“That’s great! Thank you!” She’s moving about the stage, getting things set up exactly where she needs them to pull off her song. And they’re both completely ignoring me even though I’m following on her heels and breathing heavy down her neck. But not in a good way.
“Andi!”
“Yes, dear?” She says this absently, but she knows damn well what she’s doing. She’s making me crazy.
“You’re killing me, Andi. You know this song will enrage him. You know you’re just calling him out for a fight!”
“That’s the plan,” she responds in her sing-song voice.
“And just how, exactly, do you plan on handling him?”
She has the nerve to turn to me, smile even wider, and say, “That’s what I haveyoufor, Luke. So I don’t have to worry about man-handling him.”
So, should I be flattered or offended by that comment?
Is she being for real or is she being sarcastic and playing on my need to protect her?
How in the hell did I get so whipped by this beautiful creature?
Shane is sitting at our usual table in the empty club and he’s clearly amused by this whole exchange. When I turn to glare at him for not helping me convince her to change her song, he quickly hides his smile with his hand but his eyes are still all crinkled up. And his fucking shoulders are jumping from trying to hold in his laughter.
“Just let her go, man. You’re wasting your breath. She’s not going to change her mind. Will’s coming in a little while so the three of us will watch her all night. He won’t get to her. There’s no fucking way he can get past us.”
Shane’s trying to make me feel better but I just don’t have a good feeling about it. I didn’t have a good feeling when she first had that gleam in her eye after choosing the song, but refusing to tell me what it was. Now that she’s been forced to reveal it to me, it’s even worse.
“Shane, man, I don’t like it. At all. The only way I found out what the song even was ahead of time is because I demanded to come with her today. She tried to send me to the damn grocery store claiming to needtampons!She put on this big elaborate show about not being able to leave the bathroom. She was going to sneak away and just leave me a note that it was a false alarm. I went back in the house to ask her what the name on the box was again and caught her in the kitchen writing the damn note.”
Shane doubles over in laughter. I’m sure he’s picturing Andi, locked in the bathroom and screaming at me through the door how she needs tamponsright now. But she can’t come out to go get them herself and I have to help her. Sheneedsmy help. Sneaky little sexy vixen. Shane regains his composure to speak but that shit-eating-grin never leaves his face.
“Good thing your memory’s shit, huh?”
“Yeah. Funny, man,” I say as I take a swig of my longneck bottle. I’ll need a couple more of these tonight by the time Andi finishes her song.
Soon the club is packed to the maximum occupancy and Mitch is turning people away at the door. There are so many reporters here tonight but Mitch wouldn’t let them bring their huge cameras in with them. So a lot of people are using their camera phones to record pieces for their segments. This should make for an interesting news night.
The DJ just announced that Andi’s up next and my senses are on full alert.I scan the room, trying to take everyone in but there are justso many peoplecrowded in here to see Andi tonight. The girls are in the back with her, guarding her dressing room door and watching for strangers, while she gets dressed for her show. The lights dim and the DJ announces Andi.
The song she picked for tonight, and especially for Jackson Rhoades, isGunpowder and Lead,by Miranda Lambert. She’s singing a song about a woman who plans to shoot the man who’s been abusing her. Great. Just fucking great. This will go over well.
She walks out on the stage with the spotlight directly on her and she’s wearing a damn straight jacket. Her arms are wrapped around herself in a giant hug and she looks uncomfortable in the white jacket.
She starts singing, the beginning of the song is pretty slow and her eyes are darting around like she’s…well, crazy. Her eyes suddenly stop and linger in one area a little too long to be a coincidence. I know she’s spotted him in the crowd from the subtle change in her voice and the look in her eyes.Both changes happened when she hit the part about them both going to hell. Yeah, she found him in the crowd alright.
When the tempo picks up on the next line, she bursts out of the jacket and throws it to the opposite side of the stage. As most of the crowd watches the straight jacket fly through the air and land on the stage directly across from her, she moves in the opposite direction and picks up a toy shotgun. She cocks it, walks to the edge of the stage and aims it directly at, none other than,the bastard.
While she’s doing that, she’s singing and telling him that she’s ready to fight and he, in fact, has never seen her act crazy before. But she’s showing him that he’s about to catch a glimpse of that very thing and he should be shaking in his damn boots at the thought of it.
A video of Andi starts playing on the flat screens around the club. It’s a montage of all the headlines from the smear campaign that was waged against her, including the pictures of her in the psychiatric hospital.One story after the other is displayed all around the club, every single one a complete lie about Andi. Slamming her for stabbing her poor foster father, berating her for being admitted to the psychiatric ward, and several tabloid stories about how she’s really an alien and has a love child with Elvis.
She continues to dance around the stage, singing and pointing the toy shotgun at Rhoades damn near every time the word‘shotgun’comes up in the song. The crowd is going wild and cheering her on, unaware that Jackson is here, in disguise again.
She changes the lyrics when she gets to the bridge of the song.
He locked me up, but now I’m stronger
He won’t hurt them any longer!
The five girls from the live Lindsay Blair show walk up behind Andi onstage, all carrying toy shotguns and all dancing and singing as her backup. The crowd goes crazy with screaming, whistling and cheering. The ladies are all looking atthe bastardbut he doesn’t move. He’s probably trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible. To others, it may appear to be part of the show. I know it’s not.
