Jared folded his arms in case the tense vibe wasn’t enough to warn me of an impending argument, so I sat my bag on the hood of the car and leaned up against it so our shoulders were touching, but we weren't looking at each other. “I knew this girl once, Katja. She went to the same uni as us, majoring in economics. She was, I always thought, both smart and stupid. Smart because she had a GPA that wiped us all out of the water. She was like the rain man of aggregate supply and demand.” I bit my bottom lip and frowned but couldn’t expand further because economics was not my strong suit. “Stupid because she dated this guy who liked to tell her what to do.”
“Evie―” Jared interrupted with a sigh.
I looked sideways at his frown. “Let me finish. She didn’t have much in the way of money or family support, so she worked nights and weekends at Revival, a topless waitress bar in the city, telling her boyfriend she was waitressing at a normal restaurant,” I explained. “One day he found out, and when she got home, he cracked her across the head so hard that she fell, hitting her head on the corner of the kitchen bench. She never woke up.”
I felt all the anger swirling around Jared deflate as he turned around to face me, his legs on either side, straddling the length of me. “Evie, I’m sorry about your friend, but what are you trying to say? You think I’m going to hurt you?”
I grasped his forearms. “No! My point is I don’t want to be the type of person who feels they have to hide parts of their life from someone because they’re being told what they can and can’t do. I know...” I raised my voice when he started to protest. “I know you didn’t say a word about the photos. I know you were going to though, so I just wanted to put that out there. You need to trust the decisions I make for my career. Sometimes you might not like them, maybe sometimes I might not either. Just please, trust me, Jared, and if I’m ever unsure about anything I’ll talk to you about it, okay?”
The corners of his lips turned up. “So you have no grand plans to do a nak*d Playboy spread wrapped around Henry?”
“No!” I practically shouted. “God, Jared, he’s like a brother. Besides, Henry said it was like hugging a man.”
Jared laughed and put both hands on my boobs. “These? Feels like a man?” I gave him a mock glare and smacked his hands away. “I hate to break it to you, baby, but I think he was only saying that to make you feel more comfortable.”
Satisfied the situation had been diffused, my stomach growled loudly. “Can we go now? I could eat a small country.”
“Yeah?” He opened up the passenger door for me to hop in. “Which one?”
“China,” I declared, winking at Jared with an easy smile.
He moved around the front of the car and folded himself inside the driver’s side, passing a wriggling Peter over to me before he roared the car to life. “What are you trying to say now, you want Mr. Chow’s?”
“I see my efforts aren’t lost on you.”
He shook his head at me as we peeled out of the studio car park. “Babe, no time. I have to get back to work after I drop you home. How about we pick up some sushi on the way?”
I made a face before covering my eyes with my giant sunglasses. “Only if it’s got tempura chicken in it.”
Peter licked my cheek so I could only assume that when it came to the battle of food, he’d already chosen the winning team. Smug, I reached for my phone to message Mac to see if anyone else was hungry.
Chapter Eighteen
“Come on, asshead,” Mac began bashing the bathroom door down with renewed vigour. “What is taking you so long? You’re going to record a song, not a bloody music video.”
The bathroom door whipped open, and Jared and I, wrapped in towels, made our way out, epic trails of steam flowing out the door behind us in big foggy clouds.
Jared smirked at Mac as she took in our towel clad state with pursed lips. “Seriously? That shit is not cool.” She pointed to my room. “That is what your bedroom is for.”
Mac was still operating under the guise of Ripley, so figuring my water conservation speech would be lost on her, I followed Jared into my room and shut the door behind me with a giggle.
“And hurry up!” Mac yelled after us. “We have to leave in ten minutes.”
I giggled again as Jared ripped my towel off and threw me on the bed.
Mac must have heard my giggle because she yelled at me once more. “Do you want to be late and come across as an unprofessional bitch?”
I slid off the bed with a sigh. “Mac’s right, I need to get dressed and you need to get to work.”
I picked Jared’s jeans up off the floor and threw them in the direction of the bed where he sat down and started checking the messages on his phone.
“Any news on Jimmy?”
He threw it on the bed with a frown as he picked up his jeans. “Nope,” he muttered unhappily.
I hadn’t had any new messages from him in a while and the police had scaled back the search to minuscule proportions. Jared and Coby, not taking any chances, had not scaled back in their efforts to have me covered at all times. This was both re-assuring and smothering at the same time. Not one to complain, okay I complained a little, I tried to make sure I didn’t make the job too hard on them.
“Who’s on velcro duty today for the recording studio?”
Jared stood up as he pulled on his jeans. “Travis. He should probably be here by now.”
I picked out an underwear set that was white with a pink and green floral pattern and slid them on. “Okay,” I muttered and disappeared into the wardrobe to throw on a pair of yellow capris, a white tank top, and strappy silver sandals. I came back out tugging a brush through my hair, and Jared gave me a quick kiss. “Good luck today, baby.”
“You too.”
He turned, ruffled Peter’s floppy brown ears, said, ”See ya, little dude,” and left.
I scooped up my bag in one hand, Peter in the other, and headed down the stairs.
Seven hours later, no joke, seven long freaking hours to record two songs, I sat in the control room with Marty, the engineer, Travis, and Jake. We were listening to the final version after Marty had finished working mixing magic so mystical even I had no idea we sounded that good.
Jake’s beat was hard, heavy, and fast, and I could feel it pound through every fibre in the room so it felt like someone was jumping up and down on my chest. Henry’s guitar ripped sweet and clean through the beat, and shivers hit my spine a little as my voice kicked in, husky and full.
I rubbed at my arms, and Marty grinned at me knowingly. “You guys are f**king ridiculous. This stuff is the shit. I knew you when, yeah?”
He pressed a button on the console and leaned down, talking into the live room. “We’re wrapping up in here, dudes,” he spoke to Frog, Henry, and Cooper. “Time to pack it up.”
Frog gave the thumbs up.
“So we weren’t booked in for another month Marty. Lucky to get squeezed in sooner, huh?”
Marty put a copy of the CD of our two songs into a casing. “Well you didn’t hear it from me, but there wasn’t a last minute cancellation. Someone got bumped.”
“What?”
Did he mean like someone got offed? I know I liked to claim badass status on a regular basis but the lingo sometimes left me in the dust.
“Yeah, kicked down the schedule.”
“Oh,” I muttered. Marty wasn’t speaking Badass after all.
“You sayin’ that someone got pushed back so we could be squeezed in? Why’s that?” Jake asked.
“Well...” he peeled off a label and fixed it to the CD “...you might have heard that one of supporting acts for Sins of Descent pulled out of the Australian leg of the tour in February.”
Jake and I nodded because Gary had mentioned this to us at our meeting.
“A friend of Matt, the lead guitarist, saw one of your songs on YouTube from one of your Melbourne festival appearances and sent it to him. Then Matt heard through the grapevine you were on the verge of signing with Jettison and put you forward to play for them on their tour here in Oz. So anyway, in case you haven’t noticed, Gary has been scrambling to get your shit together: photos, recorded music, whatever. Also,” he continued as Jake and I sat on the edges of our seats, mouths and eyes wide open, “if they do that, Jettison is gonna wanna get a single out in early March to promote you ASAP, plus a music video and more photos. You sons of bitches are going to be busy as f**k if you can pull this off, and after hearing your shit today, I think it’s a f**king shoe in.” He spun his chair and flung the CD in my lap with a grin. “But...” he tapped the side of his nose “...you didn’t hear that shit from me.”
When we arrived home, I raced to the kitchen sink, filled up an industrial sized glass of water, and guzzled it down so fast I felt an aching pain follow its path.
“Sandwich?” Mac called out from the lounge room where I’d whizzed past her. “You okay?”
I bashed at my chest a little to ease the pain.
What had I done to deserve something so potentially momentous to happen in my life? Sure, I could sing. Sure, our band together was pretty awesome, but let’s face it, I was a selfish person. I spent too much money on frivolous things, I could be petty, I made terrible decisions, and my life hadn’t been spent volunteering at the local animal shelter. It was only the other day that I was complaining when we were having cake because Henry cut Mac’s slice way bigger than mine.
I heard Mac ask Travis what my deal was. Her voice drowned out when I ran the tap for another glass of water.
I took a sip and focused on my breathing. I could do this. I could. I deserved this.
Why else would good things be potentially coming my way? I was kind… Dammit why is this so hard? What else?
I could be polite, to those that deserved it. I was a loyal friend because sometimes even when I knew Mac was in the wrong, I still defended her to the death (unless I was the one in the ‘right’ party of course, then it was on for young and old). I may not have volunteered at the animal shelter, but I did give them hefty yearly donations. I could afford to do it because Mum had left behind so much money, Coby and I didn’t really know what to do with it all. Truth was I couldn’t really bring myself to touch mine because it didn’t feel right. Maybe I would leave it for my kids. My two kids.
Mac came into the kitchen when I finished my water, exchanging it for wine as I got the bottle out of the fridge.
“I’m going to sponsor a child for World Vision,” I blurted out as I sat the bottle on the counter, my stomach sloshing like my insides were at sea from all the water.
“Okay,” she drawled out as though I was a crazy person she was trying not to startle.
I got some glasses down from the above cupboard. “Wine Travis?” I yelled.
I didn’t hear what he said because I began talking again without waiting for a response. I poured him a glass anyway.
“And those bears that are all caged up over in Romania,” I continued with determination. “There must be something I can do. Maybe we can raise some money and descend upon the WSPA?”