The beat of his chosen song filled the room as he turned back to face us with a silver hip flask in his hand that he had seemingly produced out of thin air. He kept his eyes on me as he took a quick sip before tucking the flask into his back pocket.
I vaguely recognized the song—a radio friendly pop song with lyrics that were much darker than the slickly produced track suggested. As it turns out, JJ Keswick was just full of surprises.
He didn’t just sing the song, he owned it, the whisky tainted rasp of his voice rising and falling perfectly in line with the backing track. He didn’t miss a beat, didn’t falter, his gold tipped eyelashes fluttering against his flushed cheeks as if he had spent years seducing people with his voice alone.
I could tell that I wasn’t the only one that had been caught off guard by him. Jessica had gone completely still, her eyes impossibly wide and fixed on JJ. Ash had slumped a little in her chair, gaze half lidded and glossed lips parted ever so slightly, utterly disarmed. Even Dylan was making something that could have been an expression, the corners of his mouth at least two millimeters higher than usual.
The spell was broken as soon as the track faded out. JJ grinned at us, his confidence blinding. He knew he was good, just like he knew he was gorgeous, his talent mirrored in our stunned expressions like the flawless reflection he no doubt spent hours preening over.
“Well, that was . . .” Jessica began, looking at me as if hoping I was still coherent enough to string together an adequate response.
I was overwhelmed by how good he had been. He was the best singer I’d heard in a long time. Listening to him had lulled me into a new daydream—Daydream Three, where the half-empty rooms of Daydream Two were replaced with arenas full to the brim with screaming fans, each of us bathed in the glow of a thousand camera flashes as JJ dazzled everyone with all the swagger and seduction that came naturally to the greatest frontmen.
“Thanks for coming in,” I said, slipping into customer service mode. “We’ll let you know.”
He clearly wasn’t prepared for that response, and the mask of confidence cracked at the edges of his faltering grin. My heart stuttered in my chest for just a moment, the regret crashing over me when I realized the sting in his eyes was real. I had dismissed him, and it had hurt. The first real reaction I’d seen from him.
“Alright,” he replied, snatching up his phone and stuffing it back in his pocket. “Just . . . come find me in school or something when you decide.”
“We will,” Jessica assured him, pausing only to shoot me her patented venomous glare.
He left as suddenly as he’d appeared, leaving the practice room door open. His footsteps were heavy on the stairs, contemplative.
Ash got up to close the door before climbing back behind her drum kit, so she could stare `at me, open-mouthed. Dylan got up too, seemingly desperate for a distraction while I faced the full force of Jessica’s disbelief.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded. “He was brilliant, Jack!”
“He was good,” I corrected her. “He could be brilliant with practice.”
“So why did you say no?” Ash asked as she twirled her drumsticks.
“I didn’t say no.”
“It sounded like a no to me,” Jess argued, huffing to herself as she picked up her bass.
“Did you all suffer temporary amnesia?” I asked them as I got to my feet, still feeling a little shaky.
“Actually, yes,” Dylan replied with a shrug.
“He’s JJ Keswick. Poster boy for rich kids and douchebags everywhere,” I reminded them. “He spends his nights sleeping his way around the cheerleading squad, not practicing rock songs with a bunch of misfit kids that he has never spoken to in his whole life.”
“Look, I am just as shocked as you are, but he’s got something, Jack. It was electric when he was singing. He was a whole new person,” Jessica said, her eyes misting over.
“What’s your point?”
“What if the person we saw is the real JJ Keswick?” she asked, “We all know that music can save lives. What if that is exactly what he’s looking for?”
“He doesn’t look like he needs saving,” I mumbled, but I knew she was right. I couldn’t make assumptions about who JJ was or what he wanted.
“The strongest ones never do.”
***
JJ knew he was good at reading people. It was part of the reason he was so good at manipulating them. Jack Daveyson was the exception, as he was in most things as far as JJ was concerned.
He knew the dark-haired guitarist found him attractive. He’d been subjected to amorous stares for as long as he’d been a teenager, so he knew what it felt like to be looked at lustfully. There was no doubt that Jack thought he was hot, but JJ had gotten the impression that, lust aside, Jack didn’t like him very much.
He could guess why. The school athletes weren’t exactly known for their tolerance, and as the star basketball player, he was pretty much the epitome of a jock—at least in the eyes of the kids at school. He knew he was everything most people wanted to be, even if they despised seeing it in others.
It had taken JJ a while to realize that he was more than the sum of his various desirable parts. Sure, there were aspects of his personality that he hid away, but not out of shame or a lack of self-awareness. For so long, he had wanted what was easy—to play basketball, date a girl that didn’t want to talk, party on the weekends and spend his days with people who never pushed him.
Jack had looked at him as if he wanted everything.
JJ didn’t know why he stayed in the coffee shop after his disastrous audition. Jack didn’t even come downstairs, he spent the rest of the afternoon in the practice space while his aunt ran the shop. The sun had started to fade when the guitarist re-appeared, escorting his friends downstairs. He watched, captivated, as they exchanged their goodbyes. Rose had already gone, leaving a note on the counter that made Jack smile.
Jack packed up his things, turned the stereo off and started to turn the lights off. JJ got up from his seat without making the conscious decision to move, his usual grace forgotten as he scrambled to his feet.
The flash drive felt as if it was burning a hole in his pocket as he crossed the street. He hadn’t signed up to audition, and the contents of the USB stick were meant to be his back-up plan in case he didn’t get the chance to sing for Jack. He hadn’t planned on it being his last hope, but it would have to do.
“Jack!” he yelled as the guitarist emerged from the shop, keys in hand.
Surprise suited him, JJ noticed as he skidded to a stop. His heart was in his throat as he pulled the flash drive from his pocket.
“JJ, what are you doing here?” Jack asked as he ran his hands nervously through his increasingly wild hair.
“I wanted to give you this,” JJ replied, holding out the USB stick. To his relief, Jack took it, glancing suspiciously down at it.
“What is it?”
“Hopefully a second chance at making a good first impression,” JJ answered, smiling softly in spite of his nerves.
“JJ . . .”
“Every shitty thing you think you know about me is true,” the blond blurted. “I have more money than sense. I’m spoiled, I’m bratty, I sleep around and I have way more confidence than I should have.”
“I thought you wanted to make a good impression?”
“But I’m more than that,” he insisted, brow furrowed. “There’s more to you than your sexuality, or your talent, or your tragic back story, right? Why is it so hard to believe that there might be more to me than the money, the good looks and the bad reputation?”
Jack sighed, but it wasn’t the sound of someone who had been defeated. He put the flash drive in the front pocket of his backpack before smiling at JJ for the first time ever.
“I admire your dedication,” Jack said, a brief nod making his deliciously dark curls tumble into his handsome face. “I’ll be in touch, I promise.”
“Cool,” JJ replied, unable to hide hi
s own smile. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
JJ watched, rooted to the spot and utterly charmed, as the young guitarist walked away on his long, slender legs. He waited until Jack was out of sight before crossing the street to where he had parked his car.
The drive home had never been so bright and so beautiful. With his favorite Fall Out Boy album blaring and the top down, it felt like everything was finally making sense. The fractured pieces of his life were falling back into place—music, love, ambition and his future, slotting together to form a picture so amazing that it made his chest ache.
The joy didn’t last long, though. JJ had learned years before that it’s hard to keep smiling when you open the door to an empty house. His dad was still gone, had been for weeks, and it was Lesley’s day off.
The foyer was drenched in shadow, the polished marble no match for the fast approaching night. The house was completely silent, not old enough to creak in the gentle breeze. The quiet pressed in on him, making everything seem so much worse than it had been when Jack had been smiling at him just ten minutes before.
All JJ had left was the beautiful shell of a family home and the deafening sound of his own heartbeat in his ears.
The piano stood under the arch where the grand staircase split, sitting side on to the glass doors that led out to the sprawling back yard. In a few hours, the pool would be glittering in the moonlight, the surface of the water perfectly still. Lesley had draped a sheet over the piano to stop it from getting dusty. There were a few framed photos on top, official family portraits—JJ, his dad, his grandparents. There were no candid shots, nothing warm, nothing real.
The frames broke when they hit the floor, the glass shattering with the force of impact. He didn’t bother to pick them up, letting the sheet slip through his fingers to join the mess on the floor. It had all been a cover up, and he hated that damn sheet and those horrible photos.
The piano gleamed in the fading light, the keys lined up, flawless. The stool creaked a little when he sat down, one hesitant finger poised above the C.
The note echoed through the empty house, its sudden volume leaving JJ breathless. It sounded so clear, so precise, exactly as he remembered it. He smiled to himself, cracked his fingers and began to play, filling the house with beautiful, dizzying noise.
“A Million Little Pieces”—Placebo
Aunt Rose was waiting for me when I got home, her voice in perfect harmony with the song on the radio as she sashayed around the kitchen. She was in the midst of serving dinner; chicken, potatoes and something leafy that I didn’t like the look of.
“Hey, sweetheart, take a seat!” she urged me, gesturing towards the small table with her oven glove.
“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Aunt Rose,” I replied as I sat in the chair closest to the door.
“Hey, you’ve been working hard all day,” she said as she put a plate down in front of me.
“So have you.”
“Working the counter isn’t hard. You’ve been dealing with band business. I’ve dated musicians, and I know how exhausting that can be.”
I murmured my thanks before I started to eat. I was tired, but my mind was racing. The contrast between that and my physical exhaustion made me feel itchy, like I didn’t fit in my own skin.
I couldn’t get JJ out of my head—the rasp in his voice when he sang or the way his eyelashes fluttered when he was nervous. He was stuck right in the front of my mind. I was sure he would be thrilled to find out I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“So how did auditions go anyway?” Aunt Rose asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence.
“Uh . . .”
“The last kid sounded pretty good . . . .”
I narrowed my eyes at her, the forced casual tone making it clear she knew way more than she was letting on.
“How would you know?” I asked. “The room is soundproofed.”
She glanced up at me, bottom lip caught between her teeth. I couldn’t help but laugh, she looked so young—like I should have been looking after her and not the other way round.
“He’s had a couple of lessons with me,” she admitted, smiling in spite of herself. “He just showed up unannounced.”
“JJ Keswick has been taking singing lessons from you, and you didn’t think to mention it?”
“He seemed really shy about it! I dunno, he’s not what I expected,” she explained, her gaze darkening as she dropped her eyes. “He seems really sad.”
“He’s permanently hungover,” I replied with a snort, but part of me agreed with her.
“He can really sing, Jack.”
I moved some potatoes around on my plate, feeling awkward and a little bit ashamed. I tried not to judge people—I had been on the receiving end of other people’s misconceptions long enough to know it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I just couldn’t get my head around the fact that JJ Keswick had some sort of talent beyond looking good in ridiculous blazers and sleeping with girls.
“I know,” I admitted with a sigh. “He gave me this.”
I pulled the flash drive from my pocket and handed it to her.
She turned it over in her hands, frowning. “Why?” she asked, disappointment creeping into her expression.
“I kind of rejected him, a little bit. I guess this was his last ditch attempt to impress me.”
“Oh Jack . . .”
“There’s more to being in a band than being talented,” I argued, feeling a blush creeping up my cheeks. “You have to be dedicated, passionate and a team player.”
“I get that,” Aunt Rose said in her most soothing tone. “I know you’re not kidding around, and I can’t blame you for not trusting him.”
“But?”
“But he might be exactly what you’re looking for, if you’re willing to open your eyes and really see him.”
***
The flash drive had two files on it. One of them was a document with JJ’s cell phone number on it. The other was a video file.
It took a minute for my laptop to open it, the built-in fan whirring so fast I was worried the whole thing would take off. JJ’s legs, designer jeans and all, filled the screen for half a second until he took a step back.
He was dressed casually, as he had been at the audition. His hair was slicked back, his trademark sunglasses nowhere to be seen. The room behind him was full of sunlight and an impressive collection of musical instruments. I could see a couple of guitars, a violin case and a disassembled drum kit just in the limited scope of the camera.
JJ didn’t say a word as he picked up an acoustic guitar, slinging the strap over his shoulder with an ease I associated with years of practice. The guitar glittered in the light, its warm amber paint shining as if it had just been polished.
“No fucking way,” I whispered, leaning forward when I realized he was holding a Gibson Hummingbird. That guitar was worth more than my guitars, my van and my record collection combined.
“My name is JJ Keswick,” he said, his voice steady, despite the nervousness in his eyes.
He started to play, the sound filling my room. The guitar sounded amazing, the tone really rich and clear, despite my crappy laptop speakers. I recognized the song instantly—it was one of my dad’s favorite Nirvana songs, “Heart Shaped Box”. I hadn’t heard it played so stripped back before.
It’s not the easiest song to play with so much conviction, but JJ actually did it justice. There was something so raw about the footage, I found it way more captivating than the sugared up swagger of his audition. When he had been in the practice space, he had been so confident—on the video, he seemed less certain of himself and about fifty percent more attractive.
Aunt Rose was right—JJ did have a great voice. I let the video loop as I re-opened the document with his cell phone number on it. I typed it carefully into my phone, saving the contact before hitting the call button.
I had expected it to go to voicemail, so certain that someone like JJ Keswick was too busy to
answer his phone. His level of popularity seemed like a full time job.
“Hello?”
I nearly dropped my phone.
“Hi, JJ? It’s Jack.”
“I figured,” was the warm reply. The sound of liquid sloshing against glass echoed over the line, the ragged edge to his voice a sure fire indication that he wasn’t pouring a soothing cup of tea. “So what’s up?”
I hesitated, breath caught in my chest. I was pretty sure I was making a mistake, but an embarrassingly large part of me didn’t care. The fire in his eyes could spark something magical, or it could burn my dreams down.
“You’re in,” I told him, blurting the words out before I could change my mind.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, trying to muster up a sense of conviction. “But, uh . . . there are some conditions.”
He laughed at that, a dark bark of a laugh that seemed to surprise us both. I worried my lip between my teeth while he sipped at whatever he’d been pouring when I’d called. I could hear the ice clinking and the wheels turning in his head.
“Alright,” he replied. “Like what?”
“We rehearse at 7 pm on Wednesdays and 3 pm on Sundays,” I began. “You have to be on time.”
“Seems fair.”
“And sober,” I added. “We’re not going to get much done if you’re drunk, or high, or nursing a hangover.”
“You know the saying is ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’, right? Not sex, hugs and rock ‘n’ roll.”
I had to resist the urge to laugh. It was ridiculous, a crappy joke, but there was something about the way he said it—words twisted around his talented tongue, brightened by his million-dollar smile—that caught me completely off guard.
“You can laugh, Jack,” he said, chuckling. “Look, I can guarantee sober, and I’ll make a real effort on the no hangover/punctuality thing. I spend at least seventy-five percent of my time hungover, and most people don’t even notice.”
“Well, alright then. See you Wednesday?”
Fake It (The Keswick Chronicles Book 1) Page 5