Page 6 of Never Say Die
“You’re not, actually,” Jacob corrected. “You’re playing apreviouslysold-out arena. Chain’s issuing refunds and placeholders for their next L.A. gig. But! People will still show. And that means you need to play like Ozzy Osbourne is sitting in the front fucking row.” He pointed at Georgia first. “You’ve got an extended set list, right?” She shook her head, doe eyed. “Jesus Christ. Get one started and get it to the stage crew!Now!” Then he whirled around, jabbing his finger at Thomas. “Donotchoke. If you choke, I’ll run you over with my car. Understood?”
“C’mon, Jake, we’ve got this,” Thomas said.
Jacob gave Aiden a once over, and said, “You look like you crawled out of a dumpster.”
Aiden smacked his lips, nodding. “That’s because I did.”
Like any low-balling talent manager, Jacob Hill was a gruff, half-honest dickwad who lived vicariously through the bands he represented. He’d looked after Knight’s Blood for five years. Signed them when Aiden was seventeen and starting HRT. Booked shows, scheduled podcast interviews, put some money in their pockets, and most importantly, stuck around.
Jacob perched his hands on his hips and glanced at Dylan. “Ditch the man-bun, Tarzan.”
Dylan rolled his eyes and let his hair down. “Okay, so, what next? We’ve got enough songs for a solid set, but not nearly enough to headline.”
Georgia typed furiously on her phone. “We can do a few covers. Thomas, you know Bark at the Moon, yeah? We’ll fit that in after Reign and then maybe Black Hole Sun… We need to close with Glory, no doubt.”
Thomas pulled a face. “Do peoplenotknow Bark at the Moon?”
“That’ll work,” Aiden said.
“Yeah, it has to.” She thumbed at the screen for another second. “Jake, you’ve got the set list incoming. Forwarding to the stage manager, too. She’ll pass it off to the venue staff.”
“Good.” Jacob shifted his deep-set eyes around the room. “Now listen, shit-stains. You’ve got this, all right? Fuck Chain Reaction. Fuck Shay Bennett. Fuck all those washed-up, bullshit glam-goth punks at Warped who wouldn’t give you the time of day. This is your shot. Don’t throw it away.”
Dylan quirked his head. “Did you just quote Hamilton?”
“It’s a goddamn musical masterpiece,” Jacob bellowed. “Get to sound check, then get to makeup, and do not—I am not even kidding—talk to any reporters until after the show. No one knows why Shay took the piss, and everyone wants answers. We don’t have them. Understood?”
“So, he’s seriously just. . . gone?” Georgia asked. Worry tinged her voice.
“Is that actually surprising?” Dylan countered.
Jacob made for the door. “Sound check!Go!”
Aiden straightened his back. He needed to get out of his head, focus on the set, forget about Shay and last night and what he’d done.I bargained for this. He ignored the high-pitch whistle traveling from to ear to ear.This is it—I did this—someone heard me. He nudged Dylan with his elbow and gestured to his front pocket. Dylan made an indignant noise, but pulled out the vial, cut two lines on a fold-out refreshments table, and snorted one while Aiden snorted the other. Thomas joined. Georgia did, too. But after three middle-school-sized lines, she shook her head.
“We can do this, guys,” she said, and capped the vial. “But let’s not get cocky. Put that shit away for now. Get too lifted and the crash’ll be worse. Feel me?”
Aiden clenched his jaw and nodded. “Yeah, let’s do this.”
Sound check was a fucking disaster.
Thomas couldn’t hold the throaty notes from Knight’s Blood’s first album, and Aiden quivered as he pushed on scratchy guitar strings, holding them against the matte-black neck. His grip gave out, his palm slickened, his calloused fingertips landed in the wrong places. At one point, he imagined slamming his guitar against the stage, watching his life’s work splinter and break, and walking back to the Ocean Grove trailhead. Digging at the ground. Sucking pig’s blood out of the dirt. Piecing the feathers back together. The thought consumed him—taking it back, taking it all back.
“What the hell is goin’ on with you?” Georgia sent a drumstick whirling through the air. It struck Aiden on the shoulder. She threw another, smacking the side of his head.
He drew in a slow, lengthy breath, shifting his jaw from side to side. “I’m hungry,” he blurted. He wasn’t. “And fuckin’ exhausted, okay? Give me a break.”
Georgia snared him in a fierce glare. “You’re not hungry and you’re not tired. You’re scared and that’s fine, but if you don’t get your shit together, I’m gonna shove a drumstick so far up your ass you’ll choke on it.”
“Maybe we don’t threaten the most violently unstable member of the group with literal violence, Georgia,” Dylan said, tuning his bass.
“Fuck you, I’m perfectly fucking stable,” Aiden snapped. He pointed his guitar pick at Dylan, then at Georgia. “And fuck you, I’mnotscared. I’m fine. It’s fine. This’ll be fine.” He turned his outstretched hand toward Thomas. “And you haven’t said anything yet, but fuck you, too. Get the lyrics right or I’ll kick you in the nuts.”
Thomas bobbed his head, nodding dramatically. “Glad to see we’re already screwing this up, guys. Awesome. Super blessed to be here. Love this for us.”
Georgia hung her head, defeated. Dylan, as unfazed as ever, held out his arms, waiting.
Aiden strummed the opening notes of Glory. “C’mon, let’s get this right. One. . . Two. . .”
