Author's Note: This story is completely fictional and did not happen. All characters and names are fictional and were made up.
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Los Angeles, California
The dim lights shined down on the stage. Within an hour at the club, hopefully it would be a full house for a performance. Right now was tune up hour for the band backstage as they readied their instruments. A small Jazz club on the outskirts of L.A. wasn't always a popular place to go to, but it brought in money to the point that live bands could be hired. Tonight simply was a risky night for a go, regardless if the band knew or not. Back stage, a bass player was routinely going through scales for a soft warm up practice while the rest of his band members remained busy. Their tools of the trade within their line of work was their instruments that needed to be properly cleaned and applied for routine maintenance before each show.
Charlie Piper was the leader of the band appropriately named after him: The Charlie Piper Quintet. His instrument of choice was the trumpet. Besides him, his other four band mates consisted of; George at tenor saxophone, Frank on electric bass, Ron on piano and Hank at drums. With the exception of Frank and his electric plugged in bass, the rest of the band was primarily based around older traditions of Jazz with acoustic and unorthodox play. Charlie's goal was to try and re-create the magic of the old quintets from the 1950's and 1960's, mostly relying on covers of traditional standards and songs from the greats of the genre over a long time ago.
Out of the whole band, only Frank had ever grasped the door knob of success in the music industry. His lucky break came over two years ago when he made it into a study as a session musician here in L.A. Unlike his colleagues, Frank could play other things outside of the Jazz genre, especially Heavy Metal music. His versatility from genre to genre allowed him to easily fit in as a sessions player. at 29 years of age, Frank was the oldest one in the group. The other four men remained in their mid 20's with Ron as the youngest at only 21 years old. Hank had been the newest addition to the quintet, replacing the former drummer who couldn't keep up with the higher tempo pace of the faster songs they performed.
The true star of the band was always the leader, Charlie himself. As the trumpet player, he was the lead man of the instrumental band. Most of the time, he played his solos on key with George's saxophone soloing. The two made a great trumpet/saxophone duo with their chemistry, playing together since high school as best friends. Ron remained the only black man in the band thus far, the long time piano player who had joined after George. Ron had been a keyboard player and a DJ off and on before he stepped into the band looking for a paycheck with the club gigs as a working musician. Since that day, he became the piano player in the quintet.
Money didn't always come in at this club, as much as one may have hoped. While the band had finished their tune up, Charlie knew it was bad news when he seen the manager Tom walk in through the back door with a grim look on his face. The old man had given them bad news just last week when they were unable to perform due to the club closing for the night. Charlie kinda figured that was about to be the bad news, he went on and asked him.
"Don't tell me we're not getting paid for this gig another week, Tom..."
With a sigh, the old man nodded.
"Hate to tell you this kid, but that's the case. I gotta close the club again tonight, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you in a few weeks."
The men in the back room rolled their eyes. Disappointment could be felt through out the room. Charlie spoke again.
"How you gonna make it up? You know, you got me and my guys backed into a corner. Without this one particular club, where are we gonna play? There ain't another Jazz club except deep in L.A. and that's too much of a drive."
"There's nothing I can do! I'm losing out on money too, but I gotta get this place straightened up and have the walls redone and all. So, I'm sorry kid. You gotta wait."
In his mind, Charlie knew it was probably a lie for an excuse. He wasn't around often to know if it was true or not about the club having renovations at the moment, but who cared? He set his trumpet down on the stand and turned to look over at his band mates. George had his attention, who spoke up first.
"How about we all go to the club down the street and have some drinks?"
"Yeah, we might as well hit that dance club...too bad we ain't playing there, we could maybe get paid for a change."
It was Hank who replied. Charlie listened and just nodded his head.
"Alright, let's all go have a good time then..."
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From the bar was a scene of the usual picture that always was at a club. One young woman sat by herself as she drank from her glass with a straw while observing the dance floor. Usually, she could sit and wait for some desperate man to take a shot at buying her a drink or not. This woman wasn't here for nothing though, she had a plan. This particular night club was always a hot spot for low key action to avoid running into people whom she knew. If anything, there was no need for the usual men in her life that wanted to wine and dine her before taking her to bed.
Kate had been lonely the past few weeks. Back in L.A. she wanted to spend time away from her modelling work in a break. At the same time, there was no way to deny the isolation she had put herself in for the past week. She was 24 years old, arguably the most hottest model in the world. Just her name alone was enough to draw a line of desperate men who had her as their dream girl. She was Kate Upton and very proud of the fact that she was a sex symbol in Hollywood.
For her, it wouldn't be hard at all to land a nice date to have some fun with. But she had other ideas on her, all for the reason she dropped by to this club tonight. Sitting there at the bar, she played with her straw. While twirling it around in her glass, she looked beyond to the dance floor and thought she had seen a nice looking man. A tall guy in a gray T-shirt with long hair and a big black mustache. He looked cute, even from the distance with her eye sight. Kate's attention soon was grabbed by a different man who had a seat right next to her at the bar. He was tall, in a pink button up shirt and wearing jeans. He looked up at the bartender before speaking.
"I would like a glass of Scotch, please."
The man sat down and Kate turned to look at him while he shoved his hand down to grab his wallet. He had a clean shaved face with slicked back sandy blonde hair and green eyes. Kate smiled at him and spoke up.
"Hey! I haven't seen you around here before, what's your name?"
Looking over at her, he smiled.
"I'm Charlie. Charlie Piper, what's your name beautiful?"
"Just call me Kate, honey..."
Something about this girl looked oddly familiar to him. Kate sat at the bar in a navy blue dress with a low cut at the top revealing her huge cleavage. Her face was beautiful with some heavy dark eyeliner around her eyes. Just from her voluptuous figure alone, Charlie was seduced from her beauty. Soon, the bartender sat his glass on the table and he moved to set a five dollar bill down to pay for the drink. Kate's eyes wandered as she watched the handsome man move the glass to his lips and sip it down. After he had his drink, he spoke up while sitting the glass back down on the bar.
"You know, you look like someone I've seen before."
Kate smirked before replying. The lights in the club shined over her beauty mark above her lip.
"I should look familiar to you, I'm sure you've seen me before."
"I think I have, maybe."
Reaching her hand out, she decided to grab his drink and finish off the glass. He just watched her, Kate knew that he wasn't going to say no to her. Not a woman like her with a beautiful body. Charlie just sat there and watched her drink the remainder of the glass before placing it back down. Kate spoke back up.
"So what do you do, Charlie?"
"I'm a musician, I play with a Jazz quintet at the club down the street. Fancy little place."
She smirked.
"Oh, I've never been in there. What do you play as your instrument?"
"The trumpet."
He smiled, while she thought for a second before nodding. Kate wasn't one into Jazz music at all but she couldn't be rude to him.