* * *
As it turned out,we didn’t need an old 50’s granny to work as a chaperone. Grace wanted nothing to do with me. In fact, she made a point of avoiding me to the extreme, cutting wide swaths or waiting until I was halfway down the corridor before filing in behind me. Really, she’d barely said any words to me at all in the two weeks leading up to our first concert date. On the flight to our first venue, she sat with Quinn. It was crickets. Somehow, she’d taken my call for friendship to mean we were never going to speak to each other again. Up until now, it had been easy to avoid her, but that wouldn’t be the case tonight when we moved into the tour bus for the first time. How was I supposed to avoid her if we were all sharing the same bathroom and sleeping in bunks within a few feet of each other?
At least I was fulfilling my promise to Tucker. I’d successfully friend-zoned Grace to the point her frostiness worried me. The plan had always been to finish off the tour and then pursue her with everything I had but now I feared I was losing her one missed opportunity at a time.
“Huddle up,” Quinn said.
Mike and Matty joined him in the hall within eyeshot of the stage. I stepped forward too but stayed on the outskirts of their circle. It seemed the place for me. I was officially a member of the band now, but not really. I’d proven nothing, and until I did, I wasn’t worthy of a huddle. Really, at this point I wasn’t even sure if my legs would carry me onto the stage. After the sound check, I’d been feeling the nerves. I’d never been on a stage before—at least nothing even close to this one—and right about now, it was really hitting me hard. The screams of the crowd; the trembling beneath my feet. The stadium was electrified. And they were all here to see Sketch Monsters. Quinn, Matty, Mike, and their ghost drummer Brandon. I didn’t belong up there with them. I hadn’t paid my dues. The only reason I was standing here now was because I’d met a pretty girl on the sidewalk when I was a homeless runaway, and she’d refused to let me go.
I looked over to see Grace standing a few feet back. She’d been watching me. Our eyes met, mine rapidly blinking, and she knew I was panicking. She’d talked me through this many times before.Run, my brain was telling me.Run away. My heart sped up, and sweat prickled my skin. Grace rushed to my side.
“Is everything okay?” Quinn asked.
“I need…” I couldn’t breathe. I stumbled backward.
“Whoa.” Mike grabbed one arm, Matty the other.
Tucker swooped in. “Goddammit. Take him back to the greenroom. Let the stage manager know we’re going to be delayed.”
“No.” Grace stood up to him. “He’ll be fine. Bring him over here, and everyone back off.”
They shuttled me into a storage room a few feet away, and I slid down the wall to the ground, now gasping for air.
“Give me a second,” she said, pushing Quinn and Tucker and everyone else out of the tiny space and shutting the door. Grace was instantly on her knees, holding my face. “Slow down. Take a deep breath in through your nose, and exhale out through your mouth.”
I kept my eyes focused on hers as we breathed together. A minute passed, maybe two. She checked my pulse.
“Still fast. A few more breaths, slow and deep.”
I focused on her lips speaking those words over and over. She was so beautiful. I’d never not want her. How was I going to keep up this friendship façade—especially when she didn’t want to be my friend? I wanted to steal a kiss right here in the middle of my panic attack. Tell her the friend zone was a sham. But I couldn’t risk her job. I needed her here, whether she was talking to me or not.
The muffled sound of the announcer filtered through the door.
“Oh, shit!” I jumped to my feet, the quick ascent dizzying me. “I have to be on stage!”
Grace scrambled to her feet and pushed me against the wall, steadying me. “Yes, you do, but your heart is still racing.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not. What’s happening? I’ve never seen you nervous like this before you play.”
“It’s not about the drumming. It’s about watching those guys together like a winning team… I didn’t earn this. I only got the job because of my affiliation with the McKallister family, and everyone knows it. I don’t belong in their huddle. Those people out there—they’re here for Sketch Monsters, for Brandon. How am I supposed to live up to that? I never should’ve joined this band.”
All the feelings that had sent me into the storage room swarmed back.
“No, you’re not going back to that place,” Grace said, grabbing my face and forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Just because you got this break doesn’t mean you didn’t earn it. Do you really think you got the job through nepotism? I can assure you, my brother is not that principled. I watched Quinn clear-cut his best friend from high school to make room for you in Grace Note, based solely on the fact that my mother called you a prodigy. If Quinn asked you to join Sketch Monsters, it’s because he thinks you’re the best fit for the band. If anything, every strike was against you. You slept with his sister. Hell, you slept withyoursister. And then you broke my heart. If that doesn’t prove you earned your spot through talent alone, nothing does.”
“She’s not my real sister.”
“That’s not the point.”
“And I didn’t sleep with her.”
“That shouldn’t even need to be said. And yet…” She smiled.
Grace smiled! My pulse slowed. Maybe we could still be friends… or more. My breathing evened. I gripped the back of her neck and placed my forehead against hers. We hung there a second, hot breath passing back and forth as regret swept over me.
“I’m sorry.”
