Page 120 of Before We're More Than Friends
“Okay, now that everyone is here,” Hayden said, clasping his hands together, “we need to get down to business. The Battle of the Bands auditions are next Saturday, and we havenothing.”
“We have a name,” Caleb said, nodding over to me. “Like Airplanes.”
“Yeah, but we need to have more than a name.” Hayden paced around the garage. “We’re thankfully allowed to audition with a cover, but we need to start writing original songs and pick one to perform for the actual festival. And I don’t want to hear any what-ifs because you know we’re getting it done, whatever it takes. We can’t mess this up.”
Oliver bit his lip ring. “Are you sure we’ll be able to pull ourselves together?—”
“I said no what-ifs!” Hayden snapped.
Oliver blinked at him. “Gosh, you don’t need to be this uptight.”
“Yeah, you’re going to stress yourself out, and then it’ll be a disaster,” Sienna said. “And I think we’ve had enough disasters.” Her eyes met Raina’s before she quickly looked away. “We’re not about to burn ourselves out here.”
“We won’t get burned out,” Hayden promised. “As long as we pace ourselves while getting stuff done, we’ll be good. We won’t screw this up.” He nodded to the set of instruments. “Let’s start with a warm-up of songs we could sing for our audition. Any ideas?”
“Want to give our pop-rock version of ‘Impossible’ another try?” Oliver asked. “I really like that one.”
Hayden beamed, already sitting at his drum set. “Sounds like a plan.”
Gosh, I’d have to singthatsong with Raina? As if singing with her wouldn’t be hell on earth on its own. I resisted the urge to grunt as I got up from my beanbag and went to my microphone stand.
Raina went to the stand next to me and adjusted her microphone. She still wasn’t looking at me, but I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked while focused. She wore a lavender top and blue jean shorts, both hugging her curves well. The shine in her silver earrings topped everything. And as always, her hair flowed down to her mid-back.
Gosh, why did she have to look so hotnow? When she hated my guts?
Not that I was playing the victim.
But still . . . did I really deserve this level of torture?
“What part are you singing?” I managed to ask her without stuttering.
Her eyes briefly met mine, just as icy and piercing as before. “I’ll sing the second part, and we can sing together on the last chorus.”
“Okay.” I gave her a forced smile.
She only shook her head before looking away again.
“Okay, I understand it’s complicated, but you two need to solve whatever is going on,” Hayden said, pointing his drumstick at us. “Bandmates have to work through their issues to perform.”
We didn’t even want to be in this band in the first place!I wanted to shout, but I bit it back. He hadn’t forced us to come here. That was our choice. And before everything went to crap, we had been enjoying ourselves.
How many mistakes had I made within three weeks?
After Arielle turned on the camera on her phone to record us, Hayden tapped his drumsticks together, and Caleb started with the instrumental before I belted the first verse.
I tried not to look at Raina, who was doing a fantastic job at pretending I wasn’t there while moving around to the music. I closed my eyes and submerged myself in the lyrics, singing from my place of heartbreak.
By the time I’d gotten to the chorus, the song flowed from my lips, though I couldn’t stop looking at Raina. Of course she still refused to look at me. I had theoppositeproblem.
After I finished my chorus, Raina put her hand on the microphone stand and started singing the second verse, her other hand on her chest. Her eyes drifted off into another place, shining like the moon on the night where everything had fallen apart.
Her voice picked up during the pre-chorus, and even though she still refused to look at me, I knew she was singing from thesame place of hurt. The way she sangembarrassing memade me stare at my shoes, my cheeks heating.
Way too cruel.
I glanced behind me to see everyone else smiling, but Hayden looked at me and mouthed, “Very bad song choice.”
I mouthed back, “No kidding.”
