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Author's Note: Picture used with permission from *lavonia on deviantart.

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Chapter 103
 

Jem…Chapter 103

Chapter 103

I’m into it right off the get go and as much as I love the music we have so far for Starlight Butterfly I’m a rock fan first and to be at a place like The Amsterdam and playing the kind of old school rock that we really, really love her in Ontario it just gets me going and I can’t help but to throw myself into that rocker girl gripping the Mic stand and just cutting loose.

………………………“And a girl in the corner let no one ignore her
'Cause she thinks she's the passionate one.”

“Oh, yeah…!”
“It was like lightning! Everybody was frightening…!”
“And the music was soothing… 'cause they all started grooving.”

“Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…!”

“And the man at the back said everyone attack
and it turned into a ballroom blitz”

“And the girl in the corner said boy, I wanna warn ya
it’ll turn into a ballroom blitz…”

“Ballroom blitz
Ballroom blitz
Ballroom blitz
Ballroom blitz”

Honestly this is so my thing as we’re belting out the song the people here take notice almost immediately and they start chair bopping and I’m leaning into the mic and I’m really giving it hard tonight.

I want to as they say blow the doors off the place tonight.

Serious couple of days and I really want to cut loose.

I need to cut loose.

We grind it out to that cool kind of rock halt and I yell into the mic.

“Hey everybody…!” It’s a kind of a singing shout with me drawing out the end of it and there’s a bunch of yells and shouts and whistles. That’s very cool their warmed up already.

“So are you all here to blow off some steam!”

“Has it been a hard week!?”

“Yeah…It’s been a hard week.” I shoot the crowd a bit of a grin and I grip the mic and I sing into it just solo without any instruments. The girls will wait for my nod to start.

“A very good friend of mine…told me something the other day…”

“I’d like to pass it on to you…because I believe why he said to be true.”

And here’s where I mic the crowd.

And just like that certain kind of magic the whole place shouts and sings.

“We're here for a good time!”
“Not a long time!” (Not a long time)…Me and the girls chiming in.
“So have a good time…”
“The sun can't shine everyday…”

And that’s when we start all playing together as we go into *We’re here for a good time.* By Trooper. And with each time the chorus comes up I mic the crowd and they’re into it. I love our fans especially the ones that come here for our show from our other shows at The Pine Tree. They so are the ones that jump right in and sing along and I can’t help but to grin and smile as I can see that whole hard fast rock song and the whole really great party tune getting everyone warmed up to have a good time and the bar gets busy and the ones that aren’t dancing yet are seat rocking and ordering food and drinks.

After the talk with Jake earlier I’m happy, It more than cool that we can all do this and work together like this and I look out at the crowd and we’re still bringing them in. some old faces but a lot of other people too.

This…so much this.

I signal the change up and I grin a little wider and start doing the hair thing rocker nod as Raven and Brooklyn start that guitar grind out to… *I Love Rock and Roll!* By Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

And that’s all it takes for the women inside to yell first with that girl scream like when you hear one of your favorite jams at a bar and well they are and I don’t even have to mic them this time as a whole lot of girls are screaming and singing along.

And just as much as their doing that they’re up and dancing too.

Then into *Raise your fist.* By Starlight Butterfly and we slip from that one of ours into another good rocker chic song as we do *These Boots.* By Joan Jett and The Blackhearts and right after that. *Rock your little heart out* By AC/DC.

We slip back into some more Canadiana with some Cory Heart and *Never Surrender* and *Boots or hearts* By the Tragically Hip and that one’s sung by Rayne and she’s got just enough dark and cool in her voice that she can sooo pull that off.

Which leads into… *Don’t Wanna.* By Starlight Butterfly and then another one of ours *Fortune favors the Bold* and a more medium song called…*Keep the faith.* followed by *Who’d ever think?* and the we go from that into *Everything.*

Yeah, yeah that’s like six of our songs close together and actually five of them in a row and it’s sort of a test. I mean we’ve never really just played a whole show of just our stuff and this, this right here shows some really promising results.

And that’s fifteen songs and that takes up to the first break.

I get a bottle of O.J. from Mike and take a drink and lean forward at the mic after that. I hold up my bottle at the crowd in a toast.

“It’s our neutral country…”
“It’s our home away from home…”
“It’s Beers!”
“And Wings!”
“Smiles and Drinks!”
“And It’s about rock and roll!”

“Raise your voices!”
“Raise you drinks!”

“The Amsterdam!”

I raise the bottle and leaning to the mic. And they get it, me, the band, the staff, the crowd.

“The Amsterdam…!”

I love it when the crowd does that and this toast thing I mean who doesn’t want their place to be the kind of place that does that. The place actually shouts it really loud too. I can see that the behind the bar staff is really into it too.

I seriously, seriously love this.

Even if we’re just this I love this and I’ll play stuff like here forever.

I step down off the stage and take a towel from Mike and head over to Carmen’s table with Rayne who’s doing the same. I wave and offer my hand to her in a handshake which she takes and then I shake with her friends as I’m talking.

“I’m really glad that you could come tonight, you’ve kind of been a big boost.”

“A boost me?”

“Those were pretty big tips and they helped out a lot.” I smile at her; this is more than kind of strange. Carmen’s a cardie and so are her friends and they’ve never been the nicest people…especially to Jason.

Rayne nods. “Hey I work at Wall Mart when I’m not doing this, trust me it helps.”

Carmen actually blushes a little bit. “Well uhm it’s not a big deal.”

I look at her trying to be like surprised. I mean I know it likely came from a bank machine Adam card withdrawal but Angel’s not supposed to.

“It was close to two hundred that’s like a third of our rent right there.” Okay it might seem like I’m pushing that fact but actually adding up the times she’d tipped and yeah it wasn’t that far off the mark really and it really is close to a third of our rent. Carmen actually blinks and blushes a little but waves it off in that. Embarrassed that she was caught doing a really good thing and didn’t know what she did when she did it.

Her friends are all looking at her with this. Oh…hey…cool look like it’s a semi-big deal to them too.

Okay this might sound odd given what’s happened with them and Adam and Jason but there’s something here that reminds me of when Kim talks about her stuff. Pain under the money and privilege. So much of that I have money and stuff but it doesn’t help me any.
Carmen looks at me a little once she’s tried to remount her coolness into place. “So are you really Jason’s cousin?”
“Yeah, I came up here to look after Uncle Remy…he’s all alone now and stuff and Jase asked me so…” I sort of shrug. “I was kind of between places anyways and stuff.”

She nods. “I don’t suppose you know where he’s at?”

“I wouldn’t say it even if I did around here. This is Adam’s town and he’s got too many eyes and ears.”

Carmen frowns a little at that. “Yeah, he really does and then some.”

I nod. “I heard he owns everything well him and his family.”

She and the other girls nod. “Jace’s really, like really effing lucky that Mike and his old man are like cops and stuff because Adam doesn’t just come after you he goes for your family, his family goes for your family.”

The look there on her face and the look on the faces of the other girls has me thinking… “So a vicious circle huh?”

There’s some nods and Carmen is looking down and frowning just a little. “A little like that…” and there’s this shift in her face that she’s done talking about this because it hurts.

I reach out and put my hand on hers and she almost pulls it away. I look her in the eyes. “Look Carmen you helped out and it was way cool so anytime you girls need a place that’s Non-marshal give us a call we’re definitely not on his payroll or in his good graces.”

Brooklyn’s come over and she goes. “Pfft like we’d fucking wannabe, we’re not sell outs like Summer.”

I smile and look back at Carmen and the girls. “Safe harbor no strings.”

“What about Mike?”

“Yet me take care of Mike if it’s an issue but like really? He’s a cop’s kid do you know how much he keeps from his old man?”

There’s some smiles and giggles at that and Jake comes over. “Hey Jem you taking your break here?”

I look at the girls. “Part of it, that okay?”

“Nope just that’s what it looked like.” He grins and he sets down two big baskets of fries and one of onion rings. “On the house ladies diet cokes are coming.”

Carmen actually points at herself and the girls she’s with in this whole us too? gesture. Jake nods and he heads off to the bar. He did this all on his own without even knowing what’s going on. Big time cool points there.

We sit down grabbing a few chairs and Kimmie joins us too and we all eat and are grabbing fries and stuff and I stick to water since I despise anything with artificial sweeteners in them. I don’t think that they’re safe. I know regular pop isn’t really safe either so that’s why I really rarely drink any.

Anything with like nine or more spoonful’s of sugar or something that replaces that is just…yeah nope. I’ll opt out on that most of the time.

We all eat and it doesn’t take a whole lot of time for like nine girls to clean up the free offerings and there seems to be a lightening of the mood at least with Carmen and her friends.
I get up and wipe off my hands to get all the grease off and then I shake hands all around again. “This was highly cool but the back stage bathrooms calling before we’re back up again.”

Carmen nods. “This was very cool and thanks for inviting us.”

I smile and I give her a light hug. “It’d be bigger but I’m kinda sweaty.”

Rayne wraps her arms around me after that and pulls me close. “Well I like you that kind of sweaty, any kind of sweaty.”

“Raven…” I blush.

She grins. “Wet is wet.” And with that she hauls me off to backstage and she kisses me as she backs me into the bathroom.

“Mmmm…well that was awesome but you were doing that for like effect right?”

“Maybe, but maybe I wanted to make sure that everyone knows that we’re definitely an item.”

“Oh…” Oh…uh…yeah…actually it’s oh and kinda yay too.

How cool is it that she wants to do that. I don’t mean like stalkery stuff but that whole I want everyone to know that we’re together, that she loves me. Being alone and thinking you’re not worthy of love is the worst feeing in the world. It wasn’t Adam and company hating on my that was the worst. I knew they were assholes and he was well…Adam.

It was the isolation that hurt me so much.

I get myself together in the bathroom and we did so with some making out while we were back there too. I don’t know there might be a little bit of Rayne really glad that I’m back to being me and not being Jason there.

I’m really not going back and given my medical condition really Jase might have ended up being a temporary thing eventually anyway.

We head back out onto the stage make-up fixed and all the necessary stuff and we get cheers as we’re coming back on stage and that really helps get me that little boost. I get my guitar slung on and I look out at them.

“Hey everyone!”

“HEY! JEM!”

Okay that’s just more than cool.

“Everyone get an awesome bite to eat!? Something to drink!? Are you all loosened up!?”

There’s cheers and some yells and lots of whistles. This is awesome but it’s also part of the job you get the crowd going and you get them dancing and rocking along with you and here that means they break for drinks and when you drink you still eat and all of that stuff.

And as the cheers and stuff’s going on I give the cues and we start up again and do *Rock this Joint.* By Alannah Myles.

And that’s got a really good rocking vibe so we go from that into. *A-C-D-C.* By Joan Jett and The Blackhearts and this is a really great tune. Guys dig it, some girls dig it and all the girls into girls really dig it.

I get the grins a little in seeing Molly there with her stuff and by Mike get caught up in it and she’s doing the whole shimmy and shake thing.

Okay there’s the whole thing about skinny girls and all of that but as a girl who likes girls with something to them there’s something a whole lot of awesome about that bigger girl getting down and doing the shimmy and shake.

And just to go with that I do a change up and Rayne takes over the Mic and with that powerful voice she has she does. *Whole lotta love* By Led Zeppelin and while Sabbath had RJD (Ronnie James Dio.) as a singer for a while Raven doing this is like Adele actually using her voice to do it…no…actually, actually tonight Raven’s so got this Amy Winehouse doing a cover of this song.

Okay and a little Joplin too in those long high notes like the original song. We’re so totally adding this to our gig list here. And there’s so much more to it than just that for me too. I mean I’m on stage with my band and we’re doing a Zeppelin cover. Getting to play a really awesome tune and with some really awesome guitar.

And the crowd really likes it with our fans but this is older rock and there’s some of that get up and show them going on and sometimes you just can’t go wrong with the really great old rock stuff with an older rock and pub crowd.

And just because the flow is right for the next song and it’s been covered by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts Raven signals the changes and she goes into her doing that same voice style rocker chick Winehouse-Joplin thing of AC/DC’s *Dirty Deeds*

After that we slip into another one of us doing *Don’t Wanna.* By Starlight Butterfly and we use that one to bridge into *Fortune Favors the Bold* by us and then to get way from too much of our stuff without going to our softer stuff we switch over after that to *Loving every minute of it.* By Loverboy and it’s still in that Canadiana kind of 80’s sort of rock that the crowd really likes here and well given the whole deal with me and everything it’s a really good thing that I don’t really think too hard on the first too lines of the song.

But it is a good song with all that old anthemy rock “Touch that dial, turn me on!” Kind of stuff that people like to party too and drink too.

And that’s just what it’s doing since it’s such a really great tune for that and it’s a really good set up for us to get into some good party rock kind of tunes. Like I have been really working at there’s a different vibe here so totally different music for here depending on what part of the night it is. We bridge from “lovin’ over to. *Come on feel the noise.* By Slade but more known here as done by Motely Crue. It’s still a great tune.

Then it’s flowing from one to another and so of with… *What I like about You.* By The Romantics another really good dance tune and *Twist and Shout* By The Beatles and I give a thumbs up when someone screamed out. “Do danke shoen!” That was kind of cool because it was one of the songs sung in Ferris Beuller and twist and shout was the other one. I love stuff like that.

But Twist leads really well into us really rocking it out and getting people up and dancing with… *Johnny be Good* By Chuck Berry and then *Rock and roll hoochie koo* By Rick Derringer and that’s another great song to party and dance to and it’s just odd and kooky enough for us to trot out *Love Shack* by The B-52’s and that song seems to jump that age gap with the crowd here and there’s a lot of people having a good time and the place is jumping and I hit them with the rocking finisher.

The people in the place actually just kind of explode into that sing along as their dancing party thing as we do *Wild Thing.* By the Troggs.

And that’s the second part of the show in and that takes us to our second break which is really well deserved with the way that I’m feeling and the crowd too.

I lean into the Mic. “That, that was awesome but there is nothing like getting mellow after blowing off some steam so when we get back from break we’re going to slip into something a little more comfortable musically and stuff but before we go here’s a little something different but something to get you all into that mellow mood.”

We’re not a country band but sometimes some songs do that crossing over thing and this is a really, really good song for that and it’s a meant to be bar song. We slip into *Two Pina Coladas.* By Garth Brooks.

As it turns out that this too is another one of those songs that gets sung along too in a pug kind of place. They give us one heel of an applause as we finish that and wave to everyone before we head out back and head to the bathroom.

I give Carmen and her friends a wave before we’re out of sight and backstage. I really, really needed to pee this time after all that fast paced rock and stuff and after that it’s kind of get our bags and strip and wash down getting a lot of the sweat out and stuff and then get dressed again and redo our make-up and stuff and drinking down more water and juice to keep hydrated.

I can almost not imagine just how bad it must be on the bigger stage.

Wow with all of us having to do all out stuff and everything it really doesn’t take all that long for our break to slip by. Though I did spend some of it watching our stuff getting sold out, like sold out sold out and that kind of led to Rayne’s arms slipping around me and us using the rest of the time to kiss test our lipstick.

I really, really have to say that kissing with both parties wearing lipstick is beyond awesome, I mean I’ve had such strong reactions to the way that Rayne kisses me before but the whole lips and lipstick and glistening wet kisses and stuff is just.

Oh…oh yeah.

And we actually end up kissing out onto the stage and there’s screams and shouts and whistles and Raven breaks the kiss leaving me all wowed and blushing in front of everyone and by the time I blot my lips Raven’s has the mic and she’s looking at me and smiles in front of everyone and then Mike drops our lights for this part and Raven starts to belt out her cover of *One and only.* By Adele…but she keeps looking back at me as she is belting that out.

Of course I respond with Mike passing me another Mic and stand and I start to sing *Carousel* to Raven by Starlight Butterfly.

Then she does. *Song instead of a kiss* By Alannah Myles and I follow that up with *Washed away* By Starlight Butterfly and the Raven does *Billy Holiday* By Starlight Butterfly and I do *Please don’t go* by Starlight Butterfly and then *Everything* By Starlight Butterfly and Raven slips back into singing and sings… *Oncology* By Starlight Butterfly…yeah there’s some repeats from earlier in there but we’re still getting out a lot of our stuff out there.

You know we actually have fifteen of our own songs to our brand and while that’s more than enough to make an album not all of them fit together. We all sort of have that desire to get to the point where we will have enough slow stuff and enough pop and enough rock styled songs eventually for us to give each sort of song flavor its own Starlight Butterfly album. I mean we could pad it out with covers more than likely but we really don’t want to do that.

Our fans from other shows are doing the sway and lighter thing and we can hear calls out for “Invisible!”

It still sort of gets to me in a good way how many people are into that song and can identify with it. I start to sing *Invisible* and I don’t know what kind of prompted them but Dad and uncle Mitch go over to Carmen’s table and Dad asks Carmen or rather I see him offer his hand to her to invite her up to dance and I smile.

She looks nervous and stuff but he does that Dad-Remy smile and she takes his hand and he pulls her out onto the dance floor and they start to dance.

If anyone can get through that armor she’s got over everything maybe it might be dad. I smile some more at them both and I settle in closer to the Mic and I do my version of *Just a Matter of time* By John Cafferty only I’m kinda going for a Luba like sound with mine.

It’s slowly starting to wind down and I can see it getting late and there’s a little bit of time left so I decide to end it off for the night by doing *I Believe.* By Starlight Butterfly and give then my end of show stick in your head and your heart power ballad.

I’m kind of wiped by the time I get that finished and there’s a lot of shouts and a whole lot of applause as we take our bows for the crowd and I smile at everyone and take up the Mic.

“Thanks so much for letting us put on our Friday night show for you all tonight. We had an awesome time and we hope you did too. We’re going to play out as usual and everyone drive safe okay.”

Everyone starts to do their own thing but there’s a bunch still just weaving and leaning and actually singing along with us as we end the night with Brooklyn playing and singing. *One for the money, two for the show.* By Trooper.

It’s a good way to end the night and yet when I look over and see Carmen hanging onto my dad and she looks like she’s crying I’m so not sure that the night’s not done yet.