Rockstar

Chapter 2-2

He’s in the garage fiddling with the amps when he hears Mike’s old clunker pull up. When the engine cuts off, the car rattles like it’s going to fall apart—Mike calls it his ‘Vette but fails to mention it’s a Chevette, not a Corvette. The car is as old as Adam. He tells Mike he should buy those black antique plates for it, but for all Mike’s humor, his friend doesn’t find that funny.

“Hey, that’s my amp,” Mike calls as he gets out of the car. He slams the door and walks into the garage with his boot heels ringing off the concrete like a cowboy in a cheesy western. “Don’t f**k it up just because you broke yours.”

“I didn’t break mine,” Adam tells him. “Shut up, Mike. I got it working again, didn’t I? It ain’t broke.”

Mike jumps up on the hood of Adam’s car, a Corolla that’s old enough to have antique plates, too. It’s a shitty shade of brown and has rubber bumpers, of all things, no A/C, and a radio he put in himself, but at least he isn’t paying for it. Robb sold it to him for three hundred flat last summer and it runs—that’s all he cares about. It has room in the trunk for his amps and speakers and Trace’s drums, too. With his guitar on the front seat and Mike’s bass across the back, it’s their first tour bus.

Well, car. Well, not quite, but he’s already decided there will be a picture of it on the back of their first CD booklet. With him stretched out on the roof like Mike is now, because he likes to drive out to the edge of town and lie across the hood like that, just to get away from his family sometimes and stare at the stars. One day he’ll be up there, too.

“So,” Mike says, twisting the antenna because Adam didn’t mount it correctly when he installed the radio and it turns in a circle now. “I hear we’re playing the Lot. How’d Trace manage that?”

“Promised that chick he’d do her.” Adam is surprised Trace didn’t tell Mike the story. He plugs his guitar into the amp, strums down the chords, and listens to the deep sound vibrating from the speakers. “How’s that sound?”

Mike shrugs. “Too much bass. Kick it up a notch.”

Adam plays around with the amp some more, picking at one of the guitar strings. This time the sound isn’t quite so deep. “Better,” Mike tells him. “You don’t want to drown out my vocals, you know?”

“Your vocals?” Adam asks with a laugh. “Please. Who’s listening to you anyway?”

Before Mike can reply, another car pulls up behind his in the driveway. Adam glances over at Trace’s Jeep, one of those with the removable doors and top. Trace took those off when he first got it and promptly lost them somewhere along the way. He jumps out before the engine’s even off, causing the Jeep to leap forward and stall because he still hasn’t figured out that he just can’t take his foot off the clutch when it’s still in gear. “Hey guys!” He’s halfway to the garage before Adam realizes Janie’s climbing out of the passenger side. “We up for a few sets or what?”

“Why’d you bring her?” Adam wants to practice and when Jane’s around, Trace only thinks with his d**k.

“She’s my girl,” Trace says with a shrug. Looking back, he lowers his voice to make sure she can’t overhear him. “Don’t tell her how we got this gig, okay? I mean, don’t mention—”

“Don’t mention Steff?” Mike raises his voice, loud enough that it drifts into the yard. Adam laughs at the way Janie looks up, eyes narrowing, like a cat who has scented prey. She all but runs to the garage. Mike pretends not to notice as he asks Trace, “What about Steff? What don’t you want us to say about her?”

Trace punches him in the arm, hard. Adam can hear the pop of flesh on flesh from where he stands by the makeshift stage they’ve set up in the corner of his parents’ garage. “Shut up,” Trace hisses. “Didn’t I say—”

“What about Steff?” Janie asks. When Trace reaches out to drape an arm around her shoulders, she ducks out of his embrace and jumps up beside Mike on the car. “What are you guys talking about?”

“We’re talking about how we have to practice.” Adam runs through the chords on his guitar, drowning out her reply. With a bored look on his face, he sighs. “Are you guys ready? We have a show to do tomorrow. Or am I the only one who gives a s**t here?”