Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Chaos…
She’s snarky, I’ll give her that. Talk about a total surprise.
If I went by first impressions I never would have pegged her for being feisty at all.
She looked so sweet and innocent. I liked it—hell I liked her.
It fit her without making her seem trashy like so many of our groupies.
The side effect was killing me though, every time she got close my cock got hard.
What the fuck was it about her? It’s like she fliped my horny switch every time I’m fuckin’ near her.
Thankfully we’d finally found some common ground and weren’t acting like enemies. I’d need her help convincing Symmetry to use our songs and fighting with her would be like shooting myself in the foot.
We chatted a bit longer before one of the security guys poked his head in the room and announced one hour ‘til show time. Adrenaline surged through me until I was shaking with excitement. Fuck yeah. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Okay, guys, you heard him, time to get ready,” Rod announced between taking a swig of beer and filling his face with popcorn. Cynda’s nickname for him came to mind and I had to hold back the laughter. She’d definitely nailed him—dickman—maybe we should get him a t-shirt.
“Well, time to get my game face on.”
Cynda smiled, “Okay, Michelle and I’ll be backstage watching. Have a great show.”
“Thanks. It’s going to rock the house. We’ll have a party back here afterwards but you can hang backstage for Avenged Sevenfold if you want.”
“We’ll see, probably some of it, I know Michelle will want to.”
“What about you? Not interested in Synyster? He’s not your type?”
“Actually, musicians aren’t my type. Sorry.”
I didn’t believe her for a minute, not with the vibes I was getting and the deep pink coloring her cheeks. Nope, she might not want to, but she was definitely feeling it as much as me.
“If you say so. Enjoy the show.” I grabbed my bag and went into one of the attached rooms to change and get ready.
I wouldn’t come out until it was time to go on stage.
I had a process almost like meditation to put me in the right head space before every gig.
The others followed and I figured Rod would take care of entertaining Cynda and Michelle.
He knew better than to come back with us before a show, he learned that lesson the first time he’d done it and Rage had thrown his ass out. Now that was a funny story.
Performing for a sold out show in Madison Square Garden had to be the biggest rush of our lives.
Twenty thousand screaming fans yelling our name.
Holy fucking shit. There were no words for how it felt, and when we opened with one of our hit songs, Salvation Claimed, they knew all the words.
Wrath, Fury, and I exchanged looks a few times and I’m sure the look on my face was the same as theirs.
If we hadn’t believed it before, we did now—we’d made it.
Even Sweets and Candy had shit eating grins on their faces the entire show.
But the fucking best part had to be when Synyster came out and played Left Behind with us.
Oh sweet baby Jesus, I hoped I wasn’t dreaming because I didn’t want to wake up.
Everyone had been at the top of their game tonight.
We’d fuckin’ rocked the house. After our last song, we had to come back for an encore then we tossed our towels and water bottles into the crowd as we walked off stage.
I’m not sure any of our feet were hitting the ground even now.
The cheering continued though until the lights came up so the roadies could reset the stage for Avenged Sevenfold.
Synyster met us backstage and he told me we’d fuckin’ rocked it, which was like icing on the fuckin’ cake.
During the set I’d looked over to see Cynda and Michelle off stage a couple of times and they were really rockin' it hard. I even caught them singing along, I figured she’d heard our songs but knowing she really knew them made a big difference somehow.
Getting back to the dressing room all we could talk about was seeing all those faces looking up at us and screaming our name and singing our songs—I couldn’t imagine anything being much better than that. We were changing shirts and drying off the sweat when Rod and the girls walked in.
“I have to say, you were impressive this evening. You definitely pleased the fans.”
Michelle looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Ya think? Geesh, they were fucking amazing.”
Rod looked surprised she’d spoken to him, and we all laughed. “Were we all amazing or just Flame?”
“Shit, you all were but Flame rocks those keys like they were part of his hands.”
Flame’s ears turned bright red, and I snorted. She must’ve gotten to him—shocking—he was such a freakin’ flirt, no one ever got to him. Now we had more ammo to tease him about on the tour.
Cynda had been quiet so far, but her smile lit her face up like sunshine. She was really beautiful, from the blue streaks in her brown hair to her black heels. “Did you like the show?”
Michelle laughed, and Cynda elbowed her in the side. “You guys were great. It sounded even better live than on the album.”
“Thanks,” I said as I walked closer to her. I didn’t want everyone to hear what I was going to say next. “I saw you singing, I didn’t realize you knew our music that well.”
Pink colored her cheeks. “You saw me?”
“Yeah. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.”
“No, I know. But…”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tease you in front of the guys, but I’m flattered you knew our songs good enough to sing along.”
“I wasn’t the only one. You do you realize how popular you are, right? I mean the entire Garden was singing your songs.”
“I know, it was a fuckin’ rush too.”
She was about to say something else when Rod opened the door and came in with a shitload of women.
I didn’t even realize he’d gone back out I’d been so focused on Cynda.
Holy hell. We’d had fans—groupies—but nothing like this.
I don’t know how many backstage passes they gave out, but there had to be at least thirty women.
I looked around and the guys were being swarmed.
Cynda and Michelle stepped out of the way of the herd but I would’ve much rather just talked to her.
Michelle pushed her way through the crowd of half-dressed women to get to Flame. It sure looked like she was claiming him for her own. I turned back to find Cynda, but she was gone. I knew she wouldn’t leave, we had a deal, but where was she?
Some bleached blonde was rubbing against my side and I tried to push her away but there were others around just like her.
Most of them had bleached blonde hair and lots of eye make-up.
Except for the hair, they looked a lot like Sweets and Candy.
I hadn’t thought about Sweets since we’d gotten back to the dressing room. Oh shit.
I looked around but the room was so crowded it was hard to see much except the tops of people’s heads.
She was short but usually her bright red hair was visible.
Not this time. I had a bad feeling in my gut.
Neither of them were anywhere to be seen.
I had no idea where Cynda was and I was worried about Sweets causing shit. I hoped I was fuckin’ wrong.
Looking around for Rod, I was going to send him to find them both, but he had his own swarm of groupies.
This was fucked up. I’m all for fans, and having a bunch of beautiful women around is great, but all they wanted was bragging rights or to say they’d fucked a rock star.
The guys didn’t care but that’s why I tried to avoid this fuckin’ shit, I didn’t want to be a piece of meat.
With everyone busy, I ditched the party to go look for Cynda or Sweets, hoping I wouldn’t find them together, because that would be a clusterfuck, especially since Sweets probably had a few drinks after the concert.
They’d all hit the bottles pretty hard as soon as we got back to the suite and I couldn’t blame them.
I could use a glass of scotch, and that was the reason I had my own fuckin’ stash on the bus.