The Fire

The Green Day band along with all of the people involved were outside enjoying the mild weather of the day. The grill was going and various people were seated around on the picnic tables that lined the outside area. Someone had a portable cd player outside and The Clash's London Calling album was playing. Coolers where lined up near the grill which contained an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Tre was slowly sipping from a long neck bottle of beer and telling dirty jokes to those within ear shot. Mike was one of those half listening to Tre talk while Billie was in front of the grill complete with a "Kiss me I'm the cook" apron.

Out of nowhere a car stereo broke though the conversations and even overpowering The Clash. Mike cocked his head to one side and listened. Tre looked at Mike and mimicked his action. Suddenly a look of recognition came over Mike's face and he smiled. "Well at least whoever is blasting the stereo is playing one of our songs." he chuckled.

"At The Library, that's an oldie but goodie." Tre said when he himself realized what was being played at ear bleeding volumes. "It sounds like it coming down the street right now."

Everyone was surprised when the music didn't go anywhere, like the car had stopped driving. All of a sudden the electric gate started moving to let the vehicle playing the music enter the parking lot. Finally with a loud squealing of tires, a small truck sped into the lot. In a cloud of smoke the truck stopped and music stopped.

The passenger side door opened and Toby jumped out into terra firma and fell to his knees and kissed the blacktop. Sabrina climbed out and walked over to where her friends was still kissing the ground.

"Goddamn, you act as though I'm a bad driver Toby. Jesus, I was trained to drive a fucking race car, I was totally in control of the Tracker the whole time you ass." she said as she took her foot and kicked him on his upturned ass.

Toby straightened up and look warily at the woman as he got to his feet. "HELLO, Earth to Sabrina; in case you didn't notice, downtown Oakland is NOT a race track, thank you very much."

"Wimpy men..." she mumbled as she walked past him.

"Crazy fucking blonde." he retorted to her back as she walked away.

Sabrina flipped him the finger over her shoulder as she replied, "Live fast and die young, old friend."

Toby sighed as he knew he wasn't going to win over the strong willed woman. He brushed the dirt off of his clothes and followed Sabrina over to where her friends were literally gaping at her with open mouths.

Finally Jason White found his voice, "Damn Tre she is crazier than you and WOW, I never thought that level of crazy could be broken."

"That's my girl." Tre said as he swept her up into a hug and kissed her. "My crazy ass wife. Gotta love her for it."

"Shut the hell up husband." she said with a wack to his arm.

"Drummer abuse, drummer abuse." he shouted as he ran around holding his arm. "I can't play anymore." he whined.

By this time Toby had finally caught up and tapped Sabrina on her shoulder, and beckoned her to follow him inside. Without another word to the group the two people walked inside through a side door. When the door shut completely, Tre finally stopped running around and resumed his place sipping his beer like nothing unusual had happened minutes earlier.

Billie looked at Tre, "Do you know what's going on?"

"Nope, not a clue. All I know is that she and Toby were having a business lunch at Rudy's when I called her, and you RUDELY interrupted my chance to help Toby sell her as a sex slave."

Billie shook his head at Tre and went back to cooking. He figured that Sabrina would inform them or not as to what she was doing in her own good time. Lunch resumed as though there never was an interruption. People started to grab food from Billie as he finished up cooking duties. They all ate, drank, and was merry.

About 15 minutes later, Sabrina and Toby came back out the side door to rejoin the lunch crowd outside. The woman walked up behind her husband and looped her arms around his neck and leaned into his back. Tre leaned back into Sabrina and turned his face upwards in order to give her a kiss. At that moment Toby's cell rang and he moved away from the group to answer it. In the space of 30 seconds he was done talking and hanging up the phone.

"Open Sesame." he said in a loud voice.

Tre and Sabrina separated at the sudden sound of the electric gate opening to allow a large 25 foot truck enter the parking lot. The truck maneuvered around in order to back up to the side door that Toby and Sabrina had disappeared through earlier. With a release of air brakes, the truck came to a stop and became quiet. Two rather large burly men exited from the truck and went over to open up the back door of the trailer. Sabrina took a look inside and caught a glimpse of her logo on some of the road cases that were packed away.

Sabrina cocked her head at her manager who simply said "The big bucks, woman, the big bucks." with a knowing smile on his face.

She rolled her eyes are her manager and ran over to the truck and climbed inside to hunt for a particular road case. She found it right in front and with a little effort tugged on it and rolled it down the ramp and over to the side out of the way. The slim woman unlatched the top lid and looked into the case as if it were a treasure chest of gold.

"My preciousessss." she intoned to the case, much to the laughter of those around her. Sabrina smiled at the sound of the chuckling and rubbed her hands together as she decided upon what item to bring out of the box. With one fluid motion she reached in and pulled out a guitar.

The guitar was unique as it was shaped as a Stolichnaya Vodka bottle. The familiar white and red labeled bottle was the body of the guitar while the neck was made to look like the bottle neck and the head was the cap. It was a one of a kind piece and Sabrina rubbed the guitar body lovingly and smiled. With a quick kiss to the guitar she quickly replaced it and reached in to pull out another guitar. This time she pulled out one that was shaped like an locomotive complete with her as the engineer.

After looking at it she once again replaced that guitar and reached in for a final time. She succeeded in pulling out a black Warlock guitar from BC Rich. She laughed evilly as her favorite guitar became visible to the sunlight. She leaned it against the case as she replaced the lid and snapped the case shut. The guitar had red accents and the strap was heavy as it was made out of long rifle bullets. The metal from the strap clanked as it hit the side of the road case.

"My precious" she spoke as she lovingly traced her fingers along the sharp line of the guitar's body. She plucked a string and grimaced at the sound it made. "Damn I guess sitting in a storage case for over 15 years has made these strings dead as hell" she muttered to no one in particular.

"Well if you would give me a chance to do my job Boss, I'll have that guitar fixed and ready to play in no time."

Sabrina turned at hearing the new voice and squealed as she saw her guitar tech Spyder walking toward her along with the techs for the rest of her band and her sound man Eddie. She gently placed the guitar on top of the road case as she went over to the incoming crowd to greet them. The one called Spyder stopped and opened his arms to the blonde who came bounding up to him. Sabrina launched herself at him and hugged him hard.

"Oh my god Spyder, you went and grew up on me. Dammit man, you make me feel old." she gushed. "You got married not to long ago, how is the new wife?"

Spyder smiled at the fact Sabrina could remember all the details of her employees. That made it feel great working for her, she remembered birthdays, anniversaries, and children's names. She made people feel like friends rather than employees and that in it self made for a great work environment. That meant to work for Sabrina Sanders meant a job for life. She treated her people better than anyone else could. They had the best health insurance with a minimal expense to them, a 401k plan that Sabrina would match, and the best part was a constant paycheck. No matter what Sabrina was doing, her employees still earned a paycheck. It was a luxury Sabrina could well afford being as rich as she was.

The new group of people walked over to the back of the truck and started to help unload road cases and equipment that was needed in order to rehearse and record an album. Sabrina climbed in and also helped by grabbing an amp and rolling down the ramp and following the others inside. The tech and roadies and star kept making trips until finally the trailer was empty.

Sabrina wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. "Damn, I never knew we had that much shit. Remind me to scale stuff back next time."

Spyder walked over and draped an arm around his boss, "Boss, this is scaled back. Danny has a shit load of keyboards, Emmett still uses the drum kit from hell, and between you and Gary and Bobby you all have so many guitars and basses that you could outfit a hundred new bands. Besides don't forget we had to bring amps, mics, headphones, monitors, soundboard, and speakers and all the cords that come with those things. AND that's not including the odd instruments that you been playing. So I say once more, this is scaled back."

Sabrina sighed at the younger mans' explanation and knew he was correct. "Well I guess this means I won't have to workout tomorrow, since I got my workout today. Ugh, I am totally looking forward to finding a tub and soaking away in a bubble bath later on tonight. I'm old you know, these muscles get stiff easily." she snorted as she tried to keep a straight face and flexed her muscles.

Meanwhile the whole time from the truck arrival to the present moment exchange between Sabrina and Spyder was being watched by the Green Day group. Tre actually was enjoying the fact that his wife worked along side of he techs and roadies and had a really interesting taste in guitars. He reminded himself to ask about the Stoli Vodka one in particular. He looked at Billie and finally said "I know what's going on, Sabrina's moving in." He dead panned.

"Wow, you are the master of observation aren't you?" Billie muttered.

Toby moved over to where Sabrina was standing. "We still have one more appointment to go before the end of the day."

"What appoint... ohhh yes, I had forgotten about that one. You want to drive because I am still lost as hell around here. Shit, I'm lucky that when I leave Claudia's house that I can get back after roaming around town. And if it wasn't for Rudy's I'd die of starvation from not having a clue." she laughed. Sabrina reached into her pocket and pulled out her truck keys. With a backhanded toss the keys sailed through the air to land in Toby's outstretched hands. She then walked over to where her husband was seated still eating his lunch and hugged him from behind and kissed the top of his head. "I'll see you later tonight at home husband of mine."

"Hey what about a kiss on the lips?" he pouted as she walked away.

"Lips that touch Billie's aren't touching mine until the Billie germs wear off." she snorted as she walked toward her truck which Toby had pulled up closer to where the group was. She climbed in and Toby steered the Tracker toward the gate. The truck exited the parking lot at a much slower pace then when it came in and with a clank of the gate, the whirlwind that was called Sabrina Wright was gone.

Mike had sat back and had watched the afternoon's events unfold. She was still as beautiful as the day he last saw her, which was the day when they all flew back into Oakland. It was hard but he was doing his best to avoid the woman at all costs. No one really noticed that he was distancing himself from her, so he felt he was doing a good job up until now. With her moving into a studio in the same building as they were, avoiding her had just become a more difficult task. Mike sighed as he rubbed a his forehead. Yes, this is going to be difficult. he thought.

Within a few minutes the men had started moving back toward the studio and Tre walked up behind Mike and slapped him on the back to get him moving in the same direction as the others were. With a wry grin Mike got and followed his friend back into the building, but for the first time since being in the studio, the bass player's mind was not on making new music, but on a certain blonde which wasn't his girlfriend.