Warped Tour night, 2003.




It’s only hanging out with the guys from Avenged Sevenfold, nothing fancy. So I figured I would just wear my ripped Van Halen tank, a washed out skinny jeans with combat boots and leather jacket wrapped around me. No fucking make up, just eyeliner to let my small eyes look a little bigger.

When Johnny texted me the address of the bar earlier, dad already crashed on the bed, snoring loudly. Typical dad. He’s out once the clock strikes eleven. So it’s gonna be just me, Joe and a super excited RJ.

“Yeah when it comes down to alcohol, RJ’s the maan!”

I kicked RJ’s butt when he strode pompously in front of me and Joe, opening the bar entrance with both arms. As we went in, my eyes caught glimpse of Matt first, because he’s buff that it’s pretty hard to miss him. Then I realized that there were a group of girls around them, leaning their slender bodies against each member, and their guitarist even had two women in his arms at once.

I looked down to my attire, and then back to the girls. I felt so out of place. They wore tight dresses and heels while I was…this. I looked nowhere near feminine but fuck it all. I’m only here to drink.

“Heyy you made it!” Johnny came towards us and shook both RJ and Joe’s hands. Then he proceeded to give me a hug and from his back I saw Matt’s demeaning eyes were staring at me as his arm wrapped around the same blonde girl I saw at the backstage earlier.

“So let me introduce you to the guys.”

“Uh, you don’t have to Johnny. We already know each other.”

“What? How?”



We finally drew closer to their booth and the guys seemed to finally notice us. Matt got up from his seat, which was a weird thing for me because I’ve never seen him as a gentleman.

“Chain Reaction, three times in a row.” He spoke, I clenched my jaw in anger but nevertheless I gritted my teeth and smiled.

“You’ve got yourself a guitarist, nice.” He smirked and glanced towards Joe. Joe raised his eyebrows at him a little bit. Yeah, blame him, he’s new. He didn’t know that Matt is my sworn enemy here.

“You’ve got yourself some bitches and whores. Nice.” I replied as a comeback. He turned his gaze at me so quickly that I might have winced a little bit. The girls around them shot some sharp glares at me. Sorry girls, this is between me and Matt. No offense.

“Whoaa hey hey. What do you wanna drink, Lzzy? Let me get it for you.” Johnny spoke, breaking the staring contest between us and I smiled at him.

“It’s okay Johnny. There’s no room for us here anyway. We’ll just hang at the bar.”

I dragged RJ and Joe to the bar counter without looking back at them. I can feel Matt’s stare stabbing behind my head but I just ignored it.

“Just order whatever you want. It’s on me.”

“For real sis? Finally!”

RJ whistled up to the bar tender and ordered his list of favorite alcohol while Joe stood beside me, resting his elbows on the counter.

“What’s up with you and them?”

I sat on the stool and played with my phone for a bit before answering him. “Nothing, Joe. Just an old drab between us. They knocked us out three times in a row at Chain Reaction. At the time it was only me and RJ playing. No guitar and no bass. Our songs pretty much piano and drums. So we lost everytime.”

“And they won?”

“Yep. Their music was quite alright, reminded me of Pantera a little bit but that guy,” I peeked over at Matt who was talking to the blonde beside him. “I thought he can’t sing. He just screamed gibberish words that I’m sure nobody understands in the first hearing.”

“Now he proved the other way around.”

“Yeah. Never thought that his voice is actually-” Wait. Who am I kidding? Why is this conversation leading up to complimenting him?

“DUCK!” both of us flinched and staggered to find the tall drummer guy from Avenged was standing behind us with his index finger pointed at me. Joe and I exchanged glances. What is this weirdo wants now?

“Okay, co-operate here please. When I say a word, you have to reply with the first thing that comes to your mind okay? DUCK!”

“Uh, I don’t wanna play this game..”

“DUCK!!”

I glared at him. He glared at me back. Wow. Usually people would back out from seeing my glare but this guy widened his blue eyes and stared at me even harder.

“Fine. Face?”

“Hmm. BEER!”

“Wine.”

“Wow, you’re like Johnny. DRUMS!”

“RJ.”

“Aww, not me?”

“Not you sweetheart. Sorry.”

“Okay. MATT!”

“Hot-”

Uh….shit. I bit my tongue quickly as the tall guy dropped open his mouth in a wide grin. I don’t think he’s hot! Please! Well, he does have a nice toned body and big beefy muscular arms that look so inviting and felt safe once you’ve wrapped yourself in them, his rough appearance softened with his honey colored eyes and a set of deep dimples on both of his cheeks but whatever. I don’t think he’s hot.

“You’re sooo caughttt!!” he yelled and ran towards his friends, leaving me speechless here. Fuck! I hope he won’t tell Matt about it. I’ll be so fucking embarrassed if he did.

“Wow, you think Matt is hot?”

“Shut up RJ. Where’s my beer?”

~*.*~

“Sweetie, get up.”

I groaned and stretched my body. My palm accidentally hit hard on something beside me and I fluttered opened my eyes. It was RJ’s face. But yet he still snored like nothing had happened. I glanced at my left; dad was fully dressed and he was standing beside my bed that I shared with RJ. Don’t flip shit, I’ve been sharing bed with my little brother since I was a kid.

“Dad?”

“Wake up honey. Go get a shower and get dressed. We have a meeting downstairs.”

“Hmm? Meeting? With who?”

“A man named Larry called me earlier. Said he wants to sit down and discuss something with us. He can’t be long though. He has to be somewhere by this afternoon.”

I nodded and yawned. Once I got up from the bed I saw Joe was lying next to RJ and only with his boxers. My God, how much we drank last night that Joe can’t find his own bed?

As dad and I decided that only the two of us would meet this person named Larry – because RJ is always so hard to wake up and Joe was having a major hangover – we entered the hotel’s café and guess what was the first thing I saw.

“Morning guys.”

What? Dad?! How can you greet them so casually when you don’t even..?

“Hey Roger.”

What?! Matt knew him? Am I missing something here?

“Lzzy.” Matt nodded curtly at me and I saw his lips quirked up in a crooked smile. My mind quickly flashed back to last night. Boy, did my face turn red like hell remembering my little game with that tall lanky drummer. Speak of the devil;

“Hey Lizzaardd!”

I have a nickname now? “Hey…tall guy that I never catch your name before.”

“Oh come on. Now that hurts. You only remember Matt’s name but you don’t remember the rest of us?”

I saw Matt walked past me and this guy while holding his plate of buffeted breakfast as his eyes sneered at me.

“I remember Johnny. And plus, you guys were never friendly with us. So I don’t think I should ever try to-”

“Lzzy!”

I heard dad was calling me and I’ll be damned. He was sitting among all the guys from Avenged Sevenfold in a long combined table. Why, God? Why?

I pushed the tall guy aside softly and took a seat next to dad. “What’s up?”

“Morning to you too. I’m Larry Jacobson, president of the World Audience. Lzzy, is it?”

“Yeah, I’m Lzzy. You’re a president of what, again?”

“World Audience. Basically a management agency for artists like your band and Avenged Sevenfold.”

I looked around at them who were quietly eating their breakfast, without the girls from last night. This time it was just the five of them. Johnny saw me looking over and smiled. I smiled back and turned to Larry again.

“So you’re saying..?”

“I have a few things to offer.” He brought out a transparent file from his side and took out a piece of paper before handing it to me. I read;

“A management contract with World Audience for two years.” He spoke, explaining the content of the paper.

“If you agreed to sign it, we’ll arrange festival shows for Halestorm and the nearest right now is Millennium, where the keynote speaker is David Ellefson.”

“Holy shit.” I gasped. Well, now who would be in their right mind to miss this opportunity of performing in front of a band member of Megadeth huh?

“Hey, Larry, how come you didn’t arrange us awesome shit like that?” the guitarist of Avenged spoke, his lazy eyes mulled over to us but covered with most of his long wet after shower hair.

“You guys already met Metallica, Gates. That wasn’t awesome enough?”

“Mother of – Metallica?! Seriously?” oh God I can’t turn off my obsessive fan mode whenever I heard the names of my favorite bands.

The guitarist whom I guessed his name is ‘Gates’ smiled at me. Wow. He can smile? I thought he only gave birth to cocky attitude and arrogant smirks!

“Why, you’re a fan?” said the other guitarist who sat next to him while buttering his bread.

“Uh, yeah. Who isn’t?”

He laughed and nodded. Wow, these guys aren’t bad at all! I was so ecstatic that I didn’t notice the look on dad’s face; he looked worried.

“So, I take it you agree?”

I glanced up to dad next to me. “Um, dad?”

“Excuse us for a moment.” Dad got up and pulled my hand, bringing me to the breakfast buffet – pretending to pick up plates and putting some food on it.

“What’s wrong dad?”

“I don’t really trust that guy.”

“Who? Larry?”

“Yeah, he looks like a swindler.”

“Really? I think he looks nice.”

“Look, Lzzy. What you need is a record deal. Not another opening act show or one time festival thing. What happens if he ran out of shows for you guys? You guys can’t just perform around without an aim because people might forget you. And plus, you need to write some new material. We’ve been playing the same song from that EP for a year.”

I looked down to my own empty plate. “But daad, it’s David Ellefson! Fucking Megadeth! And those boys had a record deal, they even met Metallica! Maybe Larry will get us a record deal after this?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. I hope so. If you’re gonna go ahead with this, I’d say it’s your risk. But I’ll support you fully with it.”

I smiled and hugged my dad tightly. I don’t care if the guys see me as weird because I love my dad for everything.

Notes

A/N: sorry for being disappointing but no, matt didn't make a move on her :/