Chapter 1

There Is No Cure for Awesome

I wasn’t one to brag, but I had a good life. Screw that. I was one to brag and I was going to do it as often and as loudly as I could, because I had the greatest fucking life in all the history of great lives. Not many people could boast like I could boast. Not many people were in the most successful band in the world. Just me. Oh, and my bandmates. I guess. Whatever.

And in thirteen days, eighteen hours, thirty-two minutes, I was going to be on the road again. The summer tour for the D-Bags’ second number-one album was coming up fast, and I was itching to get started. I’d waited in the background long enough, been playing an instrument that had been assigned to me long enough. This tour, everything was going to change. It was my time to play lead guitar, my moment to shine in the spotlight. I was going to rule that fucking stage, and no one was going to stop me.

When I first joined the D-Bags a few years ago, I had been under the completely logical assumption that once my overall awesomeness was known, I would replace my cousin as the lead guitarist; I’d even told the guys as much when we’d officially formed the band. And even though Matt had agreed with me, telling me, “Whatever you say, Griffin,” the band had yet to give me a shot at being the musical star. They’d shoved me in the bassist position and then left me there. I belonged front and center—lead guitarist was practically tattooed on my forehead! All the guys knew it, and whenever I brought up the fact that Matt and I should switch instruments, they blew off my request with ridiculous comments like, “Matt has more talent.” Whatever. My left nut had more talent than Matt; he wished he was as awesome as me. The guys were all just worried that they’d be forgotten if I was really given a chance to shine. Well, fuck that. I didn’t plan on staying in the shadows for long. Nobody put the Hulk in the corner. Nobody.

Thankfully, I had been blessed with panty-dropping good looks, a smoking physique, more sexual know-how than an A-list hooker, and more talent in my pinkie finger than most possessed in their entire bodies. I was a lucky son of a bitch too, and things had a way of working out for me. I guess I had good karma or some shit, because even bad situations ended up being fucktastic. Take my childhood. When my mom found out she was pregnant with me, we lived in Wichita. Yep. I was almost born in fucking Kansas. Kansas! But my dad lost his job and we had to move in with his brother, so I ended up being squeezed out in the Land of Spotlights—Los Angeles. Straight out of the womb, I’d been destined for greatness.

Even at a young age, being a rock star had appealed to me—I dressed up as Gene Simmons for six Halloweens in a row. I think it was the idea of millions of people screaming my name, crying when they saw me, idolizing me. The thought of being put on a pedestal was intoxicating. Who wouldn’t want that? Plus, what profession, outside of porn and prostitution, guaranteed you all the sex you could handle? None that I could think of.

But I supposed Matt was the real reason for my career choice. We’d lived together for the first eight years of our lives, then we’d lived on the same street, then we’d moved out together. Even though we drove each other crazy more often than not, we were almost always around each other. There was no one I liked making fun of more than Matt. And for as long as I could remember, Matt had been obsessed with music. Like, unhealthily obsessed. On-the-verge-of-needing-an-intervention obsessed.

When we were preteens, he used to say shit like, “Music is life,” and “Everything else is just background noise.” I think crap like that was why Matt had been a virgin until he was nineteen. And a half. He’d devoted his entire young life to music, but what he’d failed to realize was that music was just a means to an end. From the beginning of time, music was only designed to do one thing—get people laid. Sex was life…literally…and everything else was just background noise. After Matt’s first time, I think he started to understand that fact. He’d certainly eased off on the “Music fuels the world” comments.

Unlike me, Matt hadn’t really planned on being a rock star though. He’d thought it was a pipe dream, but I’d known it was inevitable. All we had to do was wait for the right moment. Wait for fate to find us. And it had.

After high school, I’d kept my options open. It used to drive my parents crazy that I hadn’t done anything productive after I graduated—by the skin of my teeth. I’d sort of ambled around for a couple years like a lost degenerate. That’s what my sister said anyway, but I’d known what I was doing. Timing was everything, and I couldn’t take the risk of being stuck at some lame-ass job when fate came knocking on my door. It wasn’t laziness, it was preparedness. I needed to be free, to be one with the winds of change, or some poetic shit like that. I had to be ready. And it was a good thing I was too, because if I’d had commitments I couldn’t get out of, Matt and I never would have been able to form a band with Kellan and Evan.

We met them at a strip club. It wasn’t often that I could get my cousin to go out for a little bump and grind with me, but after a few shots at the bar, I could have talked Matt into anything. Fucking lightweight. Matt, as always, was completely uncomfortable being around mostly naked girls. Because I cared about his personal growth, and because it was hilarious to watch him turn bright red, I did what I could to help him with the girls. We were kicked out of the club twenty minutes later. It wasn’t my fault though. I mean, how was I supposed to know that bringing a pogo stick up on stage was frowned upon? In my humble opinion, I thought I was improving the show.