Wild Devil Ch. 02

It's been a long time coming...I've had a lot of people ask if I plan to continue this series or not and it took me a while to figure out if I really wanted to. So, I figure we'll give it a second chapter and see how that plays out. If things go well enough for this one, I'll keep it going from there. If not?

Well, let's just hope that it goes well.

Enjoy!

Whiskey-

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The next four days were some of the best days of my entire short life...spending so much time with my favorite band, practicing with Laura, Tori, and Chris every day for our upcoming shows together...

it was a dream come true.

The few songs that I had never played by Wild Devil, Laura made sure to spend extra time going over with me so that I would nail each one of them as good as I did the ones that I already knew.

Liz and me had expected to spend those four days in a hotel room, but Laura and Tori had no intention of letting things play out that way. We wound up staying at their house, which honestly was convenient anyway.

As hard as I worked my ass off during practice, I was still a nervous fucking wreck when the day finally came for the acoustic show in Jacksonville. I felt like nothing could have possibly prepared me, even though I was confident enough that I knew all of the songs on the setlist. It wasn't really whether or not I knew the songs well enough though, that was bothering me...it was the nagging question of whether or not people were going to be as impressed with my skills as Laura and the rest of the band seemed to be.

There was no backing out though.

No way that Liz would let me change my mind about this, and she wouldn't have to push me anyway. I might have been a nervous wreck, but I was determined to follow through and make this work.

The night of that first show, we rolled up outside of the venue in Jacksonville. It was a large sports bar that had bands play on weekends, usually local bands only so it was a pretty big deal that they were having a band like Wild Devil play this particular

weekend.

As soon as we arrived, I was shocked to see how full the parking lot was. The doors hadn't opened just yet and the line was from the front of the building to the end of the lot near the streets. Just seeing how many people there were was enough to push my anxiety into overdrive.

We got inside the club and checked in with the manager before we started unloading the trailer and rolling all of our equipment inside and setting up the stage. It took us about an hour to do and then we spent about half an hour, doing soundcheck before we all stepped outback to just chill for a little while until it was time to start the show.

"You nervous?" Chris asked as he handed me a cigarette.

"Ha, that's probably an understatement," I replied honestly.

"You'll do good kid," Chris chuckled. "Totally normal to feel that way. You have played a gig before though, right?"

"Yeah. I've been on stage a few times with different bands. I'm not the type to get stage fright or anything like that, I think uh...it's just because this time around I'm playing with my favorite fucking band."

We both laughed at that and Chris nodded in understanding as he took a drag from his cigarette. "As I said," he spoke after a few seconds. "I got no doubt, you're gonna knock this shit out of the park. The fans are gonna love you, man."

"You think so?"

Chris smirked, nodding and giving me a thumbs-up before throwing his cigarette aside and starting back into the club. I hoped he was right, for my own sake.

I followed him back inside after a few moments and when I did, Laura and Tori both came over to me and Laura hooked her arm under mine and smiled wide. "Hey there lover boy," she said in a sexy voice.

"You look pretty damn tense!"

"Uh, yeah...just got the jitters is all," I chuckled.

"What you need, is a couple of drinks," said Tori.

"Come on!"

I wasn't going to argue that.

I let Laura and Tori lead me up towards the bar and they ordered me a double shot of Jack Daniels and a beer. The doors for the club still hadn't opened just yet, there was about another half an hour before that would happen so we had the bar to ourselves for now.

I chugged my beer and wound up taking another two shots with Tori, laughing and joking around with each other, as we enjoyed the last few minutes leading up to the doors opening.

By the time the fans started flooding into the club, I was feeling a bit more relaxed. The combination of the few shots I had taken and the laughs I'd had with Tori and Laura, had helped me feel more at ease. There was one thing I needed before the show got started though.

I needed to see my sister.

I hadn't seen her since we first got to the venue though, which had me just a little bit concerned. Where the hell was she? I called her cell phone a few times, but she didn't answer which only made me even more nervous. Had she bailed for some reason? That didn't make any sense.

It wasn't like either of us knew our way around the area since we weren't even from Florida. I knew that Liz wouldn't just walk out and start wandering around without somebody to make sure she didn't get lost.

More than that, I knew she wouldn't bail on me in a moment like this. The biggest and most important moment of my entire damn life.

Only ten more minutes before the show was set to start.

The fans were crowded around the stage and they were quite rowdy from the looks of it. People were talking amongst themselves, laughing and shouting over each other as music from the same genre as Wild Devil played over the speaker system to keep everyone entertained while they waited.

Finally, just when I was sure I wouldn't get to see Liz before the show started...

"Guess who!" Someone said, as they covered my eyes from

behind and I jumped with surprise at first. I recognized the voice though and knew it was my sister, and I sighed with relief as I grabbed her hands and pulled them from my face.

"There you are," I said, turning around to give her a playful shove.

"Fuck, where were you, dude...I thought you bailed or some shit!"

"No way," she laughed. "I was hanging out with Chris. We just took a walk to the gas station across the street to grab some smokes and snacks."

I nodded, relieved that she was here now and I felt my stomach twisting into knots as the anxiety started slowly creeping up on me again. I wanted to say something but I couldn't form the words...luckily, my big sister knew me well and she seemed to know by the look on my face that I was low-key having a panic attack.

"Hey," she said, grabbing me by the shoulders and squeezing them.

"You're gonna be fine," she said trying to reassure me.

"I-I don't know," I said nervously. "What if they fucking hate me, dude. I seriously want this to work out, but if it doesn't go well...w-what if Laura and the others change their minds?"

Liz sighed, rolling her eyes at my question and giving me a hard shake. "That's not going to happen," she said loudly.

"You got this little brother, I promise...understand me?"

I took a deep breath, holding it in for a few seconds, and then exhaled slowly as I nodded my head in response. Suddenly, the lights began to dim in the venue and all the people in the crowd started cheering, indicating that the show was about to start.

Liz looked over towards the stage and then quickly looked back at me, giving my shoulders another firm squeeze. "Go knock em' dead, Alex!"

I smiled, nodding my head as Liz let me go and I started running up towards the side of the stage. I met Laura, Tori, and Chris at the bottom of the steps and after checking to make sure that I was good to go, Laura gave me a smack on the ass and pushed me up the stairs ahead of her.

We took the stage, me, Laura and Tori grabbing our acoustic equipment and sitting down on the bar stools that had been set up for us.

Chris took his spot behind the drum kit, and after a few seconds of strumming on her acoustic guitar to make sure it was tuned correctly, Laura glanced over at me and smirked before looking over at her sister and then back towards Chris. Then taking the lead, she looked out towards the crowd and leaned in towards her microphone.

"Good evening Jacksonville," she said, in a low husky voice.

She reached up with one hand, tucking a strand of dark brown hair out of her face as the audience started screaming and chanting "Wild Devil" over and over again.

"Are you ready to fucking rock and roll!?"

The screams grew even louder and I felt my stomach flip before Chris gave a brief drum roll and the show began.

With thunderous applause, everyone started singing along as we kicked the show off with "Heart Attack" quite an interesting song to play acoustically, considering it was such a heavy and fast song when played on electric.

I had to admit though, it was fun playing it acoustically.

By the third song in, everyone was jumping up and down like it was a normal show played plugged in, and singing along to every word that Laura sang into the microphone. We stopped after that third song ended for a few minutes, Laura taking a breath as she looked over at me again and then reached over to pat me on the shoulders.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she called into the mic.

"I'd like to introduce you all to a very good friend of ours...this guy's name is Alex. We met him and his sister, Lizzy, in Philadelphia, about six months ago. He's one hell of a guitar player, don't you think?"

To my surprise, the crowd erupted into yet another applause and I felt my cheeks flush red and my heart skip a beat or two. Words can't express the feeling of adrenalin I got, hearing everyone shout out to me, cheering for me, and clapping their hands as Laura gave me a quick high five.

"I'm sure you're all wondering about Mark," she said, looking back out towards the audience. "We'll explain time but for right now, all you need to know is that Marky boy is a fucking douchebag. You can take that however you want."

There were a few laughs from the crowd, and I chuckled a bit myself though I had to admit it was a bit harsh of Laura to put it so bluntly. Then again, Laura had never been one to bite her tongue or hold back what she felt about somebody.

"Mark's a thing of the past," Tori said into her microphone now.

"Wild Devil lives on without him!"

More cheering erupted and I scanned the crowd for a moment for my sister. When I finally spotted her, we locked eyes and I couldn't believe the fucking smile on her face as she seemed to clap louder than anyone in the audience.

I could tell how proud she was of me.

Laura continued. "So, Alex here is a huge fan of Wild Devil and that's of course how we came to meet him in Philly. Isn't that right, Alex?"

I held my breath nervously, a huge grin painted across my face before leaning in towards my microphone. "A huge fan is an understatement," I laughed into the mic.

"I'd fucking die for Wild Devil!"

Everyone clapped.

"Well said," Laura laughed. "Alright, you fucking Devils...anybody feel like hearing a few cover songs tonight?"

Judging by the sounds of the crowd, I gathered that they were all totally fine with that idea as I had figured they would be and I prepped my guitar, tuning it for the next song on the setlist.

"I get off on you" was originally done by the band Halestorm, and one of my personal favorites from them, too. We hadn't spent much time practicing this one but I didn't need to practice it.

I already knew how to play it and it was a hell of a fun song to play.

We nailed the cover and then followed up with yet another, this one being "Heaven Knows" by the band Pretty Reckless.

Of course, we weren't going to spend the entire show just playing covers of other bands. We did one more after that, a cover of "Have a drink on me" by AC/DC, and then led straight into playing our songs again.

It was a fifteen-song setlist and we played for about an hour, taking a twenty-minute break in between so that the crowd could hit the bathrooms if they wanted and we could grab a few drinks and have a smoke outside. To be honest, though, I spent the whole twenty minutes feeling amped and ready to get back up on stage and finish the rest of the show.

I could have played straight through, from start to finish without a break if the band had wanted.

By the end of the night, the crowd was sweaty and exhausted. Quite a few drunken fans were stumbling about and things had gotten kind of rowdy, but all in all, it had been one hell of a fucking show. And the fact that everyone seemed so impressed with me, was a huge boost for my self-confidence.

I had no doubt the following two shows were going to be just as great, if not better.

Especially, since those two shows would be played plugged in...the band would be playing at its full power and I knew that was my REAL chance to win the hearts of the fanbase.

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When it was finished, we all stepped out into the parking lot behind the building again to get some fresh air.

It had started raining at some point during the night, and the cool breeze felt great after spending all that time on stage sweating my ass off under the lights, surrounded by all that electronic equipment. A lot of the fans had made their way outside too and approached us, some of them drunk and slurring their words, others drunk with joy and excitement.

It was a feeling that I knew all too well, from the hundreds of shows I had gone to myself over the years.

Except now, I was on the other side of the looking glass.

I shook hands with total strangers and yet somehow, I felt like I had known some of them for years. Like we were family like we were the best of friends and somehow I suspected that the feeling was mutual.

A lot of people congratulated me on my opportunity to play with one of the greatest bands in the world and made sure to let me know that I had done a great job that night. I lost count of how many people told me they were looking forward to seeing where the band would go in the future with me onboard.

It was like everyone had already forgotten about Mark. I felt like I had been part of Wild Devil since the start, and I couldn't have been more ecstatic by the time the crowd started clearing away.

That's when Liz found her way outside and rushed straight towards me, without warning.

I turned around just in time to see her jumping into the air and she came down on me, throwing her arms around me and laughing with joy.

"Way to fucking go little brother! I told you, you could do it!"

I laughed with her, hugging her back and as she pulled back I could see tears of pride running down her cheeks. "Don't be such a dweeb," I teased her.

"A dweeb? The only dweeb around here is you!"

She gave me a playful shove and I laughed, as Laura came up behind me and smacked me on the ass taking me by surprise. I spun around to face her and she reached up, rustling my hair with one hand and then embracing me.

"You were fucking amazing," she whispered in my ear and I

blushed.

I hugged her back. Breathing in her scent, I groaned softly as I felt my cock harden in my pants and hoped she wouldn't take notice.

Not that it mattered.

We had already hooked up twice at this point, and I was pretty damn sure we would do it again many times.

"I probably should have told you upfront," Laura said with a start.

"But we're hitting the road towards North Carolina straight away. We've got a pretty big day in Greensboro."

Laura explained that there would be an interview with a local radio station in Greensboro, where the band planned to officially announce Mark's departure and my taking his place. That was a bit of a shock to me since it pretty much implied that the band had already decided, I was officially on board.

Not that I was complaining.

There would also be a press conference right after the interview, discussing some light details on what had happened with Mark, how the band met and decided to get me involved and what they had planned for the future.

With everything on the agenda, it seemed reasonable that we were heading out right away. We would have to get up and started early in the morning, starting with the interview at that radio station. "No partying then huh?" Liz asked jokingly.

"Oh trust me," Tori smirked. "There will be plenty of partying after the next two shows. There's just not much time to have fun tonight is all."

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The ride from Jacksonville Florida to Greensboro North Carolina was about a six-hour drive. We made the trip in a small four-seat white van, with a trailer hooked to the back carrying all of our equipment and merch. Chris was behind the steering wheel with Tori in the front passenger seat and me and Liz stretched out in the very back of the van.

Side by side we lay, and it didn't take long for the both of us to pass out from exhaustion. Laura sat in the seat in front of us and leaned back over it, getting a good look at the both of us and smiling for a moment before she turned around in her seat and stretched out to try and get some rest herself.

We rolled into Greensboro around seven-thirty in the morning and Chris dropped me, Tori, and Laura directly at the radio station for the interview. With Liz along for the ride, he took the van and drove to the hotel where we would be staying that night to get us checked in and planned to meet us back at the radio station in an hour.

It felt so strange to be on the radio, for the first time in my life...yet another thing that I never dreamed I would be doing. The DJ seemed to know all about the show we'd done the night before in Florida and congratulated us and me, especially on an "impressive" performance in his words.

Laura covered a little bit of what happened to lead to Mark's departure but didn't want to go too far into details. She promised that there would be more information later, during the press conference.

Later wouldn't have to wait too long, either.

The interview at the radio station was only about an hour long and when Chris picked us up, we drove directly to the conference even though it wasn't set to start for about another hour.

By about two in the afternoon, we had made it to the venue.

Our crew met us at the venue and almost as soon as we pulled up, they started unloading the trailer, moving all of our equipment and merch inside, and setting up the stage. There was a pretty comfortable lounge area in the basement of the venue, where we were all directed to sit and relax until it was time for the soundcheck.

As soon as we got downstairs, Tori was breaking into one of the cases of beer that the crew had picked up for the band and sighing with relief as she took a nice long swig.

"Five o'clock somewhere," she smirked, as she chugged half of the beer.

We sat and drank for the next few hours, eventually going on stage for soundcheck around four-thirty and by five we were back downstairs drinking some more. Liz was hitting the bottle, but then again so were Tori, me, and Laura.

The opening band took the stage at seven-thirty, and there were two other bands that would follow up before we came out at nine-thirty. When it came to be our time, I found myself twice as nervous as I had been the night before.

The crowd tonight was even bigger than it had been in

Jacksonville, but that was probably because the venue was a lot bigger too. From what Tori told me, this show had completely sold out weeks ago before Mark even quit the band.

I took a few more shots as we geared up to kick the show off, trying to calm my nerves and when the lights finally went down, we all took our positions on the stage and braced ourselves. Since this show, much like the next one, wasn't being done acoustically we had a slightly longer setlist.