Not With Those Teeth, Mate (Maylor/Froger/Deacury)

Chapter 7

"Come on, everyone!" Miami called out as he wandered around the studio many of the musicians found themselves in that night for the beginning-of-the-year sweep, hands clasped behind his back and his watchful eyes scanning the room for slackers. "This place isn't going to clean itself!"

"God, if he was my manager, I think I'd blow my brains out," Roger grumbled under his breath as he lazily wiped one of the sound booth's windows with a rag that had long gone dry. "'This place isn't going to clean itself,'" he mocked the manager, "Who would've thought?"

Dominique, who was sitting on the ground, given the task of picking up all the discarded cigarette butts but instead choosing to smoke a blunt of her own, laughed. "You know, in the time you took to make fun of him, you could've finished cleaning that window and moved onto the next one."

The blonde looked down at her with narrowed eyes. "You know, in the time you took to scold me about making fun of him, you could've cleaned up all those cigarette butts and moved onto your next task."

She took a long drag and let it out slowly, the corners of her pursed lips curling upward as she extended the cigarette up to him. "And miss out on killing time with the biggest procrastinator in the world?"

He smirked and snatched the white stick out of her grasp, bringing it up to his own lips and sinking down to her level.

Meanwhile, out in the live room, Chrissie's heels clicked across the wooden floors as she ran over to Brian—who was preoccupied with reorganizing the collection of sheet music that appeared to not have been touched in over twenty years—and exclaimed, "The answer is yes!"

The curly-haired guitarist jumped, dropping the stack of papers he'd been so meticulously ordering in his hands and meeting the excited studio musician's eager gaze with furrowed brows. "I'm sorry?"

"Tim and I have been looking for a guitarist to join us on sessions," she explained, an excited grin on her face, "We have one next week, actually, and there's definitely a spot for you if you're interested."

Brian swallowed the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. "W-Who told you I wanted to be a session player?"

The session singer crossed her arms. "Didn't you ask around about it?" He feverishly shook his head no, faltering the girl's smile. "Oh, well, we'd still love to have you. Tim and I are here almost every day, but we mostly just help each other out with songs we're working on, you know, when we're not called in for a gig." She bit her lip and looked at him with pleading eyes. "I really hope you'll consider, Brian."

"I-I don't know, Chrissie. I'm still trying to get used to everything and—"

"What a perfect way to get acquainted!" Freddie agreed, joining the pair and dropping an arm on Chrissie's shoulder. He flashed Brian and her a bright smile, showing off his big, pearly whites, and said, "Talking with the puppeteers pulling us singers' strings." The session musician tensed when he drew her in for a near bone-crushing side hug. "What a generous offer, Chrissie. He'd be a fool not to take it."

She chuckled nervously. "Yeah, he...he would be."

In another recording studio, on a different floor, John Reid paced anxiously back and forth in the control room, chewing on his nail as he spoke to himself under his breath. "We've got two weeks before the executives come in and want to hear what Roger's got." His worried eyes shot over to the two girls sitting on the couch—Debbie applying another layer of lipstick to her already dark red lips and Mary leafing through an old edition of British Vogue. "Where is he? And where's Dominique?"

The two girls ignored him, Debbie too enraptured with her own reflection and Mary the cover shoot with Margaux Hemingway. Clenching his jaw, he snatched the compact mirror and magazine out of their grasps and tossed them to the sides, repeating his question with a raised voice, "Where are Roger and Dominique?"

"They're helping out with Miami's beginning-of-the-year sweep," Debbie answered with the roll of her eyes, "Geez, no need to throw a fit."

"Helping out with Miami's..." the manager began to echo before storming out, taking the stairs down to the next level and bursting into the studio Miami had hoarded the young musicians in. "Where's my boy, Jim?" he boomed. Before the other manager could gather the wits to answer, Reid spotted the blonde and his dark-haired companion together in the same place they started, now consumed by a thick haze that masked the dopey grins plastered on their faces. "What the heck are those two doing in a closet?"

"It's called cleaning up after themselves, Reid," Miami answered bitterly, folding his arms over his chest. "And it's a sound booth, not a closet."

Reid scoffed and charged for the small room, ripping the door open and yanking the two musicians out. "Go upstairs," he ordered, pushing Roger and Dominique towards the studio doors. The pair stumbled out with reddened cheeks and eyes, but not before Reid snatched the blunt from the blonde's hand, threw it on the ground, and stomped it out with his foot, earning a disappointed groan from the other manager.

"Deaky just mopped that." Miami frowned.

"You," Reid snapped, disregarding his colleague's comment and pointing his finger in his direction, curling it repeatedly, "Come with me."