Chapter One
Adam
The Beginning
So this is how my single state ends. How all the casual dating, random hookups, and fucking around grinds to a halt because of one girl. A girl I haven’t even laid hands on. A girl I haven’t heard speak. A girl whose green eyes—they must be green to go with that red hair—are bright enough to light up the whole damn bar.
“You all right, man?” Ian Turner, my drummer, asks as he muscles by me with a snare in one hand and his throne—aka the stool—in the other.
I wipe a hand across my jaw. It comes away dry. No drool is a good thing. “I’m fine. Why?”
“You look like someone hit you with a baseball bat,” Ian explains.
That sounds about right.
“Just happy with how we played,” I improvise, not entirely ready to admit to my downfall.
He buys it. A huge grin spreads across his face. “We killed it tonight.”
We did, indeed. After only a month on the local scene, my band—Fuck Marry Kill—is slaying it. I hoist the bass drum onto my shoulder and gesture for him to lead. We need to clear the stage for the next band.
Part of me wants to run back out there and play another song or ten, but one of my old man’s mantras was to always keep the audience wanting more. Rock their clothes off (sometimes literally given the band’s infamous collection of underwear collected over the years on tour) and they’ll be hungry to see you again.
The rest of me wants to hunt down the redhead. I figure she’s in the bathroom now because the corner of the bar near the door where she hid for the three final songs has been filled by a couple of hipster guys with carefully trimmed facial hair and plaid shirts tucked into dark jeans.
“You see Mica Hollister is here?” My bassist Rudd careens around the corner, barely stopping before crashing into me. His eyes are hot and excited. Ordinarily, the only things that turn Rudd on are women and a sweet guitar riff. But Hollister would get his dick hard, too. Hollister’s a regional promoter with sticky fingers in a dozen pots.
“I saw. I heard he’s setting up some big city tour for new bands?” I give Davis, our new front man, a nod as he holds the door open for Ian and me.
Rudd trails behind like an overeager puppy. “Not just new bands—any bands with a decent local following. It’s called the Under the Radar tour. He wants to use it to build a big social media following and then launch the best one into big-time radio play.”
“Hollister’s always full of ideas.” There’s not a promoter in the business who doesn’t think he has the next Coachella up his sleeve. Making those ideas into something concrete is the challenge, and I haven’t seen Hollister put together anything bigger than a local festival of a couple thousand people.
Ian shoves his throne into Rudd’s empty arms. “Hold this.” He piles the bass drum on top and hops into the back of the van. We start handing stuff inside. When the band is playing on a regular basis, there’s zero need to get to the gym. Lifting the instruments in and out of the back of this vehicle three or four times a day is all the workout I need.
“You should hear him out,” Rudd urges.
I shake my head at Rudd’s persistence. Talking to Hollister is the last thing I want to do right now. I head inside for more of our equipment. Sooner we get this done, sooner I can hunt down the redhead. There’s probably a dozen dicks pointed in her direction, and I need to get out there and stake my claim.
“Hollister’s a blowhard,” Ian declares. “He’s the kind that strokes your dick with one hand while robbing you with the other.”
He’s not wrong. Hollister’s been around for ages, even when my dad was touring. He’s always trying to put something together, and although he has contacts, he’s disorganized, which means most of his big ideas end up being huge fuckups. Plus, he’s known to employ shady tactics, skimming money off the top of a band’s take, meddling with the makeup of a group, and being a general asshole. I steer clear of him.
“I don’t care who’s stroking me, as long as I get some loving,” Rudd replies.