Page 105 of Dirty Like Dylan

I wondered if he’d take Amber into the studio with the Pushers once they got together to record their new album. They hadn’t met in a while, and I was pretty sure Ash was jonesing to play. It had been too long since we’d all been on tour, and I could understand he was getting antsy. I was, too.

Lucky for us, we had Amber to entertain us until then.

If we could just get her to forget all about her little plan to disappear to fucking Thailand.

* * *

Amber and I were almost the last ones to arrive at the church, but not quite. We weren’t late. I made sure of that.

I knew I had a reputation for holding things up, deservedly; there was something about keeping to a schedule that I was just naturally allergic to. But I definitely wasn’t gonna give anyone the opportunity to even try to suggest I was late because I had my head up Amber’s skirt. Fuck that.

I strolled through the door with my arm around her at exactly eleven-fifty-eight. Dirty had an official start time of noon; if you showed up earlier, you jammed with whoever else was around, but at noon rehearsals got underway.

Zane threw me an impatient look anyway. He was wandering around the stage in a ripped T-shirt, jeans and bare feet, a backwards ball cap keeping his blond hair out of his face, mic in hand and clearly itching to get going.

I took my time anyway, introducing Amber around again. Making sure she knew everyone, and everyone knew her. Making sure they remembered her name and no one was gonna get her mixed up with some other chick they’d seen me with in the past—Zane’s specialty.

Today, like most rehearsal days, it was a small crew at the church. The band, and usually one of our technical crew, which today was Jimmy. Management was usually around in the form of Brody or Maggie or both. Today, Brody was here, but he’d probably only stay for a bit. Maggie would stay the whole day. She’d bring in food for us and would probably do coffee runs and take notes for whoever felt like making her their personal bitch—another of Zane’s specialties.

Jude was also hanging out. When he pulled a full day at the church, he usually let Elle’s bodyguard, Flynn, and Zane’s bodyguard, Shady, take off, so they were already gone. The church was pretty remote and secure, smack between a bunch of farmers’ fields and some industrial lots, and so far we’d been lucky keeping the location a closely-guarded Dirty secret.

It was pretty much an unwritten rule that no media of any kind was allowed at the church. We’d made a one-time exception for Liv and her crew while filming the documentary series, and that had come with a shit-ton of rules about what she could and couldn’t show on-camera. Revealing Dirty’s rehearsal space to the world was not allowed.

“We weren’t expecting a photographer,” Brody said when he greeted us, eying Amber and the camera in her hand. I’d already told her she could shoot the band while we played and hung out; insisted on it, really.

“It’s just Amber,” I told him. “You won’t even notice her.”

“Yeah?” He looked at her. “And what does she plan to do with the images?”

Amber glanced from me to him, probably thinking I was a real asshole for putting them both on the spot. But she was a professional; I knew she could handle Brody.

“Well, if you let me take photos here today,” she said diplomatically, “I might want to sell some to magazines. With the band’s permission. And I’ll probably want to consider including any exceptional ones in an art exhibit one day. Or in a book or something.”

I looked at her and she glanced at me. She’d never mentioned that before, wanting to put her work in galleries or books. At least, not to me.

“There’ll be exceptional ones,” I said. I had no doubt about that. Not only had I seen a bunch of her work online by now, I’d seen her photos of my house and some of the shots she’d taken at Katie’s art show. The girl was modest about her work, but she had talent.

I’d once been to an exhibit of Linda McCartney’s photography. The room was filled with intimate portraits of rock stars, celebrities. But there was one photo of B.B. King, just an open-mouthed blur coming out of the black as he wailed on his guitar; I’d had to stand in front of it and stare at it for a long while. I couldn’t stop looking at it. Rapture. That was the only word that came to mind, to express the feeling she’d conveyed with that photograph.

It was fucking transcendent.

And there was something about Amber’s photographs that gave me that same feeling. She had a way of capturing something in people that could be felt as strongly as it could be seen; this incredible, raw intimacy that she managed to convey with her camera.

Brody, however, looked unconvinced. And a little annoyed with me that I’d sprung this on him without warning.

“You’ve got a release for me?” he asked her.

“Of course.” Amber pulled a wad of crumpled papers from her backpack and Brody raised an eyebrow at me. “Dylan already explained the need to keep the church’s location private. I won’t include anything identifiable, like the stained glass window. Or any evidence that we’re even in a church.”

I knew Brody would like that, but he still didn’t look happy as he perused the release she’d given him. “Maggie, fire this off to Nolan’s office.” He handed the release off to Maggie as she approached; Nolan was one of our lawyers. “Tell him we need a quick turnaround. Amber here wants to photograph Dirty today.”

“For fuck’s sake, Dylan,” Elle complained. She threw me a dirty look from where she stood onstage, holding her bass. “You could’ve warned me you were bringing a photographer. I’m so fucking bloated right now…”

I looked her over; she looked totally fucking fine. Sexy, actually. Pregnancy had definitely amped up her cleavage.

“You look beautiful, babe,” Seth said. He was kneeling beside her, twiddling on his guitar.

“You can take as many photos of me as you want, sweetheart,” Zane offered into his mic. He winked at me, and I flipped him a subtle middle finger, out of Amber’s sight.

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