Don't Read in the Closet volume one (35 page)

Ash rolled his
eyes at him and pointed at the mohawk. “Okay, I’ll give you this didn’t turn
out the way I wanted it to, but I rock a lot of cool hairstyles.” He looked to
his bass player. “You got my back on this one right, Chad?”

The bass player
shook his head. “Dude, I don’t think I can. Since you change your hair every
time the wind blows, you’re gonna have a good style or two by default, but I
wouldn’t really call that a lot.”

Ash disregarded
both Chad and Devin with a flip of his hand. “Whatever. As if you guys know
anything about style.”

His voice
teasing, Devin said, “Maybe we don’t, but it sounds like Jackson does.”

Ash’s annoyance
burst to life again. “I sure as fuck won’t take fashion advice from a guy who
wears shit-kicker cowboy boots and Wranglers. And who the hell is he to
criticize my hair when he hides his under that big ass cowboy hat all the
time?”

Jeremy rubbed a
cloth over his guitar, polishing the body of it so the black finish, painted
with gray ghost flames, had a liquid shine. “Is that what he was doing in the
mag interview? Ripping on your hair again?”

Ash snatched a
bottle of water off a table and dropped down on the couch beside Jeremy. “No.
He was saying how I’m not a good role model for young people. Well no shit.
What part of rock star doesn’t he get? I’m a performer, not a babysitter.”

Chad walked
across the room and picked up the magazine. “That was probably his response to
you saying last month that when his music career falls flat, he can always sell
himself to the highest bidding mother to marry her daughter since everyone in
Mayberry wants him for a son-in-law.”

Twirling a
drumstick between his fingers, Devin snorted out a laugh. “Now that was funny.”

Ash tossed an
arm across the back of the couch. “I don’t know why the hell he has to keep
coming at me. And through the goddamn media! If he’s got things he wants to say
to me, he needs to do it to my face.”

Jeremy plucked
the guitar strings to double check the tuning. “It’s not like he’d get many
chances to do that. You’re a rock star. He’s a country music star. We kinda run
in separate circles, you know.”

“We’ve been to
some of the same award shows,” Ash said.

“So what, you
want him to start a pissing match with you on the red carpet? The
most bad
boy he’ll ever taint his image with is what he does
now, taunting you from a distance, and even that isn’t much since he always
manages to spin it so he looks good and you look like the ass.”

Devin jumped
back into the conversation. “Not that he has to spin it real hard with how you
let shit just fly out your mouth. But weren’t you the one who started this
whole thing to begin with?”

Ash let out a
low grumble of agreement. It was
true,
he was the one
who started the “feud” with Jackson Abrams. But not intentionally. Sort of.
Three years ago, they both hit the scene in their respect music genres. He and
his band, From Ashes, kicking ass in the rock world, and Jackson…well, Jackson
doing whatever the hell country stars did. Jackson must’ve done it pretty well,
though, since his music extended beyond the country charts to crossover into popular
music.

When the Grammy
Awards came around, From Ashes and Jackson were both up for Best New Artist.
And the Grammy went to…
Jackson
.

Not that he was
really pissed off at losing the award to him. Even he had to admit, to himself,
never to anyone else, that Jackson’s music was damn good. He wasn’t so stubborn
he couldn’t appreciate Jackson’s talent, and there was something else about the
country singer…

Ash stopped the
last thought before it went too far and veered it back toward music. Still,
even though he could admit Jackson was a hell of a musician, he couldn’t say
Jackson was better than him and his boys. When he was interviewed after the
Grammys about his band’s loss to Jackson and asked how he felt about it, he
replied, “Well, it is what it is. And it could be the better man won, but not
the better musician.”

It seemed Mr.
Good Boy Country Star didn’t like that comment real well and fired back in an
interview with, “Sounds like Ash Ivers…that’s his name, right? Well, it sounds
like he’s a bit of a sore loser. And that’s too bad. I hope someday he learns
how a man accepts his loses is what can really make him a winner.”

And it was that
kind of down-home-wholesome bullshit that pissed him off. Jackson always came
back at him with comments like that. When he heard Jackson’s remark, he hit him
back in his next interview with, “I don’t know how to accept my losses, huh?
Let’s get something straight. Not getting an award for being America’s
sweetheart doesn’t make me a loser. But what
makes
me
a winner is my record sales kicking his in the ass all the way to the bank.”

Jackson
retorted with, “If I could ever have the honor to be America’s sweetheart,
nothing would make me prouder because I love this country. But it sounds like
Ash Ivers loves money, and I feel sorry for him for that. I make my music for
my fans, not for a bigger bank account.”

Always! Every
freakin’ time Jackson twisted his words to make himself look like the good guy.
The man even wore a white damn cowboy hat! Well, beige, but close enough.

The media ate
up their animosity, doing their best to fuel their feud with interviewers
making sure each of them knew the latest comment from the other and goading
them to make more. He supposed it was good publicity, if nothing else. There
were fans on Jackson’s side who loved him for his always gentlemanly responses.
There were fans on his side who loved his “shove it” attitude.

Ash grinned to
himself. Actually, they made a pretty good team without even knowing it. They
each had both sides covered of what people liked.

Chad’s voice
called him back to the moment.

“Hey, Ash. Did
you read the rest of this interview with him?”

“Why the hell
would I?”

Chad walked
slowly toward him, his gaze on the open magazine in his hands. “Because right
after he says you’re not a good role model, he says, ‘I’m not sure the behavior
Ash is known for is the best kind of image for the Songs for a Cure Benefit,
but I do give him a lot of credit doing this for charity. It gives me hope
knowing that as different as me and him are, we can put all that aside for a
greater good in helping to raise awareness and funds for HIV/AIDS research.
Because of that, it’ll be an honor for me to walk on the same stage as him’.”

Silence fell
over the dressing room. Ash stared at his bass player, as if he disbelieved
what Chad had said.

Jeremy looked
toward Ash. “Wow. That was, like…
nice
.”

Ash ignored
Jeremy, his gaze still fixed on Chad. “Are you fucking with me?”

“No, dude. It
looks like he’s playing Songs for a Cure, too.”

Devin pointed
his drumstick at Ash. “You didn’t know that? Didn’t any of you guys read the
list of performers Kent gave us a couple weeks ago?”

Ash shook his
head, still trying to come to terms with playing at the charity concert with
Jackson. He vaguely remembered their manager, Kent, giving him the list of
everyone else would be performing, but he’d only looked to see when From Ashes
was taking the stage, and since they were right after the openers, he didn’t
bother checking to see who else would be there. He didn’t even know where the
list was now. Probably in some stadium,
cities away since
they were wrapping up their second tour and it was
supposed to end at
the Songs for a Cure event in two weeks.

Jeremy knocked
Ash on the arm with the back of his hand. “Hey, at least now you’ll have your
chance to get in his face and put an end to all this crap. It won’t be like at
an award show. I think Kent said we were getting in a couple days before the
concert and there’s gonna be a lot of down time. And you won’t be getting
stalked by cameras in the artists’ area, so you can tell him to knock it off
without making an ass of yourself in front of the paparazzi.”

“Yeah,” Ash
said softly.

Devin twisted
around in his chair to glare at Chad. “Way to go. You just totally shot his
mood with that little announcement and we need to hit the stage in less than
ten.”

Chad held up
his hands in a helpless gesture, still holding the magazine in one. “I was just
letting him know.”

Ash took a
breath to snap
himself
back to the moment. “It’s cool.
Like it matters if Jackson’s there. But if he thinks I’m not a good image for
the concert, then what’s he?”

Jeremy
shrugged. “He’s popular as hell, though, and that’s what the promoters and
organizers were looking for. They dipped into every scene, rock, rap, pop,
country
, to try to pull out the hottest performers.”

“I guess, but
it still seems like something he’d be more likely to turn down than accept.”

“Either way,
you’ll get your chance to talk to him face to face,” Jeremy said.

Ash nodded. He
exhaled a sigh and slapped Jeremy on the knee, pushing off it as he stood.
“I’ll worry about it later. You guys want to give me a couple minutes alone?
I’m thinking of changing again. These jeans are pinching my balls.”

Devin got to
his feet, snickering on his way to the door. “They probably wouldn’t if you
tried putting on some damn underwear.”

Following
Devin, Jeremy pointed at Ash. “Are you kidding? Look at how low those frickin’
things are. No way
he could
wear underwear with them.”

Chad winked at
Ash as he passed by him. “You just need to get you a man thong.”

“I have a few
of those, actually.”

As his band
members headed out of the dressing room, Ash walked to the full length mirror.
He looked down at his designer jeans, slung so low off his hips it was no
secret he shaved his pubic hair, and they fit so tight even the most
unimaginative of minds wouldn’t have trouble envisioning how he was hung. His
lean torso, lined and grooved with muscle, was framed by his open black shirt.
He glanced up, meeting his own blue eyes.

He’d finally
get to meet Jackson in person. What should he say to him when he did? Should he
tell him to cut his crap? Or apologize for starting the whole screwed up
situation to begin with? And what would it be like when he talked to him,
listening to that Texas drawl in Jackson’s low baritone voice?

Ash wet his
lips, a slow smirk spreading over them. He didn’t know what the hell he’d say,
but he knew one thing; he was going to try his damnedest to piss him off. Just
once, he wanted Jackson to drop his good boy mask.

And there was
one other thing he knew. Ash flicked his gaze up to his mohawk’s reflection in
the mirror. Before meeting Jackson, he definitely needed to do something about
his hair.

CHAPTER 2

Jackson
strolled through the outdoor stadium, empty except for the crew working on
building the massive stage at one end of the football field. He’d been to
Chicago on his last two tours, but the closest he’d gotten to Soldier Field
both times was when his tour bus went by it. It was a nice. Of course, being a
Cowboys fan, nothing could beat their stadium.

He turned from
the field and headed down a tunnel into the stadium interior. He’d arrived late
that morning and decided to walk off the plane trip from Dallas by exploring
the venue. There wasn’t much else to do. The next two days were for rehearsals
and working out technical glitches, with the concert following the day after.
He was sure he’d find plenty to occupy his time. A couple fellow country
artists and other friends and acquaintances he’d made in music were coming in,
so he wouldn’t lack for company.

Though, there
was one person he wanted to talk to more than any other.

Jackson left
the stadium to the parking lot, where a section was roped off for performers’
tour buses and trailers. It looked like a mini community of musicians. If
artists flew in rather than arrive in their own tour bus, the organizers had
set up trailers for them, which was nice to have a place for privacy at the
actual venue rather than just at his hotel, since there certainly wasn’t enough
dressing rooms for everyone. Now he just had to remember where his trailer was.
He knew a rap artist’s tour bus had parked next to it, and that made a pretty
distinct landmark since it had the guy’s face painted on the side.

He worked his
way between the closely parked trailers and buses, wondering if the rock band,
From Ashes, was there yet. One thing he wanted to accomplish at this concert
was talking to their lead singer, Ash Ivers.