Page 29 of Crimson Desires
“We didn’t do anything,” I insisted.
“Since when are you shy about this kind of shit, Jack?” Zephyr asked.
Growing up as an only child, I’d always wanted brothers. With Wicked Crimson, it felt like I had four of them. This came with positives and negatives.
Positive: our bond was invaluable to me. I knew that I could trust any of the guys with my life.
Negative: they tended to act like irritating me was a competitive sport.
To be fair, I’d known Axel and Damien since I was a teenager. We’d gone to the same private middle school together. Before I’d made it big as a pop star, we’d had a Nu-Metal garage band called No Eternity.
My music career put a gap (both physically and emotionally) between the three of us for a few years. But after I decided to pivot into rock, they were the first two guys I called to join Wicked Crimson.
At first, we wanted to be a trio. But we soon realized that the sound we wanted for Wicked Crimson required more than just a vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and drummer. We held auditions for lead guitarists—and we managed to find a handful of talented musicians—but none of them stuck out. We were so discouraged, we decided to get wasted at a bar... and inadvertently ran into Zephyr.
Zephyr was a broke musician trying to make it big in LA playing dive bars and small house shows. He was green to the music industry, but a prodigy on the axe. His energy and musicianship were unlike anything I’d ever seen. And most importantly, he got along well with the rest of us.
We didn’t meet Ava and Kane until our first recording session.
My dad was hounding us to produce our first single. Problem was, we didn’t have a bassist. Thankfully, the producer we’d scheduled with, Ava, knew a close friend who was willing to play bass for us during the studio session. That friend was Kane—the ex-bassist for a disbanded rock group called Allegory. Kane was supposed to be a temporary fill-in.
Except we gelled so well with him that we asked him to be our permanent bassist.
For the past year, we’d been working together to make Wicked Crimson a reality. We’d had our ups and downs like any band might, but at the end of the day, we had each other’s backs.
Axel, Damien, Zephyr, Kane, and Ava were my family. Plain and simple.
And like family, they knew better than anyone how to piss me off.
“If I’d fucked Aster, I’d be bragging about it,” I said definitively. “Unfortunately, Aster is the most confusing woman that I’ve ever met.”
“How’s that?” Axel asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll be talking and having a good time together and shit, and then out of nowhere, she’ll shut down and get all defensive. Like, one second, we’re kissing, and the next, she’s telling me to fuck off and calling me an entitled dickhead.”
“Oh,” Damien said, his expression relaxing. “Well, you can act pretty entitled.”
“And you’re usually a dickhead,” Axel added.
“Very helpful, guys. I’m glad we talked this out.” I rolled my eyes.
Kane leaned forward, taking a sip of coffee from his favorite faded Eagles mug. “Jack, don’t tell me you don’t see the problem here.”
“Enlighten me,” I said.
“Aster comes from a different world than you do. She didn’t grow up with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth.”
“So, what? She’s jealous?”
“More like she’s afraid.” Kane stretched out in his seat. I think Kane always felt most at ease when he was doling out wisdom to us. Had he not been a musician, he would’ve made for a great life coach or therapist.
Sometimes, I got the suspicion that Kane focused so much of his energy on helping us because it distracted him from the problems in his own life.
“Let’s say you two get together. What would be the ideal scenario in that case?”
I shrugged. “Ideally, I’d want a relationship with her. Like, a real relationship.”
Admitting that out loud made my stomach flip. I’ve never been a player like Zephyr; however, I’d also never thought of myself as a romantic. But for Aster? I could see myself getting used to the idea of commitment.