Page 97 of Hot Mess
Dylan was still standing by, with his arm slung around Amber. She smiled at me. “You were amazing out there,” she informed me. “You and Zane singing ‘Nice Boys’? Hot. But you know that, right?”
“Yup.” I smirked and drank my beer.
“You’re coming with us, right?” Dylan asked, like he was sincerely worried I might bail on the afterparty.
But what was I gonna do, go sit in my hotel room alone?
“Obviously.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Summer!” he called over to her. “We’re going to a little afterparty later. You’re coming, right?”
“Of course,” she said, like the mere suggestion of her missing any party in existence was ridiculous. “Is Matt coming?” She glanced over at Matt, who was out of earshot, talking to some chicks I didn’t know.
“Can’t see why not. I mean, Zane would fire him if he didn’t.” Dylan smirked at me.
“Perfect,” Summer said. She threw me a look like,Go ahead and fire him, we’ll take him, then turned away.
Dylan raised an eyebrow at me. “Summer have a thing for Matt now?”
“Don’t think so,” I said. Then I got busy drinking my beer, so he wouldn’t notice the guilty look on my face.
It wasn’t like we were here to poach his bassist.
So we wanted Matt in our band. His contract with Dirty ended next June. After that, he was a free agent.
We just wanted to lock him down before someone else did.
As soon as I knew there was a chance we were actually gonna do that, I’d tell Dylan the news.
* * *
As it turned out, the “little afterparty” was at a castle.
Not, like, a large castle-like house. An actual castle.
Centuries old, with turrets and acres upon acres of gardens surrounding it. Giant circular drive with a massive fountain, lineup of luxury cars parked out front, lineup of polished servants waiting to greet us, and more rooms and echoing halls inside than any human being could ever need. There were two humans who lived here, some billionaire guy and his billionaire wife, and all I was told on the way over was “Brody knows a guy.”
Apparently, Brody didn’t actually know the people who lived in the castle, but the promoter did. And they were huge Dirty fans. They’d invited a carefully selected group of VIP friends to join the party, and they didn’t overdo it, either. There were maybe twenty guests plus the band and entourage.
By castle party standards, I assumed, the place was pretty empty, but we were well taken care of. A ridiculous amount of liquor was offered around, plus food and cigars.
And as it turned out, these weren’t snooty rich people. Most of them were tech geeks, from what I gathered. The billionaire and billionairess had made their money in software design and some other shit to do with aerospace I couldn’t even follow.
Hanging out with Dylan and the rest of Dirty after an incredible show? Would’ve been awesome enough. But doing it in a gorgeous castle while we were all treated like rock royalty? It was just an incredible night. One of those nights I knew I’d remember all my life.
This kind of night was just one of the many, many perks of hanging with Dirty. They knew everyone. Or more specifically, everyone knew them. Including insanely wealthy people who lived in castles.
I found myself wishing, a few times, that I could show Danica one of the crazy gorgeous rooms in this place, and wondering what she’d think of it. I tried not to be a fucking knob about it, but I took a few discreet photos. Among the courtesies offered by the castle staff was a guest Wi-Fi password, so it was easy enough to add the photos to the Pinterest board Danica had shared with me.
With captions like:Can we do this to my living room?
She replied pretty quick, with comments like:Gorgeous!,JEALOUS!andWhere is that??
I commented back:I’m in a castle. You should be here.
I almost didn’t type that last part, but then I manned up. She really should’ve been here, to see this. It was an interior decorator’s wet dream.
She commented back:I wish I was. Please sit on that pink throne for me.
