However, if Josie had made up her mind, she wasn’t always great about listening to other point of views.
Right now, she was having a semi-whispered argument with Lisa that was getting quite angry, despite their attempt to keep the volume down. Kat felt that gloomy sense of disappointment in the pit of her stomach, that maybe this tour wasn’t going to happen after all, despite all the preparations.
“Well, maybe we do need to find someone else…”
Kat’s ears pricked up at that. Had Josie just fired Lisa?
She looked over, open-mouthed, and saw a very irate—yet clearly embarrassed—Lisa picking up her bag and then quietly winding her way out of the room, not even looking back to wave a quick goodbye to anyone else in there.
Jesus. What the hell were they going to do without a drummer? Where were they going to get a replacement at this late stage?
“Josie, what the—” she said, putting her energy drink down on the radiator, nervously picking herself up.
“She was bad, Kat. You know it, I know it.” Josie sounded as though her blood was boiling. As though you might burst her if you jabbed her gently with a pin.
“But—” Kat didn’t quite know what to say. It seemed insane to get rid of their drummer at this late stage. “You weren’t going to talk it through with the rest of us before—?”
Josie scowled, “What would’ve been the point?”
Kat felt a little stunned. Oh, she was well aware of Josie’s legendary temper. Her fiery nature had been part of the reason she was so damn good as a singer—but it had also been part of the original friction that had ended things for The Ponytails in the first place. In the intervening years Kat had thought their lead singer might have learned to control it a little, that she’d matured, that they could let bygones be bygones. But this was a disturbing return to form for the beautiful blonde.
“Look,” Josie sighed, and said more quietly, “It’s still early. But she wasn’t improving. And we’ve got a limited time in which to find someone who can do this.”
Kat nodded, and glanced over at Alyssa, who was quietly twanging away on her bass without connecting it up to an amp. Their bassist nodded, agreeing with Josie but also flashing her eyes at Kat to remind her how Josie could be, and that it was probably better for them to let the blonde take the lead here, as she had in setting up this whole tour in the first place.
“Okay. Well, I guess this is LA, right? There has to be someone around here who can play the drums,” Kat said, suppressing her urge to demand to know if Josie was crazy, doing her utmost to be diplomatic.
“Right,” Josie said, and the tension levels in the air seemed to drop considerably. “I’ll just give Andrew a quick call… then we can work on some of the solos.”
Andrew Mulligan was their new tour manager. He hadn’t been around when The Ponytails had been originally in business, but with Josie calling most of the shots creatively, he had so far been good at pulling together the logistics for what she—and they—needed.
The rest of the morning, they did their best to rehearse without a drum backing. It was okay… they were all decent enough musicians to keep to a beat even if it wasn’t actively being stamped out by a drummer. But it wasn’t quite the same—and it made them feel like they might miss a trick if they weren’t fully up to speed on putting the whole song together.
Lunch time. Rather than ordering out for pizza or the whole band going out somewhere to each lunch, for the first time since they’d landed in LA, the band just kind of fell apart and each member went off to get their own food, with the intention of being back promptly at 2pm.
“Hey, you want to go look for the greasiest burger in town?” Renee said, coming up to her after Josie and Alyssa had drifted away to do their own things.
“Uh… sure,” Kat smiled, feeling a welcome nugget of warmth ignite inside her chest at the offer of companionship.
“How’re you feeling… this morning?” Renee asked her as they headed out of the rehearsal room.
“Good—apart from… you know… the whole Lisa thing.”
“Right,” Renee nodded. “But you know Josie. There’s no point trying to force her to accept something she believes isn’t right.”
“No.”
Renee put her arm affectionately around Kat’s waist, and Kat felt an unexpected hint of arousal, no doubt at the memory of the night before. “You think we’ll be okay?” she asked Kat.
“Oh, sure. Josie’s from around here. She’ll know somebody. Or Andrew will—he’s in the business full-time, right?”
Renee laughed, though a little nervously, “I guess so… I think part of me thinks… sometimes… that really, the chances of pulling off a reunion tour like this… well, it’s very unlikely, don’t you think?”
Kat frowned, but silently shared her bandmate’s doubts. After returning to ‘normal’ life for so long, it was hard to believe they could simply pick up where they’d left off, for The Ponytails to just go back to the way it was.
“I don’t know… I think we’re still doing pretty well. Everything seems to be moving forward.”
Renee nodded. “You think people will buy tickets for the shows?”
“Of course they will. And you know they’ve purposefully started us off in relatively small venues, right? Even if the first show or two are a little light on numbers… it’ll be okay.”
“Right,” Renee said, giving her bandmate a little squeeze as they headed into the lobby of the building. “I don’t know… I’m just kind of thankful for what we’ve already done, you know?”
“Of course.”
“A nice trip to LA, a great meet up with everybody, some jam sessions… a little… fun in somebody else’s bed…”
The redhead gave Kat a mischievous sideways glance as she recalled the previous night’s adventure.
“Well I’m pretty thankful for all that, too,” she grinned, feeling a little tingle starting up between her legs.
“I mean, for my marriage… it was like finally swimming to the surface, coming up for air, you know?”
Kat felt a warm surge of arousal wash over her. “You know if all this… doesn’t work out…” she said, “We’re only a two-hour drive from you, Renee, right?”
“I guess.”
“You could always come… hang out…”
“Maybe fuck you in front of your gorgeous husband…”
They both looked around themselves to check no one might have overhead after she’d said that. Then they were opening the door to head out of the building, hit by a wall of hot Californian air as they stepped out of the air-conditioned lobby, and suddenly Kat noticed a familiar younger man leaning up against a shiny black soft-top Mustang, drawing on a cigarette.
There was no way they’d be able to get out of there without Daryl noticing.
Kat’s heart jolted and bounced as his eyes found their way straight to her. He smiled, gave her a little nod.
Renee said loudly, “Well, I’ll see you later, hon.”
And the redhead skipped off as though she’d never asked Kat in the first place if she wanted to go find somewhere for lunch. Kat felt a trifle confused, and then a trifle terrified now that she was suddenly on her own in front of Daryl. She felt mildly annoyed at Renee, though she understood why she’d fled the scene, and appreciated her good intentions.
“Hey,” Daryl said, and she loved how his eyes briefly dropped down, to take in her whole body, before returning to her face, his smile spreading further.
“Hey, how’re you doing?” she smiled back, approaching him slowly, attempting to portray confidence, though her nerves were jangling so.
“Not so bad,” he nodded. He was wearing jeans and a simple gray t-shirt with some kind of faded black graphical design, but it was a little tight on his body, and just made him ooze sex appeal. Kat felt her own eyes dropping to take in his body. Was there something of a nice bulge in his jeans? “The rest of the boys are practicing vocals this afternoon, so… you know… got
a little time on my hands.”
“Funny,” Kat said, with a nervous laugh, though she felt happy to have found a way to bring the conversation to something she could actually talk about, rather than being forced into some awkward attempt to ask him out, “and here we are without a drummer now…”
She didn’t even make the mental connection until the words had fallen out of her mouth.
Daryl seemed sharp to the issue, however. “What happened?” he said. “New girl didn’t work out?”
She shook her head, and kept calm though she felt mildly pleased with herself that perhaps she might have struck upon a clever idea: Daryl was a drummer. Daryl must know other drummers. Maybe he’d be able to find someone to replace Lisa.
“She’s very nice and all,” Kat said. “But from the start she kept… you know… falling behind. And then…”
“That’s no good for anyone, huh?” Daryl agreed.
“We thought we’d give her a few days to see if she improved, but then… well, I guess Josie’s just had enough. Says we need to find someone else, quick.”
Daryl drew in another toke on his cigarette, and Kat breathed in the sharp scent of tobacco smoke. It suddenly struck her how clean and well-behaved everything was with the band this time around. Unlike the last time The Ponytails had been together, this time the building they were in—every building in the damn state—had ‘no smoking’ signs up everywhere. And it actually seemed that all of them—Josie included—had given up smoking in the intervening years.
Kat had given up just before meeting Julian. Josie had once told her she’d given up because it was just so difficult to smoke anywhere in California any more. Neither Renee nor Alyssa had craved a smoke since arriving in LA, either.
Daryl offered Kat a puff on his cigarette, and it suddenly struck her as strangely desirable. She accepted, clutching the filter between thumb and forefinger, placing it to her lips, inhaling.
It had been so long since she’d felt the heat in her throat like that, the burn in her chest. Back home, whenever she had caught a whiff of cigarette smoke it had smelled bad to her, dirty. She’d never regretted giving up. But now… it seemed different. She was with the band again. It was a rock band, for god’s sake. They weren’t there to be goody-goody two shoes, acting like some small group of Girl Scouts.
And it seemed kind of intimate in a way, sharing a smoke with Daryl. Sexy, even.
“I’d have to agree with Josie,” Daryl said, taking another drag on the cigarette himself. “If she’s not able to keep up by now, she’s not going to suddenly get it by the end of rehearsals.”
“Right?” Kat felt suddenly much better about Josie’s snap decision.
“Better off looking for someone else,” he nodded. “You’ve got some days, right? Better to get someone who can keep up, even if they’re not so hot on the drum solo.”
Kat smiled, and accepted another drag on his cigarette. She liked sharing it with him, rather than having him simply offer her a cigarette of her own. It was like she wasn’t really going back to smoking… she was just sampling it a little. Recalling how it used to be when the band had toured.
“You don’t think you could…” she said, breathing out a plume of smoke and trying not to cough like some kind of complete amateur. In her head, she wanted to ask him if he might know somebody, if he might recommend somebody for them.
But Daryl predicted a slightly different question from her, and immediately smiled, and said, “Sure, I can probably step in this afternoon, help you guys out.”
Kat felt surprise, and even a little shock at the thought of him joining them for a whole afternoon of rehearsal. She hadn’t meant—
But it was a great idea, wasn’t it? He was knocking around anyway that afternoon… they needed a drummer.
“You’d be able to do that?” she asked him.
Daryl shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
A whole afternoon with Daryl. Watching him going at it on the drums just feet away from her. She felt her pulse quickening, and the warmth of arousal blooming between her thighs.
“You guys have all your stuff online nowadays, right?” he asked her, and from a pocket produced an iPhone and a pair of white headphones.
“Uh… yeah, I think so,” Kat nodded, then grinned. “They had to pull it off MySpace, can you believe that?”
Daryl chuckled. “Come on,” he said, standing up, dropping the near-finished cigarette before stepping on it. “Why don’t we go get something to eat, and I’ll check out a few of your tracks.”
“Wonderful,” Kat said, her body trembling a little at the fact that she was going to get something to eat with Daryl. And she hadn’t even had to ask him.
“You know what you guys’ll be working on this afternoon?”
“I think so. I can give Josie a quick call, though, to make sure…”
*
They found a diner not too far away, where Kat ordered a cheeseburger and Daryl a plate of eggs and ham and french fries. It seemed so very easy to spend time with him.
“You guys are amazing, you know that?” he said, looking up at her as he listened to the tracks they would be rehearsing that afternoon on Apple Music.
“Thank you,” she smiled, feeling that blissful warmth inside her bubbling up a little at his praise.
She was being almost entirely silent over their meal, letting him focus on the music, and somehow decipher exactly what the drums were doing through the songs. But it meant she felt less pressure to impress him with her sparkling wit than she might on an actual date.
He said, “I mean, I kind of liked your stuff at the time, but I was… you know… so hung up on the whole emo thing when I was in high school…”
High school?
Kat did the math, and figured that perhaps she was wrong in thinking Daryl was about five years her junior. Maybe that was more like ten years. God, was she some kind of evil cradle-snatcher, wanting him so badly? A wicked, wicked cougar on the prowl.
It would make him more like 23, 24, for goodness’ sake. She’d have put it at late twenties. Well, rock musicians did often seem older than their years. All the partying, the substance abuse…
“God, I seriously missed out,” he exclaimed.
She liked how much he was suddenly into their music. Whether he was playing it up a little to give her confidence in his potential contribution, it seemed genuine.
But… ten years.
Well, maybe she’d been an idiot for thinking she had a chance with him in the first place. At least she hadn’t made a fool out of herself by asking him out. Imagine it, the surprise on his face when someone so very old thought she might date him. She’d lucked out.
Disappointing. But perhaps it was for the best, if he was going to spend all afternoon rehearsing with them. She’d be able to concentrate better on her own performance knowing there was no chance, knowing that it wasn’t worth even wondering about.
The rest of the meal was enjoyable, maybe even more so because Kat felt the pressure melting away from her since she was no longer actively hoping to date him. He listened, carefully, to their music, and made complimentary remarks about their material, their abilities, their creativity. And Kat sat back and relaxed, a little amused that she’d thought she might sleep with the guy, even if she did allow her gaze to roam over his body a few more times, taking pleasure in her appreciation.
Outside, they shared another cigarette, and Daryl apologized because he didn’t have any more left to offer her a whole one, and she didn’t care, it was kind of nice. Friendly.
And at least for that afternoon, they had a drummer.
“You think you can really do it?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Oh, I was going to ask…” she remembered her original question she was going to put to him. “Do you happen to know any drummers… we might be able to use a little more permanently?”
He shrugged. “I could make some calls. All of us… Blue Tonic… we’re all kind of New Orleans, b
orn and raised… so I’m not sure I’ll know many folks in LA… but maybe we could fly someone out?”
“I think we’d have no option if it comes to it.”
Josie and the rest of the band were delighted that Kat had found a replacement for the afternoon. But as Daryl came into the room, and she officially introduced him to everybody, she found she had to quietly fend off all the sly nods and winks from Josie, Renee, and even Alyssa, who were all apparently under the impression that Kat was either already sleeping with him or certainly moving toward that eventuality.
Daryl climbed behind the drum set and adjusted his seat, and Josie asked him if he needed a little more time to listen to the next track they would be rehearsing. He shook his head and confidently said he was fine, and that was that. They all launched into Lost in Your Surprise, and it seemed to all of them that the guy had been playing with them for months and months.
“Jesus Fucking H Christ,” Josie said to him after the first run through. “You been secretly practicing our stuff at home?”
Daryl chuckled. “No, Ma’am. But I listened to it plenty over lunch.”
“Jesus Fucking Jumped-up Christ,” Josie blasphemed yet again.
He really was that good. Kat felt a curious kind of pride in his obvious talent—that she’d spotted him, that she’d brought him in to help out their struggling band. And The Ponytails sounded simply supreme with Daryl there behind the drums.
Kat just had to try not to stare at him too much as he worked up a sweat back there, his muscles all flexing and rippling and glistening as he thrashed out the beat to amazing effect all afternoon.
Now where was she going to find herself a man to equal him? A man of the right kind of age. Josie had already taken the pick of the crop from the other band on their ticket. If she was going to make the most of her freedom—and, what she wanted more than anything, to test out her dear husband’s powerful fantasy—she was going to have to keep an eye out for a fan, or a roadie, or some random stranger in a hotel.
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