Chapter 6
Juliet
I seethed at Finn Wiley for a week. Just overwhelming, pissed-off rage.
I had my reasons.
First, forty thousand dollars? Who the fuck did he think he was? He had sat on my bed like a gorgeous, unconcerned god and tossed that number out like it was nothing. Which, to him, it was.
It went without saying that I wasn’t going to take money for going to my own sister’s wedding. It didn’t matter how broke I was. I had never sold myself for money, and I wasn’t going to start now. Not even for Finn.
The reasons to hate him kept piling up. When I went to bed that night, I could smell Finn on my pillow and on my comforter. His aftershave or something—I had no idea what. The scent made me remember the shocking sight of him in my parking lot, looking so much like the boy I’d met and yet nothing like him at all. Finn was a man now, tall and lean and confident. He’d lost his nineteen-year-old hesitance and replaced it with a subtle, graceful swagger that made me drool.
Younger pop-star Finn had been clean shaven, his hair carefully colored and styled under his ball cap, his limbs still stringy. This Finn leaned against the wall of my building like a cowboy, his hair naturally dark brown, his jaw stubbled, and his gaze had shadows that hadn’t been there before. I wanted to drown in them. In all of him.
His stomach had been flat and firm, the skin warm to the touch. I could still feel it against my palms.
It made me mad.
Because Finn was a rich asshole, and even though he wasn’t famous anymore, he still had some kind of pull.
“That was Finn Wiley?” Amara shouted at me the next day. Apparently, something in her pop culture memory had clicked during the night. “I thought he was a guy I’d seen at the gym or something. I couldn’t place him. I listened to ‘Ice Cream Girlfriend’ on repeat for two months straight, and Finn Wiley was in my apartment? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I gave her a disbelieving look. “I did tell you. I introduced him to you, remember?”
“You told me his name. His first name. You didn’t tell me who he was. I wouldn’t let him into the apartment when he buzzed up! I treated him like a creep!”
“And what if I had told you who he was? What would you have done?”
She waved her hands in the air. “Oh, I don’t know. Asked for his autograph? Gotten a selfie for my Instagram? Something a normal person would do. How do you know him again? He’s marrying your sister?”
“No.” Amara had never paid attention to anything I said, and it was hard for her to start doing it now. “His brother is marrying my sister. That makes him my… Actually, I don’t know.”
“I think it’s a type of brother in law.” She dropped her hands in defeat. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him. Is he coming back?”
Seriously, who was Finn Wiley? Why was he getting a reaction from my roommate, who had barely bothered to learn my name until now?
I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize. It’s Finn. I’ll pick you up next Friday afternoon for the fitting weekend. See you at three o’clock. We need to be there for dinner.
I was sitting in the RKS rehearsal room when I saw that, Princess on my lap. I was doing more rounds of practice for the gig in a few days. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said aloud to my phone.
“What?” Denver asked from across the room.
I shook my head and typed a reply.
Juliet: I never said I was going. How did you get my number?
Finn: Is that a serious question? Pack a coat because Seattle will be cold this weekend. Do you want an advance on your fee?
Juliet: Sure, I’ll take an advance. You can make a check out to Shove It Up Your Ass, Finn Wiley. Also, I’ll drive myself, thanks.
Finn: I’ve seen your car. It won’t make it across town, let alone to Seattle. Consider it a chauffeur service.
Juliet: Don’t you already have a chauffeur on staff?
Finn: Funny, I’m between chauffeurs at the moment. He quit.
Juliet: Probably because you’re a douchebag.
He didn’t reply to that.
At least I was safe with the Road Kings. They didn’t buy into any celebrity bullshit, and they were impossible to impress. I had certainly never managed it. They were the real deal, these guys. The salt of the rock n’ roll earth.
Or so I thought.
“Hey, Juliet,” Denver said when we were backstage at the downtown bar where we were going to play our first gig. “Why didn’t you tell us you know Finn Wiley? You never mentioned it.”
“Finn Wiley?” Axel looked up from his phone. “The ‘Ice Cream Girlfriend’ guy? Man, I had that song stuck in my head for weeks. I wasn’t even mad about it.”
“I know that one,” Stone said. He hummed a few notes of the tune.
Denver joined in, crooning the lyrics. “’She’s my ice cream, my sweetest dream, vanilla with a scoop of cream.’” He paused. “I mean, it’s bold to rhyme ‘cream’ with ‘cream,’ but no one listens to that song for its lyrical genius.”
“I disagree,” Stone said. “That song always seemed sad to me.”
Axel nodded. “Like he’s singing about a fantasy woman, not a real one. A woman who doesn’t exist, so he’ll never have her.”
“I think she exists,” Denver argued. “I think it’s about having feelings for a woman you don’t know, a celebrity maybe. There’s a line in the chorus?—”
“Hello?” I waved my hands. “Remember me? Are you going to tell me why you brought him up?”
“Right,” Denver said, running a hand through his hair. “He called me a few days ago.”
I stared at him. “Finn called you? How does he have your phone number? I don’t even have your phone number.”
“I’ve talked to him before.” Denver frowned and took his phone from his back jeans pocket. “I could have sworn I gave you my number, Jules. I’ll add you to the group texts.”
“Not the fucking group texts,” Stone complained.
“Never mind that.” I waved my hand in front of Denver’s face. “Hey, pretty boy. How do you know Finn, and why did he call you?”
“I met him at a party years ago,” Denver said. “We know some of the same people. He’s friends with Travis White.” He shared a We hate that guy glare with Stone and Axel. “Still, he’s all right. We talked for a while. Neither of us parties anymore, as it happens. But it was nice to hear from him.”
I could have shaken him. “What. Did. He. Want.”
“He said that his brother is marrying your sister, so you’ll need a few days off. Next weekend for a rehearsal thing, and then for the wedding in a few months. I told him it was no problem.”
I blinked. “That’s it? You can just rearrange the schedule like that?”
“Why not?” He grinned, a smile that could melt an entire stadium of women. “Who else is going to rearrange it? She’s your only sibling, Jules. Finn explained everything. You need to go. Family comes first.”
Axel raised a hand. “I agree that family comes first, but I’m stuck on the image of Juliet at a wedding. In a dress.”
“Oh, it’s better than that,” Denver said before I could tackle him to shut him up. “She’s the bridesmaid of honor.”
There was a deep, incredulous silence in the room.
I looked around at their faces. “If any of you laugh right now, I will commit triple murder. I don’t care that you’re all hot. I’ll do the time for it. It’ll be worth it.”
The silence lasted for another shocked second before Axel broke it. “A bridesmaid?” he blurted. “You’re going to be a bridesmaid?”
“Shut it, Axel.”
“In a bridesmaid dress?” Stone sounded fascinated. “What does it look like?”
“I don’t know. They did the dress shopping without me.”
“Tell me there will be photos.” Axel clasped his hands like he was praying. “There must be photos. Please.”
The door opened and one of the techs leaned in. “Hey guys. You’re up.”
I didn’t have time to yell at the men in my life for rearranging my schedule for me. For telling me what to do. Right now, I needed to play this show—our first show—flawlessly. It was do or die time.
The club held two hundred people, and we were billed as Ned Zeppelin, the fake name the Road Kings used when they wanted to play incognito. Core Road Kings fans—and there were a lot of them—knew what the fake name meant, and they had showed up. They were packed in and rowdy, chanting and shouting. The lights went down. The energy was so thick I could taste it.
This was nothing like Checkerboard Sadness.
I had finally been given the set list—Neal’s guess was exactly right. When Stone played the opening chords to “Precious Metal,” I was already in the zone. It didn’t matter that the stage lights weren’t very bright and we had almost no room to move around. That Axel was playing on a pared-down drum kit and that I could smell beer. “Precious Metal” was a great song with a killer riff, and it ignited the room. Then we were off.
Denver had sweated through his T-shirt by the fourth song. Lead singers have the devil’s magic, and he whipped up the crowd, his voice owning the room, sucking everyone in. He was outsized in this small space, and the fans ate it up, soaking in the sound and his presence so close to them. My brain turned off and I let the music move through me, from my belly up through my chest. I breathed it and my fingers moved without thought, letting the songs loose as if they were alive. Sweat soaked my scalp and trickled down my back.
We finished the set, as rehearsed, with “All These Things That I’ve Done.” We spun it, let it build in drama as the crowd shouted along, surprised and delighted that we were covering such a classic banger. I felt like I was surfing on Axel’s rhythm, adding to it, weaving it with Stone’s guitar while Denver’s voice soared. This was what it meant to play music, real music, with real musicians, for a real crowd. This was what I had spent my life chasing instead of a job and babies and a paycheck. Just this. Only this. This incredible, unsurpassable feeling.
When we finished, my hands were shaking. I closed them into fists so that no one would see.
I thought, If I can do this, then what is there to be afraid of?
An hour later, two texts pinged on my phone. The first was a two-minute video, shot on cell phone from the audience of the show I’d just played. Denver singing the bridge of “All the Way Down” while we played. We looked fucking good. We sounded better, even on cell phone audio.
The second message was a text.
Finn: Congratulations. That was an incredible show.
I stared at those words for a long moment, thinking about Finn somewhere in that audience, jumping and singing with the crowd in the beer-soaked dark. I hadn’t known he was there, but it didn’t surprise me. Of course he had been there. No one had recognized him. He was supernatural, like only the bane of my existence would be.
I answered him the only way I knew how.
Juliet: Fuck you, Finn Wiley.