I hadn’t. Fuck. No wonder. “I meant to at breakfast, then Harper showed up.” I held my hand in the air. Donny darted away but was back in a second, handing me my pills. “Thanks, Donny.”
“I’ve got you.” He rubbed my back as I took long, deep breaths. “You’ll get through this.”
“I know. I know.”
“I texted Jinx during the interviews. He needs to hear what happened.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
The rest of the afternoon was quiet, and I didn’t leave for the venue until the last possible moment. I didn’t want to hang around the dressing room and be tempted to kill our singer, if he was even there. But of course, I didn’t cut it so close that I didn’t have to stop there anyway.
Donny ushered me into the room. But Pierce wasn’t there. “What the fuck?”
Matty looked up. “He just texted. He’s on his way over.”
I wanted to tear into him, into anyone, but I didn’t. I dropped into a chair and covered my face with my hands. Thankfully, the pills had kicked in, and I didn’t feel completely out of sorts, but the worry of what I’d do if Pierce changed his mind and didn’t show up flitted through the back of my head.
“Oh, you decided to show…that’s nice.” I looked up at Joe’s snarky comment to see Pierce walk in and flip him off.
I was over it. “Whatever’s going on with you…” The conversation with Rowan replayed in my mind. The look on Pierce’s face said he was gearing up to protect himself from whatever I threw at him, and suddenly everything was different, forcing me to shift gears. Fighting wasn’t going to get us anywhere. “But if you ever need to talk, I’m willing to listen.”
Pierce looked confused for a second and then contrite. “Uh…thanks.” He exhaled loudly. “Maybe later. Let’s get hyped up for the show.” That proved it. His diva act was a cover-up. Something else was going on and it had nothing to do with the fucking record award.
I glared at Donny, who scowled back. He rolled his finger, saying we’d talk later without actually saying anything. I nodded.
It was time to go on.
We’d changed the show a little bit, since the world now knew for sure Pierce was the singer. There was no longer a need to go through that little play-acting bullshit that had started feeling very fake. None of us liked it. So now, we all ran out, but when Pierce sauntered on after us, he simply took the mic. He was fantastic at connecting with the crowd and getting them excited. He said some spiel or another, always changing bits and pieces of it.
Then we started playingHouse and Homewithout any other introductions, and that melted into another song. Then Pierce did the introductions, with Randy last, to do his big solo, which evolved intoPine Box. Finally, we let the audience scream themselves to death until they were chanting forAlcohol and Cars, which was our big hit. We only played the four songs with no encore; we were the opener after all.
When I hit the riff forAlcohol and Cars, it zipped through my body like lightning. When the crowd sang along, it was like nothing else in this world. Joe and I were in sync, stomping up to the edge of the stage and wailing together, the sound mixing and dancing until Pierce screamed out the next line. “Crash and burn. Don’t blame me. Lost in my mind, drinking Beam. Ow!” He kicked his leg in the air, turned around, then held the mic out toward the crowd, encouraging them to scream or sing or something.
Joe and I had extended solos a little later in the song, to make it last longer, but eventually, we played the last notes. Randy came out from behind the kit and tossed his sticks into the crowd. Joe and I threw our pics at the same time. Dave and Matty came up behind us and threw other merchandise into the crowd that they’d grabbed from the box kept beside the drums. It looked like can coolers and patches with our logo on them.
Randy got the big items, tossing out a couple of T-shirts as far into the crowd as possible. We wanted people farther backto have a shot at merch, which made me think we needed one of those T-shirt guns. I made a mental note to talk to Kai. He handled all the marketing and merchandising, making him the guy to talk to about it.
Then we held hands and raised them over our heads, taking a group bow. The crowd was still screaming for us when we exited the stage. We were all hot and sweaty, so I bee-lined it for the cars, wanting to get back to my room fast. I wasn’t the only one. But Pierce stayed. He had to. He was going to playDip and Grindwith Midnight Hunt. That was another big advantage of having him aboard. That song was a fan favorite, and it probably helped us get on the map as fast as we did. I wasn’t arguing with that.
Chapter fourteen
Donavan
Even though I was disappointed that Daddy wasn’t with us on this part of the tour, it did give us a bit of room to think about things. Things like sharing Daddy with Kay. We hadn’t discussed taking this relationship further or getting more serious. But maybe. He’d agreed to meet us in Florida over the Christmas break, but that was still a few days away. Maybe if things wentwell, we’d talk about our future. I wasn’t sure what the other two thought about it, but it was something I wanted. Maybe I wanted it too much. Having Saxon as a daddy for both of us solved so many problems. But what did Saxon want?
At the venue, there was only one big room for everyone backstage. It was the Denver Broncos’ locker room, since we were playing in their stadium. It was almost as overwhelming as the Hard Rock had been. I looked around at all the orange and blue décor, simply blown away. The guys all had a spot sectioned off for changing or whatever. Miami had a huge rack of clothes by his spot and some of the others had suitcases or other bags. But Kay sat on a table, kicking his feet, having changed into what he wanted to wear before we came over. Tennis shoes for this gig, because they were using the wireless technology and could roam all over the massive stage. The rest of his look was about the same. Jeans and a T-shirt, but it was a Pokémon T-shirt featuring Squirtle. He said everyone picked the yellow dude, so he wanted something different. Hard to argue with that.
Midnight Hunt gathered together in the center of the room, and everyone naturally turned to them. Jinx raised a hand in the air. “Hey, everyone.” He looked around to make sure we were all paying attention, and that meant roadies and techs as well as Kai and Harper. “Some of you are already aware, but to confirm, our official new MH Management is off and running. So not only are we managing Bramble Punk.” He stopped and clapped his hands, and everyone joined in. When it quieted again, he continued, “But we want to tell you officially that a new band out of Vegas, Star Fly, will be recording while we’re on tour after the Christmas break. We want to sign that band to our management team and recording label. So we’re starting off with them recording. And they might be poking their head in on our tour now and then. So heads up. Let’s welcome them warmly.” He clapped again and so did everyone else.
Ultimately, MH Management—MH standing for Midnight Hunt—gave each of them roles to play after the tour. I’d helped set up the paperwork and knew best what was going on. Wolf would work with Cat, producing and helping with music. That meant that if the other band was recording while we were on tour, Cat would be left in charge until final production. Miami and Jinx would do what they did best here and work on signing bands, promotions, and social media with Kai as their head of marketing. And believe it or not, Ziggy had a shit ton of connections to set up shows and tours, plus he’d be working with his partner, Coleman, on that, which made sense as he was a world-class promoter. And Wolf’s sister, Harper, was jumping on board to act as PA. She’d already started. It seemed as if they all had.
I found Jinx after the announcement. “Hey. I’m happy to work on anything you need for Star Fire over the next few weeks, but I want to take some actual time off over the break. But barring any changes, I can have whatever you need to you before the break.”
“That’s cool. I’ll send you what we talked about with Drake and the band. We don’t care if they start before it’s ironed out.”
“You didn’t learn anything with Pierce?” He’d caused such a headache with the recordings they did as a jam session.
Jinx snorted. “Of course we did, but we’re not…I mean, this is their album. We’re investing in them. We don’t expect anything from them but credits on this one. Next one…we’ll see.”
