Page 8 of Street of Dreams
Mac was on fire. Maybe it was because of the night he spent with Jake or because he hadn’t gotten laid in a long time, but today he was performing on Street of Dreams as if he were playing for a sold-out crowd at the Allstate Arena. There was more grit in his voice, and his trajectory was out of control. And with his cabinet amp, they probably heard him four blocks away. He turned it up a little louder, since his voice was now broadcasting at adecibelthat overpowered his guitar, and played a series of notes at lightning speed.
Filled with confidence, he took a chance with one of his original songs today, and the dollar bills were stockpiling in his guitar case. He was so thrilled and riding high that he handed out a bunch of CD’s between songs. He wondered why he’d never done that before. They were inexpensive. Just a few songs he recorded on his laptop, which took no time at all, but people were going out of their way to snatch them up.
He picked up most of the money in the guitar case and stuffed it into his sporran. The pouch that hung in the front of his kilt was almost full, which was a happy surprise. He was about to start the next song when he saw Skylar walking briskly down the street. She had a stack of flyers in her arm and was handing them out to people, including the local street vendors.
She was her usual ball of energy as she raced toward him, cheeks flushed from adrenaline. She was a complete extrovert and smiled and greeted everyone she passed, even those that looked annoyed at her cheerfulness. “Stop by Mackenzie’s Saturday night. Show the bartender the flyer and get a free beer,” she told a young couple walking down the street as she handed them the flyer. They paused for a moment, read the piece of paper, looked up at Mac, and then the girl folded the paper in half and put it in her handbag.
Mac was shocked. “Why the hell did you tell them they’d get a free beer? You know my father is never gonna go for that.”
“You’re bringing people into his bar. And since when does anyone have onlyonebeer?” She held up her hand. “Trust me. I’m a marketing major.”
“You know my father. He’s never going to agree to give away free booze. I’m lucky he lets me play at the pub once in a while.”
“Beer. Not booze.” She smiled. “Trust me.”
Mac stretched his arms over his head and let out a loud yawn before he picked up his phone and checked the time. He had a shift at the pub today, and his first thought was that he still hadn’t mentioned the free beer to either of his parents. His da was a complainer. Every time Mac worked at the pub, his da griped about the rising price of alcohol, the high taxes, or someone who owed a tab. It was Thursday, and in two days Mac would play a set at the pub. If he waited any longer, the people who came in and presented the promotional flyer would be the ones to tell his da about it.
Thursday already?That meant it had been five days since Mac last saw Jake, which was a record breaker. It obviously hadn’t been a coincidence that they were always in the same place at the same time in the past, as Mac had always thought. Now, he realized that Jake had purposely sought him out, practically on a daily basis, but since their fling in the alleyway, Jake was nowhere in sight.
After the hook up, Mac wondered how Jake would react once they saw one another again, but he never expected Jake to pull a disappearing act. He wondered if a quick fuck was the only thing Jake wanted all along, and it had taken all these years to find the right place and the right time to execute his plan. And now Jake was done with him.
Mac didn’t expect it to hurt so much. His feelings for Jake were all over the place, torn between attraction and frustration. He never thought he’d miss that annoying pain in the ass, but he did. He had purposely looked for Jake all week, on Street of Dreams, at the coffeehouse, the newsstand, and just walking down the street, but there was no sign of the guy.
Skyler had noticed as well. “I hope he found someone else to harass,” she’d said one night.
The idea that someone else was the recipient of Jake’s incessant taunting filled Mac with a pang of jealousy. It was stupid because it irritated the hell out of him, but he hated it as much as he loved it.
He wondered if Jake was going to disappear from his life now. A knot twisted in his gut at the thought, and he let out a long sigh as he stared at the ceiling. It had only been five days, he reminded himself, and pushed thoughts of Jake out of his head.
He checked the time again. Even though it was still several hours before his shift started, he jumped into the shower, grabbed a cup of coffee, and headed to Mackenzie’s Pub.
Oliver Mackenzie was a tall man with strawberry blond hair, rosy cheeks, and a penchant for speaking his mind. He had a thin frame and rounded shoulders from years of leaning over the bar. The neighborhood loved and respected him, and he had a steady flow of patrons that had been coming here for over a decade, claiming the stools beneath them as their own. Mac’s da looked up from polishing the bar as soon as he walked in. “Reid. What are ye doin’ here so early?”
“I was bored at home, so I thought I’d give you a hand.” Mac glanced at the small elevated platform against the back wall of the pub. Its sole purpose was to provide him with a stage where he could play his guitar and sing on the occasional Saturday night. It was the only time he got in front of an audience. One day, he told himself, he’d play for more than change on the street and money in the tip jar. Until then, he was happy to have this opportunity.
He went into the kitchen and took a tray of clean glasses from the dishwasher and stocked them under the bar. When he looked up, Skyler was walking toward him filled with an effervescent glow and holding a manila folder close to her chest.
“I’ve got big plans,” she announced, placing the folder on top of the bar and opening it. There was a spreadsheet with dates and checkmarks and a page with the words “Business Plan” typed at the top.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“I’m going to be your manager.” She sounded like she was announcing that she was running for president. “If you really want to get noticed, you need representation. You need to have a plan.”
He loved her spunk and energy, but he already had a plan. “You know the plan, Sky. I’m saving every penny so I can move to L.A. That’s where the music scene is. That’s where people get discovered.” He flung his arm toward the window and the street outside. “Not here.”
“Your plan’s not working fast enough. You’re too good to be singing on the street. We need to get you into clubs that have a lineup and in bars that have an appropriate audience.” She glanced at the row of older men at the bar, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You need to play to a young crowd. People who are going to tell their friends about you.”
She had a point. Mackenzie’s drew an older crowd on the weekends, and the steady weekday patrons were even older. He needed a crowd that could appreciate his hard rock original songs. “How am I supposed to get gigs? No one knows who I am.”
She smiled and pushed the spreadsheet toward him.
At first, he didn’t know what he was looking at but quickly realized that it was a schedule. He counted seven different gigs over the next two months. “How the hell did you get these booked? I couldn’t even get anyone to talk to me.”
“When was the last time you tried, Mac? Three years ago? You were this skinny kid with no confidence. Look at you now. You have that long gorgeous hair and you work out. Image is everything. You look like a rock star. I made a demo from some of the video clips I took of you playing on Street of Dreams. They loved it. Every single one of them loved your kilt and commented on it. They said it was original and unique. Like no one else. And you got the talent to back it up.”
His jaw hung open as he listened to her, and he blinked a few times. “But how? How did you get all these gigs so quickly?”
She waved her hand as if it were nothing. “I went to a few places on Monday and the rest on Wednesday. They were all eager to add you to the lineup. It’s just opening for the opening band. They’re only 30-minute sets. But it’s something.”
