Damaged Saints
He's their new manager though, and thanks to a friend from another band, they’ve got a lead on a new singer. Jagger is smokin’ hot, charismatic as hell, and so far as they’ve been able to tell, has very little in the way of inhibitions, which makes him the perfect fit for their rather snarky, salacious crew. There is just one problem: Jagger has only ever sung with cover bands and never on a large scale or even at a venue larger than a small-town waterfront festival. He’s used to having less than four feet to move around in, which doesn’t translate well when you’ve got a whole big stage to fill. With less than a month to see if he’s got some hidden moves they can draw out of him, they’re looking to use any means at their disposal and maybe even discover if Jagger is the perfect fit for them off the stage too.
“What are you two whispering about over there?” Johnny asked. “Please tell me it’s something hot, scandalous, or totally humiliating.”
Just to tease his friend, Jagger flicked his tongue out and licked it over his upper lip before turning his head enough that he could treat Kayden to a scorching kiss. By the time they broke apart, Kayden was grinning, and Johnny looked like a man dying of thirst.
“If you really must know, I was telling Kayden about the time you climbed up the TV mast and those tattered jeans of yours got caught up on something. Instead of diving into the crowd he just wound up with his pants trapped around his ankles while he dangled from the damned thing.”
“Wait…what, how have I never seen a video of that before?” Mickey asked.
“Oh…hang on,” Jagger said as he dug in his pocket for his phone, pulled up the footage, and lay it on the picnic table for everyone to see.
“Oh my fuckin’ god, dude that was a bad time to go commando!” Robbie roared after the events had played out on the screen.
“Was kinda behind in shopping for new shit to replace the pairs I kept loosing,” Johnny grumbled.
“You mean leaving behind wherever you happened to have a quick bit of fun,” Jagger said.
“That too.”
“Bonus points for finishing the song though,” Mickey said. “Now is someone gonna go to the kitchen and grab shit or are we starving for the rest of the night?”
“Yeah, yeah, going,” Robbie grumbled, but only after letting the video play through again.
“Oh man, Lucky Charms, you are in for it now. You do know this means war, right?”
“Hey, you fired the first shot when you told them about the whole Lucky Charms thing in the first place,” Jagger shot back. “I was just getting even.”
“We ain’t even close to even after that. I told them I called you Lucky Charms ‘cause you were sinfully delicious. I didn’t tell them why I gave you that nickname in the first place. Let me tell you guys something, it has absolutely nothing to do with luck and everything to do with a particularly hilarious walk of shame. Jagger had to use a box of breakfast cereal to hide his junk as he streaked across the street at quarter to fuck it in the morning. This was after someone’s boyfriend came home and nearly caught him with his guy in a very compromising act.”
“Oops!” Kayden said, laughing even as he hugged Jagger and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
“Hey, how was I to know? It was hot and I was washing my bike. He brought over some lemonade and started talking to me about always wanting to take a ride on a motorcycle. I told him to grab a towel and help dry my old girl and I’d take him. So he did and off we went. Turned out big, rumbly engines turned him on as much as wanna be rockstars. He invited me up the moment we got back. I’d have asked the boyfriend if he wanted to join in on a round, but apparently, the guy had a particular fondness for knives. I’m too pretty to let all this get carved up, so while he was coming up the back way, I was running down the front with a half full box of cereal. Had to wait for the following day to get my favorite cutoff jean shorts back.
“Newsflash, those were everyone’s favorite jean shorts,” Johnny said, “‘cause damn, they didn’t leave a hellovalot to the imagination. The cereal kinda worked out in our favor too, ‘cause we had a whole ass gallon of milk and not a damn thing to use it with.”
“Let me guess, you guys were a textbook example of the kind of folks who never had two things that matched,” Mickey said.
“Pretty much,” Johnny replied, giving the dogs he’d been seated beside one final pet before joining them at the table. “Was almost a guarantee that if we had Kool-Aid, we were outta sugar and screw tryin’ ta get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the one time we had them both we were out of bread.”
“Oh my god that sounds just like our first year here,” Mickey said. “Was how we discovered the perfect formula for mock smores. A chocolate bar wouldn’t last twenty minutes after making it through the door. Everyone had something different they liked to smear on a graham cracker, so we started picking up fudge stripes and using pudding as the chocolate element. It’s messy as hell when you add in the melted marshmallows, but they taste just as good, if not better than the real thing, which, you’d have discovered for yourself if someone hadn’t killed off all the marshmallows.”
“Is that your passive aggressive way of suggesting I get on my bike, head into town, and pick up some marshmallows before the store closes?” Jagger asked.
“I mean, if you’re offering,” Mickey said, about as coy as Jagger had ever heard him sound. It was amusing as hell when Mickey’s voice came out all sweet while his eyes were narrowed and set in a dark glare.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess I am,” Jagger said, sliding away from Kayden.
No comments:
Post a Comment