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He knows it would piss me off and considers that a useful management technique. I swear, why do all managers have to be fucking assholes?
Eli taking session work isn’t a betrayal. He needs to pay rent. He needs to keep playing, and the coffee shop probably isn’t doing it for him.
But I know him.
He’ll fucking hate sitting behind somebody else’s kit, playing exactly what he’s told and pretending he doesn’t mind that none of the songs are ours.
I need to finish this semester and get back to my band before waiting for me stops making sense.
College is going better than I expected. There are even parts of it I like.
But the gala showed me exactly what my life might look like if I fail: standing in stuffy rooms, smiling and pretending I don’t feel like I’ve been buried alive.
Fuck that.
Atlas Falling is my life.
I’m getting it back.
“Alright. One dinner. I’m not promising to do any public press with her and no paps until I’ve met her, alright?”
I guess if I meet her, it’ll get Danny off my back and show the boys I’m serious about doing everything I can. Plus, maybe we can do a song collab instead? She’s got a voice that would go well with ours. Maybe we can do that instead of some fake relationship bullshit. I gotta meet her first to see if she’s down though.
“Good call. I’ll get Paula to send you the reservation.”
“And no press, yeah? Let me just meet her chill. There aren’t many paps in Denver, anyway.”
“Yes yes, whatever.”
* * *
Bea is waiting outside The Crane with both hands tucked into her jacket pockets.
I stop for half a second.
Leather jacket. Dark hair loose around her shoulders. Her eyes are lined with heavier makeup, and she’s got red lipstick on that’s downright sinful.
She looks effortlessly fucking good.
She spots me and raises a hand.
“You’re here,” she says.
“You invited me.”
“Yeah, I know. I—” She tucks a hair behind her ear. Is she nervous?
“You look beautiful.” I let my gaze move over her.
She blinks and parts her red lips. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Come on,” she says, turning toward the door before I can enjoy the blush. “They’ll be starting soon.”
The Crane looks as though nobody has redecorated it since 1987 and everybody wisely agreed to leave it that way. Low ceilings. Sticky carpet. A narrow stage beneath a lighting rig old enough to have its own pension. Despite growing up here, I honestly have never even set foot in here. They never accepted under-21s for gigs, so we never played here.
The crowd is mostly in their forties and fifties—people who came to hear a band rather than film themselves hearing one.
