“What’s new in the world? Anything interesting?”
Her fingers halted on a picture, and she turned the phone to me. “This picture of Carly blew up today. Three hundred likes! And she only has 500 followers.”
Carly, Molly’s friend, stood between two beefy dudes much older than her. The picture was pretty grainy, so I zoomed in on the faces. The guy on her left was the tallest man I’d ever seen, towering two heads above her and wearing a serious expression. His arms were crossed, showing off his full sleeve tattoos. He had long brown hair and a generous beard that cascaded down his cut off T-shirt. He looked like a sexy Viking, all buff and manly and brooding.
I moved my fingers on the screen to look at the shorter man, who was still a head taller than Carly. The hair on my arms stood as I took him in—the messy head of dark curls, the day-old scruff on his chin, and most importantly, that smile. He had this brilliant grin on his face that threatened to leave all women in its vicinity gasping for air. I suspected Carly’s dazed expression could be attributed to its effect. Something about these guys looked familiar.
“Who’s that?”
Molly looked at me incredulously. “You serious? I thought you’d recognize them right away. They’re members of Bleeding Moonlight.”
I furrowed my brows and studied the image again. “Nah. Really?”
“I thought you liked them,” Molly prodded.
“I used to, but I haven’t looked them up in ages,” I admitted. “They were big when I was in high school. I haven’t listened to any of their recent stuff.”
Molly sighed in exasperation. “You live under a rock. I don’t even like metal, and I know more than that about them. They were working on a new album after taking a break for a few years, and then one of their guitarists died from an overdose. The funeral was here a few weeks ago.”
She pulled the phone away from me, typing something before flipping it back to me. This time there was an image of four men at a funeral on the screen. They were looking down at something in the ground—I presumed a casket. I pushed the phone away from me, not wanting to let my mind go to the memory of Molly and I standing in similar positions a few years ago.
She continued telling me about the band, oblivious to my reaction. “Carly was at the movie theater last night and bumped into two of them. The bassist and the guitarist. Our group chat is going wild about it. Apparently, they’re super hot in person.”
To be honest, they looked pretty darn good in this blurry pic, too, but I wasn’t going to encourage this fangirl behavior. I stood up to get stuff out of the fridge for my protein shake.
“I don’t get it. None of your friends even listen to metal. Why is this a big deal?”
Molly snorted. “I mean, sure. But they’re famous. And they’re from here. You knew that, right? They’re the most famous thing to ever come out of River Valley. Pay respect where it’s due.”
I chuckled. “Your entire generation is way too obsessed with fame. Don’t even get me started on the Ka—”
“Please don’t.” Molly raised a warning palm in my direction. “You’re too old to ever understand.”
For a minute, our conversation was interrupted by the furious sound of my shake blending. When it finally stopped, Molly asked, “Did you not overlap with them at all? They can’t be that much older than you.”
I sipped on the creamy banana-spinach-flavored goodness, my eyes fluttering shut in pleasure.
“Eww, only you. That stuff is like liquified sand,” Molly commented, scrunching her face in disgust at my reaction.
“That’s only if you get the cheap stuff. This doesn’t taste grainy at all. To answer your question, those guys are way older than me. Pull up that pic again. C’mon, I don’t look that old.”
The photo was back on Molly’s phone in seconds, and she zoomed in close, just as I had earlier.
“I mean…” I took in their handsome faces one more time and reluctantly shut my mouth. Older than me or not, they were two fine male specimens. The last time I’d hooked up with anyone was a few weeks before I’d become an orphan, and the random college student I’d picked up at a party—Riley? Robby?—looked nothing like these guys.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m going to look it up.” Molly pulled the phone away, and I felt a pinch of displeasure. They were nice to look at.
“Okay, so they’re all in their late twenties or early thirties. It says they released their first album ten years ago, so you were in middle school then. Never mind, I doubt you’d have met them.”
They did what I couldn’t.
The thought entered my mind like an unexpected breeze. They’d left this place to chase after their dream of making music when they were no more than teenagers. And now look at them—successful, handsome, probably fulfilled artistically. They’d lost someone close to them, but hell, that was life. I wondered if it had been smooth sailing for them from day one, or if they’d struggled. If they ever got discouraged. If they knew how to shrug off a rejection and move on.
I sighed into my glass, now empty. There was no point in letting my mind go there. It would only make me miserable. I’d given up on my dream of a career in music a long time ago, and now there was no time for what-ifs. Now, music was just for fun, a hobby. I’d never let myself take it so seriously again.
After watching a few episodes of an old sitcom with Molly, I was ready to crash for the night, but I still needed to call Liam and Elly.
In my room, I picked up my leather-bound notebook and flipped through until I found the messy scribbled set-list for tomorrow. It looked pretty darn good to me, a mix of classic rock, 90s metal, and some newer stuff. Things that people would recognize and be able to jam to.
