Maybe if I was really lucky he was also stunned by my musical skills, because his eyes kept darting from the bike to my guitar to my face.
“Do you know whose bike that is?” he said, his mouth open and full of taco meat he’d forgotten to finish chewing. Apparently, he was more concerned with my ass trespassing on the bike than with the rest of me in the lot.
I kept playing, looking him steady in the eyes, and said, “I know whose bike it is. You can tell him Todd Becker’s here to see him.”
The kid shut his mouth, chewed slowly for a bit, and stared at me like he was deciding whether I was dangerous, stupid, or just plain crazy. Apparently landing on the latter, he shook his head. He glanced at the plainclothes security dude on the sidewalk, who was pretending not to eavesdrop. Then he tossed me a biker-brat glare that said Your funeral and stalked back inside.
And for the first time today, I actually wondered if this was a giant fucking mistake.
Last thing I wanted to do was get Jude in any kind of shit.
When I first found out about the auditions for Dirty’s new rhythm guitarist, I’d planned to head straight up to Vancouver to try out. But then I changed my mind. The auditions were only starting in Vancouver, but ending in L.A. the following week. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to wait.
Then I’d called Jude and found out he wasn’t even in Vancouver. He was already in L.A.. And that sealed it for me.
I told him I was coming.
He laughed.
Truth was, I didn’t think he really believed me.
But here I was.
All week, I’d hung out at the taco dive across the street. Each morning, I watched the lineup of hopefuls grow, winding down the sidewalk behind the velvet rope and around the block. Each afternoon, I watched the crowd dwindle until the last guitarist left the building. Most of the time I’d sat on the sidewalk, playing my acoustic, and even though I wasn’t intentionally busking, people had tossed me cash.
That was weird.
I once had a number-one album. Now I had crumpled bills in my guitar case.
The end of each day, I’d bought three tacos and a juice. I’d given them to the old guy who lived out behind the taco place, along with all the leftover cash. Maybe that was just sponsoring an addiction, and maybe after all I’d been through with my own addiction I should’ve been wary of that. But the dude was seventy-six years old and living in an alley; if he wanted whiskey for breakfast, you asked me, that was his prerogative.
It was several days before I even glimpsed any members of the band.
On Thursday, just as the sun was starting to set, Dylan Cope strode out onto the sidewalk from the gated lot behind the bar—his bar—with a few other guys. The dude was crazy tall, plus his unruly auburn hair was aflame in the evening sun, so there was no mistaking him. He was smiling. Laughing.
Dirty’s drummer was definitely the most easygoing of all the band members, and it’s not like it had never occurred to me to appeal to his chill nature for forgiveness. Problem was, it would never be that easy. Dylan was a team player almost to a fault; the guy wouldn’t change his socks without the approval of the other band members first.
Especially Elle’s.
I’d seen her, too, that same evening. Elle Delacroix, Dirty’s bassist. Also unmistakable with her long, platinum-blonde hair smoothed back in a high ponytail, her slim, tanned figure poured into a skimpy white dress and tall boots. She’d come outside with a small entourage—her assistant, Joanie, a stiff-looking dude in black who was probably security, and a couple of other women. I didn’t even get a look at her face. She’d spoken with the guys, mainly Dylan, and after giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, she disappeared behind the building.
Were they dating now? I had no idea.
I wasn’t exactly in the loop.
I knew Elle had dated Jesse Mayes, Dirty’s lead guitarist, a while back; everyone knew that. So maybe anything was possible. But Dylan remained on the sidewalk with a bunch of guys, talking, some of them smoking, long after the SUV with tinted windows rolled away with Elle.
Today, the very last day of auditions, I’d waited across the street until the end of the day. Until every last one of the hopefuls had been dismissed and wandered away, guitar in hand. I could remember that feeling, vividly. Playing your ass off in hopes of getting noticed, of getting invited back, no idea if that was gonna happen or not.
I’d been in that position several times in my life. None more nerve-racking than when I’d first met Dirty at age nineteen. When their lead singer, Zane Traynor, took me home with him, to his grandma’s garage, to meet the band. Once I met them and heard them play, I knew I had to do whatever it took so they’d let me stick around. I’d played with garage bands before. But these guys were something else. And they already had a killer guitarist in Jesse.
So I knew I had to bring something different to the mix.
I spent the next three years of my life hellbent on doing just that.
From that first informal audition, to the last show I ever played as a member of Dirty—the night they fired me from the band—I knew I had to kill it. To work my ass off to earn the chance they’d given me. I had to give them something back that they’d never seen before, never heard… something they couldn’t stand to be without.
Just like I had to do now.
And to that end, I’d decided I had to be the very last person they saw today.
