dirty little secret // ashton irwin fanfic

chapter one

I grabbed the mic, smiling out at the crowd. "And that's what this loser can do!" I sang, finishing out our final song. West, our drummer, finished with his drum solo and threw his drumsticks into the crowd of about three hundred or so people, and they cheered. Our bassist, Jamie, smiled at me as he gestured toward the crowed. He was amazed that they were cheering this loud, as was I. This was one of the bigger gigs we'd played, and we were happy with the positive reaction from the crowd. I approached the mic again, smiling even bigger.

"Thank you guys so much!" I yelled. "You really rock hard here in Los Angeles." The crowed cheered harder, and I laughed. "Make sure to stop by our little merch setup thingy..."

"Thingy?" Jamie questioned, and we both laughed. "Is that the scientific term?"

"Oh shut up," I told him, still laughing. "Anyway, thanks so much, we love you!" And with that the lights dimmed and that was the cue for us to exit. A few stage crew members came onstage to help us with our equipment, so I unplugged my electric guitar as someone took the cord. I walked across the stage to Jamie, who was still smiling from our show.

"Dude, did you see how excited they were about our songs?" He gushed, running his hands through his jet black hair. He dyed it often to keep it that color, as it went with his 'hardcore' personality. I just thought it looked good on him with his paler skin tone. "That was sick! They sang along to our covers... that was literally the best crowd ever. We have to get to Los Angeles more often." He shook his head, looking back toward the crowd, which was beginning to disperse.

"Yeah, it was pretty awesome," I sighed, looking out at the crowd with him. "I wish all our shows were as good as this one. When we make it big, we'll play shows like this all the time. Bigger and better, even. Stadiums full of people singing our songs."

"If," Jamie said, turning to me.

"What?"

"If we make it big," he states, matter-of-factly. "It's not a for sure thing that one day we'll make it big like Green Day or Fall Out Boy. Maybe we'll keep playing shows like this."

"Come on, you and I both know we could make it," I scoff, looking backstage at our manager, Claire, who was motioning towards us. I glanced back at West, who was still taking apart his drums. "I'll be right back," I told Jamie and started walking towards her, taking my guitar off and handing it to a waiting stage crew member.

"Jess!" She squealed, grabbing my hands and jumping up and down like a maniac. "You will never believe who came up to me after the show!"

"Um, Micheal Jackson?" I asked, utterly confused at why she was so excited. Claire had been my friend for a very, very long time and I don't remember a time when she was ever this excited. The last time I remember her getting even close to this excited was when her parents finally got her a smartphone, but that was nothing compared to this.

"No you idiot!" she screamed, letting go of my hands and twirling around, hitting West and they both tumbled to the floor, him dropping the snare he was carrying out to the van. It clattered to the floor as Claire tumbled on top of him, her head landing in his gut and the back of his head hitting the floor with a loud thud.

"Claire, what the hell?" West exclaimed, rubbing his head and wincing.

Claire quickly lifted herself off of him, blushing furiously. Claire has had a crush on West since we formed the band. With his shaggy blonde hair and big blue eyes, basically any girl who laid eyes on him instantly had a crush on the kid. But at this point, Claire was pretty much in love. West, Jamie and I had early on decided that music was the most important part of our lives right now, so we had decided not to date as a band. So sadly, Claire was out of luck.