Rhythm Man (Red Door #7)

Prologue

Matt, eighteen years old

Mickey was still alive back then. He gave him a Shirley Temple, a pail of peanuts in the shells, and told him to be a good boy. Tightening his D string, Matt smiled at the memory. The old man had to have been in his seventies. His grandson ran the place now, but not much else had changed.

“Beer, mate?” Taylor handed him an ice-cold bottle.

He slammed it back with a nod of thanks, the lager bathing his parched throat.

Maybe it was the stifling city air on a muggy August night, or maybe it was just nerves, but he could’ve chugged down another right then.

Mickey had booked local acts to play for the house on Friday and Saturday nights, and tonight was Venery’s first official gig.

First one that counted, anyway.

They were getting paid.

Five hundred bucks for the weekend—that was a hundred for each of them.

Not too shabby.

Bo stood off to the side with Sloan, braiding beads into their lead singer’s shaggy long mane so he’d look more like a younger version of the late Layne Staley than he already did. Normally, he’d think that was weird, but considering they covered a lot of AIC songs, it was all right, he supposed.

“Want me to do yours next, man?” Bo asked, grinning like the goofball he was when he caught Matt looking.

“Nah, I’m good, bro.” Matt ran his fingers through wavy locks that went a few inches past his shoulders. Luckily for him, he’d been blessed with amazing hair. “I’ll take another beer, though.”

Never mind, none of them were old enough to legally drink it, but they were playing, and that was one of the perks. Drinks were on the house. They had a cooler here at their disposal.

The drummer passed him a beer. “Where’s Kit? He should be here by now.”

“What’re you asking me for?” Tipping the bottle back, he took a swig. “He’s got a wife. I’m not his fucking keeper.”

Except for Taylor—who moved to the neighborhood from London when he was fourteen—the boys who formed the band, Venery, had known each other all of their lives.

Living in the same three-flat apartment building, Matthew McCready and Christopher King, who’d gone by Kit for as long as he could remember, had always been inseparable.

More like brothers than best friends. Where one went, the other followed.

Until Courtney got her hooks into him, that is.

The bitch had to have a magic pussy or something because after Kit took her to their eighth-grade dance, he didn’t so much as look at another girl.

The fool drove up to Wisconsin and married her the day after their high school graduation.

He told them he was going to do it. They all warned him not to. Did the idiot listen?

Nope.

Now, they were living in the basement of his parents’ bungalow while Kit bagged groceries at the Jewel to pay the bills. Courtney controlled every little thing he did. It was fucked up if you asked him, not that anyone did.

Was Matt bitter about it? Yeah, to be honest. Once fun to be around, his quirky best friend had been withdrawn ever since. Something was going on in the basement, but he wasn’t confiding in him—or anyone else, either.

And speaking of the annoying little bitch, here she comes.

A walking advertisement for Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch, Courtney was pretty enough, but then she had to be, considering she worked part-time selling their stupid T-shirts at the Michigan Avenue store downtown.

Still, Matt would never understand what Kit saw in her.

She was a cheerleader. With his long blond hair, he looked like a surfer dude.

Throughout high school, she acted as if Kit—hell, all of them—were far beneath her.

“So glad you could make it.”

“Fuck off, Sloan.” Kit flicked him off and pulled his bass from its case.

Her nose in the air, Miss High-and-Mighty took a seat at the bar.

Brendan, CJ, and Bo’s sister, Allie, poked their heads behind the curtain.

“You look so good, Bo-Bo.” Face like an angel. Straight blond hair down to his waist. No shirt on. Tight pants. Bo was a pretty boy. “All of you do. Break a leg. Isn’t that what you say for good luck?”

“Close enough.” Brendan grabbed a couple of beers and slung his arm over her shoulder. “C’mon, I got us a table in front.”

Matt waved them off and turned around to see Kit frantically fingering the frets on his bass. “You okay, man?”

“Yeah.”

“If something’s wrong, you can talk to me, ya know.”

“I know,” Kit said, gnawing on his lip. “Everything’s fine.”

But it wasn’t.

Nine months later, he showed up, crying on his porch.

Cunt.

She told him he’d never amount to anything.

It took another eight years, but Kit proved her wrong.

Venery released their first studio album and made it big.

Shaking his head at the stoplight, Matt gazed at the building where Mickey’s once was.

Empty now, a “For Rent” sign was taped inside the grime-covered window.

It was a boba tea shop for a while, but the place never took off.

Gentrification hadn’t spread this far east of Coventry Park when it was there.

Now, the building looked rundown and out of place.

Someone would have to throw a lot of money into rehabbing it to make it marketable again.

He wondered if people still lived in the apartments above the storefront.

It wasn’t often he came this way since the turnoff to Park Place was eight blocks west of here, but he missed his exit on the Kennedy. Some asswipe in a fucking Tesla wouldn’t let him over.

The light turned green. The old building disappeared from his rearview mirror but not the memories.

Shit changes.

Back then, he couldn’t get laid, no matter how hard he tried.

And now? He didn’t even have to. Chicks from fifteen to fifty threw themselves at him.

Took all the fun out of it, though. He missed the hunt.

The thrill of the chase. The only thing they wanted was bragging rights, anyway.

To tell all their friends they got fucked by a rock star.

“Heh.” Over that groupie shit, Matt patted his dick. “They can suck it, but they don’t get to fuck it no more. Ain’t that right?”

These days, he did most of his fucking at the Red Door. And even that was getting old. At thirty-four, so was he. It was about time he found himself a nice girl to make babies with, wasn’t it?

Taylor and Bo found one.

But that was a fluke.

Nice girls don’t end up with rock stars.

Especially not someone like him.