Page 132 of Dirty Rock

When she pulled away, the pad of her thumb trailed over my bottom lip, and she watched the action as it tugged my lip down before setting it free. “It’s time to go to work. The world wants a torn up, rotten rock star on that stage. A bad boy. Not a man dressed up in love. Remember that when you’re out there.”

“Why can’t I be both?” I scowled.

“Both of what?”

“Why can’t I be the bad boy rock star, and the man dressed up in love.”

“I’m not even sure how that would look.”

I searched her eyes. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

* * *

“How’s it going tonight, Edinbuuuurgh?”

The crowd roared to life in front of me as the rain fell from the dark sky above.

Presley was rocking out a beat behind me. Hawk, Coops, and Big D got to work, walking the main stage while I headed down the T-section and into the crowds—my favourite place to be.

With the mic only a few inches from my mouth, I smirked out at the audience. The rain rolled off my tight leather trousers, and it clung to the black vest I was wearing. My ink was out, and the water dripped down my skin, and into the space under my armpits, cooling me down and soaking my stomach through.

“I said… how’s it going tonight,Edinburgh?”

I came to a stop at the end of the stage runway and snapped my feet out to stand there with my legs shoulder-width apart, and my chin raised proudly as I smiled from left to right and back again. A sea of music junkies stared back at me, but all I could see was silhouettes and bright, flashing lights as they tried to capture this memory of the band for a lifetime.

Goosebumps rippled over my skin.

It happened every time.

Any doubt I had about this life faded away the moment I got in front of the fans like this.

The longer I stood there assessing them, the louder their cheers grew. Presley built them up the way he always did, and the other guys supported him like only they knew how. Five men made up Youth Gone Wild. Each one so different from the next. Yet out here, like this, doing our thing… no other band was more in tune. I could throw myself out into the arms of the fans, and the four boys behind me would find a way to turn it into a song.

“I think some of you may already know this,” I said smoothly into the microphone, “but we are Youth Gone Wild.” The cheers erupted even louder, the applause and hollering deafening. “And we’re here tonight, at the one and only Encore! Festival, to giveyouguys a night to remember. What do you say we get started, huh?”

The stage lights flashed out to the audience, lighting them up, before the pinks turned to reds, then to purples and blues. Within a few seconds, the lights were rolling back to the stage, and I heard that first hit of the cymbal from Presley.

I began to sing.

Really fucking sing.

The internal push and pull within me came out in song like never before. Every lyric had meaning now, and when I closed my eyes to reach for the higher notes, I imagined Julia standing in front of me, silently challenging me to get higher.

That quirk of her eyebrows. Those pointed cheeks.

Damn pretty pink smirking lips.

Not even the beautiful women eyeing me up in the first few rows, making sexual promises with their teasing gazes, did anything for me.

We sang all the popular songs from our first album.Wyldehad the crowd going crazy.Green, Green Eyes of Home. Denim-Covered Lover.They showed the souls of who we’d been as a band, sure… but not who we were now. Evolution happens quickly in music, and people like us are forced to grow quicker than the rest. We weren’t the same people we’d been a year ago.

I made sure to show everyone who’d bought a ticket how much we’d improved.

It was one of the strongest performances of our lives. Song after song caused the best uproars from the crowds. Time flew by as the rain poured down and the lights lit me up, turning me from the Billie Joe Armstrong wannabe of Cookham into the Rhett Ryan of Youth Gone Wild.

I didn’t want the night to end.

When I finished the penultimate song, I ran to the back of the stage and gestured for the guys to gather around Presley’s drum kit. The crowd behind us were screaming for more, cheering wildly, and proclaiming their love.

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