“I should get going. I’ll be late,” Izabel said.
Disappointment rattled through him at the thought he’d not get to talk with her anymore today. “Fair point. Have a good day, Iz.”
“You too, Matt. Just message me when you’ve told Luke. You still have my number, right?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He knew so. There had been many a drunken night when he’d picked up his phone, searched for her number, and let his fingers hover over the keys before closing it again.
“Great.”
“Great.” Fuck, why was he repeating what she said? He grabbed the door and opened it for her. “Later, Iz.”
And he watched her walk down the hallway until she was out of sight.
4
The following day, with his phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder, Matt added a date to his calendar on the laptop precariously placed on his knees. “I’ve put it on the band’s schedule. The second Saturday in December is reserved for you pending receipt of—”
He reached out his hand and slammed it on the dash of Luke’s van, the grin on Luke’s face said he’d braked hard at the lights on purpose.
Matt flipped him the bird as Luke laughed.
“Pending receipt of a contract,” Matt continued. “We’ve never played Sheffield Uni but heard good things though. Its student union is one of the biggest in the country, right?”
“It is. We’re looking forward to seeing you. I’ll email the contract now and be in touch.”
“Bye,” Matt said, hanging up just as Luke slammed his brakes again. “What the fuck, you dick?” He couldn’t hold back the laughter.
“Sorry. Too easy to mess with you. Perfect, the car park is empty,” Luke said, pulling into a spot in front of the garage Ben worked at. Ben’s boss would let them practice there when there weren’t too many vehicles in.
Alex sat on the step, cigarette in one hand, gingerly tapping the edges of a black eye with the other.
“What happened to you?” Matt asked as Luke opened the back of the van.
Alex stood, took one last draw on his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the bin. “Last night, some guy took offense to my black nails, next thing he’s calling me the f-bomb, and I’m telling him I could fuck his girlfriend and dad better than he could. Something like that. I was drunk. Fair fight until his mates joined in. Ben finished it with a snooker cue. And here we are.”
Matt groaned. “You okay?”
“Good enough.”
“Please tell me Ben didn’t mess up his hands.”
“Define messed up.”
Luke walked past them with his hi-hat. “Either of you two going to help?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Matt muttered as he walked to the back of the van and grabbed his guitar case and Luke’s cymbals.
“You gave me a lecture about skipping rehearsals for work, but when I’m here, you can’t be arsed to make it on time,” Jase said as he stepped into Matt’s space.
Usually, it was the other way around—Matt was the one who paced around the garage.
He shoulder checked Jase as he walked by. “Fuck off.”
“You stroll in late so everyone else is waiting for you. You. So you can be the centre of attention.”
“You’re coming in hot, Jase,” Ben said. “Cool your heels.”
Matt laughed. “Get over yourself, Jase. I was booking us another gig and wrapping up the new song I’d been writing. Wanted to start working on it with you guys today and I knew if I stopped and tried to get here on time, I’d lose my flow. Anyway, it’s done. Want to hear it, or do you just want to bust my balls for a bit longer so you feel good about yourself?”
Jase rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“How are the hands?” Matt asked, looking over to Ben.
Ben, still in his overalls, flexed his knuckles. “Nothing I can’t play through.”
“Good. Because I was chatting with Luke, we’ve got the funds for some serious studio time after the summer gigs. We were thinking it might be time to try and put out another full album. There are a few songs bubbling, we’ve got some new material. Maybe practice and test songs now and plan to record near the end of the year.”
Alex grinned. “I’d be game. I’m getting fed up with playing the same songs.”
Ben opened his guitar case. “What were you thinking? Like October?”
“Yeah. Try to get it done by Christmas and start the new year with a new release.”
“I’d kind of been banking on us seeing some of that summer cash though,” Jase said. “Is there enough for recording and a payout?”
“Not really. Maybe a bit. But if we want to leave some cash in the pot for advertising and trying to tour the new album, we should probably avoid pulling any more cash out. But I get it. We’re skint. My car needs some new tyres. I just don’t know how many more kicks at the can we have at this. I feel like if we’re going to do this, we need to make it a big one or not bother.”
The thought fucked with his insides. First, he’d just verbalised his worst fear, that the band was running out of time and money to become, well, anything. And second, he’d spent the morning looking at rooms at Izabel’s wedding hotel, wishing he could book something fancier than a simple twin room. And, shit, he still had to speak to Luke after rehearsal with words he hadn’t come up with yet because he’d been on the phone the whole way over.
“I’m ready,” Luke said. “I’ll deal with another six months of your Uncle Allan’s bad breath to get it done. Extra shifts, whatever we need to make this one perfect.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Same. I can pick up some overtime, do some stuff on the side. If you need some cash, Jase, short-term, I can loan you some.”
Jase shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll manage. It was more, just . . . shit, I’m fed up with being brassic, having no cash, and trying to juggle shifts and gigs and rehearsals.”
“Could you go full-time at the pub? Or perhaps find something full-time somewhere else? I bet Uncle Allan would take you on in a heartbeat,” Matt said.
“Don’t need you to figure my life out. I’m a big boy now.”
Matt lifted his hands in surrender. He should know better than to offer Jase an opinion directly. But the way he’d spoken, like he was tired down to his bones, mirrored Matt’s own feelings. He’d felt compelled to help. “Understood.”
Luke walked to his drum kit and let rip on the snare and bass, a roaring blast of energy drowning everything else out. “Should we get started then?” he yelled.
Alex grinned, his blond hair flopping over his bruised eye, as he joined in on his percussion setup. To Matt, it looked like a thousand instruments in a giant pile, but there was a strict setup Alex followed. And when they played live, he barely glanced down to see at what he was doing, just reached out his hand to smash a cymbal, hit a key, or pick up a tambourine. The house he shared with Jase was like a music shop, packed to the rafters with equipment that could change the roar of a car engine into a beautiful sound on a song.
Matt pulled out his guitar, attached his strap, and pulled it over his head. He messed with his amp until he had the setting right and strummed a chord. Loud, gravelly, just the right amount of reverb he liked.