Page 107 of Dirty Like Dylan

“The documentary series we filmed with Liv when we were searching for a rhythm guitarist will start airing in December, I think, and we’re going into the studio to start recording in thirteen days.”

“Sounds like you’re counting down the seconds.”

“Believe me, I am. Once we’re done that, the album promo will get going, heavy and hard, so we’ll be pretty busy. The tour is coming together, too. So next year should be a great year. We’ve all been itching to get this album out, get back out on the road…”

Well, shit.

Amber clouded right over at the mention of the tour, and the smile kinda fell off my face. She tried to hide it by lifting her camera again and taking some photos of the band onstage; Zane, Seth and Elle were up there, getting antsy, waiting on Jesse and me.

So maybe it was better not to mention the tour.

I wasn’t sure how to backpedal the hell out of what I’d told Amber on our first date, about our relationship ending when Ash and I went on the road. I was already realizing that proposal was a major fuck up for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was rapidly losing interest in the idea of leaving Amber behind. Just picking up and leaving her in the dust in two-and-a-half months made no fucking sense. Not if things continued on the way they were now.

But I also didn’t want to scare her off, send her running to the opposite end of the globe by laying out a different plan—one where she stayed ours, and only pulled out her passport when she was hopping on a plane with us.

Before I could figure out something less douchy to say, though, Jesse strolled in. While Zane gave him shit about being late, I gave Amber a kiss on the forehead and left her to do her thing, hopping up onstage.

We worked through a few of the new songs, and I made sure we played the best ones destined for the album, for Amber to hear. “Blackout.” “She Makes It Easy.” “To Hell & Back.”

When we took a break from playing, Amber sat in on a band meeting. We still had all sorts of dumbass minutiae to get through for the album. Like were we officially changing “To Hell and Back” to “To Hell & Back”?

“I vote for the ampersand,” Elle said.

“Ampersand,” Jesse agreed.

“Katie likes the way it will look with her design for the album cover,” Brody said, “and I think we should go with the ampersand.”

It was unanimous. The ampersand took it.

Amber grinned at me. I could tell she was getting a kick out of this. A bunch of rock stars fussing over punctuation.

I gave her a little eye roll, but I liked the feeling of having her here.

She stayed out of the way, taking photos when we were onstage and when we were goofing around, but not when we were in our meeting. Her instincts were good, and everyone seemed to be comfortable with her here, which spoke volumes. If she’d pissed anyone off, they would’ve made it known and she would’ve been kicked out on her ass—whether she was my “friend” or not.

Didn’t happen.

But her presence did raise a few eyebrows. Especially when she sat on my lap to show me some of the images she’d taken of me at the drums.

I ignored those eyebrows.

The fact was, this was all new territory for me. And for everyone else, too. I’d never brought women to shows or into the studio with me, much less to rehearsals.

Never. No one.

So of course, they wanted to know what the deal was with this particular woman.

Only wished I knew what to tell them.

* * *

I cut out of rehearsal early so I could take Amber to dinner. Which just raised more eyebrows.

But oh fucking well.

I didn’t want to miss this dinner, or my chance to bring Amber to it.

When we pulled up at my mom’s place in the burbs, I could tell Amber was confused. Probably thought I was gonna take her to another upscale restaurant downtown, like I’d done on our first dinner date. Probably the last thing she expected was for me to pull into the driveway of a rambling old two-story house with a tire swing on a tree out front and a literal white picket fence.

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