Page 13 of Next to Everything We Wanted

Gosh, and the way his skin felt when he’d shaken my hand. It was so freaking warm, like I’d imagined it’d be.

Not that I imagined what his skin felt like all the time. Only a little.

That wasn’t weird, right?

“Sounds fun,” Dad said. “You’re going to be stars.”

“I don’t know if we’ll be that big, but we’re doing our best.”

He smiled, though the awkward air was still between us from the conversation before. It didn’t go away for the rest of the morning.

“Did someone spike your coffee before you wrote this?” Raina blinked at the song lyrics I’d scribbled down last night.

I groaned, crumbling the piece of paper and throwing it in the trash. “Isn’tthatthe first piece of feedback a songwriter wants to hear in the afternoon.”

She sighed, scooting her beanbag closer to me. “I’m sorry, Sea. This was probably the last thing you wrote before blacking out at three in the morning.”

“Four in the morning, actually, but it’s fine.” I waved a hand like it hadn’t stung that she thought my lyrics sucked. Unlike most of my bandmates, I had zero songwriting talent. I was a designer, crafting new images on paper and making them a reality, not a writer. How was I supposed to capture the things that ran through my mind and put them into concise lyrics?

“You’ll get it right soon,” Raina said. “Dallas and I thought we couldn’t write a song, but we ended up writing ‘Disaster.’”

“That’s because you were too in love to not come up with a perfect song. The inspiration was right there.” Dallas and Raina’s song had helped us win Battle of the Bands. The audience loved the emotional song, and we did, too. I could never write something like that without being in a relationship myself.

Before they’d joined the band, it was just Hayden as the drummer, Oliver Landers as the bass guitarist, Caleb Branch as the keyboardist, and me as the lead guitarist. The garage we sat in now used to be the boys’ hangout spot with their ex-best friend Rory. Once Rory had fallen out with Caleb and gone radio silent in New York, the boys decided to turn the man cave into a band room. I was invited over to get them out of their funk andhelped them form Oliver’s Garage Band (yeah, we weren’t good at naming things). Still, we didn’t have a lead singer for months, so we couldn’t go that far until Dallas moved here and joined the band with Raina. Arielle, Raina’s twin sister, completed the band as our backup singer.

Having seven people in a band maybe wasn’t the best business decision, but we were unstoppable. We held our practices every Saturday here in Oliver’s garage, plotting to take over the world. Or at least perform songs that weren’t complete crap.

“I can’t deny that having a whirlwind of feelings helped with the songwriting process,” Raina said with a giggle. “But seriously, the right lyrics will come to you soon. Good writing can’t be forced.”

“Must be hard to be a writer,” I muttered.

Oliver, Arielle, and Caleb sat not too far from us on their own beanbags, invested in the performance in front of them. Mollie and Bella, Oliver’s six-year-old sisters who were thorns in his side, belted a terrible One Direction cover into the microphone while playing ukuleles from their dad’s music store. These girls made Adam and Emma look likeangels.

“Aren’t you going to stop them?” I asked Oliver, my ears ringing.

Oliver faced me. “I promised them that they could perform three songs.”

“It’s adorable,” Arielle said, grinning as she swayed from side to side. She and Raina were identical twins, with the same wavy golden-brown hair, blue eyes, tan skin, and pear-shaped figure. “They remind me of me and Raina when we were little.”

“Only we weren’t that horrendous,” Raina said. “We could carry a tune and play the tambourine decently.”

“Howdy, everyone.” I turned to see Dallas standing in the doorframe, who cringed at what he’d walked into. “Um, why aretheyperforming?”

“I made a mistake,” Oliver muttered. “Never again.”

“You say that every time,” Caleb said as he stuffed chips into his face. The boy couldn’t lounge around without snacking on something. Whenever I made fun of him for it, he made fun of my coffee intake. “You always change your mind.”

“Because I never learn.”

“Stop being mean, Oliver,” Mollie said, finished with the song she’d been singing. “We’re amazing. Hayden and Arielle love us.”

“Because you’re so terrible that they find it funny.”

Arielle frowned. “Don’t crap on their dreams.”

Dallas rolled his eyes before giving Raina a kiss on the cheek and sitting down. “Did you bring your notebook with our lyrics?”

“Of course.” Raina pulled a notebook out of her purse that probably cost more than our bills. “Everyone is going to love them. Especially because you came up with the concept.”