But now, a year later, goddammit, he hated Logan fucking Groff.
Logan cornered him in the hallway of the practice studios, phone in hand like it was a knife.In Logan’s hands, maybe it was.
“Baker.”Logan always addressed him by his last name, as though he could not be bothered to remember his first name.Or maybe he did, and he wanted Dante to be someone else, this “Baker,” who came when called and didn’t distract Ellery.“What’s going on with Ellery?We need original songs on this album.You guys are fine at ’80s has-been covers, but no one wants that on Spotify.”
Dante gritted his teeth and reminded himself to unclench his fists.There was no need to get into a brawl about any of this.“No one considers Springsteen, Bon Jovi, or Annie Lennox has-beens, Logan.”
The man sighed dramatically, like the world’s worst theater student.“Whatever.Just do what you need to do.I know she has those songs.I hear the two of you working on them when you think I’m not listening, and fuck you for that, Baker.I’m always listening.”He gestured with his phone, drawing a circle in the air as if indicating he had ears everywhere.“Social media never sleeps, and it sees everything.So get her head straight.”
Dante drove his thumbnail beneath the nail on his second finger and flicked it repeatedly.“Isn’t that your job?To help her see your vision?”
Logan barked a cruel laugh and stepped backward, finally giving Dante the space he desperately needed.“My vision?This is all her.You and Selene and Lorraine are replaceable, unless you’re ready to switch with her.I can definitely sell your story.”
Dante scoffed and clenched his fists.The only reason Logan knew he was trans was because of the background check he’d run, but there was fuck-all chance that he would let Logan use that information for anything.
Logan responded with a bored eye roll.“Then doyourjob”—he punctuated this with a jab in Dante’s sternum—“and get your band together.Now go be brilliant.I’ve got things to do.”With that mic drop, Logan stalked down the hall in his three-thousand-dollar suit, texting with angry abandon.
Dante rubbed at his chest.Asshole.
He sighed and headed back into the practice room.Great, he had forgotten to finish the text to his brother.It would have to wait.
If he thought about it, he didn’t mind waiting.All Casper wanted to talk about lately was Ellery.How was she?How were things going?Did Dante hear how Casper was being the superior Baker sibling at every opportunity?
It was enough to make him scream.
He shouldered open the door to the practice studio, and Selene and Lorraine both jumped at the sound, fracturing.They relaxed fairly quickly, Lorraine running her fingers through the scant hair at her temples.She was going through a blue phase, her hair shorn at the sides and long on top.She looked badass.
“Thank goodness it’s you,” she said from the piano bench.“We thought it was Logan.”
“No, just me.No Logan to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong for the seven-hundredth time.”Dante rolled his eyes and took his seat beside Ellery, his bass resting against the back of his chair.
Ellery bit her lip and cradled Jasper in her lap.“He isn’t all that bad.”
Selene rolled her eyes.“Please.That’s only because he likes you best.You need to stop giving in to what he says.”
“What he says is going to make us famous.”Ellery shifted her fingers between chords on the fretboard without strumming the guitar.Dante got it.It was how he memorized music too.
“What if we don’t want to be famous?”Dante asked.Selene barked a laugh.
“Dante, honey, you’re the only one who resists it.And you’re the one who’s going to get us there, so that’s a hell of a predicament, isn’t it?”
Lorraine cooed and waggled her eyebrows in an exaggerated manner.“Come on, Sel, we all know why Dante is here and it has nothing to do with the riff in ‘Timekeeper.’”
Dante looked at the ground, at the swirl of thin dust kicked up by the toe of his sneaker.He wasn’t an idiot.Of course Selene and Lorraine knew how he felt about Ellery.They definitely knew better how Ellery felt about him, since she never even mentioned it.Not that it was eating him alive or anything.
What mattered was ensuring Logan never found out.
“We’re wasting time,” Ellery said, and he knew for damn sure that she wasn’t looking at him either.“Let’s get back to rehearsal.”
CHAPTER13
Four Years Ago, Chicago—Ellery
Ellery stepped offstage,the roar of the crowd thundering so loud it made her hair vibrate.
She could barely feel her hands but she knew they were clutching Jasper because she could see her beloved guitar in the dim light of the wings.
“Oh my sweet and beautiful God,” Lorraine said beside her.Her cheeks were high with color and her eyes so bright that if she didn’t know better, Ellery would have thought she was doing drugs.Lorraine’s uncle had died from heroin use, and she was strictly straight edge.Maybe that was how Ellery looked too, flushed and bright and thrumming from the thrill of the performance.“It’s never been like that.El, you were on fire.”
