Carpe Noctem

*~* Brian Haner Jr. *~*

We all were on our way to meet up with Harper at the Irishman as she requested. I was the first to show but I'm sure the other guys were gonna show in no time. I walked straight to the bar, which was being tended by Chuck.

"Hey Bri, long time no see." He snorted with a light laugh and popped open a Bud Light for me.

"What's up dude? I'm actually here for a business meeting. The rest of the guys should be here shortly. We're looking for a girl, probably business looking, her name is Harper." I explained taking a swig from my beer.

"Oh Jesus, you're meeting with Harper Wesson? You lucky sons o' bitches. She's one of those chicks I wouldn't kick out of bed for leaving bread crumbs." Chuck seethed with a shake of his head.

"Is she platinum blonde but with the pearl essence look to her hair?" I asked, very scared of the answer.

"Oh yeah. Just, don't even try. She is Chris Evans' most recent ex. She dates high profile celebs but is married to her work." The bar tender I've known for years now was so informative.

"Last thing I need is a chick that can't make time for a guy she's dating and I'm not about to follow up Captain America. Fuck that." I chuckled and gave him an air toast.

"She's in the corner. Good luck not getting hung up on her." Chuck laughed and went to cleaning the bar.

I looked around the bar and saw the blond that was sitting in the corner by the giant window. Her hair hanging in soft waves meeting her rib cage, makeup was matte nude eyeshadow with thin eyeliner and mascara making her lashing totally luscious and if she batted them at me, I would give her whatever she wanted.

"Miss Wesson?" I questioned as I approached the table.

"Oh god, that's my mother," She giggled and stood to her feet which she had on four inch nude pumps, still having her meet below my chin, "Call me Harper or any variation you can think of." She smiled brightly through her natural colored lip.

"Brian." I stuck my hand out but couldn't help looking her up and down as she took my hand.

Harper was in a pair of black skinny jeans and a white v-neck with a brown heather colored Admiral jacket with only one button done. A gold octopus hung from her neck, stopping at the shelf of tits she had. It was glorious. She's a busy girl with nice hips and a nice ass, I like that....a little too much.

"Have a seat, will the other guys be joining us shortly?" She asked with a bright smile as she threw her hair up in a messy bun but still managed to look sexy and professional. What the ass...

"Yes, they were pretty much right behind me." I smiled and watched as she took a drink from her glass, looked like straight whiskey.

"Excellent. Well, I'm sure we can get started and just catch the guys up. What are the ideas you guys are throwing around?" She asked.

"Well we wanna do like an ancient Egyptian masquerade bu--"

"Whoa. Stop there Gates," Harper let out a nervous chuckle, "It's one or the other. Those are two very, very different themes. I haven't heard anything about the album honestly so is it a concept album or just a "these are our feelings" album?" She questioned.

"No concept just us doing our thing." I muttered, feelings totally rejected.

"Alright. Masquerade ball would be fun but I would really like to portray you guys as these powerful musical gods." She grinned and waggled her eyebrows.

Sign me the fuck up Harper.

"Care to elaborate?" I smirked and pulled my sunglasses off. Right as I did that the rest of the guys walked in and sat down next to me and Harper. They got through the introductions and caught them up.

"So no on the Egyptian masquerade?" Zack pouted.

"No. I'm definitely thinking Egyptian but I've done a million masquerade balls and that's not your guys' style. You're better than a silly masquerade ball. Like I was telling Brian, I wanna portray you all as the powerful musical gods you are. I like the idea and with July being the release month, I wanna keep it in town, on the beach so we have the sand to play on and the ocean as our Nile River." Harper smiled widely at each of us.

"Did you seriously just come up with all that off the top of your head while rejecting our idea but then turning it around into something brilliant?" Matt asked.

"Your phrasing is a little confusing but yes." Harp smirked and looked to me, sort of eyeing me...Like she wanted me. Her bright, piercing green eyes had a predatory gaze that I was not ready for but I liked it a lot.

"Well we trust you completely. What do you need from us?" I questioned.

"This is probably gonna sound more offense than I mean for it too but I need you guys to beef up. Like you're about to audition to be Thor..." She looked between all of us, her eye twitching slightly.

"Deal. That's really all you need from us?" Zack nodded then cocked his eyebrow.

"Yeah, between me and my assistants, we can handle the rest." Harper smiled then reached into her laptop bag handing each of us a single sheet of paper to sign after writing something down real quick.

"What are these?" Johnny questioned, not really willing to sign anything.

Shit, for how hot this chick is, I'm willing to sign a fucking marriage license.

"These aren't contracts, they aren't binding. It's just an agreement for my services. If you're unhappy with the end result, you get every dime back. This has the amount to be paid by the end of the album release party. I require twenty-five percent upfront for cost. After getting an idea of what we're doing, I wrote down the cost, as a whole not for each of you, down here." She pointed at the dollar amount which was just shy of a quarter of a million dollars. My heart jumped a bit when I saw it but this is what we wanted. Basically that was a little over fifteen G's for each of us up front.

"We are putting all our faith in you. Now can we do the fun stuff?" I asked with a chuckle.

"Of course." Harper smiled and pulled out a sketch book starting to draw up some killer ideas.

By the end of the night, Zack and Johnny had gone home while Matt and I continued to brainstorm with Harper.

"I'm thinking we have these ancient Egyptian styled cabanas with these fancy pitchers of wine, beer and the bar can handle mix drinks. Everyone that you guys want there will need an invitation on wardrobe because with a theme party, they have to dress up or no entry." Harper explained, sipping at what was probably her eleventh whiskey of the day. How in the fuck is she not totally hammered?

"That's totally fair. Are you gonna dress up though?" Matt was slightly slurring now. It was actually sort of funny. He doesn't get tanked too often so when he does, it's kind of hilarious.

"Of course, I'll blend in, taking notes in my head and making sure everyone is having a good time and whoever isn't can leave cause it isn't about them, it's about the new Avenged Sevenfold record." Harp smirked and looked over at me again for the thousandth time this evening, giving me that same predatory gaze only...I noticed she was giving Matt the same look. Interesting, the plot thickens.

We finished up out meeting with Harper and exchanged information with her then we were off. Matt rode home with me to stay in my guest room since he was fucking blitzed. When we got into my car I let out a deep sigh.

"I know dude, she's fantastic." Matt grumbled and leaned his head back.

"Yeah, I just wanna know how she was pretty much fucking sober." I shook my head.

"Oh, Chuck said that after glass four, it was just unsweetened iced tea. I asked while you were taking a leak." Matt smiled and waggled his eyebrows.

"That makes sense," I chuckled, "I'm super excited about the album release now. She seems like she has a vision and I trust her."

"Me too, hit the gym with me tomorrow? We're gonna have to work out like four hours a day to get as bulky as she's asking." Matt sort of whined.

"That's fine. I'll do it to get her to stare at me harder." I chuckled jokingly.

"Dude, she was straight up undressing us with her eyes all night. I almost asked you if we should've Eiffel Tower-ed her." He laughed fucking hard.

"I probably would've agreed." I snorted and by that time we arrived to my house and were getting inside. I got Matt settled in and then headed to bed myself. My head hit the pillow and just before I fell asleep, my mind wandered briefly to Harper.

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