Page 25

That was, perhaps, the most I’d ever heard Cy say to a person, especially me, without anyone else interjecting.

That alone struck me. And I wanted to be angry at him—but I instead marveled at the fact that he seemed to be genuinely interested in me as a friend (something I’d never seen before, because he’d always seemed standoffish).

Well, maybe not as a friend but at least in my welfare.

That was more than I could say for most of the world.

But instead of using that as a pivot for a real conversation, I chickened out.

My brain still held onto the vestiges of my friendship with Ava, remembering the very real and embarrassing consequences of allowing her to know the boys I had crushes on in middle school.

Knowledge was power, and if no one knew I loved Zack to the bottom of my soul, they couldn’t use it against me .

So I had to play a part I hadn’t in a very long time. “What makes you think I care about Zack like that?”

Cy didn’t say anything for at least half a mile, and the sound of the rubber against the asphalt became strangely hypnotic, especially as I stared at the white dashes in the middle of the road rushing by as we passed. “I don’t know. I just thought…well, I guess I was wrong. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Sucking down a deep breath, I hoped we wouldn’t talk anymore for the rest of the ride home, and soon I rested the side of my head against the passenger window as the sound of the tires lulled me into a shallow sleep.

“I’m not saying we didn’t kick major ass. I know we did. But—”

“But what , Dani? This was just supposed to be a practice for us to get good playing in front of an audience. We weren’t even paid for it. It was just for the experience.” Zack frowned at me, letting his guitar sag from his shoulders.

“Yeah, I know. But you know what they say about first impressions.” Zack rolled his eyes, which seemed completely stupid.

Because he was so serious about the music, I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t worried about everything else.

“Look…you want to be famous someday, right? We worked so damn hard on the logo and making sure we could all play the songs so well we could do them in a coma. So why can’t we talk about our look? ”

“‘Cause it’s superficial—and that’s not like you at all.”

“Sure. Okay. But look at other bands. They have a style, even if you don’t notice it. Look at the hair bands back in the 80s. They all had a look. ”

“We are not doing hairspray,” Cy said from his quiet place near the corner.

“I didn’t say that. No makeup or anything. Just…so we don’t look like a mishmash of poor kids from Dalton County.”

Braden, with a smile, jumped into the conversation. “We are a mishmash of poor kids from Dalton County.”

“And how many people want to hear that? They don’t give a crap about where you came from till you’re already famous. Remember what Mrs. Walsh in Health and Wellness used to say? Fake it till you make it. That’s what we gotta do.”

I barely heard Cy when he said, “Leave it to a girl.”

That incensed me more than maybe it should have. “Screw you, Cy. That’s sexist.”

He shrugged as if admitting it. Whatcha gonna do about it?

Zack said, “Here’s the thing, Dani. Back in the 80s when they worried about that shit, eventually the music started to suffer. Grunge helped change that. It brought the focus back to the music where it should be.”

“Sure. But then look at Slipknot.” I didn’t have to tell Zack they were post-Grunge.

“They started out wearing kind of a uniform—you know, the jumpsuits—and covering their faces with masks because they wanted people focused on the music. They had a style. But us? We look like we’ve been garage saling. ”

Zack frowned, but he wrapped his left hand around the shaft of his guitar and began fingering positions. “So what do you have in mind?”

“It doesn’t have to be anything like uniforms. It can be simple but we need something that says we’re from the same band.”

Braden nodded his head. “Maybe something like we could all wear a black t-shirt and jeans. And we could all spring for black Converse or maybe combat boots or some shit.”

Zack’s brows grew closer together but he said, “Maybe that could work. ”

“And no offense,” I said, hoping to talk about it all while Zack was actually considering it, “but the music is all over the map, too. We haven’t picked a specific subgenre, let alone an era. It’s gonna be hard to find fans if we do stuff like that.”

“I disagree—but that’s not important anyway. We’ll be playing our own music soon enough. And even though I love the spectrum of metal, it won’t sound like anybody else. Well, maybe a mix of every band I like.”

“And I don’t know about that, Dani.” Cyrus was tuning his guitar, even though it was unplugged, but he looked up long enough to comment.

“The audience last week seemed to gobble up everything we played. Even some of the old stogies who looked like they wanted to plug their ears started jamming out to some of the older shit we cranked out.” Braden nodded, meaning I was probably going to lose that particular battle.

“Okay.” Zack brushed some of his thick black hair out of his eyes. “Maybe we can try a more coordinated look, but I’m with Cy on this. No makeup, no hairspray. I still want to look like a guy.”

“I never said anything about hairspray. Geez, guys.”

“We just wanted to make sure. Now…” Zack ran his hands up the strings on the shaft of the guitar and then back down again before mimicking a few chords. “Who wants to hear the song I wrote yesterday?”