A long time ago, in what feels like a second lifetime, I wrote a bunch of short stories. Like, a ton. And I saved them on my hard drive.

Last summer, after I had to unpublish Mannequin, the girl rehomed that little short story of mine onto Wattpad. And then she took a stroll through my hard drive and my archives. She handed me a bunch of stories to edit and polish up, chose a few to publish immediately, and then… got involved in her own Wattpad activities. (No, you can’t have her names.)

Yesterday, she decided it was time to take one of the stories and get it up on Wattpad. And so New Management is now alive for your reading pleasure.

It’s a story of the Trevolution, and you long-time fans will recognize the characters. Maybe even the situation, although if you need a prompt, here are the two stories this builds on: Twirling and Game On. Neither are in a Demo Tapes collection yet… they’d be in #5, which if you’d like, you should speak up!

So here it is. New Management.

I’m really rocking the fiction lately, no? If you’re here for Sample Sunday, this is a companion piece to all three of my books. Trevor and company run rampant through them, as well as this here blog. It’s building on last week’s post, which built on the post the week before that… As always, be sure to leave a comment so I know you were here.

Trevor knew something was up by the way Daniel and Mitchell approached. Arms crossed over chests, faces serious.

“What did I do this time?” he sighed. Because, really. They only looked like this when he’d done something they decided was wrong.

“You’re not going to like it,” Daniel said. Mitchell shifted his weight and glared at Trevor. Like it was all his fault.

Hell, it probably was.

“Give it to me,” Trevor sighed, leaning back and letting his eyes stay shut in a lingering blink.

Mitchell produced a fax, one of those pages printed on shiny paper with the ink that rubbed off everywhere. “Heard of this Hammerhead band?”

“No. Should I have?”

Mitchell shrugged and held the paper out. Trevor ignored it. “Just tell me.”

“They heard about that thing you did a couple years ago, with the pasties.”

“Huh?” Trevor squinted up at him. This wasn’t the kind of thing he’d been expecting. Not when there’d been an angry boyfriend beating down the dressing room door a few minutes ago. Fuck, he was tired of the losers who said they’d be honored if he’d do their girl, and then change their minds halfway through.

“Remember?” Daniel asked. He sat down beside Trevor on the couch. Eric hadn’t covered it for once; Trevor wasn’t sure what sort of cooties they were picking up from it. Didn’t much care, either. If he needed drugs to kick it, Amy would tell him where to get some.

“Yeah, whatever,” Trevor said. He couldn’t much care about something that had happened years ago. Not right then.

“Told you he wouldn’t remember,” Mitchell said. “Which sucks, Trev. This Howard dude, he’s trying to top you. He’s talking all over the place about it. How he had to show you how to do it right, how he’s better than you.”

Trevor yawned. “So?”

Mitchell pulled back. His glare turned into something more cautious. “So? That’s all you’ve got to say? You’re not going to rise to the occasion and put this guy in his place?”

“Mitchell, you dumb fuck,” Trevor drawled, “Think about it. We’re talking about doing our first headlining tour. This nobody’s trying to show me up, just so people talk about him. And while he’s flapping his lips, he’s giving us some pretty good, pretty free attention at the same time. C’mon. Be smart for fucking once.”

“Getting into a war with him will only make people talk about him,” Daniel said, bobbing his head. He twirled his fingers, even though there was no drumstick in them. “And focus on him, not us.”

“And it makes me look like a dork if I don’t answer the right way. Let him talk, M,” Trevor said as Mitchell started to sputter. “If someone asks, I’ll be ready. But in the meantime, mum’s the word.”

“How much weed were you just smoking?” Mitchell asked.

Trevor smiled blissfully. “Enough.” He sat forward. “But even if I wasn’t, why am I helping out a nobody?”

“You didn’t read this article,” Mitchell said, holding it out again. “Daniel and I think we need to invite them to tour with us once we’re headlining. It’d be fun.”

Trevor perked up. “Fun?”

“Fun,” Mitchell said and shook the fax paper so it rattled.

Trevor took it. He was always up for fun.

I’ve linked this up at Three Word Wednesday, since it was written to the prompt, and at the Weekend Writer’s Retreat. Check out both places for some great writing. Also, I’ll be Tweeting this as my Friday Flash and Sample Sunday post. More awesome people to visit!

An idea inspired by a recent fictional piece wound up being a perfect fit for this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt. Although Hammerhead appears in Trevor’s Song for a quick moment, I’ve been eager to do more with these raunchy, randy men for years now. I’m glad to have the chance.

Howard the Hammer, leading man of up and coming rock band Hammerhead, needed some positive attention for his band. Lately, all anyone had been talking about was their backstage antics.

They were great fun and worth talking about, but there was way more to Hammerhead than debauchery. There was, for instance, what happened on the stage. None of the backstage fun would ever happen if there wasn’t anything up front to get people’s attention.

Howard chuckled. Yep, that sounded like Hammerhead, all right. Backstage, up front. All they needed was a girl, and they’d be living large.

If management wasn’t all over him to clean up their image, he’d have done more with the front/back idea. Found a girl willing to model how much fun it was up front, and how good the backstage was. After all, that sort of thing was the essence of Hammerhead.

The band had hardly been named for the shark.

“Be practical,” Howard muttered to himself. “Focus on the music. Focus on the show. Stick to performing. That’s all we gotta do, right?”

No one answered. Not that Howard had expected anyone to; it was hard to get an answer from an empty room. The rest of the guys knew better than to walk in on him when he was thinking. He needed space and time to think. And no interruptions. They’d learned; they gave him everything he needed.

Howard was the gravy train. Without Howard, there’d be no Hammerhead. He’d earned some space to do his thinking in.

Still, doing a show without any theatrics seemed… wrong somehow. To make matters worse, Howard had read an article about a show ShapeShifter had done once, way back when they were getting started. Trevor had riled everyone up by sticking a pair of pasties on his t-shirt.

It was like a dare. The kind Howard couldn’t walk away from. Trevor had pulled that one night when no one had been around to see.

Hammerhead was going to stand up in front of five thousand people in a few hours. Five thousand people who would, to the last man, see rhinestone-encrusted pasties nestled in there with his chest hair. He wouldn’t even need to say anything. The people who knew the ShapeShifter story would get it. The Hammerhead fans would figure it was nothing out of the ordinary, just another thing Howard the Hammer was doing. Anyone else could lick ’em off.

Howard pulled off his shirt and looked down at himself. Would these things he’d bought even fit over his pierced nipple?

He jumped at a knock at the door. It was his drummer, Stunning Stan. “Howard? It safe to come in yet? We’re standing out here like losers and, dude, I gotta take a piss like you would not believe.”

“Yeah, come on in,” Howard said with a sigh. It was a calculated risk. Management had been clear: if they didn’t get some positive attention soon, they’d be clearing out. Hammerhead would need a new manager. But playing it completely straight and narrow didn’t sit right with Howard. They were Hammerhead, for crying out loud.

“Help me out here,” he said when Stunning Stan came out of the john. Stan was the only one he’d ask for help; the other two would pull at the piercing, tell him he was being stupid, steal the pasties for themselves. Their chests were bare next to Howard’s — hell, a gorilla’s chest was bare next to Howard’s. The whole fun of this was the glitter peeking out between all this hair, teasing the girls who’d find their way backstage later on.

And even later, people would talk about this. They’d forget ShapeShifter had ever done it. It’d be Hammerhead legend.

New management might not be such a bad idea after all.

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