There were a few more notes that sounded wrong to my ears, and I cursed my bandmates with each twang. If they’d let me play more often, it wouldn’t sound so awkward now. I’d be fluent, effortless. Once again, they were holding me back.
Just as I was about to toss the instrument away in disgust, the door opened, and outside sounds filtered into the room. Kellan, Matt, and Evan kept playing and singing, but the new, odd element to the room distracted me, and I stopped playing. Matt groaned and tossed his hands into the air. Evan frowned and Kellan shook his head.
“Griffin, you have to keep going through the distractions. It’s called the lead for a reason.”
I looked over at Matt, but I didn’t have a response suitable enough for the strange feeling ripping through my body. It was almost…shame or embarrassment, but that was ridiculous. I didn’t feel those things, so I settled on anger instead. If the guys weren’t such jackasses, I’d be better at this. Just when I was about to tell Matt as much, Kiera strode onto the “stage.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, a little breathless. Her eyes, a slightly browner shade of green than Anna’s, locked on mine. “But I’m pretty sure Anna is in labor. Real labor. I think the baby is coming today.”
Unstrapping the guitar, a different sort of emotion flooded through me—excitement and anxiety. A new baby! Today! Shit! We were in the middle of nowhere, we needed to get back to civilization…now!
I set the guitar back on the rack, but I lined it up wrong and it fell off. Goddammit, I didn’t have time for this shit right now! Managing to catch the guitar before it smacked against the floor, I tried putting it back on the rack. Matt came over and helped me. I offered him a thanks before hurrying away, or at least I tried to scurry off; he had grabbed my wrist and was holding me there. I was so riled up I almost shoved him away from me, but I managed to control myself enough to say, “Back off, dude, I’ve gotta go.” Kiera was leaving the room with my family, and I needed to go with them. Anna was probably in a good dose of pain. She needed me.
“What was that?” he asked, clearly perturbed by my playing. Kellan and Evan stepped closer and I nearly groaned at all of them. Couldn’t this wait?
“What? I was a little rusty, that’s all.” I tried to move past him, but he put his hand on my chest to stop me.
“You said you knew the songs as well as me, but you were clueless, Griffin. You had no idea what you were playing.”
Familiar irritation pushed back the rush of endorphins I’d been feeling. “I’ve seen you play them enough times that I feel like I—”
Matt cut me off. “You’ve seen me play? But you don’t actually know the songs…And you thought that would be enough to take over for me? See…that’s just another reason why it won’t ever happen, Griffin. You don’t get that this isn’t a game.”
I was just on the verge of telling him that all I needed was practice, but his holier-than-thou tone pissed me off. And even worse, Kellan and Evan were nodding, like they agreed with him. “Fuck all of you. I’ve got a baby to deliver.”
Assholes. If they had ever given me the chance I’d repeatedly asked for, I’d be better. It was entirely their fault that I wasn’t. I elbowed my way past the Judgey McJudgersons, then raced to the house. My anger and disappointment shifted to concern the closer I got to Anna. As if it were yesterday, I remembered how much pain she’d been in with Gibson. I’d never seen someone in so much agony. I could only compare it to getting my junk pierced. That…had sucked.
“Anna! Anna, where are you?” I spun in circles in the living room, wondering which way to go first. Where the hell was my wife?
“In here, Griffin!” Anna’s voice sounded from the kitchen, so I headed that way. When I got there, I saw a sight that I didn’t quite understand. Anna was calmly making Gibson, Ryder, and the twins a snack. Ryder had a big grin on his face as he sat in his high chair, digging into a container of applesauce with a tiny plastic spoon.
“Anna?” I asked, confused. “I thought you were going into labor?”
Nodding, Anna glanced at the time on the microwave. “I am. Every five to ten minutes. Gibson said she was hungry, so I thought I would make the kids something to eat before we headed out.”
Grabbing her hand, I stopped her from slicing pieces off the block of cheese. “Kiera can handle that. In fact, we should probably leave Gibson here with her. Dawn and Della too. But we need to go. It’s a long drive, and you don’t want to give birth in the Hummer, do you?”
Anna’s eyes widened as she thought about that possibility. “No…definitely no. Okay, let’s go.”