Chapter Ten
It all began in Bo’s basement.
The music.
Four prepubescent boys tinkering with their cheap instruments to tunes on a record player never dreamed they’d become a multi-platinum-selling band back then.
Those dreams came later. While all the other kids were tossing footballs in the street, building snow forts, or riding their bikes down to the lake, Matt, Kit, Bo, and Sloan were content honing their musical skills, talking about girls, and growing their hair long.
The summer before high school.
That’s when everything changed.
That’s when Taylor Kerrigan and his parents moved from London into the three-flat apartment building across the street.
He played guitar, too, and soon, the new kid with a funny way of talking was writing riffs and jamming with them in Bo’s basement. Still, they talked about girls—and boys—and their hair grew even longer, only now they shared a dream.
The music.
And now, two decades later, Matt sat in Bo’s basement, along with Kit, working out their parts on the tracks for Venery’s upcoming album. That they were doing it here only seemed fitting.
“Blast beats would fucking slap here, man,” Kit said, looking at their drummer.
He was referring to the bridge before the outro.
The song started softly, building its intensity all the way through, until it ended as it began.
Unlike the rest of them, Bo had studied music professionally from the time he was a small child.
Classical piano. R&B. Theory and composition.
He had a deep understanding of it and developed syncopated drum parts using Sloan’s vocal line as his guide.
“It would be unexpected. Greater impact.” Bo nodded, wiping the sweat from his bare chest with a discarded T-shirt. “Hammer it?”
“Hells, yeah.” Playing along to a blast beat would require extreme focus and precise timing on their part, but Matt was up for it. “Go big or go home, brother.”
Bo pounded out sixteenth notes on the snare and cymbal while double-thumping on his kick drums at two hundred and eighty beats per minute. The sound aggressive, it was perfectly suited to the build-up on this track.
“How’s that, my dude?” And with his sticks in his hands, the drummer crossed his arms in front of him and grinned. “Think you can keep up?”
“Now, that’s a stupid question.” Then Kit played the bass line in time with Bo’s breakneck tempo.
“That sounded sick.” Matt slapped Kit on the back, and hooking an arm around his neck, he planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “Your fingers are gonna end up bloody, but I’m digging it.”
“Blast beats.” His chest puffing out, a rare smile crossed Kit’s face. “See? Told you so.”
“I can already hear Sloan’s death screams.” Squeezing the bassist’s shoulder, Matt shared a happy glance with him. “Tay’s gonna lose his shit.”
“Yeah, he’s gonna love it,” Bo agreed, rising from his padded stool. “Enough for today?”
Tossing his blond surfer waves, Kit rubbed his fingers on his shirt. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I don’t know about you all, but I could use a beer,” Matt said, putting his guitar away. They’d been holed up in here all day, working up a sweat.
“Me, too.” Bo looped an arm around each of them, and together they climbed the stairs. “Hey, with Tay and everybody up at the lake house for Memorial Day weekend, why don’t we get Sloan over here and grill some steaks or something?”
He won’t come.
Today would have been Kyan’s thirty-first birthday, and that fact wasn’t lost on him, or any of them, Sloan included. Growing up, they’d celebrated many of his birthdays at the Byrne’s lake house, and that’s why Taylor and the others were there now. To sing “Happy Birthday” to a ghost.
Matt said, “Good luck with that.”
“I’ll have Ava call him and put Emmy on the phone.” Bo winked. “You’d have to be a heartless sonofabitch to turn down a three-year-old.”
Bo’s daughter was their frontman’s weakness. With a soft spot for Emery in his cold, dead heart, he didn’t have it in him to refuse the little girl.
“Unkey Sloan, will you sing with me?”
“Of course, precious.” With a chuckle, Sloan got down on his haunches and grinned. “‘Baby Shark’?”
Pale-blonde pigtails flying, Emmy shook her head. “Nooo, that’s a baby song.”
“You’re right. Forgive me?”
She nodded.
“What shall we sing, then?”
“‘Let It Go.’”
“Emmy’s in her Elsa era, I’m afraid,” Ava explained with a shrug, taking a seat next to Bo. “She’d watch Frozen on repeat if we let her.”
“Disney is not in my repertoire, but if you help me out, I think I can do it.”
Emery climbed onto his lap, and together, she and Sloan belted out the chorus. It amazed them all to hear such a clear, powerful voice coming out of the little girl’s throat.
“She has a gift, Bo.” Stroking her baby-fine hair, Sloan smiled down at the child. “You need to help her develop it.”
“I am. She started piano lessons a few months ago.”
“And Emery sings along with Miss Rachel every day, don’t you, sweetie?” Ava added, proud mama that she was.
“But I like singing with you better, Unkey,” Emery said, then wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.
“Awe.” So damn cute. Then a thought occurred to him. “The two of you should cut an album of children’s songs together. Metal versions, of course.”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea.” Matt wasn’t altogether serious when he made the suggestion, but Bo seemed to like it.
“Heh, maybe we could,” Sloan said, sharing a high five with Emmy.
“You’re gonna make such a cool dad someday.”
“Don’t think so, Bo Peep.” He glanced down at his lap, and the smile he put on for Bo’s daughter fell from his face. “That scene ain’t for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to have any.” Sloan raised his gaze, and expelling a breath, he shrugged. Then, with a kiss to the top of Emery’s head, he moved her off his lap. “I’m happy enough playing uncle to this little princess here.”
“It would be a shame not to pass on those genes of yours,” Ava said, not letting the matter rest. “One day, you’re going to meet someone and change your mind.”
“I can assure you I won’t.” His tone indignant, Sloan leaned forward. “Don’t want a wife, either.”
“Why not?”
“Are you volunteering?” He curled his lip. “I just don’t.”
Kit elbowed him in the ribs. “You don’t have to be a dick about it, Sloan.”
“I’m not.” He turned to Ava. “But unless I were to come across someone as lovely as yourself, which is doubtful, I won’t be swayed.”
“I’m flattered, but that’s sad.”
Sloan responded with a subtle shrug, the smirk remaining in place. “I don’t care for people all that much, you know.”
And the saddest thing of all? He did once. Until that selfish bitch he almost married bled him dry, and CJ fucked with his head.
They moved outside to the terrace after that.
Reclining on a wicker lounger, Matt closed his eyes to the waning day and breathed in the smell of freshly cut grass and wood-smoke.
Like Bo, he craved outdoor spaces, and Kyan made sure he had them.
A balcony off his room with a built-in bed. The rooftop garden.
He opened his eyes, and taking a sip of beer, Matt gazed across Bo’s backyard to his.
It was an overgrown mess, crowded with shrubbery and trees, when he got the place.
The landscape architect thought to rip it all out and start anew, but Kyan knew what he liked and wouldn’t let the guy do it.
Instead, they removed the weeds, trimmed the overgrowth, and added mulched wildflower beds.
He loved looking out the window at his little forest. Sometimes, he would lie there, naked beneath the trees, to reflect on life and take a break from the world.
Matt smiled. One day, he’d run naked through those trees with Gina. He’d fuck her on the ground, clawing at the dirt. He’d make her come, howling at the moon, on the rooftop. And he’d love her slow and sweet, all through the night, on the balcony with the built-in bed.
He was going to keep her, all right.
Maybe he’d been preparing for this girl his entire life.
“Yo, Matt?”
He looked up to see Bo hovering over him with a plate.
“Medium-rare okay?”
“Perfect, thanks.” He took it, his mouth watering at the sight of the seared ribeye.
“Sides are over here, hun.” Ava waved him over to the table where Kit and Sloan were already digging in. “We’ve got baked potatoes with all the toppings, grilled sweet corn, sautéed mushrooms, and a tomato-feta salad.”
A refreshing breeze washed over him, rifling through his hair. It felt good. Reluctant to move, Matt motivated himself to join his brothers at the table.
“Hey, let’s hit the club tonight.” Kit smacked him on the ass as he took his seat, but the bassist was looking at Sloan. “What do you say?”
As if weighing his options, the reclusive frontman cut into his steak, brought a piece to his mouth, and slowly chewed. He picked up a bottle of beer and, holding it poised at his lips, he finally spoke. “Yeah, all right. I’m in.”
“Matt?”
“Sorry, no can do.”
Likely as surprised by his answer as he was by Sloan’s, Kit’s eyebrow shot up. “Why not? You got something better to do?”
“Not exactly.”
“What is it then?” Kit asked, pressing the matter.
“I’m, uh… seeing someone.” Kind of. “It’s new, and I don’t think she’d like the idea of me at a sex club without her.”
He hadn’t planned on announcing Gina into existence. Not yet. Matt didn’t want to jinx himself, but he still harbored guilt over the only other time he’d bailed on his closest friend and owed him an explanation.
Kit looked at him like he didn’t believe him. “Who?”
“Gina Rossi.” He couldn’t hold back. His cheeks tugged at his lips.
“The pizza girl?” Bo asked, and he nodded. “Well, all right.”
“Tony’s baby sister?” Kit cocked his head.
“Younger sister,” Matt corrected him. “And she’s all grown up.”
It was difficult for him to reconcile that Gina and the little rugrat who took delight in annoying her older brother and his friends all those years ago were the same person.
Matt never paid much attention to her then. He couldn’t stop thinking about her now.
“Remember that time she pulled my hair?”
He didn’t.
Bo smiled, buttering his corn-on-the-cob. “Junior year. I think she was like five.”
“You looking for trouble, rock star?” Sloan tilted his head.
Matt shot him a look. “What do you mean?”
“First, she’s a helluva lot younger than you.”
And?
It’s not like Gina was some giggly, no-brained teenager he was planning to take advantage of.
Inside, Matt was simmering, but on the outside, he kept his cool.
“So? She’s twenty-three. Gina’s an adult, older than Ava—Katie, too, for that matter.
So don’t you dare twist this into something wrong, because it isn’t. ”
“Age is just a number,” Ava said, taking up his cause. “Ain’t that right, baby?”
“Absofuckinglutely,” Bo said, and kissed her.
“Second, and more important, Tony’s our friend,” Sloan went on, disregarding their drummer and his girlfriend. “Do you think he’s going to be happy when he realizes you’ve got your dirty hands in his sister’s virginal white cotton underpants?”
Probably not. He cracked a beer open.
Shaking his head, Sloan muttered, “Jesus, Matt, she’s a goodie-two-shoes Catholic girl in a plaid, pleated skirt, and way too innocent for the likes of you, but maybe you’re into that sort of thing…”
“Shut up. You know I’m not.” Enraged, Matt tamped it down with a swallow of beer. “She went to Catholic school. So what? Gina’s smart—she’s a nurse. And she’s sassy and beautiful.”
“Do you like her?” Ava asked him. “I mean, really like her.”
“Yeah, I really, really do.”
“Babe, I’m so fucking happy for you,” Ava gushed, clapping like a kid on Christmas morning. Following her lead, Emery clapped right along with her.
“I am, too, brother,” Bo said with a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder. “You should call Gina over. I’d love to see her again.”
Kit remained silent.
“She’s working tonight, or I would,” Matt explained, suddenly feeling lighter. “I want you all to meet her.”
“Next weekend, then.” Bo nodded, wearing his usual grin, as if it were already settled.
“I’m taking Gina out to see the Navy Pier fireworks from Lake Michigan next Saturday,” he said, and smiling, drew in a deep breath. “Chartered a private boat.”
Sloan snickered.
Matt glared at him. “What’s wrong with that?”
Shaking her head, Ava sighed. “That’s so romantic.”
“I wanna go on a boat.” Emmy tugged on her father’s long hair. “Can we, Daddy?”
Bo kissed the top of her pretty little head. “Course we can, sunshine.”
Still snickering under his breath, Sloan rubbed his upper lip. Blue eyes bored into his, and he said, “You’re going to Hell, brother, and Tony’s gonna be the one to send you there.”
Maybe, but she’s worth it.
“I’ll talk to him.” Matt tsked, dismissing his concern. “We’ve all been friends a long time. He loves me.”
“Well, as I recall, Mrs. Rossi doesn’t,” Kit reminded him.
Bo bit into his corn with a shrug. “Tony’s mom never liked any of us.”
Truth.
“That’s her problem then, isn’t it?” Matt flicked his gaze from Bo to Kit and Sloan.
The man with all the words subtly inclined his head. “Yeah, but once she finds out you’re involved with her daughter, that problem becomes yours.”
“You sure you don’t want to go to the club with us tonight?” Kit offered, suggesting he might like to change his mind.
Jesus, I’m fucked.
The thought of being inside anyone else held zero appeal.
“Yeah.”
He tipped back the bottle of beer, draining it.
“I’m sure.”