Somehow, that pissed me off even more, though. I didn’t want our band to be known for infighting. I didn’t want our struggles to be obvious to outsiders. Why did Mark and Carter not seem to care at all about our image? Why didn’t they seem to care about the band?
I just shook my head at her. “Don’t worry about it,” I told her.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, grinning at me. “I’m sure you can handle it, can’t you? You’re always so good with the two of them.”
I bristled slightly. The last thing I needed right now was her flirting with me.
I didn’t want to examine why that thought bothered me so much. But as my eyes scanned the gathering crowd, I knew I wasn’t searching for my bandmates’ faces.
“Just enjoy the show,” I told her brusquely, finishing up on the stage. I headed toward the bar. Mark wasn’t even talking to Carter, and I wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse as Carter was getting drunker by the minute. Mark, on the other hand, was flirting with the blonde bartender.
I huffed angrily. It was nearly time for soundcheck, and here they were. We were never going to get anywhere like this. But then again, with the way things had been going lately, they probably wouldn’t care if our vocals were mute, our guitars out of tune, or anything else we were meant to check prior to the start of the show.
Hell, if I hadn’t even gotten Carter’s guitar out of its case prior to the show, I doubted that he would have noticed. What the fuck was going on with us?
I grabbed Mark first, my hand landing heavily on his shoulder. “Get Carter, find Luke, and get ready for soundcheck,” I said in a clipped tone.
Mark looked for a moment like he wanted to protest, but then he pasted a cocky grin on his face and turned to the bartender. “Guess it’s showtime,” he said, winking at her as he slipped off his stool and went over to where Carter was listing to one side.
I leaned over toward the bartender. “Cut off the guitarist, okay? He’s had enough.” It shouldn’t have been up to me to ask her to do that, but then again, he had already passed the point of drunkenness, and for whatever reason, she was still serving him.
That was half of the trouble: Carter still had charisma even when drunk. He always seemed to convince them that serving him was in their best interest. I didn’t know what he promised them, but he rarely got cut off, and it was starting to drive me crazy.
Sure enough, she raised an eyebrow at me, looking skeptical. “He’s one of my best customers,” she said.
I scowled at her. “You want me to get a cop in here to breathalyze him?” I snapped. “You realize that it’s against the law for you to keep serving him if he’s already drunk?”
She pursed her lips tightly. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll stop serving him. But you can be the one to tell him that because the last thing I need is for him to try to start a fight with me.”
I nodded curtly at her, then turned to head back to the stage. Fortunately, the band was assembled, and we were all ready to start our soundcheck.
Things went fine. Not great, but not terribly, either. Muscle memory could take you pretty far, I guess, and we had definitely practiced enough over the years to nail our hits at the very least. We still couldn’t add any new material, though, and it was starting to bother me more and more.
We finished up the show, and Luke and I started to break things down. Carter and Mark, of course, headed immediately to the bar. I wondered how long it would be before Carter found out that he wasn’t being served anymore and cause a ruckus.
I hated that I had to think that way. I didn’t want to be his keeper.
And there was a part of me that knew even if the bartender refused to give Carter a drink, he was going to find a way to get one anyway. From the way the groupies were flocked around them, it was only a matter of time.
“I’ve been talking to an agent,” Luke said suddenly.
I dropped a cymbal with a loud crash, staring at him with wide eyes. Normally, my equipment was more important to me than anything else, and I wouldn’t have left anything sitting there on the floor. But what he had just said was way too important.
“What?” I asked dumbly.
“You heard me,” Luke retorted. “He gave me a card after our last show up at Bay Heights. He’s interested.”
I stared at him for a moment and then shook my head. “We’re already getting okay gigs,” I said. “We should probably focus on that for now, shouldn’t we?”