by Jamie Shaw
“Dee, honestly . . . if I’m going to be in the band, those guys are going to be like my brothers. It doesn’t matter how hot they are because I don’t need that kind of drama.”
And that’s the God’s-honest truth. Shawn is hot, but he seems to follow that unspoken rule that the hotter a guy is, the stronger his asshole gene is. I wouldn’t sleep with him again if he begged me.
“RIGHT ANSWER!” Dee shouts, and I flinch at the excitement in her voice. “That was perfect! You’re in!”
“What if I had said Adam?” I ask, because I never know when to keep my mouth shut.
“You’d be out,” she answers, like it’s no big deal.
“What if I’d said Joel?”
“Just be glad you didn’t.” She finishes with a little laugh that sounds downright evil, and I make a mental note: don’t get on the crazy chick’s bad side. “So look,” she continues, “your first band practice won’t be this coming weekend because it’s Easter, but I’m thinking maybe next weekend. One of the guys will give you a call when they get their shit figured out, ’kay?”
I agree in a daze, and the call ends with Dee asking me where I live and suggesting maybe I find a place closer to town. Then I’m just driving toward home, wondering how I should feel.
It’s done now. I did it. I landed a coveted guitarist position with The Last Ones to Know. The opportunity of a lifetime. And my job is going to entail practicing with Shawn. Performing with Shawn. Writing music with Shawn. Touring with Shawn . . .
“KIT?” MY MOM says at the dinner table, and my head snaps up so fast, I nearly bite my tongue clean off.
“Huh?”
“You’ve barely touched your chili,” she notes from her seat at my right, at the end opposite my dad. “What’s going on with you?”
“I got a job today.”
I answer with a forced smile, keeping Shawn’s name buried down deep. Sunday nights are family dinner nights, and I typically eat just as much and just as fast as my two-hundred-plus pound brothers—but tonight my stomach is in knots, and Shawn Scarlett’s name is written all over every single one of them.
My mom’s mouth crinkles at the corners. She’s built like a ballerina, with soft brown eyes and fuzzy brunette hair, and those brown eyes light up when she says, “That’s wonderful! Doing what?”
When she sets her silverware down and gives me her undivided attention, I lose the good fight and divert my eyes to my dad. “It’s in Mayfield. I’m thinking of moving there.”
My brothers and I inherited our mother’s lean frame and smooth features, but our father’s dark hair, dark eyes, and height. He’s a big man with a way about him that just makes you want to spill your guts, so when he sets his silverware down too, I know I’m in trouble.
“What job’d ya get, hun?”
Great, it’s like he and my mom are tag-teaming me and I’m on my own in the ring.
“Probably a stripper,” Bryce throws in, which is so the opposite of helping. I swear he stopped maturing at the same time he stopped growing. If the past six years have taught me anything, it’s that Bryce will forever be an eighteen-year-old trapped in a grown man’s body.
I kick him hard under the table without ever breaking eye contact with my dad, and Bryce does just what I expect him to.
“FUCK, Kit! What the fuck! That fucking—”
My mom starts screaming about his language while Kale, Ryan, and Mason all snicker under their breath. I interrupt the chaos to finally answer my dad.
“I auditioned for a guitarist position in a new band, and I got it.”
My mom stops in the middle of telling Bryce to watch his “darn mouth” to stare at me, a frown hiding behind her guarded expression.
“Another band?” my dad asks, but before I can answer, Ryan pushes me down the rabbit hole.
“Isn’t that where that band you guys went to high school with went?” he asks. “Mayfield?”
Adam, Shawn, Joel—those names were infamous within the hallways of our school. With the exception of Mike, the guys were all players, with well-earned reputations that I have no doubt my brothers would remember. Because who could forget the whispers, the rumors, the long lines of batting eyelashes that followed them wherever they went?
I shrug my shoulders as fast as they can possibly shrug, but Mason’s fork clanks onto his plate before I can change the subject. “You’re not in a band with those douchebags, are you?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
I lie to prevent my brothers from going all vigilante on my ass and demanding I quit the band, but when Mason’s eyes narrow, I realize the mistake I’ve made.
“Oh, come on, Kit,” Ryan says with his mouth half-full. “You used to love them, remember?”
Mason’s eyes are dark slits when he says. “What’s the name of the band you joined?”
“They’re still really small,” I lie.
“So they don’t have a name?”
With my brothers calling me out and a spoon in my hand, the first name that comes to mind is—
“The Murderspoons,” I answer, mentally berating myself for my complete lack of originality—and then praising it when Mason merely lifts a silent eyebrow.
“And what are the guys’ names?” he continues, interrupting my sigh of relief before it can even begin.
“Bill, Ty . . . ” I take a big bite of spicy chili to buy myself some time. “Paul . . . and . . . ” I choke into my hand while drowning out of water. No name is coming to the top of my head, not even to the tip of my tongue—none, nada, zero, zilch, oh God. I’m so fucked.
“And Mike,” Kale finishes for me, and I nod vigorously because Mike Madden’s name is just generic enough to work.
“And Mike,” I agree, and then I turn to my dad before Mason can ask me anymore valid questions that I might just have to commit fratricide over. “They’re still building their fan base, but they’re really good, and I think it’s worth going after.”
“Kit,” my mom says from the other end of the table, in that soft voice that means she knows I’m not going to like what she has to say next, “wouldn’t you rather be a music teacher or something? Maybe give guitar lessons to kids? My friend Laura’s husband does that, and he makes some decent money . . . ”
“Come on, Mom,” I plead, not wanting to rehash a conversation we’ve had a thousand times before.
“How are you going to afford to move?” Bryce asks, and I rub at a pain that’s rooting in my temple.
“I have some money saved up from working while I was in school. It’s not much, but it’ll last a little while.”
“So this band,” Mason says, “they’re all guys?”
My parents and each one of my brothers lock their sights on me, and I roll my eyes and sigh. “No, Mason, Paul is a girl’s name now. Are you serious?”
My dad: “Can’t you find a band with girls?”
Mason: “I want to meet them.”
My mom: “Why do you have to move to Mayfield?”
Bryce mumbles something about Mason and him needing to make a trip there, Kale and Ryan nod vigorously while insisting they’re going to come along, and then I’m standing up before I know it. My wooden chair scrapes against the hardwood floor, dousing the torches of the rapidly forming pitchfork mob.
“Okay, guys?” I stare pointedly across the table at my brothers, especially the three oldest ones who should know better than to think I need protecting. “Seriously, a ‘congratulations’ would have been nice at any point in this conversation.”
“Kit—” my mom begins, but I just shake my head.
“I’m getting a headache. We can talk about this later, but it’s my decision and I just wanted everyone to know.”
I give my parents one more pleading look before turning around to leave, but Kale’s voice is the one that swims after me.
“Congratulations, Kit.”
IN THE SILENCE of my own room, I collapse on my bed and wonder which one of the b
oys is going to come up first. Normally, I’d think it’d be Kale, but this day has been anything but normal, and frankly, Kale doesn’t seem too happy with me right now. Maybe it’ll be Bryce, if only just to ask me if I’m going to eat the rest of my garlic bread or if he can have it. Or Mason, to tell me I shouldn’t act like a baby if I don’t want to be treated like one.
When someone knocks on the door and Ryan walks in, I’m almost thankful.
“Hey,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed and patting my knee.
“Hey.”
Ryan’s usually perfectly styled bangs tumble over his forehead, a sign he probably has a haircut scheduled for tomorrow, if not for later today. “We just worry about you, you know.”
“Yeah, well, stop,” I say, sitting up and pulling my knees to my chest. My boots dig into my comforter, my expression more unyielding than I feel. “I’m not a baby anymore. I can make my own decisions.”
“You’ve been making your own decisions since you were a baby, Kit,” Ryan says with a warm laugh. “Maybe that’s why we worry so much. Ever think about that?”
I give him a look, he flicks me in the forehead, and I can’t help laughing. Our parents had us all close together, so even though Kale and I are twenty-one, Bryce is twenty-four, Mason is twenty-six, and Ryan is twenty-seven, not one of us knows how to act our age around each other. I don’t usually consider it a bad thing until it’s four against one and I’m on the losing side of an argument.
“Doesn’t it matter if I’m happy though?” I ask, and Ryan scoffs.
“Of course it does.”
“So then why does Mom keep insisting I be a music teacher?”
“Because Mom is crazy,” he answers matter-of-factly, and I find myself chuckling again.
Ryan scoots back on my bed until his back is against the wall, and he sits like that in silence until I say, “Giving this band a shot means a lot to me, and I don’t need you guys messing that up, okay? This is what I want to do with my life, Ry. You know that. This town has always been too small for me.”
“I think the whole world is too small for you.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing though.”
My challenge brings a small smile to his lips. “Didn’t say it was.” He slaps my knee and stands up, pausing only when he’s at my door. “Just promise me there’s nothing to worry about? I’ll work on the guys and keep Mason on his leash.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I echo, and I can tell Ryan doesn’t believe me, but he knows there aren’t interrogation lights in the world hot enough to make me spill my guts—not with four bossy brothers who have spent my whole life showing me the consequences of telling them anything they don’t want to hear.
“And you’re going to let me help you move?”
I give him a sincere smile. “Sure, Ry. You can help me move.”
Chapter Three
WHEN I MOVE into my new apartment a few days after Easter, all four of my brothers and my dad help move me into the new place. I insist it’s overkill and my mom silently agrees, but the men insist on meeting my new landlord—a sweet old lady who’s renting me out the finished space over her garage—and they don’t complain when she feeds them cookies and milk and croons about how handsome they all are.
My first band practice with the guys is the following week, and if I rated it on a scale of piece of cake to zombie apocalypse, I’m pretty sure everyone in the band would be eating each other’s faces.
“Kit,” Shawn says in that voice he’s been using to criticize me all damn afternoon, “seriously, how many times is it going to take you to get this song?”
In Mike’s garage on the outskirts of the city, I resist the urge to go full-on rock star and smash my guitar against the floor. I applied to be the band’s guitarist, not Shawn’s personal punching bag, but from the moment we started practice, he’s been taking my confidence and beating it up. My molars are grinding, the noise scratching at my eardrums, and I sound like one of my brothers when I growl, “Really?” I glance at Joel out of the corner of my eye and then glare back at Shawn. His words sting, but I bite. “I am the person you’re going to bitch out right now?”
“You miss your mark at the same spot every single time.”
“Your bass player is fucking hungover as shit!” I bark, the echo of my insult lost to the noise-cancelling equipment mounted on the walls. With dark circles under his eyes and his Mohawk lying in a matted mess on top of his head, Joel looks like he’s been binge drinking all damn week and picked a shitty time to stop. “How the hell am I supposed to keep a rhythm when he’s all over the damn place?”
Shawn blanches, and Mike twirls a drumstick between his fingers. “She’s not wrong.”
“She’s right,” Joel interjects before anyone can defend him. He unstraps the Fender from around his neck and sets it on a stand at the side of the garage.
“You’re fine,” Shawn assures him, turning those laser-cut emerald eyes on me again. “Don’t lash out at him just because you can’t do your job.”
“Whoa,” Adam says, but I’m already throwing my guitar pick at Shawn like it’s a ninja throwing star and storming out of Mike’s garage. I push the door open so hard that when it slams against the side of Mike’s house, I’m surprised the tiny thing doesn’t go toppling over.
I don’t know why I ever thought joining Shawn’s band would be a good idea. He was an asshole back in high school, he’s an asshole now, and if the house did fucking topple over, I’m not sure I’d waste my energy digging him out.
“Kit!”
I ignore his stupid voice and continue walking, each stomp of my combat boots pulverizing the gravel of Mike’s driveway into dust. The wind blows my hair back, transforming me into one very pissed off avenging angel who isn’t going to waste her time avenging a goddamn thing. After two weeks of not being able to sleep because I was so anxious, of not being able to eat because I was so nervous, Shawn has made it a point to make me feel even smaller than the fifteen-year-old girl I was the first time I talked to him. And I am not that fucking small.
I lay my guitar in the back of my Jeep, climb into the driver’s seat, and slam my key into the ignition.
Fuck going back to get my guitar case. I’d rather buy a new one.
When Shawn launches onto the running board beside me and clings to the roll bars above my head, I refuse to let him crowd me. I have a Taser in my glove compartment, and he has ten seconds before we both learn how it works.
Ten . . . nine . . .
“I’m sorry,” he pants. “I didn’t mean . . . to be so . . . ”
“Such an ass?” I snap, forgoing the Taser when he offers his agreement.
“Yeah.”
I narrow my eyes into pinprick black holes. “Too late.”
“Huh?”
The afternoon sun casts a blinding halo all around him as I squint up at his stupidly gorgeous face. “I don’t accept your apology. Now get the hell off my Jeep.”
When he doesn’t budge, I spin in my seat, lean back, and plant my combat boot firmly against his irritatingly flat chest. I give him a quick push with all intentions of knocking him on his ass, but Shawn reaches out for balance just as he begins to fall. His long fingers wrap tightly around my calf—around my barely there skull-print leggings and the suddenly burning-hot skin beneath.
And then I’m just there, leaning back in the driver’s seat, with my trembling leg captured in Shawn Scarlett’s hand. His green eyes crawl slowly up the length of my thigh, the flat of my stomach, the curve of my neck.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he questions, his eyes full of fire that’s giving me seriously bad ideas. Every part of my body is begging him to prop the leg he’s holding onto his shoulder, and then take the other and do the same. And when his grip slides up to my ankle, it’s like his hand is reading my mind.
My toes curl in my boots. My lungs stop working.
“You’re supposed to get the fuck off my Jeep,” I m
anage to growl, startling him with a forceful kick that knocks him the rest of the way to the ground.
When I spin around, I’m livid—and I’m not even sure which I’m angrier about: the fact that he’s being an asshole, or the fact that he didn’t throw himself on top of me instead of falling off my Jeep. Six fucking years, and it still only took one touch from him—one look, one tiny graze of his fingers—to make my entire body feel like it was ready to melt at his command.
I twist my key in the ignition, the hum of my engine drowning out the heartbeat drumming in my ears. But it’s too late for an escape, because Shawn is already sprinting around my Jeep and launching himself into my passenger seat.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I growl as he shifts on the worn leather to face me.
“Can you just hear me out?”
“I think I heard you plenty in there.” I nod toward Mike’s garage and tighten my fingers around the steering wheel. All fucking day, he hasn’t had a single decent thing to say. Kit, you missed your mark. Kit, are you even listening? Kit, it’s no wonder I never called you after I took your virginity, because you can’t do a damn thing right.
Okay . . . he didn’t really say that last bit. But he didn’t need to, because I heard it every time he looked at me like I was some amateur imposter who had never played a guitar in her life.
“You made it pretty damn clear you think I’m terrible,” I snap, and Shawn opens his mouth to reply, but I’m far from finished. “Actually, no, you know what? You made it pretty damn clear you didn’t want me in this band from day one. So whatever, you got your fucking wish. I don’t need this shit. I’m out. You—”
“You’re amazing,” Shawn blurts, and every word I’d planned to heave at him gets stuck in the back of my throat. His green eyes are sincere when he says, “You’re amazing, okay?”
