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.

looking for other great fiction? Check out the #SundaySample prompt on Twitter — and on various book-related message boards — and the Weekend Writer’s Retreat, too! Add your links; don’t be shy.

Yep, I’m tying this Three Word Wednesday post into the Musical Hanukkah Celebration. Sales are picking up, so be sure to be part of this extravaganza. The more books you buy, the bigger our own donation. No benefit song needed.

If the guys in ShapeShifter had learned anything about their motor-mouth manager, it was that as soon as he stopped with the verbal diarrhea, the band was in serious danger.

“A proposal has been made,” JR said.

Mitchell pushed back into the couch. Like backing away would help.

Trevor noticed Eric and Daniel were doing it, too. He figured a smart person would brace himself, but no one had ever told Trevor he was smart. Besides, whatever it was couldn’t be worse than Mitchell bringing Rusty into their lives.

Trevor Wolff hated to be wrong.

“As part of the Musical Hanukkah Celebration,” the manager said, still so slowly, a person could actually, honest-to-God make out where each word began and ended, “it’s been suggested.”

“Out with it already!” Mitchell roared.

JR scratched the back of his hand. His momentary silence was both a delight and a cause for serious concern. This was going to be bad, Trevor realized.

The manager drew in a breath, but when he spoke, he wasn’t off to the races like usual. “All the bands participating in the event get together beforehand, say before Thanksgiving, and collaborate on a song. Think We are the World, or Live Aid.”

Trevor expected Mitchell to lose it so utterly, he’d blow a few gaskets and they’d have to rush him to Amy’s office for some doctoring. Instead, the guy had face-planted in his own lap, hands dangling on the floor, oh-so-happy to have had this shit land on his head. Clearly, the guy wasn’t going to be able to come through in the clutch. Not this time.

“M?” Eric asked. “You okay?”

Mitchell shook his head. Trevor figured that couldn’t feel good, with his nose scraping his legs. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so bad; the guy didn’t have the sort of schnozz Trevor did.

“Need a barf bag?” Daniel asked.

Mitchell kept shaking his head.

Trevor leaned forward and peered more closely at the big idiot. The guy’s face was bright red; how he wasn’t shaking with rage, Trevor didn’t know.

“Quit showing us Rusty’s favorite fuck position and fucking talk to us already,” he said, turning his back on the guy. He began to count.

Sure enough, he’d only gotten to three when the dragon let the fire-breath out. “A fucking benefit song? On top of everything else we’re doing here?”

“It’s great publicity,” JR said. Something must have loosened his tongue because he started blathering about the exposure and the money they could earn. “It’s about kids, Mitchell. Daniel, Eric, talk some sense into the guy will you please We can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars just by pricing this as a ninety-nine cent download Hundreds of thousands!”

“NO!” Mitchell howled. He jumped to his feet and got in JR’s face, shutting the manager up. “There will be no benefit song, do you fucking hear me, JR? Bringing other bands in other cities into this thing was bad enough. The whole idea here was to have fun, remember? Where the fuck did that go? Why the fuck is this all about the money to you?”

JR’s face turned red.

“Oh, motherfucker,” Mitchell said. It came out in a breath, airy and defeated.

Trevor couldn’t agree more.

This piece will be continued! In the meantime, pick up my books or make a direct donation — the latter option will get you an entry into a raffle for some great books that I did not write!

Be sure to stop in at the Weekend Writer’s Retreat, as well — see what’s been posted and add your own fiction!

My friend Candy requested some Trevor. I doubt this is what she had in mind, though. It’s pretty dark.

Getting away was the immediate need. Getting away, getting safe. Helping Eliza and HJ get away, too. Jeremy would take care of himself. He always did. He’d stay there and taunt Hank for awhile, give the rest of them time to get away, and then somehow escape without too much damage to himself.

He’d turned it into an art form.

It had to be something like that. It sure as shit wasn’t a gesture of kindness on Jeremy’s part. Fucker had no kindness in him. In his own way, he was worse than Hank.

He gave HJ a shove to help him get further under the trailer faster, then held out a hand to Eliza. Of all of them, it bugged Trevor the most that she had to face this shit. She was the only girl. She was the family treasure. Even Hank said so. He cried before he whaled on her.

But he’d started doing it anyway.

Trevor figured it sucked, but not so bad if the fucktard never found Eliza’s bedroom. He and Jeremy slept in there sometimes on nights when Hank wasn’t needing some exercise, taking turns, keeping her company and guarding her from things that went bump in the night. Or worse.

Eliza took his hand and turned her face to his. She was biting her lip, but it trembled anyway. Her eyes were big, huge, scared.

Trevor knew the feeling.

“C’mon,” he whispered to her. “The faster we get safe, the sooner Hank gives up looking for us.”

A tear leaked out of one eye. “Trevor.” Her whisper started to get loud, to turn into one of those whines that wound up sounding like a fucking air raid siren from those old movies his mom would watch sometimes.

Trevor tried to shush Eliza, whipping his head around to look for people in the window and door of their trailer. Hank didn’t know about this hiding place, right under his stupid fucking nose. He figured sympathetic neighbors were hiding his kids, even though he’d put fears worse than God into them and now, none of ’em would even so much as look at the Wolff kids.

Trev bent down so he was closer to Eliza’s eye level. “It’s okay. We gotta get under there for awhile and then when Hank passes the fuck out, we’ll come back in. Come on, Eliza. You’ll like it under here. Me and HJ fixed it up. We got bottled water and maybe there’s some cookies left, too.”

“When I grow up,” Eliza said, her voice rising again. Trevor waved it down. She whispered, “I’m gonna play the violin. I’m gonna go all over the world. And I’m never gonna be scared again.”

Trevor swallowed down the impulse to cry. She was fucking eight years old. That was too fucking young to want to run away.

Then again, HJ was nine. He was eleven. Jeremy was twelve. They were all too fucking young to have to face this shit.

A crash came from inside the trailer. With a terrified squeak, Eliza dove for the hiding space. Trevor followed on her heels, not wanting to know if that had been Jeremy or their mother who’d just gone flying.

He let Eliza climb onto his lap, let HJ snuggle up against his side and cling to his arm like it alone was the only thing that would save him. He’d figure out a way to get them out of this mess. He would. After all, he was Trevor Wolff, and Trevor Wolff could do anything he set his mind to.

Somehow.

More Three Word Wednesday for you (immediate, treasure, gesture), and some Friday Flash as well. Remember, too, that 50% of my reported royalties in November and December are being donated to charity, to help fund music programs in schools. Join in — and if you already have my books (and so do your friends; autographed books make great gifts!), remember that if you use my donation link on the contests page, you’ll be entered to win… more books!)

Yep, I’ve also linked this at Weekend Writer’s Retreat and Writer’s Island. What can I say? I like maximum coverage. Which is a dangerous thing to say when Trevor’s around…

Don’t ask where this came from. I don’t know.

They run rampant through me, the tremors. I live in fear of them, of the reminder of how fragile I am, of how fragile life is.

I despise them, loathe them, hate them. I want them gone. Out of my body, off this mortal coil. Gone, banished, denied entry ever again.

I dream of knives that will cut them out of my body. I dream of peace. Of stillness and solitude.

Of an end of fear, of pain, of this isolation the tremors have caused me to build around me. Of friends and family and people who visit because they want to, not because they are duty-bound.

I despise. And I dream.

A three-word Wednesday prompt (and all three words are in the first line!), but I’ll link it all over the place, like usual. Friday Flash. Weekend Writer’s Retreat. You guys know the drill. Another thing you ought to know? Starting Monday, at least half of the royalties from sales of all three of my books will head to charity. Be sure to check the contest page — more books are being donated for anyone who makes a direct donation, too!)

Note from Susan: if you click on Green Hair Week, you’ll learn a little bit about Jim Shields and what happened to Mitchell. While this piece is a companion to my novel, Trevor’s Song, and will probably feature in a Demo Tapes anthology somewhere down the road, it has no spoilers for anything already in print.

“The guy just makes my skin crawl,” Mitchell said, trying to suppress the shudder. “We need to be off this tour and done with him.”

“Has he done something to offend?” JR asked.

Mitchell paused, waiting for JR’s usual verbal onslaught. It didn’t come. JR was actually, for once, quiet.

Trevor flicked his cigarette from the corner of his mouth onto the ground. He didn’t bother to grind it dead. “What the fuck does it matter? The guy’s a fucking powder keg. Up one minute, down the next. All in our faces about shit we can’t control, then making like he’s our best friend.”

“He’s too volatile,” Eric said, nodding.

Mitchell thought about that for a second, then nodded. Perfect way to describe the dick. Volatile.

“Backstage is a powder keg,” the guitarist went on. “We all hate being there. C’mon, JR. There’s got to be a way to get us off this tour. Daniel and M here say you’re getting all sorts of offers for us to open for better acts. I think you need to take a longer look at some of them, even if it means we take a break.”

“It hasn’t all been bad with Jim,” the manager said. “You had a nice long break in Phoenix and it turned out to benefit you quite well”

“My hair turned green,” Mitchell said. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the manager until JR shut up.

“But the break refreshed you. It taught me and your booking agents quite a bit that we’ll be discussing once it’s your turn to headline but for now, you’re not quite ready to headline, so it’s all opening acts for you still and really, Jim Shields isn’t that bad of a guy Why can’t you just finish up this tour like we’ve planned It’s really not that much longer”

“Because,” Trevor said, taking his time as he lit up a new cigarette. It was for effect, Mitchell could tell. Hell, most of Trevor’s cigarettes were for effect. His own bad boy version of being demure. Or something.

“I need more of a reason than that, Trevor. You have a contract with Jim You signed it and were perfectly happy to You were excited, even, and so was I This was going to be a good thing, bringing you new fans and getting you into cities you’d never visited before.”

“Because,” Mitchell growled, “if you don’t get us away from that asshole, I’m going to shove his microphone stand up his ass and make it come out his mouth. I don’t give a shit about contracts or opportunities or anything like that. I care about not being yanked around by this asshole anymore.”

He was aware of everyone around him cringing, of his voice rising, of the pressure in his cheeks that meant his face had turned red. Trevor would probably tell him later that viens had popped. He didn’t care. Didn’t care about any of it. He’d had enough. The band had had enough. It had nothing to do with his fucking green hair and everything to do with unstable dickhead Jim Shields. This is what it had come down to. It was a matter of survival, no matter how fucking dramatic that sounded. No one could live like Jim was making them live.

Mitchell would be damned if ShapeShifter was going to have to keep trying.

Yup, this is a Three Word Wednesday prompt: demure, offend, volatile. And I’ll link it at The Weekend Writer’s Retreat, also. AND at Friday Flash. AND Sunday Scribblings. That might be all, but who knows? I do like to increase my fan base!

Note from Susan: If you were here a year ago, you may remember our Wardrobe Girl, Loren. I actually have other fiction I wrote right after I wrote that one, but never posted. We’ll have to fix that. In the meantime, here’s something to keep you entertained.

Before tonight, Loren would have told you she didn’t have a prayer of fitting in with this crowd. They didn’t like chicks in the first place, let alone girls like her who were on the road to hide from something. Maybe — hopefully, although Loren wasn’t sure if there was hope anymore — heal a bit.

Maybe she’d been wrong to hold herself back, to abstain. From the fun, the camaraderie, the deep, dark nights spent drinking and swapping tales as the bus rolled them toward another city they’d never get to see.

But now here she was, proudly wearing the halo they’d made her from those plastic things that went around six packs of beer and soda. She wasn’t drinking, but then, neither was Roberta. A woman shouldn’t drink too much on the road, Roberta often told her. Especially with roadies like Monkey around, even though he wasn’t part of this current group. Nope, this was RP, Hambone, RP’s girlfriend Maureen, and a couple others whose names Loren couldn’t remember. She knew their faces, though. They were all young, like her. They’d chosen the road instead of anything else — college hadn’t been an option for most of them. Not like it had been for Loren.

Who knew; maybe it was still an option for Loren. She wasn’t ready to think like that yet. Heck, it was hard enough just being here with a group of people, watching them drink and listening to them talk.
Wearing their halo and smiling as they sounded like they meant it when they said they were glad she wasn’t locked away in her bunk or sitting in a corner, staring at the walls. “You’re too mopey,” they told her. “Smile.”

She’d been hearing that a lot from the crew lately. Even from the band. Smile. Like there was anything to smile for. Or at.

Hambone told a joke and everyone cracked up. RP tipped over backward and Maureen and Hambone pulled him up, laughing even harder. Loren watched and, for the first time since she’d joined the tour, didn’t feel like they were laughing at her. She didn’t feel quite so raw inside.

Roberta caught Loren’s eye and nodded knowingly.

Loren had to touch her face to realize she was smiling, too.

And then her halo slipped down over one eye. She heard herself laugh.

Ready for this week’s links to prompt sites? Here ya go… Three Word Wednesday, Thursday Tales, and Friday Flash. And let’s not forget Weekend Writer’s Retreat, too!

If you’re new here, these characters can be found in all three of my books, The Demo Tapes (Year 1 and Year 2) and Trevor’s Song, the new, full-length novel starting the toasted marshmallow featured below. There are no spoilers in the following piece.

Noooo. Hotel pools were no longer good enough for the Great Mitchell Voss, it seemed. Nope. The fucker had to be outside, in the sunshine, where it was warm and where the sun would glisten off his fucking suntanned skin and make all the housewives swoon with longing at the way the golden tan contrasted with the loser’s silver-blonde hair.

Of course, there was a plus to this outdoor pool they were walking into: Charlie had promised them up and down no one would bat an eye at them. This pool was part of some blueblood health club, where any idiot could come ogle the pro athletes and the local TV people and everyone else who didn’t deign to be bugged by the adoring yokels who don’t know when to give a person some space.

They probably wouldn’t get anyone to play in the water with, Trevor figured. Places like this, no one did anything but swim laps and work on their tans. The people here were pampered. They preened.

They’d never let the likes of ShapeShifter invade them again.

They hadn’t even gotten into the place, and Trevor knew how it’d end. With the four of them walking out, laughing over a good time — and every other poor sod in the joint trying to figure out what had just happened to them. Oh, some of the women would be all intrigued, biting their lower lips and considering taking old Trevor up on his attentions. If only they weren’t married. If only they didn’t have the kids, or the stretch marks, or the guts…

Yeah. Nothing would come of that, either. Talk about a waste of a day’s good flirting.

Except… once they got there, count on Mitchell to fuck up the script. To pull off his shirt and make his hair cascade out behind him like some fucking romance novel cover model. If the band tanked, the asshole sure had another career waiting — so long as someone airbrushed his face real good. Then again, the girls seemed to like that cleft chin and those blue-green eyes well enough.

By the time Mitchell swan dived off the diving board the first time, every one of those pampered moms, their bodies too taut to have birthed babies and look so good without the benefit of plastic work along the way, their kids snot-nosed despite the good, chlorinated water to rinse it off. Yeah, every last person at that pool was sighing and wishing Mitchell would come talk to them. Even the grandma, her skin leathery from too many days out by this pool and her hair one of the fakest oranges Trevor had ever seen. Yeah, even her.

They’d be invited back, no doubt about it.

Trevor wasn’t sure if he should be grateful to Mitchell — burning every bridge you came to got old every now and then — or hate the bastard for the way the big idiot could make every single person on the planet eat out of the palm of his hand.

Maybe he’d settle for doing both.

**
Once again, I’ll be linking this piece up at a bunch of places. The Weekend Writer’s Retreat. Friday Flash. Writer’s Island.

This is another Three Word Wednesday post — one that went in directions I hadn’t been expecting. It’s also partially inspired by this prompt at Thursday Tales.

“Give it up, Trev,” Mitchell said from behind him. “We’re gonna get wet.”

“I don’t want to get wet.”

“Why not? Afraid you’ll melt?”

Trevor turned to the big idiot. “Because I don’t want to,” he said, making each word come out of his mouth as precisely as possible.

“It’s another science experiment, right?” Mitchell went on, giving Trevor’s shoulder a shove. “If you go without washing your jeans, they’ll get so dirty, they’ll disintegrate, but they’ll do it all gradual, so no one’ll ever know what’s skin and what’s jeans. You’ll go around bare-assed naked and no one will know the difference.”

Trevor sniffed and stuck his nose in the air. “You’re the one who likes to go without clothes. All I said was that I didn’t want to get wet.”

“I still don’t see what the big deal is.”

“I don’t see your precious ass out there.”

“It’s a downpour. I’m waiting for it to let up a bit.”

Trevor nodded knowingly. “Because you don’t want to get wet, either.”

“I don’t want to get drenched. There’s a difference.”

“Yeah, like the difference between a girl and a woman. They got all the same parts. It’s just that some aren’t fully formed yet and others are overripe.”

Mitchell gave him an odd look. Trevor figured his example hadn’t gone down quite right. Time to abandon it and go for something else. “You know,” he said, “if we were real rock stars instead of guys on our way up, we’d have people here to hold umbrellas for us.”

“We’d have someone here to wash your jeans, too.”

Trevor smirked. “They are clean. Eric took my stuff when he went to the laundromat the other day.”

Mitchell nodded like he’d known that. Probably had, the wanker. Hell, he’d probably been there with Eric, combining their clothes so no skivvies got turned pink. Not that it mattered if they did; they’d just give them to some eager girls and send ’em on their way.

“Then why don’t you want to get wet?” Mitchell asked.

Trevor turned to the idiot. This conversation was old. Time to end it.

Even though his back was to the door, Trevor took that dreaded step outside. At least he was facing Mitchell and could see the guy’s eyes get all wide as Trevor was suddenly as wet as if he’d walked into a car wash.

Being wet sucked, but laughing at Mitchell was worth every second of the way his jeans were about to chafe.

*
It seems that a reluctance to go outside into the elements is a common theme with me. Remember Smoke Break, now found in Demo Tapes: Year 1? Or Hot, in Demo Tapes: Year 2?

This is a darn good time to join the Trevolution. Pick up the books, in print or digital format (I have copies I can sell you directly if you’d like autographs), and get ready as the Trevolution goes novel length in the near future!

And don’t forget to stop by (or join!) the Weekend Writers Retreat, too.