CHAPTER FOURTEEN Brandon
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Brandon
“ABOUT YOU” — THE KID LAROI
Present Day
Brandon Jackson, come on down!”
Jake’s voice booms against the mic as Johanna makes her way back to her seat.
I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to follow whatever that was.
Maybe the first shred of honesty I’ve heard in six years?
Of course, it had been delivered into a microphone… in front of everyone we know.
The walk to the podium feels less like stepping up to give a wedding speech and more like being led to an execution—except executions have a definite endpoint. This? This could change everything, and I know it.
The room quiets as I adjust the microphone. My hand is steady, but only because I’m forcing it to be. If I let myself feel anything right now, absorb any of what was just said, I might as well just hand her my heart on a platter in the middle of this dinner.
Johanna sits rigidly beside Mia, her knuckles white around her champagne flute. She whispers something to Mia with a look on her face that might be panic. Or desperation. Or regret. Or all of the above.
I want to keep watching, but I have to pull my eyes away. I have to make it through this.
I draw in a breath, and begin.
“Hi, everyone. I’m Brandon Jackson. Unfortunately for Grayson, I’ve been his best friend and bandmate for the last ten years. I’ve seen a lot—including his guy-liner phase—so this speech could be a lot worse than it’s about to be.”
Laughter. Good. I pause and give myself a little time for my heart rate to drop from danger zone back to normal.
“I’ll be nice,” I continue with a grin. “Because I know Tony and Eric won’t be, and this will probably be the only thoughtful, mature speech you’ll hear from the groomsmen tonight.”
A louder rumbling of laughter rolls through the room as Grayson pinches the bridge of his nose while Tony and Eric both give me two huge thumbs up.
Perfect. They’re distracted.
Time to ruin my life now.
“When Grayson asked me to be one of his groomsmen,” I say, my voice growing softer. “I started thinking about the last ten years—the gigs, the disasters, the triumphs, and mostly, the unbelievable amount of stupidity that somehow always turned out okay. There’s one thing I realized.”
I look at him.
Then at her.
“I’ve seen Grayson through some of the hardest moments of his life—and I’ve never seen him as happy as he is with Mia.”
Mia squeezes Grayson’s arm, her cheeks glowing. Grayson gives me a solemn nod, his eyes actually getting a little glossy.
“True love isn’t perfection,” I continue. “It’s not easy. You may not like the other person all the time—in fact, there are some days you might hate them.”
I choose that moment to lock eyes with Johanna—slowly, purposefully.
Her breath catches visibly.
Good. I want you to hear this.
“Here’s the thing, though—when you love someone, you choose them anyway. Every single day. Even when it’s scary, or complicated, or when all you want to do is run.”
I swallow hard, my throat tightening as I go in for the kill. This is the closest I’ve come to actually saying the words directly to her.
“Watching Grayson and Mia continue to choose each other after all they’ve been through… it reminds me that some stories take time. People take time. The things that matter most—” I pause. “—are worth fighting for. Even if it’s later than you expected.”
Silence settles over the room again.
It’s not heavy, or awkward. It’s charged, and… knowing.
I lift my glass.
“Here’s to Grayson and Mia—to the love that survived everything and then some. For choosing someone even when—especially when—it’s not easy. Here’s to… being brave enough to do it anyway.”
My eyes find Johanna for the final line.
“To the beautiful disaster of falling in love—cheers.”
Applause erupts around me as I step down from the podium, my pulse pounding in my ears. Sliding into my seat, Grayson eyes me with a mix of suspicion and amusement.
“Sounds like you were speaking from experience up there,” he says under his breath. “Anything you want to tell me?”
I shake my head quickly.
“Tonight’s about you, man,” I insist, keeping my voice low. “Let’s keep it that way.”
As I say it, I can feel someone’s eyes burning into me.
Not Grayson’s.
Not Mia’s.
Not the person I really want it to be.
But, Rylee’s—my sister.
She’s standing to go deliver her speech, but her eyes are locked right on me with an expression sharp enough to slice through steel.
Shit.
Here we fucking go.
After all the speeches have concluded, Rylee corners me and pushes me out the side exit—apparently I’m determined to have two confrontations out on this stupid patio tonight.
Honestly? It feels fitting.
Feels like karma lining up to take her shot.
The second the door clicks shut behind us, she whips around to face me.
“What the actual fuck was that in there?” she demands, eyes blazing.
No warm-up. No easing into it. No checking to see if I’m okay. Just a direct fucking hit.
Classic Rylee.
I rub a hand across my jaw. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
If I thought her eyes had fire behind them before, I have another thing coming now as they practically bulge out of her skull.
“Oh, don’t play dumb, Brandon,” she spits out.
“You two might as well have been going shot-for-shot with each other with those speeches. How much more fucking inconsiderate could you possibly be? Using Mia and Grayson’s rehearsal dinner to hash out six years worth of unresolved bullshit? Are you kidding me?”
I drag in a breath. There’s part of me that knows she’s right. The other part of me decides to play dumb, because I truly have no interest in explaining myself to her.
“Mine was about Grayson and Mia,” I say evenly, but I know she sees right through it.
“Don’t you dare pull that shit with me,” she snaps with a scoff so hard it practically echoes. “It wasn’t and you know it. Everyone else in that room may not know you well enough to catch it—but I sure as hell do. I watched you staring at her the entire time.”
I don’t bother denying it, but I don’t confirm it either. Silence drops between us—heavy and loaded.
Her voice softens—just barely. “Please tell me you’re not doing this again.”
My brow furrows. “Doing what exactly?”
Her laugh is hollow—humorless as it rips out of her throat. “Falling for her. Letting her pull you under just so she can burn you to the fucking ground. Again.”
My pulse spikes with a mix of irritation and something dangerously close to guilt.
“Rylee—”
“No,” she says, jabbing a finger aggressively into my shoulder.
“You do not get to Rylee me right now. I watched you fall apart once because of her. I was the one who picked up the pieces when she left you. We might not talk about it—I get why you don’t want to—but I was there, Brandon.
Eric was there. We all saw what she did to you. ”
My jaw tightens. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Maybe I don’t,” she fires back, her voice sharp as a razor. “But you know what I do know? You stopped letting anyone close to you for years. Years, Brandon.”
My stomach twists. The worst part of this entire exchange has been the fact that she’s not been wrong—about any of it.
She lets out a rough exhale, the fury from before dissolving into something that looks almost like heartbreak.
“I’ve been worried this would happen since she showed back up last year,” she admits quietly. “That she’d find some way to crawl back into your good graces, you’d let her because you’ve never completely gotten over her, and you’d set yourself on fire for her all over again.”
She shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I already saw the signs when you dropped everything to go with her to Maine while you were on tour.”
“Her mom was dying, Rylee,” I bite out defensively, my skin prickling. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Let Grayson—God, or literally anyone else—handle it,” she huffs.
That one hits me square in the chest. I’ve never heard her sound so cold.
“I’m sorry,” she continues, though she doesn’t seem the slightest bit apologetic. “But you’re my brother, Brandon. I love you. Like hell if I’m just going to stand by and watch Johanna Harris—the one-woman wrecking crew who can’t make a decision to save her fucking life—destroy you again.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded, unable to form a single coherent word.
For a second, I brace myself for round three. Instead, Eric steps out into the dim lighting of the patio.
How much of that did he hear?
He takes one look at the two of us—Rylee practically vibrating with anger, me standing there like I’ve just been gut-punched—and his brow lifts. Just slightly.
Eric reads people as easily as sheet music, and he knows with just one look that I need rescuing.
“Ry,” he says, redirecting her with near surgical precision. “Jake’s looking for you. Something about the dessert course not being gluten-free.”
Rylee snaps her attention towards him. “What? I’m certain it is. Who could’ve possibly—”
“He seems to think it’s urgent,” Eric cuts in smoothly. “The forehead vein… it’s catastrophic.”
I almost laugh. It’s such a clean, effortless lie that I want to give the man a trophy.
Rylee groans and drags a hand over her face. “Fine. Where’s he keeping the Valium these days? I’m sure I’ll need it.”
“Probably,” Eric agrees.
“And tequila,” she mutters as she makes her way to the door.
“Definitely.”
She gives me one final glare—don’t be a fucking idiot—before yanking the door open and slipping back inside. Once she’s gone, the silence that follows feels like the air finally returning to my lungs.
Eric doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, arms crossed, studying me with the kind of quiet intensity most people never get to see from him. It’s a far cry from his party-boy routine from earlier, which is exactly how I know he’s taking this seriously.
“You good?” he asks eventually, his voice steady.
I feel my teeth grit against each other. “Would you be?”
He shakes his head once. “Probably not. That was… rough.”
Understatement of the fucking year.
I drag a hand through my hair. “I know she’s worried about me, but…”
I trail off, unable to finish my thought. Unable to defend myself. Unable to defend Johanna. Unable to do fucking anything but stand here and feel like I’ve just been gutted like a fish.
“She is,” he confirms. “Hate to break it to you, but she’s not wrong about everything she said.”
I flinch.
Christ. Apparently this is just take a shot at Brandon night.
Do they all feel like this?
Have they all just been politely standing by, waiting for me to self-destruct again?
Before I spiral too far, Eric adds—quietly:
“Doesn’t mean she’s right about everything, either.”
I force myself to meet his gaze.
“Hear me when I say this, B,” Eric says. “You’re not the same guy you were six years ago. Johanna’s definitely not the same girl. People change.”
God, I wish he were still drunk and not suddenly the voice of fucking reason.
I look towards the railing—towards the place Johanna stood just a few hours ago.
The place where everything shifted.
I find myself wishing it was her still standing here instead of Eric.
“Maybe,” I murmur, more to myself than him.
She’s the one I want to talk to about this whole mess. Not my sister, and not any of my bandmates. Not anyone else who thinks they know more about what’s good for me than I do—no matter how much I love them.
Eric watches me for a moment longer before dipping his head towards the door.
“Come on,” he says. “We should go check on Jake. I don’t want to spend the rest of the night scraping gluten-free dessert off the ceiling.”
A scoff of laughter escapes me, because he’s right. It would be the perfect ending to the circus this evening has become.
He starts to open the door, but pauses to look back at me with a rare, serious look.
“Brandon? Whatever you decide to do about this… about her… just make sure you’re doing it for you. Not because you think you owe something to the past.”
My chest tightens, and I don’t say anything else.
I can’t.
He’s right—as annoying and inconvenient as that is.
Eric gives me a final nod, knowing he’s said enough, and pushes the door open. The noise of the ending of the rehearsal dinner spills back out onto us.
I follow him back inside, but my thoughts are still out there—because no matter how much I try to fight it, my mind is always on her.