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Zach practically skipped away, thrilled to have a task to perform, and while we waited for his return, my bandmates and I got down to business.
“So, Devin said he’s excited to get started,” Grey said, folding his arms behind his head.
He was referring to Devin O’Leary, front man for Devin O’Leary & the Blue Existence. After my accident, the record label we’d been with since the beginning had dropped us out of fear I wouldn’t put anything new out before the contract was up. They hadn’t even asked before pulling the plug, proving their loyalty was as good as my crushed leg. But lucky for us, Greyson’s dad, Sebastian, was Devin’s drummer. Grey used his connections, and we signed under his record label with the promise that we’d get a new album out within the first five years of our contract.
I hadn’t been sure at the time if it was a pipe dream to expect I’d be up to the task, but I had taken the chance.
I was glad I had.
The marshmallow at the end of my stick caught fire. I pulled it away from the flames and blew on it, pleased to see that it was now charred to a delicious shade of black.
Perfect.
“Hopefully, it doesn’t take forever to lay the tracks down,” I said, pulling a chunk of sticky, burnt mallow away and sucking it off my fingers. “These songs don’t need a whole lot of fucking with.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Simon said, already laughing at the reference to the very last time we’d been in the studio, over five years ago. “But remember what happened?”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” I grumbled before stuffing the rest of the marshmallow into my mouth. “How the hell was I supposed to know it was the same tune as that freakin’ song?”
“Dude,” Si replied with a snort, rolling his eyes in my direction while kicking his feet up on the edge of the stone pit, “it was Springsteen.”
“Whatever,” I groused around a chuckle, remembering a time when having fun was a normal way of life.
“I mean, who doesn’t know ‘Dancing in the Dark’?” he went on, slapping his thigh with the escalation of his laughter.
Swallowing and shaking my head, I grinned and pointed my stick in his direction. “Man, I hope your fuckin’ feet get set on fire. Then, I won’t be the only asshole in this band with a peg leg.”
It was meant to be a joke. It was meant to make them laugh. But instead, they froze, all their eyes on me. Dave’s marshmallow slid from the stick in his hand and landed on the cold brick floor, yet there was no attempt to pick it up.
“What?” I asked, reaching out for the bag of marshmallows. “You guys can laugh. It’s fine.”
“Well, we never know, man,” Simon finally said, his gaze bouncing toward Greyson, then Dave. “You've never made jokes before.”
“I make jokes,” I replied, thrusting another mallow onto my stick and jousting it into the dancing flame.
“Not about that,” Si retorted with a nudge of his chin in my direction, his eyes on my leg.
Focusing my attention on the marshmallow, already blackening to perfection, I ignored his comment and the expressions of agreement from the other guys. I was sure I'd made jabs at my disability before; they just didn't remember. And, hell, even if I hadn't, who were they to tell me when I could or couldn't joke around about my leg—or lack thereof?
“Must be that chick he's hookin' up with,” Dave chimed in, folding his arms over his chest. “Rumor has it, she has a magic pussy.”
“She's gotta have a magicsomethingto pull songs out of this guy,” Simon said, smirking in my direction.
“Washooking up with,” I corrected, glaring between the flames at Dave with a smirk that shouldn't have felt so triumphant. Proving the guy wrong shouldn't have made me feel so good when I missed Lennon.
God, I missed her a lot.
Why do I miss her at all?
“Oh-ho, excuse me!” Dave crowed, laughing. “Guess you really can't teach an old dog new tricks, huh?”
I dropped my eyes to the stick in the flames and shrugged. “Guess not.”
“Anyway,” Simon said, and I prayed he was going to steer the conversation in another direction, “you think after we get this album done, we can get out there and tour again?”
He was asking me, the band leader. The ringmaster. The head honcho. But I was tired of them thinking I had all the answers when all I was left with was question marks and uncertainty. There was no way of knowing if a new album would sell when it’d already been years since we had last been in the public eye. There was no guarantee that award show appearances and meager attempts to keep us relevant could keep it from flopping, leaving us without the funds to head out on the road. The last thing my ego needed was to play to an empty crowd, and what if that was all I had left?
“We'll see what happens,” I answered, pulling the mallow from the fire before blowing the tendrils of smoke from its outer layer.
