It smelled like the tins of food I fed my cat, and if they tasted the same too, then I was going to owe my sweet kitty an apology in the great beyond because eww, eww, eww.
“Had to,” Dash said. “Couldn’t back down from that challenge. I sat right there at the table where he could see me and ate every bite, then I asked if he wanted any help with the windows. Mom came out the winner in that one after we finished polishing them all, since she’d been after Dad to do them for months. He told me later that the only reason he was out there was to fuck with me. I just looked at him and said, "I know,"and went right back to shining the glass.”
I’d missed laughing with them after my short stint filling in for Ozzy. Now I relaxed and enjoyed the moment, knowing we had a lot of hard work and a grueling touring schedule in front of us.
Johnny passed me a hunk of cake too big to be called a slice, and I followed him over to one of the two sofas in the suite and plopped down on a cushion.
“Word of warning,” he said as soon as I’d gotten settled. “Sip the punch slowly; otherwise, it goes down way too smooth.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that,” I said as I dug into the cake.
Everyone started with cake. There wasn’t a wing on a single plate as we got comfortable in our chosen spots.
“We’ve got a long day tomorrow,” Draven announced via his speech-to-text device. “So, I want everyone on the buses by eight sharp. Not 8:03 or 8:05. In fact, I’d prefer if everyone was loaded up by 7:55 so we can roll out of the parking lot at 8, but I know that’s not possible with you fucks.”
The guys all laughed at that, with Ozzy and Rebel shooting looks at Dash like he was solely responsible for all the times they were late.
“Anyone I have to hunt for pays the tab at the next steakhouse," Draven added, silencing much of the laughter as Dashand Johnny groaned. “That goes double for you.”
He pointed at Johnny when he said it, earning a gasp and a wounded look.
“Do you know how much these barbarians eat?” Johnny complained.
“Like you don’t eat your weight in butterfly shrimp every time we hit the all-you-can-eat buffet at The Coral,” Dash said, calling Johnny out and eliciting another round of laughter.
“Just don’t be late,” Draven cautioned before he left with my contract and a slice of cake.
It couldn’t be easy running two bands and advising a third. Ozzy thought Savage Roar would be on the road with us full-time by mid-summer, but that was still several months away, so anything could happen.
“So, what’s it going to be?" Johnny said, nudging my arm. “Superheroes, slasher flicks, or disaster movies?"
“I’m good with superheroes,” I said.
"Avengers: Age of Ultron it is,” Johnny said, pulling it up.
The cake was a sticky sweet mix of cream cheese frosting and luscious red velvet, my absolute favorite flavor, but the only one I’d ever mentioned that to was Rebel, the day we’d sat together on a rock beside the ocean, watching the tide roll in while talking about our favorite desserts.
That was months ago.
Had he remembered, or was the choice just a happy coincidence?
He’d claimed not to have one. That he had a favorite for every season. Strawberry shortcake in spring, blueberry-lemon ice cream in summer, pumpkin bars in fall, and eggnog cheesecake in winter. It was perfectly logical when he put it that way.
I guess if he could remember all that, it shouldn’t surprise me that he’d told someone what flavor to get. Our conversation had moved from the mundane to deeply personal by the time the sun had begun to set. With shadows creeping over us and water lapping at our feet, he’d made a joke about it being the perfect setting for a romance book that I’d taken as an invitation to leanin and kiss him.
Instead of backing away, he’d deepened it, fingers carding through my hair, gripping the strands, holding me there as we’d kissed until we were breathless and gasping.
“See,” he’d muttered. “Perfect.”
Out of all of them, he’d been the one to keep in touch the most after I’d finished subbing for Ozzy. Drunken, late-night texts had revealed an introspective side to him. One night, he’d asked if I thought our dreams were really just us being awake on a different plane, living a whole other life somewhere else in the cosmos.
Even after I’d given my rather uninspired response of “no wonder I always wake up tired,” I’d lie awake thinking about that question, wondering what he’d been dreaming about.
“You know what the best part is about all these movies?" Johnny said. “Every fight sequence is different, and in each movie the stakes are higher. They really took the time to make each piece of the universe unique.”
“The thing I always looked forward to was Stan Lee’s cameos,” I said. “Every last one of them is funny as fuck.”
“My be-all and end-all favorite scene will always be Loki ranting about being a god and Hulk leaving an imprint in the floor with his body before calling him a puny god,” Dash declared.