Free Road Rash by Mark Huntley Parsons Page B

agency.”
    Wow.
    “Yeah,” Brad added. “There just aren’t enough good-money gigs around here, but if we tour, we can play four or five nights a week all summer.”
    “So … when are you going? And when are you getting back?”
    “We leave tomorrow, get back sometime in October,” Danny said matter-of-factly.
    “Uh, but … there’s no way I can …” I looked at the others—they were all trying not to laugh. Except Danny. He had a poker face on.
    “You’ll have to get used to Danny,” Jamie said. “That’s his idea of humor.”
    He looked at me, palms up. “Hey, bro—just joshin’.”
    I grinned. “No problem … you had me going there for a second.” I turned back to Brad. “So, when
are
we leaving?”
    “We’re outta here the week after next and returning late August,” he said. “Does that sound doable?”
    Okay, on the one hand, I could stay around Los Robles all summer and scramble for a job making french fries. On the other, I could get paid to play music and see the country. Boy,
that
was a tough one.
    I nodded, trying to sound calm. “That sounds like something I could swing.”
    “Cool,” Brad said with a nod. “We’ve got a little shakedown gig next weekend at Paisano’s. Do you think you could make it here a couple of times during the week so we could rehearse?”
    “Sure. Could you get me a set list ahead of time? That’d make things easier.”
    “How about a live recording from a month ago, pretty much all four sets?”
    Man, that was about as helpful as it gets. “Perfect. So, where are we going?”
    “Mostly the Rockies. We open in Bozeman, Montana, in twelve days.”

    “No,” my mom said.
    “What do you mean, no?”
    “What don’t you understand about
no
?” my dad said. “
No
means negative. As in no-how, no-way, ain’t-a-gonna-happen.”
    God, he could be so annoying. “I
know
what the wordmeans!” I shot back. “What I don’t understand is why you’re saying it. You don’t even know the details yet.”
    “I know enough,” my mom said. “I know you want to go traipsing across the country in a van or a bus or something with a bunch of older kids you don’t even really know. What else do I need to know?”
    “There’s a
lot
more you should want to know before you make a decision like that.” I glared at them. “But you know what? I don’t even want to talk to you about it—you guys are way too close-minded right now.…” I turned and left. They called me back, but I ignored them and went up to my room.
    I sat on my bed, totally pissed. I mean, is it that freakin’ hard to just
listen
for once before jumping to conclusions? Don’t answer that.…
    In the middle of thinking all this, my phone rang. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone right then, but it could be Glenn. Or maybe Kimber. I looked. Kyle. What the hell did
he
want?
    “Hey, what’s up?” I said, not real friendly.
    “Not too much. How about you?”
    Well, I got the best job offer of my life, but it just got shot down
. I didn’t
even
want to go there right now. Especially with him. “Same-same.”
    Then I just waited. After all, he’d called me, right?
    He finally cleared his throat. “Well … You remember ‘No Life to Live’ …?”
    “Duh.” That was one of our original tunes. I’d helped write the damn thing—it had some wicked off-beat sections that Kyle and I had come up with.
    “Uh, do you think you could still play it?”
    “Of course.” Where was this going?
    “Well, um …” I could hear him take in a breath, then let it out. “Look. We’re trying to do some recording, and Josh is having a hard time really nailing some of the songs. And I was wondering … actually,
we
were wondering … if maybe … well, if you could help us track some of the tunes?”
    The word of the day for today was definitely
wow
. “So you want me back in the band, then?”
    “Well … you could play on a lot of the tracks. You’d get a credit on the