“Sounds awesome.” I laughed. “Good luck.”
“Thanks!” She grinned. As I headed for the stairs with my guitar, she shouted, “Let me know if the Chevelle needs anything! You know I’d make house calls for her, right?”
“Yep! I know,” I shouted back.
Griffin was in the kitchen, rummaging through Evan’s food, when I walked in. Playing always gave him the munchies. His pale eyes shifted my way, and smiling, I tossed him the box of Froot Loops I’d brought along with me. I’d picked them up while grocery shopping on an empty stomach, but they really didn’t sound that great, and I knew they’d never get eaten at my house.
Griffin’s expression brightened as he caught the box. “Sweet!” he muttered, immediately ripping it open. He reached into the bag, grabbed a handful of the sugary cereal, and was loudly crunching on it before I’d even made it into the living room area of the one-room loft.
Matt looked up when I set my guitar case on the couch beside him. He’d been staring at something on his cell phone that sort of looked like a website. I wasn’t entirely sure, I didn’t even own a cell phone, and probably never would. Technology kind of mystified me, and I just didn’t care enough to figure it out. I liked what I liked, regardless of whether it was out of date or not. My car still had a tape deck in it, for God’s sake, which Griffin continuously chided me about, but as long as it still worked, I was happy with what I had.
“I think we should start playing festivals and fairs, and not just bars. It’s too late to get into Bumbershoot this year, but I think we need to do it next year. I think we’re ready.” With slim features, blond hair, and blue eyes, Matt and Griffin were physically a lot alike. Personality-wise, though, the cousins couldn’t have been more different.
“Yeah? Think so?” I asked, not too surprised that Matt was contemplating our future. He often did.
Behind him, I could see Evan wading through the rehearsal equipment that the band kept here at his place. His warm brown eyes were smiling at me beneath his close-cut dark hair as he approached the couch. “Definitely, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be, Kell. It’s time to step it up a notch. With your lyrics and my rhythms…we’re golden.” While Matt was one of the most talented guitarists I’d ever seen, Evan was the one who arranged most of our pieces.
Matt glanced back at Evan with an eager nod. Looking between the two, I pondered whether we were ready. I supposed they were right, we were. We had more than enough songs, and probably enough fans. It could be a big step for the band, or it could be a giant waste of time.
When Evan got to the back of the couch, he crossed his arms over his chest. All of my bandmates were littered with random tattoos—Griffin’s were a bit on the obscene side, naked girls and stuff, and Matt’s were classier, with meaning behind every twist and symbol. Evan’s though, his were like a living, breathing work of art. His arms alone were a museum-worthy masterpiece of fire, water, and everything in between.
While Matt and Griffin were both on the skinny side, Evan was bulkier. My body type was middle of the road, not too bulky, not too lean, and in terms of body art, I was a virgin. I just couldn’t think of one thing I loved well enough to permanently scratch it into my skin. Nothing in life was permanent, so why pretend it was by immortalizing it? Seemed pointless to me.
I grinned at my two eager bandmates. “Let’s do it then. Make it happen, Matt.”
Smiling, Matt went back to his phone. Griffin walked up and tossed an arm around me. “Awesome! What are we doing?” Some stray pieces of cereal fell from his mouth after he asked.
“Nothing yet,” I answered, smacking his chest.
He made an oomph sound, and even more of the brightly colored circles fell from his cheeks. I swear Griffin had the largest mouth of anyone I knew.
After a couple of hours of rehearsal, we called it a night. Piling into our cars, we headed over to Pete’s Bar. The bar was our home base, where we played at least once a week, if not more, but we always seemed to end up there, even on nights we didn’t play there. It was like the day didn’t feel complete until we’d stepped through the double doors, however briefly. Everyone knew us there, and we knew just about everyone. Our stuff was there, our friends were there, our life was there.
I pulled the Chevelle into my unofficial parking spot. As usual, it was empty, waiting for me. When I shut the car off, the sounds of Fleetwood Mac died midchorus. I briefly considered turning the car back on to finish listening to the song, but I’d heard it a million times, and I really wanted to go sit down and have a nice cold, refreshing beer. That sounded fantastic right now.
Evan was getting out of his vehicle at almost the same time I was getting out of mine. He clapped me on the shoulder when I met him at the back of my car. I looked around for Matt and Griffin, but I didn’t see Griffin’s Vanagon anywhere. “Uh, where are Tweedledee and Tweedledum?” I asked Evan.
He raised a corner of his lip. “Jackass said he needed to run home because he forgot Traci’s shorts, and she needs them for work.”
Picturing those two, I shook my head. Traci was a waitress at Pete’s. She and Griffin had been messing around lately, which wasn’t really a problem, except for the fact that Traci was starting to get attached, and she wasn’t the type to be okay with keeping things casual forever. And that made her the exact opposite of Griffin.
The warm light of the bar’s neon signs washed over me as I pushed open the doors to my haven. I inhaled a deep breath as I walked in, and unknown anxieties leached from my muscles. Everything about this place relaxed me. The noise, the smells, the music, and the people. If ever I could say I was truly content, it was here.
From my left, a husky voice let out a coarse “Hey there, Kellan.”
Looking over, I saw the bartender, Rita, studying me. She had an expression on her face akin to a man who was dying of thirst, staring at a pitcher of water. I was used to that look on her though. I’d slept with her once, and by the way she looked at me, once wasn’t enough. “Hey, Rita.” I nodded my head up in greeting and her eyes fluttered closed with a soft groan.
“Jesus,” she murmured as she ran a sharp, painted nail along her plunging neckline. “So fucking hot…”
After waving a greeting to the regulars, Evan and I made our way over to our table. Well, I suppose technically it wasn’t ours, but, like my parking space outside, it had become known as the band’s by our frequent visitations.