Page 35 of Before We’re More Than Friends (When We Faced the Music #1)

Dallas

“ Y ou have to be out of your mind,” Hayden said, shooting Caleb a dirty look. “There’s no way we’re naming our band that.”

“Come on.” Caleb shoved potato chips into his mouth. “If we ever become famous, people will wonder where the name came from. It’ll be a conversation starter.”

“I don’t think anyone would want to listen to a band called ‘Fresh Chips,’” Oliver said, opening his container of pasta. “Not only is it lame, but it also sounds like a terrible innuendo. ‘Hey, girl, I have some fresh chips for you. Want to try them?’”

Caleb swatted him. “You think everything sounds like an innuendo.”

“I do not .”

“Seriously, guys,” Hayden said, tapping his pen on his notebook. “You’ve been coming up with crappy names for at least ten minutes. We need something unique that actually sounds like a pop rock band name.”

“I don’t have anything,” I said, staring at my blank notebook page .

“Maybe we should ask the girls,” Caleb suggested. “Don’t they name a lot of stuff? Their cars, their phones, their boobs?—”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Gosh, and you say I’m the dirty one.”

“Well, that’s what Sienna told me. I think it’s cool, actually.”

“The naming everything or just their?—”

“Guys, I’m this close to slapping both of you,” Hayden grumbled. “If you guys don’t take this seriously, I’m kicking you both out of the band.”

“And where would you find a better keyboardist than me?” Caleb asked, shaking both his real hand and prosthetic hand. “You don’t find guys with hands like these every day.”

“That sounds dirty,” Oliver muttered.

Caleb smacked him. “Hayden is about to blow a fuse.”

“I am.” Hayden put his head in his hands. “No one is going to take us seriously if we go by Oliver’s Garage Band forever.”

I rubbed his back, not used to this stressed side of him. “We’re going to come up with something.” I looked at Oliver and Caleb. “We need to stop joking around.”

“We’re trying to lighten the mood,” Caleb said. “Hayden always gets wound up and needs us to help balance things out.”

“No, Caleb is just being immature,” Oliver said. “But seriously, we do want to help. It’s just a lot to take in.”

“That’s why I’m stressed.” Hayden rubbed his temples.

“We can’t even work through simple things like picking a band name.

Even if it isn’t the best one, as long as it’s something we can use and have people take us seriously.

” His gaze traveled to the sky. “Like Somewhere in the Sky. It won’t make sense to everyone, but it doesn’t sound random and stupid. It fits the atmosphere of their songs.”

I also looked up. There were only a few clouds in the sky and one airplane that glided among them. There had to be a band name out there for us. Flying out there like an airplane, waiting for us to notice .

Flying out there.

Like an airplane.

I clicked my green pen and wrote down the terms that flew around in my mind. Great ideas fly around like airplanes. Flying like an airplane. Flying Like Airplanes. Like Airplanes.

Like Airplanes.

Hayden must’ve noticed that ideas were running through my mind because he looked at my notebook. “Got something?”

“I think so,” I said with a smile. “I don’t know. It can be a placeholder for now, but it sounds like a real band name.”

“Like Airplanes,” he murmured. “I like that.”

“Me too,” Oliver said. “Much better than anything Caleb could come up with.”

Caleb scoffed. “You weren’t sprouting any good ideas either, Mr. Magnetic Melodies.”

“Hey! We’re a band who will make catchy songs and attract people.”

“You mean chicks.”

“Can you guys not?” Hayden let out a tired sigh. “Gosh, Caleb, you’ve been up Oliver’s ass ever since Kami turned him down.”

“Wait.” I blinked as Oliver’s cheeks turned pink. “Kami rejected you?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Oliver asked. “She rejected me at the Saturn Frenzy.”

“Right before a kiss,” Caleb said. “Big bummer.”

“Kiss?” I asked. Kami had rejected Oliver? Two and a half weeks ago? “And I’m now just finding out about this?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Oliver waved a hand. “We didn’t even know each other for a week.”

“I’m sorry she rejected you,” I said, seeing the humiliation in his eyes. “But she never told me. She never tells me anything.”

“Sisters,” Hayden muttered.

“Yeah.” I stared at my lap, trying to regain my focus. “Um, let’s get back to the band. Are we sold on the name?”

“We can ask the girls for feedback, but I think it’s good for now,” Caleb said.

The guys nodded and got back to work on brainstorming ideas for the band. I, on the other hand, couldn’t take my mind off Kami and Oliver. All her secret-keeping would end today.

I managed to keep my mouth shut until dinner, when Mom and Kami were talking about the shelter to Dad.

“So were you going to tell me that you rejected Oliver?” I blurted after picking at my pasta for the past five minutes. I immediately regretted it, wishing I could’ve waited until our parents weren’t in the room.

Kami blinked at me, the color draining from her face as she lowered her fork. Both of our parents shifted their gazes to her. “What?” she asked.

Well, it was too late to go back. “My friends told me at lunch today that you turned Oliver down.”

“Who’s Oliver?” Dad asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is he someone I should worry about?”

“He’s Amy Landers’ son,” Mom said. “I didn’t know you turned him down. You two hit it off well.”

“We did . . .” Kami’s cheeks flushed. “Why did you bring this up now ?” she hissed at me, gritting her teeth.

“Why did you bring it up never ?” I shot back. “Why do you never tell me anything?”

“Why do you never tell me about your thing with Raina?” she barked. “Why do you always pretend you’re not into her when everyone knows you are? ”

I fell silent in horror. Okay, that wasn’t a Kami move. It was straight-up Kameron.

Now Mom and Dad were looking at me.

“Who is Raina?” Dad asked. “You haven’t had a girlfriend since elementary school.”

“I know!” I grunted. “There’s nothing going on with her, I promise.” The lie didn’t sound natural from my lips. Everyone knew something was between me and Raina except for Raina herself. “We’re just friends.”

Every time I said that, part of my soul died.

“Raina is such a sweet girl,” Mom said, not picking up on the tension in the room. “She always stops by my office when she volunteers.”

“She does?” I asked. Had they ever talked about me?

Mom nodded. “You two would be good together.”

“Well, then I approve of this Raina,” Dad said.

“There’s no need to approve of her!” I put my head in my hands. “I don’t like her. There’s nothing going on with her, and we’re just friends. I don’t understand what everyone else is seeing between us.”

“You sound stressed out about it,” Mom said with a sympathetic frown. “What else is going on?”

I sighed. “Kami is trying to divert the focus from herself. I already said everything I needed to say.” In reality, there wasn’t anything going on with Raina outside of the Chloe situation.

If that situation hadn’t been happening, there would be no feelings from my side at all.

And because there was no way Raina had feelings for me—when she had three other guy friends who were all hot, single, and much more fun than me—there would be nothing between us.

Everything would’ve been perfect, and I wouldn’t feel sick to my stomach and swept off my feet at the same time .

So I wasn’t exactly lying about there being nothing between me and Raina.

I was just warping the truth.

“Dallas is right,” Dad said. “I still want to know about this Oliver.”

“Fine!” Kami barked, slamming her fork on the table. “I rejected him because I still wasn’t over Greg, okay?” She looked me in the eyes, hers flaming angrily. “I like Oliver, I do, and he keeps asking me if I’m okay, but what happened with Greg was painful.”

“But what happened with Greg?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

“You haven’t talked about your breakup with him, but you used to talk about him all the time.

” Tears were burning in the back of my eyes, and I drew in an uneven breath.

“You used to tell me everything about your life. Now I know people who I’ve been friends with for less than three weeks better than I know you. ”

“She hasn’t told you yet?” Mom asked.

“It . . . I.” Kami looked down at her plate. “It’s too much.”

“I don’t need to know the details,” I said.

“I just don’t want to be someone you keep secrets from.

” Gosh, that was way too rich coming from me, when not a single soul in this state knew about what was happening with Raina.

Unless Arielle had cracked the code and Raina somehow knew and hadn’t confronted me yet.

There were so many ways this could go, but they’d all end in disaster.

Mom got up from her seat. “I think you two should talk about this in private.” She nodded at Dad before they both left the dining room. Houston walked in and sat by my foot.

“Thank you.” Kami sighed, her hands shaking on the table as she met my eyes again. “When I told Greg I was moving, he wanted to have a final goodbye. ”

I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“So we . . .” She swallowed. “Did that.”

I was glad I hadn’t been eating my food. From the way I gasped, I would’ve started choking. “You and Greg—you?—”

“That’s only the first part.” She let out a deep breath, leaning against her seat.

Fear washed over me. “You’re not—no—” I clamped my mouth. “Are you?”

“Gosh, Dallas, of course not,” Kami muttered. “You would’ve known by now.”

“Did you get an infection?”

“Dallas!”

My face burned. “What else could’ve happened?” I racked my brain for what else could’ve occurred from, um, a situation like that, but I came up dry.

Maybe I should take that Health class I’d walked into on the first day of school.

“He . . .” Kami’s voice broke, her lips trembling. “I found another pair of underwear under his bed.”