“And YOU!” Dennis points to my ill-fated bandmate.
“AH!! What did I do?” Seb jumps out of his skin and narrows his eyes at me.
“Where is Cadence?”
“Um, she’s in Sydney. Did it take twelve hours for you to notice she’s not here?”
“Where is she? I thought she was coming with us. They’re expecting her as well.”
“She’s coming in a few days; she just had to finish up some work and then she can enjoy the rest of her summer with us instead of worrying about her students.” Sebastian explains. Cadence is a music teacher at a local school, and until very recently when a sexy French cellist stole her heart, the school and her students were her life.
“But they’re going to be expecting her to get off the plane with us. The stories are going to run rampant about you guys breaking up if you arrive alone.”
The sound of the four of us guffawing stuns Dennis out of his grump.
“Denny, after what they’ve been through, I think ‘breaking up’ is hardly the news headline that’s going to bother Cadence at this point,” Marius finally speaks up, referring to the recent sex video scandal headlines in the international media that almost broke them up.
Dennis sighs and sinks into an empty recliner, the guilt of not being able to stop the scandal still weighing heavily on him, and Sebastian gets up to pat him on the shoulder.
“Take it easy old man, or you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”
Jez follows and hands Dennis a drink, who takes a sip and hisses, the amber liquid probably burning his throat.
“And don’t worry about Brad’s face. It actually is an improvement. You know he’s always been the ugliest one out of all of us.”
This gets a chuckle out of Dennis and he gives me a limp smile. “Yeah, I guess. Just…try to sit with your less ugly side to the cameras, will you? With this one,” his head gestures to Sebastian, “out of play, we need the rest of you to be pulling your dreamboat status weight.”
I sigh and stand up and wrap my arms around Dennis’ shoulder in a man hug that he only mildly struggles to get out of.
“Keeping the ladies happy? I can do that, Dennis, just for you.”
I’m too busy patting myself on the shoulder to see the fist coming toward my face.
Brad
The pounding in my head is somewhere about eight on the migraine Richter scale.
The twelve hours of sleep I got on the plane barely made up for the sleep I’d missed out on partying in Australia for two weeks. Now the jetlag and the two cans of Red Bull are doing a tango on the nerve behind my left eye. That’s on top of the way the right side of my face screams every time I inadvertently make some sort of facial expression.
And it’d all be okay if I were headed for a nice, dark room and into a soft, warm bed. Instead, there are about a hundred of London’s most zealous music journalists and paparazzi on the other side of the door, ready with their microphones and flashbulbs and wanting blood.
“You guys ready?” Dennis asks us for the eighteenth time since he herded us into the hotel bathroom to give us his best pep talk on how important these press tours were to the success of the launch of our new album. I’d like to think he didn’t turn toward me when he’d said, “Well, just don’t, you know, FUCK UP,” but I know better.
“He means you,” Jez clarifies, without needing to.
I am notoriously bad at these things and usually walk the tightrope between saying completely ridiculous nonsense and clamming up all together. If there’s something I’ve learned about being in the public eye for the last eight years, it’s that there are some born for celebrity and schmoozing the press, like Sebastian and Jez, who can charm the horns off an angry bull. And then there are the ones like me, and to a lesser extent, Marius, who turn into gibberish-speaking spider monkeys at the mere sight of a microphone.
“He knows. Get off his case. He already looks white as a ghost… well, a ghost with sunburn.” Seb defends me, patting me gently on the arm.
I give him a thankful smile that quickly turns into a cringe as my forehead threatens to tear from my cheek.
Rubbing my temples, I drag breath into my lungs, trying to stop the thumping against my skull and will my headache away. It’s going to be a rough hour.
“You’re up, guys.” Dennis pats me on the back and it’s one of those rare times I wonder why I’m doing this. Then I feel myself pulled into a big group hug, my bandmates’ arms wrapped around my shoulder and our four faces in a huddle. These are the faces I’ve grown up with, gone through hell and back with, achieved the highest level of success with, faces I would die for, and then I remember. I’d be completely lost without them, doing what I love with the people I love most in the word.
Dennis gives us a wink and pushes the door open and there’s a loud cheer and applause.
Marius steps onto the stage first and takes a seat behind the long table, followed by Jez and then Sebastian. I hang back watching them from the doorway, wondering who would notice if I made a run for it.
“Go!” Dennis whispers and gives me a little shove and I reluctantly follow my bandmates into the ring of fire.
The applause dies down as we settle into our seats and adjust the microphones in front of our faces.
I see Dennis nod to us and then Hailey, our new PR rep and Dennis’s daughter, walks onto the stage with her own microphone.
“Welcome, everyone, and on behalf of the Rock Chamber Boys, I’d like to thank you all for being here today! We are so proud to announce the release of the new album, due next wek, Chords and Chaos, and believe it’s the best one yet. We’ll be here for the next hour taking any questions…so let’s start!”