Page 4 of Serenade Me

Chapter Two

Marius

“Hey, has it really been so long since you last had a girlfriend?” Cadence asks me the next day, as we’re sitting at the bar, waiting for our crew to set us up for soundcheck. For fun, to get away from the bigger stadiums, we’ve decided to play a few secret pop-up gigs around London before we’re back on the road in a few weeks’ time. It’s good to try out some new songs, ones we’re getting ready for the new album but don’t want to play in front of big audiences yet.

“What?” I ask her, taking a sip of my beer, mostly to stall as I think up an answer that will get her off that line of questioning.

“You heard what I said,” she says, giving me a look that tells me that she already knows me too well.

I shrug, “How long did they say?”

“They made it sound like it’s been… forever.”

“Well, then, I guess… forever it is.”

“NO!” She slams her glass on the counter and looks at me with eyes round and wide.

“What? It’s not uncommon for people like us. I mean, none of us have REALLY had any long-term relationships. You know how it is.” I shrug, ready for this conversation to be over.

“You know, now that I think of it, I’m not even sure I’ve seen a woman leave your room before. Is everything working..?” She waves a finger in the direction south of my belt.

“Oi! Everything is working just fine, thank you very much. And I’m no monk. I said no relationships, not no women at all.”

“Slut.” She grins and waggles her eyebrows at me.

“I like to think of it as being friendly,” I say, grinning at her. I get rolled eyes in response.

“God. Actually, it explains it, really.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you all suck at it!”

“At what?”

“Talking to women!” She snorts, nodding her head at her revelation.

“Um, dude. Jez was Cosmo’s Bachelor of the Year last year and your frog-legged fiancé won the title the year before that!”

She just shakes her head as if she can’t believe it. “Dude. You guys opened at the Grammy’s. That’s like a lady magnet. Not to mention you all look like you belong on the cover of GQ with you bleached white teeth and chiseled jaws. But getting women to fall into bed with you is not the same as talking, really talking to them, and sustaining a relationship. Oh my god! You’re all basically a bunch of virgins!” Her voice reaches a volume too loud for my comfort, and I make a shushing action that she ignores.

“Hey! Keep your voices down, we don’t want people to know that! I’ve spent a lot of time and money making people believe these guys are nothing but a bunch of manwhores.” Hailey calls out as she comes up to the bar. As well as being our manager’s daughter she’s recently taken on the job as our PR rep, showing that after being around the industry her whole life, she’s picked up a thing or two. She’s smiling, which means something about us must be in the headlines.

“God, why are you smiling so big? What royal has Jez been photographed playing spin the bottle with now?” I ask her while signaling to the bartender to bring over another glass.

“Ha! Yeah… that was a good week,” she sighs, as if reliving it. “No, it seems that one of the local university co-eds got wind of your ‘secret’ concert here tonight, and, well…” she looks around the bar as it sizing it up. “Let’s just hope there isn’t a fire.”

“Fire in their pants maybe,” I growl and wink at Hailey suggestively, who giggles, then wanders off back through the growing crowd to the stage.

“I can get Hank to run down to the pharmacy and get them a medicated cream for those in-the-pants fires, you know,” Cadence teases me, putting me in my place. “Okay, seriously, I’m going away for a while now, I don’t want to worry about you, Mazzy.”

“Your Australian tendency to shorten names is not your best feature.”

“Aw, come on. I want to see you try to hook up with someone!”

“I don’t ‘hook up.’”

“Fine, just talk then. Just a quick ‘hello’; if she rejects you, you can make her regret it when she sees you performing. And if she says yes, then she’s going to want you even MORE after you play. Trust me.”