Page 61 of Hard Rock Temptation
“This music is mylife,” I exclaimed, my heart beating wildly in my chest. “The business isn’t. I’d write this music even if there wasn’t a single other person around to hear it.”
“If we keep arguing like this, you might get your wish,” Micah growled.
“You’re just scared,” I told him with a lump in my throat.
Micah glared at me.
“You can’t always default to that excuse whenever we disagree about something,” he said. “I’m not scared, I’m being practical.”
“Since when does the word practical have anything to do with art?” I asked.
“It does when you mix art with business,” Micah said firmly. “Which is exactly what we’ve been doing ever since we signed that record deal.” Micah looked at each of us in turn, making sure to meet each of our eyes.
“Do you really want to risk the label dropping us?” Micah asked.
“Let them fucking try,” Zain snarled, getting up from his chair so fast it tipped over. He stormed out of the practice room. We all watched him go, varying expressions of dismay on our faces.
“I really don’t think they will,” I said, trying to salvagesomething. “Lots of bands get experimental. And I don’t want to betray what’s in my heart. What’s in my soul. This music is my life. It’s?—”
My throat closed up and I couldn’t finish the end of that sentence out loud.
It’s the only thing I have.
“This is bullshit,” Finn cursed, kicking at the stool I’d been sitting on.
“Getting mad won’t solve anything,” Chris said, voice strained as he tried to find his usual placid tone.
“No, but it sure as shit makes me feel better,” Finn snapped. “Forget this.”
Finn stormed out, too. Chris stared after him then followed silently. Anya gave me and Micah a reproachful look and left, too. Then it was just me and Micah left in the practice room.
Micah ran a hand over his face and grunted.
“Fuck.”
TWENTY-SIX
MICAH
My worst nightmare had come true, but it hadn’t happened the way I’d thought it would.
I had been worried,wehad all been worried, that my relationship with Kay would impact the band. That the two of us would fight and it would break us up like so many other groups before us. But it hadn’t been our relationship that had come between us band members.
I’d really thought they’d come around. I’d really thought I could convince them. Anya and Finn both saw the truth, but Zain, Chris and Kaylee just didn’t understand.
Kaylee.
I should have expected it, but it had still blind-sided me. I knew that, for Kay, the music had always been the most important thing in her life, but I thought she’d see reason. I thought she’d agree with me. But she hadn’t.
And Kay was stubborn. I knew that nothing I said would convince her to change her mind.
I felt sick, bile in my throat and gut on fire like acid was burning through my stomach walls.
“Is this it?” I heard Kay whisper.
I turned away from the stairs, where I’d watched the rest of my bandmates file out of the room, and looked at Kay. There were gleaming unshed tears in her green eyes. My own eyes were stinging and I had to wonder if I had that same gleam.
“You know, I thought…” she started to say with a liquid laugh as she swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, “I thought that if something was going to tear the band apart, it would be our relationship,” she said, echoing my own thoughts. “Guess I was worried about the wrong thing.”
