Chapter 1
one
. . .
Luk e
“What do you reckon they’ll say when they see us now?”
“Get lost, most likely,” I retorted with a chuckle. Joel punched me in the arm for that, causing me to laugh at his feeble attempt.
“Nah, they love us. Now,” Benny interjected, hastily adding the end bit when we gave him ‘the look.’ They’d all hated us and our music when we first started out.
I grinned at the antics of my band mates as they continued to discuss what our homecoming might be like, whether the town still wanted us gone or if they had been converted by our fame over the years.
I thought back to when it had all started, Almost every door had been slammed shut in our faces, plus a few choice words sometimes.
Nobody wanted to take a chance on an up and coming rock band.
They said it had been done too much, we weren’t any good (not that they’d listened to us), and that we would never amount to anything .
That was until Kate appeared in our lives.
We’d popped into a busy restaurant that had a stage as they held live entertainments nights at weekends, and there she was.
Serving behind the bar, pouring drinks. Instead of saying no to us outright, she spoke to her manager and asked them to give us a chance.
That was what had made us. Kate, we found out after a few rehearsal sessions, could sing and play piano so we asked her to join us.
It was the best year of my life. We played regular gigs at the restaurant, Kate singing alongside me and adding the best harmonies I’d ever heard.
She worked at the restaurant in between and even though I’d fallen for her, I never said a word, afraid to lose her if she didn’t feel the same way.
It hadn’t mattered in the end though. She took off, leaving us high and dry.
My mind dredged up the memory of that last rehearsal with her.
We had all been practicing, wondering where she was when she turned up half an hour late, anxiety pouring off of her in waves.
Pulling at the hem of her top, she hadn’t been able to look us in the eyes.
“I’m sorry to do this but I’m leaving. I wish you all the luck in the world, not that you need it,” she’d said and with that, had darted out of the door.
I’d rushed out after her, wanting to know what was going on, but she’d already disappeared.
I had searched everywhere for her, eventually turning to the restaurant to see if they could tell me where she was.
The owner had looked me square in the eyes and told me that Kate had gone, left the town completely and no, he didn’t know where she was going.
I remembered stumbling back to the others, telling them what I knew and the shock on their faces.
It gave me some comfort to know I wasn’t the only one who’d been completely blindsided by this.
I pulled myself back from my reverie to the here and now.
That had been three years ago and I needed to put it from my mind.
Kate had left and that was that. Benny and Joel were now arguing over which songs we should play for the gig we had lined up.
Rolling my eyes, I shook my head and turned to look out of the window of our tour bus.
The sun was shining, the countryside a luscious green colour.
I breathed in deeply, feeling a sense of peace sweep through me at the sight of the passing scenery.
We were getting close. I felt for the first time in years like I was going somewhere I belonged.
An hour and a bit later, we pulled up outside the house that was rented for us for the summer.
After constantly touring since we had been snapped up, we were going to finally get a bit of a rest. Not completely of course, we still had to play at local venues but everything within a two hour driving limit from this place.
I’d complained to our manager that we needed time to write the new songs he kept harping on at us to get done and after much back and forth, he’d finally agreed to let us come back to our hometown for the summer to work on a new album, as long as we still played local gigs.
I’d agreed instantly, knowing the others would agree.
Being burnt out wasn’t conducive to creativity and plus, I knew the guys wanted to see their families.
My dad was here too, but we barely spoke.
He’d wanted me to follow in his footsteps at the law firm and it just hadn’t been for me so we just did the obligatory phone calls for birthdays and Christmas these days.
The only other person I wanted to see was Kate, but that was a pipe dream. She wasn’t in Mills Town any more.
Hopping off the bus, we grabbed our bags and headed inside to see what the place was like.
It was fancier than anything we’d had in this area before and we let out low whistles when we saw it.
The walls were cream, a winding staircase led upstairs from the hallway we walked in to, and as we made our way further inside, a large kitchen lay off to our right whilst a spacious living room opened up to our left.
Inside, was a grand piano, guitars, drums and every other musical instrument that we would ever use on the far side of the room.
I smirked at Benny and Joel.
“Doug thought of everything didn’t he?” I stated, dropping my bags to the ground as I headed over to the guitars in their stands. My band mates followed me.
“Jeez! How much stuff does he think we need?” Benny exclaimed, running his fingers gently over the piano. Joel shrugged.
“I know we came to write new songs but he knows we’re probably just going to use our own instruments right?” he asked, glancing over at me with his eyebrow raised.
“He should do by now,” I replied, wondering why our manager had put all of these instruments in our rented house when we always wrote new songs on our own equipment.
Maybe he was trying to tell us to get new gear?
I couldn’t see how it would affect anyone.
We played the instruments he gave us when we went on stage but writing songs? We always used our own instruments.
I wandered over to the package that had been left for us on the large coffee table, plonking myself down on the sofa before opening it up. This would be our instructions.
“Guys! Come on, let’s have a look at this so we know what the plan is,” I called out. When they’d flopped into seats of their own, I took out the itinerary from the envelope and began to read aloud.
“Boys, I’ve organised it so that you’re only doing one gig a week while you’re back in that quaint little town of yours.
This gives you at minimum, six days a week to work on the new album.
You’ll be staying until September 2 nd , at which point, I expect you to show me what you’ve created.
The instruments in your house are for the gigs you’re going to be doing, so you can get them set up how you like.
I know I can’t persuade you to write the songs on decent new instruments but see how you get on with these anyway.
Attached is the dates and venues you will be performing at in the coming weeks.
Good luck and if you need anything, let me know. Signed, Doug.”
I scoffed at the letter in my hands. I guess he forgot we wanted some downtime to ourselves.
I ran my eyes down the list of venues we’d been given, surprised to see our old venue on there.
Sweet Dreams, the place where we had met Kate.
The paper was snatched out of my hands a minute later, causing me to come back to the here and now.
“Why are you spacing out man?” Benny queried, running his own gaze across the sheet now in his hands. “Ah.”
There it was. The acknowledgment he had just seen the same name I had. Joel peered over his shoulder, not one to be left out from what we were talking about. He whistled low.
“Sweet Dreams? That’ll be interesting if Kate’s around,” he muttered, glancing toward me with trepidation in his eyes. I shrugged, leaning back in my seat casually.
“What does it matter? She won’t be there anyway, she left town remember?” I replied, pulling my phone from my pocket and distracting myself as the others continued on.
“Of course it matters!” Joel cried out, jumping up from his chair and launching into the seat beside me. He grabbed my phone out of my hand, tossing it onto the cushion behind me and shushing me before I had chance to protest. “You were in love with her mate! It will be huge if we see her again.”
I stared at him in shock. Shit! He knew? I peered over at Benny who gave me a silent nod.
“Yeah mate, we knew,” he informed me, answering my unspoken question. “It was obvious to see, then when we saw how hurt you were when she left, it wasn’t even a question. We just figured you’d tell us if you wanted to.”
“Damn, I thought I hid it so well,” I grumbled, gutted I’d kept my feelings to myself all this time when I should’ve just let them help me.
“Nah man, you were a wreck when she left! We’d be blind not to have noticed,” Joel interjected, his talent for being blunt coming through in spades. I glared at him. His smile faltered, and he leaned away from me with his hands in the air. “Sorry.”
“Come on, why don’t we go check out the place before we have to play? We can get through any of the old greetings we need to do so we’ve got a clear head for our gig,” Benny suggested. I breathed in deep as I thought this through, exhaling slowly as I nodded my head.
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea actually. Let’s go.”