Book three in my Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series! In this excerpt, Skye and her band have a living room practice, trying to keep their feet on the ground with the rising success of their band, The Dynamite Chicks.

You can find the Skye Wright series here. This is an ongoing series with book four, Nobody’s Hero, coming out later this year!

     Skye and Miranda got out of the car and looked towards the gray clouds coming in from the bay.
     “Rain,” said Skye.
     “Naw. It ain’t gonna rain.”
     Miranda whipped her waist-length ponytail behind her as she leaned into the car to grab her bass case.
     Annie opened the door as they approached her small white house.
     “Hey, I can only afford one hooker at a time!” called out the thin Annie from under her mane of unruly black hair.
     “Bullshit,” said Skye. “You makin’ enough money for an Annie sandwich!”
     “Come in quick before the cats get out.”
     Annie’s home had been their original hangout, where they talked Miranda into being the bass player for the Dynamite Chicks. It was also where they would gather to write songs and have impromptu practices before they went viral, when they were still just a club band.
     “Don’t mind the big orange lump on the couch,” said Annie as they walked in.
     “Do you mean your boyfriend or the cat?” asked Skye.
     “Both. They just meld into one giant lump.”
     Annie’s boyfriend Braze was sitting on the couch, his bright orange hair sticking straight up. He had their big orange cat Bubba sitting in his lap.
     “Hey Braze,” said Skye as Bubba jumped off of his lap and ran up to Skye.
     “Bubba misses you,” said Braze as he sunk into the couch.
     Bubba rubbed himself against Skye’s legs as he meowed. Skye picked him up.
     “It’s gonna be hard to play with that cat in your arms,” said Miranda.
     “I’ll just sing.”
     “Then the cat will run away!” smiled Annie.
     Annie picked up some papers and showed Miranda her ideas for new songs. Skye kept holding onto the large orange cat as she marveled at the difference between the gaunt and somewhat short Annie and the six foot tall busty bombshell Miranda.
     They both had long black hair, as did Skye, but Miranda’s wavy hair went all the way down to her waist, and unless she was in a pit at a punk show or playing on stage it almost always looked nice and well managed. Annie’s hair was frizzy and unkempt, parts of it starting to knot up and dread, almost never looking well managed.
     They all sat down around the living room, cradling their instruments and looking over new song notes.
     Miranda took a moment to check her smartphone. “Why the fuck is Goth Butt Revenge doing so well?”
     “Fuck if I know,” replied Skye.
     “We’re gonna have to play it for every show now,” moaned Annie.
     “I woulda thought Speed Freak Weekend would be bigger,” said Miranda as she stared intently at her iPhone. “Or maybe Barbecue the Rich.”
     “We already gotta play Atomic Bomb Betty every time. Now we’re gonna have to do Goth Butt for every show too.”
     “Is it because we have Goth Butt in the title?” asked Miranda as she leaned back on the couch.
     “Fuck it,” said Skye and she picked up her song sheets. “New music!”
     “So what are we workin’ on?” asked Annie.
     Skye looked at her phone where she had written down their newest songs on her note app. “I think we should work on Tit Punch, and Molly’s new song Strap On Boyfriend.”
     “I got a few new tunes,” said Annie as she shuffled through her notes. “Pit Injury is the one I really want to try out.”
     Miranda shook her head. “What’s Tandasil gonna say about all of these new songs?”
     Annie and Skye looked at each other.
     “She’ll probably just roll her eyes,” said Skye. “You know, do her manager thing.”
     Miranda looked down at her bass. “Tandasil is a trip. I wonder where the hell she came from.”
     Miranda plucked out an unplugged bass line while Annie scrunched herself into the easy chair with her guitar. Skye brought in a chair from the kitchen. They ran through a few songs and laughed their way through the new material when they took turns trying to sing like Molly.
     After a few hours of playing there was a knock on the door. Braze quickly walked in and answered the door. He had ordered two large pizzas, much to their delight.
     “One of those pizzas is for me!“ said Miranda as she set aside her bass.
     “Fuckin a’,” said Skye, “thanks for the pizza.”
     “Sure thing,” said Braze as he took the food into the kitchen.
     “So Braze,” asked Miranda as she picked out a few slices, “how come you’re not in a band?”
     Braze shrugged as he chewed on a cheese slice. “I dunno. I guess I just haven’t gotten around to looking for a new gig.”
     “Hey, I think Sparky’s band is lookin’ for a bass player,” said Skye through a mouthful of pizza.
     “Yeah?”
     “You should try out for them,” said Annie.
     “Yeah, get in on a band,” said Miranda between bites. “If they don’t work out there’s at least a hundred other bands lookin’ for bass players.”
     “That’s true,” said Braze as he nodded.
     “What I want to know is,” asked Skye as she sprinkled copious amounts of red pepper flakes on her pizza slices, “is what you gonna do without Annie for six weeks.”
     “Yeah babe, whatcha gonna do while I’m on the road?” asked Annie.
     Braze tilted his head as he waved his pizza slice around for emphasis. “Oh you know, take up the whole bed, herd the cats, bring out the blow up girlfriend and probably cry myself to sleep every night.”
     Annie walked up to Braze and put her arms around him. “I’m only slightly jealous of the blow up girlfriend.”
     “Weren’t you seeing her behind his back?” asked Miranda.
     “Shh! He doesn’t know about me and Charlene yet!”
     Miranda and Annie took their pizza into the living room as Skye kept drowning her slices in red pepper flakes.
     “So Skye,” asked Braze as he loaded up his plate with fresh pizza, “why you guys workin’ on songs here? You got that kick ass studio over in the city. You can just wander in and out.”
     “Well, it’s like we just don’t wanna get jaded. You know, fancy studios and high-tech recording sessions. We wanna keep it real. We need to kick it in a livin’ room once in awhile an’ work it out together, without all the glitz.”
     Braze nodded. “Sure, I get it.”
     “Besides, this is the place where I got the idea to reform the band. You know, back to the roots, me an’ Annie.”
     “Sure.”
     Skye hoisted her plate and pointed herself in the direction of the living room. “So why ain’t you comin’ around on the tour? Preston is gonna meet us partways so he and Miranda can have some time together.”
     “Well, I gotta keep workin’. We gots some expenses.”
     Skye stopped in her tracks. “Expenses?”
     Braze tossed his head towards the living room. Skye and Braze walked into the living room and found places on the couch.
     Braze nodded at Annie who was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table.
     Annie put down her plate of pizza. “I just wanna let you all know, me an’ Braze got something goin’ on here.”
     “What’s that?”
     Annie could not help a wide smile. “We’re buying this house.”
     Skye looked at Annie with wide-eyed surprise. “No shit? For real? That’s fuckin’ amazing!”
     “I talked to the landlord and convinced her to sell us this place. Can you believe it? I’m actually going to own a house!”
     “That’s a trip. I never thought in all my years that I would actually be in a position to buy a house.”
     “You should think about it. Look into getting a place.”
     Skye bobbed her head around. “I kinda just dropped a bundle on somethin’.”
     “You did?”
     “Yeah. For a friend.”
     Annie’s face dropped. “Oh. You mean Maria.”
     “Yep.”
     Annie put a hand on Skye’s shoulder. “You should look into it. Find a place. With the money we’re making it can happen.”
     “Yeah.”
     Skye’s skin bristled. She thought about her last place before she got the apartments above the storage company, where she lived with all of her cats, the cats she inherited from her neighbor after her neighbor Jolene had passed on.
     She had been happy when she lived at that place. She had been content. She was paying for everything with what she thought was a solid and steady job.
     And in a flash it had all been taken away, falling completely apart with the loss of her job. And it all happened in such a short time.
     The thought of trying to sink herself into owning a house made her skin tighten.
She held in a shudder.