Page 6 of More Than Scars
“This is seriously a #bestdayever!” Tony declared. “How are you not more excited? Dude, this is literally your dream come true, and I feel like I’ve been celebrating it more than you have.”
“Because you have,” I pointed out. “And I’m good with that. Meeting our literal idols today was completely badass; I just don’t get why this couldn’t have happened before my life went to shit. A part of me is angry that my former band missed out on this opportunity, and another part is pissed at myself for wanting to share this with them.”
“Dude, that’s because you never got any closure, just an awkward visit from Duce explaining that they’d decided to press forward without you in the hopes that the guys who’d been scouting the band wouldn’t be put off by the change in guitar players.”
“And they weren’t,” I grumbled, missing them a little less now that Tony had reminded me of that. “Fucker didn’t even make it past the doorway of my hospital room when he came to tell me that, either. Didn’t sit, didn’t even stick around for a five-minute conversation. He just clung to the fuckin’ door, shuffling from one foot to the other, looking everywhere but at me lying there wrapped up like a fuckin’ mummy. If there was one fuckin’ day since that accident that I wanted someone, hell, even needed someone to look at me and see me and not the ruin left over from the wreck, it was right then and there, and he couldn’t even give me that.”
“Which tells you all you need to know about him,” Tony said. “You were a means to an end for them, that’s all. Look what happened when they tried toreplace you. The whole band went to shit. They aren’t even a band anymore, while you just got signed to the number one management company in the whole fucking country. That’s huge right there, Bowie. Once it fully sinks in, I think you’ll see just how amazing this opportunity is.”
Sighing, I dropped down onto the couch, trying to muster up the energy for a shower while my belly was still full of the amazing meal we’d eaten. Before today, I’d considered Chappy’s Steakhouse the top tier of steakhouses. Man, was I misinformed. The place we’d eaten at tonight hadn’t been one of those chain places either, and there sure as hell hadn’t been sawdust and peanut shells on the floor.
“It is an amazing opportunity,” I said. “And I’m willing to run with it as far as it will take me. I still can’t believe that Joey said he could see this new band recording the song I’d played at the audition. Like, I can still hear those words echoing in my head, and holy shit, that’s some serious validation right there.”
“And you deserve it.”
I slapped my hand on the arm of the chair in response to his words and glared over to the chair, where he sat fiddling with the remote, trying to find something for us to watch. With his eyes glued to the television screen, he didn’t see the glare I shot him, which was probably a good thing, since he didn’t deserve it any more than the redhead at auditions today had deserved me snapping at him.
“Why couldn’t I deserve it back when I still dreamed of being on posters and the cover ofGuitar World?”I grumbled.
While I’d been lucky enough to have a friend with me, even if I wanted to throttle Tony sometimes, he’d been sitting there alone, and yeah, I get the whole bit about nerves and seeking interaction to keep them at bay. The only thing that had kept mine in check throughout the morning was hunger and annoyance at being dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour for our last-minute trek from Portland to Seattle. Had he been seated anywhere but directly in front of me, I wouldn’t have cared if he chatted with us, but each time he’d turned around, I’d felt my paranoia rev up at the thought of anyone seeing my scars.
So much for wanting my picture on anything these days.
“Fate had a different plan for you is all,” Tony replied, leaving it on the highlights from the latest MMA super card, since we both enjoyed watching the fights.
“Yeah, well, fuck fate in its wrinkled little asshole,” I groused.
“You could look at it that way, or you could thank fate for not giving you this opportunity back when you were still a cocky bastard,” Tony pointed out. “Otherwise, you might have been the one to get up there today and try to play a damned Social or Maiden song. I felt for that poor bastard, I truly did. Talk about being smacked back to reality when Stoli cut him off halfway through.”
“Could you blame him? What musician wants to sit there and listen to someone butcher the hell out of one of their songs? Dude did such a hack job on it that he could give Jason a run for his money next Friday the 13th.”
Tony sputtered, choked, then started laughing so hard he wound up leaning over the arm of the chair.
“I have never seen someone try so hard to impress someone that they tried to fuck a hole through their guitar,” I grumbled, which just got Tony laughing harder. “All four of them were so much better than what they showed before Joey and Stoli got there.”
“Because they were too busy fanboying and falling all over themselves trying to impress them, unlike you.”
“Hey, I wanted to impress them too, I just didn’t dare look up.”
“See, another plus.”
“Only you could find pluses in me looking like Frankenstein’s monster.”
“Dude, stop, seriously, those scars are far less noticeable now than after the accident first happened. You’re the only one who still sees them the way they were when the bandages first came off. Have you ever once stopped to consider that people look at you ‘cause you’re fuckin’ hot?”
Snorting, I just shook my head at him. “Only you would find a train wreck hot.”
“Untrue. Do you see the way people rubberneck whenever there’s an accident? The bigger the disaster, the more the looky-loos turn out to see just how bad it is. You think folks sit in the heat swilling beer because they likewatching cars go round and round a racetrack? Fuck no, they are there to see twisted metal and tires flying off in every direction.”
Grumbling, I just pinched the bridge of my nose because he had a point, even if I didn’t care to admit it.
“Dude, relax. We should be celebrating right now. You’re heading to the big time, and I get to tell everyone I knew you when.”
“I wish you were going with me.”
“I wish I was too, but again, it’s all in the hands of the fates,” he pointed out. “Today wasn’t my day. Next time might not be either. It stings to not have made it out of the first round, especially with the way those guys got up there and fucked up the final round the way they did. But it taught me something too. Listening to some of you guys in round two, I could see that I was playing too tight and not letting the notes breathe so the emotion could come through.”
“Been trying to tell you that for years, fucker,” I reminded him. “You’ve always been the more technically solid one out of the two of us, but you’ve gotta learn to make love to the strings, man, and not just try to bang the hell out of them like you do your colony of twinks.”