Rum and Coke

“This band sucks. How did they get so far?” Brian asked, swinging back a beer. It was the last round of their little talent search shin-dig and he couldn’t wait for it to be over with. The last two bands have been utter crap.

“After this, only two more to go, Syn,” Christ said from beside him.

Brian let out a low growl as the band finished their song.

“Calm down, Fucker. We all want to get this shit over with. How I got Val to talk me into this, I’ll never know.” Matt said from Brian’s other side.

“Um, because it was actually your daughter’s idea? Face it, you can’t say no to her.” Rev said from Matt’s other side.

“What are you talking about?”

“That girl has you wound completely around her finger! No, scratch that, you wound yourself around her finger.”

“This is true,” Brian told his best friend.

“What are you going to do when she gets married?” Zacky asked.

Matt visibly shuddered. “She’s not even dating; I don’t want to think about her getting married.”

Although he looked calm and cool on the outside, Brian could see in his eyes that he was scared shitless. Kay was literally his world. He didn’t know how to function without her around. Hell, he flipped out the first time she spent the night over at someone’s house that wasn’t someone from the band or affiliated with them.

“Shut the hell up.”

~*~

Kale checked his phone as soon as he got out of my last meeting of the day. “How Danni stayed awake through all those boring talks, I have no idea.” He grumbled to himself. His phone dinged, indicating that he had several voicemail. The first one was Jared, asking Kale when he was coming home. The next two were from Kale’s parents- asking him why he never called anymore. The last one is what Kale was really interested about. It was from Ellie. And it confused the hell out of him. He quickly dialed her number and waited for her to pick up.

“Well?!” She answered, obviously pissed off.

“What was up with that voicemail? Is everything alright over there?” Kale asked, concern lacing through his voice.

“Oh, it was fucking fine and dandy until I saw a look alike of my mother strutting around the set of an Avenged fucking Sevenfold music video. And you would never guess what this clone did- my mother’s signature move! I thought you two told me that you never worked on anything high-budget before you came to New York!” Her voice was caustic.

“Ellie, calm down.” Kale tried to reason. “I can tell that you’re very upset with the both of us-”

“Shut the fuck up! You’re not fucking Dr. Phil!”

“Ellie, continue to talk to me in that voice and you’ll never find the answers that you seek.” Kale snapped.

There was muffled talking on her end. “I have to go. We made it to the final round. I’ll talk to you later.” She said heatedly before ending the call.

~*~

Ellie threw her guitar’s strap over her and tested out the strings before joining her band mates.

“So, we decided to go with Heroin,” Bailey said, looking at the Green Room door.

“No.” Ellie said sternly. Mark and Bailey looked at her quizzically. “You know the rules, it’s my song and I am the only one who can say if we’re going to play it. No, we’re going as planned and playing Rioters. Kappeesh?”

“But, Ellie, it’s such a powerful-” Mark tried to reason.

“I fucking said no, you goddamn cocksucker!” Out of the corner of her eye, Ellie saw one of the people in charge poke their head through the door and motion toward them. “Come on, Ryan, I’ll help you set up the kit.” She told the drummer, grabbing onto his wrist and pulling him onto the stage. “What gave them the nerve to do that?!” she muttered under my breath.

“Because they didn’t think of how you would feel. I told them to leave it, but they wouldn’t. Oh my fucking God! Does no one know how to put a good drum kit together anymore!” he screamed once he saw what the previous drummer had arranged. He looked at his twin and pouted. “Help?”

Ellie laughed and started carrying all the extra drums over to the main kit as Ryan worked on re-arranging everything to his satisfaction.

~*~

Matt nearly spit out his beer when he saw her. Her raven hair was tucked behind her ears and her eyes were alight. He noticed that a black Fender Strat was slung behind her. She was talking to the taller of the two guys he saw her with yesterday. He seemed to be able to make her laugh, no matter what he told her.

“What the fuck!” Jimmy roared. “Is he seriously going to use all those drums? Damn, he’s either got big balls or he’s just an idiot. Motherfucker.”

“Shut the hell up, Rev,” Syn mumbled from under his fedora. “Ok, if this band completely bombs, then we’re not taking any of them and we’ll just tour without an opening act. Sound good?”

“I say we just tell them goodbye,” Johnny chimed in as he propped his feet up on the table.

“No, I say we let them stay,” Zacky replied, locking eyes with Matt. In that moment, Matt knew that Zacky had just put two and two together. “They could give us a good laugh at least. And we would humor the girls by letting them play.”

“Fine, let the fuckers play.” Syn growled, his fedora still covering his eyes.

Grumbling, Jimmy turned to face the window and let out a low whistle. “Hey, that chick looks like-”

“Rev,” Matt interrupted him. “Let’s go get another beer. You’ve been holding that empty bottle for awhile.” he added, silencing whatever protest that the drummer may have had with his eyes. Matt looked over at Zacky, silently telling him to watch Johnny, while he hauled Jimmy into another room.

“What the fuck, dude? I was just commenting.”

“Rev, that’s his fucking daughter.” Matt told the drummer as he looked him dead in the eye.

Jimmy’s mouth hung open, confusion was still in his eyes. “No, he just has a son…”

“It’s his and Danni’s.”

“How did you…?”

Matt sighed and grabbed a beer. “I saw both of them about sixteen years ago. I promised Danni I wouldn’t tell Gates.”

“Fuck. Really?” Jimmy asked, popping the top of his beer and chugging it.

“Yea, and you can’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

Matt gave him a hard look. “Do you honestly want to give them something else to fight over?!”

“Oh, fuck. Hell no! I’m not putting up with him again!”

“Exactly! Zacky knows, too, and Johnny will know once when he figures it out. C’mon, we gotta get back.”

Johnny eyed the two when we got back. He gave Matt a small nod, telling him that he wouldn’t open his trap about it.

“Let’s get this fucking thing over with,” Syn growled. His fedora hadn’t moved.

Just as he finished saying that, the band’s drummer tapped out the beat and the band went into a very heavy song. Matt could tell they were onto something good. The lyrics that the singer sang/screamed were harsh, and told Matt that this band didn’t give a fuck about what anyone thought of them. Something inside told Matt that this band would make it pretty far, and they’d piss a million people off in the process….but that seemed like their goal- to piss off as many people as they could before they were silenced. They would most likely do that even if they didn’t make it. Matt saw the singer completely swing her guitar behind her and grab the mic before screaming her heart out. He was amazed, the only other woman he knew that could scream like that was Val.

Syn took his fedora off of his eyes and looked at the girl in front of him. She was moving too much for him to really get a good look at her. When she was done screaming for all her worth, she put the mic back and ripped out a killer guitar solo. Syn was on the edge of the seat, trying to keep up with her fingers as she ran, jumped, hopped, climbed, kicked and slid around. She definitely needed the release. She had her back to us as she let the final chord drift through the room.

“Aside from the rhythm guitarist needing work, I say that wasn’t half bad,” Zacky said, lighting up and taking a long drag.

“Not half bad? Not half bad?! Fuck, I wanna meet them. Who’s in?” Jimmy said.

Johnny and Zacky instantly shot out of their seats and followed Rev. Matt stayed behind with Syn. He was looking through the window with a bemused expression. “Why aren’t you out there?”

Matt looked over at him. “Because I’m trying to gauge your reaction. Are you alright? You look… odd.”

“I’m fine.”

Just then, the singer knocked on the glass before showing them her middle fingers and walking away.

“This is a one-way mirror, right?”

“Yea. Guess she’s said all that she wanted to. Damn, she’s a rebellious one, that’s for sure.”

“I think I’ve seen her before.”

Yea, just look in the mirror, dumbass, Matt thought. “Oh really?”

Brian snapped his fingers and jumped out of his seat. “It’s the bitch from New York! I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”

As soon as Brian left the room, Matt smacked his head. Leave it to Syn to not recognize his own flesh and blood.