Page 90 of Filthy Beautiful
There was a round of hugs, and then Dean and I hung out backstage while Dirty played their show. We wandered around and kept drinking, and watched some of the concert onscreen in the green room.
It was all fun and fucking games until Dean and I ended up alone and he asked me if I was really leaving Steel Trap.
He fucking knew I was. I left; I told them that already.
But I knew where this was going. Wasn’t exactly like Dean to spring for plane tickets and fly me halfway across the world to party with him just out of the goodness of his heart.
“Yeah,” I said, sobering up a bit. “I’m leaving. I mean, I left. I’m out.”
He sighed. “I’m thinking… maybe we should go together. Maybe you and me, we start up something new.”
Shit. He’d never told me that before; that he was thinking about leaving, too. I wasn’t sure if he really wanted to, or just didn’t want me to go. But I knew this wasn’t easy for him.
If I left, it was kinda like his last connection to Cary and Gabe was going, too.
I shook my head. “Man. If you decide to leave Steel Trap, that’s up to you. But… I gotta do this alone. I want to do something new, on my own. It’s nothing personal.”
It was personal. If it wasn’t, I’d be willing to play in a band with him again. But I’d already been in two bands with Dean Slater as the frontman, and both had ended badly.
I liked Dean. I didn’tlovehim. We weren’t brothers like Cary and I were; like Gabe and I had been. And I was itching for something different. Something fresh.
And no matter how successful Alive had been, no matter how many fans Dean had, he just wasn’t Ashley Player. If I could handpick a lead vocalist out of anyone on Earth—and assuming I couldn’t snag Jared Leto… yeah, I’d take Ashley Player.
And since Ashley Player was asking…
I didn’t mention that to Dean, though.
“You sure, man?” he asked me. “Maybe we could talk to Cary about putting something together. He’s producing. Maybe he’d write with us, play guitar in the studio, and we could have someone else fill in for him on the road…”
“I don’t think so.” Not like I hadn’t thought about it a thousand times. “He won’t go for that.” I reached for the bottle of vodka we’d been sharing. “Pass me a pickle.”
He slid the jar of dills over to me. We had a couple of partly-eaten loaves of bakery bread and a knife on a cutting board on the table between us, which we’d grabbed on the way here. Along with a giant bottle of Stoli. It was a tradition we’d picked up from Gabe, years ago. Pickle, bread, shot of vodka.
Or was it bread, shot of vodka, pickle?
Who the fuck could remember.
I just skipped straight to the vodka, taking a pull from the bottle.
Yeah, bad idea. I dug into the jar and fed myself a pickle chaser.
Then Dylan sauntered into the room, soaked in sweat. He took one look at us kicked back on our couches, the bread and pickles, the bottle of vodka in my hand, and laughed.
“What’s up, brother?” Dean asked.
I glanced over at the big screen on the wall. Zane and Jesse were doing an acoustic number onstage.
“You want to come out there?” Dylan lifted his chin at me. “Zane can introduce you. You can fill in for me on Blackout. I know you know it.”
“Inside-out,” I said, sitting up. I tried to sober up enough to be honored about this. Wasn’t everyday Dylan Cope offered to hand over his drumsticks so you could rock out with Dirty at a concert as his guest.
But…
“I can’t, man. Would love to, but I’m fucking drunk. I don’t play drunk.”
He just smirked at me.
“Trust me,” I said. “You do not want me out there right now.”
