When the band found out I was planning to return to Vancouver after my shoot in L.A., they’d gotten all excited and asked me to come to that secret show they were playing in town tomorrow night—and come up onstage to play a song with them. I’d said yes. And while I’d considered not coming back at all after Brody and I had our blow-out fight in my brother’s driveway, I’d spent every moment while I was in L.A. wishing I was hereinstead.
Because I’d rather be making music with Dirty than modeling, any day of the week. I had to keep my word to come back and play. But I also had to talk to Brody—that much hadn’t changed, no matter how pissed at mehewas.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t a wreck about allofit.
“I’m in no hurry,” I told Maggie. “But if you need to leave, I canlockup.”
She disappeared for a moment, into the kitchen, re-emerging with a bottle of wine and a couple of coffee mugs. She hopped up onstage and took a seat on a big equipment case acrossfromme.
“Don’t you think you’ve practiced enough?” she prodded gently. “There is such a thing as over-rehearsing,youknow.”
“I know,” I said, setting my guitaraside.
She was right. But I was honored that the band had asked me to play, and I figured I owed it to them—not to mention to her and Brody, since they worked so hard behind the scenes to make this show happen—not to make an ass ofmyself.
I leaned back against an amp, sighing. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous,” I told her. “Like puke-my-guts-out-and-then-some nervous.” It was true. Usually the nervous energy surrounding any kind of performance, strangely, gave me a sense of calm; it was like I instinctively knew how to convert that energy into a kind of numbness, an imperviousness against such things as stagefright.
Or maybe it was just years ofpractice.
“You gonna hurl?” Maggie’s lips quirked as she poured a mug of red wine for each of us and passed one over to me. “Because I can get you a waste basket orsomething.”
“No,” I said. “I think that pizza you brought in for dinner issavingme.”
“Right,” she said, knowing full well that I hadn’t eaten more than a couple of bites of pizza. Eating pizza and getting hired for swimsuit shoots didn’t exactly go together, at least not in my body type. She eyed me in that Maggie way of hers, like she could see right through to all the crap I wasn’t saying. “You really that nervous about the show? Or is something else going on you wanna talkabout?”
“Yeah. I’m that nervous about the show,” I said. AndIwas.
My guts were also tying themselves in knots, though, overBrody.
I’m so fucking donewithyou.
Five long days had passed since he said those wordstome.
And for five long days, he’d proven a man ofhisword.
I’d been out of town most of that time, but I’d tried calling him more than once to ask if we could talk. He didn’t answer. I didn’t even know if he was getting mymessages.
Of course… he totally was. He just didn’t want to talktome.
I’d seen him only once, this evening; he’d dropped by the church, shortly after I arrived. I’d come straight from the airport, eager to get in some practice time with the band before tomorrow’s show. Brody stayed for all of two seconds, long enough to have a few words with the band while ignoring me completely,thenleft.
These past five days, I’d gone over and over every word he’d said to me in my brother’s driveway—and every word I’d failed to say. It was killing me, that he’d wanted me to talk to him, had practically begged me to, and I’dchoked.
I was still choking on the fact that he seemed to think I rejected him. That I chose Seth instead of him. That he seemed to think I never actuallylovedhim.
I had to tell him otherwise. He had to know thetruth.
How had he never known thetruth?
Was it really possible that Brody thought I never even cared about himatall?
No. I couldn’t live with that. We’d both be at the show tomorrow night, so I knew that would be my chance. I’d sit on him if I had to, to get him to hear me out. Or getJudeto.
Whateverittook.
But first, I had to get throughtheshow.
“It’s a lot to absorb,” I told Maggie. “The band… wanting me to play with them. It’sflattering,but…”
