JJ gave her a little salute before tucking the poster back into his pocket. The hallway was sincerely cheerful, and it actually put him on edge. He knew there was a chance that Rosemary Watson was going to laugh him out of the building, but he really wanted to connect with Jack on a level beyond getting naked. Jack loved music more than anything, and while JJ hadn’t been as focused on music in the past few years, he loved it too.
She was sitting at the piano, her blonde hair glittering in the light from the open window. Rosemary was smaller than he’d expected, pretty and petite, and the youthful openness in her expression caught JJ off guard.
“Hi,” she said, getting to her feet as he hesitated in the doorway. “Would you like to come in?”
“I’m here for singing lessons,” he told her, blushing when she beamed back at him.
“Great! First lesson is free, so we can decide if we like each other,” she was still smiling as she ushered him into the room.
“I’m not very likeable,” he warned her as he sat down at the piano. He trailed his fingertips along the ivory keys, the nostalgia overwhelming. He hadn’t played his piano in a very long time, and part of him missed it, in a ridiculous sort of way.
“Right,” Rosemary snorted, rolling her eyes as she sat down beside him. “One of the only things about people that never changes is their ability to surprise you. So, JJ Keswick, are you ready to surprise me?”
He wasn’t taken aback by her calling him by name. Nearly everyone in Wayville knew him, a curious side effect of being stupidly rich and badly behaved.
“Sure,” he muttered, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair as he opened his mouth to sing.
“I Woke up in a Car”—Something Corporate
“So, on a scale of one to ten, how bad was school today?”
I frowned at my dad’s question, his deep voice distorted slightly by thousands of miles and crappy reception. There was a low rumble in the background, a brief snippet of a song that I recognized as one of Garrett’s. I glanced at my watch—it must have been show time in whatever European city they were passing through that night.
“Six,” I replied, cell phone cradled between my shoulder and my ear. My maths homework was open on the shop counter in front of me, every slanted number morphing into a question mark in front of my tired eyes while Something Corporate’s “Played in Space” blared through the shop’s stereo. The locker-note song for the day had been “I Woke Up In A Car”, an old favorite of my dad’s, so I’d been listening to Something Corporate all afternoon.
“A six, huh? Break it down,” he said, with all the parental affection and authority he could muster with a rock band playing in the building behind him.
“One of the basketball players just found out I’m gay the other week, so I’m his new favorite punch line,” I began, suppressing a small sigh. I was used to it, after all—his comments had barely registered. It had freaked me out a little bit, the realization that I was so numb to the homophobic comments of my so-called peers and the resulting giggles from the small-minded herd that populated Wayville High. Part of me wanted it to hurt, wanted to lose my temper, just to remember what it felt like to be furious at something.
“That’s gotta suck, buddy.”
“I’m used to it,” I told him with a shrug as I leaned forward to scribble a random number on my math homework. “Then I had double math this afternoon, so you know . . . that’s a definite six.”
“You still struggling with math?” he asked, his words echoing across the crackling line.
“I can count beats, dad, that’s pretty much it.”
“You’ll get better,” he assured me. “Maybe you can get a tutor, at college.”
I couldn’t help but sigh, hoping the music in the background on both sides of the conversation would camouflage it. The c-word was banned at home, but my dad spent so much time on the road that he wasn’t aware of the new rule Aunt Rose and I had established.
Every time the subject of college came up, I found myself torn between two very different daydreams. One of them involved a handsome college boyfriend, with perfectly windswept hair and a ridiculously long scarf. As well as over-priced coffee and late nights spent hanging out with people who didn’t think it was weird that I was a gay, half-orphaned guitarist who preferred organizing his music library over a night of hard partying.
The other daydream was smaller, somehow, but just as wonderful—Jessica, Ash, Dylan and I, on the road in my unreliable but oddly comfortable van, instruments crammed in alongside duffel bags that were all we had left of Wayville. Rooms that were half-empty to the casual observer, but half-full of new fans for us, playing our songs and living the dream, even if I had expected said dream to smell a bit better.
“Yeah, college,” I murmured, the vague half-lie making me blush. For once, I was glad that we weren’t having our conversation in person—the blush is a dead giveaway, apparently.
We said our goodbyes just as Garrett were wrapping up their last song. I glared down at my math homework, bitter. I was angry with my dad for still assuming I’d be going to college and angrier at myself for not having the guts to tell him that as nice as Daydream One was, it just didn’t appeal to me the way Daydream Two did.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Jessica said from her spot on the floor after I let out another shaky sigh.
She’d been so quiet during the brief conversation that I had forgotten she was still there. She was lying on her back, head pillowed on her backpack as she flicked idly through a biology textbook that she claimed to be reading “for fun”.
“I need to stop chickening out,” I told her (and myself) as I closed my math book. I couldn’t look at it anymore, it made absolutely no sense.
“It’s not the easiest conversation to have, is it?” She pointed out as she closed her own book, sitting up so that I could see her without leaning over the counter. “Hey dad, you know how you built this awesome business and spent the past decade on the road, earning money for me to go to college? Well, guess what? It was all for nothing because I’m not going to college!”
She ducked as my math textbook flew towards her, cackling as it sailed over her head and landed with a thump in the bargain bin. I glared at her, and she grinned back, knowing fine well I couldn’t stay mad at her. It only took a few seconds for my resolve to crack, a chuckle shaking my shoulders as I crossed the room to retrieve my maths book.
“You’d be a great motivational speaker,” I told her, kicking at the sole of her boots.
“Look, your dad is a good guy, and let’s face it, he’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite if he tried to force you to go to college. He’ll understand. Probably. I’m eighty percent sure he’ll be okay with it. Eventually.”
I rolled my eyes at her as I re-opened my textbook, hoping she was right.
***
The prospect of finding a totally awesome lead singer for The Band was the only thing that kept me going that week. Well, that and the locker notes. They didn’t even surprise me anymore. I found myself looking forward to them as I sat through boring class after boring class.
I wondered if the notes were supposed to be an insight into my mysterious friend’s state of mind, or if the songs had been chosen to reflect what they assumed was my mood that day. Either way, the person had great taste and had been slowly but surely reminding me why Forever Fading Echoes had been so important to me in the first place. I sought solace in the music of my favorite bands, and I always found it. Knowing that there was a chance I could do that for someone else gave me the conviction I knew I would need to sit through a day of auditions.
We had decided to hold the auditions on a Saturday. Jess, Ash and I spent the week running up to audition day putting posters up around town, as well as hanging a few in the shop. Dylan was pretty tied up with school during the week, but assured me via text (he doesn’t talk on the phone) that he had hung up posters at his prep school too in an attempt to “infiltrate a previously untapped market
.”
“Seriously, he’s the wordiest person ever on text, but I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a conversation with him that lasted longer than two minutes,” Jess snorted when I showed her the text on Saturday morning.
My aunt Rose had agreed to work in the shop, so we could set up in the practice space upstairs. There was an unsurprising lack of good, cheap practice space for local bands, so my dad had converted the rooms above the shop. The practice space was small and had no windows, but it was sound proofed, and there was something comforting about it. The peeling band posters and the low hum of the small fridge in the corner gave the room an ambience that I had always found incredibly inspirational. It was the type of room that bands recalled with nostalgia after a string of sold out tours and a platinum record. That dingy little room was like something you’d see in a faded photograph, wedged between candid early-days photos in the biography of a band that went on to change the world.
There was a studio upstairs too, not exactly top-of-the-line, but functional nonetheless. Despite a depressing lack of musicians in the local area, the practice room and the studio were still booked for at least an hour or two most weekends. We had to be out of the practice space by six, so that a band from a couple of towns over could play. That gave us eight hours to find our singer, complete our band and start a journey that I’d been preparing for my whole life.
Needless to say, I was nervous.
Ash and Dylan showed up just ten minutes after Jessica. Ash’s drum kit was already set up, as was Dylan’s keyboard, so we could practice a bit if no one showed up. My guitar was propped on the stand in the corner, its black matte finish looking as sleek as always.
My ‘72 Fender Classic Stratocaster was my pride and joy. It had been my sixteenth birthday present—on a day when most kids unwrapped a box with the key to a clapped out car in it, I had gotten a Strat with a custom paint job. I was pretty sure I got the same sense of freedom from my guitar that other kids got from their cars. I played it so much on the day my dad had given it to me that my fingers bled, fat scarlet drops running down the maple neck like tears of joy.
Jess had set up a table that we could sit at, facing the microphone stand in the middle of the room. She even had a list of the people who’d e-mailed ahead to let us know they’d be coming in to audition and four cups of coffee, each made by the hottest barista she had ever seen.
Despite Jessica’s organization (and clipboard), the auditions did not go well. I had been right when I told them that there were no decent singers left in Wayville. The people who came in to audition had good intentions, but terrible voices. Aunt Rose gave each of them her singing lessons sales pitch as they descended the stairs.
“Well, even if you don’t find a new singer, I’ve drummed up some business,” she said with a smile, coming upstairs to make sure we all ate the sandwiches she’d whipped up for lunch.
“Do you think any of them could sing for us, if they had some lessons?” I asked her, feeling just a little bit desperate. I could feel Daydream Two slipping away with every bum note and off-key wail.
“Oh sweetie,” she said, ruffling my hair. “You’re all very talented. It would be cruel to take on a singer who couldn’t keep up.”
I tried to bear that in mind as every name was scored off Jessica’s list. The last guy had been a definite no, after he responded to Ash’s question about why he wanted to be in a band with a mumbled sentence about “scoring lots of groupies”. She was still yelling obscenities as he ran down the stairs.
“That asshole is everything that’s wrong with rock music today,” she muttered as she sat down at her kit, hands twitching with the desire to hit something.
I watched, bemused, as she swept up her perfectly straight, sunshine blond hair and tied it back in a high ponytail. If it wasn’t for the battered leather jacket and oil black leather pants, most people would have mistaken her for a cheerleader, not a kick ass drummer.
“Agreed,” Jessica sighed as she crumpled her list into a ball. She got to her feet, the buckles on her knee high boots clicking as she crossed the room and picked up her bass.
I knew, without asking, that it was time for us to play for a little while. After every day of terrible auditions, every horrible practice that resulted in us parting ways with a singer, we always just played together. We would take turns playing our favorite songs, even if one of us didn’t know it all that well. The process of figuring it out together was always fun, playing it again and again until we had it down. Playing with Jessica, Ash and Dylan never got old.
I flipped my notebook closed, intending to put it in my bag, so we could take the table down and give us more room to play. It slipped from my hands, the locker notes I’d hidden among the pages fluttering to the floor like leaves from a falling tree.
“What are those?” Jessica asked, a brow quirked as I scrambled to retrieve the notes.
I wasn’t sure why I didn’t want her to see them. It’s not like their contents were romantic or embarrassing, I just knew she’d ask questions that I didn’t have the answers to. She’d find it silly. Hell, even I thought it was a little ridiculous, but I liked getting the notes and enjoyed listening to the songs that my mysterious friend suggested. It felt like I was bonding with someone over our shared love of music but without any sort of romantic pressure or social awkwardness.
“Nothing,” I lied.
She snorted in response, seeing right through me as she always did. Before I could protest, she’d snatched a couple of the notes from my hand.
“Huh,” she said, turning them over in her hands, her bass forgotten. “Where did these come from?”
“They’ve been showing up in my locker since school started back,” I told her, faking a careless shrug as a blush crept up my neck. “Just song titles, every day.”
“Not just any song titles,” Jessica replied with a low whistle. “These are great. I can’t think of anyone at school who would know these songs, except us.”
“I haven’t been leaving love notes in your locker,” Ash piped up from behind her kit, winking at me when I smiled at her. “I like you an’ all, Jack, but I’m not the love letter type.”
“Ooh, Jack’s got a secret admirer!” Jessica crowed, flinging her hands up to the ceiling like a kid who had seen the sun for the first time after a long, dark winter. “We’ve finally made it! Someone’s got the hots for our guitarist!”
The short knock on the door was a welcome distraction from the impending teasing. I turned to greet our guest, assuming it was Aunt Rose checking up on us. My jaw dropped when I saw who was standing there.
JJ Keswick was even more gorgeous up close, in a completely unfair kind of way. Everything about him was exactly like the fairy tales, teen rom-coms and auto-tuned pop songs promised it would be, right down to the halo of light from the window on the stairs that made his fashionably messy blond hair glitter like freshly polished gold.
“Hi,” he said, his cupid’s bow mouth tilting into an annoyingly alluring crooked smile.
“Are you lost?” Jessica asked him, her dinner plate eyes betraying the careful coolness of her tone.
“Maybe,” he replied, his smile flickering into a full-blown wicked grin as he pushed his sunglasses up into his hair.
His eyes gave him away, as they do with most people. Up close, I could see that they were a couple of shades darker than I had expected. They were not summer sky blue. Instead, they were like the last gasp of a winter afternoon, inky, conflicted and streaked with darkness. The bags under his eyes looked like bruises, and he seemed paler, smaller somehow as he stepped into the room.
“Can we help you?” I asked him, forcing my politest smile onto my face.
“I’m here to audition,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his never-gonna-have-kids skinny jeans.
“You?” Ash laughed, shaking her head. “But you’re JJ Keswick!”
“At least ninety percent of the time,” he replied, his shrug ind
icating that her surprise was not unexpected.
“No offence, JJ, but this isn’t a joke,” Jessica began as she put her bass down. “We’re a real band, we’re good and we’re looking for someone who will take this seriously.”
“How do you know I won’t take this seriously?” he asked her, something like fire stirring in his steady gaze.
“Because you never take anything seriously,” I pointed out, unease battling with curiosity right in the pit of my stomach.
“Well, looking this good doesn’t happen by accident,” he said, turning to me with a small, knowing smile on his face.
He did look perfect for the part he seemed so intent on playing. Those jeans could have been stolen from the wardrobe of a dozen different rock stars, the kind of musicians that caused extreme adoration in all who saw them. They hung low, exposing a strip of skin across his stomach and hinting at what looked like a tattoo across his hipbone. The spindly, delicate lines dipped below his waistband in an inescapably tantalizing way. The tee shirt he was wearing was surprisingly simple, a white v-neck with the sleeves rolled up to display his lightly muscled, tanned arms.
I could feel his eyes on me, watching me watching him. Something about his presence made my stomach twist, as if the radiance of his appearance did nothing but illuminate everything that was just average about me.
Jessica crossed the room, pinching me as she did. I glanced down at her, the curiosity in her expression matching my own. We had nothing to lose by letting him embarrass himself, I supposed.
“Fine,” I sighed, shrugging out of my guitar. “Give it your best shot.”
I could feel Dylan and Ash’s disbelieving stares as I sat back down, but they didn’t argue. They made their way back to the table, throwing glances over their shoulders at JJ. He nodded once before pulling his phone from his pocket. He turned to the docking station, his shirt riding up as he leaned over. Ash elbowed me, winking and blowing kisses behind his back. I rolled my eyes at her, folded my arms and focused my gaze on a spot on the wall behind JJ’s head.
Fake It (The Keswick Chronicles Book 1) Page 4