I walked in the building where we were having our emergency meeting with a purposeful, sexy stride, a slight smirk on my lips for any passing admirers, a pair of cool extra dark shades and a monumental hangover. My name is Ashley Davies. Please feel free to swoon.
I walked straight past the receptionist who I knew was staring at me and so I nodded my head briefly in acknowledge and my smirk grew when I saw her face turn an impressive shade of crimson.
"Charles! How's it dangling my friend? Low I hope!" I said with a cheeky grin as I walked into the conference room to see my manager, Charles and the rest of my band i.e. Kyle, Jeremy and Brandon all waiting for me. This was usually the routine for these meetings, I'd stroll in about twenty minutes late, help myself to some coffee (which was what I was doing now) and then sit down and sleep behind my glasses until he'd stopped warbling on about our 'bad image'.
But today Charles didn't seem to be having any of it. As soon as I sat down his eyes zoned in on me and he leaned over to rip my glasses off of my faces. I would have stopped him with my mad cat like reflexes and been all 'Wax on, wax off mother trucker!' but I was already half asleep. Shame.
"Hey! What'd you do that for?" I asked instead. Not as good I know, but it'll have to do for now.
"I did that Ashley, because this meeting is deadly serious and I don't want you sleeping through like you do every other meeting. You guys are in big trouble and unless we make some drastic changes then the labels gonna drop you all."
Okay, that was definitely not what I wanted this early on a Monday morning. I wasn't really fussed about the whole label droppage situation but what were these drastic changes he was going to make. This meeting did sound semi serious so I started rummaging in my bag.
"Ashley, what are you doing?" Charles asked while the guys all craned their necks to see what I was getting out of my back.
"Well you said that this meeting was serious so I'm preparing for some major thinking." I told him, finding what I needed and turning around with my best serious expression. The guys suddenly started cracking up and Charles looked at me like I was insane. I just looked back at them confused; I thought this was supposed to be serious. What were they doing guffawing like apes?
"Ashley, is that a fake beard?" Charles asked as though he'd never seen one before.
"What, this old thing?" I asked, gesturing to the long brown beard hanging from my chin. "Why it most certainly is, it helps me think."
He just looked at me uncertainly for a second before shaking his head.
"Whatever. So as I was saying, this meeting is as serious as a heart attack and I want you to pay close attention to what I'm saying because it affects all of you as a band. Now I don't know if you know what has got our record label so worked up but if you'll look at the front page today's newspaper you'll see that – Ashley, will you stop caressing your artificial facial hair!" he yelled, making me pause mid beard stroke.
"Sorry Charles, it helps me concentrate." I told him before proceeding to twirl it around my finger and give a slight tug before repeating the action. Ahh… soothing!
"Give it here." Charles demanded, holding his hand out for the beard. My beard.
"What? You can't be serious!" I said before seeing that he was and handing it over with the most impressive pout you will ever witness. I am sooo annoyed right now!
"Alright, as I was saying. The headline of today's newspaper reads: 'Addicted Soul's Ashley Davies says 'Pot is Hot'.' Ashley, care to explain how this comment came about? Please explain to me why you are supporting illegal drugs on the cover of the National Paper."
"Okay, first of all that was taken completely out of context. Secondly, what really happened was I was sat with these guys who were smoking pot and one of them put their arm around me and burnt me on the arm with the spliff by accident. Hence the comment that 'Pot is Hot'. Thirdly, you know I don't touch that crap Charles so don't play the disappointed card with me." I told him getting seriously wound up. I mean, first he takes my glasses and beard from me and now this. Where's the respect?
"I know that you don't Ashley. But you do touch alcohol. A lot. And that's what's got us into this mess to begin with. And another thing, you sleep with to many girls Ashley. It's always in the papers and you need to calm it down a bit. You're getting a bad reputation." Now, that wasn't offending at all.
"What do you mean? I do not! And what about everyone else? It's not just me who does stuff." I defended.
"Ashley, how many people have you slept with this week?"
"One." I stated proudly. See, I do not sleep around.
"Ashley, it's 9 o'clock on Monday morning. That means that you've slept with someone in the past 9 hours. That isn't good."
"Well it wasn't my fault that the girl I brought home last night wanted some lovin'." I told him grinding in my seat and grinning at the hollering coming from my guys.
"That isn't good enough. From now on we have to change our image. It's all well and good to sing about sex and drugs, but when it comes to real life if you get a bad reputation parents aren't gonna want their children listening to your music and record labels aren't gonna want to sign you. So, we have something that should change all of that and whether you like it or not it's happening." He told us sternly making us look at each other and gulp. I had a feeling that I wasn't gonna like this.
"What is it? I mean, your not gonna kick one of us out, are you?" Brandon asked glancing at me worriedly.
"No, the exact opposite actually." He said, straightening his tie. Wait, what?
"You mean…" Jeremy asked with recognition dawning on his face.
"Yep. Your new band member will be here shortly. There plane should have landed about an hour ago."
"Oh. My. God! This is so cool!" Kyle yelled looking around at us with a grin on his face. Everyone else's faces seemed to match his as they started talking excitedly about who it could be. I, on the other hand, was furious.
"Wait!" I yelled, cutting through their girly chatter. "Why are you so happy? This guys gonna ruin everything. You don't even know who it is! They could be some fame hungry animal! Or a complete control freak! Charles, where'd you pick this guy up?"
"When I last went to England. I had to beg them to come over here, so be nice."
"England!" my voice rose about ten octaves here. "This guys English? Great! Now there's gonna be huge cultural clashes and the whole bands gonna break up because you brought some dude in from England. What's his name anyway? Clancy?" I asked bordering on hysterical.
"Spencer." Charles answered calmly.
"Fine, and what does this Spencer guy play?" I asked in a hard voice very aware of the pulsating vein on my forehead.
"Spencer plays anything you want her to." Said a very feminine voice from the door behind me. And I couldn't help but notice the British accent that this comment was spoken in. I glanced at Brandon to make sure that he hadn't all of a sudden gotten really good at throwing his voice and speaking like a British girl. But I saw him and the others gawping in the direction of the voice with dropped jaws.
I turned around to see a girl leaning against the doorframe casually with an extremely sexy head tilt and a knowing smirk that told me that she'd heard a majority of my rant. I couldn't help it when my eyes dragged up her lean form. She was tight black skinny jeans, a long v neck t shirt, and a leather jacket. If I wasn't so cheesed off about her intrusion into the band I would have admitted how gorgeous she was and flirted with her a bit. I mean, the outfit was hot and all, but her face was the thing that kick started my heart into double time. She had amazing bon structure, soft full lips that the most amazing shad of red ever, incredible blue eyes and then, as if that wasn't enough, she had long, silky blonde hair that fell over her shoulders.
"Damn." Jeremy stated, bringing me out of my hot British chick induced trance and making me extremely angry and annoyed. I turned to glare at him before realising that this Spencer girl was the enemy, not him.
"What. The. Hell. Is a British chick doing in our band?" I asked, burning wholes into her face and got even more annoyed when she ignored me and started shaking hands with everyone who practically fell over each other to introduce themselves to her. Even Charles! Pffft! Thanks for the solidarity guys.
I just sat there sulking until everyone stopped drooling over that home wrecker.
"Okay. Now that everyone has officially met Spencer, I think its time for you guys to go home. The cars waiting to take you to the condo and I trust that you will all make Spencer feel at home." He said this last part to me before turning back to smile at her.
"Whatever." I sulked. I couldn't believe this! Not only was she out to ruin my whole band, but she was also invading my personal space! Typical!
"Remember guys! Band practice tomorrow! You need to rehearse with Spencer to make sure you all fit well together. I'm sure you will though."
"I'm sure we will too." Brandon said, smiling suggestively at the thing. It just laughed and pushed him slightly. Great! She's flirting already! It's just a matter of time now before she's slept with all of them and everyone's falling out over her. I wouldn't sleep with her even if she wasn't clearly straight, I have standards you know. Standards that don't involve sexy blondes with English accents.
When we got to our apartment after about twenty minutes of my friends gushing to the enemy about how happy they were to have it in our band I decided to pull it aside and make sure we were on the same page.
"Just so you know Spencer, try not to piss me off, I'm running out of places to hide to bodies." I said as menacingly as I could as I stopped her outside the apartment, but being this close to her made it hard to concentrate, my heart didn't seem to want to work properly and my stomach felt queasy.
She just looked at me with a bored expression before saying, "If you're gonna act like a dick Ashley, you should wear a condom on your head so I know when to shut you up before you say something stupid like you just did." She smiled at me before turning on her heal and walking towards the guys and accepting the drink they offered her while talking and laughing along with them.
I just stood outside the door with my mouth wide open wondering how the hell that just happened, whatever that was.