CHAPTER EIGHT
Rory
The pretty make-up artist powdered my nose, gushing over me, as some women do because I play the drums. When I was in my early twenties that stuff turned me on, but now, meh. Too many anonymous women in equally nameless hotel rooms rubbed the shine off casual sex for me. I’m not looking for anything permanent, mind you. But to feel a connection with a woman, someone who desires you for you, instead of your image would be welcome.
But with my face flashing a big neon sign that says, “Here’s a big star,” that isn’t likely to happen.
“Five minutes, Mr. Holmes,” said a production assistant carrying an iPad as he walked by the room.
“I think I’m okay,” I said as the make-up artist raised the large powder brush to my face again.
“Sure, Mr. Holmes. Good luck on the show tonight.”
I would need luck because on stage would be my old band mates from Banshee, Cole Kane and Jersey Dys, two people who could not stand each other.
It was stupid, what happened. Cole and Jersey, in a late night drunken poker playing, went too far. Both of them had money, so that meant nothing in a poker game. So when the Jack Daniels started talking instead of their brains, Jersey demanded some real stakes for the cards laid out on the table.
Sometimes Jersey doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.
Cole suggested that they put the ownership rights for the songs they co-wrote on the table. Jersey agreed. They wrote up their little agreement on a napkin, which Cole idiotically hangs framed in his home office.
Cole’s cards won the hand.
And that’s when the fight started.
It culminated in a nightmarish suit in civil court at which I had to testify. Neither man spoke to me for years after that.
Banshee was dead before the judge returned his verdict.
Through no fault of my own, my life disintegrated. My best friends were no longer speaking and my livelihood demolished over a stupid poker game. I did my best to put together the shards of my life, but damn it, when both of your best friends betray you, that digs deep.
It’s only because Franklin Alexander pulled my shit together that I’m standing here ready to go on stage and lie my fucking mouth off about what happened atAngelo’s. I owe him in more than one way for my life, so I’ll do what Jacine says and put on a happy face, and talk up this concert her miracle team pulled out of their nether regions at The Hollywood Bowl? Eighteen thousand seats of screaming fans? Yeah. With a gross of around four million for one night. But the money wasn’t in the ticket sales. It was in the television rights, and the CD recorded from the performance. Millions more rode on those deals.
Not that I needed the money. No, this was a way to show promoters that despite our butt head action, we would make filthy lucre for them.
Hell, even my former business manager called me, leaving several pleading messages that his quitting was a big misunderstanding.
So far, I hadn’t answered. The jerk should have had more faith in me. Let him sweat.
Jacine stood in the wings with Jersey and Cole next to her giving each other the evil eye. Tobias Marshall shadowed them all, which surprised me, but I suppose he was here to hand out a few forthright legal words of advice like “don’t fuck this up.”
I won’t. My bread is buttered firmly on the side of "let's not fuck this up."
Cole and Jersey, on the other hand, stare at each other as if the other was an interloper in their private territory. I notice that Jacine is between them as if she’s trying to keep them from tearing each other apart. And the lawyer? His eyes are narrowed and his lips drawn into a tight slash. He keeps glancing at Jacine and my ex-confederates as if he wanted to separate all of them, which might be a good idea.
But the music cues with our signature hitEver,and Jersey doesn’t even have time to shoot Cole a nasty look, because Cole will get the royalties for that even before the PAs usher us to the entrance. We all plaster huge smiles on our faces and walk out waving to the studio audience, totally lying about our feelings of being on stage together.
The studio crowd, either naturally enthusiastic or groomed, I don’t know which, stood on their feet and gave us a standing ovation. We sat down on the long sofa that holds guests and Nyberg smiles at us like we are old friends.
And the lying continued. But we pulled it off. The audience laughed, Bob Nyberg wished us luck, and we walked off the stage like we were best of friends.
As if.
Once off the stage though, Cole and Jersey looked at each other cross-eyed and quickly Jacine, and the lawyer moved to intervene.
And because I had enough of these two’s nonsense, I did too.
“Come on, guys,” I said. “Let’s not blow this. Jacine here set up a sweet deal for us after the disaster at Angelo’s.”
