“Shit, really? You don’t want me to laugh and you say something like that? Besides, isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
My cheeks got warm. Shit, I’m such a dork. I walked right into that one. At leasthe was teasing me instead of giving me grief though.
“Yeah, well, not this time, buddy,” I answered while handing him the wrapped candy.
He winked and popped it into his mouth without even asking what it was, which kind of surprised me. He didn’t know me, what if I was giving him something bad?
“Oh wow, butterscotch. I love this shit, oh my God I haven’t had it in years. I used to keep a bag stashed in my room. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, it’s my favorite too. Hey, we have something in common, imagine that?”
“Yeah and something tells me it’s not the only thing.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. Our backgrounds are pretty different, but we do share a love of music.” Talking about my childhood brought back memories of my father. I tried to push them back into the dark hole they came out of before I got pissed off again or worse. Things were going better between us and I didn’t want anything to change it.
Chapter Seven
Chaos…
She’s snarky, I’ll give her that. Talk about a total surprise. If I went by first impressions I never would have pegged her for being feisty at all. She looked so sweet and innocent. I liked it—hell I liked her. It fit her without making her seem trashy like so many of our groupies. The side effect was killing me though, every time she got close my cock got hard. What the fuck was it about her? It’s like she fliped my horny switch every time I’m fuckin’ near her.
Thankfully we’d finally found some common ground and weren’t acting like enemies. I’d need her help convincing Symmetry to use our songs and fighting with her would be like shooting myself in the foot.
We chatted a bit longer before one of the security guys poked his head in the room and announced one hour ‘til show time. Adrenaline surged through me until I was shaking with excitement. Fuck yeah. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Okay, guys, you heard him, time to get ready,” Rod announced between taking a swig of beer and filling his face with popcorn. Cynda’s nickname for him came to mind and I had to hold back the laughter. She’d definitely nailed him—dickman—maybe we should get him a t-shirt.
“Well, time to get my game face on.”
Cynda smiled, “Okay, Michelle and I’ll be backstage watching. Have a great show.”
“Thanks. It’s going to rock the house. We’ll have a party back here afterwards but you can hang backstage for Avenged Sevenfold if you want.”
“We’ll see, probably some of it, I know Michelle will want to.”
“What about you? Not interested in Synyster? He’s not your type?”
“Actually, musicians aren’t my type. Sorry.”
I didn’t believe her for a minute, not with the vibes I was getting and the deep pink coloring her cheeks. Nope, she might not want to, but she was definitely feeling it as much as me.
“If you say so. Enjoy the show.” I grabbed my bag and went into one of the attached rooms to change and get ready. I wouldn’t come out until it was time to go on stage. I had a process almost like meditation to put me in the right head space before every gig. The others followed and I figured Rod would take care of entertaining Cynda and Michelle. He knew better than to come back with us before a show, he learned that lesson the first time he’d done it and Rage had thrown his ass out. Now that was a funny story.
Performing for a sold out show in Madison Square Garden had to be the biggest rush of our lives. Twenty thousand screaming fans yelling our name. Holy fucking shit. There were no words for how it felt, and when we opened with one of our hit songs,Salvation Claimed, they knew all the words. Wrath, Fury, and I exchanged looks a few times and I’m sure the look on my face was the same as theirs. If we hadn’t believed it before, we did now—we’d made it. Even Sweets and Candy had shit eating grins on their faces the entire show. But the fucking best part had to be when Synyster came outand playedLeft Behindwith us. Oh sweet baby Jesus, I hoped I wasn’t dreaming because I didn’t want to wake up.
Everyone had been at the top of their game tonight. We’d fuckin’ rocked the house. After our last song, we had to come back for an encore then we tossed our towels and water bottles into the crowd as we walked off stage. I’m not sure any of our feet were hitting the ground even now. The cheering continued though until the lights came up so the roadies could reset the stage for Avenged Sevenfold. Synyster met us backstage and he told me we’d fuckin’ rocked it, which was like icing on the fuckin’ cake.
During the set I’d looked over to see Cynda and Michelle off stage a couple of times and they were really rockin' it hard. I even caught them singing along, I figured she’d heard our songs but knowing she really knew them made a big difference somehow.
Getting back to the dressing room all we could talk about was seeing all those faces looking up at us and screaming our name and singing our songs—I couldn’t imagine anything being much better than that. Wewere changing shirts and drying off the sweat when Rod and the girls walked in.
“I have to say, you were impressive this evening. You definitely pleased the fans.”
Michelle looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Ya think? Geesh, they were fucking amazing.”
Rod looked surprised she’d spoken to him, and we all laughed. “Were we all amazing or just Flame?”
“Shit, you all were but Flame rocks those keys like they were part of his hands.”
