Backstage Demands Read Free Page B

peoples' personal information when I shouldn't.”
    Tod handed her the napkin and she was off.

Chapter 5
     
    The trip to Rick's place wasn't that long at all. He had been exaggerating a little bit when he'd said that it was all the way on the other side of town. When Jen pulled up to his spot, she realized that he did live in what many people would call the “hood,” although it wasn't that bad. Jen used to live around the same area, and although you couldn't walk around at night without worrying about your safety, it wasn't like people broke into peoples' car on the regular.
    It took Jen awhile to figure out that the external staircase leading up to the second story was the way into Rick's apartment. Jen sat on the first step and looked down the street in the direction that Rick would be coming from. She hoped that by the time he got to his place, and to her, that he would have cooled off enough to realize that it was in everyone's best interest if he just did the gig the next day and the tour. She wondered if he would tell her that she couldn't go with him on the tour—although it really hadn't been nailed down if she would be going with the band. The whole thing hadn't been that nailed down. Except for the money, which Jen had been paid up front. So that was nice. Not that the money had really been all that much, but it was still nice to get it up front so there wasn't the whole uncertainty about getting it that she'd felt so many times before.
    Before too long she saw a figure that looked like it could be Rick walking down the street with its hands crammed into its front pockets and its face looking at the ground. Rick was a good looking guy, and Jen found herself thinking about him that way even though she'd told herself going into it that she wasn't going to crush on him at all. But it was hard not to, now that she knew that he wasn't just playing the tortured artist card to play it, but was actually living in a dive in a shady part of town. There was something to be said for the struggles that a working artist faced in an industry that really only wanted to use them up. Even the Collective wanted to use Rick for their own ends, even though that flew in the face of everything they were supposed to stand for.
    Jen tried to ready herself as she saw Rick walk closer and closer down the street. It was one thing to think that she was ready to face him and talk to him, it was another thing entirely to actually be ready to face him and talk to him. Maybe he'd be super pissed that she'd come to his house to speak with him. Or maybe he wouldn't. She'd just have to wait and find out, but she wouldn't have to wait long.

Chapter 6
     
    Rick couldn't help but think how he shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning. There were other things he could have done, and sleep would have been a good choice. He needed to figure out where his life was heading. Obviously this whole music industry forever thing wasn't going the way that he'd hoped. He was willing to put in his fair share of the work, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice every little bit of his chance at some kind of happiness that didn't include pills or the bottle. Because that's where things were headed with a lot of the rest of the band guys he knew, including those in his own band. Guys would keep telling themselves that it was all right they were still hanging out with and fucking women half their age while nursing a pretty serious pill habit, along with all kinds of other stuff going on in the background that would make their mothers' blush.
    Rick shook his head as he walked, looking down at sidewalk below him. All of the cracks reminded him that there was much to life going on underneath the surface, and much which he had no control over. But there were some things that he did have control over, and those were the things that he wanted to keep his mind on. So he thought about what he was going to say to the music Collective about skipping the gig that night, and