Might As Well Be On Mars // Motley Crue

Time for Change

Practice continued as normal for the next few days. The guys were playing the songs nearly perfectly and were getting along well, especially Mick and Nikki. Nikki wouldn't have admitted it, but he was beginning to feel like Mick was that fatherly figure he had missed out on for the first twenty years of his life. Someone who was going to watch out for him, whether he liked it or not. Mick also wouldn't have admitted it, but he was beginning to feel a bit protective over Nikki. It upset him to see the younger man living in filth and poverty, and he really appreciated that he was good to his daughter.

At times, it seemed like Vince and Tommy may have sensed this bond between the bassist and guitarist. But if they did, they didn't say anything about it. They were too busy, anyway, with perfecting their craft, promoting the band, and finishing the album. A week before Doc was asking the guys to be ready to record, they had still made almost no progress on the final song of the album. It was a matter of writer's block, the pressure of the looming deadline, and anxiety about having to have every song on the album be perfect.

By the time Mick and Nikki met at the former's house for their Saturday planning session, they decided to call off the race. They called up the singer and drummer for their permission before calling Doc to inform him that their album would have eight, not nine, songs. He didn't take the news too well at first, but Doc worked for the band, not the other way around. Nikki would make sure of that.

With the stress of the creation of the album (mostly) lifted off of them, the men decided to reward themselves with a drinking session. It started out with some beer, but quickly turned into Nikki heading to the nearest liquor store and calling the other guys in the band to join them in their celebration.

Needless to say, Evie was a bit surprised when she got home from the library, where she was studying for the final exams she would be taking in approximately seventy hours.

"Evie!" Mick slurred and motioned for the girl to come nearer.

Evie stopped and looked at him.

"Come," Mick said. "Sit down."

Evie shook her head and kept heading toward the staircase. "No, come here, we've got good news."

The girl sighed before walking into the living room.

"We finished the album kinda. We have all our songs ready. Hittin' the studio next week."

"That's good to hear," Evie said in the tone young women take when they're made to feel uncomfortable.

"Yeah," Vince slurred. "We're gonna be fucking rockstars."

"Gonna be the best fuckin' rock band in the world, just you wait," Tommy said.

"That's great," Evie said. She slowly rose while Nikki started saying something about his dreams and went up to her room.

The next time she came out, it was two hours later and the men were gone. She walked down the stairs and searched for her dad. She found him passed out drunk on the couch. She hated it when he did this, when he turned from her caring father into a drunk invalid. The thought crossed her mind, not for the first time, that his new young bandmates were going to help her dad reach this state more and more often. She almost let the tears well up in her eyes, but forced herself to turn away. To calm herself down, she grabbed a book off of the bookshelf and read it on the lawn chair in the front yard.

Mick didn't move himself into his bedroom until the early hours of Sunday morning, but by the time he woke up at nine, he was acting like his normal self again. If his memory wasn't betraying him, he needed to apologize to his daughter. First for getting so drunk despite her telling him multiple times that she didn't like it when he drank too much, and second for trying to force her to join the guys even though she obviously didn't want to. All this time, he thought, he was worried about the guys in the band making Evie uncomfortable, but then he turned around and did it himself.

When he walked downstairs, Evie was sitting at the dining room table, finishing up the final paper for her English class.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning." She barely looked up until Mick took a seat across from her.

He averted his eyes. "I'm sorry, uh, for yesterday. That wasn't very... responsible of me." He had never been very good at apologies, but there was no way Evie would have known that.

"It's okay."

They had had this conversation enough times for Mick to know that she wasn't going to say anything else, so he continued on his own. "I do have some good news though."

"I know. You told me yesterday that you're done with the writing for the album."

"Yeah, but that's not it. There's two more things. Actually, one of them is really more asking for your opinion, but, anyway... I think I'm gonna cut down on my hours at work."

"By how much?" Evie knew they were more comfortable now than they had been in the past, but they were nowhere near comfortable enough to survive on less than one full time income.

"Not a ton," Mick reassured her. "I think I'm gonna quit the Sunday shift. I think today will be the last one. Then, instead of 7 to midnight four days a week, I'm gonna extend it to 7 pm to 1 am."

"Still Monday through Thursday?"

"Still Monday through Thursday."

"Can we really afford this?"

"I think so. I can always re-extend them if we need to, but you working full time over the summer is going to be real helpful. Also, think of it as an investment in the band. I spend less time working for immediate pay and I'm able to spend more time working on the band so that it can make more money later."

Evie considered. "Alright," she finally said. "I guess it will be nice having you home on Sundays."

Mick smiled. "And I'll like being here on Sundays."

"You said you had two things to tell me," Evie said. "What's the other thing?"

Mick took a deep breath and felt butterflies flutter in his stomach. There were so many ways this conversation could go wrong that Mick sort of wanted to just forget about the topic. But he knew he would feel guilty later if he didn't even try to ask.

"You told me a few days ago," Mick said slowly. "That you liked Nikki. Were you being honest?"

Evie felt confused and scared of where this was heading. "Yes. Why?"

"Well, he's just... the thing is, he's kinda living a rough life, you know? I don't know if you noticed it at that party after the first show, but his apartment is a dump, and I don't think he gets food or the things he needs very often. It's sad and I...I worry for him." He looked to Evie for a response, but she was still puzzled about why he was telling her this.

"So," Mick continued. "I think it would be really nice to help him out. We've got the whole basement that we hardly use and I think the futon is still in good condition, so, only if you are completely comfortable and completely on board, we could let him stay here for a bit. Just until he gets back on his feet."

"You want to let him live here?"

"Yes. Not permanently, just for a bit."

Evie was silent and Mick couldn't read the expression on her face.

"So..." he prompted her. "What do you think?"