Page 28 of Not the Punk

When I begin

Dragon’s breath

Fire to win

I wanna win

We played through the next few verses, and when the chorus came up after the bridge, we got the surprise of a lifetime. The fans were already singing along, and we’d only released the song two days before.

Never enough

Filled with stuff

Wondering when

I can fly

When I begin

Dragon's breath

Fire to win

I wanna win

I wanna win

Never say die

Ride like the wind

Fire in my eyes

When can I fly

When I begin

Dragon's breath

Fire to win

I wanna win

The last line repeated and every time win came up, Pierce held the mic out to the crowd and they fucking screamed it back at us. When the last one was belted out, I hurried to grab the T-shirt gun and shot a few into the crowd as well as my pick. It was the perfect time and Matty did the same on the other side of the stage.

Kay leaned into his mic. “You fuckers rock!” That was so unlike him. He didn’t want to be the frontman, center stage. He’d given up that position to Pierce, and at the time, I thought he was kicking me out of the band. I was under no illusion that this was Kay’s band. Jinx had hired me, Matty, Dave, and Randy to play on his first album. We had no expectations of it being anything more, but we’d all clicked so well that Jinx and the rest of Midnight Hunt wanted us to tour. This was my first gig with a real touring band, and the ride had been fantastic even before we added Pierce. After that, we became something more. A real band with six equal contributing members, but underneath that there was still that little thread. This was always going to be Kay’s band. So, I shouldn’t have been so surprised when Kay jumped out of his lane. And the fans loved it.

We played on, and this one was undeniably one of the most energetic performances we’d had to date. When the encore played out, I walked off for the last time, adrenaline still pumping. “I could play another set. God damn.”

“Fuck yeah!” Kay grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “That was fucking awesome.”

Then I jogged over to Colten and jumped on him. He caught me with those big muscular fireman arms, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “Good job, rocker-boy.” He kissed me, but it wasn’t overly passionate. I couldn’t be upset since we were right in the middle of everyone, and I knew I’d get more later.

And wasn’t that the best thing ever? I wanted to be in his arms every night. He eased something inside me.

Marci ushered us all through the stadium to the loading docks in the back where we’d pile into limos to go to the hotel. Some of the guys were going to go party afterward, so they rented the big, sleek cars for the night. Colten and I weren’t going with them. We had our own partying to do in our suite.

We stepped out of the building, into the quiet night. Only a few people were around, including our roadies, who had already started breaking down the stage and loading equipment into the semi-trucks. It took a lot of people to make this shit happen, and I was grateful for every one of them. I waved at Brad and Leo, two of the guys who I knew better than the others, then ducked into the car.