HARLEY

T he next couple of weeks melted one into the other. Everything was a blur of nights at the club and hazy mornings. The only thing keeping me out of my rut was Aria. Things in her life had been going well, and I was happy for my friend, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it made me a little jealous.

The one night that I’d asked her to sub for me and she’d managed to live my fucking dream. At first, I thought she was kidding when she said Desolation Sound had been at the club.

“Yeah!” I chuckled when she first told me. “Was it that guitarist again? The one I told you about?” I asked. “I thought he was Ace Novak too, for a minute!”

“Uh… no babe.” Aria had answered. “It actually was them. All of them. You would have died! The lead singer Jax kept me in the private booth for over an hour and he didn’t even want a lap dance!” she laughed. “He just wanted to talk!”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” My voice was shaking, and I knew I was yelling.

“Yeah… sorry, babe. I knew it should have been you there instead of me.” Aria’s face crumpled up into a pity-filled grimace.

“Sugar daddies and fucking shellfish!” I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. “Never again!”

Because of course, one of the few times that I’d asked Aria to sub for me, Desolation Sound -the actual fucking band had shown up at the club! Not a ‘maybe guitarist’ but the actual fucking band. And apparently one of them had been asking for me by my stage name, which means it hadn’t been their first time at the club. I’d wanted to throw myself off a bridge. Instead of meeting my all-time favourite band, I had been puking my guts up. An evening of bad shellfish cooked for me by an old crusty man who wanted more from me than I was willing to give.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but occasionally I’d let my issues get the better of me and I’d do something stupid. Ellison had been a club regular. I always knew he had a thing for me because he’d request private dances for hours on end every time he came in. He was loaded and liked to show it off. After saying no a million times, I finally relented and agreed to see him outside the club. He had me over to his penthouse loft and cooked… shellfish. Fucking disgusting, but he was buttering me up for a sugar baby thing and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Two girls at the club had sugar daddies, and they loved the freedom it gave them. Plus, he was old and lonely and probably for reasons that went back to my childhood; I felt sorry for him. But after that shrimp went down, it wasn’t long before I felt sick. Ultimately, it ended up being the end of everything between us. I puked all over his bathroom, the kitchen, the carpet in the hall. It was awful. He called me a cab pretty quickly that night. Of course, he never returned to the club, and I never saw him again. But that was also how I lost out on officially meeting the band. Two days of vomiting had forced me to beg Aria to sub for me at the club. Though I knew she disliked it, she occasionally helped me when I desperately needed it, though unwillingly. She saved my job that night, but she also caught the eye of Jax Andersson, the lead singer of Desolation Sound. Next thing she knew, he wanted her in his music video. I was insanely jealous of course, but I also knew that for me, it would have just been fun but for Aria, it was a potential career move. And I would never deny my best friend an opportunity like that.

“What do you mean, you’ll think about it?” I barked at her when she told me. It was just like Aria to turn down the opportunity because it didn’t fit in her big lofty goal of dancing backup for her idol, JaylaT.

“But it is a dance job!” I’d protested. “It’s a goddamn music video, you idiot!”

Aria was hesitating and I just couldn’t understand why.

“I know…” she agreed. “It’s just that, but Desolation Sound is a grunge band. It’s not my style, I can’t dance to that kind of music, Harley! I just don’t see how this will fit with my brand. I’m a pop dancer… it’s just not the same thing.”

Sometimes my best friend could really be dense.

“I know hon… but it’s still worth it for the exposure. Even if the style isn’t the same, wouldn’t it look good on your CV? I mean come on now, it’s gotta look better on a CV than dancing nights at the supper club, right?”

Aria chewed on her lips. She knew I was right.

“But like… what would I wear? I’d have to show up at least looking the part, right?”

A high-pitched yell pierced through the room. It was mine.

“I’ll help you dress the part too, okay?” I began excitedly rummaging through my clothing. Grunge was my style, not Aria’s, and I couldn’t wait to dress her up.

“Besides…” I continued, “If you do this, maybe we can score tickets or backstage passes to the next concert!”

Aria rolled her eyes… “Okay Harley, you may have a decent point about it looking good on my resume. But I’m gonna need your help. I have no idea what to wear to this and I want to look the part.”

“It’s a done deal, baby,” I winked. Despite feeling insanely jealous that she soon would be hanging with my favourite band, I was also ridiculously proud of my best friend.