Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,20

not big on laying out cash to pay for damages and I knew that because Dave could get [does air quotes] clumsy.

“Her dad?” I asked him.

“Her fuckin’ grandfather,” he says.

Then his jeans are gone, on goes the Rangers cap and his ratty-ass cutoff sweats, and it’s time not to talk to Preacher for two hours because he’s about to cause a traffic jam, hanging from some sign by the street, lifting his knees to his chest alternating doing pull ups.

I didn’t hear it.

You know.

The call.

I was off with a chick who was one of the chicks I thought could be the chick.

So, I was hanging with her and didn’t get to the guys until breakfast at the diner.

Preach wasn’t there.

When he didn’t show, they voted me to go get him, which partly had to do with me and Preach being tight but mostly was about me having the key.

I hit our room.

The curtains are pulled, lights out, but music is happening because Preach is on his bed in the dark with his acoustic guitar, strummin’ nonsense that from his fingers sounds like a symphony.

“What the fuck, brother?” I ask.

“I was wrong,” he says, still strumming.

“About what?” I ask.

“About Lyla,” he says.

I mean, man…

Shit.

“What happened?” I ask.

“She listens to Janet Jackson.”

I knew what he was saying.

It wasn’t that she listened to Janet, which she did.

It was that he wasn’t gonna talk about it.

And he didn’t.

Now, it was one thing, following the lead of a bulldozer like Tommy Mancosa.

It was something else, when Preacher goes all in.

You heard it.

You know it.

Everyone says it.

They say for the Roadmasters, it was a rocket rise.

Now you know that’s bullshit.

Hours in my garage. Miles on the road. Havin’ beer bottles thrown at us. Fat lips and shiners and asshole bar managers who didn’t wanna pay.

But after Lyla did what she did, if that could conceivably be our destination, Preacher was not gonna fuck around with making it straight to the top.

And he didn’t.

And he dragged us right along with him.

We eventually get the call from LA, Preacher does not give that first shit they didn’t even pay for our asses to get out there.

The camper-truck had bit the dust along the way and Tom’d bought us a secondhand RV that was about a half a step up from the camper, but at least it was more room.

That bastard barely made it across Nebraska.

But we made it.

“Do you have work to fill an album?” the dude from the record label asks.

I mean, we drove across the country, asshole.

You couldn’t ask that over the phone?

[Shakes head]

“Yeah,” Tommy tells him.

The guy looks at his calendar, pushing pages back and forth, and says, “We have an hour’s studio time the week after next. Can you make it at eight thirty? Play us a few more of your songs?”

The week after next?

Tom managed the funds, but sittin’ on our asses in LA, not earning, after we hauled those asses across the country, we probably don’t got enough bread to make it to the end of the week.

“Send a scout to our gig,” Tom tells him.

“What gig?” the guy asks.

“I’ll call you,” Tom says.

No contacts, nothin’, but a network that would make the World Wide Web look like a joke in the Midwest and East, Tom gets us a gig in a club on the Sunset Strip, playing a set at a slot deep in the night when everyone’s soused or so high, they think they can touch the moon.

But he tells the label.

The label sends a scout.

I don’t know if it was his plan all along or if it was just a stroke of luck.

They had us in a studio two days later.

But we signed the afternoon before.

You know, we were Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters by then, but it didn’t become Preach’s band until we were in that studio.

He didn’t know dick about producing and engineering.

But he learned.

He played.

He sang.

And he sat at the board with Hans, the engineer, and Daniel, the producer the label gave us, and they turned out that album.

He also made certain my ass was sitting right next to him.

I didn’t know dick about any of that shit either.

But I learned too.

Tom found us a squat to crash in. But mostly, if we weren’t in the studio, we were going to shows.

Nothing like the LA music scene.

Not even in New York.

It was fucking phenomenal.

And the women there.

The drugs.

Along with the music?

Christ, you could have anything you wanted, anywhere you went, all under sunny skies and around