Unwritten (Woodlands 5)

“That’s the most honest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth,” I grunt. Behind me, Davis cough-laughs. He’s new, so he doesn’t hassle Rudd as much as Ian and I do, but he’ll catch on. The only way to live with Rudd’s gigantic ego is to constantly punch it down to size.

“We sign up for Hollister’s deal and we’re going to be huge. Roadies will be doing the heavy lifting while we’re in the green room getting some post-concert loving.”

?

??Except for you, Rudd. No one wants to fuck the bassist,” Ian ribs.

“Fuck you, man,” Rudd retorts. “Lots of chicks love the bass guitar.”

“Name one famous bassist.”

I roll my eyes.

Davis nudges me. “They always like this?”

“Always,” Ian confirms.

“Always.” I nod. Rudd and Ian have been friends for a while, and this is an ongoing debate—whose instrument attracts the most chicks. “I think it’s numbers over quality, though.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Davis says.

“So is this gig better than filing reports at CloudDox?” I ask, only half joking. Davis’s day job is some kind of data engineering at a local cloud computing company. This particular incarnation of my band will only go as far as our singer takes us. I can write the songs, the music, get the gigs, but without a front man, we’re in the shitter, which is where my band dreams have been since high school. I’ve had other lead singers before, but Davis is hair-raising good. There’s something special about him. I feel it and tonight the crowd experienced the magic, too.

The guy’s voice is a rare one—great range and a little gravel for the girls. He stepped in to cover for a friend at a concert series last summer. He only sang backup, but the minute I heard him, I knew. He had it. A few beers later and Davis was officially part of FMK.

“Fuck, yeah,” Davis replies. “So what’s next?”

“We’ve got a Thursday night gig at the farmer’s market followed by a two-hour set at Gatsby’s. Saturday, we’re driving to Layton to do a half-hour set opening for a local college band.”

Davis makes a face. No one likes to be the opener. Depsite our success tonight, we’re still so fresh from the garage you can smell the exhaust. Still, we’re burning that all off.

“Don’t worry. A few more nights like tonight and we’ll headline bars all over the state.” Other states as well, but I keep that ambition to myself. I’m not sure he’s ready.

Davis is big on going home at nights. Rudd thinks he has a honey stashed away, but if he does, she hasn’t shown her face around here.

“Or we can go on the road with Hollister, make some decent cash, get our sound heard by a shit ton more people than we played in front of tonight,” Rudd persists.

“Hollister can wait.” I squint toward the back of the bar. The redhead still looks absent, but if I don’t get over there soon, some other guy’s going to make a move. Then I’ll have to get rid of him, and despite the owner of Tonic House being a long-time friend of my father, that might get me kicked out.

“What if he asks someone else, though?” Rudd says.

Ian clears his throat and tosses me a look that says I better go talk to Hollister or Rudd will be riding my dick all night. With a sigh, I mentally hit pause on my plan to find my dream girl. Turning to Rudd, I say, “If I talk to Hollister, will you stop hassling me?”

He grins. “For tonight.”

“Jesus Christ. Go inside and find a girl who’s too desperate to say no, will you?”

Rudd doesn’t immediately do as I ask. As if sensing an imminent explosion, Davis collars him around the neck. “Come on, Rudd, I’ll buy your first drink. The girls inside are thirsty, and I’m man enough to admit I can only handle a couple of them.”

“I knew I liked you from the first moment I saw you,” Rudd says.

“I thought the first words out of your mouth were, ‘Who is this douchebag and why is his khaki-covered ass in our studio?’”

“As I said, liked you from the first.”

Ian chuckles as he follows them. I don’t get two steps inside the backstage door when Hollister pops up, like a whack-a-mole. The guy might have had hair once, but I don’t remember the last time he looked like anything other than a pale, bald light bulb.

“Adam Rees, that was a righteous set, my man. Righteous!” He slaps me on the back as if we’re old, old friends. “You played like a motherfucker up there.”