“Nick—” Sage began.
“Hey, at least she’s getting something from Britney. Like fashion inspiration,” Zoe said with a small smile.“I think she may even have more midriff showing than the goddess of exposure herself.”
“Look,” I said, ignoring Zoe’s amused comments and focusing on Sage. “She’s staying with Tom for the summer and she’s got no friends in town. She’s lonely.”
“Yeah, she looks lonely,” Sage said, gesturing with her chin.
I looked back at Francesca, who had just been waylaid by a giant thug of a guy. Shit.
“You better keep your eye on her, Nick,” Sage said.“If anything happens to her while she’s out with you, Tom is going to—”
“Okay, okay,” I said, stomping off in Francesca’s direction. A guy can’t even do a nice thing in this world anymore without catching shit.
“Nick!” Francesca called out as I stepped up to her and the giant. Then she wrapped an arm around my neck, pulled me down to her mouth and planted a big one right on my lips. Whoa. Clearly I’d made some headway by inviting her here.
Then I looked up at the giant, saw the obvious surprise in his face and realized that maybe Francesca’s intention had been to make headway with him.
“Hey, dude, no offense, but the lady is here as my guest.”
“Is that right?” the giant replied, his surprise now turning to anger.
Damn. Did she have to start things up with a guy, like, twice the size of me?
I looked at Francesca, saw the wide-eyed look she gave me, and realized for the first time how very young she was. Almost innocent. If that were possible.
Possible or not, I felt a surge of something in that moment. Something that made me say to my giant friend, “Yeah, buddy, that’s right. She’s with me. You wanna make something of it?”
The minute I said the words, I was pretty freaked. I mean, this guy could fucking kill me with one good whack of that beefy fist. But the most amazing thing happened.
He didn’t.
Instead, he held up both his hands, as if disavowing all claim to Francesca, and backed away.
Backed the fuck away.
Needless to say, I was feeling mighty pleased with myself when I walked up to Sage and Zoe with Francesca on my arm.
Though Sage was none too pleased with me, it was clear.
But she didn’t have time to put in her two cents. Not only because Francesca was smiling in her usual queenly fashion at her, but because Nose Dive had just taken the stage.
“Is everybody ready to rock and roll?” Les barked into the mike. For a quiet guy, he sure did have stage presence. I gave him the thumbs-up, glancing around as I did. A handful of people had gathered before the stage. Okay, so we weren’t going to take down the house, but it was their first show at Don Hill’s, right?
Then the guitarist,Jess Gunther, laid into his Stratocaster, moving into the opening of “Like a River.” I closed my eyes to savor the melody. It was an instant classic. God, these guys were even more awesome live.
I opened my eyes just as Les began the opening lyric, savoring the words. Genius. The guy was a fucking genius. I couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the songs. Les said he had some new material he was going to try out tonight, which was cool, because I wanted to get these guys in the studio and get this CD recorded ASAP.
I turned to look at Zoe and Sage.“Pretty brilliant stuff, right?”
Sage looked at me, as if trying to come up with an appropriate response.
“Makes me want to slash my wrists,” Zoe replied.
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s kinda depressing, Nick,” Sage said.
Jesus. Were they paying attention? “Listen to that melody. It’s genius.”
Sage shrugged. What was I even bothering asking them for? Sage can’t tolerate a song she can’t shake her hips to, and Zoe is into that vagina rock. Talk about slashing your wrists. You had to have PMS to listen to the stuff Zoe listens to.
“Hey, at least somebody likes it, Nick,” Sage said, gesturing with her chin toward the stage as the band rolled into the next song.
I looked up to see that Francesca had disappeared from my side and was standing before the stage, front and center, her eyes fixed on Les, mesmerized.
“Well, there you have it,” I said, with no small satisfaction. “That’s the demographic anyway, from a music business point of view.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zoe asked.
“Not that I plan on catering to such things,” I said, “but most of the music-buying public is young.”
“And what are we, old?” Sage replied dryly.
“Well,” I said, gesturing to Francesca, who had begun to sway in time to the music. “Older than her.”
Now I’d managed to piss them both off. Hey, if you can’t take it, don’t dish it out. It wasn’t like anyone was going out of their way to make me feel fucking cheery. This was the band that was gonna launch my label, for chrissakes. Show a little support, would you?
Still, I was relieved when the next song began. The tempo was faster, the lyrics more lively. I looked over and noticed that though Zoe stood stock-still—she wasn’t much of a dancer anyway— Sage, at least, had begun to move those famous hips of hers.
And Francesca…
She was grinding her hips up there like she wanted to…
Fuck. I was going to have to keep an eye on her.
But it was going to be my pleasure. Oh, yeah.
I didn’t care what Sage said. Francesca was of age, and if Tom had anything to say about it, he could talk to me directly. Besides, I thought Tom
