Page 77 of Hard Rock Desires

“Perfectly okay.” Kaylee’s beaming grin widened knowingly.

I groaned inside. Maybe she had heard us after all. Dammit. That brat was going to give me shit about this later, I just knew it.

Well, whatever. Grace was worth it.

The three of us made our way down to the finished basement where we’d built a sound-proofed practice room. The space was pretty big but cluttered with instruments, amps and other equipment. There wasn’t actually that much space to hang out in, only a single sofa and coffee table. The rest of the furniture was just stools and high backed chairs.

I opened my mouth to apologize to Grace, but stopped when I saw the look of awe on her face as she walked into the room.

“This is amazing!” she gushed. “It’s like you have an entire music store hidden away down here. You’ve got three different drum sets! And so many guitars.”

I looked around. I supposed, to the untrained eye, the place would look impressive. To me, it was the bare minimum, just the essential stuff we could make fit.

“May I?” Grace hovered her hand over a cymbal on one of Kaylee’s sets.

“Fondle away,” Kaylee said.

I hadn’t thought Grace was all that into music, but it looked like our setup had made an impression on her.

“You guys are really hardcore about this,” Grace noted.

“Of course we are,” I said. “Did you think we just showed up on stage and winged it?”

“No,” she protested, but there was a faint pink to her cheeks. I knew what she had probably been thinking. We drank and partied and rocked out on stage. She probably hadn’t given much thought to how much work went on behind the scenes.

I wondered what she would think if she saw how we all holed away for months, barely sleeping and barely eating, when we hashed out the songs for our albums. The creative process took a lot out of a person. Sometimes even showering took a backseat to composing.

On second thought, maybe it was better if Grace never saw me like that. It would ruin the sexy rock star image I worked hard to maintain.

“You guys are here early,” said a voice from the doorway.

“Micah!” Kaylee’s lips spread from ear to ear as she took a flying leap at our keyboardist.

Micah’s eyes went wide behind his thick-rimmed glasses as Kaylee latched onto him, his expression some sort of cross between amusement and panic.

“Hey, Kay,” he said in his usual soft, baritone voice. “Staying out of trouble?”

“Never!” she declared, hugging his arm tightly.

“Sounds about right,” Micah chuckled. He gently removed himself from her grip, seeming to notice we had a guest. “Hi there,” he said to Grace. “Are you one of Kaylee’s school friends?”

I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.

“This is Grace,” I told him. “She was at our last VIP concert, remember? I invited her to come watch us today. Cool?”

Micah nodded. “Sure,” he said. “We’re not working on any new stuff today, so it should be a pretty standard practice.”

“Thanks for letting me watch,” Grace said. “I’m not really into music, so this is going to be a new experience for me.”

“Not into music?” Micah looked at me, surprised. The only girls I ever brought home were usually die-hard fans of Until We Break.

“I tagged along with a friend to your concert,” Grace explained. “She’s a big fan, but I don’t know much about you guys. I’m sorry,” she said apologetically.

“No need to apologize,” Micah said. “We’ll just have to put on a good show to impress you.”

I tried not to scowl. It was essentially the same thing I’d done with Grace, putting on my best performance to wow her, but for some reason, hearing it come from Micah irritated me.

“How does this usually work?” Grace asked.