ex-boyfriend and current asshole walked around behind me to lean against the bar on my right.
His blond hair gleamed in the golden lighting. The dark sunglasses over his eyes didn’t exactly cover up his smug expression, but I guess they did the job of keeping people from recognizing him.
Like anyone knew who he was. One hit did not a rabid fandom make.
I smirked into my martini glass before taking a bracing sip.
“Long time, no see,” Parker said with zero irony.
I laughed and took another drink. Maybe I should make it a drinking game. I’d take a sip every time he said something stupid. But wait, I needed to be sober enough to play again in a few minutes, so that probably wasn’t a good idea.
“Never thought you’d start another band.”
Drink . I raised my eyebrows over the rim of my drink. “Ah, so you acknowledge I started the last band?”
Parker’s head went back like I’d slapped him. “I didn’t say that.”
Drink .
Parker leaned down but was still almost shouting as he ranted. “Every single day it felt like I had to drag the sound out of you. You clearly didn’t like music. Your heart just wasn’t in it.”
Drink . Drink . Drink . Yeah, it was probably a good thing I wasn’t playing this game.
I set my drink down with a clunk but didn’t turn to face the asshole. I couldn’t. “You’re full of shit and you know it. Those were my songs. That song you hit with was written by me .”
“Funny, I never saw your name on the credits.”
“Hard to put my name on credits that I’m not in charge of. You screwed me out of the band. Screwed me out of my royalties. And you couldn’t find my clit with a fucking roadmap, so you sucked at actually screwing me.”
I finally felt brave enough to look up at him and found him scowling down at me, but he knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on—especially about that last part. Parker thought he was a big man, but he was a crappy partner. He only ever cared about getting himself off. He only ever half-heartedly tried to do the same for me.
Asshole.
I was sure my eyes telegraphed the sentiment. But just in case…
“You’re an asshole. What the fuck are you even doing here?”
“I thought I was here to support a friend.”
“If that ‘friend’ was me, you’re so fucking wrong I don’t even know where to start. How did you even know I was playing here tonight?”
Now it was his turn to duck his head and take a huge drink.
I thought I’d blocked the fucker. Whatever. It didn’t matter. He needed to go. Now.
I turned to get the attention of the bouncer, but he was busy talking to a slender blonde.
Story of my life.
I moved to tap him on the shoulder when Parker grabbed my arm. Apparently while I’d been surveying the bouncer’s taste in women, Parker had pushed away from the bar and was now standing behind me.
Looming over me.
His grip was tight—punishingly so.
Fighting to keep my whimper of pain inside, I whipped my head around to glare at him. “Let. Me. Go .”
Parker, the crazy fuck, grinned down at me like this was a fun little conversation. “We’re not done here. We haven’t even talked about the reason I came tonight.”
I made the same move I’d done with Keegan, but Parker knew it was coming. His grip tightened. Trapping me. “You’re fucking crazy.”
“Only about you, love.” His grin had a crazy slant that told me he probably wasn’t sober. I should’ve clued in earlier, but Parker was tweaking. His breathing was more like panting. I blamed the sunglasses for hiding the signs.
My heart raced. “Really? You have a weird fucking way of showing it. Is this the part where you tell me all about the wonderful basement bedroom you have waiting for me? The one with bars on the windows?”
My words were brave—maybe foolish—but I was so freaking scared despite the bravado I fought to show. Parker had never laid a hand on me before. He’d always let his ugly words do the battle for him. This clearly wasn’t the same Parker I knew from before. Now he’d had a touch of fame. Thought he was due whatever the hell he wanted. And right now, he wanted something from me.
I wasn’t going to wait and see what he’d do to get it.
“Security!” I hollered. “Security!”
For whatever reason, Parker hadn’t anticipated me using my voice.
The bouncer whipped around, took a quick inventory of the situation and had Parker by the collar, frog marching him toward the exit before he could blink.
The entire way Parker shouted. “Do you know who I am? I’ll sue this whole fucking place! It’ll be called Maison Parker Webb when I’m done. You can’t do this! Let me go! Do you know who I am?”
“You okay?” the bartender asked, bending over the bar in front of me and suddenly all aware of the situation.
Where were you five minutes ago?
“Can I get a water? No ice.”
“Coming now.” The handsome bartender gave me an apologetic smile then turned to grab a glass.
“Well, shit.” A voice came from behind me for the second time that night that made my blood freeze for a whole different reason. “I was bounding over here to play the hero, and you’ve already taken care of it all on your own.”
After taking one bracing gulp of air, I turned on my barstool and leaned back against the bar to stare up at Noah Hawker.
Fuck my life.