3
The first concert after signing our contract had been wildly successful. Our fans were clamoring for more, so the label decided to push up the dates of our tour.
That meant Gael went back to bugging me about hiring a session guitarist to fill in for me.
"I don't know," Nathan said. "I like being the only male guitarist in our band. It scores me all the chicks."
Gael smacked him in the shoulder. "Hey, I used to score as many chicks as you."
"That was before you let some girl chain you down," Nathan said. "Now there's no more chicks allowed for you, isn't that right?"
Instead of getting mad, Gael puffed his chest out.
"There's only one chick I need in my life," he declared.
"Your girlfriend would have you by the balls if she knew you'd called her a chick," I said.
"At least I'm not calling her by a disgusting pet name," Gael said.
"Besides," Nathan drawled, "isn't that what our female fans are calling themselves? Cherry Chicks?"
"I don't know if that’s cute or gross," I muttered.
"You think that's bad, you should hear what fans of Benedict Cumberbatch call themselves." Nathan gave me a lazy-eyed smirk.
I couldn't understand why all the girls flocked to someone like Nate. Well, I supposed I could, if I squinted and tilted my head. With his sandy brown hair, dark blue eyes and laid-back attitude, he had that cute boy next door thing going on.
Of course, behind all that boyish charm was a shark lying in wait. No one who really knew Nate would mistake him for anything else but a predator licking his chops as he waited patiently for his prey to appear.
"We've got a handful of guys out there waiting for their turn to impress us," Gael said. "We put the word out everywhere and got a lot of interest from guitarists in the local scene."
"One or two even decided to fly in from out of town to audition for us," Nathan added. “It turns out we're a pretty big deal.”
"Where exactly did you put the word out?" I asked. "I haven't seen audition postings anywhere online."
"I didn't post the job description online," Gael said. "I spread the word among our musician friends."
"Keeping out the riffraff," Nathan said.
Gael shrugged. "If you want to put it that way. We still might end up with amateurs.”
“Is that why Seth and Julian aren’t here?” Nathan asked, referring to our drummer and keyboardist.
“No point wasting their time if these guys don’t have what it takes. We’ll weed out the ones who can’t keep up with us.”
Maybe that was a narcissistic way of putting it. Then again, no one had ever accused Gael of having too much humility.
Of course, I couldn't talk. I was just as bad sometimes.
I always said being an artist meant swinging between delusions of grandeur and crippling self-doubt.
"I'm surprised you're taking the lead on this," I told Gael. "You're not normally so responsible."
"My girl has turned me into a better man," he said with pride.
Nathan snorted.
Ever since he'd met Jessie, Gael had been much more reliable. It was odd to think of my older brother and the word reliable in the same sentence, but Jessie really had been a good influence on him.
