Especially since the guys were all working so hard to let her in, to do what she asked and give her the access she needed.
It had been two days since she’d shown up at Quinn’s house with cupcakes and an agenda a mile long. In that time, she’d sat in on band rehearsals and song writing sessions, had gone out to the Sixth Street clubs with them, had even been allowed to hire a couple of paps to shadow Ryder and Jamison when they’d visited three bakeries yesterday to pick out their wedding cake.
She’d started an official Shaken Dirty Tumblr blog and filled it with behind-the-scenes pictures of the guys working in Quinn’s music room and recording studio. She’d published numerous Vines and Snaps of them singing and joking around with one another. She’d even tweeted lyrics from a couple of the songs they were working on. And still they hadn’t complained once.
They’d watched her warily at times, had even been a bit hesitant about letting her record the Snaps of their songwriting sessions, but in the end they’d done everything she’d asked of them. Hell, they’d even invited her to hang out with them during non-working hours, since they knew she didn’t know anyone in town—like they were getting to be friends. And the whole time she was lying straight to their faces about her real reason for being here? and about how deep her connection to the label really ran.
She hated it.
Just like she hated having to keep an eye on Wyatt, hated poking around about his intentions when he ran out to the store or to pick up lunch for the guys, or coming up with excuses to watch him when he ducked outside for a smoke.
So far she’d seen no evidence that he was using or drinking and that only made things worse. The longer he went without even trying to score drugs, the more traitorous she felt. Like she was here, lying to him and the others, for no reason at all.
But staying clean three days out of rehab wasn’t staying clean for good, and if she didn’t do her job—if she didn’t do her best to keep him out of trouble—and he relapsed? She knew her father would lose his shit completely. Then Micah wouldn’t be the only member of Shaken Dirty being replaced…
She was stuck between a rock and a hard place with nothing to do but suck in her stomach and pray like hell they didn’t all get crushed. It wasn’t comfortable, it didn’t feel good, but right now it was all she could do.
And even though they didn’t know—even though she hoped they’d never know—she was determined to make up for her duplicity. Determined to give Shaken Dirty the best social media game in the business, and to help the band out as much as she could at the label, even if it meant standing up to her father about what was best for them.
They deserved that much from her.
With that thought in mind—and because she was more than half an hour early for rehearsal and had time to kill—she fired off a quick email to Caleb, telling him for the third time in as many days why she didn’t like any of the bassists the label had brought forward to audition for Shaken Dirty. While Li was the only one they’d done a full set with, they’d jammed with two other bassists yesterday—including Owen Torres from Wisdom. Neither of them had fit any better than Li had, and while they still had other auditions set up, she could tell her father was growing impatient. She was afraid he’d start pressuring them to accept Li or Owen any second now and she didn’t want that to happen.
She’d fight her father on it herself if she had to, but she knew he’d take Caleb’s opinion much more seriously than he’d ever take hers—even though she was the one here in Austin with them. She could only hope her brother took her email seriously and could convince their father to give the search a little more time to yield results, no matter how tight their timetable was.
She hit send on the email, then texted Caleb a quick message to underscore her point before climbing out of her car and making her way to the recording studio. Wyatt was early, too—the only one of the guys who ever was, she’d come to notice—and he was hanging on the side patio of the recording studio with a clove cigarette dangling from his fingertips and a far off look in his eyes—a look that had become very familiar to her over the last couple of days.
Quick and easy, she reached out and grabbed the cigarette from between his fingers before he even knew it was happening. Then she dropped it on the ground and stomped on it with her rainbow flip-flops.
“Hey!” His eyes narrowed to slits. “I wasn’t done with that.”
“Haven’t you heard? Smoking will kill you and your voice.” She reached into her purse and pulled out one of the lollipops she’d picked up at Target earlier. Held it out to him. “Try this instead.”
He looked between her and the strawberry flavored candy. “Are you serious?”
“That lung cancer is a terrible way to die? Yes, I am.” When he still made no move to take the sucker, she tucked a few of them into the front pocket of his jeans and went to move past him into the studio.