Too Many Rock Stars (Access All Areas #1) (9 page)

"So, have you thought any more about this competition," Chuck asked. "You're going to agree in the end so you might as well stop beating around the bush. You've made your 'feminist' stand and all that."

Maybe, if I brained Chuck with a rock, all my problems would be over. I wondered what would happen to the club then. Would it be obvious if I started asking him about his will and who his beneficiaries were?

Things had been getting ridiculous with those two guys. At least they’d stopped bringing me stupid gifts. I didn't have time to worry about stuff like flowers. And then the chocolates. I don't like taking gifts from people. It forces some kind of obligation onto you. And I really hate obligation. I liked being free to do my own thing in my own way. And my own thing was often napping. If someone found a way to gift naps, I'd be all over that.

He looked at the sofa as though he wanted to sit down. I hoped he did. I hoped he sat right in the hole and got a stick up his butt. That'd teach him to hover around my office.

"The competition is stupid." I didn't really want to go into all my arguments against it again. If he'd not understood the first fifty times, he sure as hell wouldn't understand if I told him again.

"Violet, I don't think you appreciate the dire circumstances we are in."

"I don't think you appreciate how I've been working my guts out to get us out of those dire circumstances. And, to be frank, Chuck, I think you could do a bit more yourself. I'm not your clean up crew. You're still driving that fancy car. Even if it is leased, it's still a financial drain. You can get a decent pushbike cheap."

"Have you done the rosters for this week?"

Typical Chuck, changing the subject when it looked bad for him. I nodded and handed them to him.

"And you've sent them out to the press?"

I nodded again. Of course I had. This was my job. I did it every week. Why was he suddenly here interfering? Why did he keep fidgeting? He made me uneasy. He was stalling for time and that meant he had unpleasant business. I owed Chuck and that debt went deep but he was the one who'd been so adamant about me not dating rockers when I took this job.

"Good."

I looked at him, waiting for him to leave. I had work to do.

He walked toward the door and then paused.

"The way things are going, I'm going to have to get rid of some staff. If we don't have a big money spinner like the competition, I think Carlie will be the first to be let go."

Huh? Was that a threat? That shit pig, how dare he stoop so low? If I had a bolt-cutter, I'd cut his nuts off.

Chuck had a hard edge to his mouth, as though daring me to protest.

"That's blackmail."

"It's business. Sure, things are going okay now but it's not nearly enough. Increase profits or cut costs. That's the way of business."

"Why Carlie? She works harder than anyone."

"And I pay her more than anyone. Think about it, Violet. I'm not saying you have to do this but, if you want to save the club, it might be the best way."

The nausea rose in my stomach. Chuck was willing to throw anyone against the wall to get his own way, that was for sure. If he got rid of Carlie, he'd be cutting his own throat though. Surely he should've been able to see that. I was half-tempted to call him on it. If I stubbornly stuck to my guns, he'd back down. Maybe.

Then I thought of Carlie. She sure as hell couldn't afford to lose her job just for me to prove my point. And it'd be awful working here without her. She was like a sister to me. More than a sister. She was the one I went to with my problems. She'd always been there for me. Always willing to lend me a tenner to get through to pay day and share clothes and listen to my whinges about Chuck.

"Do you really think the competition will be enough to save the club?"

He paused. "Maybe not save it. But right now we are in a code red situation. The needle's pushing against the edge. Something like will push us back to a code orange. Give us some breathing space."

I sighed. Why was I the one being pimped out? A date with me wouldn't even be a joyful thing. Those guys had some image of a fun Violet who could be won over with love. But I was bitter and resentful Violet.

"You know what this means, don't you? The dating thing? It's crossing that line you told me never to cross."

Chuck took off his sunglasses. That meant serious talk time with Chuck. He wanted you to see his eyes.

"Violet, I think I can trust you to keep this on the right level, if you know what I mean. You might need to encourage these guys a little but if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes. Maybe wear a little makeup. Shorter skirts." He gave me a look. "Maybe not any shorter than that, actually. I know you can manage this without losing your head. Just teasing them a bit. Get them interested. You're a girl, you should know how to do that. But remember, no sex and no dating. Play the game."

I gulped. Chuck was levels of wrong. He was a total jerk and I should've kicked him in the nuts but he held the two prime cards. I owed him big time and I needed to save Carlie's job. Of course, he was right. I could keep my head but I didn't want to encourage those guys. That would be living a lie. Hell, those guys didn't even need encouraging. This whole stupid situation would continue, whether I agreed or not.

“Carlie would just be the start too. If you don’t agree to this, I’ll have no option but to sell the club.”

He walked out in that way he did when he’d made a point. I was so angry that I wanted to resist agreeing just to piss him off. But Carlie… and the club.

Chuck would be sitting in the bar, waiting for me to approach him. I had to do it. The whole thing had gotten beyond ridiculous.

I stormed out of my office before my common sense kicked in.

Chuck sat at the bar, like I thought. He looked up expectantly as I walked up to him. In fact, the whole crew was there. Alex and Razer on opposite sides of the bar. Jackson in his corner. Probably good that they all heard it together.

I walked behind the bar and turned Carlie’s music off. It’d been death metal all week and, without it, the silence in the bar made your ears ring.

I clapped my hands together to get their attention.

"Okay, I'll agree to the bloody deal. If that's what it takes."

I twisted my mouth. The whole idea made me crawl inside but it would be a huge draw for the club. People loved that shit and it'd mean that Alex and Razer would be working like crazy to save the place. If I had to be sacrificed, then I’d do it.

“Hell yeah,” shouted Razer and moved closer to Chuck.

Alex grinned but didn’t say anything.

“Oh, I’ve got to stick around to watch this,” Jackson said. “Things are going to get interesting.”

I spun around. “And where the hell else would you be? You have important business elsewhere that requires you to get off that stool?”

He just raised his glass to me.

"There will be ground rules. One date. A date only. No sex. Not even working towards sex. Sex is not the prize here."

“Sex is so going to be the prize,” Jackson muttered under his breath.

I ignored him and looked from Alex to Razer.

They both nodded. A little too quickly. That kind of agreement where they actually think they could convince me otherwise but there was no otherwise in this situation.

"I mean it. There will be nothing, not even a kiss."

"If there's no kiss, it's not a date," said Razer. He gave me a meaningful look that made me blush. No one need know that we'd already kissed.

"The man has a point," Alex added.

"One kiss. A goodnight kiss. That is all. Oh, no splitting the bill. If I'm doing this, it'll be an old fashioned date."

Alex and Razer nodded.

"Let's make this more interesting," Alex said. "Since you aren't that keen on dating anyway, this shouldn't bother you. How about you agree that you will never date the loser. The one who loses this competition is no longer seen as a man by you."

For some reason, I glanced at Razer when he said that. Did I think of him as man? Well, apart from that one time, in the rain. But I wanted that memory stored so far in the back of my mind that it no longer was a memory at all. I didn't want to think of either of them as men. I wanted to think of them as rock merchandise to save this club.

I shrug. "Doesn't bother me one way or the other."

But Razer didn't seem bothered. A strange look came over his face, like the sun rising over the horizon.

"You're going to do this?" he asked. “You are really going to do this?”

I nodded.

"I'm going to win your love," shouted Razer, pumping his fist in the air. "I'm going to win your love with ROCK!

It was all well and good to come up with this brilliant plan to compete for rock glory, but implementing it was a whole other issue.

Firstly, I had to get both guys together to agree on dates. You'd think I could just pick two random Saturday nights and that would be end of it but that was far from the truth of the situation.

Every date I picked was wrong for some reason.

"There's that festival on the waterfront that night," Razer said about the first date I picked. "That's going to drain off some of our crowd."

He'd perched himself on the edge of my desk, pushing some papers aside. I really didn't feel comfortable with that but, when I'd told him to move it, he'd got up and paced the room for a few minutes then had sat back down. The sitting was much preferable to the pacing. It was like having a caged animal in my office.

Alex sat back on the sofa, his heavily booted foot resting on his other knee. He'd not been as vocal against my suggestions as Razer had been but he was no easier to deal with either.

I'd really have preferred not to have had this meeting in my space but they'd both insisted, as though coming to my office would give them access to the inner part of me. Which it would not.

I suggested another date to Razer.

The next date didn't work for him either.

Then, "that's not giving me enough time to get my band together," from Alex. "I've got a bassist and I wanted a few other guys but with just three of us, I think we can do it. It is disadvantaging me though. My music works best with a more rounded out group."

"Whatever, mate. We're a three piece so that makes it fair." Razer picked up my stapler and spun it in his hand. I fought the impulse to snatch it off him.

"Well, we can't blow it out too far. People have short attention spans. No one cares about something happening next year. So, you guys go over this calendar until you find something you're both happy with, while I go get a drink."

I handed them the printout I'd made of the roster for the next few months with all the suitable dates highlighted, and pushed past Razer to get out the door. I needed a drink and, mostly, I needed no bloody rockers around me.

"They're driving me nuts," I complained to Carlie. "This is just the beginning too. It's going to be a nightmare. Why the hell did I agree to this?"

Carlie shrugged. She had no idea why I'd really agreed to the arrangement, of course. I hadn't told her what Chuck had said. I didn't want her worrying over her job – and it seemed kinda wrong that I'd had that decision in my hands. It might make her feel a bit weird with me.

"Come on, Vi, you love it. There's not really a downside to this."

"Well, there sure as hell isn't an upside." I grimaced. I did not want to deal with those two pumped egos.

I finished my drink and went back to my office, praying they'd agreed on dates so we could at least get that out of the way.

"Done?" I asked, glancing around my office to make sure they'd not moved anything or touched anything or put their dirty fingerprints on my shit.

They both nodded. It was so much easier leaving them to nut things out on their own.

As part of the agreement, I organised for both bands to play a few gigs prior to the deciding night, that way they could build up some momentum and get their fans behind them. That worked for them and it worked for the club. We could maximise the money-making potential.

"But, you were joking about the dating me thing, right?" I asked, hoping that I could still get out of it...

Alex gave Razer a half-smile. "I wasn't, were you? Because if you were joking, we can call this off now and I'll just claim her."

"Whoa, dude. Whoa. Back right up. There will be no 'claim'. I'm not some coat in the cloak check and you don't have the ticket." I glared at him, daring him to continue with that line of thought but he didn't flinch.

"Of course," he agreed. Well, he agreed with his words but the look in his eyes said different.

With the schedule finalised, I kicked the guys out of my office.

"Go! Go out into the wild and promote the hell out of this thing. I want to be turning people away at the door because the show has been sold out. I want people queueing up overnight to buy tickets. I want this to be the hugest thing to ever hit this town.”

“If both shows are sold out, how do we determine the winner?” Razer scratched his head and grinned at me.

I grimaced. I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, two sold out shows would be ideal for Trouble. There was no way out of this.

“If both shows are sold out, I guess we’ll look at the bar takings.”

“Cool,” said Razer. “My fans are total booze hounds.”

“But remember, Chuck is not going to care if the gigs are overcapacity. If he can squeeze a couple of hundred more people in, he’ll do it.”

Of course, Chuck was wetting himself over the whole idea.

"Brilliant, Violet, just brilliant. I knew we didn't keep you around just for your looks."

I balled my hands into fists and fought back the urge to hit him.

"Just remember that I've agreed to date one of these dickheads if they win. I think I need a raise just for that."

"Yeah, I agree, but I don't think the budget will stretch to that at the moment. What, with this whole tax issue. How much do you think we'll make? I need to run numbers. What's the capacity of the band room?"

That just showed what an idiot Chuck was. I mean, who owns a club and doesn't know the capacity of his own band room. If I owned this place, I'd know every square inch of it.

"A thousand," I said. "Maybe a few more if we squeeze them but that's against all regulations."

"Do you think we'll get that many?"

I could see the numbers ticking over in his mind. How much he'd make out of door sales after he'd paid the bands. How many drinks he'd sell. All those numbers. Probably just ended up in a big brain slop knowing Chucklehead's capacity for maths.

"Maybe. Razer can fill the room on a good night, and I'm assuming with all the promo he should be doing, it'll be a good night. Not so sure about Alex. He's new in town. He got a decent crowd the other night and maybe he'll be able to fill the place when he has his full band."

Chuck nodded.

As I suspected, Chuck’s thoughts turned to exceeding the room capacity to get more people in.

"We could knock out the wall behind the bar and just block off the back stairs. That way we could fit another hundred or more in easily."

"And where would we store stuff? You wanna give people free access to all the booze?"

That got him thinking for a moment. In honesty, the store room could probably be half the size and still have enough room but I didn't want Chuck starting on some crazy project that would screw things up.

"Also, you'd have to pay for workmen. That would be expensive if you want it done to building code standards. You start a project like that when there’s attention on the club and those building inspectors will come snooping around."

Chuck shrugged. I knew that meant he'd put that idea aside. The last thing he wanted around here was inspectors – building inspectors, health inspectors, anyone like that would have a field day once they got started.

"If we make $50,000 out of these two nights, that'd put a huge dent in the financial hole."

I didn't bother explaining you didn't really want to put a dent in a hole.

"Since these guys are doing this to get to you, any chance they'd play for free?"

I couldn't believe Chuck asked that. Jerk. I was tempted to throw my boot at his head.

I’d agreed to the competition and I’d go through with it but as soon as Trouble was out of danger, I’d get some premium revenge on Chuck. I had no idea what that would be, but I’d make sure he suffered.