“Stay out of this,” Cy hissed at me.
Zack didn’t even look over at Braden and me. “What else? Get it all off your chest.”
“We need to pick twelve songs. We keep practicing fifteen when we know goddamned good and well that they don’t want that many. We’re wasting our time practicing them all.”
Finally, Zack turned to Braden and me. “You guys feel that way too?”
“I’m still having trouble deciding on twelve,” Braden admitted.
I said, “You know how I feel about wasting money. I agree with Cy—that we need to get in and get out. If we need more time perfecting the songs, then maybe let’s practice more.” Although the idea of more practice soured my stomach, I knew we needed more time to sound cohesive. We could get away with playing all fifteen songs on a stage right now—but the record was the permanent sound people would always hear…so I knew we all wanted to get it right.
Zack was pissed—but not completely irrational. “Fine. Let’s anonymously vote on the songs we think we should leave off the album—and we’ll just include them in the setlist. Can everyone agree on that?”
Braden asked, “What will the label say?”
“I don’t give a shit. For all I care, they don’t need to know. And then maybe someday we can release a deluxe version of the album or something.”
“Or,” Cy said, “we could include the three on different albums.”
“No. They won’t fit. Each album’s gonna have its own unique sound and I want someone to listen to the song and justknow where it belongs, even if they don’t remember it exactly. Before I shared all these songs with you guys, I told Dani about it—and we talked about Korn’s dubstep album. If you heard any one of those songs playing in the middle of a mix of Korn’s catalog, you’d know exactly where that song belonged. That’s how I wantallour albums to sound. Like us…but ever evolving.”
Cy’s expression softened, and I imagined he had a modicum of respect for Zack’s perspective. Braden, however, shot me a glance and I knew exactly what he was thinking: why had Zack talked to me about the music before the rest of the band?
More than that, he was asking the question he’d asked me more than once:do you still love him?
But I squeezed his hand, hoping he’d understand that all was good between us—and then we voted for the songs we would kill.
Something I’d longed for—inaddition to love—was a best friend, and Roxy was quickly earning that spot in my life. Our second summer festival happened the last week of July, just before we were getting ready to enter the studio.
It turned out that picking the songs to axe off the album was easier than we’d thought. Two were easily agreed upon via “secret” vote—but how secret was it really when you recognized all your friends’ handwriting? Unfortunately, the third song was a bit more difficult to choose, because we all had different ideas. But when Zack suggested we get rid of “Don’t Let Go,” Cy pressed for us to instead cut one of the bluesiest songs. His argument was that “Don’t Let Go” sounded a lot like our old stuff and at least one of those would help our old fans give the album a try.
We were all tired of arguing that day and agreed—so we finally narrowed it down to the twelve that would stay.
Braden never asked about when or how Zack and I had talked about the music before he’d told the whole band, even though I’d figured out exactly what to say to keep it from sounding bad. After all, we hadn’t done anything wrong that day; we’d just met for lunch…and then Zack had warned me about “ruining” the band by dating Braden. And it turned out that even the whole world knowing I was with Braden hadn’t caused anything bad to happen.
No. If anything destroyed the band, it would be egos or Zack’s refusal to give up drinking. Although we were practicing more overall—getting the songs tight and ready to be recorded—we spent the day before the festival practicing our setlist.
This festival was in the heart of Texas—which meant we’d be roasting. But when I heard Roxy was going to be there, I didn’t care. I was just happy I’d get to see my new friend in person again. Like before, we appeared on the first day and had far more interviews scheduled than the first one—but we had lots more people in our audience. And those people seemed to love the new songs we’d interwoven in the set.
Like the festival in California, Braden and I hung out most of the day when we weren’t in interviews and, just like with ones earlier in the year, Zack was getting more defensive with his answers, for lack of a better word.Belligerentis a bit harsher than what he was doing, and he wasn’t being a wuss about it, but he was being a little more aggressive with his answers than the rest of us would have liked. After all, the press could choose to paint us in a bad light and there wouldn’t be much we could say about it.
Roxy and I agreed to hang out again, so I gave Braden asweet kiss before I met her outside the tent. “When will you come to our room?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It depends on if we drink and where we’ll be hanging. I’ll text you to let you know.”
“Okay,” he said before kissing me again. We’d decided, now that our secret was out in the open, official due to the press statement Russ had sent out, that we didn’t need to hide our feelings from anyone anymore. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Now that we’d been together a few months, I found it easier to say those words—and I was beginning to believe them. Braden was truly the sweetest, kindest, most caring man I’d ever met, and—like Roxy had said the first time we’d hung out together—I was lucky he was mine.
Roxy gave me a huge hug when I approached her and I reciprocated, reminding myself that I was far more fortunate than I often realized. And I was in a far better mental space nowadays—I had a healthy, functioning relationship with my boyfriend and an equally healthy friendship. Zack had been a damaged boyfriend and he hadn’t always been the best of friends either. Roxy fulfilled so many of the needs I’d had in the past, and I only hoped I could return the favor.
“So what do you wanna do?” she asked. “There are a few parties we could attend or—”
“No, thanks. No parties. I think I’m partied out.”
“I get it. And I usually wind up working when I go to those things anyway. So do you want to go to a bar or would you rather just go to my hotel room? We could drink or not. I can pick up a six-pack on the way.”
“That sounds great! No bars.” Soon we were in her rental car and she stopped by a liquor store and we debated which beer to pick. When I deferred to her judgment, she grabbed a pack of Bud Light and we split the bill before getting back in the car.
