Page 13 of Not the Punk

“I don’t doubt you. I’ve met them.”

I hit him with a pillow. “Then get up.”

“I’m up…” He rolled to his back and palmed his cock beneath the soft material of his sweatpants. Damn, that was so tempting. I wanted my hands and mouth all over him, and his on me.

“Stop that. I don’t have time now. But I'll tell you what…if we can get Matty to stay with Randy and Dave again, I’ll help you with that monster tonight after the show.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Oh, I can keep it. Plus, I’m sure Matt thinks we're fucking anyway. He won’t want to be on our bus.” The bigger piece of that was that we didn’t have a lot of time left together. After the LA show, Colten was staying home, since Don was able to hire someone to drive his truck back, but we would be headed out to finish the first leg of the tour. Then it would be Christmas break, and I had no idea what would happen. Neither of us seemed to want to talk about it. I figured it was too soon. So, I was going to get what I could, while I could.

“Deal.” He held up his hand and I grabbed it, pulling him up with it.

The first item on the Las Vegas agenda was press day. Rather than have a series of individual interviews, all of the reporters were invited in at once. Kai and Jinx had set up long tables at the front of the room, with mics on top of them. Kai ushered us in. “Sit wherever behind the tables, and remember, you don’t have to lean into the mic or raise your voice. They will pick you up just fine. Talk normal.”

Despite having said to sit anywhere, he proceeded to put us where he wanted us, with Pierce and Kay in the middle. I was beside Kay with Dave on my other side, then on the other side of Pierce, it was Matty with Randy on the end. Why? Hell if I knew, but I did understand Pierce being in the middle since he was our frontman and generally did most of the speaking at these things. Everyone knew it was Kay’s band, so he went in the middle. We all appreciated Pierce since he was better at being the spokesperson than the rest of us were.

After Kai was happy with everything, he left us there under Jinx’s supervision, which kept the mayhem to a minimum. The only thing that happened was Randy balled up a piece of paper and tossed it over everyone’s head so it landed in front of Dave.

Jinx snapped his fingers. “None of that.”

“What’s the paper for then?” Randy asked.

Jinx growled something under his breath and collected all the pads that had been laid out in front of us. I suspected it was for looks, but totally unneeded.

The press rolled in right after that, and we fielded questions left and right. Kay only answered things specifically addressed to him, while the rest of us jumped in when we felt like it, but as usual, most of the show belonged to Pierce. None of the questions were terribly difficult to answer. Most were about our new music dropping at midnight—after the concert. Once that was done, we were ushered out the back and onto the buses again.

Before we left on the tour, we’d made up tons of audio clips for the local radio stations, and the rock station in Vegas was cranking ours out on every commercial. I was still completely blown away by hearing our names and music on the radio. It was one thing to get internet play, and of course the Satellite stations were playing us too, but it was something else entirely to be on the actual radio—still the hallmark of success for musicians.

At the venue, Jinx came around, gathering us together into one dressing room. “Sorry guys, but there’s been a change of plan, and it’s easier to tell everyone at once, so listen up.” After everyone muttered about what the hell was going on, we finally shut up. “Right. We’re getting a hotel tonight because we got Soul Shred booked into a gig at a smaller venue tomorrow. They had a cancellation and we wanted to get them more exposure. After their show, we’ll hustle out to LA. I’ve canceled the radio interviews since they all have clips, so we have plenty of time.” He waved that off, but it meant our day off was going to be in Vegas instead of in LA, and Soul Shred wouldn’t have one. They were still paying their early dues, so they’d have to just suck it up. “This is a great opportunity for them, so if you want to go to support them, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

“Oh! I have an idea.” Pierce rubbed his hands together. Sometimes he came up with good shit, and sometimes he was off the wall. With how excited he suddenly got, I sure hoped this one would be good.

We talked about the idea and made plans that I hoped would work out until Soul Shred was nearly finished with their set. “Oh shit. We have to get ready.” Pierce jumped up and dashed off with most of the band on his heels, but we were in Kay’s dressing room, which was the biggest, and I was ready.

“Gotta change or anything?” Kay asked.

“Nope. Ready.”

“Let me see.” He stood in front of me, looking me over. As usual, my jeans were tight, my hair was loose, and my eyeliner was applied perfectly, for however long it lasted. My T-shirt was strategically ripped in all the best places. “Okay. You pass. What about me?”

“Hmm…” He wore very similar clothes to mine, but his considerably longer hair was up in a messy bun. His shirt was an old, faded Midnight Hunt concert Tee, and the bottom of his jeans was cuffed over his combat boots. “You look killer. Don’t know how you can perform in those shit-kickers. Fucking crazy.” I always wore Converse. They were light, comfortable, and looked cool.

He shrugged. “Used to it.”

We were still hugging our guys when our tour manager, Marci, banged on the door. “It’s go time.”

And we headed to the stage, passing the Soul Shred guys on the way. There were high-fives and fist bumps and best wishes all the way to the side of the stage. We were at the Allegiant Stadium, which held sixty-five thousand. We were nearly sold out by the time we were on stage at Rocktoberfest, so I was pretty sure it sold out or came damn close, but I hadn’t heard. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the performance.

The techs and roadies finished clearing Soul Shred’s equipment and adjusting ours, and the lights changed. It was dark as hell, but then spots started flying around. We had two jumbotrons on each side of the stage, which were showing different shots of the audience. It was meant to get everyone keyed up.

“Wait. Wait. Wait, Kay, Matty, Joe…” Kai called out to us and handed each of us a big cannon-style gun of some sort.

“What the fuck is this?” I asked.

“T-shirt guns. I wanted to show you how to work them, but it’s easy. You’ll figure it out. There’s plenty of shirts in boxes just to the sides there and there.” He pointed out the boxes that were set just off stage. “Seriously. This will be fun.”

“Will it get shirts out past the first few rows?” Kay asked.