"The man has a point," Alex added.
"One kiss. A goodnight kiss. No tongue. No hands under the clothes. That is all. Oh, no splitting the bill. If I'm doing this, it'll be an old-fashioned date."
Alex and Razer nodded.
"Let's make this more interesting," Alex said. "Since you aren't that keen on dating anyway, this shouldn't bother you. How about you agree that you will never date the loser. The one who loses this competition is no longer seen as a man by you."
For some reason, I glanced at Razer when he said that. I didn't want to think of either of them as men. I wanted to think of them as rock merchandise to save this club. But, seriously, they made it difficult some times. I hated to think I wouldn’t be able to hold out but like Chuck said, I had to keep control of this situation.
I shrugged. "Doesn't bother me one way or the other."
A strange look came over Razer’s face like the sun rising over the horizon.
"You're going to do this?" he asked. “You are really going to do this?”
I nodded.
"I'm going to win your love." Razer pumped his fist in the air. "I'm going to win your love with ROCK!”
Chapter 19 VIOLET
IT WAS ALL WELL AND good to come up with this brilliant plan to compete for rock glory, but implementing it was a whole other issue.
Firstly, I had to get both guys together to agree on dates. You'd think I could just pick two random Saturday nights and that would be the end of it, but that was far from the truth of the situation.
Every date I picked was wrong for some reason.
"There's that festival on the waterfront that night," Razer said about the first date I picked. "That's going to drain off some of our crowd."
He'd perched himself on the edge of my desk, pushing some papers aside. I really didn't feel comfortable with that but, when I'd told him to move it, he'd got up and paced the room for a few minutes so I told him to sit back down. Sitting was much preferable to pacing. It was like having a caged animal in my office.
Alex lazed back on the sofa, his heavily booted foot resting on his other knee. He'd not been as vocal against my suggestions as Razer but he was no easier to deal with either.
I'd have preferred to have had this meeting outside my office but they'd both insisted, as though coming to my office would give them access to the inner part of me. Which it would not.
I suggested another date to Razer. That didn't work for him either.
Then, "that's not giving me enough time to get my band together," from Alex. "I've got a bassist and I wanted a few other guys but with just three of us, I think we can do it. It is disadvantaging me, though. My music works best with a more rounded out group."
"Whatever, mate. We're a three-piece so that makes it fair." Razer picked up my stapler and spun it in his hand. I fought the impulse to snatch it off him.
"Well, we can't blow it out too far. People have short attention spans. No one cares about something happening next year. So, you guys go over this calendar until you find something you're both happy with, while I go get a drink."
I handed them the printout I'd made of the roster for the next few months with all the suitable dates highlighted and pushed past Razer to get out the door. I needed a drink and, mostly, I needed no bloody rockers around me.
"They're driving me nuts." I slumped on the bar, cradling my head in my arms. "This is just the beginning too. It's going to be a nightmare. Why the hell did I agree to it?"
Carlie shrugged. She had no idea why I'd really agreed to the arrangement, of course. I hadn't told her what Chuck had said. I didn't want her worrying over her job – and it seemed kinda wrong that I'd had that decision in my hands. It might make her feel a bit weird with me.
"Come on, Vi, you love it. There's not really a downside to this."
"Well, there sure as hell isn't an upside." I grimaced.
“Oh, poor Violet,” she said. “Two hot guys competing for your love. It’s so hard to be you.”
I laughed. When she put it like that, things didn’t seem so bad. I just hated the way this competition had been forced on me.
I finished my drink and went back to my office, praying they'd agreed on dates so we could at least get that out of the way.