Page 57 of Even After Sunset

Wait — did he… Did Steve justfireme? After not even two days?

I sidestep the stack of guitar stands. “Look, I swear this won’t happen again. Ireallyneed this job… I need the money.”

I’m trying to sound remorseful, but it still comes off angry. But what the hell? Why does this guy care if I’m a little sauced, as long as I get the job done? And Icanget the job done. I could coil a bunch of cables and load gear into a truck drunk off my assandhigh. This isn’t exactly rocket-science stuff.

“If you need the money so bad, maybe you shouldn’t have blown your first pay gettin’ wasted,” Steve drawls.

I can hardly tell him that’s exactly what I need the moneyfor. That definitely would make me sound like a full-fledged wino.

“I’m not wasted. I just—”

“Wrong answer, buddy.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on, man. I didn’t—”

“You’re done.” Steve shoots me a hard look. “Now get out of my hair. I got shit to do.”

I watch him for a second. “You’re serious.”

He quirks an eyebrow at me, with an expression that makes it pretty damn clear he isn’t messing around.

“Shit!” I hurl the cable across the stage and it skids right over the edge, landing a few feet away on the grass. I grab my backpack and stalk across the stage in the opposite direction.

Just as I reach the stairs, I’m yanked to a sudden stop. I stumble and start to go down, but Steve steadies me with one hand while he keeps the back of my T-shirt clutched in his other meaty fist.

“You better be going over to pick up that cable you just threw,” he growls.

I whirl around, my palm slamming against his chest.

“Get your fucking hands off me!”

He knocks my arm away, but doesn’t look even mildly alarmed. Dude is a beast: taller than me and at least twice as wide. “Pick up the cable and put it by the amp,” he repeats.

“Fuck you.”

He’s not my boss anymore. He’sno one. And in that moment, I hate him. I resent him because of the power he holds over me. This middle-aged biker wannabe is the gatekeeper to my only means of escape from a summer of sleepless nights. Or the even more embarrassing alternative: a string of endless nightmares.

“You really want to mess with me?” he asks, eyes ice-hard. He leans in even closer, and I can smell the coffee on his breath. “Now think real hard before you answer that, kid.”

We hold what feels like a ten-minute stare-down.

It’s probably five seconds.

I finally cave, though, and turn on my heel. I head for the stairs again, and I hear him right behind me. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going to pick up that cable. I refuse, on principle, to do anything out of intimidation. And yeah, the guyisintimidating; with his behemoth size and hard-as-rock stare and that dirty bandana tied around his forehead—but I’ve had my lights knocked out a time or two or twenty. And I’ve done my share of knocking out. Safe to say, I stopped being scared of a few fists flying a long time ago.

“You better not be planning to walk away from me, boy.”

He sounds like the villain in a bad 80s movie. I would laugh if I wasn’t still so pissed about the fact that he just fired my ass.

I hold up my middle finger as I stroll in the opposite direction of the cable, toward the small sea of campers. And I’m using the term “stroll” lightly here: pretty sure I’m actually swaying; stumbling and swaying and cursing my bad luck.

“Punk-ass kid,” I hear Steve mutter behind me, a few feet away. And then two seconds later, I’m flat on the ground, arm twisted behind my back with a heavy knee holding me down.

This guy does not mess around.

The sudden impact sends my stomach up into my chest, and I’m about five seconds from spewing my supper. Only, yeah: I didn’t have supper… so that just leaves the whoopie pie. I curse at Steve, and he tugs a little harder on my wrist. It feels like my arm is going to pop right out of its socket.

I can see a few of the other roadies in my peripheral vision. They’ve all paused what they’re doing to peer over at us: the fat old guy roughing up the tardy drunk kid.

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