Page 19 of Dirty Chorus

Noah: I’ll buy you a drink.

Charlie: Classy. Is that how you land girls?

Noah: Not quite.

He sends me the address of a random bar nearly fifty minutes away. Not exactly a charming drive, but maybe I need something different to do than moping around in my bedroom.

Brody: Come on Baby I miss you.

Charlie: Stop texting me, I don’t want to see you.

Chapter 13

Noah

“Are you sure you want to finish this tattoo today?” Omen, my lead guitarist and my best friend, asks as black gloves dryly snap across his hands. “We are playing tonight.” He grabs the tattoo gun and shakes away strands of hair falling out of his messy man bun. “You’re seriously risking it.”

“Yep.” I lay back in the chair, inhaling the antiseptic lingering in the air. Ice-cold leather presses against my sweaty back as I stare up at the ceiling.

I’ve gotten tattoos along my rib cage, on my ankles – for Christ’s sake, I already have a full sleeve done by Omen himself. I’m his canvas, and might as well let him tackle my neck. The outline and mild shading have been healing for over three weeks, and the pain wasn’t too bad. Or I’m just forgetting how terrible it was, but now it needs color.

Omen has his own little parlor in the house he rents. There are pictures of tattoos he’s drawn displayed on the walls. He even has a full binder of designs he’s still working on. When we aren’t making music, he’s tattooing someone in this chair to pay bills. He’s making good money. Me, I don’t pay him. I’m just clickbait on his Instagram page.

“If you start bitching tonight, I’m not holding your hand.” Omen’s dark green eyes burn in my soul with those words. There’s a faint fear he’ll find a slipper and beat me with it if I attempt to cancel tonight’s gig.

“Right, I’ll be holding yours when you try and fail to get with another groupie,” I say as Omen adjusts the LED light, and buzzing fills my eardrums. I close my eyes as the needle pokes at my skin.

That indrawn hiss of pain escapes my mouth. I clench my teeth and endure it. It’s like someone was dragging barbed wire across my neck.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re avoiding the demo?” he asks, attentive to his work. “Tony and Vince were pissed you didn’t show the other day.”

“I had some things to deal with.” I fist my hands as the needle digs deeper into my neck.

“Like what?”

Like Gramps having the worst vertigo, and almost falling over the other day in the tub. I took him to the hospital. “I needed some air.”

“Air? Seriously?” Omen’s jaw tightens. The needle sears across my skin, and the aching pain radiates out of the tattoo, down my neck and into my shoulder. “This demo could be our ticket to freedom. With you working your ass off and taking care of your grandpa, we don’t have a lot of time to practice.”

“I know... I just got shit on my mind.” And that’s the main reason I want him to drill the pain into me so I can forget about the thoughts keeping me awake. I didn’t sleep much last night. Or at all this week.

“You’ve gotta talk to us.”

“I’m fine,” I lie.

Smoky Vinyl is about to go bankrupt, and death taunts Gramps. It’s a ticking time bomb inside my skull. The clock is going to reach zero, and if we get signed now and tour, consider us canceled the second I get the call he passed away. Writing music should take my mind off reality, but my dream of screaming into a mic for the rest of my life seems further away than it was before.

“So, I invited a friend to come see us tonight.” The buzzing stops as Omens uses a cloth to wipe my neck of the excess ink and blood.

“A friend? Don’t tell me it’s some chick.”

“Yes, it’s a girl.”

“So, you’re done fucking Tony’s sister.”

“That shouldn’t have happened...”

“Look, we’ve been grinding for years, sacrificing everything, and you’re bringing some girl to fuck? Don’t you think Amy was enough drama.”