Page 99 of Hard Rock Desires

I winced internally. Shit.

“A few months ago we had to deal with the damage you dealt to a karaoke establishment,” the suit said. “There is also the incident at that live house where an amp was destroyed after being tossed off the stage and onto the cement floor. There are other instances I won’t get into, but seeing as how this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, we have decided that measures must be taken,” the suit continued.

“Measures?” Micah asked pointedly.

“I’ll go into the details later,” the suit dismissed. “Suffice it to say, for now we simply need your signatures on these papers.” He pushed a folder across the table.

“What are these?” Micah asked.

“Codes of Conduct,” he replied. “You are signing an agreement that there will be no further reckless behavior, from any of you.”

Damn. Reckless behavior. That was exactly what Grace had said, wasn’t it? For the last few days, I’d had her voice ringing in my head.

I didn’t want to get involved with you in the first place…

I’d been so upset when she said that. So hurt. It felt like a punch to the face. It felt like a black hole had sucked all the light and warmth from the universe.

I’d been so hurt that I hadn’t really taken her concerns seriously. Now, everything else she said was taking center stage in my mind’s eye.

I can’t be with you if you’re going to turn a blind eye to these sorts of things.

By ‘these sorts of things’ she meant exactly this. The kind of behavior that got us all a visit from our record label.

Eventually someone will get hurt, and I won’t stand around and wait for that to happen.

She was worried for others. She was afraid of what might happen next time.

If you don’t see anything wrong with what happened tonight, then I guess there’s nothing more to talk about.

She’d been trying to get me to see things from her point of view, but by that point I’d shut down. I’d been so hurt, I hadn’t actually been listening to her.

“Are you serious?” Finn asked. “Codes of Conduct? We’re a fucking rock band, not nuns living in a convent.”

The suit cleared his throat.

“As I said, you’ve caused quite a bit of trouble for the label,” he said. “Signing this agreement will simply give us more confidence in our decision to sign you.”

“I know for damn sure there are bands who have caused a lot more damage to a single hotel room than I did with a dent in a fucking car,” Finn griped.

“There is a difference between a record company paying for damages to a place of business, and a private citizen suing for damages,” the suit said.

“If that’s the case, I’m not even the worst out of the bunch!” Finn pointed to Anya. “She kneed a guy in the balls once!”

“That was self-defense,” she said evenly. “He was manhandling me.”

“Besides, it turned out he had a dominatrix fetish and actually got off on it,” Kaylee piped in.

Anya shuddered. “Gross.”

“I can’t believe I have to fucking do this,” Finn muttered.

“Maybe if you hadn’t thrown an entire arcade game out the window and trashed someone’s private property, we wouldn’t all be in this situation to begin with,” I snapped.

Finn looked taken aback as he stared at me. I held his gaze firmly. He lowered his eyes.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll sign the damn papers.” He scribbled his name on the line at the bottom of the page, then crossed his arms and watched with a put-out expression as we all did the same.

“Very good,” the suit said with a pleasant smile. “I’m glad we got this sorted so easily.”