Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Chapter One: His Hard Rockin' Princess

Chapter One


Tim Wade lounged in a lawn chair outside his RV, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. Most of the campers, both the RV’ers and tenters, were still asleep, as it had been a late, raucous night. Though he stayed up far later than normal, he didn’t mind; he wouldn’t expect anything less at HeavyMetalFest, the premier annual heavy metal festival in Southern California. He hadn’t bothered climbing into bed until well after 3 in the morning, even if he’d done nothing but sit in this same lawn chair, enjoying the ambiance. Well, except for the little excitement after the Friday night concert, which had been open only for those camping out this weekend.
While there would be 12 hours of music on both Saturday and Sunday, with many bands overlapping on different stages, the Friday night show took place on a single stage with five relatively unknown bands playing short sets. The headliners, Metal Knives, had a following, but they’d been out of the limelight for a few years. Tim had toured with them back when he’d been the lead guitarist for Splitting Braincells, this year’s Saturday headliners on the main stage. All those years ago, Metal Knives had been the direct support for the headliner, Bring the Pain, while he and Splitting Braincells were the small-time, just breaking onto the national scene, opener.
He himself had never heard of the first four bands, and he dug a couple of them enough to where he purchased their digital albums once he got back to the WiFi hotspot in his rig. Metal Knives did a hell of a job closing out the short night, even starting a small mosh pit, the lone one of the night. The next two days would see plenty of bigger ones, and though he would steer clear, he enjoyed watching the mayhem. Back in the day, when he’d been the one on-stage, he never got tired of witnessing all those bodies hurling themselves at each other. Truth be told, he incited more than one for his viewing pleasure, though it didn’t take much to get metalheads slamming.
Once the final notes had been hit, and the waves and good nights thrown out, a woman walked up to him. The glint in her eyes showed she recognized him. He guessed her to be a few years older than his 29, but no more than her mid-30s. Had he bedded her when he was the lead shredder for Splitting Braincells? It wouldn’t surprise him, as he’d been a true rock star back in the day. Much different from now, eight years later, when in all that time he’d been with one woman, although they’d been together for a year and a half before she decided to cheat on him after a fight.
“Moth Man Wade, right?” she asked. He contemplated shaking his head and saying sorry, my name is Steve Jones or something, but didn’t.
“Hi, yeah. You a fan of my shred school?” He gave an internal smirk. He started his online guitar lessons a little over a year after his accident, and it turned into a full-time business. He’d since expanded to all metal instruments, sans singing, both in cyberspace and a land-based studio. No one recognized him for that, though his long-time fans often knew.
“No, though I think it’s cool. I follow you on Twitter, and I love the clips you share. Reminds me of your shredding days. I saw you in the small clubs around So Cal so many times before you guys blew up. I don’t think I can tell you how often I tried to meet up back then. I caught one of your picks at a show at the Big Orange, and you gave me a high-five at the Palladium, but I never got any closer.”
“Ah, the Big Orange.” He chuckled. It had been a small club in Downtown Fullerton in Orange County. It closed about five years back, and he’d been sorry to see it go. “What a shit hole, but, man, it was a great place to play.”
“Great place to watch, too. You never disappointed.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Those were the days.”
“So,” she drawled out. Oh, great. He saw where this was going, and didn’t relish it. He wasn’t here to meet anyone, even for a few hours.
“Yeah?”
“You here alone?”
Now that it was out, he could smell the alcohol on her breath. He’d been so caught up in reminiscing that he hadn’t before. Or maybe the slight breeze had changed directions. Either way, he needed to end this.
“Yup. Flying solo. About to head back to my spot and hit the hay.” That was a lie, as the campground would be far too loud for the next few hours to even attempt sleep. “Enjoy the rest of the weekend.”
It didn’t deter her. “You don’t want to go to bed yet. Besides, my boyfriend and his friends went back to our tent to smoke out. I wasn’t invited.” The lilt in her voice made it clear she expected him to salve her wounded ego.
Sorry, lady.
Though he supposed he could let her sit outside the RV with him for an hour or two. If she’d been a fan back in the day, maybe she could hold up her end of the conversation about metal, his favorite topic, at least at rock shows. Okay, all the time, but all the more so at shows.
They headed to his RV, and he pulled out two lawn chairs. She frowned, disappointment at the fact he didn’t invite her inside written all over her face, but she held it in check. No doubt she figured he’d build to it. Again, she was out of luck, but he didn’t want to bring it up yet and cause a scene.
The conversation went about how he hoped, as she knew quite a bit about the metal scene, both current and a decade ago. Too much turned to how she’d bedded her share of musicians, with her favorites being the shredding guitarists, and he did everything he could to steer their talk in other directions. Once they focused on the music and got on about recent bands they’d both seen live, their talk bloomed. He even found it amusing when people wandered by, said hello, and she introduced him as if he were her prize.
About one in the morning, she stood and stretched, giving him a show of her braless breasts beneath her t-shirt. “I need to get back soon.” She tossed him a wicked grin and nodded towards his RV. “A romp before I go? I suck a mean dick, and I love it in the ass.”
It took all his self-control not to laugh out loud. “Nah, not tonight. I had a great time talking to you, though. Thanks for being a fan.”
It took a second for her to get her head around his words. “What? You don’t want to fuck?” Another few seconds of processing. “What the hell? Are you gay or something?”
“No. I’m here for the music. Like I said, I enjoyed meeting you.”
He stuck out his hand for her to shake, hoping the act would disarm her, but she instead scowled and stomped away, tossing a vitriol, “Fuck you, you washed-up has-been,” over her shoulder. He had controlled his laughter in the moment, but now, the next morning, a deep belly laugh escaped as he set his coffee on the grass so he didn’t spill it all over himself. Plus, it would have been a horrible waste of good coffee. Camping in an RV had definite advantages over tenting it; much easier to bring his electric bean grinder and good French press. Why suffer through a camping stove kettle of cheap brew or the crap sold at the camp store?
“Someone a jokester over here?” his neighbor called, sticking his head out of his own RV. He couldn’t remember the guy or his wife’s names, but they seemed pleasant enough. Both were older than him, in their mid to late 40s. Tim was afraid he woke him at first, but the big grin on the guy’s face proved he hadn’t. Good. Nothing worse than pissing off the neighbor at a campground. Not that he’d be here much, spending most of the time inside the festival, but still.
“Sorry, no. Thinking about something that happened last night.”
“It was an interesting night, right? Let me finish waking up, and then we’d love to swap some stories. Can’t head over to the venue for another few hours. Unless we’d be imposing.”
“Not at all. I’m about to rustle up some bacon sandwiches for breakfast if you guys want to join me. I have plenty.”
“Only if you let us supply a side of scrambled eggs and juice. We have plenty, too.”
He smiled. “Deal. I’ll have my sandwiches done in half an hour or so. Need to finish my cup o’ joe.”
“Great. See you then.”
Tim picked his coffee back up, and as he took a sip, his eyes wandered out to the path where people from the tent area had started to wake up and wander to the camp store and porta-johns. He enjoyed watching the blurry-eyed crowd, most in sweatshirts or jackets on this early March morning, though he and everyone else lucked out at how mild the weather was supposed to be all weekend, even for Southern California. He chuckled at how many stumbled around like zombies, and not the freshly-dead ones.
And then he saw her.
Dark auburn hair ran about a quarter of the way down her back. She wore a black sweatshirt with the Crushed Edges logo emblazoned on the front, one of the bands playing the main stage tonight. They were, in his opinion, a metal starter band, but, hey, if a teen, and she couldn’t be older than 19, if that—Oh, shit, please be over 18; I don’t want to be ogling a minor—wanted to listen to any type of hard music instead of the pop crap that dominated society, he was all for it. He couldn’t help but let his imagination run wild at how her small but perky breasts, which would look perfect on her petite frame, pushed up in the middle of the logo, even if the sweatshirt hid most of the view. He also tried to be gallant and not check out her ass, but he couldn’t help himself. Despite the fact the hem of her sweatshirt dipped low, he could still tell it was nice, tight, and fit, perfect for a sexy grab.
Before he could tear his eyes from her, she turned, and her bright emerald eyes burned into his soul. She stopped, an unreadable expression on her face. He wanted to smile, tried to smile, but didn’t think he succeeded. Her mouth tugged up a few millimeters, and then she bit her bottom lip, a look of…something…on her face. Before he could shake any other thoughts loose in his brain, she jerked, blushed, and raced after the couple she’d been walking with.
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. What was that? Women never affected him like this, especially such young ones. Yeah, he’d like to meet that special girl, but she wouldn’t be ten years or more his junior, would she? No, of course not. At least not at this stage of his life. And hadn’t he said more than once last night that he wasn’t here to meet anyone? It hadn’t been meant as a brush-off to his groupie, but the god-honest truth.

Tim took a deep breath, drained what remained in his coffee mug, and pushed himself to his feet, careful to not show the campground the boner the sweet young stranger had given him with a simple look. The fuck am I, 16 again? He chuckled, making sure to keep it in check so his neighbor didn’t ask what was so funny this time, and then headed into his rig to both refill his mug and to start breakfast. He’d promised bacon sandwiches to the nice older couple next door, after all. He also fired up his music on the sound system. Metal never failed to get everything back to normal.

Read Ch. 2 by clicking here

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