In Drummer Heaven

Chuck Taylor's Endorsement

Okay so let me give you a little bit of background. For our first album they wanted us girls to do a photo shoot but they also gave us Polaroid cameras because they wanted pictures of us in our normal setting, like in bars and hanging around with our friends. They gave us the cameras two weeks before the shoot and we have them back the day before the shoot so they could start to go through the pictures we took. To be completely honest there was a lot of Crüe and Poison in the pictures with us but we were careful on the pictures that were taken of Tommy and myself.

Today is the day of our photo shoot and by complete coincidence we all just happened to wear Chuck Taylor's.

"Think we could get a Chuck Taylor's endorsement?" Dani jokes and elbows me.

"That would be pretty fucking sweet." I laugh and put my arm on her shoulder. "Shorty."

See, I stand at five foot seven. Rosie stands at five foot five. Jadie stands at five foot four. Our little bass player stands at five foot one, so I got half a foot on Dani.

"Shut up." She laughs and shoves me a bit. "I will kill you."

"I would love to see you try." I state and she rolls her eyes. "You're so small and dainty, Dan."

"You're inhumanly tall." Dani says and I laugh.

"I'm not even that tall." I say. "Tommy is still taller than me."

"Giants must attract other giants." She mumbles and I hit her arm.

"Shut up, are you trying to get me fired?" I ask and she laughs.

"Don't worry, Darc. The photographer can't hear anything, he's too busy looking down Ro's shirt." Dani points over.

Sure as shit, Rose is sipping her water bottle while talking to the photographer. Every so often he glances down her white tank top. She doesn't even notice he's doing it either! Dani and I laugh at our singer and how oblivious she is.

"Okay ladies, let's get back to it." The photographer says.

"Beer break is over, terror twins." Jadie says as she comes up behind us.

"You're gonna piss off Nikki and Tommy." I say. "Mick says they're terror twins."

"Maybe it's a drummer bass player thing." Dani guesses.

The photographer told us to just act normal and pretend the camera wasn't there. We just started to bother each other and joke around, so a normal day for the four of us. It's actually pretty fun and after a while you forgot the camera was there. It was just like we were all hanging out, the only thing that would've reenforced that is if Crüe and Poison were with us.

The photo shoot finishes up and our manager called the photographer and had told him to relay a message to us. We were to head back to the studio because he needed to talk to us or something. We just assumed it was about the Polaroids, maybe they need more?

Either way I drive back towards the studio. We all obnoxiously sing songs from Quiet Riot's Mental Health album which is pretty normal for all of us. We get to the studio and walk into the building.

We get a pretty big shock when three quarters of Mötley Crüe is sitting on the leather couches. Mick, Vince, and Nikki are all sitting in waiting area. They're flipping through magazines when Nikki looks up to see us. He grins as we walk over.

"There's our favourite girls." He says.

"Where's Tommy?" Dani asks.

"I'm hurt a little, Dan." Vince speaks up. "You're more interested in him than us?" He mocks hurt and Mick rolls his eyes.

"The manager wanted to talk to him." He explains.

"He wanted to talk to us as well." Rose says.

We sit down with them and shoot the shit for a while. After a good half hour our manager comes out into the main area without Tommy. He points at me.

"Just the redhead I wanted to see." He says and I hear Nikki laugh.

"What did you do, Red?" He wonders as I stand up.

"I don't think anything." I mumble.

I follow our manager back towards his office. When we get the door he opens the door and ushers me inside.

Tommy is sitting on one of the chairs in front of our manager's desk. He was leaning with his chin in his palm and I could tell something was wrong. Tommy's radiant smile wasn't on his face, he looks worried more than anything.

We're fucked. Someone let it slip that Tommy and I are together. I'm going to kill someone!

I sit down on the chair beside Tommy and he forces a smile. Our manager sits behind his desk and looks at us.

"Darcy, is there anything you want to tell me before I say anything?" He asks.

I straighten up and cross my arms.

"Okay, I'll take that as an answer." Our manager takes a deep breath. "I found this amongst the pictures you and the girls took."

He hands me a Polaroid and I glance down at it. Tommy and I fill the frame, I'm sitting on his lap with my arms wrapped around him while his arms are wrapped around my waist. We're kissing and it was taken by whoever was sitting beside us at the bar. It's a really good picture other than the fact that our manager just handed it to me.

"Shit." I mutter and look back up.

There's no way you could take this picture in any other way than Tommy and I are together.

"You both know the rules here." Our manager says. "I could fire both of you but I can't loose two bands in one meeting. Im sorry but you need to break up or I will have to fire both your bands, understood?"

"Yeah." Tommy mumbles while looking at the floor.

"Yeah." I mutter and narrow my eyes.

"Good, I'll leave you two to it." He says and raises from his seat.

Our manager closes the door behind him and I sigh.

"I don't want to live without you in my life." I mumble while looking at the floor.

Tommy's hand wraps around mine and I look over to him.

"You're not going to, okay?" He says. "We're going to be friends, best friends! We're still going to see each other all the time."

"We'll still go to the bar." I say and he nods.

"We'll still raise hell together." Tommy says and I smile.

"It's like nothing has changed." I say and he laughs.

"One big thing has changed though." He laughs and I smile. "We'll be best friends."

"Sounds good to me." I say and he kisses my knuckles.

"Me too." Tommy agrees quietly.

In all honesty I don't know how this is gonna work for us. I don't want to think of Tommy with anyone other than me. I don't want to be with anyone other than Tommy.

I want to know who slipped that picture in! Me and the girls were too careful with those pictures to slip that in. I'll kill the bastard.