Page 27 of The Rogues

When I eat my last roll—which is just as good as the first—I pat my stomach and sigh happily.

“Good?” Jamie asks as he places his chopsticks across the top of the bowl to rest.

“Fantastic,” I tell him, then grimace. “Sorry, I haven’t been very talkative. I ate an early lunch and then forgot to eat again because of the concert.”

“It’s okay.” He smiles earnestly. “How did that go? I wanted to stay and watch your set, but we still had a bunch of stuff to settle for the next few weeks.”

His statement causes my stomach to toss and turn as warmth blooms there. I bite my lip, nervousness taking over as he keeps his attention toward me, listening intently.

“It went good.” I nod, almost robotically. “Connecting on stage is so easy for us and tonight it really felt like we killed it.”

He arches a brow. “That sounds way better than good.”

The corner of my lip curves. “Okay, yeah. It was fucking awesome. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that electric on stage. We needed the break after our last tour, but… I feel at home when we’re performing.”

His eyes flash with recognition, his entire face lighting up with glee. “Same here. There’s no other feeling like it.”

The contact between us holds and it’s like he is seeing me in a completely different light. I suddenly feel vulnerable, visible. The way he is looking at me… I’ve never been looked at with such eager appreciation, have never felt so observed until this moment.

“So,” I cough, the word scratchy as it gets caught in my throat. “How did you guys get started? What was that like?”

He pushes his bowl forward and leans against the granite counter, his face morphing with memories. “Well, I was an honorary member for a long time. I didn’t grow up in Bristol, as you can probably tell from my lack of accent. I think the guys started it to piss off Cyrus’s dad, but then they found out they were really good. Started getting gigs to play at parties and events. I’d played keyboard my entire life, and would join them in the summertime—it felt natural. Eventually, we all came to the conclusion that we would give it a serious go, no matter what the outcome was.”

The way he recounts the transformation is so casual, so nonchalant, that I laugh.

“That’s it? No drama? No starving artist flashbacks? No inner group dissension or conflict?”

He chuckles, and the sound sends a surprised shiver down my spine.

“Nope.” He pops the “p” at the end. “We’ve always gelled well, ever since we were kids. I may have had a bit of FOMO until I was eighteen and could be in England longer than a few months, but that’s it. With the band, it was always easy.”

“Why were you only there for a few months at a time?”

“I’m from here, actually. A little more northern Cali, but the U.S. is where I spent most of my time. My mother is American and she met my dad while working as a flight attendant. You know how the story goes: they fell in love, had me, fell out of love, then decided it was best if I went back and forth. So, I spent my summers with my dad’s side of the family and spent the rest of the year in Kiss Cove.”

“That must have been difficult,” I vocalize.

He shakes his head. “Not really. I may have grown up in California, but Bristol was my home.” He smiles. “It was where my pack was.”

The confirmation that they are a pack hits me like a ton of bricks. “So you are a pack.”

The corner of his lips turn somber. “Yeah, we are,” he confirms. “We’re not allowed to tell anyone that our pack bonds have clicked in. I’m not sure what the long-term solution for that is, but we agreed to it when we signed the contract, so there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

I grimace. “I’m so sorry⁠—”

He cuts me short. “There’s no need to apologize for something that you had no control over. The industry is… It can be toxic. None of us know what we’re fully getting into when it starts, right?”

I nod, knowing that all too well. We had no idea that the lenient contract we signed would demand weekly appearances or mandatory PR stunts or make us spend nine months out of the year on our tour bus.

Before I can say anything else, he turns to me. “What about you guys? I read that you’ve been together just as long as we have. How did you four get started?”

By the look in Jamie’s eyes, I can tell he looks back on his memories with fondness. I wish I could reciprocate the lightness I see there, but my own memories flash over me like a cantankerous storm cloud. All of our beautiful moments are a little bit tainted by the strain that lives between us now. It has become a sentient entity, living and breathing alongside us, even in our happiest periods. The acknowledgment of that has me bowing my head with contempt. I sigh before I can think better of it.

“It was on a whim,” I admit. “I wanted this for Cleo. Being a singer was always her dream but she’d never let herself have it. She couldn’t even voice it to me, like saying it would automatically mean it was unobtainable. So, I suggested that we start a band. I wanted to give her the support she needed to go for what she wanted.

“Lark came into the picture when I started attending this really pretentious private school that my parents forced on me. She had taken drum lessons at the local music center for years and knew Nicola there, so she brought her in to play bass. We all got along so well, it was like a puzzle finally coming together after so long. At first, it was just me having unrealistic dreams about what could be, and then… it became real. Like this thing I suggested on a whim could actually be everything I envisioned it could be.”

“It sounds like everything worked out. You guys are one of the biggest rock bands in the country,” he comments, and I wince.