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“Oh, don’t be a downer, Mom.”
“I don’t think it is a very good idea at all.” Deb’s voice was terse.
Cole heaved an epic sigh and looked at her uncle, hoping for an ally.
He shook his head. “I’m sure she’ll be way too busy to make time for me.”
It hurt him to say it, because right then he would have given nearly anything to see Lauren again. To have a second chance to change how things ended. There were so many things he wished he had said back then—and so many things he wished he could take back.
ChapterSix
Lauren’s suite at the Somerset Hotel on 57thStreet was hopping. She’d booked the penthouse for the duration of her stay in New York and always held a get-together for the band and their significant others before they kicked off a new project. She paused and watched Augie, along with the other three members of the band—DJ, Ox, and Stevie—in the living room laughing and joking as they swapped stories of their escapades over the years. The band was a second family. Seeing them together and hearing the stories, no matter how often they were told, made her nostalgic.
Years ago, after her cross-country drive from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, it hadn’t taken Lauren long to ferret out the clubs where the truly talented musicians congregated. And once she found them, she played at a few open mic nights, putting the word out that she was putting a band together. She’d very quickly formed—and disbanded—two separate groups. Both mistakenly assumed that, although she wrote and played hard rock, she couldn’t front the band because she was a girl. Lauren had quickly disabused them of that foolish notion—right before firing them.
“Lauren, I was at myabuela’shouse before I flew out and she asked me to tell her the story—again—about the night I met you,” Ox said as if he’d read her mind. “Do you remember? The night you fired thatculero, Donnie?” His thunderous laugh filled the room.
“How could I forget? I hired him formyband, and he had the balls to tell me all I needed to do was strum the guitar and look pretty.”
That night was still vivid in Lauren’s memory: She’d fired Donnie on the spot, and when he tried to sweet-talk her, Lauren offered up a verbal shredding that literally made him cry. A few minutes after that, Ox had come over and introduced himself.
“You bought me a shot of tequila and asked if I was in the market for a new bass player.” She had to admit, approaching her in that moment had taken a big pair of brass ones, and she admired Ox for it.
“Kinda knew there was an opening.”
As it turned out, Ox—whose given name was Antonio Ochoa—was one of the best bass players she’d ever heard. Short, stocky, and as stubborn as his nickname implied, he’d quickly proven he was as determined as she was to be a success—and that he was a straight shooter who didn’t put up with a lot of bullshit. When Ox introduced her to his old friend, DJ Scott, Lauren quickly agreed to add the gifted keyboardist to the nascent band.
From there, they burned through six guitarists in quick succession. Just as Lauren started to wonder if they’d ever find the right one, she heard Stevie Adebeyo play. He hadn’t even finished his set when Lauren called Ox to tell him she’d found their man.
She pointed at Stevie. “But you,” she said. “You played hard to get.”
“Well, I thought you were a bit dodgy, mate.” He tapped the side of his head. “You’d torched all the guitarists before me.” His Nigerian grandparents had immigrated to England, and his own parents moved to America when he was sixteen. He’d picked up a lot of American mannerisms but never fully lost his accent.
“I was discerning,” she said.
He laughed. “You just scared the shite out of everyone else.”
“Zorra,” Ox coughed the word into his hand.
“Watch it,” Lauren said. “That means a couple of different things—and I know both of them.”
“Then you know which one I mean.” Ox let out another belly laugh.
Lauren playfully waved him off and gave Stevie a fond look. His reluctance had worked in her favor. It had given Augie just enough time to bolt to California after graduating. As soon as Augie and Stevie joined the band, everything fell into place. It all just clicked. Thinking about it sent a chill down Lauren’s back.
Her burst of nostalgia morphed to anxiety as the specter of her writing block reared its ugly head. It wasn’t that she hadn’t writtenanything—it was more that inspiration was sporadic at best—and the results? They were piss-poor as far as she was concerned. She had much higher standards for herself.
“…Checkmatewas decent,” Ox said, referring to their last album and pulling Lauren out of her introspective reverie. She realized she’d lost track of the conversation.
Lauren rolled her eyes. “By whose standards? Certainly not mine.”
None of the singles fromCheckmatehad cracked the top ten. The best single had hovered around number fourteen for a few weeks before a one-night stand with the twelve slot. Then it got kicked to the curb.
“She’s still pissed that they called us over-the-hill on the RockTalk podcast,” Augie said to the others.
Stevie’s long-time girlfriend, Gabby, came in from the other room and settled in next to him while Ox cracked open another beer.
“Those two morons suck. Who the fuck cares what they say?” Ox said.
