Page 75 of Hard Rock Love

“Holy shit!” Nathan banged his hand on the table repeatedly, shaking the thing until I thought it might break under the force of his palm. “We fucking rock, you guys.”

Cerise already had her head down over her phone, typing rapidly.

“I’m emailing everyone the details to add it to their calendar. We’ll have to switch up our schedule. We’ll choose the songs that will impress them the most, that will really show off our skills and showmanship, and start practicing those ones.”

Becca and Jessie looked thrilled for their boyfriends. Everly had a small frown line between her brows, probably wondering if this was going to take even more time away from her and Julian, but she still looked happy for him.

The only one who didn’t look happy was Seth. He was staring down at his own phone, having brought up the email Cerise had sent. Lines of tension appeared at the corners of his eyes, his lips pressed together into a thin line.

I nudged his shoulder discreetly.

“Hey,” I whispered. “You okay?”

That strained, fake smile was back, the look in his eyes almost haunted.

“Everything’s cool,” he said, and I knew it was a lie.

“Who wants to celebrate with a drinking game?” Gael said. “Seth, give us your worst.”

“How about we skip the games tonight?” Seth said. “Let’s celebrate normally.”

Julian, who had been silent this whole time, gave Seth a concerned look.

“Since when do you turn down drinking games?” Julian asked in his usual low tones.

“We haven’t auditioned for anything in a long time.” Seth shrugged carelessly. “We’ll need to work extra hard to impress those judges which means we’ve gotta start bright and early tomorrow, right?”

The others nodded in agreement, but the concern didn’t leave Julian’s face.

Jessie called for a round of plain beers, and the others spent the evening grinning and cheering.

Except for Seth, who sipped his beer silently. No one else noticed.

The tension didn’t leave his eyes all night.