9 Years Ago
9 YEARS AGO
NIKOLAI
“Soundcheck starts at 6:00pm, doors open at 7:00pm, and then the show starts at 7:30pm. That work for everyone?” The bar manager looks at the four of us and we all eagerly nod.
“Great.” He claps and waves us away. “Feel free to hang out here until it’s time, or else give me a call when you return.”
We subconsciously look toward Walker who makes the decision for us. “I think we’ll stick around here if that’s cool.”
“No problem.”
The manager, whose name I think is Harrison but can’t quite remember, walks around the bar top and through a door that I assume leads to his office, leaving the four of us and Jane alone in the venue for our show tonight. She sits at the bar, nose buried in a textbook and furiously jotting notes in a notebook.
“I hope we can fill this place,” Hayden murmurs as we look around the large bar. It’s the biggest place we’ve played yet and I can see the slight panic on his face.
“We’ve been overflowing the smaller places,” Walker reassures him. “This is our next step.”
“It’s a big step.”
“We’ll be fine,” Reid pipes in, leaning casually against a pillar. “One day, we’re going to look back on the size of this place and laugh that we ever even questioned if it was too big.”
A grin splits my lips as I survey the empty space and imagine it one day transforming into an arena. “This is just the beginning for us.” Excitement thrums in my veins, making it hard to stand still.
Walker thumps a heavy hand on my shoulder as he matches my smile. “Who knows, maybe this is the show that someone big will notice us for and get our foot in the door in LA somewhere.”
Hayden’s phone rings, and he answers, “Hey, Dad,” as he steps away.
“Have you heard back from any of the agents you reached out to?” Reid asks, his question directed at Walker, who not only serves as our drummer but also our manager for the time being. Tentative hope fills Reid’s blue eyes; a look that only a lifetime of constantly being let down can give.
Walker clears his throat as he grits out, “No,” and Reid’s shoulders fall in disappointment and my chest deflates. But Walker is quick to add, “But that doesn’t mean anything! We just need to keep doing shows. Keep the buzz going. And I think we need to redo some of our demos.”
“That shit’s expensive,” Reid grumbles.
“I know, but it’ll pay off one day.”
“I think we need a new song. Something different. Less pop-punk and more pop-rock. Something a little more radio friendly,” I say.
Reid rolls his eyes. “We can’t sell out already.”
“It’s not selling out,” I placate. “It’s playing into our strengths.”
“You mean your strengths?” Walker asks, tapping his fingers against his biceps.
I shrug. My voice is better suited to a lighter, more pop-oriented sound than the punk roots we started with. And since Reid and Hayden both took to backing vocals, I’ve been considering the direction of our sound often. Especially as we’ve been reaching out to agents and trying to get signed.
“Just a thought,” I say, playing it off like it’s nothing because I know with Reid and Walker, they both want to think that something is their idea.
I’m not the leader. I’m not the “ideas” guy or the executor. I’m the lyrical one, the creative one, the one with a vision but not always the capability to make it happen.
That’s where we complement each other well.
I drop it, but I can tell they are chewing over the suggestion as Hayden rejoins us.
“Everything good?” Walker asks him.
He nods and runs a hand through the dark hair hanging in his eyes. “Yep. Just wondering what time they needed to be here tonight.”
“Your brothers tagging along, too?” Reid asks.
“No. Lucas is too small to be at a show like this. Will’s been begging them to lie about his age to get him in, but they’re not budging.”
We all laugh, and I say, “Milo asked if he could borrow my ID to get in. Idiot didn’t think that the workers wouldn’t notice that a random guy was using the ID of one of the band members playing tonight.”
My brother and Hayden’s middle brother usually come to our shows, but as the crowds are starting to get bigger, our parents have been keeping them away until they get a bit older.
“Are both of your parents coming tonight, too?” Walker asks me.
Hayden and I both have to have at least one of our parents here because we’re not eighteen yet. The bar is lowering the age of entry for the show to sixteen so that more of our classmates can come, but the manager still insisted that the two of us who aren’t adults yet have parents onsite.
“I think just my dad,” I answer. “Once my mom found out that I had invited him too, she suddenly had a conflict with work.”
My best friends eye me with varying mixes of pity and compassion. I shrug it off, not wanting to start down that path today. Their divorce has been ongoing for a few months now and I don’t want to spend a single part of this night thinking about it.
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t even think my foster parents know we’re doing this show tonight or even where I am.” Reid chuckles darkly.
All of us shift our attention to him, shocked that he even brought them up. It’s rare that Reid ever talks about his home life. When he moved here sophomore year, he gave us the basics: he moved to Pittsburgh from Philly, he has no biological siblings, and he’s never met his dad. Whenever any of us asked him about his mom, he shut down and would sometimes go days without talking to anyone. So we all quickly learned not to pry.
Walker is the quickest to recover. He jabs Reid’s side playfully as he says, “Both of my folks are coming and I’ll slip them a $20 to make sure they cheer for you, too.”
Reid snorts and shoves him away. “I don’t have to pay anyone to scream my name.” The two of them continue to bicker playfully while Hayden and I watch them, amused at the scene.
The sweet scent of roses and vanilla hits me before her voice does. “Those two fake-fighting again?”
My attention is pulled away from the guys and turned to one of my best friends. Jane’s calculating gaze meets my own and it makes something in my chest quicken at the sight of her deep jade eyes shining in the dim lighting. Her cheeks match the same soft shade of pink as her round lips and the bottom one looks slightly swollen, like she’s been chewing on it while she’s been studying. She tends to do that a lot.
“Always,” I snort. While Walker and Hayden have been friends the longest, Reid and Walker quickly bonded when I brought him into the fold when we started the band. They enjoy testing the other as both are alphas and seeing who will relinquish first.
It’s usually Reid.
Not because he likes to back down.
But because he doesn’t care enough to actually fight it.
It’s hard to sweat the small things like who’s going to be the one to negotiate with venues when he sometimes wonders whether his foster parents are going to buy groceries for the kids or not.
He let that slip one night as we laid in my backyard with a six-pack split between us. The look of horror when he realized he said it aloud had me promising that I’d never tell another soul.
“Our fifth member.” Hayden smiles at Jane. “Working on a new T-shirt design over there for us?”
Jane scoffs and tosses her dark, loose hair over her shoulder, sending another wave of her sweet scent my way. “You can talk to Carolyn about that one.” Her and Walker’s mom.
“If you’re not doing that, then what are you working so vigorously on over there? Your college applications? The next great American novel?” I tease.
“Please, applications were due last month and I submitted mine much earlier than the deadline. You’d know that if you had applied to any.”
“That’s not my path, LJ,” I say, slinging an arm over her shoulder and pulling her into my side. “Making the ladies scream as I sing onstage is more my speed.”
She makes a gagging sound, and Hayden laughs at her mock disgust.
I’m thrown off balance as she shoves me away and straightens her jacket. It’s her favorite oversized, faded leather coat that flows past her ass. The fabric swallows her frame, as if she’s trying to hide within the folds of it.
I hate it.
“It’s time to burn this,” I say and thumb the material. She bats my hand away and wraps her arms protectively across her chest.
“Shh, she can hear you.”
“Good. Maybe she’ll do you a favor and get lost next time you take her off.”
Hayden chimes in, “That would require Jane actually taking it off which she never does.”
Jane’s cheeks pink but she holds her head high. “It’s fashion. Sorry, the two of you can’t understand.” She eyes our outfits with fake disdain. I know it’s fake, at least with me, because I’ve been catching her checking me out more recently.
Since we’ve started doing more shows, I’ve altered my style a bit. The usual T-shirts and hoodies that have filled out my wardrobe have been exchanged for more unique pieces and brighter colors. Being the front man comes with different expectations and if I can help us stand out amongst all of the other starving artists, I will.
“You sure about that?” I ask her with a knowing smile. “Is that why I noticed you taking photos at our last show when I didn’t have anything under my jean jacket?”
Hayden chuckles as Jane’s mouth falls open.
“I-I take those photos for you assholes so you have something to post to your social media after the show!”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
“Screw you.”
“Better learn to come back with something stronger than that before you get to law school. I don’t think that’ll hold up in court.”
Hayden’s eyes ping-pong between us. This isn’t unusual. Jane’s always down to spar with me and it’s just so fun to get a rise out of her and remind her that she’s still a teenager, even if her sights are already on her future.
“You do know that I’m not going to law school to spend my career in a courtroom, right? Not everyone who goes spends their time trying cases.” She cocks her hip out, attitude radiating from the way she stands, and it brings a smile to my face. I like seeing this version of Jane more than the one that hides beneath her clothes and hair.
“Then what’s the point of all those extra years spent in a classroom?”
She looks exasperated as she says, “To help idiots like you from signing away your life on a contract that’s full of bullshit!”
“With the three of them,” Hayden points to me and Walker and Reid, who have moved toward the stage to tweak Walker’s kit. “We’re going to need to keep you on retainer, Janie. No clue what kind of trouble they’re going to get in if we get our shot.”
“Like you wouldn’t be in the mix with our shit,” I tease, giving him a slight shove.
He shakes his head, a look of innocence that is all too deceiving on his face as he appeals to Jane. Just because he’s quiet, people think Hayden is the good one out of us all.
And maybe he is, but he’s already starting to realize how quickly the quiet, broody look works on girls.
“I think you forget I’m friends with you, too, Hayden, and I know if the three of them get arrested, you’re right there with them.” Jane smirks at Hayden’s crestfallen expression and he waves us off as he joins the other two. He sneaks up behind Reid and jumps on his back.
Reid tries to shake him off, and a rare smile reaches Reid’s eyes. I want this to work out even more for us. As much as we all find our happiness performing, Reid seems to smile less and less these days offstage.
We just need to catch an agent's attention. Just one.
“Why the long face?” Jane nudges me.
I shake myself out of it and glance at her. “Just thinking.”
“Should I be scared?”
I flip her off and point to her textbooks sitting open at the bar. “Get back to work.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Oh yeah?” I invade her space and smirk at the small step she relents. She scans my face, her eyes dancing back and forth between my own, taken aback by my close proximity. “I just did.”
She fidgets with the hem of her jacket but keeps her chin high, almost at eye level with me. Challenging me like we find ourselves doing more and more these days. “Doesn’t mean I’ll listen.”
“You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
A cymbal clash assaults my ear drums and both Jane and I clamp our hands over our heads. Onstage, Walker holds his hands out in apology, cringing as he picks his dropped symbol off the floor and mutters to Hayden, who helps get it reset. Reid makes no move to help as he meticulously adjusts the strap on his guitar.
“Better get up there before something else falls apart,” Jane says. “They need their glue.” Her hand grazes mine as she walks past me toward her spot at the bar, and it’s weird that I even notice that.
As I walk over to my best friends, I feel the weight of her words sink in with heaviness that they shouldn’t. Am I the glue in this group? I’m the one who brought Reid into the fold, but he’s since formed his own connections with the guys. We’re a strong foursome. Our bond goes beyond just making and playing music together.
We have a brotherhood.
I’m the front man, but that doesn’t mean I’m the piece holding us together anywhere except on stage.
The collar of my shirt suddenly feels tight, and I pull at it. A restlessness begins to buzz under my skin as I hear my mother’s shouts from months ago echo faintly.
Let’s face it, I’m only here because of the boys. If it weren’t for them, I would’ve left you a long time ago.
Watching my parents’ marriage fall apart has taught me a lot of things, but one stands out the most: I don’t like being caught in the crossfires of a war between two people that I love. Being the glue that held the shattered pieces of my parents' marriage together until it left them both bloody and resentful is not something I ever wanted. And I don’t want to be in that position again.
“You good?” Reid asks, stepping up to the edge of the stage and eyeing me carefully.
I plaster on an easy smile and pluck the strings on his guitar. “Just thinking about which one of us Cassidy is going to eye-fuck through tonight’s show.”
The mention of our classmate that has been trying to sleep with both of us distracts him, and before I know it, the bar manager is coming out of his office to get our soundcheck going.
By the time the bar is overflowing to the brim, the lights are low, and the four of us step on stage, all worries melt away.
Because I’m with my brothers.
And I know in my heart we’re going to get our shot.