Chapter 1 #2
A silly grin appeared on my face, so wide it caused my eyes to squint, and I realized this might become a regular thing.
“Yeah, sure.” What was cool was the guy and I wound up hanging together the rest of the time, even though he was there with a couple of friends and I, of course, had my bandmates.
Braden would come over and chat for a bit before wandering around somewhere else, but I had no idea where Cy and Zack had wound up—and I didn’t plan to care about it.
As I glanced around the crowd, I tried to figure out how many people were there.
Fifty? A hundred? Without actually counting, all I could do was guess, but my final thought was between one and two hundred.
I kept telling myself the size of the crowd didn’t matter.
Earning new fans did. As Zack had already told us, once we got a good following, we could start selling to them, and that opened up another income stream—not that we were seeing any real money yet.
Zack had set up a separate account to put our earnings in.
That account paid for gas and any other incidentals that popped up at our shows, and Zack made sure to give each of us some money so we felt like we hadn’t worked for nothing—but twenty percent went into that account without fail.
When the show was over and the audience was trying to talk the band onstage into playing an encore, my new friend grabbed me by the hand and led me to the bar. Over the noise of the crowd, he asked the bartender, “You got a pen and paper I can use?”
The guy behind the bar cocked an eyebrow. “I have a napkin and a pen—but I need the pen back.”
“Yeah, of course.” Here in better light, I saw for sure that this guy was older than I was—by probably about ten years. He had to be thirty or at least pushing it. He was good looking, no doubt about it, but the age difference kind of creeped me out.
It wouldn’t have if he hadn’t hit on me.
“So gimme your autograph,” he said, sliding the napkin over to me and handing me the pen.
I’d never done this before, had hardly ever had to sign my name to anything, but this felt important.
Huge. Exciting. The pen kept tearing the napkin and not writing, so I had to keep retracing certain parts, making me wonder if he’d be able to read it at all.
As soon as I finished, I handed the pen back to the impatient bartender, stifling the urge to tell him to keep his crummy piece of shit pen.
But my newfound fan picked up the napkin, scrutinizing my signature. “Dani?”
“Yes. Short for Danielle.”
Looking intensely at me, he seemed to be examining my features. “You look like a Dani.”
I smiled. “I guess that’s good—but what’s a Dani look like?”
“Like you—cute. Beautiful but you don’t know it. Not shy, but kind of reserved. Good at what she does.”
By this point, I knew he was just buttering me up, but that didn’t mean the flattery didn’t puff me up a bit. “Well, thank you.”
“What’s the last name?”
Teasing, I said, “I wrote it down.”
“Yes, but it’s kind of hard to read.”
“Mankin.” As much as I liked the compliments, I was growing uncomfortable as the center of discussion. “What’s your name?”
“Rick.” Tucking the napkin in his jeans pocket, he said, “Thanks for the autograph.” Had the bartender not been on the other end of the bar serving thirsty patrons so that he could overhear our conversation, my new friend might not have been so fresh.
But the bartender’s presence—or, rather, lack thereof—wasn’t a problem.
“So, I gotta tell ya, Dani. I’ve been attending concerts here for years, and women in hard rock are few and far between.
Especially drummers. I think I’ve maybe seen one female drummer in an indie metal band until now. ”
“Yeah? What band?” I already felt outnumbered, and connecting with another female metal musician would have been refreshing.
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.” Putting his hand on my shoulder and rubbing the muscle through the cotton t-shirt I wore, he said, “I’m impressed when I see women playing hard rock.
” Making eye contact, he said, “It’s a bit of a turn on.
” The blood in my veins reacted as if the temperature dropped a degree or two while his hand continued massaging my upper arm.
“What say you and me disappear for a little bit?”
I wasn’t sure what to say; I only knew my answer wouldn’t be yes. “I’m pretty sure my bandmates are going to want to leave pretty soon.”
“I can give you a ride home—but don’t you want me to make you come hard first?”
Swallowing, I silently prayed that one of the guys would find me and whisk me away, because this was one of the most awkward conversations I’d ever had.
But no such luck. It was then that I found an unknown strength buried deep inside me, something I didn’t know I had. “Thanks for the offer, Rick, but no.”
His eyes searched mine for a bit. “Ah. You’re dating one of the guys in the band. Makes sense.”
I only wished that, but I was fine letting him believe it. Swallowing again, I felt my hands turn moist and clammy, and I forced another smile.
“At least I’ll always have this,” he said, removing his hand from my shoulder to tap on his jeans pocket. At first, I thought he was talking about his dick until I remembered he’d put the napkin I’d signed there.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, hoping I sounded polite enough. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Maybe.”
I couldn’t tell if he was taking the rejection well or not, but I needed to find the guys. My stomach was still churning at the thought of sleeping with that guy.
He thought I’d only said no because I was with someone in the band.
While that was my deepest wish, even had I not wanted Zack, I wouldn’t have wanted to sleep with a guy whose last name I didn’t know and who’d turned out to be kind of gross.
As I began walking back toward the stage, I spied Braden heading my direction. “Who’s that guy?”
“Just a fan.”
And while I wouldn’t have felt comfortable sleeping with any man that much older than myself at that stage in my life, he did set my mind churning.
That night in bed, I lay awake as I often did, wondering why Zack very obviously despised me.
Not as a friend, of course, but as a love interest, I might as well have been a leper.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
Matters of the heart couldn’t be influenced through persuasion.
Either he thought of me in that way or he didn’t.
And he definitely didn’t. He would have rather shaved five years off his life, if I’d read him right.
Without Zack, though, I realized something else. I wanted someone. Needed someone. I wanted comfort and love and intimacy. I wanted to explore my sexuality, that part of myself that had been awakened by Zack.
As I drifted off to sleep, I came up with the perfect solution, one that I hoped would one day drive Zack straight into my arms. Maybe sooner rather than later.