“No! I was going to sayvulnerable.” She reached over and hit my bicep. “Don’t speak like that about yourself, I won’t have it.”
“Okay, fighty pants,” I joked as I rubbed my arm. “Keep this up, and I won’t buy you new clothes.”
“Time’s marching on. When you find her, bring her back to the house,” Gray ordered.
“You’ll say sorry?” Ava asked him in surprise as she looked at Jett.
“Nope.” Gray started to walk back to the football house. “Just want you all under the same roof tonight.”
Ava’s hands were on her hips as she glared at his back.
“Relax,” Jett said as he hooked her under his arm, “that’s him saying he’s sorry.”
“He could try using his words,” she mumbled as we followed behind him.
Jett and I shared a look of amusement. “Ava, if Gray could use his words, half of this shit wouldn’t be happening,” I mock-whispered.
Gray turned around and pierced me with a look that made me lose the smile on my face.
“Shit. Gray, I didn’t mean—”
“Forget it.” Brushing it off, he turned away from me. “We all know it’s true.”
The walk to the football house and the car was quiet, and I wondered if we would ever return to a time when we were normal.
Chapter 19: Mia
My palms were sweating, and I was trying not to hyperventilate. I could do this, I had to do this, my whole entire career depended on being able to do this.
Reaching for the glass of water, I tried to hide the shake in my hand, but Wade grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“Girl, will you calm down?” Wade looked over his shoulder and turned back to me with a grin. “There is like, eight people here.”
Nodding, I bit my lip. “Mm-hmm.” The stage was at the bottom of the bar, raised on a small platform. It housed a permanent drum kit, a piano, and a number of microphone stands. The band brought their own amps and instruments, and all I had to do was stand and sing. You could see the whole bar from the stage, and the whole bar could see us.Me. I was starting to panic again. Wade, sensing this, handed me my water.
Wade was our friend from freshman year. He and Ava hit it off immediately, and we were all friends by the third week of college. His band was a country rock band, but as Wade would tell anyone who listened to his woe, he was always looking for a lead singer. Wade played bass guitar, and looking at him, country rock isn’t where your mind would go. He had a faux mohawk, tattoos everywhere, and a new eyebrow piercing.
Alex, the former lead singer, had left the band recently to join a heavy metal cover group. Wade was distraught, and with Mom’s comments that I needed a job, the fact that Wade would pay me seventy-five dollars to sing in his band had sounded like a no-brainer.
Until I took into account the fact that I suffered from stage fright. I didn’t like to be the center of attention, and I knew when I told people the fact that I got stage fright and I was pursuing a music degree, they looked at me in surprise.
But Icouldsing, and I knew my voice was a good one. Wade had heard me before and had relentlessly pursued me to sing in his band so much in freshman year that Ava had eventually had to step in and tell him to back off. I’d avoided him for weeks before he hunted me down and apologized and promised he would never ask me again.
And he hadn’t until Saturday when he was drunk, and now, here I was, on stage, panicking as my eyes kept flickering out to the eight men in the bar.
“Mia, Mia, Mia,” Wade chanted as he pulled me into a hug. “What’s your favorite song to sing, ever?”
“‘Amazing Grace.’”
I heard Sticks, the drummer, snort, and Wade’s glare cut him down so fiercely I felt guilty.
“Okay. Shane?” Wade turned to the guitarist. “Do you know how to play ‘Amazing Grace’?”
Shane scratched his jaw as he thought about it. “No. But . . . I can pick up the rhythm from Mia singing.”
Wade was nodding. “Yeah, I haven’t played it in forever, but it’s G and D and . . .”
“A-seven,” I whispered.
