Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Figured it’s time to be honest. To stop being a dang coward in every aspect of my life.” He gives me a sexy smirk. “Especially in the most important one. Here with you.”
I come out of it. “Well … that’s … quite a word to just toss out there before you go and blow up your whole career. Are you sure that you—?”
He cuts me off with a kiss.
I swear the world goes silent the second his lips touch mine.
Everything shut off at once.
Perfect. Peaceful. Still.
He says, “Why should I bother singin’ a hundred songs up on that stage if I can’t say the one dang thing that actually matters?”
My eyes open to his starry eyes and confident smile.
I’m very well aware that we’re far away from any concept of a happy ending just yet. I know that, despite this kiss, despite that L word, the Chase Holt the world knows and adores can end tonight.
“You said we could have it all,” he reminds me. Kisses me one more time. “Here’s me believing in you.”
Chapter 22.
Austin
And this is me discovering a version of my life I didn’t know I could possibly have.
I don’t know how long I get to have this.
I just know I don’t want to give it back.
As I step onto the stage, I realize that for the first time in a long time, everything feels easy. Which often means it won’t stay that way.
TJ made all the sensible remarks—he always does.
Everything could get so much worse.
The label could cut ties with me.
And poor Ian … always at the whim of every reckless decision I make.
You’d expect my heart to be pounding when I get up on the stage, but I’m as calm as a sliced cucumber. I feel like I’m at home. Fiona is with her keys, running her fingers over them thoughtfully and looking inspired. I wonder if she has Laina on her mind, if she is who Fiona performs for. I see Raj doing one last circle of his kit, light on his feet, bouncy and happy. Even our usual straight-faced Wily has a cute smirk as he runs fingers up and down the strings of his bass guitar and taking in our limited audience tonight while slowly nodding, like he’s ready for the heat.
I’ve never felt more connected to these guys.
And afraid to lose it all in one sweeping turn of the online masses.
I lift Glorious off his stand, gently sling him around me like a lover’s arm, and caress him to my body, giving the strings a couple test strums.
That seems to be the trigger. Everyone going quiet. Waiting. Eyes up on the stage.
The guy in the front with the main camera lifts his eyebrows at me and lifts his thumb, awaiting my signal.
I meet TJ’s eyes in the crowd, spotting him instantly.
He smiles back, arms crossed, and nods.
I peer back at my bandmates. Fiona’s eyes are on me, smirking like she’s ready to take on the beast. Wily, too, looking steady. Raj brandishes his drumsticks like weapons, bottom lip sucked in, eyes vibrant and excited.
I nod.
The light on the camera turns red.
There’s no opening speech. This isn’t about what I’ve got to say. Never was.
It’s about the music.
The moment I hit that first chord, Wily and Raj and Fiona all attack with me, all at once, our unified front, the four of us against the unseen monster that stares us all down from the other side of that camera.
We open with “Hate Me For a Reason”.
The hit song that started everything.
The seed of our whole hit album Hate Me.
It’s a funny story, actually. Fiona, Wily, and our first drummer Cam were getting heated. Nothing was working. Everything we threw at the higher-ups, they threw right back at us. I was chasing a sound I knew lived inside me, but nothing I did seemed to draw it out.
And we were starved for that big hit everyone dreamed of. We were biting and clawing and hissing for it—even at each other.
And it all came to a head. Fiona was fed up. Wily kept going off about how bands fall apart because of ego, he’d seen it before, his first band’s lead singer, blah, blah. Cam took his anger out on his drums and broke one of his snares.
I went into the booth, just me and Glorious. Eyes shut. Anger and resentment and bitter longing for a dream I felt was always out of reach. I’d never have it. No one would let me. Not my family who never really rooted for me when I pursued music. Not my label, who kept seeing us as numbers and upticks and statistics. Ian was even on my shit list, the guy who sold me the dream, who was with me at all those bars, at the Saltshaker, building up what would soon become this band.