Page 27 of Not the Punk

“Was that the band?”

“Yeah. They were cool guys. Them and Telly. He taught me to play and helped me get connections.”

I hugged him to me, happy he’d opened up. I was already falling so hard for him, but this made me realize we still had a long way to go to really get to know each other.

Marci knocked on the door and yelled, “Let’s go. Show time, boys!” She seemed to keep these guys in line and on track. If it wasn’t for her, we probably would have sat there in the dressing room all night and missed the show.

Chapter thirteen

Joe At the Next Show

Indianapolis, Indiana

The dressing room station at the stadium kind of sucked, but that happened sometimes at these sports venues. Ultimately, we were all in the locker rooms to change, then we moved to a main area to congregate. The facilities management had brought in chairs and a couple of tables with snacks and drinks laid out. Colten sat in one of the chairs and pulled me into his lap, while the other guys around us chatted about the sound check we had earlier in the day.

Pierce walked over with his typical scowl plastered on his face. “Is he going to be a regular fixture now? Or what?”

“Maybe.” I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a real answer. Pierce was a great frontman, but he was such a fucking diva sometimes.

“Figures.”

“Fuck off.” I was over his snarky attitude—and that description was me being nice.

“Hey.” He leaned forward. “Didn’t mean anything by it.” He might not have, but his tone of voice sure had.

“Well, you shouldn’t have said anything then.”

Rowan stepped in front of him, probably trying to make peace. He was an interesting character and had gotten the job of Pierce’s tech because they were good friends. I’d say they turned into best friends, but he had the worst job in the world. Most of the time Rowan was cool with running interference and errands. He was more like Pierce’s PA than his tech.

He’d shifted Pierce away from us and was apparently talking him off whatever ledge he’d crawled out on when the call came to take the stage.

I grabbed Colten’s hand and held it all the way through the building. I loved having Colten watching from the side stage. It was nice to have someone there for me, and he wasn’t just any someone. Colten was special. He was rapidly becoming everything to me. Damn, I was falling hard.

We took the stage, doing the same things we did at every show, and quickly kicked into our lineup. Starting with Alcohol and Cars to get everyone pumped up. But now we’d worked more of our new songs into the lineup since the album had dropped and was rapidly climbing the charts.

When the song ended, Pierce strutted over to center stage. “Hello, Indianapolis.” This was the part where everyone screamed. “We’re going to play one of our new songs now. Are you ready for it?” Any time he addressed the audience directly, they went ballistic, and this time was no different. We waited a moment for them to settle down before Randy pounded out the beat to our second release from the album, Win.

I want to be like a whale

taking on the world

But I'm constantly fighting hell

The end of the line was more of a scream than singing, and Kay joined in on it, making it twice as powerful as it would have been otherwise. While they were belting it out, my guitar licks flowed, getting louder before the song shifted into the next verse.

And I'm tiny

Putting out a shadow

Of what I could be

Never enough

Filled with stuff

Wondering when

I can fly