Page 78 of Hard Rock Desires

“We’ve got another concert coming up soon, so we’ll be going through the setlist,” I said. “We don’t play the same songs at every concert. We have fans who go to every show, and we don’t want to bore them, so we like to switch things up. Today we’re going to try out different combinations to see what fits.”

“I was thinking for this show we could do a few songs off our first indie album,” Micah said. “We haven’t played some of them in a while. I think our fans would go wild.”

“I love that idea,” Kaylee gushed.

“You love all of Micah’s ideas,” I told her.

She wrinkled her nose at me. “That’s because he’s a genius, unlike a certain other dumbass around here.”

“You don’t need to stroke his ego,” I said. “You’re already his favorite.”

“And he’s my favorite.” She beamed and latched onto Micah’s arm again. His eyes glinted with amusement behind his glasses as he patted her on the top of her head.

“Get a room,” I muttered.

Their cheeks both flushed bright red as they jumped apart.

“Stop teasing.” Anya appeared in the doorway, finally making an appearance. She must have been holed up in her room, because I hadn’t seen her in days. Her dark eyes were tired with purple circles, but she looked alert. “We don’t play favorites.” She noticed Grace and looked startled. Anya flicked her eyes to me, questioning without words.

I probably should have waited to bring Grace down until all the others had arrived, because now I was going to be stuck doing introductions multiple times.

“Grace, this is Anya, our lead singer,” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” Grace said politely. “You’ve got an amazing voice.”

Anya ducked her head with a murmured thanks, dark hair falling over her face.

“Anya, this is Grace,” I introduced. “I invited her to watch us.”

“Okay.” Anya’s shoulders hunched over as she made her way to her usual spot near the microphone stand. We didn’t plug it into an amp during rehearsals, but she liked practicing with it as a prop. She perched on her stool and fiddled with the tangle of elastic hairbands around her wrist.

That was about as much of a greeting as I could have expected from Anya. Her shyness usually surprised people, since she was always so fierce and animated on stage.

“Hey, we’ve got a new person!” Chris popped his head into the room with a cheerful expression, the exact opposite of Anya. He immediately held out his large hand for Grace to take as his eyes lit up in recognition. “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “The last concert we had, at the after-party? You came with your friend?”

Grace looked surprised but pleased that he remembered her.

“Yes, Lisa is a big fan,” she replied. “I’m glad she invited me; you guys brought the house down.”

Chris smiled widely as he slung his guitar strap around his sturdy torso. “She’s very talkative,” he laughed. “She wasn’t star-stuck at all.”

“She probably just hid it well,” Grace replied.

Finn followed Chris in, and I stiffened when his eyes landed on Grace. Grace’s expression also turned faintly nervous.

Finn hefted his bass onto one shoulder.

“We ready to rock?” he grinned.

I relaxed and returned his grin.

“Let’s put on a show,” I said.

Twenty-Five

Grace

When I’d told Zain’s friends that I didn’t know much about music, I’d been telling the truth. But I did know enough to tell when someone was good.