Bad Boy Rock Star (3 page)

"That's okay.
Go on."

"He's a graphic designer and
so he does most of the graphics for the band, like this." She held out the picture on the front of the t-shirt to demonstrate. "Hey, can you get the files from him? I can add them to the site. And then there's Spud. He's okay. Not real bright but he's a great drummer. I think he could be gay. Well, maybe. I've never seen him with a chick before."

I
wondered if he was the one carrying the drum into the backroom.

"
Ha, check this out. We've got 100 followers on the site already. Bonus. Do we need a Twitter? We need Twitter, right? And Facebook. A band is nothing without social media these days. Hey, it's okay me doing this? I mean, I don't wanna step on your toes or anything."

"No, it's okay really." Like I wouldn't want her doing all this work for free.

"There's another thing.
I really feel like I'm being pushy now and…"

I looked encouragingly.
I'd not known Angie for long but already it got me worried when she was nervous about broaching a subject. This girl had the motormouth to end all motormouths.

"… can I make a video clip?
Please say I can? I need a project for my final assessment and if I had to pick any project at all this would be my uttermost dream project. In fact, I do dream about it all the time. I can direct it and I've a few friends who can film and do lighting and all that and I will do the most top notch professional job of editing it all together. Please say yes. Please say I can do it. Please, please."

She tried to
look at me with puppy dog eyes, her chin rest on hands covered in some hot pink and black glove things. I'm not sure how puppy-like they were though. I calculated how that would affect my plans. Good thing? Bad thing?

"We could get them to dress up.
Or maybe not. Jack would hate it. He'd probably want to sack you as manager."

"We'll do it."

She squealed.

"I also have some notes about where the band should play.
I'm an idiot. Of course, you'd know all this stuff already but I really, really think they should be playing bigger venues. You saw how crowded the bar was last night and they weren't even headlining. In fact, half the crowd left before the main band. So I've made a few suggestions here. Maybe you've tried to book them already. I didn't call the venues or anything, honest."

I folded the notes and put them in my bag.
They might come in handy.

"By the way, I need to ask you something.
Where do…" I couldn't actually say poor people, could I? I mean people get a bit upset about that kind of thing. What was the polite way of saying it? "Where do you buy moisturiser when you don't have much money? Is there something that's good but not too expensive?"

She gave me a strange look.

"You don't exactly look poor, you know."

"Yeah, well all my money is tied up at the moment. I don't have a lot of cash to spend."

"Ah, shit.
See, it's going to take about $1000 to make the video. We can do it cheap but we need to hire lights and a space. If we want it to look good, I reckon a grand is the absolute minimum."

"That might be difficult."
I hated to say it. I'd never once in my life had to tell anyone I'd not been able to do something because I couldn't afford it.

We both sighed.

She rummaged around in her handbag – seriously that bag was the hugest thing I'd ever seen – and handed me a fistful of sachets.

"Here
, take these. I get them free."

I took them.
That was enough moisturiser to last me a few weeks. Surely everything would be back to normal by then anyway. I'd never heard of the brand though. I hoped it wouldn't make me break out in hives.

"Thanks.
Where do you get this stuff?"

"Well, it's my job.
Hey, wait, do you want to earn some easy money?"

I raised my eyebrow.
I might be down on my luck but I wasn't
that
down on my luck. Easy money usually meant one thing and I wasn't desperate enough for that.

"Don't worry, it's nothing dodgy.
Easy as. I'm a promo girl. You know, those chicks you see at the train stations handing out free samples. It pays all right money and they are always looking for people. So long as you are okay-looking and not a complete social retard. It's just a couple of hours in the morning then again at night when everyone is knocking off work. You'll be a shoe-in."

I actually didn't know anything about people handing out free samples at the station.
I'd never even been to the train station.

"I can't do that!"

"Why not? You said your money is tied up. Hey, is someone holding it for ransom?" She exploded into giggles at that, slapping the table. I tried to grin but she wasn't far wrong.

"And you get to keep heaps of samples, sometimes even chocolate or that moisturiser.
Of course, sometimes it's shit stuff like discount coupons or crappy health food bars. Still, I'll just call Sammy and let him know to expect you."

"Wow, you're like my fairy godmother or something."

"Yeah, or something more like it. And anyway, the guys should reimburse you for the video production costs, right. I mean, it's for them. A couple of good gigs would just about cover the cost."

I looked at the menu while she talked on the phone.
Surely, if I was going to work, I could justify buying something to eat.

She covered the phone.
"You don't mind dressing up as a tree frog, do you?"

I turned up to the meeting wearing
a red shift dress. I figured red is the colour of power and I needed power. They would never know about the pile of about 50 outfits I'd tried on before I left home. Not that I was nervous or anything. I wasn't even sure if they'd turn up. I'd probably be stuck waiting for them for an hour and then give up and go home.

To add to the stress, I'd stupidly arranged to meet them at Sorrento Inc
. headquarters. The office building that
had
been the site of Dad's now ex-company. Hopefully they wouldn't notice the empty spots on the signboard or the lack of people around. I really, really didn't want to run into people I knew. As much as it'd been kept out of the news, people there would know all about the scandal. They probably knew more than I did. Of course, most of the business had been wound down now but that didn't mean I'd not run into anyone.

As a safety measure, I donned my massive sunglasses.

The only reason I'd picked this café was that I knew they'd know it. I'd had to think of something off the top of my head when I gave Jack Colt a meeting place and this was the only place I could think of at the time.

My eyes swept around the
café, checking if the band were there but not expecting to see them. I almost jumped to see them sitting in the corner, with guitar cases blocking the walkway between the tables.

At this time of day, there were only a few other people
there.  They sat in their suits on the other side of the café as though wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the band as possible.

Jack Colt l
ounged back in his low chair, his leg over the arm. He looked up as I walked toward them but didn't acknowledge me. He just kept talking to the other two as though I were a random person walking in off the street.

Eric sat in the seat by the window and Spud leaned back with his feet on the coffee table in the middle.

I walked over and stood by them.

The bass player, Eric, gave me a smile.

"You must be Eric," I said and smiled back. "And you are Spud."

"Greg," he grunted but didn't look up.
Then he and Jack continued talking about amplifiers and distortion pedals, whatever they were. What was the point of them even turning up to this meeting if they were going to ignore me anyway? They might as well have not come.

I ordered a glass of wine and cleared my throat then
launched into my spiel.

"Okay, I guess you want to know what this meeting is all about?"

Eric brushed his long fringe out of his eyes then fumbled in the bag at his feet and pulled out a clip to pin it back. That would look effeminate on most guys but not on him.

"The guy from Mega came to a few gigs then got us all excited about a contract.
So we signed, then nothing. We barely heard from him again. I called him a few times and he said he was talking to A&R people and had a few big things lined up but never came through with anything."

"Well, I'm not…"

Jack adjusted himself in his seat. I turned to see his crotch pointed directly towards my face. With the outline of his cock pressing against those tight leather pants. He knew exactly what he was doing; he was doing it to fluster me. The look in his eyes held a direct challenge. I took a deep breath and refused to play his stupid game even though my heartbeat did all kinds of crazy things. I looked him square in the eye, determined my gaze would not move any lower.

"I'm not your old manager," I said.
"Now you have two options. Either do as I say or buy out the management contract yourselves."

I stared back at Jack Colt, determined to let him know I wasn't shaken by him.
His mouth twitched at the edges then he rumbled into laughter.

'Oh, that's clever, babes, trying to make us pay for something we already have.
You appear out of nowhere and think you can be our manager, then want
us
to pay
you
not to do it?"

The laughter didn't extend to his eyes, still dark and cold and locked onto
mine.

I pulled a copy of the contract out of my bag.

"You signed here." I stabbed at the paper with my finger. "This is a legal document. I am the legal owner of Megastar Management. I have legal authority to represent you. I can make bookings in your name. I can sign contracts in your name."

Jack Colt shrugged.

"What can I say, babes? We were young, starry-eyed musos back then. We thought that guy was going to make us the next big thing."

He gave Spud a look and they both laughed.
Seriously, if he didn't stop calling me babe, I'd punch him in the stomach.

I leaned towards him.

"Excuse me.  One of here is studying law at a prestigious university and the other… well…" I gave him a look letting him know I meant business.  "You don’t want to mess with me."

"So, if we did buy out the
contract, how much would that be?"

I smiled at
Eric. At least he had some common decency and manners. Then I named a figure and all three of them laughed.

"You really think we are worth that?"

"We're worth it but we aren't paying."

"We don't have any money anyway, do we, Jack," added Spud.

I'd been expecting this but I'd hoped they would play along. It'd have been the perfect solution to everything if they'd just agreed. Of course, Angie had said they had no money. Eric was the only one with a job but she'd told me something else too. A few years ago, Jack had been up on assault charges. Shit had gone down at a gig, was how Angie put it. It looked like Jack would go to jail. Then, suddenly, he'd been released and nothing more was said about it. It took serious money to do that kind of thing. There had to be a money trail somehow.

Frank had said they wouldn’t pay up that easily.
It looked like I'd have to move onto Plan B – make the idea of getting rid of me a helluva lot more attractive.

"Make them think you're a dingbat," Frank had told me. "No one wants a
dingbat as a manager."

I looked at the three of them, still laughing, and
I sipped my wine.

"Okay, I gave you the option.
Remember that, because it will cost you a ton of money if you want to get out of this contract later on."

I got the three files out of my bag and handed them around.
Eric and Spud took theirs but Jack continued to stare at me until the back of my neck prickled. I sat the folder on the coffee table in front of him.

"Why do we need a manager anyway?
We turn up, we play our music and that's it. Managers are for pretty boy bands who need someone to tell them what to do."

I twisted the ring on my finger and looked out the window. I figured he'd try to undermine me.

"Pretty boy bands make a lot of money. If you look at One Direction, for example –"

"What?
That proves it." He rolled his eyes. "You know nothing about what we do. Nothing."

I would not lose my temper.
I would not say anything stupid. I would stay cool and business-like. Even with the blood pumping hard in my temples.

"What about all the administration?
You need someone to do that so you can concentrate on the music."

Jack Colt leaned forward, his face so close to mine, I could feel his breath on my skin.
I wanted to back away before my stomach flip-flopped out of my body but I refused to move.

"Understand this, babe." He said the "babe" as though hurling an insult.
"There is no administration. There is no anything. Eric makes a few calls and we play. No one needs to take a cut of that."

"There's no administration because you aren't going anywhere."
I took a swig of my wine. "Don't you have any ambition? Don't you want to play festivals?" I took the sheet of paper Angie had given me from my bag and straightened it against my knee. "What about the Metropolis? Don't you want to play somewhere like that?"

He rolled his eyes again.

"We've tried to get gigs at the Metropolis before," said Eric, "and well…"

"Well
, listen, babe, if you can book us a gig at the Metropolis by the end of the week, we'll go along with this shit. Otherwise, you can tear that stupid contract into bits."

He smirked at Spud as if to say there was no way I could do it.
Like I had no ability to pick up the phone and call someone and set up a gig. I was totally capable of doing all that and more.

I rubbed my grandmother's ring again, needing the comforting reassurance of it and sat forward in my chair.
The cold challenge in his eyes said I couldn't do it.

"I don't need to prove anything."
I picked up the contact again.

"You might have your contract and all your legal bunk but you can't force us to do anything.
What are you going to do if we don't show up? Throw us over your shoulder and force us to play? Not going to happen. Take us to court and sue us? You can't get blood out of a stone, babe, and we have no money to pay."

I gulped.
That was my bluff. I had no legal standing and I hoped they wouldn't realise. He was 100% right. They could walk away right now and I'd have nothing, not even the management company to sell.

"I'll take your challenge.
By the end of the week you say. Fine. And then you'll follow the plan." I picked up the folder sitting on the table and waved it at him. "You'll play the places I say and turn this band into a paying proposition."

"If you can swing it."
He snorted, not believing I could do it.

"
Have you ever managed a band before, rich girl? They don’t let just anyone play the Metro, you know." Spud snorted.

Eric pulled a bunch of CDs out of his bag and handed them to me.

"You might need these. They are our demos. And I'll send you some bios too."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me.
We have a website now. And maybe one of you could do some twittering and stuff like that. You need a social media presence, you know."

Jack Colt coughed and I turned, completely forgetting about
that
thing. My eyes had gone straight to his groin with its unmistakable bulge. I blushed and tried to will myself to stop but the more I tried not to blush the more my face burned.

"
I don’t twitter."

"And we are making a music video." I figured that would put the ball back in my court.

"So, which of our songs do you intend to make this clip for? I assume that as our manager, you are fully aware of our entire repertoire."

"
As your manager, I don’t need to know your songs. I deal with the business side, not the music. And, if you don’t like it, remember I gave you the option of buying me out."

But he ignored me and stood up.
Picking up his guitar case, he nodded at the others.

"We have shit to do."

He walked off but Eric waited.

"We are doing a gig tonight.
It's just going to be small but it'd be worth you coming along. You really might want to listen to some of our stuff."

I stared at Jack Colt's back as he leaned on the counter paying the bill.
"I don't know if I'd be welcome."

"Oh
, don't worry about Jack. He has some issues but it's not like he’s in charge of who comes to see the band play. I'd really like you to come along."

He looked up at me through the fringe of hair that
had come loose from the clip with such a cute look in his eyes, I could hardly say no. In fact, everything about Eric was cute. From his hair to the black nail polish on the tips of his fingernails that peeked out of the stretched sleeves of his sweater. He grinned.

"You'll come? Oh
, that's so unreal. Hurry up or they'll go without us."

I followed after Eric but I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing.