The Replacement War: A Rock Star Rom Com

by Lisa Suzanne

  And every time she sings the part about how we can’t ever go back, another shard of my heart cracks apart.

  I don’t know if I’ve ever felt lyrics the way I feel them when her powerful voice claims them. I’ve felt music before, of course...but hearing her voice my pain aloud is downright agony.

  Still, though, even in the pain, it’s gorgeous, and the ache she leaves behind is something I don’t know whether I’ll ever recover from.

  Instead of falling out of love with her after she moved on from me to Tyler, listening to her sing is having the complete opposite effect. I’m falling even harder for her.

  I need to get away from her.

  After we turn in our lyrics, Kat calls me into a confessional.

  “How’s it going, big boy?” Her voice is all low and husky.

  I roll my eyes, and she glares a little.

  “I was expecting at least a cursory laugh at that one. What’s wrong?”

  I lift a shoulder.

  “Someone took his crabby pills this morning.”

  “I’m not crabby,” I mutter. “Let’s just do this interview.”

  “Fine.” She nods, suddenly all business. “How did writing the song with Lexi go?”

  “It went fine.”

  She narrows her eyes at me and huffs out a sigh. “You know I can’t use that as a soundbite.”

  My brows are heavy as I try not to look up toward the ceiling again. I feel like folding my arms across my chest and slouching petulantly. “Writing with Lexi went fine.”

  “Fine? That’s all you’ve got for me?”

  She’s poking me, and I feel like I’m not going to respond well. Not in my current mental state. And then, out of nowhere, I let it all out.

  “It was really fucked to pair me with her when everyone here knows what went down between the two of us,” I begin, and then I can’t seem to stop. “We wrote a song, and it was fucking magic, okay? It was incredible. I’ve never fallen into such an easy rhythm writing with somebody before. We have the same basic process for writing, and the lyrics we came up with are haunting and beautiful and entirely true of the weekend we spent together.”

  “So why are your panties in a twist if it went so well?” she prods.

  “Because I love her. Okay? I. Fucking. Love. Her. But she has moved on with Tyler, and she’s happy, and she reminded me that we can’t go back to what we had. Our lyrics reminded me of all that. Too much is different now.”

  She presses her lips together and heaves out a breath. “I’m sorry,” she finally says, breaking the silence between us.

  “It doesn’t matter. My feelings don’t matter, and what she does doesn’t matter. I’m here to win, and I refuse to let something as stupid and useless as emotions pull my focus from why I’m here. Not anymore.”

  I have nothing further to say, even though she opens her mouth to ask more questions. I stand and walk out the door.

  And this time, I don’t smooth down my shirt or attempt to straighten my hair.

  I’m done pretending. Kat, Lexi, Tyler...they can all go fuck themselves. The only ones who matter are the men who make up MFB.

  The men who I’ll call my bandmates by the time this competition is over.

  I change into my swim trunks after dinner and head out to the patio. Decker’s busy working on his song with Tyler, and Blaze and John are off somewhere else. Lexi and I agreed we’d start fresh in the morning, so my options are hanging out with her in the family room, finding ways to avoid her, or going to bed early.

  I opt for finding ways to avoid her, and this time it’s by swimming laps. We can’t venture too far from the house because then we’ll lose the cameras, so I’m sort of stuck here even though a run is what I’m really craving.

  My arms slice through the water and I kick my legs as hard as I can. They propel me forward, and even though the water feels refreshing, the pool feels too small. I feel confined in this house. Six goddamn bedrooms and a huge family room and an office and a basement and a bunch of confessional rooms and a fucking food room in this place and it’s still not enough.

  Because I can’t escape her. I have nowhere to turn.

  My legs feel like jelly, but I power through. My lungs are burning, but I keep going. My arms start to slow, but I don’t stop.

  I push myself to exhaustion, and that’s when I throw in the towel.

  When I get out of the pool, Lexi sits on one of the lounge chairs like she was waiting there for me.

  I eye her warily before I grab a towel and dry my face. I scrub my hair, and then I loop the towel around my waist and tuck it into itself. “Hey,” I say. I sit on the chair next to hers as I allow the towel to soak up the water from my swim trunks.

  It’s dark out here now, but I still spot when her eyes fall to my abdomen before they flick back to mine. “Do you want to run through the bassline a few times?”

  “We’ve got plenty of time tomorrow,” I mutter.

  “Yeah, but since everyone else is practicing, I didn’t think it would hurt.”

  I grab the beer I brought out and chug most of it in a few gulps. “Whatever. Let me get changed.”

  “Meet me in the basement?”

  I nod, and she stands. I finish my beer, and then I head inside, grab another, change into clothes, and head down to the basement.

  I play the song once on the piano while she sings it, and then we both grab our bass guitars and fuck around with the strings a little until we settle on a rhythm that matches the song.

  We’re ready.

  I glance over at her, and she’s looking at me. I feel like she wants to say something, and I feel like I want to say something, too.

  But neither of us do.

  Instead, we play it through a few more times, and then my beer is empty. I’m tired from swimming, and I’m emotionally drained after having to work in close proximity with this girl who so thoroughly knows how to mindfuck me.

  And so I call it a night.

  We practice from breakfast until lunch even though we nailed it last night, and we’re ready for the challenge. No doubt in my mind.

  As soon as we’re done with lunch, five men walk through the door.

  Dax, Brody, Adam, Rascal...and Kane?

  The six of us remaining line up in our usual spot where announcements take place in the family room.

  “Good afternoon,” Dax says. “We have a special guest judge with us today. I’d like to introduce Mr. Kane Keller.”

  The six of us clap, as do the guys in the band, and he holds up a hand and grins as if to say, stop, stop, this is all too much.

  Brody leans over and says something to him, and he laughs.

  Someday that’ll be me.

  Brody will lean over to say something to the bassist of his band, and it will be me with that title. It’s so close I can practically smell it.

  Rascal leans in front of Kane to say something to Brody, and all three of them laugh...which begs the question: Why, exactly, are we here?

  These guys seem like brothers—all of them, including the one whose position we’re competing for.

  Kane looks at the six of us once we stop clapping. “First, thank you to these assholes for having me here today.” He gestures toward the men standing beside him, and they all laugh. “One of the hardest decisions I ever made was choosing to walk away from MFB.”

  Why’d you make that decision?

  I want to ask the question. I know it’s on everybody’s mind. It has to be. But none of us say anything.

  “Today we’re going to watch as you perform the songs you wrote, and the five of us will deliberate and decide which four of you we think have the potential to fill the empty space this guy left behind,” Dax says, nodding toward Kane.

  I look over at Lexi. We’re a team in this challenge, and part of me wants to reach over and squeeze her hand and tell her how much I believe we’ve got this.

  I wonder how different this would be if we hadn’t met in the hotel, if we hadn’t spent
the weekend not just hooking up, but getting to know one another and finding something we weren’t expecting.

  But that’s not how it shook out.

  She doesn’t return my glance. She keeps her eyes focused on the men in front of us. Eye on the prize.

  It’s just further motivation for what I need to be doing.

  “By the time we’re done with the day, two of you will be heading home,” Dax says. “Let’s head down to the basement for the challenge.”

  We follow the MFB guys downstairs.

  “Decker and Tyler, you’re up first.”

  I like their song. It’s about living life and having fun and it feels like a fun summer anthem. Tyler takes the lead on vocals, and Decker tosses in a few back-up bars. Decker can play bass, but Tyler definitely carries their team.

  The judges don’t show any sort of emotion whatsoever on their faces. “Up next we have Blaze and John.”

  They play their song next, another good one. This one’s about not missing out on opportunities and grabbing your chance when it’s in front of you—very appropriate given what we’re here doing.

  And then it’s our turn.

  Lexi looks at me as she sings the words she wrote for her verse. I look at her as I sing the ones I wrote apart from her—the ones that somehow mirror hers. We keep our eyes locked on the chorus that we sing together, and again on the bridge where we switch lines.

  I pour all the emotion I feel for her into this performance. Just because we’re singing in the basement of some rented house in California doesn’t mean we aren’t performing on an enormous stage—certainly the most important one I’ve ever been on.

  She nails it. She’s fucking fire, that voice and her talent on the bass and that sweet, sweet body of hers.

  Not that they’re judging her on her body...but it’s still there in my periphery, and it’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

  The song ends, and we hold each other’s gaze an extra beat, and I can’t help but wonder what Tyler thinks of this whole exchange. Clearly the air up here is charged with tension, and that’s got to be uncomfortable for the guy who she’s supposedly with now.

  I certainly wouldn’t want another man looking at my girl the way I’m looking at her right now.

  “Thank you,” Dax says, and I feel like I need a minute to catch my breath after she breaks our eye contact first.

  We head back to the couches and join the others.

  “We’ll need some time to talk over our decision, so the six of you can head upstairs,” Dax says. “This won’t be an easy decision as all of you wrote songs worthy of being heard, and the way you just performed them shows you’re all deserving of standing on the stage while you’re playing them.”

  I glance over at Kane, and he’s nodding along. He doesn’t look upset by the fact that we’re literally competing for the chance to replace him.

  But he chose his fate.

  And maybe that’s why he’s here now. If I walked back into Ray’s place, would they welcome me with open arms? Or would they be pissed I walked away for a shot at something better?

  It’s hard to tell. But just like Kane, I chose my own fate, too.

  I’m just not sure where I’ll land once this is all over...especially if I’m not the winner.

  CHAPTER 38: DAX

  “What’s everyone thinking?” I ask, looking around at the four men who have been like brothers to me over the last decade.

  We’ve been through it all together. Traveled across the US and tons of other countries, played the biggest stages in the world, grown from boys to men, dated, broken up, gotten married, had a kid...and now this. We’re replacing one of our own.

  It doesn’t seem right.

  My wife’s words from the day we found out Kane was leaving come back to me. It was also the day Violet, our baby girl who’s nearly six weeks old already, was born. “We can’t fault him for following his heart and choosing love. Honestly, I respect that he’s making the harder decision.”

  Those words have stuck with me.

  We both knew he was leaving before he actually told us he was. For one thing, I could feel it...but for another, Brody came right to me and spilled. He couldn’t keep a secret—not even on the day my wife birthed our first child.

  I wanted to be angry, but when I thought about Kylie’s words and looked at this tiny bundle that we created from our love for one another, well, it certainly put things into perspective. And the truth is that some things are more important than tours or sold-out stadiums, Billboard charts or Grammys, new music or even our careers.

  And if he’s chasing the one thing that tops all of that—love—then more power to him.

  “I’m thinking this still sucks big, fat, hairy donkey balls.” Brody’s never been one to beat around the bush.

  “Hairy?” Rascal asks. He makes a face.

  “Hairy is out, but big, fat ones are okay?” Adam shoots back.

  Rascal lifts a shoulder, and we all laugh.

  “Back to business,” I say, trying to wrangle them back to the point. We’ve got six people upstairs awaiting their fate, and I have a newborn at the house Kylie and I are temporarily renting for the duration of this show that I’m itching to get home to.

  Brody looks at Kane. “You sure you want to leave?”

  Rascal seems to be okay with it, but, then, Rascal is hard to read. He’s been playing with Kane and Ruby during MFB’s hiatus, too, so he’s seen their love story firsthand.

  Brody and Adam, though...they’re not okay. They want Kane back, and they’ve made zero effort to hide that fact.

  Kane draws in a long breath. “I made a snap decision, and once it was over and everyone knew, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I didn’t even know I’d been carrying it around for years. I love you guys, and I will always miss playing with you. I’m sorry I chose to take another path, but it’s my path, and it’s the right one for me. Just like filming this show is the right path for MFB. Just like choosing one of those bassists is right for you, and just like how the ones you don’t choose will finally get noticed by somebody somewhere because they’re all so damn talented.”

  I nod along with him because he’s absolutely right.

  “Look, having you reach out to me feels like the first step in mending some of the fences I broke when I left, and while it’s only been a month and MFB is still on hiatus anyway, I’ve still missed this dynamic. I’m honored that you wanted me to be a part of all this.” He waves his hand around to indicate the show, choosing the contestants...and more than that, MFB. He’s honored he got to play with us as long as he did.

  “You’ll always be a brother to us,” I say, and he shoots me a grateful look, if nothing else because he knows the kind of influence I can carry on Brody’s whole attitude, and, to a lesser extent, Adam’s, too.

  Brody stops us before we have the chance to get any sappier. “All right, enough of that shit. Who’s going home?”

  “Can we all agree who won?” I ask.

  “Gage and Lexi?” Kane guesses, and I look around the table at everyone nodding. “They were the clear frontrunners. Both of them. They can play, they can sing, they can write. Huge threats to everyone else in the game.”

  “Their song, man...it was incredible,” I say. “And the dynamic between the two of them was...” I trail off, searching for the right word.

  “Hot,” Adam finishes. Blazing is more like it. Fire. “They hooked up in the hotel over the weekend,” he explains to Kane. “But now she’s faking a relationship with Tyler and Gage is faking with one of the producers.”

  Kane’s brows dip down. “How do you know all this?”

  “We have eyes and ears on them twenty-four seven.” Adam shrugs. “And Emily lives for the gossip I bring home every day.”

  Kane laughs. “So what do you really think about playing with a woman for the long-term?”

  Brody laughs, and I shoot him a look.

  “What?” he asks innocently. “He asked about
playing with a woman. You want to know my thoughts on that?”

  “Playing music,” Kane clarifies, and we all roll our eyes at Brody’s attempt at a dirty joke.

  “We’ve talked it to death,” Rascal says, and he sounds bored. “Nobody really cares. You’re playing with Ruby. Is that weird?”

  “So are you,” Kane shoots back. “But, no, it’s not weird. She sings, though.”

  “So does Lexi,” Rascal counters.

  “Are you rooting for Lexi?” Kane asks. “You don’t think Amber would have something to say about that?”

  Rascal shrugs. “She’s secure enough in what we have that nobody would be a threat. She knows that. I know that. This is purely from the standpoint of talent.”

  “What about the fact that MFB is marketed as a band of attractive men?” Kane asks. “Will it change the make-up of the audience if there’s a woman up there?”

  I shrug. “We’ve thought about that, too, but I think it could pose an interesting dynamic. Sort of an it could be me type of thing.”

  Kane nods thoughtfully. “I still think my vote is for Gage. Not because of any sort of gender bias, but because I really think he’s the most talented.”

  “Over Tyler, even?” Adam asks.

  “Yeah,” Kane says. “Tyler’s a skilled bassist, but I still think Gage has the edge. I’d say that it doesn’t make any sense to leave a band like Capital Kingsmen for this sort of competition, but who am I to talk?”

  His question is met with a beat of silence from the rest of us, and then he asks, “Who do you think would fit best in terms of personality?”

  “I like all of them,” Brody says. “Each for different reasons. Blaze is fucking hilarious once you get him talking. John is a little serious but he’s a good guy. Gage and Tyler are probably the most like us, and Lexi brings a totally different ball to the field.”

  “Or no balls,” Rascal says, drawing a laugh from only Brody and eyerolls from the rest of us.

  “Gage or Decker for me,” Adam says.

  Rascal nods. “I like Gage and Lexi.”

  “Another vote for Gage and Lexi,” I say.

  “So you’ve got your frontrunners.” Kane taps the table. “Nobody said Blaze or John as their top two, so is that who’s going home?”