ONE
“Coop,I will pay you twenty dollars if you go out and get laid already,” Danielle said.
Trey Cooper nearly dropped the glass baking dish he was trying to slide into the dishwasher with too many other dirty dishes. The overload was thanks to Danielle’s bright idea to cook for nine people tonight. His best friend and roommate was blunt, probably to a fault and sometimes to her social detriment, but once in a while she managed to out-blunt herself.
And his initial shock gave way to faint horror. He glanced at the archway that led into the living room where their other roommate, Bobby, was hanging with their dinner guests.
Okay--neighbors. For whatever reason, Danielle had decided she needed to cook for the other six people who lived on the other two floors of the rental house they all shared. On a whim. On a Thursday.
“Could you say that louder, please?” Trey snapped, his voice way quieter than hers, because the whole house didn’t need to know his business.
She ran a saucepan under the faucet. “What? It’s not like I said get laid for your first time.”
He rolled his eyes and shoved the baking dish into the rack. “Again, say it a little louder.”
“Maybe it will help you calm down. You’ve been bouncing around the house like a tweaking squirrel, and it’s not helping anyone’s nerves. Bobby’s working on it.”
“Oh, great. No problem. Bobby’s working on it.” Sarcasm, check. He took the saucepan and wedged it in next to the baking dish. “I don’t see how going hookup hunting is going to calm me down. We only have three weeks to find a new drummer and get them familiar with the music.”
“I know!” She smacked him in the chest with a wet hand. “And stop sounding so negative about the whole thing. Positive energy only, or you’re going to jinx us.”
“I don’t do positive energy, I do?—”
“Realistic expectations, yes, I know. Loser.”
He grinned. This was the Danielle he knew and loved. He grabbed a detergent pod from beneath the sink and set the washer. Busywork only distracted him for so long, and then the fear and doubts crept back in. Fear of not finding another percussionist for Fading Daze in time for the regional Unbound competition in three weeks, and doubt over this hypothetical person being able to learn the set they’d perfected two months ago when they sent in their audition for initial online entry into the festival.
And after two months of watching their ranking online and praying the secret jury of judges liked them, Fading Daze got their invitation to the Midatlantic region’s festival three days ago. They’d placed in the top ten in indie rock—the max number of winners from each of the eight categories.
After they all went out and got crazy drunk celebrating, Trey freaked the fuck out for about three hours, because their entire set was his music. His original songs.
Everything was riding on Unbound. A $100,000 recording contract was what Trey had dreamed of since he was fifteen years old, and for their band to win would be the biggest, best fuck-you to his father that he could imagine.
Except yesterday Tyson, their percussionist for the entire two years Fading Daze had existed, walked away. No explanation. Nothing. Gone. Asshole even blocked them all on Instagram.
Trey pushed the angry, ugly thoughts away so they didn’t totally ruin his mood tonight. He’d put up with extra people at dinner and answered the questions asked, but if the need for speaking didn’t have something to do with promoting the band, he’d rather be in his room, alone with a blank songbook. Bobby was the social butterfly of the group; Trey redefined the word “introvert.”
Danielle dried her hands, then flung the damp dish towel into the sink. Trey grabbed it and hung it on the ring haphazardly nailed to the wall above the sink. The old beach house was falling apart in some places, and the owners didn’t care if they did minor self-repairs.
“Look, if you don’t want to go out hunting, just go out,” she said. “Hang out at Off Beat, listen to some music. Eat crab dip until you explode.”
He didn’t immediately shoot that idea down. Off Beat was one of the few bars in the bustling beach resort area that catered mostly to locals, with only a handful of tourists finding their way inside. For one thing, the place looked like an old-fashioned barbershop on the outside. It was also two blocks off the main strip, tucked into a building that also housed a nail salon and an Asian market.
Trey had discovered Off Beat through a friend, and he’d fallen in love. The upstairs was a kitschy entertainment room, with the bar and stage downstairs in a finished basement. They hosted all sorts of local entertainment, from bands to poetryslams to fiction readings. And their crab dip was the best on the shore.
He bar-backed there on weekends to help supplement his part-time job clerking at a bike-rental shop on the boardwalk. Fading Daze even had a standing gig to play live shows one Saturday night a month, where they debuted any new songs that he wrote.
“You know what’s going on tonight?” Trey asked. One night he’d wandered in on a whim, only to be assaulted by a woman reading an erotic sex poem about a man and woman, and he’d fled the premises. Maybe if she’d been reading about two dudes getting it on, he’d have stayed, but dripping pussies were not his thing.
“Nope.” She sprayed down the kitchen table with cleaner. “Isn’t Thursday usually an open-mike thing?”
“Oh. Duh.”
“So go. Maybe you’ll hear something that will inspire you.”
“Or make me run away weeping.”
She laughed while she scrubbed at some leftover mess on the old table’s scarred wood surface. Danielle was anal about keeping the kitchen spotless. No other area of the house, except the kitchen. Bobby said it had to do with them having a lot of ant infestations in the kitchen when they were kids.
