“This song is called “Yes, I was drunk”,” he murmured as he looked over the music.
“It’s by a Scottish band called Twin Atlantic,” I said, tripping over my words. “My dad saw them play when he was over in the UK last year. It’s a really good song.”
“I’m sure it is, but why do you want me to sing this?”
“You’re a great singer, JJ, and you’ve been slaying it at practice so far, but there’s something missing. I don’t think you’re connecting emotionally with the songs. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it really does give your performance that extra spark. Without it, we’re just another cover band messing around.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t look angry, either. After a long moment, he nodded and slipped the papers into the backpack he had brought with him.
“Speaking of covers,” he began, eyes glittering when they met mine. “Is there a reason we don’t have original songs?”
His question caught me off guard, but it shouldn’t have. I’d asked him to put more of himself into his performance, it was only natural for him to question why there was a lack of other personal touches in our band practices.
I’d been writing lyrics for as long as I’d been playing guitar, but they had evolved from declaring my love for sugary cereal to wistful wondering on the price my peers paid for fitting in. I had never shared my songs with anyone, not even Jess. My songs were emotions I couldn’t bring myself to express, woven around words and melodies and half-finished ideas. Handing them over like a report card or a grocery list seemed ridiculous.
“There isn’t a good reason,” I confessed, dropping my eyes. I felt another blush coloring my cheeks, the type that was usually reserved for JJ’s outrageous flirting.
“You don’t write?” he asked, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. “Pity, you struck me as the type. All quiet beauty and tortured grace.”
I rolled my eyes at his exaggeration. I was starting to get used to his random bursts of over-the-top poetic compliments, even if they did make something in my chest tighten.
“I do,” I told him. “I’ve been writing songs for as long as I can remember.”
“But . . .”
“But I don’t have the guts to bring them to practice,” I replied, shrugging.
“Bullshit,” he replied, full lips pulled into a wicked grin. If the myth surrounding him was to be believed, that easy smile had charmed countless girls out of their pants and into his bed. As I looked at him, I was willing to bet my best guitar that the rumors about his promiscuity were true.
“What?”
“Jack, you’re an out and somewhat proud gay kid in a town so small that everyone knows what everyone else had for breakfast. You have plenty of guts.”
“Being brave about one thing doesn’t make you brave about everything,” I argued, my blush deepening. He was way more perceptive than I had given him credit for, and it made me a little uncomfortable.
“I don’t believe that,” he said, still smiling.
“My dad has worked with some of the most talented musicians in the world, guitarists so good that I am too in awe of them to be jealous. He’s toured with bands who worked harder in one year than some people work in their whole lives and they never made it,” I explained, hoping he could understand my word vomit. I couldn’t help but think of all the great bands my dad had toured with—so many of them had to go back to reality after their tours ended.
“Why not?”
“It just doesn’t happen for every band, no matter how good they are. This is the first time Forever Fading Echoes has been complete and working for . . . well, ever. This is still really new for all of us, and my songs are personal. Private. I don’t want to be so . . .”
“Naked?” He suggested, quirking a perfectly shaped brow at me.
My face was burning, and I knew he could see it. “When this might not work out,” I finished, crossing my arms to hide the fact that my heart was hammering in my chest.
“I get it,” he replied, shrugging.
I could tell from the hint of a smile at the corner of his pursed lips that he wasn’t done with me. “But . . .” I prompted, resigned to more of his teasing.
“But you can’t win if you’re not in the game. You’re amazing, Jack. Talented in a way I’ve never seen. So I’m thinking . . . maybe you don’t play because you know you’ll win.”
I stared at him, wide eyed. It was becoming my most frequently used expression when he was around. Indignation warred with realization. He could have been right. He probably was.
There was no way I was going to admit that aloud, though.
“You’re crazy.”
“My therapist disputes that,” he retorted with his now familiar grin.
I smiled back at him, but part of me wondered if he wasn’t joking, if he really did have a therapist. For most of the kids in JJ’s social circle, having a therapist was like having the latest cell phone or designer handbag—just another accessory, an indication of wealth and status.
I knew there was more to him than I’d seen, and I was willing to bet I’d seen more than most. Every layer he revealed was a little darker than its predecessor, each one more scarred and bruised than the one before. He may have surprised me about a lot of things, but I wouldn’t have been shocked to find out he had a therapist.
“You know what we should do?” He began as we left the shop.
I locked up and turned to him, frowning when I realized that his car was not parked in the street. “Oh, here we go.”
“We should play a show!” he crowed, beaming as we started walking in the direction of my house.
“Where would we play?” I asked him, frowning as we strolled down the street.
“There’s a club a couple of towns over, in Monroeville. They have an all ages night on Saturdays, a couple of cover bands usually play,” he explained, gesturing wildly with his elegant hands.
“Howie’s.” I nodded. “I know it. How do you know all this? It doesn’t strike me as the sort of place you’d hang out.”
“My favorite gay bar in the whole world is in Monroeville,” he replied, eyes shimmering with the last of the day’s light, daring me to say something.
“In the whole world?”
“Well, maybe not the whole world. London has some pretty wonderful bars . . .”
“Uh huh.”
“Anyway, we should go to Monroeville, see if we can get a show. It’d be fun, especially if we only have to do covers,” he continued, all big eyes and fluttering lashes.
I couldn’t think of a good reason not to. I loved playing with the band, although I was fairly certain I’d have a pretty bad case of stage fright. I wanted to do a show. I wanted to know if it was as much fun as our practices. I owed it to my bandmates. Hell, I owed it to myself to find out if we could make a real go of it.
“Alright,” I agreed. “Let’s do it.”
“Oh, Jack, I thought I’d die before hearing you say that,” he purred, twirling on his heel with his usual melodramatic flair.
I rolled my eyes and bumped him with my shoulder, but I couldn’t stop smiling at him. It was so different when it was just the two of us, laughing in the rapidly cooling air. Under starry skies, I felt as if I could see him clearly. He was all gold and shadows, bright laughter and dark secrets, beautiful and bruised all at once. I didn’t know which side of him intrigued me more, but I knew JJ Keswick had charmed me. He was a puzzle I could never solve, his random confessions at odds with everything I thought I knew about him.
Yeah, he had me all right.
***
“So . . . he does actually want to be seen in public with us?” Jessica asked around the lollipop in her mouth, her cherry stained lips glistening.
“Two towns over,” I reminded her, pulling the lollipop from her mouth before handing her a sandwich from her packed lunch.
“Does it bother you?” she demanded between decisive bites. “He doesn’t even acknowledge our presence outside
the shop.”
It was a sunny day, so we had decided to eat our lunch outside, away from the din of the packed cafeteria. We were camped out under my favorite tree, the burnt orange leaves casting dramatic shadows over Jessica’s pale face. From my spot, I could see JJ sitting beside a cheerleader I vaguely recognized. It was game day, so he was wearing his letterman jacket, looking every inch the clean cut cliché.
I fidgeted like a little kid under Jessica’s analytical gaze. Watching JJ play at being everything the popular kids expected him to be didn’t sit right with me at all. The picture looked perfectly normal, boring even, but I could see the almost desperate sadness of it.
“No,” I replied, sighing. I wished I was angry with him. It would have made everything so much easier. “I think his image and his sexuality are too closely linked for him to sacrifice one for the other,” I explained, shrugging. I could feel her eyes on me, narrowed and bright, seeing way more than I would have liked her to. “If he lets his image slip, he thinks this great big bisexual secret is going to come out too. If he comes out, he loses an image he’s spent years perfecting,” I continued.
“Well it sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” she murmured, crossing her arms.
“I guess I have.”
“You think about him?”
“No more than I think about you,” I told her, frowning. I could feel another blush coming on, and I cursed inwardly—if I blushed at her questions it would just convince her that I liked JJ. That was a conversation I wasn’t ready to have with myself, let alone her.
“Yeah, but you love me.”
“I tolerate you,” I joked, rolling my eyes as my blush receded.
“Fine, keep your secrets, see if I care,” she huffed, flopping back against the tree with a hand pressed to her head in a flawless imitation of a dramatic swoon.
“There’s no secret,” I assured her. “I just think that JJ isn’t the person everyone thinks he is.”
“So who is he?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
***
We called off our first practice of the week and drove out to Monroeville on Wednesday afternoon, just me, JJ and an awesome playlist that I had put together for the drive.
JJ seemed to be in a good mood. He’d shown up at my door bang on time, his car glittering in sun. I’d asked him to dress down for our trip—I was pretty sure that the owner of the dive bar wouldn’t take him seriously if he showed up dressed like a boy on the run from his private school.
I was pleased to see he’d taken my advice. He was dressed in a pair of light gray jeans and a navy blue v-neck tee shirt. He’d pushed his sunglasses up into his golden hair. It was getting long and starting to curl at the ends in a frustratingly adorable way.
“Ready to seize the day?” he asked as I slid into the passenger seat.
“Um . . . maybe. Yes?”
“You don’t sound too convinced.” He chuckled as we hit the road.
“One of us has to be nervous,” I told him, smiling in spite of myself.
Truth be told, I was finding it hard to maintain the level of anxiety I’d initially experienced after he’d suggested we play a show. I was sitting in a gorgeous car, being driven out of the town I hated by a boy who fascinated me. With the wind in my hair and the sun on my skin, I couldn’t help but be optimistic about our chances of landing a gig.
“It’s gonna be winter soon,” JJ mused as he drove, eyes focused on the road.
I couldn’t help but notice how rigid he was at the wheel, his hands never straying from the ten and two position.
“I guess. I prefer winter anyway.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“My dad comes home for more than a few days,” I told him with a shrug. “Thanksgiving and Christmas are pretty big events in the Daveyson household.”
“That’s . . . well, that’s both heart-warming and kind of sad,” he replied, smiling softly. “I don’t think my dad will be home for the holidays this year.”
“Why not?”
“He’ll probably go to Texas, to see my grandparents. I like my grandparents a lot, but . . .Texas and I don’t really get on.”
“You could spend the holidays at my house,” I said, almost as soon as he finished talking. It was impulsive, but I couldn’t help it. The thought of him alone in that big house on Thanksgiving, then again at Christmas, infuriated me. I couldn’t stand the thought of it.
“You’re jumping the gun a bit, Jack,” he murmured, shrugging.
He looked a bit more relaxed though, a bit happier, so I considered my work done.
“Besides, you might be sick of me by then,” he added, hint of a grin blossoming across his lips.
“You fishing for compliments, JJ?”
“You gonna give me one?” he replied, glancing at me with that same grin.
“Maybe for Christmas.”
Monroeville was a lot like Wayville—small and quaint in a way that hid the lines that fractured the town. There were eerily familiar groups of kids on Main Street, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine, gossiping and snapping selfies.
The club, Howie’s, was in the basement of a dentist’s office. There was an entrance off the street and down a flight of concrete steps. JJ parked outside, tucking his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt as we got out the car.
I followed him down the steps, trying to ignore the tremble in my hands. JJ seemed fairly relaxed, his head held high and shoulders straight. He looked every inch the confident frontman, and I was content to let him do the talking.
He knocked at the door, raising an eyebrow at me as we heard someone mumbling on the other side. After the sound of half a dozen locks being pulled back, the door swung open.
The man in the doorway reminded me of my dad, the similarities startling me a little. He was short, stocky and rapidly approaching forty, his black hair streaked with gray. There was a couple of days of stubble on his chin and along his jaw, highlighting the confused frown on his face. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked at us, me first and then JJ.
“Can I help you?” he asked gruffly, raising a calloused hand to scratch thoughtfully at his beard-in-progress.
“We’re looking for Howie,” JJ replied. “We’d like to play a show here.”
“I’m Howie,” he mumbled, gaze hardening. “Just the two of you?”
“No, we’re in a band called Forever Fading Echoes,” JJ told him, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I have a video, if you want to watch it.”
“You’re Daveyson’s kid, right?” Howie said, turning to me.
I was stunned by the sudden turn of events. I hadn’t expected someone to notice me when JJ was standing right there.
“Yeah,” I nodded, extending my hand. “I’m Jack, the guitarist. This is JJ, our vocalist.”
“Your dad speaks very highly of you,” Howie told me as he shook my hand. “He thinks you’re a good kid.”
“He’s right,” I assured him, the warmth in my chest making it a bit easier to speak up. “My band is good. We’re just starting out, but we’re willing to work.”
“Alright, you talk a good game,” he said, turning back to JJ. “Show me the video.”
One of Jessica’s friends in the AV club had filmed a song or two at our practice the week before, and the end result was pretty impressive. I wasn’t surprised to see that the camera loved JJ—his grin was even more alluring on screen, and his tousled hair and quirked brow added to his easy charm.
I had been surprised by how good we sounded, though. I had always been our harshest critic, but even I struggled to find fault with the short clip. We had decided to cover AFI’s “17 Crimes” for the video, a song we all knew and loved. JJ had sung the hell out of it while Ash had beat her drums with expert precision. Jessica had put in a flawless performance, never missing a beat. Dylan had been an imposing presence as always, but he was incredibly graceful with a guitar in his hands. I had played as if my life depended on it, while hiding behind m
y impressively wild hair.
I spent as much time watching Howie as I did watching the video. JJ stood absolutely still, his expression carefully blank. Howie never took his eyes off the screen, still scratching at his jaw.
“My usual Saturday band just split up,” he told us as the video ended. “Can you play a forty-five minute set next weekend? Covers only, my customers don’t pay to listen to whiny teenage poetry over recycled riffs. I can give you a hundred bucks between you.”
I glanced over at JJ, vaguely aware that my mouth was hanging open. I had no clue how to respond to his sudden offer. I nudged JJ with my elbow, hoping he’d take the hint and conjure up a witty response.
“Sounds good. When should we be here?” JJ asked, way too relaxed, considering we were booking our first gig.
“You can sound check at five, hit the stage at seven.”
“We’ll be here,” JJ replied, holding out his hand to shake on it. I shook hands with Howie again as well, mumbling my thanks.
I was still shaking as we headed back to the car. JJ was beaming, his business like demeanor replaced with his usual swagger. I pulled out my phone to text Jess, Ash and Dylan—I couldn’t help but smile as I told them we’d just booked our first gig.
“So,” JJ began as we headed back to Wayville, “are you gonna tell your dad that your band is making their live debut?”
I bit back a sigh, my optimism instantly replaced with unease. I hadn’t even told my dad that I was in the band. I knew it would be a difficult conversation, and I just wasn’t brave enough to start it. I had scripted the conversation in my head, trying to plan for the various reactions my dad might have. I played it over and over, adjusting my tone, analyzing each response. I took some comfort in my preparations, but not enough as it turned out.
“Are you gonna tell yours?”
JJ laughed in spite of my sulking, genuine amusement shining in his eyes. It was hard to be miserable when he seemed to be in such a good mood, but I tried damn hard.
“Well, if I thought he’d care, then yeah,” he replied with another graceful shrug. “As long as I’m alive and not suspended or expelled, that’s pretty much all he wants to know. But your dad is involved in music, it’s way more relevant for him.”
Fake It (The Keswick Chronicles Book 1) Page 8