"Yeah? Well, tonight is much more important," Alex said.
I think he was nervous and his nerves made him arrogant. Well, more arrogant. But he wasn't helping his cause talking to her like that. God, he looked hot, though. That was the only thing that stopped her from punching him, by the look on her face. He had on his trademark leather pants and a top in some thin fabric with a touch of spark to it. It'd have looked a bit effeminate on most men but the way the tightness emphasized his body left no doubt that he was all man.
I followed him backstage. "Is everything okay?".
"Yeah, sure. We'll blow this place away. This crowd is going to be leaving here stunned."
He pranced around the room. I decided to leave him alone and went to the bar. Carlie came to join me. She'd taken the night off so she could watch Zero.
"So, come on, who do you want to win?" she said. "You have to have a favorite."
I shrugged. The bet hinging on this was something I wanted to forget about. And that business about never being able to date the loser, I'd thought nothing of it at the time but now I had a bad feeling.
A guy knocked us aside to get to the bar, calling out for beers.
"Hey, watch it, mate," Carlie said. "Where's Mr. Manners?"
He ignored her.
"Should I get him kicked out?" she said. "He's a jerk."
"Yeah, and have Alex bitching that we rigged things? No thanks."
Chuck approached us, smiling and rubbing his hands. It wasn't often he turned up to see the bands but the thought of all that money must've been more than he could handle. His beady little eyes gleamed.
"Do you think it's going to be a full house?" he asked. I could see him doing the calculations in his head.
"Maybe. It's getting pretty packed in here."
There were quite a few girls wearing "Team Alex" t-shirts. That had even become a thing.
When the support band stopped playing and the lights went down, a hush fell over the place. A lot of them would've seen Zero play in their warm-up gigs but this was the main event. They knew that Alex would pull out all stops. This wasn't going to be just a gig, it was going to be a seduction. By rights, once he'd gotten them in the door, it didn't matter. He could put on a piss poor performance and it'd be all about the numbers but he wasn't that type.
From off stage, a screech of guitar rang out. The cheers started, like a wall of crazy anticipation. Then Alex appeared, flooded in red light like something preternatural. Cheers turned to screams, high pitched squeals, as every woman in the room imagined unwrapping the present in those skin-tight pants.
"I'd do him," Carlie said. "Well, if you don't want him."
As the full band burst into noise, I couldn't answer her. This was amazing. Chills ran down my spine just with the way he worked that guitar. Carlie gripped my arm, jumping up and down. I pulled ahead, pushing for the front. No point standing back being cool. I wanted to be part of this. Alex swelled and took up all the oxygen in the room, like we were breathing him in and he became part of us.
For all his crazed perfectionism, he was a god up there. A leather-clad god with jet black hair, dominating the stage, holding every si
ngle person into the palm of his hand and squeezing every drop of emotion from them.
"Holy shit," Carlie screamed.
We got buffeted by the crowd until we reached a spot near the stage, just as Alex went into that slow, tear-jerker song that got everyone right in their heart. His soulful eyes swept the crowd and I swear one girl at least fainted, then his gaze settled on me. I held my breath wondering if he could actually see me in this crowd. For that moment, I wanted him to see me, for his gaze to be on me alone.
Something larger than life was happening up there on stage and down amongst the crowd. This was a band that was going places, much bigger places than our little club, that's for sure. Alex had star quality and he had the brains to back it up. At times, you could see that brain ticking over. The way he'd seek out someone in the crowd and let his gaze linger there a moment too long, or the way a song would build up and then he'd pull it back, keeping the crowd on edge. That edge of calculation manipulated every thread of emotion.
Of course, most people didn't notice that, they were happy to be swept up in the game he played without thinking about it too much but, for me, the stakes were higher than most.
I spend the rest of the set in a daze, not knowing what he'd do next. He finished up, sweat-drenched in a way that made every woman want to be his towel, and his eyes sparkled with a light to dazzle the world.
Carlie grabbed my hand for the last song. I knew without her saying, she didn't want this to be the last song. She didn't want it to end.
Then, finally, silence.
We walked to the bar, not saying a word. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea.