Southern Rocker Boy (Southern Rockers Book 1) by Ginger Voight Read Free Book Online Page A

what I could and couldn’t do as the new muscle of the club. Lacy was wrapping up rehearsal as we went downstairs. Gay stopped next to the stage to formally introduce us. “Lacy, I’d like you to meet our new bouncer, Jonah Riley.”
    Lacy’s eyes hardened as she looked down at me. “Is that right?”
    “After the hullabaloo last night at the stage door, I realized I had to hire reinforcements so that you could get safely from backstage to the exit. I told you that your act would excite the crowd.”
    She sneered at her boss. “I think that had more to do with what I was wearing,” she said.
    “Speaking of which,” Gaynell said, completely bypassing Lacy’s attitude, “we need to talk about what you are wearing tonight.”
    “I can pick my own clothes,” Lacy shot back.
    “Of course you can,” Gaynell said. “If you want to go shopping at the local flea market, that is,” she added with a smile. “I make superstars here. If you want to dress like a bartender, I can put you behind the bar. But if you’re going on the stage, you are going to damn well look like you belong there.” She let that hang there to see if Lacy would challenge her. She took a deep breath, but she didn’t. “Let me see the set,” Gaynell said as she held out her hand.
    Lacy glared at her, glared at me, and then walked to the stand covered in sheet music. She thrust the paper into Gaynell’s hand. She leafed through the pages, staring over the edge of her half-moon glasses that had been previously hanging from a jeweled strand around her neck. “What’s this?” she asked when she got to the last few pages.
    Lacy squared her shoulders. “It’s my song. You know, the one I auditioned with.”
    Gaynell took the pages out of the stack, handing everything else back to Lacy. “We talked about this. No new music until you’ve proven yourself and developed a following.”
    “So… when? When you have to hire two bouncers to protect me instead of one?”
    Gaynell was nonplussed. “You got it.” She turned to me. “Come on, Jonah. Let me introduce you around.”
    After we got out of earshot, I turned to Gaynell. “How come she can’t sing original material?”
    “Because it is original,” she answered bluntly. “You put an act up there with untested material and you ensure that crowds won’t even darken the door before the headlining act takes the stage. New act? New songs? They simply can’t connect to it, not in a noisy, crowded nightclub where every single sound is fighting to be heard. It becomes white noise that people can take or leave. That’s not an environment I wish to foster with the stiff competition I have here in the music capital of Texas. I want people here the whole night. I want them in on the party, singing the songs and drinking my booze.”
    She glanced back at Lacy. “She’s got good stuff. Strong songs. Amazing presence. But if she doesn’t win over the crowd past that giant “Fuck-You” she stamps all over her face, she’ll never get a chance to really show it. She hates it now, but she’ll thank me for it later.”
    I nodded. I didn’t know if she was right or wrong, but the photos in her upstairs office slanted the odds slightly more in her favor.
    I ended up staying the whole day at the club. Gaynell and Ty sprang for dinner at a nearby steakhouse, where they were treated like royalty from the time they walked in the door. I didn’t care how it looked. I had the waitress wrap up half my prime rib so I could take it home to Mama and Leah.
    I barely had time to say hello before I was changing and heading back to Southern Nights the time it opened at eight o’clock. I offered to come in early, not just to maximize hours, but also so that I could see Lacy again.
    I couldn’t stop thinking about her, no matter how hard I tried.
    I would take a page from Gaynell’s book and overlook her attitude, to help her succeed whether she wanted to or not.
    By the time I got there, however, she and