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crack, but
something soft—like respect, or maybe hope—curls the edges
upward.
    The line clicks dead, and I stare at my
ancient phone’s cracked home screen. One day soon, my band’s album
cover will fill the blank space there. I reserved the spot when I
got the cheap piece o’ shite, and despite all the speed bumps, I
haven’t given up hoping that it’s gonna happen.
    It’s gotta happen.
     
     

 
     
     
     
    Shit, Meet Fan

    After an invigorating night of schlepping
dry pig meat and soggy french fries for cheap-ass,
dollar-tip-leaving motherfuckers, I head for the East Side to
Jillian’s. She has a big barn behind her house where we rehearse.
Nestled on three acres of farm property, Jillian’s place is quiet
and peaceful with no neighbors to complain about the noise. Only
downside is at this time of year, you need a couple of inches of
blubber to weather the cold, and my threadbare coat ain’t cutting
it.
    Kate and Jinx started practice without me.
They always do when I work late, which is fine. Saves me the
trouble of listening to Kate’s bitching. Wonder what it’ll be
tonight. I’ll bet someone gave her sneaky looks in the coffee shop
where she goes to write songs. Or maybe she’ll go off about
so-and-so dick-sucking their way onto the Vertigo Palace stage
again. She’s so fucking paranoid. If she weren’t the best damn
guitarist around, I’d have kicked her to the curb ages ago. As it
is, she fucking rocks, so I tolerate her fits and mood swings.
    Jillian lifts a brow at me the second I walk
through the barn door. Guess it’s her signal I should don my
CDC-issued hazmat suit while she cranks up the industrial-sized
fan.
    Vroom, vroom.
    Jillian lights a cigarette. She wears her
usual business suit—gray slacks with sensible heels—which looks
ridiculous surrounded by bales of hay and farm equipment. She’s a
paralegal by day but wants to get out of that biz to focus on
managing her two bands. What the fuck is a paralegal, anyway?
Jillian’s a hard-ass broad, so I’m guessing she bitch-slaps
criminals for a living. Criminals or lawyers. Same thing,
really.
    “ Kate, I want to fill you
in about the tour,” Jillian says.
    “ Yeah, what about it?”
Kate slaps her hands on her scrawny hips and knocks a wisp of black
hair out of her eyes with an impatient puff. To look at her, you’d
think she was a starving, coke-addict model rather than a
guitarist. Well, again, same thing.
    “ Let’s not beat around the
bush. Just tell her.” I back up, cross my arms, and tuck my fists
loosely into my pits. If I have to start swinging, I wanna be
ready.
    Poor Jinx can tell shit’s about to go down.
Head lowered, she grabs her drumsticks and bounds off her
stool.
    For as hard as she beats the drums, Jinx is
more timid than an abused puppy scrounging for food beside a
7-Eleven dumpster. Except when she’s on stage. When she’s behind
her kit with the lights shining across her shoulders and sweat
glistening on her skin, she’s a beautiful blond blur of rage-fueled
enchantment. A ninja pixie. A butcher goddess.
    Not trying to be funny, but I wonder if Jinx
has some kind of social anxiety problem.
    Jillian pulls a heavy drag off her cigarette
and exhales through her nose. The ensuing smoke cloud shrouds her
face for a few seconds. She flicks the ash into an empty Diet Coke
can. “You’re going on with Killer Dixon, and they’re headlining.
Now, I know how you feel about Rax, but—”
    “ Oh, helll no.” Kate backs up, cleans an
invisible window with her palm, and draws a spell circle with her
chin. I’m pretty sure she sucks her teeth too. “Hell. Fuckin’ . No.”
    I shift weight between my feet. Jinx
flat-out cowers. It’s fixin’ to get ugly up in here. I scan the
barn for potential weapons. At least if we need to bury any bodies,
there’s plenty of land around.
    Jillian stands from the square hay bale
she’s been sitting on and points with her cigarette finger. “Hear
me out before you