Page 31 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

“Joel?”

I look up to find Becks with her short blond hair and bright green eyes. “Oh, hey, what’s up?”

“The others are in the green room. Al’s here. He has some news,” she says with a grin.

I narrow my eyes at her. “You know what the news is, don’t you?”

She tilts her head back and forth, trying to suppress a huge grin. “Maybe. Now hurry up.”

Standing, I wrap my arm around her shoulder and we head back down the hall. When we enter, she takes her place on James’s knee and I sit down next to Key on the sofa, whose attention is fixed on our curly-haired, pot-bellied manager.

“Right,” Al begins, “so I have some big news. Granted, I don’t have exact dates nailed down yet, but when I got off the phone earlier, they were really insistent. I tried to tell them that?—”

“For fuck’s sake, Al,” Dave mutters, “spit it out, we have a show to do.”

Al shakes his head. “Sure, sure. Well, a producer at MTV has requested that you guys make a music video.”

There’s a pause as we all process what the fuck he just said.

“Did you just say a music video?” James asks.

“Like an actual music video?” Key reiterates next to me. “Like, for the television?”

Al rolls his eyes. “Yes, Fucknuts, for thetelevision. What kind of music video do you think I mean?”

“Holy shit. That’s . . . that’s—” I start.

“This is fucking awesome!” Dave shouts, jumping out of his seat to rush Al in a ginormous hug.

The next thing I know, I’m plummeting against Al too. All of us are, and I can see it in my mind. The four of us, playing our music on the biggest stage of all, and the ideas already start spinning in my head. What song do they want us to do? Will it just be us playing or do they want a concept video? What will I wear? Holy shit, my mom will see this and be able to show her friends that I’m not just a small time fuckup.

When we finally release Al, his glasses are askew and one of the buttons over his large belly has popped, but he’s smiling.

“What song are we going to do?” Key asks.

Al straightens himself out. “They want to release a video for ‘Neon Crush,’ since it’s the official first single off the full album.”

“Really?”

I turn, and Key has paled. In fact, he looks like he might be sick.

“Are you sure?” Key asks, a stammer creeping into his voice. “I mean . . . that song isn’t exactly our most hardcore.”

I frown. What is he so worried about? He’s always been confident about his lyrics.

Dave shoves his shoulder. “What are you talking about? That song is killer. Definitely one of the best you’ve ever written.”

“Yeah,” James interjects. “And maybe it’s good it’s not as hardcore. It’ll appeal more to the masses. Rope them in.”

Al nods. “That’s exactly the plan. We don’t want to scare off the public by going straight to ‘Futility.’”

“Fuck, I love that song,” James muses.

Becks places her hand on his knee and squeezes. “It’s kind of a downer though,” she adds.

James tilts his head in agreement. “Yeah, but it’s a big fuck-you to the man. Fuck-you to the bullies, fuck-you to the government, f?—”

Becks places her hand on James’s cheek and the color that had begun to appear in his face during his rant recedes at her touch. I can see the way he visibly relaxes. How she centers him after so much of his young life was spent in turmoil. Maybe Idowant that. Maybe I want that with my own woman.

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