Collaring Chaz (Dante's Infernal #2) - Joel Abernathy Page 0,7
had all day, but what was the point? Maybe it was better for him to think I was a fuck-up because I was a lazy stoner and not just because I was a shitty bassist when I already had the easiest job in the band.
I had only even started playing because I wanted to be part of the band Raf and Dante had started way back. Before that, my interest in music had been singing show tunes and shit, but there was no way they’d have let some kid from glee club kick it behind the bleachers, so I saved my cash, bought a bass at the used guitar shop and started watching YouTube videos.
Drake held the door open and waited for me to go in with a pointed look on his face. He didn’t need to say it for me to know what he was thinking. I was expendable. Replacing me would take all of five minutes, and the only reason he hadn’t was because I had sentimental value.
For now.
Great. Now I wasn’t high enough to drown out the bullshit in my head, and I was in the doghouse.
The rest of the recording session went about how I expected. The longer it went on, the worse things got, and so we had to stay longer to fix them.
Dante finally threw his hands up and pushed his mic over. The floor was carpeted, but that one was probably dead. “Alright, let’s just call it a day,” he said before draining half a bottle of ice water in one shot. “We’ll pick it up again tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’m beat,” Cash agreed, stretching his burly arms over his head.
I got my shit together and decided to slip out as quietly as possible. You’ve already fucked up enough of their day, loser.
I was halfway out of the lot when I remembered. Oh, shit. The book.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
If Dante or Cash got their hands on that, I was never gonna live it down. If Rafael did, well… I wasn’t going to live. I was pretty sure I’d just spontaneously combust.
When I made it back into the studio, I heard the sound of a conversation in full swing. So much for knocking off early. Oh, well. They were in the studio, and I had left the music on the couch, so I wouldn’t even be noticed.
Then I heard something that stopped me in my tracks.
“What was with him today?” Cash asked with a snort.
“He’s usually kind of a flake, but not that bad,” Dante mused.
My stomach twisted into a familiar tangle of knots. It didn’t take a lot to guess who they were talking about.
I should’ve just left. I should’ve grabbed the book and gotten out of there before I heard shit I couldn’t unhear, but something kept my feet glued to the floor.
The entire time I’d been with Dante’s Infernal, I was sure that behind every closed door, people talked about how useless I was. How much I fucked up, and how I wasn’t on the same level as the others. Hell, the tabloids and magazines said as much even though I never ranked important enough for a headline. That didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“Might have something to do with him being a drunken stoner. I caught him getting stoned out in the lot,” Drake chimed in. “For God’s sake, it’s like Dante 2.0 but without the talent.”
I grimaced. Drake’s was the only voice that ever rivaled the ones in my head in terms of brutality, but he wasn’t wrong. Neither were they.
It was one thing to feel like everyone around me was talking about me behind my back, and another to have every insecurity and fear confirmed in reality.
“Cut him some slack,” Rafael muttered. “He’s the youngest guy in the band.”
The relief I felt that Raf was coming to my defense was immediately squashed when I realized he wasn’t denying what they were saying--he was just trying to justify it with some bullshit excuse.
“Please,” Drake scoffed. “He’s not a kid, and he’s been with the band as long as anyone else. He knows what’s expected of him, and if he’s incapable of acting professionally…”
“He’s probably just nervous with you breathing down his neck,” Rafael said. “That and Dante keeps changing the arrangements every five seconds.”
“The rest of you manage to keep up well enough,” Dante countered. “I know you’re the patron saint of Chaz, but you have to be objective. It was one thing when we were a garage band--”