Never Say Never Read online

  Never Say Never

  The Never Knights

  kailin gow

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Thank you for choosing Never Say Never. I wanted to write about a young woman who was the lead and manager of a rock band full of young men and what it was like to be a woman in a tough industry. Along the way, I also wanted to write a different coming of age story, of a young woman finding out what she wanted.

  College is all about learning and discovering, as well as finding out who you are and what you want to do, and perhaps whom you want to do it with.

  For many, it is also the time to become independent. For me, that was the case.

  I worked as a DJ, radio host of a women’s show, and as a student peer adviser at the women’s center on campus when I was an undergraduate. And I would come across incidences of regrets and issues from many women who felt pressured to do what they truly didn’t want.

  If you can relate to this book and to Never, know that your body is yours no matter how you dress, no matter if you’re a private person or constantly in the public eye, no matter if you are already in a sexual relationship with someone. Your body is yours, and you have the right to feel secure in it. And no one has the right to make you feel inferior.

  If you ever come across sexual harassment, stalking, bullying or anything that makes you feel unsafe, please seek help, speak up, and tell others. There are help centers everywhere on campus and in the community.

  Speaking out is empowerment. Your body is yours.

  This is a YA-Mature/New Adult novel which may contain scenes not suitable for younger teens. Recommended age of reading is 17 years and up.

  Never Say Never

  Published by THE EDGE

  THE EDGE is an imprint of Sparklesoup Inc.

  Copyright © 2012 Kailin Gow

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, please contact:

  THE EDGE at Sparklesoup

  14252 Culver Dr., A732

  Irvine, CA 92604

  www.sparklesoup.com

  First Edition.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  ISBN: 978-1-59748-016-1

  DEDICATION

  For anyone who dares to dream.

  Prologue

  I feel the sweat pouring down my body. The feedback from the amplifier reverberates in my ears; my body is shaking to the sound of Geoff's guitar. The music is pulsing; I can feel it all around me in waves, feel my body twisting and turning as my voice echoes through the microphone, refracting like shattered glass through the room. I feel the energy of the keyboards – their sound like an electric shock thrilling my whole body with every movement. I feel the slow throbbing beat of the drums deep within my belly and I sing harder, sing louder, to catch the glory before it fades. They're all dancing – their eyes closed, locked in a trance, swaying together, cheering us on. Beautiful people – girls who look like models and men with eyeliner and leather jackets – the kind of defiant half-punk ecstasy you only get in nightclubs like these. Steve had been worried they wouldn't accept us. “The clientele at Veridium's the hardest crowd in the biz,” he'd said. But I'd known as soon as we started playing that they'd love us. I knew it from the look in their eyes – that look of surprise, of shock, of vague recognitions that we were playing something great, and we were playing on the strings of their souls. The second the music had started up I'd felt the crowd shift – flint-eyed models accustomed to looks of disdain closing their eyes and waving their arms in the air, for one brief and glorious second not worrying about the poses they were making or whether or not happiness had calories. Trendy cocktail-makers behind the bar spilling their drinks as the whole zinc bar reverberated with our sound. We had them. I could feel our effect; I could feel the effect the audience had on me: they were offering us their love, their admiration, their adoration.

  Just like paradise, I thought. Because that's what this was – paradise. They say Los Angeles is the city of Angels. Well, tonight I was an angel – an angel in a punk-rock tank and a beat-up leather skirt and spiky boots that came up to my thighs – and tonight I was in heaven. I'd always known this is what I wanted to do – to sing strange songs at three in the morning in an LA nightclub, to make girls' mascara drip down their faces when they cried while singing along, to feel this energy flooding through me like an electrical storm.

  I'd never had the voice for opera. I'd learned that long ago, when Dad had reluctantly caved into my relentless pressure to hiring a vocal tutor for me. My voice wasn't clean and pure and formal, that's what the tutor had said. It was raw – animalistic – powerful without ever being controlled. It wasn't a voice to lace up into corsets or pretty costumes; it wasn't the voice to hum along to on the radio. It was husky – sweet only when I tried – filled with emotion and rage and somewhere in there I could carry a tune. The classically trained soprano my dad had hired had thrown up her hands when I refused to moderate my tones for the fiftieth time and said, “Well, I don't know how she does it – but she's got a voice like her father, all right.”

  Some girls have their fathers sing them lullabies. My dad sang me punk rock from the time I was six months old. The one time he sang me “Hush Little Baby” backstage at a rock concert, one of the groupies recorded it on camera and it hit the celebrity gossip shows in a matter of hours; today, you can buy the bootleg “Lullaby EP” on the Internet if you know where to look. I didn't grow up with too much “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” anyhow – my father used to sing me his greatest hits instead. “Black Death,” “Eyes of Defeat,” “Your Endless Hurt.” He used to sing in that raw, wild voice of his and caress me with his guitar-calloused hands and I grew up singing all of his greatest hits in the shower.

  Of course, I didn't know he was Keith Knight – the Keith Knight. The guy who'd shown up to the Grammy Awards in blue eyeliner and a black leather doublet with a parakeet on his shoulder. The guy David Bowie had once said he wished he could have been. By the time he had me, all traces of the drug-addled, androgynous, heavily made-up, leather-clad glam rock star my mother had fallen in love with had fallen by the wayside. The Keith Knight I knew was a family man – he'd gone off drugs the second he'd heard my mom was pregnant – slightly pot-bellied, with nothing to suggest to me that he was anything but a normal dad except for the characteristic twinkle in his eye. To his fans, of course, my dad was still Keith Knight of the Dark Knights, the eighties punk-glam band that defined a generation. But to me, he was just Dad.

  My eyes quickly scanned the crowd for familiar faces. I could make out a few amid the sea of anonymity. A place like Beverly Hills is a small town – if you know it well enough. The same kinds of people go to all the same parties. Minor celebrities, a couple of socialites, a potential reality TV show star in the making trying to talk her way past the bouncers at the door. A few cynical-looking older men who assume that the only reason I'm here at all, the only reason the Never Knights are even playing, is because of my father and his credentials.

  Please. If my dad knew I was out here, I'd be grounded. Not that I could be grounded anymore, of course – at 18, I was a freshman at USC and out of the house for the first time and leading one of the hottest up-and-coming bands in the music world.

  Chapter 1

  As we were packing up our instruments, I could feel the last of the adrenaline start to wear off. My face was flushed; my long dark hair was tangled with sweat and exertion. My makeup had run down my eyes, giv
ing me the mild appearance of a raccoon. But I felt beautiful. I could feel my happiness and excitement emanating from every pore in my face, from every cell in my body. I walked over to the boys who were packing up their kit. “Hey guys!” I wrapped them all in a big bear hug. “You did an amazing job out there tonight. Couldn't you feel it? And if I'm not mistaken, I thought that I saw Richard Slayton in the crowd...”

  This was enough to knock them into silence. They looked up at me in shock. “Really?” asked Kyle in a small voice. Then he broke out into a broad grin and laughed with joy and relief. Luc jumped up to his feet and gave me a high five, his skin hot against mine. “I told you to have faith,” he said, “I knew he'd show. He wasn't going to miss this for the world. Not the Never Knights...”

  Steve got up from his drum set, stretching his long and lanky frame. “Don't jinx it!” he said. “You know the rules. We're going to play it cool, Luc. Not going to get excited until it's in writing on the dotted line. I don't care if it's Richard Slayton or any other record exec – I don't want to jinx it. Besides...” his eyes trailed across the room to a pair of blonde twins giggling over at the bar. “I've got other things to worry about tonight. Those two were giving me the eye all evening. I don't want to be distracted.” He laughed loudly. “If you know what I mean.”

  I rolled my eyes. Steve might be the world's biggest lady-killer now, but I remembered the awkward gangly kid he used to be, and the idea of him bagging not one, but two of those perfect-ten blondes in the corner was less awe-inspiring to me than faintly ridiculous. He was unmistakably handsome now, of course – if I was being rational I'd point out his emerald green eyes and affable, boyish charm – but somehow I couldn't get past seeing him as the muddy-faced pre-adolescent I used to mercilessly mock in the schoolyard.

  “Color me impressed, Steve,” I said loudly, trying to match his masculine bravado word for word. “I remember when the ladies didn't even give you a chance to disappoint them. Just because you've managed to bulk up on egg-yolk-powder and protein shakes doesn't change anything – I know the truth. You're still the skinny-bones I remember.”

  Steve grinned widely, evidently ready for a challenge. “Freckle-face,” he chanted back at me. “Don't get so high and mighty. I seem to remember you were a late bloomer.”

  “At least I didn't have a butt like a flat board,” I laughed.

  “At least I didn't have a flat chest!” Steve retorted, and the other boys laughed and whooped. They were used to our little teasing matches, and although I usually won, the boys liked to cheer on Steve as the underdog.

  “Snot-nose.”

  “Pimply.”

  We were in each other's faces, now – barely an inch of space between us. As I looked into Steve's green eyes, watching them go vaguely cross-eyed at the lack of distance between us, we both gave up at the same time, collapsing into giggles and guffaws as the memory of our schoolyard banter came back to us. “Aw, come on, Neve,” Steve put a muscular sweaty arm around me. He smelled of beer and guitar wood – a warm, reassuring smell I associated with our nights of jamming in Luc's basement.

  “Aw, I'm just kidding, Neve. Those pimples cleared up good after a visit to the doctor. And let me tell you, I'm pretty sure you're not flat-chested, either. They can measure that these days – with science!”

  “And I can't remember the days before you pumped all those steroids and developed those biceps,” I replied sweetly. We laughed and hugged, and I grabbed Luc and pulled him into our group embrace. “Come on, guys, I heard they did a spread for us backstage. I don't know about you, but I'm starving.” I was always starving after a shot – the expenditure of energy worked up a pretty intense appetite.

  “Let's clean up later,” Geoff assented. “Come on, I'm hungry too. And thirsty. Let's seize the moment.”

  We followed one of the staff workers into the back room, where we gasped at what we saw. There in front of us was an enormous table covered in black velvet cloth, piled high with buckets filled with ice – champagne and vodka bottles floating in them – and a mouth-watering spread of food: olives, pates, oysters, and several tiers' worth of delicious-looking chocolates. Everything was as elegant as I'd have expected it to be. Then again, Veridium was the kind of club that made its name on being elegant.

  “Courtesy of Mr. Maxwell Simmons,” the club manager said, smiling broadly. “He wants you to have the best amenities while you're here – as a thank you for such a good show. And he hopes you'll make a habit of coming back here.”

  “Tell him thank you for us,” I smiled widely. “We really appreciate it – me and the guys. We all do.”

  “I'll let him know,” the manager vanished through a mahogany door. For a moment as I looked at the food, I felt almost guilty. I'd been used to the royal treatment my whole life. I'd never been carded at a single club, no matter how exclusive or expensive – certainly, nobody here cared that any of us was under twenty-one. I'd been offered freebies like this my whole life – it was one of the perks of being Keith Knight's daughter. Everyone wanted my picture taken in one of their clubs, next to one of their friends. But as I looked over at the others, I felt embarrassed, turning pink. While Steve's family was relatively wealthy, neither Luc – whose dad was a police officer and whose mother was a teacher – nor Kyle, who'd been raised by his aunt, my dad's housekeeper, after his dad got sent to jail, had anything like the upbringing I'd had. It was one of those things I tried to forget about – one of the few things that separated us. But when we got treatment like this...

  “How did you score this one?” Geoff looked at me, grinning widely. I couldn't help but feel annoyed – he'd found my insecurity and picked up on it.

  “Actually,” Luc broke in. “It was me this time.”

  I turned to Luc in surprise. “Oh?” I felt relieved.

  “Max Simmons' daughter Cinna really likes our music. She's a big big fan – if you know what I mean.”

  “She's a big big fan of yours, you mean?”

  Luc blushed. “That's exactly what I mean.” He looked through the door and pointed her out, but he didn't need to. Six foot two and wearing designer minis that cost more than several bottles of the finest champagne, Cinna Simmons was every inch the stereotype of the LA socialite. She wasn't just beautiful – she was expensive – every part of her molded into perfection by the best tailors and surgeons money could buy. She caught sight of Luc through the door and waved, her perfectly-aligned cheekbones turning pink with pleasure. Steve had already wandered off, and had his arms around the two blondes. Luc went over to Cinna, who embraced him with more-than-platonic intensity, and I watched as Kyle quickly became submerged in another crowd of female fans.

  “Looks like everyone's partnering up,” I said to Geoff as Kyle vanished.

  “Yeah, guess so.” Geoff took a step closer to me. “Which incidentally leaves us just where I want us to be, alone.”

  He lightly placed his fingers on my arm, moving them up to my shoulders.

  Annoyance coursed through me. If there had ever been anything romantic between me and any of the band mates, it had long been repressed on all our sides out of the interest of our continuing friendship. We knew exactly how many bands had broken up because of personal infighting – and we didn't want that to be us. Only Geoff didn't listen. In the past few years, it seemed, he’d gotten it into his head that he was irresistible – that no woman could ever refuse him. And somehow this made me the ultimate prize. I was off-limits.

  I gently removed his fingers and stepped back, making my stance clear. “Geoff, I don't want to have to tell you again. I'm not into that and you know it. I can't date you, Geoff. I can't date anyone from the band.”

  “Guess I just have to quit, then...” Geoff sighed heavily. “Then would you break your rule?”

  “I remember when the band was your life,” I couldn't help snapping. “You wouldn't even have thought about quitting then.”

  “I guess you're just special then, Neve.”

  To my
immense relief, Kyle reappeared with a chilled bottled soda for me. “Trying it on again, are we, Geoffrey? I'm warning you, Geoff – charm doesn't get far with Neve.” He handed me the bottle and we clinked bottles. “Isn't that right Neve?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Like he said, Geoff. Charm won't get you an inch.”

  “Miss Knight?” A male voice interrupted our conversation.

  I turned around and my mouth dropped open. Before me stood Dick Slayton – the most powerful producer in the record industry. And he had just addressed me by name.

  We all fell silent, an expectant pause washing over us.

  “Yes?”

  “I enjoyed watching you perform tonight,” he said and my stomach began to tense up with terror. “Your band has a lot of promise.”

  He motioned for me to follow him, and we went over to a private corner of the room. “I'm glad you think so...” I started. “How much promise, exactly?”

  “Miss Knight, I'll be truthful here. You’ve got talent – raw, primal, animal talent. But what you need to work on is technique. That energy you had tonight – it's great. But you can never guarantee a thing like that. When a room works – it's magic. But when it doesn't – you need to make sure you have solid technique, solid practice under your belt to keep things going. Before RRR can consider you, we'd like to see a few more performances under your belt, a bit more polish in your sound.”

  “Oh...” My face fell and my stomach dropped.

  “But in a few months' time, Miss Knight, I think you should drop us another invitation. I'd be most interested in seeing where you go from here, and I get the feeling that if you improve as much in the next few months as you've done in the last few, we might have room for you at our label.”