Braden spoke up, “Bri’s got a gig tonight—some house party. I say we go. Talk to her there.”
“Wait a minute. I haven’t agreed, and we haven’t thought how to handle this with Priss and Peter. You know they’re going to fight it. Priss won’t want a girl in the band.”
“Who the fuck cares?” Braden shot back. He jumped to his feet and started pacing. “You’ll handle her. You’re the only one she listens to anyway. I say we just go for it. Bring Bri in, kick Emerson out, and tell the Twins this is how it is.”
“That easy, huh?” He had no clue.
“Yeah, why not?”
“Why are you fighting this, Luke?” Gunn asked. “You called the meeting.”
“I know.” I wasn’t fighting it. “I just want to go over it, so we know there’s nothing more we could’ve done for him. No regrets.”
“He won’t go to rehab. The Twins got him in four times over the last year, and he always left within a day. He won’t stick it out. They covered for him. We covered for him. I’ve been covering for him all my life, so has Bri, and he treats her like shit,” Braden swore. “It’s done. We’ve given him enough chances.”
“Okay.” It was done then. “How do we act until it’s done?”
Braden quieted and glanced away.
Gunn said it for us, “We act normal. That’s all we can do.”
“So, we go to the house party then.”
Fucking hell. Bri was coming back. Had I agreed to this? Emerson had to go. That was set in stone, but Bri…I wasn’t ready for her.
“They’re going to go crazy.” A speculative gleam formed in Braden’s gaze, and his smirk grew. “That Wes guy will hate it.”
“Wes?”
Braden rolled his eyes. “The singer in Bri’s new band. I met him last night. He seems like a douche.”
Gunn grunted. “I suppose I’ll have to be security for you two. Too pretty.”
“Bring your woman. I still want to meet her.”
Gunn leveled Braden with a shrewd look. “Right.”
Braden laughed, and hopped back onto the counter. He was more relaxed now, and he teased back, “I think you’re hiding something, Gunn. Is this girl even real? Come on…”
They continued to tease each other, but it was a mask. I didn’t participate in the conversation. They might sound happy and light-hearted, but they weren’t. None of us were. We decided to cut our friend, our brother, from the band. I hadn’t officially agreed to Bri coming back, but I couldn’t think about her yet. We had Emerson to deal with first. I did the dirty work for us, so that meant I would be the one to tell him.
She was hitting the bass with a strong and sturdy hand. Her head was bent down, and her back was folded over. She was feeling the music. I could see her heel moving with the backbeat, but her left hand was hitting the snares.
Fuck.
The sight of her took my breath away. Her head came up, and her eyes were closed. She was biting her lip, and the rest of her body began to move in a frenzy. She was building up the second beat. It was coming. She was raising the room to a crescendo, but it was so silent. Everyone in the room felt it coming, and they reacted. People fell still. They forgot their dancing. They forgot the person next to them. They knew something big was fixing to happen.
It was all Brielle. She was making them listen to her. She was controlling everything.
I let out a ragged breath. No one else could do what she did. She should’ve been doing this all along. She shouldn’t be stuck playing in a crappy house party like this or some dingy bar. She belonged in a stadium. She deserved to pour this magic out over thousands, having millions love her. That’s where she belonged. Not here…and I had been the reason for where she was.
My jaw clenched.
The lead singer, Wes, stood at the front of the stage, clueless to what she was doing. He wasn’t in tune with her at all.
The feeling to yank him down and take his place clawed at me. Braden was restless beside me, and I knew he was feeling the same. His fingers were playing out the chords along with the other guitarist. He was itching for his old spot as well.
I pushed forward. We were dressed in black hooded sweatshirts. We had gone the Elijah route, but we added a baseball cap to pull low over our faces. A few girls stopped and watched us with suspicion when we parked and darted to the back door. Even then, I knew there was something familiar about us to them. It was only a matter of time before people spotted us and realized we were there.
As she stopped hitting the drums, everyone froze in awe, waiting for her to continue. It took all my strength not to jump up there and take the microphone. My blood was pumping. I wanted to play with her, sing to her beat. This was the first time hearing her in a year, and I didn’t think I could stop myself.
Her hand raised.
The girls next to us held their breath, and then Brielle slammed it down. The bass guitarist struck his chord, the lead guitarist joined in, and the guy at the keyboard joined in with the melody. The room went nuts, except for the singer. The fucking singer. He was standing there like I did. He held the microphone. His head was bent. Even his heel was counting the beats, but he was wrong. He should’ve been counting the beats when the beats weren’t playing. He was reacting to Brielle, not being with Brielle. I could see the frustration on her face. The singer wasn’t her match, and she knew it. I watched her bite her lip—the little thing she did—but she bit down harder than normal, and I knew it was because of him.
It was then when her head flew up that she skimmed the audience as she reached for the snare. She never skimmed the audience, but she did now. Her eyes caught and held mine, and they widened. I saw the shock filter in. It made her pause a fraction of a second, and then she grimaced. I could see the curse leave her lips before she shifted back into playing mode.