Page 16 of Shame Me
After I’d bought the skirt, I’d searched different looks online and settled on a chunky black belt with silver studs, fishnet hose, black boots, and a snug black fitted t-shirt. At the last minute, I decided against the fishnets, wanting to ease into the look. It wasn’t like they would keep my legs warm anyway. I wore my leather jacket on top and felt a little bad ass.
Cy said, “We seriously have to pay for parking?”
“Yeah,” Zack said as he eased the van in a space at the back of the lot. “But this place is a hot nightclub that gets packed every night.”
“Anightclub?”
“Yeah—that’s why we changed the setlist.”
It all made sense now—Zack had had us practicing our fastest numbers over the past week, but I had to agree with Cy, even though I wouldn’t say it out loud.
Cy, however, had no qualms about saying what he was thinking. “Man, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
Zack shut off the engine and turned around. “We get ten percent of the door. They charge $20 a person, and we’ll be followed by their usual DJ.”
“What if nobody comes till after we play?”
“They’ll be there. And capacity is 300 people. You do the math.” Zack opened his door. “I’m not sure where we load everything in. Be right back.”
We wouldn’t even start playing till ten o’clock—and I had to agree with Cy. We would be booed off the stage and be lucky to make any money.
But Cy said, “At capacity, that’d be 600 dollars. Not bad.”
“Not bad?” Braden said. “That’s better than we’ve made at most places.”
“Yeah, but we’re not gonna win any fans here, so it’s kinda like jerking off.”
Braden said, “Then do what Zack always tells us to do—think of it as practice.”
“I don’t need any more practice. I need to see progress.”
I tried to reserve judgment because I could see it both ways. It would be nice to actually earn more money for a change so we could professionally record a CD like Zack wanted. I didn’t know how much it cost for time in a studio, but I knew from what Zack had said that it wasn’t cheap. I also didn’t want to rub Cy’s nose in the fact that we’d been in venues with audiences receptive to us—and the guys had said Fully Automatic was going to have someone contact us, but we hadn’t heard shit.
The guys had to have misunderstood.
Soon, we were set up and on the stage in the venue. From the outside, After Hours didn’t look much bigger than a house, but it was actually pretty spacious inside. It was dark—no windows at all—and had a lounge just off the main dance floor. The laser lights were amazing and made me feel like we were a bigger deal than we actually were. And, although a lot of people werenotdancing, at least they seemed to be into the music.
It probably didn’t hurt that they knew the DJ would be playing once we were done.
The lights and the energy of the club contributed to what I felt was my best playing yet. In fact, the same could have been said of all of us. Zack had easily adapted to selling our sound to a different audience and managed to grab the girls’ attention—but he had plenty of competition from both Cy and Braden. I’d never had sexual feelings toward either of the guys, although my body had responded to kissing Braden just two weeks earlier. Since then, I’d pondered him…but my heart just couldn’t be pulled from Zack.
Then there was Cy, the guy who’d started out hating being on stage but looked completely comfortable there now. Although I mostly only saw his back from my vantage point, he appeared to feel at ease, even if somewhat aloof and uncaring—and that seemed to attract a lot of women. He seemed broody, and, as we played live more and more, I began to discover that it worked for him. He never had a problem getting girls.
Zack, though…as the band’s frontman, he got the most attention—and, I supposed, it was well earned. Still, every time I heard his words in my ears, the ones telling me his focus was on the band, I also knew that his focus wasn’t just on the band…it was also on as much random sex from gorgeous girls as he could handle from our audiences.
I’d get the last laugh tonight, though. There weren’t any dressing rooms in this place—so if he wanted to fuck somewannabe groupie, he’d have to either sully his van or the alley, where it was still cold enough to, I hoped, discourage even the idea.
But, for all I knew, we planned to head out right after the show. It was pretty late when we finished, later than most of the shows we’d played up until that point, so as we loaded up the van, I expected us to head out. We’d all talked a bit, happy with our performance and eager to see how much we’d earned. As we closed the door at the back, Zack said, “I still have to collect—and the manager said we could hang and dance if you want.”
Cy said, “Dani’s the only one dressed for it.”
“Because of my skirt? These fucking boots aren’t made for dancing.”
“Chill. Jesus, Dani, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“Well, you look like you could dance better than I could with the shoes you’re wearing.” He had on the pair of black low-top Converse Chucks that he always wore, and they looked like a far better choice for boogieing than my clunky leather boots—but I wasn’t going to say another word about the shoes. As we started heading toward the back entrance of the venue, I said, “And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop being so fucking sexist.”
Cy started laughing. “Sexist?Just because I said you dressed the part of a dancer?”
