Uproar

Chapter 15

Chester

"Man you don't look okay. Ya get beat up?"

I chose to ignore the man in front of me. He had a bass hanging from his shoulders, his fingers tapped away at the black painted body. I was auditioning someone for the band in our recording room. "Don't worry about it," I snapped. 

He shrugged and ran a hand through his bleached, blonde hair. "Man I'm kinda nervous. I've been looking for a band to jam with for a while."

"Don't be nervous. It'll mess you up. Just pretend I'm not here," I told him and I scrolled through some of our finished songs. 

"Oooh let's do 'Esaul'. You practiced this one right?"

"Yep. Practiced all the other ones too." I nod and click on the folder, "Good, you're prepared. I like that." I could literally feel his gaze on my back. Once the song was ready to play, I spun the chair around to face him. "Okay Scott..."

"Kozoil. Not that hard to pronounce." He grins again and my stomach lurches with disgust. God he's too preppy. 

"So how long have you known Brad?"

"Few years. Meet him at UCLA," he plucks at his strings, turning the pegs of his bass to tune it. "Meet Dave there too. Pretty chill dude."

"Yeah," I respond quietly, biting my nail. I spun the chair enough to reach the mouse. "So you ready?"

"Yep."

I clicked play and our song started to blare on the speakers we had around the room. Scott played along his part quite well, he added some of his own stuff in there that actually didn't sound bad. The song ends and I'm nodding my head. "Not bad at all. If it were up to me I'd let you join right now."

"Sweet. So I just go talk to Don right?"

"Yeah he's next door. Just tell him I gave you my okay and he'll take it from there." Scott nods and puts his bass in its stand, switching the amp off before he takes off. I sigh and lean back in the chair, thinking about this week's events. I can't believe all this happened. I felt so numb in the wake of it all. I never thought Mike would go as far as beating the living shit out of me. As for Dave...maybe it was for the best. He needed to be away from all of this nonsense.

This album was already coming to a close. We just needed a whole shit ton of meetings to go to. Meetings with our record company, producers and image consultants.

Then we still had to record a majority of the album. With Dave gone, we didn't have much done.

"He what?" Don asked, leaning forward slightly, arms crossed. 

"Like I said, he couldn't do it," Brad tried again. We all knew Don didn't know about the trouble Mike and I have been going through, but we left it that way.

"He was committed to another band and we thought it'd be better...you know, if he stuck with them while they toured."

"But we need to have everything done by this next month! October is our release date!"

"Don don't worry about it. I have an old friend in Santa Monica. Dave taught him bass back in college so we should be good."

Don sighed and rubbed his jaw, his face looking tired. He glanced at Mike and I and finally nodded.

"We have a meeting tomorrow." I jumped and nearly fell out of the chair. I was already a bit drunk, having a few bottles before coming here, and people walking into the room like a ninja wasn't gonna keep me cool. I turned around and found Rob standing by the door.