Peter’s lips actually turned up slightly. He almost smiled. “Thank you, Ms. Summers. Finally—something you and I can agree on.” He turned to Liz again. “Let’s sit down and let me explain.”
Her chest rose as she inhaled a large amount of air and her nostrils flared when she let it out again, but she nodded and sat. Kelly and I joined suit just as Vicki entered the room. “What’s up?”
“Have a seat, Ms. Graham.” She had a confused look on her face but did as she was asked. “The picture of you ladies that this photo is mimicking will be on the back of the album. Your individual shots will be on the insert inside. I promise you it will be professional and polished. But the rationale for the children. This is a cold, harsh truth that I don’t know you’ll want to hear, but I’m going to tell you anyway, because you might as well know.
“You know I wanted to put you all together to show the world that teens could make amazing music—and you have. In fact, you’ve far surpassed my expectations. You will have an instant audience of teenage boys who want to fuck you and teenage girls who want to be you—and you’ll have a small amount of older audience who will actually listen to your music and be impressed. But sex sells—and forbidden sex sells even more. I want to play up on the fact that you’re all underage. You’re forbidden fruit to all men eighteen and older, and knowing that they can lust over you onstage anyway will sell more albums that you could ever possibly realize.”
I saw Liz’s nostrils flare again before she spouted, “Don’t you get it, Peter? That’s the problem. You’re selling us out before we can even start. You’re making it about our image instead of our music.”
He remained calm, breathing in through his nose before he replied. “Ms. Mayerson, I realize that it goes against your personal integrity to be promoted for image before music, but if no one gives a whit about your look, they won’t bother to listen to your music.”
“Bullshit.” Liz was riled up. I was impressed that she was showing some fire. Made me respect her all the more.
Barbie made her entrance, her heels clicking on the concrete, but her words let us know that she’d already heard part of the conversation. “I’m all for it. I want to be worshipped and adored by all, and Peter’s right. Whether we like it or not, we’ve got to sacrifice a little. Don’t you want our dates on tour to be packed night after night? Well, I do. So get over yourself, Liz. It doesn’t say anything about you as an artist if we play up on our other qualities a little.”
Liz glared at her and folded her arms across her chest. Peter said, “You’re free to walk right now, Elizabeth. You can either trust me—just as you did when we first talked and I told you I had a plan—or you can leave the Vagabonds behind and go it alone.” I could see her lip twitch, but I didn’t know what that meant. “What do you say?”
After we waited long seconds that felt like minutes, Liz answered, her voice low, just as I imagined a mama bear protecting her cubs to sound like. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But don’t you ever ask me to dress or act like a little girl—or I. Will. Walk.” Peter’s face, as always, was etched in ice. “You get me?”
“I never asked any of you to do any such thing.”
Guidry walked in just then. “I’m ready to go. What are you waiting on?”
“We had some other business to attend to. We’ll be right there.” Guidry shook his head and went back in the stage area. “Are we finished? Or does anyone else have anything to say about the album cover?” He paused, giving us time to voice our thoughts. When no one said another word, he asked, “Anything else?” The words were an invitation but the tone communicated that he was not up for complaints and, when we remained silent, he said, “Let’s go listen to your album, shall we?”
Well, Peter might have been behaving like his usual dickface self, but it wasn’t enough to bring me down. I was pumped. I couldn’t wait to hear what we sounded like mixed. I felt a humming in my belly that I couldn’t ignore.
The stage area was cool. The entire pit was open with a few scattered chairs for people who wanted to sit down, but this was the kind of arena where you were standing or you were going home. You might even be expected to mosh a little. If you did sit down, you’d miss the band onstage. It was an intimate venue too, and I suspected that they could get—tightly packed—a crowd of around three hundred in there if they were lucky. But the stage size was decent and they had a couple of big screens on the sides too, making it feel legit.
I suspected our one show we’d play before going on tour would be there. It had been our home thus far.
“Grab a chair, Vagabonds,” Peter said, and I was surprised. Usually, a nasty moniker would have been spewing like diarrhea out of his mouth, and I suspected he was subdued because we had an audience. But I was pretty sure Guidry had already heard Peter tearing us apart during the recording phase. Maybe Peter was changing his tune.
Liz sat on the floor as if in protest, and Kelly sat next to her. Barbie pulled up a chair and crossed her legs—to show off her knees, I figured. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to sit and Vicki was following my cue, so we stood there for a little bit, waiting for the music to begin.
That was when I saw him walk out of the DJ area at the back of the pit. Yeah, CJ, a guy I knew would quickly become a weakness. He walked to our little circle and grinned. Barbie, who’d had no love for him after he’d worked with her on vocals, said, “What are you doing here?”
“Wouldn’t miss this for the world. I get to hear your album before anyone else.”
She sneered. “Not if I can help it.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I want him to stay.”
His smile grew wider. “Thanks, Kyle.” He walked over to stand beside me and said, “Glad I’m not everyone’s enemy.”
Guidry shouted from the DJ booth. “I’m starting. You can shut up now—or not.” I could barely make it out when he said, “I don’t really give a fuck.” If he was used to entertaining young rock stars, you could have fooled me.
CJ leaned over and whispered in my ear. “You have no idea how cool this is going to feel.”
Oh. He had no idea how his warm breath filtered through my hair to my skin felt. I closed my eyes and smiled, hoping my infatuation wasn’t completely obvious. Having CJ near made me forget entirely about the bullshit with Decker that I’d witnessed earlier.
“I heard your song on the radio today, by the way.”
His smile grew wider. “You did? What did you think?”
I couldn’t answer him because the music from my band’s album started playing. It was an odd sensation, because the first few years of my young life had been spent listening to the recorded music of other bands, other people. It was nothing short of surreal to hear a recorded song for the first time and have my fingers and brain know what was happening measure for measure. Fortunately, CJ seemed to understand why I tuned out and let me enjoy the experience. It was eerie, because I always enjoyed hearing a new album for the first time, relishing the first song and how it would pull me into the feel of the collection of songs, and this was no different. I didn’t know if it was Guidry or Peter’s idea, but the beginning started with a howling wind, kind of whistling, and then it faded as my guitar began strumming, followed by Liz and then Kelly’s bass. I felt a chill reverberate through my body as I let the entire sensation wash over me, like nothing I’d ever known before. I opened my eyes and looked over at my bandmates, and they seemed to be experiencing the same weird emotions I was, but they were smiling, and Vicki was nodding. When I looked at Peter, he even looked pleased.
Oh, my God. This was fucking real.
“Sorry. That distracted me.” I kept my voice low so as not to take away from the moment or from the experience of hearing our music, but I didn’t want to keep CJ hanging forever.
“No problem. Cool, huh?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Way cool.” After listening through the first song—and thrilled that the recording had done my solo justice—I said to CJ, “Your song. I lo
ved it. It was raw and gritty.” I paused. “And nasty.”
I heard a small chuckle escape his lips. “Yeah.”
“I’m gonna sit,” I said, even though it was obvious, but I didn’t sit huddled close to the group. I walked a few feet away to the wall and sat up next to it so I could lean against it. The next song had started and I was once more emerged in auditory distraction. The song was our first single, “Dream World,” and it was strange hearing it now. We’d only ever played it together the old way. Once CJ had come in and helped us fine tune it, we’d played it parsed out. None of us had heard it mixed until now, and then I knew why Peter had brought CJ onboard. The song far surpassed what we had started with. Now it was catchy and had a driving rhythm, an insistent beat, and a hard undertone. The entire song from start to finish was polished and top-notch.
When it was over, CJ said, “Nicely done.”
“That was mostly your doing.”
“Nah. You already had the material there. All I did was give you ideas for improvement. And you all did.”
The next song started and it too had my full attention, but when the second verse started, I said to CJ, “Yeah. I don’t hear a lot of dirty songs on the radio. I mean…there are a few, but metal doesn’t focus on that sort of thing.” I was back to an earlier topic, but he knew what I was talking about.
I couldn’t read his expression, but he had a devilish half grin on his face. “Maybe it should.”
I stifled a chortle. “Metalheads are horny enough. They don’t need any help.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You saying my song made you horny?”
I felt a warmth envelope my body. I’d forgotten that CJ was the songwriter for his band. He might have been the bassist but he was also the guy who was the glue and the engine, from the sounds of it, and that meant those words I’d heard screamed and caressed over my speakers an hour earlier had been from CJ’s heart and soul—and filthy fucking mind.
It might not have been his voice, but it was his everything else. And I’d just painted myself into a corner having forgotten that.
But I stormed through where angels feared to tiptoe. What better way to avoid embarrassment than to fucking own it? I smiled at him, hoping I looked half as wicked as I felt, and said, “What makes you think I’d tell you?”
He didn’t stop. “Every artist needs a little feedback. Kind of like what I did with you.”
All right. I couldn’t help but take the bait. “Knowing you wrote it?” One nod of his head encouraged me to follow through. “Ups the ante.”
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say a word. I saw a twinkle in his eye. “How old are you, Kyle?”
Hmm. That meant he was interested. I felt a rush of energy flow through my veins, knowing that there was no way he would ask otherwise, but that also meant he knew—or suspected, at least—that I was “underage.” And that was bullshit. I was underage because the law said so, but since we’d started working our asses off in the band, I felt more and more adult every day. CJ, though he felt like he could lead me down the path straight to hell and I’d smile the whole way, seemed to be a bit of a gentleman, and I suspected that, if he knew I was only sixteen, he would relegate me to sister territory or the dreaded friend zone. “A girl never tells.” Oh, fuck. I shouldn’t have said a girl. That was probably a dead giveaway.
But he grinned again. “You little tease.”
I knew the look on my face was smug, and I rested my head against the wall and listened to the rest of the album without talking. CJ sat next to me the whole time and we experienced the remainder of the songs together but silent, and yet I could feel that we were sharing the experience—almost like a concert or a fireworks show…or sex. It was one of those moments where you don’t have to say a word and yet you somehow know what the other person is thinking and feeling. We were feeling the music, experiencing it on a primal level, but there was something else there too. He knew I was hiding my age but he wasn’t going to push it. He also wasn’t going to pursue me. All those things I knew and yet…I also knew that we were close at that moment, that we were bonding on a level higher than most people do with others their whole lives. I knew then that I could tell CJ anything and he’d accept me for who I was—and I’d do the same.
And when I opened my eyes at the end of the recording and our eyes locked, we both smiled because we were thinking the same damn thing. This album was going to make the Vagabonds a fucking household name.
Chapter Thirty
THAT NIGHT, IN the privacy of my bedroom, I watched Death Crunch’s first video. Holy shit. If I’d been into blond-haired, blue-eyed pretty boys, their lead singer would have won me over. He owned that fucking song, and I was betting that “Tonight” lots of women were drooling at him. He was sexy on screen and hot as hell.
But I had eyes for the bass player. As was typical of most videos of most bands, the frontman got the most attention. Of course, there were shots of the whole band on occasion and there were shots of all the various band members here and there—and I made sure to look for CJ. He too looked good. He was into the song and playing his ass off.
God, I had it bad. I wanted him worse than I’d ever wanted anyone else before. It hadn’t taken me long to forget about Decker.
And, in my dreams, CJ brought me to climax. Hearing his voice in my head and seeing him dominate the stage in his video—and wrapping my mind around those filthy lyrics—didn’t hurt a bit.
I was officially smitten.
* * *
Yep, I was feeling like a real adult and I marched my ass into a tattoo shop. I knew they wouldn’t ink me without parental consent, but I assumed (incorrectly) that I could get a piercing or two without my mom and dad. After all, I’d gotten my ears pierced. But—ah, hell. I couldn’t remember. I thought I’d done it at thirteen by myself, but I couldn’t remember for certain. I seemed to recall my mom having to show up at the mall anyway and signing some stupid consent form…
But I marched right in there acting tough and in control, and the first thing they asked was to see my ID. The guy had a superior look on his face that made me want to kick him in the gut and he said, “No can do without your mom or dad’s permission.” As an afterthought, he added, “Or guardian.”
I sucked in a deep breath of air but could tell by the look on his face that there would be no way I could make him budge. Dammit. I wanted tattoos too, but I’d settle for having my nose pierced for now. I could add more enhancements later.
Vicki was hanging with me when it happened, and when I walked out of the shop, she asked, “No dice?”
She was out on the sidewalk so she could smoke. I believed the girl was already addicted. I said, “Nope. Asshole.”
We started walking back down the street, peering into different shops, trying to decide if they were worth our time. We were constantly on the look for items that would make us look even more like rock stars than we already did. “Why not?”
“Too young. Stupid old fart.”
“I see kids our age with piercings all the time—industrial, Madonnas and Monroes, and all kinds o’ shit.”
I nodded, feeling more disappointed than I should have been. “Yeah.” I’d have to ask my parents for permission—which they might refuse to give. They’d grown weirder than ever lately and, even though they were supportive of my new…career, they were still dubious about it.
“Have to have your mom or dad sign something stupid, waiving the dumb asses of liability if they poke your eye out or some shit?”
I chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Something like that.”
We walked a little farther before Vicki said, “Hey. I bet my mom would sign for you.”
And I’ll be damned if later that afternoon we weren’t in another tattoo shop downtown, and both Vicki and I got piercings. Vicki’s was hidden and on her navel, but I wanted to sport mine—I wanted a damn nose piercing. When Vicki’s mom was going over the little sheets of paperwork and signing off on them, the guy—
shady as hell—asked, “You their legal guardian?”
“I’m her mother,” she said, indicating Vicki, “and I’m her guardian.”
The guy looked her over, acting like he wanted to clarify the “legal” part once more and then thinking better of it…because he would have lost out on a sale. His gain.
After that, Vicki decided to go with a tongue piercing too. And it looked great.
My damn piercing hurt like a motherfucker. But I could handle it and, once the ache eased off, I knew I was going to love it. I didn’t care what the older generation said—it was something I would never, ever regret.
My parents, though. Man, did they overreact. Well, my dad. You’d have thought I was five months pregnant the way he carried on. When I walked in the house the next day, mom stared me down for a moment before standing up from the table. She scrutinized it and then said, “Looks cute.”
Dad, though. He stood up and said, “Dammit, Kyle. You should have asked for permission before getting a body modification.”
“Body modification? Jesus, dad. I just got my nose pierced. It’s not like I got a tattoo sleeve.” Not that I wouldn’t have liked one, mind you. No way was I telling him I should have had his permission—and in writing, no less. “Or I could have gotten my ears stretched to be the size of dessert plates, but I didn’t.”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady. Just because I was out of the house for a few weeks”—uh, try months—“doesn’t give you the right to show me disrespect. I am still your father, and any issues with your mother I have resolved with her.”
“Yeah? Well, you didn’t resolve any issues with me!” I had no idea where that came from, but I went from calm to pissed in seconds.
“You didn’t give me a chance, Kyle. I tried…remember?” Oh. The suddenly quiet tone of his voice made me stop and blink and ponder. I had been gearing up for war, ending with me either running upstairs to take it out on my guitar strings or out the door to take it out on my car tires. But now dad had my attention. “I realize a lot of this stuff you’re doing—you’re acting out. And with good reason. I get it. You’re angry with me. I would have been too.” He pulled me close, burying my head in his chest and wrapping me in his love. “I just hope you can forgive me…and that we can be a happy family again.”
On the Run (Vagabonds #1) Page 19