Knife Traded for Love

Chapter 3

Ugh.  I need to go furniture shopping. I need a couple of dressers and a bookshelf. Maybe a stool or two for the counters in the kitchen.

If there’s one thing I love about my apartment it would be the counters. They’re long and I eat at them instead of having a table. It’s another way I saved some money. Maybe I could use a chair for the sitting room. I was pulled out of my day dreaming when I heard something hitting my window.

I peek outside and see Todd standing there with a handful of pebbles. I open the window and say “How cliché Todd. Out of all the things I’ve seen, this isn’t one of those things. Well except in Romeo and Juliet, but that’s different! I refuse to kill myself! What do you need? If you need money, go to the bank! I sure as hell don’t have any.”

“No, I don’t need money! I just woke up this morning thinking ‘I never got the name of that ravishing young girl last night, so I came to find out,” he said, shouting up to me.

I laughed and said, “Veronica. My name is Veronica Levin, you stalker. Hey, I need to go furniture shopping. Do you want to come with me?”

Todd smiles and I noticed he has dimples. Adorable dimples. He says “Sure, but first, I want to bring you somewhere. Can you come down?”

I nod, grab my jacket and purse and lock the door on the way out. I run down and greet him face to face. He grabs my hand and leads me to a car. He says right before we get in, “Before we go in, you have to promise not to kill me when we get out, okay?” I nod a tad bit confused and he opens the door for me and I get in. What I don’t realize until I sit down is that I’m sitting face to face with the band members of Knifes Traded for Love.

I look around and see three guys sitting across from Todd and me. One has black, greasy hair down to his shoulders with tattoos all over his arms. Another has a red, shaggy hair and huge gages. The last one has sand-colored hair and a lip-piercing. They are all staring at me with these little smirks.

“What do you think that you’re looking at? Todd I’m leaving,” I said with a total expression of disgust. I’m sitting across from rock stars and I’m wearing baggy guy sweatpants and a huge t-shirt. Way to prepare me for this one Todd. They might not be my favorite band, but hey, they’re still famous. And I look like a bum. I do admit I could’ve been a little nicer. Talk about bad first impressions.

Todd grabs my hand before I can get out and looks at me with those pleading eyes. I relaxed and sat back. He turned to the guys and said, “You said that people couldn’t come with us on tour. Well this is my girlfriend. I want her to come with us.”

I recoiled from his touch and said to the rest of the band, “I’m sorry, I have to go, I really am sorry. Bye.” I opened the door and ran to my apartment even though I could sense Todd following me. Now, is when I wish I was a fast runner or somewhat coordinated. I fell a few feet away from the door and Todd tried to help me up, but I pushed myself away from him. I yelled at him, “Who do you think you are? I don’t know those guys and you just made a fool of myself in front of them! Your girlfriend? Not even close. In case you don’t remember, we just met. Yesterday.”

“Listen, those guys are always partying when I want to focus on music. We are not big yet but if we party like that, we’ll get famous for all the wrong reasons. I don’t want that! I was hoping if there was a girl on tour with us, they would treat her like a motherly figure. That’s all. But they won’t like that so I had to say you’re my girlfriend. Okay? Please come on tour with us,” he said. God, why does he have to use those eyes to his advantage?

I think it over quickly and come up with a conclusion. I say grudgingly, “Fine, but on a couple of conditions. One, I’m not your girlfriend. Two, I’ve actually been wanting to write an article for some small magazine. It’s basically a Rolling Stones Magazine wannabe. I wanted to write an article for them ever since they said I had potential. I’ll tour with you to write a story on a rock star’s life while he’s not on stage. As long as it’s okay with you guys then that’s what I’ll do.” If he’s telling the truth about his reasoning, then he won’t mind me not being his girlfriend.

He smiled a great smile and said, “Okay, lets go back to the guys. I’ll let you do the talking this time, okay?” Ugh. I need to get over his charm, and fast. At least he was telling the truth about the ‘Motherly Figure’ thing. I nod and follow him back to the car. We climb in and the rest of the guys are acting as if they’re some impatient gods.

I take a deep uneven breath and begin. “Okay, Todd was lying about me being his girlfriend.” I was interrupted then by Gages.

“No shit, we figured that out,” he said with that little smartass smirk. The other two had the exact same expression.

I decided to ignore the interruptions and continued, “I‘m really a writer that wants to go on tour with you guys so I can write a story on what rock stars are doing when the paparazzi isn’t around. Is it okay with you guys if I tour with you?”

Tattoos smiled a huge goofy grin and said, “Hell yeah! By the way, I’m Rick Madison, the drummer. But you probably already knew that right?”

Todd put in his two cents and said, “Actually, she isn’t really a groupie. As a matter of fact she doesn’t really like our band. But I’m sure we will change her mind on tour.”

Lip-pierced guy finally spoke up and said, “Well, that makes it even more fun!” he turns to me and says, “I’m Jesse Allen, the lead singer. Obviously, as you probably already know, Todd is the guitarist. Like Rick said, he’s the drummer, and the guy with the gages is Nicholas D'Agosto, he’s our bassist. As long as you don’t make us eat non-junk food, then you’re welcome to come. Oh, and please don’t PMS on us. We already get enough of that from Blake.”

I nod enthusiastically and say, “Okay when do we leave? A month or two?” I can’t believe it! This is my chance! I’m finally having my writing career taking off!

Rick laughs and says, “You really don’t know anything about this band, do you? We’re leaving in nine days. You’ll probably see Todd before then because he seems to have a thing for you, but we won’t see you until then. If I were you, I’d pack up your bags, get a few notebooks, and plenty of pens and pencils for your book or whatever.”

The upcoming deadline is so soon, which bothers me a bit. Nine days to pick up extra shifts at work for a little extra money. I simply nod my head in agreement and say, “I better go pack and stuff. Um, I’ll see you guys later, it was nice meeting you. Bye.”

I got a chorus of byes from the four and then I got out of the car and walked to the apartment. In nine days I’ll be out of the city for the first time in my life. I can’t get that thought out of my head. I go up the stairs and walk into the apartment and get the money I’ve saved for the past eight months and go shopping. And I can tell you one thing, it’s not furniture shopping.