Page 100 of Feuds and Interludes
Just then, applause sounded from inside the amphitheater and everyone hurried to their seats.
“Come along, Bruce. Boone, we’ll see you after. Kiss kiss.”
Bruce led my gran away to the backstage area while I stood there in shock.
“Come on,” Annie said, taking my arm. Bran took the other. “Rose has seats reserved for us down front.”
“What about performing?” I needed to stretch, warm up, I?—
“Just hurry up.”
We took our seats as Shane took the stage, and my breath caught.
He was wearing a pair of form-fitting black slacks and a black dress shirt with the arms cut off.
Close enough to a monkey suit.
He was stunning. He was also wearing a matching boutonniere to mine.
God, I’d missed him.
I wanted to cry.
Instead, I chinned up and titted out and hoped I could make it through the gala without swooning.
Thirty-Three
Shane
“The package has arrived.”
When word came through my in-ears that Boone and the twins had arrived, I sighed with relief, but then panicked.
“Copy,” I answered.
“You good?”
Danny Black, lead singer for metal gods Blackened, patted me on the shoulder. He’d been so much fun to work with for this event. He and his wife, choreographer Jesse Martin-Black, had become a Hollywood power couple when it came to organizing fundraisers like this, and Danny, it turned out, was a massive fan of Brothers’ music.
“I’m…wow, I don’t know.”
It had taken me a full month to realize just how badly I’d fucked up with Boone. Four therapy sessions, six Al-Anon meetings, and thirty-six postcards from all over Europe later, I’d been ready to accept my licks and plan for how to get him back. I’d thought Boone would go off and forget about me, or he’d remember how much of a jackass I’d been. When I finallycalled him, ready to grovel, I’d realized that he deserved so much more than that. I didn’t want to discuss our relationship over the phone. I wanted to make a grand gesture in person.
And how else would a bonehead musician do that but to write a song and sing it in front of their collective friends and family?
It sounded good in theory. It was the stuff of romance novels. It was also taking a big chance, and I think by now, I’ve established how not great I tend to be about taking chances.
Go me.
“You ready, big guy?”
Leland and Morrison were there with hugs, and so was Lydia. They’d all be playing with Blackened, as well as Aldous Archer, and even Pops and Mack from Brothers.
And then my dumb ass was going to get up and sing a fucking ballad to the man I loved with all of my heart and hope he’d forgive me, come home with me, and, if all went well, agree to marry me.
God, just thinking the words made my legs buckle. It helped to see that Pops was just as nervous about marrying Vera Jean, despite the fact he’d spent the majority of his life in love with her.
“Son, you’re going to have times when you’re apart, times when your career is in the toilet and his is in the stars, but that’s when you’ll be the closest. That’s when you’ll need him and he’ll be there for you. He’s already proved that he loves you. Ye can’t spend yer whole life hiding from things you can’t control.”
