Page 50 of One Day Like This (Excess All Areas 1)

“I missed you too.” A loud hammering at his door interrupted his thoughts. “Gotta go, sweetheart. Someone’s at the door.”

He heard her farewell, hung up, and stripped off his semen-covered T-shirt. On the way to the door, he zipped up his jeans and peered through the peep hole.

Fucking hell.

Jase stood outside the door. Jesus Christ, were they destined to be constantly interrupted by brothers? Brothers who were the reason he and Iz needed to sneak around like naughty school kids.

“Jase,” Matt said as he opened the door.

Jase brushed by him, pulled open his fridge, and helped himself to a beer. “Who elected you head of this band?”

“Hello, Jase. How are you? I’m good, thanks for asking.” Matt grabbed the hoodie flung over the back of the chair and slipped it on over his head before pulling the sleeves up. “I’m not the head of this band.”

“From where I’m sitting, it sure looks like you are. Who manages the bank account?” Jase slammed his beer bottle down on the counter.

“Me. With Luke as a second signatory in case I’m unavailable to do something.” He didn’t feel like the Spanish Inquisition, but sometimes it was simply easier to answer Jase’s questions and let him work himself out of whatever funk he was in.

“See, I was sitting at home, trying to figure out how I’m going to pay all my bills this month. And it’s Nan’s birthday, and how I’d like to do something nice for her. Like send her on a trip or something. And then I realised you never said exactlyhowmuchwas in the bank. Because you make all the calls and only give us half the information.”

“I’m not doing this with you, Jase.”

“Who manages us?”

“What do you mean by manage?”

“Makes bookings, decides where we play and stuff.”

“Fuck off, Jase. I’m not in the mood for your shit. It’s been a long day, working—so I know howI’mgoing to paymybills—and I just want a beer and a shower.”

Jase nodded knowingly, a smug look on his face. “Who writes all the songs?”

“You really need answers to questions you already know? Me and Luke. But anyone can. Is this what it’s all about? You got some bee in your bonnet that I have too much control? Go ahead, you find gigs, make bookings. Be a weight off my fucking mind. You want to write the whole album, you’d better get cracking. I look forward to tearing every song apart, just like you do mine, and then I’ll agree to play them anyway, just like you do.”

“The irony of everything you just said is that you don’t mean it. If I said I’ll take over banking, you wouldn’t let me. And do you remember how Ben used to manage the band schedule? And slowly but surely you took it off him, because you had a better system. And do you remember how Alex hooked up with that promoter after freelancing for that indie band for a while? You never followed up with him as a contact.”

“Ben was managing everything on his phone in a notes app. And I checked that promoter out and found he had a rep for ripping off bands and not paying them. So, no, I didn’t follow up.”

“You make it really hard to step up, because you have such fixed opinions on the band, our sound, and how we organise ourselves. Anyone does something the way you don’t like, you engineer it off them. We’ve been doing it your way for years and look where we are. It’s time to listen to others.”

“Says the high and mighty Jase Palmer. Lead singer. Fucking waster.” Someplace deep inside, Jase’s words registered. Yes, he’d taken everything on, but he was fed up with things not being perfect. Half-arsed would never cut it. But for some reason, acknowledgment of that stuck in his throat.

“Yeah, but it’s my voice that’s unique, not the music. That’s what sells the band.”

Matt scoffed. “You know who else had a unique voice? Norman Greenbaum. Didn’t get further than “Spirit in The Sky”. Marc Almond had a distinctive voice but is pretty much only remembered for “Tainted Love”. Brendan B. Brown and that classic “Teenage Dirtbag”. His voice was pretty unique. You know what they are perceived as now? One-hit-fucking-wonders.”

“You were a decent brother before the band,” Jase said quietly.

“Yeah. Well, if you weren’t such a hot-headed arsehole, you might realise I’m not the only one who’s changed. You’re the one whose ego has become more inflated than the Hindenburg, and we all know what happened to that.”

Jase looked at him blankly.

“Fucking Zeppelin airship caught fire as it docked and killed thirty-five people.”

Jase chugged some of his beer. “And what the fuck has that got to do with anything?”

Matt rubbed his hand over his face. “It’s an analogy, Jase. You’re full of hot air, one crash-landing away from burning out. Listen. If you liked me better as a brother before the band, save band shit for meetings and rehearsals. Don’t charge over here on a Tuesday, drink my beer, and cause a fight.”

“Fine. Fair.” Jase chugged some more of his beer. “This has gone way off topic. I came to ask about money. We did the London gigs, and they were profitable, yeah? I know you all voted for album versus payoff, but I really need cash.”

---