Insider (Exodus End #1)(23)
Author: Olivia Cunning

“Do you have a hard time making up your mind about things?” he asked.

She shrugged and poked at one of the avocado slices on top of her omelet. “Not really. I just have so many interests.”

“Am I one of your interests?”

“Ugh!” Reagan cried and started hitting Logan repeatedly in the arm. “I can’t take it. Stop hitting on her at the breakfast table.”

“I think you’re the one hitting on me,” he complained, unable to avoid her blows since he was trapped in the booth by Dare.

“Logan,” Toni said, “you can hit on me later. In private.”

He grinned. “Can do.”

She tore her gaze from his, and he released her hand so he could concentrate on his breakfast.

“So,” she said, shoving the avocados aside and poking at her spinach and tomato omelet with her fork. “I did all the background research on how the band formed and everything, but I’d like to hear you guys tell it. I don’t want my book’s introduction to read like a Wikipedia entry. I’d love some insider information that has never been shared with the general public before.”

“The band was started by Dare,” Steve said.

“Why didn’t you start a band with your brother?” Toni asked Dare.

Logan had always wondered why Trey and Dare were in different bands. They both played guitar, but Dare had always played lead and Trey played rhythm, so it would make sense for them to be in the same band.

“Because Trey sucked,” Dare said.

That earned him a smack in the back of the head from Reagan. As Logan was sitting between them, he got caught in the crossfire. “Hey, now. Watch it.”

“Trey does not suck.” Reagan chuckled and rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Okay, he does—in the best possible way—but the way he plays guitar doesn’t.” She blew out a flustered breath. “What I’m trying to say is he’s amazing at both sucking and playing.”

“Now who’s getting inappropriate at the breakfast table?” Logan said.

“I said he ‘sucked.’ Past tense,” Dare said. “Trey didn’t figure out how to produce a unique sound until he was sixteen and then he really only sounded good with Sinclair. Trey and I never had a complementary sound, not even when my mom first taught us to play folksongs on acoustic guitars. Our sounds competed rather than complemented each other. It sounded like shit when we played together.”

“So no chance you’ll ever play in a band with your brother?” Toni asked.

“I wouldn’t say no chance, but fairly slim. We both love where we are now. Why would we change bands?”

“So Steve joined the band next?” Toni asked. “He answered your ad in the LA Times for ‘a drummer who isn’t afraid to break sticks and heads.’ ”

Dare chuckled. “He wasn’t the only one who answered that ad.”

She sat up straighter and gazed at Dare in rapt attention. Logan had a million stories that weren’t public knowledge. If that was the best way to get her attention, he was happy to supply her with enough insider information to fill a semi-trailer full of napkins.

“How many answered it?”

“Just three,” Dare said. “The first guy, who is now the drummer for Waylaid, thought I meant he had to know how to fight. He was more interested in breaking human heads than drum heads.”

Steve laughed. “Are you serious? You never told me that. Is that the only reason you picked me?”

Dare shook his head. “I picked you because your wife was hot.”

Steve’s smile faded. “Well, that’s the only thing she had going for her.”

Damn it, Dare. Really? They all knew how maudlin Steve got when his thoughts turned to his ex-wife. There was no reason to bring up Bianca at breakfast.

“I thought maybe she had some hot friends she could introduce to me,” Dare said.

“You fuckin’ liar,” Max said, shaking his head at Dare.

Dare turned his attention to Max, who sat at the opposite corner of the table. “Why do you say that?”

“You told me that when Steve auditioned, every hair on your body stood on end and you knew you were in the company of greatness.”

Dare chuckled. “How drunk was I when I said that?”

“That’s the story I heard too,” Logan said.

“Yeah, well maybe.” Dare shrugged. “It was fifteen years ago. I tend to forget the details.”

Toni was scribbling furiously on her napkin, drawing little boxes with words and linking them to other boxes with arrows. Logan tried to read it upside down, but couldn’t figure out what all the boxes were about.

“So a drummer and guitarist does not a band make,” Reagan said. “Who was next?”

Steve kicked Logan under the table. Logan tore his gaze from Toni and found Steve grinning at him as if he were dumber than a rock. “Uh, Steve asked me if I was available to start a new band,” Logan said. “I wasn’t actually—I was playing with Last Cannibal—but the lead guitarist was a tool, so I decided to give Exodus End a try. Steve and I had both been playing the Southern Californian club scene in different bands for a couple of years, so we partied together a bit. We never played together until Exodus End, though.”

“Last Cannibal broke up as soon as Logan left. He was the only one in the band who knew what he was doing,” Steve said.

Logan shrugged. “That’s because the rest of them were too lazy to schedule gigs. When you’re first starting out, you have to network constantly. They wanted to skip directly to the after-parties.”

“Logan got us most of our gigs when we first formed,” Dare said. “If he wasn’t such an awesome musician, he’d have made a great manager for some lucky band.”

“I hated doing that shit,” Logan said. “A necessary evil to get noticed.”

Logan glanced at Toni and found her gazing at him with adulation. Awesome. Keep talking me up, guys. He was all about getting noticed. Always had been.

“So when did Max join?” Toni asked.

“We’ve been through a couple lead singers,” Dare said.

Logan tried not to feel too bitter about that since he’d been the band’s first and shortest-lived vocalist.

“It’s hard to find the right voice sometimes,” Dare said. “You know after a few shows if they’re right for the band or not. Since they get most of the attention and glory—”