“Like too hungover to play?” Adam asks.
“Like too hungover to fucking stand,” Van growls, looking back and forth between Joel and Shawn. “Can one of you fill in? I’ll give you my firstborn child, I swear to God.”
Before Shawn can respond, I nudge Joel forward. “Joel can play.”
Playing with Cutting the Line will get him more exposure. Once people see and hear him, they’ll want to know who he is, who his band is. It’s a good career move, and I don’t want him to miss the opportunity.
Joel glances at me before returning his attention to the pleading look in Van’s eyes. “Yeah . . . sure. Which songs are you playing?”
“Which ones do you know?” Van asks, leading Joel to where his two band mates are getting ready. The rest of us go back to our vantage point beside the stage, and I buzz with anticipation, waiting to see Joel perform with one of the biggest bands there is.
When they appear onstage, the crowd screams just as loudly as they would have if it would have been the original lineup. Van removes his mic from its stand. “How are you motherfuckers doing?!”
The crowd goes wild, and Van shouts back at it, making everyone scream even louder to be heard over the roaring speakers. He laughs and says, “Wade isn’t feeling so hot, so we’ve got a special treat for you today. This sexy motherfucker over here is Joel Gibbon from The Last Ones to Know. The rest of his band is standing right over there,” Van points toward us, and the guys lift up their hands in a wave at the crowd, “and all of you are going to know who they are real soon, trust me. They’re one of my favorite bands, and it’s an honor to have this asshole up here on the stage with me tonight.”
Joel laughs and flicks Van off, and Van grins in approval. Joel goes back to testing his pedals and getting a feel for his guitar, and Van goes back to priming the crowd.
“For real though,” he says, “go to their website. Buy their album. If you’re in Virginia or anywhere they’re playing, go to their shows. And if you see this guy later tonight,” he adds, gesturing to Joel, “suck his dick nice and good because we wouldn’t have a show to put on right now if it wasn’t for the huge favor he’s doing us.”
The crowd cheers, and some random girl in the crowd shouts, “I’ll do it!”
“I bet you will,” Van teases with a laugh. I’m already scanning the crowd, itching to punch her teeth out.
“Are you fuckers ready for a show?!” Van asks, and fog wraps around his ankles, lit by red and orange lights suspended around the stage.
The crowd screams, and then Joel’s guitar starts the show and all I see is him. Other girls are seeing him too, screaming and reaching for him as he plays as effortlessly as he does when he’s with his own band. The guitar is like an extension of him, something he’d know how to play even in his sleep.
I sing along with the lyrics, thrumming with energy that crashes through my body like rapids. When I jump up and down with the beat, I’m reminded that my bra is undone, and my laughter causes Rowan to give me a strange look.
“Can you clasp my bra?” I yell to her over the music. Her eyebrows pinch together, and still laughing, I turn away from her and lift my shirt in the back so she can re-clasp it before I turn back around.
We watch the show until the set ends, and the entire crowd screams until voices are lost and eardrums are bruised. The guys and I head backstage, and Joel barely has time to brace himself before he has to catch me in midair. My arms wrap around his neck and my knees bend as he holds me. “You were so fucking good!”
“Come back to the bus with me,” he says in my ear. His voice is low, seductive, and when I pull away to look at him, his eyes are full of unspoken promises that make the rapids in my veins boil.
I drop to the ground toe by toe when the rest of our group catches up with me, and Van joins us from the other direction and claps Joel on the back. “You guys have to come with us to the meet and greet.”
“Dee has a headache,” Joel says without taking his eyes off me, and Van laughs and gives me a wide smile.
“Meet and greet is in fifteen minutes. Joel can take care of your headache later or you guys can find a Porta-Potty and take care of it in there, but then he needs to get his ass to our tent.”
Fifteen minutes later, after Joel tries and fails to sweet-talk me into a Porta-Potty, Rowan and I are sitting at the back of Cutting the Line’s merchandise tent. Van and his two non-hungover band mates are busy signing people’s stuff and introducing them to Joel and the rest of The Last Ones to Know.
“Networking,” I muse, swinging my pointer finger back and forth between the two bands.