“What about ‘dazzle’?”

“Right, A.J. My trademark will be I cause blindness among our fans. Next.”

“I think it’s kinda cool though.”

“Well, I disagree. Anyone got a better idea that doesn’t imply injuries or something?”

“I still don’t get it, D. Why not just go with ‘Sweet D.’?”

“Blindness? What does ‘dazzle’ mean exactly again?”

As he walked down the steps, he thought of the names he had immediately discarded. ‘Devilish’ because it was just not him. ‘Desire’ in his opinion, was more suitable for a woman, and more precisely a woman working the streets. ‘Dark’ because it seemed just a bit strange. Then there was ‘Dirty’. A.J. came up with that one, but when he mentioned it made him think of Christina Aguilera’s single ‘Dirrty’, Howie immediately discarded the idea. ‘Deinonychus’ was Nick’s idea, but Howie had no idea what it stood for. It turned out to be a killer dinosaur that was about 5 feet tall. It supposedly had a large, sickle-shaped claw on each foot. Nick laughed that at least his height was about the same. Howie figured most fans would have no idea what it was as well and he wanted to avoid them thinking of very strange, maybe even inappropriate things. And there were many more, but nothing seemed to fit Howie.

After finding what he was looking for, he went back up to the conference room where he found Brian dozing off, Nick sketching a dinosaur and A.J. throwing paper planes.

“So much for being young, hard working, vibrant adults, hey guys.” Howie laughed as he not so accidentally kicked Brian’s chair. The poor guy in it almost launched himself as he shot up.

Nick simply responded by sticking out his tongue and A.J. threw a plane at him.

“What you got there, D?”

“This, my dear Nick, is a dictionary. And this device is gonna help us decide which nickname I’ll use during our ‘introduction’-thing. I’m just gonna randomly pick a word that starts with a ‘d’ and use that one. Or.. I take that back. I get 3 shots.”

“Lemme do that, otherwise you gonna back out on that when you don’t like any of them.” Brian said as he reached for the book.

“Alright.” Howie replied. But he hesitated before giving him the dictionary. What if those three words were stupid, awful, inappropriate or cheesy? He then decided to cross that bridge when and if he got to it.

Brian looked up the ‘d’-section, closed his eyes, flipped through some of the pages and then dropped his finger on one of the words. Nick leaned in so he could see which word Brian, or maybe fate, had chosen for his bandmate.

“What is it, Nick?” Howie asked.

But the younger one was laughing too hard to answer.

“I didn’t change my mind that much. You just came up with crappy ideas.” Howie laughed as he grabbed his jacket. “Diesel. Howie ‘Diesel’ Dorough. I think I really, really like it.” He said to himself as he closed the door behind him.