Chapter 4 #2
Cy muttered something that I couldn’t quite understand—but Braden and I both gave each other wide-eyed looks as we headed back to the kitchen. Braden said, “I gotta head to that interview now. Wish me luck?”
“Yes—I hope you get the job.”
“I don’t know if I want it.”
“Then…I hope you get what’s best for you. At least the interview’ll be good practice.”
“Yeah.” Braden nodded and paused, staring at me for a bit before turning to leave. After the door closed, I thought about those kisses for a moment—until Cy reappeared and broke the silence.
“Glad to see there’s coffee,” he said, walking over to the pot. He wore gray sweats and nothing else—and I’d long grown used to the four of us being pretty casual with each other. If I’d had a crush on Cy, seeing him bare-chested all the time would have made me ache.
Fortunately, his occasionally irascible personality kept that possibility from ever occurring.
What was even stranger was that I kept thinking about that kiss with Braden—and I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I went back to scrolling through job listings on my phone when Cy sat next to me. “It’s not any of my business, but…good for you, Dani.”
What the hell was he talking about? I looked up from my phone. “What?”
“You and Braden. He’s a good guy.”
I could practically feel the color leaving my face. “Oh, we’re not—”
His smile seemed all-knowing, as if he’d seen through the wall that our lips had been momentarily locked. “Out of us three guys, he’s the marrying type.”
“What does that even mean?”
“C’mon, Dani. You’re not dumb. Out of us three guys, you have to know Braden is the one who’s gonna wind up with a wife, kids, and a dog. I’m never gonna get married—and, if Zack does, it’s gonna be twenty years from now, after he’s sown all his wild oats.”
His words hit me all wrong, because he didn’t know everything, even if he thought he did. “Are you a fortune teller now?”
Grinning, he picked up his cup of coffee. “Nah, just the next best thing.” And then he gulped from his mug as if it were room temperature.
“And that is?”
“I’m an analyst. I take in all the available information and figure out what’s coming. When you can see every possible path and then consider the personality of each person involved, you can make a prediction that’s right on the money.”
I tried to consider if I’d ever seen Cy do that—and, while I knew the guy was pretty sharp, I didn’t think he could forecast our futures. Besides, it made me sad picturing Zack as single twenty years from now.
I didn’t want to wait that long for him.
Although I didn’t know if I wanted to have kids—or even a dog—I knew being in my late thirties or early forties would make it far more difficult. I wanted to have a choice.
And I wanted it to be with Zack.
Although my mind had toyed with Braden for just a few minutes while I could still taste his lips on mine…my heart was still with Zachary Ryan, just as it would always be.
And I wanted Cy to be wrong.
My phone had long since gone to sleep. “So what predictions have you accurately made?”
He smirked. “I knew Mr. Evans was gonna retire after our junior year.”
That was one teacher I’d never had, because he taught woodworking and some other classes I wasn’t interested in. “Wasn’t he, like, a hundred years old? Couldn’t anybody have guessed that?”
“No. They all thought he was gonna work till he croaked. But he’d said some things in class that made me figure that was what he was gonna do—and I was right.
” Although I didn’t respond, he could tell I wasn’t impressed.
So he upped the ante. “And I knew Parker was gonna blaze at some point. I didn’t know when—but I knew he would. ”
“How’d you know?”
“It was clear he didn’t want to be with us. He wanted to be in a band, yeah, but he didn’t like Zack’s vision, and he didn’t keep that a secret. He bristled at almost every single suggestion Zack made—so I wasn’t surprised when he left.”
“But did you predict it?”
Scooting back his chair, Cy got up to refill his coffee. “I told Zack one day before practice when Parker was late. I told him Parker’s days with us were numbered. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him.”
“No, I believe you.”
About Parker. About Mr. Evans.
But not about Zack.
Never about Zack…because I had to believe he would eventually see me and know I’d been waiting for him forever.
Until then, I had to try to let him go.
Two weeks later, we had a show at a little place in Denver in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
The venue was called After Hours and the only parking available was a paid lot next to the building or on the street.
I’d learned quickly that parking downtown was hard to come by, especially when you had your entire band and equipment in a huge cargo van.
Despite the cold weather, I’d purchased a black pleated miniskirt I found at a thrift store that fit me perfectly with tips I’d made from my new job cleaning hotel rooms. There was nothing fun about the work, but I did get a few bucks in tips every day.
It was surprising to me just how filthy some people could be while other rooms hardly looked used at all.
The hardest part was getting up early after a night when we’d had a concert.
But I was young. I could sleep when I was dead.
After I’d bought the skirt, I’d searched different looks online and settled on a chunky black belt with silver studs, fishnet hose, black boots, and a snug black fitted t-shirt.
At the last minute, I decided against the fishnets, wanting to ease into the look.
It wasn’t like they would keep my legs warm anyway.
I wore my leather jacket on top and felt a little bad ass.
Cy said, “We seriously have to pay for parking?”
“Yeah,” Zack said as he eased the van in a space at the back of the lot. “But this place is a hot nightclub that gets packed every night.”
“A nightclub?”
“Yeah—that’s why we changed the setlist.”
It all made sense now—Zack had had us practicing our fastest numbers over the past week, but I had to agree with Cy, even though I wouldn’t say it out loud.
Cy, however, had no qualms about saying what he was thinking. “Man, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
Zack shut off the engine and turned around. “We get ten percent of the door. They charge $20 a person, and we’ll be followed by their usual DJ.”
“What if nobody comes till after we play?”
“They’ll be there. And capacity is 300 people. You do the math.” Zack opened his door. “I’m not sure where we load everything in. Be right back.”
We wouldn’t even start playing till ten o’clock—and I had to agree with Cy. We would be booed off the stage and be lucky to make any money.
But Cy said, “At capacity, that’d be 600 dollars. Not bad.”
“Not bad?” Braden said. “That’s better than we’ve made at most places.”
“Yeah, but we’re not gonna win any fans here, so it’s kinda like jerking off.”
Braden said, “Then do what Zack always tells us to do—think of it as practice.”
“I don’t need any more practice. I need to see progress.”
I tried to reserve judgment because I could see it both ways.
It would be nice to actually earn more money for a change so we could professionally record a CD like Zack wanted.
I didn’t know how much it cost for time in a studio, but I knew from what Zack had said that it wasn’t cheap.
I also didn’t want to rub Cy’s nose in the fact that we’d been in venues with audiences receptive to us—and the guys had said Fully Automatic was going to have someone contact us, but we hadn’t heard shit.
The guys had to have misunderstood.
Soon, we were set up and on the stage in the venue.
From the outside, After Hours didn’t look much bigger than a house, but it was actually pretty spacious inside.
It was dark—no windows at all—and had a lounge just off the main dance floor.
The laser lights were amazing and made me feel like we were a bigger deal than we actually were.
And, although a lot of people were not dancing, at least they seemed to be into the music.
It probably didn’t hurt that they knew the DJ would be playing once we were done.
The lights and the energy of the club contributed to what I felt was my best playing yet.
In fact, the same could have been said of all of us.
Zack had easily adapted to selling our sound to a different audience and managed to grab the girls’ attention—but he had plenty of competition from both Cy and Braden.
I’d never had sexual feelings toward either of the guys, although my body had responded to kissing Braden just two weeks earlier.
Since then, I’d pondered him…but my heart just couldn’t be pulled from Zack.
Then there was Cy, the guy who’d started out hating being on stage but looked completely comfortable there now.
Although I mostly only saw his back from my vantage point, he appeared to feel at ease, even if somewhat aloof and uncaring—and that seemed to attract a lot of women.
He seemed broody, and, as we played live more and more, I began to discover that it worked for him. He never had a problem getting girls.
Zack, though…as the band’s frontman, he got the most attention—and, I supposed, it was well earned.
Still, every time I heard his words in my ears, the ones telling me his focus was on the band, I also knew that his focus wasn’t just on the band…
it was also on as much random sex from gorgeous girls as he could handle from our audiences.
I’d get the last laugh tonight, though. There weren’t any dressing rooms in this place—so if he wanted to fuck some wannabe groupie, he’d have to either sully his van or the alley, where it was still cold enough to, I hoped, discourage even the idea.
But, for all I knew, we planned to head out right after the show.
It was pretty late when we finished, later than most of the shows we’d played up until that point, so as we loaded up the van, I expected us to head out.
We’d all talked a bit, happy with our performance and eager to see how much we’d earned.
As we closed the door at the back, Zack said, “I still have to collect—and the manager said we could hang and dance if you want.”
Cy said, “Dani’s the only one dressed for it.”
“Because of my skirt? These fucking boots aren’t made for dancing.”
“Chill. Jesus, Dani, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“Well, you look like you could dance better than I could with the shoes you’re wearing.
” He had on the pair of black low-top Converse Chucks that he always wore, and they looked like a far better choice for boogieing than my clunky leather boots—but I wasn’t going to say another word about the shoes.
As we started heading toward the back entrance of the venue, I said, “And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop being so fucking sexist.”
Cy started laughing. “Sexist? Just because I said you dressed the part of a dancer?”
“No—because you immediately jumped to telling me not to get my panties in a bunch. That’s so offensive.”
“Offen—are you serious?”
“Damn straight.”
Cy shook his head. “I say that shit all the time. Why—”
“Would you ever even dream of telling Zack or Braden not to get their tidy whities in a bunch?”
Braden laughed and immediately regretted it—probably because I glowered at him, daring him to say something, anything.
“No, but I tell Zack to calm his tits sometimes.”
My anger rose so much that I felt like the top of my head was going to blow off. “That is also fucking sexist.” And, with that, I marched ahead of them toward the door.
But when I got there, I couldn’t get the door open.
I pulled and strained and didn’t get it to budge until the guys caught up.
I wasn’t sure why it had been so difficult to open, but I’d seen Zack struggle with it earlier—and, as I walked inside, I wondered if the guard standing there had been holding it.
As I walked past, he gave me a quick nod, recognizing me and the guys as the band members who’d just toted out all their equipment.
As a wall of electronic dance music hit me, I heard Zack say, “Dani, meet at the van at midnight.”
Without turning around, I gave him a thumbs up and kept walking toward what looked to be a strobe light flashing ahead.
But, in my mind, he could fuck all the way off.