The Bad Boy Next Door: Lance & Chastity (21 page)

This time, our passion is intense. We fight each other silently, him pinning me on the mattress, me struggling against his powerful thrusting. But in the end I succumb, overwhelmed, overtaken, invaded. We come together, come hard, our bodies clenching one another, hissing, biting, burning, consumed by our fire.

After we shower and dress together, he mutters, “You hungry?”

“Are you gonna cook me breakfast?”

“My fridge is empty. I’ll take you to breakfast.” He slaps my khaki covered butt. “Now get moving! Long day, remember?”

“I need to go home and change. I can’t go out in my Marble Slab uniform.”

“You ready to face your mom?”

I wince. “Not even.”

“So let’s go. Nobody’ll care about your outfit where we’re going.”

“Okay, but in that case, I really need to wash my bra.” I give it a quick rinse in the bathroom sink. Luckily, Lance has a hair dryer which I use to blow dry my bra. When I’m finally dressed, I ask, “Where are we going? You still haven’t told me.”

“It’s a surprise. Trust me.”

“It better be a good one,” I pout.

We walk into the garage and Lance hits the button on the garage door opener and morning light washes over the two motorcycles.

I ask, “Should we be worried about your dad?”

“I can only babysit him so much.” It pains him to say it.

“Sure. Are we taking the Gixxer?”

He grins. “You remembered.”

“Yup. When are you going to teach me how to ride?”

“You really wanna learn?”

I shrug. “Maybe. But after my breakfast surprise. I’m counting on you to make it good.”

He grins and we put our helmets on. He rolls the motorcycle out of the garage and hits the door button before running out under the closing door, reminding me of Indiana Jones, except Lance has no hat to snatch from under the door before it slams shut.

We climb on the bike.

Right as Lance starts the engine, Mom comes running down our driveway, yelling. “Where have you been?!” She stops short at the low hedges between the two yards. “I waited up all night for you! I called the police! I called the hospitals! Charity was worried sick! She couldn’t sleep!”

All of the peacefulness of my morning is burned away by Mom and by guilt. I’m speechless. I don’t want to do this right now.

She continues, “Mr. Molton called and apologized and offered you your job back. He said you didn’t answer your phone all night. Lord knows I tried calling you dozens of times! What happened, Chastity?!”

I lean my helmeted head against Lance’s back.

“Chastity? Look at me!”

I roll my eyes before looking at her. “Can we talk later?”

“What?”

I holler through the helmet, “Tell Charity I’m fine. I’ll call Mr. Molton later.” If he really offered me my job back, that would be terrif. But I wasn’t on the schedule until Wednesday anyway. Mr. Molton can wait. At least until I get away from Mom.

“You get off that motorcycle right now, young lady! You have gone too far this time! You have—”

VROOM!

Lance revs the engine loudly, drowning out Mom.

I giggle to myself.

“—If you don’t get off that—“
VROOM!
“—I swear I’ll—”
VROOM! VROOM!

Mom is red in the face but she finally stops yelling.

“Are you done?” Lance asks her.

Mom’s face knots and she shouts, “No, I’m not—”

VROOM! VROOM! VROOM!

I almost lose it laughing as Lance rides the motorcycle into the street and we drive off.

++++8++++

CHASTITY

Morning traffic on the 101 heading toward downtown is stop and go. It takes forever. At one point we’re stopped so long I joke that I’m going to hop off his motorcycle and walk, not that I know where we’re going. I don’t.

When we’re moving again, we take the off-ramp for the 110, then exit on 8th. We have breakfast at this really cool retro diner downtown called The Original Pantry Cafe. Historic photos of LA and old signs cover the walls. The place is packed, so we sit at the counter on stools and watch the guys frying the hash browns and flipping the pancakes. Lance pays because I don’t have any money.

After, we ride his motorcycle to the Fashion District a few blocks away, stopping on a side street in front of an old brick building sandwiched between warehouses. He swings off the motorcycle and punches in a code on a keypad next to a small rolling steel garage door tagged with graffiti. The motor raises the door and we drive inside. The garage is small. It holds two parked cars and has just enough room for Lance’s motorcycle and that’s it.

“Where are we?” I ask, pulling my helmet off.

“My office.”

“Your what?”

“My office. My workplace. Where I do my job.”

What the fluff?
“I thought you didn’t have a job?”

“Not really. But it pays the bills.”

Now I’m all kinds of surprised.

Lance has a secret life.

We walk through an interior steel door into a really cool room. High ceiling. Exposed arched beams. Skylights. Graphic screen print posters in vibrant fluorescent colors line the brick walls. In one corner stands a clothing rack and a glass display case full of blingy knickknacks. In another corner there’s a lounge area with couches and a coffee table covered in magazines. Beside it is an air hockey table and a bunch of skateboards on hooks hanging from the brick wall. At the far end of the room is a wall of computers and monitors and speakers.

Two guys sit in front of the computers with their backs to us.

“Hey, guys,” Lance says to them. “I got someone I want you to meet.”

The guy on the right surrounded by stereo speakers turns around first. He has long dark hair past his chin and a trim beard. He’s very attractive, but a bit skinny for my taste. His gray button down shirt is open over a white tank top. A gold medallion hangs around his neck. The rolled up cuffs on his skinny jeans stop at sockless ankles that dive into dress shoes. Leave it to a hipster to not wear socks with blue suede shoes. He leans forward in his chair and we shake hands. “Hey. I’m Micah,” he says softly.

“Hi. Chaz.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Yeah, definitely cute. I try not to blush.

Lance says, “The nerd with no social skills is Beaver. But he’s too busy to say hello.”

“Hold on,” Beaver says, his back still to us. His voice is thin and reedy and a little bit annoying. “I need to set this to render so I can go home.” Make that a lot annoying. He clicks away frantically with his mouse in one hand while the fingers of his other fly over the keyboard. He finally spins around, looking completely disoriented. He has a puffy hair helmet, over-sized eyeglasses, and an 8-bit Atari T-shirt.

Lance asks, “Have you been here all night, Beaver?”

“Yeah. What are we doing?” His head volleys between me and Lance. After eight volleys he finally stops and stares at me. His eyes light up behind his glasses. “Hey! Who are you?” He jumps up from his chair and scissors his legs in the air before firing his arm at me to shake. His hand is warm and damp. He practically shakes my arm off.

“Easy, Beaver,” Lance warns. “Don’t break her arm.”

I smirk, “I’m not fragile.”

“Of course not,” Beaver says. He turns my wrist and uses his other hand to pet the backs of my knuckles. He is super weird.

“Hands, Beaver. You only need one to shake.”

Beaver’s petting hand suddenly recoils like it just got burned.

Make that super duper weird.

“He’s tired,” Lance mutters. “He works vampire hours. Anyway. Guys, I don’t want either one of you even thinking about putting the moves on Chaz. Especially you, Beaver.” Lance points a warning finger at him.

I don’t think Lance’ll have to worry about Beaver. Ew.

Beaver scoffs. “Pfft. Are you kidding? She probably doesn’t even know what Missile Command is.” He pins his eyes on me hopefully, “You don’t know what Missile Command is, do you?”

“No, sorry.”

“Figures.” Clearly, my Missile Command ignorance puts me out of the running for Beaver’s affections.

Darn.

“I know how you are with the ladies, Beaver.” Lance chuckles, “So keep your missile in your pants and your hands on your controller where it belongs.”

“You mean my joystick?” Beaver snarls comically while grabbing his crotch and squeezing it while jack-rabbiting his hips up and down.

Lance laughs, “Fucking Beaver.”

“I’m always fucking beaver,” Beaver snivels, still thrusting at the air.

I grimace.

“Down, boy,” Lance warns. “You’re offending the lady.”

Beaver rolls his eyes. There’s a beep from the Mac behind him. He spins in his chair and grabs the mouse, instantly busy.

Lance must’ve been joking about Beaver. There’s no way a guy like him has any luck with the ladies with behavior like that. Lance should be more worried about a guy like Micah. Not that I’m interested.

“Let’s go into my office,” Lance suggests.

“Nice meeting you,” Micah says.

“Yeah. Likewise,” I smile.

Lance’s office is up a metal flight of stairs in a loft above the back half of the building. We walk through a glass door that closes behind us. A sizable A-frame skylight floods the office with natural light. A sliding window behind the big desk looks out over downstairs. Behind me, a wood framed glass door reveals a small outdoor patio dotted with potted plants.

Lance walks around the desk and sits in the executive chair in front of the sliding window. “Have a seat.”

I drop into one of the chairs facing his desk. “Is his name really Beaver?”

“No. Bradley Wilson. Beaver is his scene name.” Lance grabs a messed up Rubik’s Cube off the desk and starts fiddling with it. He also puts his feet up. The boss gets to do whatever he wants.

“Scene name?”

“Music scene.” Lance flicks the Rubik’s cube with practiced skill.

“Oh. Um, do Micah and Beaver work for you?”

“Yup. Micah is my sound guy and Beaver is my video guy.”

“Are you in the music business or something?”

“Yup.”

“Really? What do you do?”

He points at the huge silk-screened banner hung from the brick wall behind him.

I read it out loud. “The three pee-aitch-four-tomb?”

“The Phantom.”

I look at it again. TH3 PH4NTüM. “Oh! I get it! The numbers are vowels.”

He fires a finger gun at me. “Smart.”

“Who’s the Phantom?”

“You don’t follow EDM, do you.”

“You mean electronic dance music? Not really. I mean, I listen to it sometimes, but I don’t know any of the DJs or anything. So, who’s the Phantom? Are you his manager or something?”

“Nope. He’s me.” He sets the Rubik’s Cube on the desk, all the colors lined up.

“Did you just solve that?!”

“I’m full of surprises.”

“Wait. Back up. What were you just saying about this Phantom guy?”

“I’m him. He’s me.”

“Oh. Oh, wait. I’m supposed to be impressed, aren’t I? You’ve sold like a million records and you’re famous and you’ve won Grammies and I’ve never heard of you, right?” I groan, feeling stupid and sheltered because of my weird Mom.

“No. But I’m working on it,” he winks.

I feel much less dumb. “But you’re seriously a DJ?”

He clicks around on the laptop on his desk for a minute then turns it around. A YouTube video plays in the browser.

The title reads TH3 PH4NTüM - Strapped & Capped. It’s a synthy dance song with a hard-driving beat and a slurring baby voice that is completely catchy and nothing but nonsense. I like it immediately. The video shows a montage of different live outdoor raves crowded with audiences full of young people bouncing and waving glow sticks in the air. A guy with his shirt off and an incredible body that I immediately suspect is Lance stands at the DJ table twisting knobs and dancing in place. I can’t say for sure it’s Lance because he’s wearing a shiny silver mask. “Is that you?”

He nods.

I watch as the video cuts back and forth between him and the crowd. He’s either rocking along with the music, dancing on top of the DJ table, or waving his hands in the air while shouting into the mic to pump up the crowd.

“Wow, this song is really good, Lance,” I smile. That’s when I notice it has over two million views.

“Thanks,” he says humbly.

“You are famous.”

He rolls his eyes. “Not really.”

“Does your music pay for all this?” I motion around the building.

He nods. “Yeah. Download royalties from iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, internet ads for the YouTube videos, live gigs, all that shit.”

“That makes you the most famous person I’ve ever met. You’re a frickin’ rockstar, Lance! And you’re my next door neighbor! Why the heck are you living in our dumpy neighborhood?”

“I needed to put my Dad someplace plain. No ties to his life back in Vegas.” The way he says it hints at hidden pain and immense frustration.

I know enough to not ask more. I smile and look around the office. “It looks like you’re doing just fine to me,” I say encouragingly. “I mean, you’ve got your own office building! And employees! How awesome is that?”

“I lease this place and Micah and Beaver are freelance. I only pay them when I have something for them to do.”

“What are they working on now?”

“Micah is mixing my latest track and Beaver is putting together an animatic for the video.”

“An ani-what?”

“Animatic. Animated storyboards.”

“And those are…”

“A bunch of drawings timed out to the music track to show investors what the video’ll be when I shoot it.”

“Investors?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a big idea for the new video that I can’t afford out of pocket. It’s pretty damn spectacular. But if I can get an angel investor to drop me some serious coin, I can shoot it exactly the way I envision it.”

“Wow, that sounds amazing.”

“Hopefully. You need a good track to put you on the map, but you need a killer video to launch your career into the majors. Without a video, your track won’t go nowhere. But my man Skrillex—-”

“You know Skrillex?” I definitely have heard of him.

“His studio is downtown near here. I met him at a gig last year when Strapped & Capped hit a million views. Anyway, he took me on tour with him in Europe this spring for twenty-eight dates. I’ve got a lot of juice right now, but if I don’t drop a hit video in the next few months, I could lose it and be back to where I was last year.”