“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for that, by the way. I do feel a little better.”
“And you’ll feel like a new man after you get some sleep. You look like hell.”
“If Enrique shows up with me looking like this”—he raked a hand through his hair—“I don’t stand a chance.”
Steve stifled an inward groan and reminded himself that this breakup, which he was sure would become permanent at some point, was fresh. Zach wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“Exactly,” Steve said, heading back to the bedroom for a cleanish shirt. When he returned, Zach was shoveling the remains of the cereal into the garbage disposal. “I’ll see you later this afternoon. Get some sleep while I’m gone. I don’t want to have to put up with a pansy ass when I get home.”
“I’ll try.”
*~*~*
Almost an hour later, Steve turned his Kawasaki into Dare’s driveway, and straddling the bright green fast-as-sin motorcycle, he pressed the intercom button to be let inside the gate.
“Do I know you?” Dare’s voice came through the speaker.
“Depends on if you need a new vacuum cleaner.” Did door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen still exist? Steve wasn’t sure.
“I do, as a matter of fact. I hope it’s ridiculously overpriced.”
The gate rattled open, and Steve revved his engine and took off with a rush of speed and the accompanying adrenaline.
Logan had turned him on to dirt bikes almost a decade ago, but while his friend liked to jump the damned things and jar the shit out of his knees and hips, Steve just liked to go fast, so he’d eventually opted for a street bike and healthier knees. The front tire popped off the ground as he cranked the accelerator. And soon after it touched down, the back tire bounced up as he braked hard and came to a sudden stop at the front door.
“Show-off,” Dare said.
“Just blowing off a little steam.”
“I figured you’d do that on Guitar Island.”
“You mean Dick Island?”
Dare shook his head and turned back into the foyer of his ridiculously huge mansion.
“Where’s your butler today?” Steve asked. He’d always thought it was stupid that Dare had an honest-to-God butler, but Dare did need someone to take care of the ridiculously huge mansion when he was away. Apparently his housekeeper, pool boy, and gardener couldn’t handle the task alone. At least Harold was Dare’s only live-in servant. Steve couldn’t have fit Dare’s hired help inside his house, but he was more than okay with that. Steve also couldn’t fit a car in the small shed he used as a garage, hence, an extra benefit of having a motorcycle.
“He’s on vacation while I’m home.”
Steve crossed the threshold into the crisp, air-conditioned foyer that was all marble and opulent furnishings. He was pretty sure that one painting was an authentic Degas and the chandelier, real crystal.
“Then who wipes your ass after you take a shit?” Steve asked
“That’s why I invited you over.”
“Am I the first one here?” If so, that was weird, because Steve, as usual, was at least ten minutes late, and Max was more punctual than an atomic clock school bell.
“Max has been here for several hours showing me spreadsheets.”
Dare picked a corridor off to the left of the foyer. Steve was used to heading to the right wing of the house where the music studio was located. He knew that the kitchen and entertaining area were straight ahead, but he’d probably been down the left hall only once. He didn’t even remember what rooms were located in this direction.
“Sounds like a blast,” Steve said. “Sorry I missed it.”
“He’s not dealing with this well. Maybe you should consider not tormenting him today.”
But where was the fun in that? “I’ll try to keep my I-told-you-so’s to a minimum.” Mostly because he didn’t want to piss Max off so much he decided to side with Sam no matter what he’d done just so he was in disagreement with Steve. It had been known to happen. “Did Logan make it in?”
“He’s on his way. Jordan sure is earning her paycheck this month. How many flights has she done for you just this weekend?” Dare asked, his passive-aggressive way of telling Steve to knock it the fuck off.
They passed several guest bedrooms on their way down the long hall, footsteps echoing off polished marble.
Steve shrugged. “A few.”
Dare lifted his brows.
“More like six,” Steve admitted. “But it was for a good cause.”
“Your libido?”
For his heart, actually, but he said, “Yep.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. We’re playing at Sed’s reception this weekend, so don’t wander too far from town. We’ll need to rehearse.”
“Sed’s wedding reception? Why the fuck would we do that?” He liked the lead singer of Sinners just fine, but was a little surprised he’d even been invited to the wedding. He didn’t know Sed all that well.
“Trey asked, and I told him we’d do it.”
That explained everything. Trey had his big brother wrapped securely around his little finger.
At the far end of the hall—which was starting to remind Steve of that lengthening hotel hallway from some horror film—Dare slid open a pair of twelve-foot-high wooden pocket doors to reveal a den larger than Steve’s entire house, including the yard. The mahogany woodwork gleamed from floor to thirty-foot ceiling. A balcony ran the perimeter of the room adjacent to shelves stuffed full of books. Steve’s jaw dropped. He would have remembered the gorgeous room if he’d ever been in it. It looked like some library from an exclusive private school. Max sat at an enormous round table in the center of the room. He looked up when they entered, and his hand immediately crumpled the page resting beneath his palm as he made an agitated fist.
Not dealing with it well, was that how Dare had put it? The guy looked like he was about to climb out of his skin and use the discarded casing as a noose.
“Hey,” Steve greeted. There was no way he was goading Max today. Wow.
“Did Logan arrive yet?” Max asked, glancing at the open door behind them.
“He’s on his way,” Dare said. “Should be landing within the next half hour.”
Max looked slightly ill and then beckoned Steve to sit beside him. “I’ll get you up to speed while we wait.”
Steve refused to point out that it would make more sense to wait for Logan and explain everything to them both at the same time, but yeah, whatever Max wanted at the moment was okay with him.
Steve settled into a heavy upholstered chair and tried to pay attention.
“It started off small,” Max said, shuffling through papers until he found the one he was looking for. “The year we signed with the label and were given the opportunity to work with Sam Baily.”
They’d all been excited to work with Sam in the beginning. He’d had good success getting several hair bands in the 80s and grunge bands in the 90s to the top of the charts, but everyone thought that metal was a dying genre. Exodus End had proven the naysayers wrong. Steve had to admit that Sam played a part in their initial success. As a publicity wizard, Sam had helped them get recognized.
“So this was set up so royalties are deposited directly into a common account. After we pay all band expenses, including tours, employees, instruments and equipment, jet fuel”—Max’s sidelong glare said Steve had been using an unfair share of fuel that weekend—“Etc., etc., the remaining money is divided equally between the four of us.”
Steve vaguely remembered deciding that setup was the fair way to handle income. He nodded.
“So here’s the balance sheet for our first year, the numbers we were given—our gross income, deducted expenses, the royalties we were eventually paid.”
“Like a partnership.” It was all coming back to Steve now. Max had fretted about all these details from the beginning, making sure no one got screwed over and that the band was treated like a business. Steve had agreed at the time just to get him to sh
ut up, but now that he was older and wiser, he could see that Max had been looking out for more than just himself by drawing up articles of incorporation. He’d been looking out for all of them.
“Exactly. The auditor ran all the numbers and then ran them again and then again, and this was what he came up with as the figure for reported expenses.”
Max flipped another page in front of him. Steve’s eyes widened. “That’s a ten-thousand-dollar difference.” Exactly ten thousand dollars.
Max snorted. “We’re just getting started. The discrepancy goes up every year.”
“Who controls the expense account?”
“Our manager,” Max said, eyes narrowing.
“Oh.”