Page 20 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

The sight of it is like sticking my finger in an electrical socket; like witnessing the PG version of the demented dreams. I shove away from the stacks of equipment I’m hiding behind, marching toward the slimeball event manager as rage pulses through my veins.

But I’m too far away to do anything to help, and I’m still not even close before Scarlett handles the asshole herself.

“Keep your fat, greasy hands to yourself,Bubba,” she snarls, lunging at him and swiping the phone back out of his hand and whipping around. “Fire up the lights. I’m going on.”

The tubby stage manager waddles away, huffing as he barks orders at someone, and I go straight for him.

I stop inches from him and snag his badge, jerking it with the lanyard around his neck. “Hey,Leon,” I growl through gritted teeth, “are you interested in alawsuit?”

He turns his sweaty face toward me. “Heh?”

“Keep your filthy hands off my talent or prepare to lawyer up.”

“Psh.” He waves his palm at me and then snaps his badge away. “Your talent’s a hot mess. Maybe go deal with her, bruh.”

He shuffles away, and I turn to see Scarlett positioning herself just on the edge of the stage, adjusting the skin-tight, knee-length skirt of her dress and skimming her surroundings as if searching for something.

I just failed her almost exactly like I have been in all of those demented dreams, so Ireallydon’t want to go talk to her. But at the same time, leaving one of my artists hanging like this is totally out of character for me, so I quickly approach her.

“Scarlett.”

She stops skimming and whips her head around toward me. Her eyes narrow to slits, flashing with indignant fury. “Where the hell have you been? I havenoband! What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t fucking know where your band is,” I snap, barely able to look her in the eyes because all I can see when I look at her lately is dead Scarlett from my dream, whom I couldn’t save. “That’s not my fucking problem.” Actually, it is one-hundred-percent my problem, and I don’t know what the fuck I’ve turned into. “I’ve been taking care of more pressing issues that don’t concern you, and right now you’re supposed to fucking deal with it.”

“You’re supposed to bemy manager, August!” she hollers, waving her hands wildly. “Thisisyour problem, and you’ve been ignoring me not onlyall day, but for an entire week! What kind of fuckingmanagerdoes that?”

“Ido.” I bring my face close to hers. “With artists who have zero interest in cooperating with me or proving themselves by doing theworkrequired to make it, Iabsolutelydo. If you don’t like it, you can fucking quit.” I cock my head. “Andthenyou can return the advance.”

Scarlett draws back her chin as she silently stares at me.

“Please welcome to the stage,” the announcer booms,“up and coming local New Orleans jazz artist, Scarlett!”

The crowd roars with hoots and hollers and applause, but Scarlett maintains her fixed gaze on me. An expression tightens her features like she can see every torrid, filthy demented dream I’ve been having about her. Like she knows that every night, I’ve just stood there while she was tortured to death.

“You set me up,” she murmurs, eyes still boring holes into me. “You want me to quit because you have a big fucking problem with me because you slept with me before all of this.” She shakes her head. “You ignored me on purpose because you want me to fail.”

It’s not true. But it’s not like I can say,Actually, it’s because I keep dreaming about watching you get raped and murdered, and I can’t save you from it even though it’s my fault, and your mere presence in my life is peeling back the layers of my psyche and revealing that I’m probably a total fucking psychopath, and I just don’t like being around you even though I can’t stop thinking about you.

Besides, she doesn’t have time for an explanation like that anyway.

“Maybe I did,” I return coldly. “But regardless of what I did, I’m not the one expected on that stage right now.”

“You’re a piece ofshit,” she spits out.

“And you’re still anobody.” I point at the stage. “If you really think you’re something special, get out there and prove it.”

“Iamsomething special.” She juts her chin up at me. “Evenyoucalled me aunicorn. You called me that the very night we met.”

Her use of that word blinds me with a mental mash-up of my demented dreams and memories of the night I met her, and the visceral combination causes a physical ache deep in my gut. Before I can say anything, she spins on the ball of her foot and strides toward the stage, swiping a spare trumpet that’s sitting next to a few electric guitars and a trombone.

Sauntering to center stage with a swing in her hips, Scarlett presses the mouthpiece to her lips and points the horn skyward, unleashing the upbeat revelry intro to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. Another cheer rises up from the crowd as she struts across the stage to an empty drum set, steps behind it, and then begins stomping the bass pedal in time to the melody.

My jaw slackens and my brows draw together becausewhat in the ever-loving fuckisthis?

While the crowd continues to go totally ape-shit, Scarlett stomps and shimmies and blasts the horn all the way through the first chorus before she pulls the trumpet away from her mouth and leans toward a microphone attached to the drum set.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, I know this is a bitodd,” she hollers, her high-heeled foot still stomping the bass drum, filling the atmosphere of the fairgrounds with a chest-rattlingBOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM,“but it seems my poor little band got caught in the rain, so it’s just little ol’ me today. Is that okay with y’all?”

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