Page 1 of Wild Infatuation (Rebel Rockstars #3)

Chapter One

Shawn

One year ago…

THE BAR PAYS US in beer. None of us complain.

No one is rushing to compensate a small local band with anything but booze, and we’re mostly just happy to perform.

My father says this “music thing” is only a phase anyway, something I’ll grow out of when I mature and get a real job, and as I tune up my guitar in a sticky, dark service hallway, I struggle to push his voice out of my head.

It’s not the only thing about me he thinks is just a phase.

“Let’s kill it, okay, guys?” Jacob says.

Our charming, dimpled unofficial leader raises his glass, and we all respond in kind.

He’s more than our lead singer; he’s also the guy who books most of our shows and writes most of our songs.

We rally around him tonight like we’ve been rallying around him since we first started making music in Levi’s parents’ garage.

Our glasses clink, and we all knock back cheap beer with a mixture of grimaces and smiles.

Jacob whoops. “Time to do it.”

Keannen, our drummer, slaps him on the back. “Blow them away, Jacob.”

Jacob demurs, but I know all of us agree.

Me, Keannen, Levi and Dan are here to support that insane voice of Jacob’s, the booming, entrancing sound that’s going to get us our big break some day, no matter how much my father’s voice sneers that that’s not happening.

When the world starts paying for our music with money instead of beer, it’s going to be because of Jacob first and foremost.

The bartender pokes her head into the back hallway of the bar. The dingy, cramped space is as close to a greenroom as they had for us.

“You guys ready?” she says.

Jacob says we are, and she retreats to give us one final moment together before the show. Jacob fixes each of us with his hazel eyes. Those eyes glint with excitement, a contagious enthusiasm that infects each of us in turn.

“Let’s go show the world what they’re missing,” Jacob says.

For a moment, we all believe we’re about to walk onto a huge stage in a massive stadium. Jacob struts out ahead of us, and the handful of people filling a tiny dive bar in downtown Seattle scream like they’re at the Gorge Amphitheatre.

Still hidden in the hall, I hear Jacob greet the crowd.

“Hey, y’all. We’re Baptism Emperor, and we’re here to play some music for you tonight.”

Another shout goes up from a handful of highly dedicated fans.

We have a couple of those, incredibly enough.

They buy our songs and shirts, come to every show, repost our frankly pathetic attempts at having a social media presence.

If we ever make it big, we’ll owe our careers to them, but that day seems a long, long way off as Jacob calls for the rest of us to come out, and I step onto a stage that’s barely big enough for the five of us.

Jacob is at the mic, looking perfectly at home in the spotlight.

People are going to be completely obsessed with that guy one day.

Keannen pumps his fist as he takes his place behind his drum kit.

He might rub some people the wrong way, but we wouldn’t trade him for any other drummer in the world.

Levi and Dan are quieter presences. Dan takes up a guitar while Levi readies his bass.

I run straight for my guitar. A lead guitarist should probably enjoy the spotlight a lot more than I do, but that’s never been my personality.

I’m naturally quiet, naturally shy, the last person who wants to be up on a stage sweating under bright lights.

My guitar is like a weighted blanket when I sling it across my shoulders.

I let my fingers graze the strings, an echo of the music I’m about to play thrumming through my hands and settling in my chest. My heart beats a little slower, though I don’t look up from my instrument as Jacob addresses the crowd.

“Thanks for coming out tonight,” Jacob says.

Then he’s launching us into our first song, and everything disappears.

The nerves are gone. The crowd, the lights, the bar, the sweat prickling the back of my neck — all of it evaporates in the first couple chords of our first song. My hands move on their own, the music flowing out of me without thought or effort or force.

Jacob’s voice rises to meet the notes falling off my guitar.

Keannen’s drumbeat thumps, wrapping around us, holding us all together.

Levi joins him, his bass low, almost invisible, a sound you feel more than hear.

And Dan supports me, our guitars weaving around each other like the strands of a braid.

Suddenly, it’s all so easy, so obvious. My father’s cruel voice vanishes.

I can’t imagine doing anything but standing up here with these four men and making music.

Maybe the world hasn’t found out about us yet, but as we speed through fast, aggressive music, our music, I’m sure they will, I’m sure this isn’t a phase.

Some day, the right person will hear us, and then everything will change.

The whole world will know Baptism Emperor.

Even if they don’t, I’d keep playing music with these guys.

There aren’t a whole lot of humans I trust in this world.

My attempts at relationships — whether with family or in a romantic context — have resulted in a series of disasters.

These four men are the only people who’ve never let me down, and that’s why as tightly as I cling to them, I’d never do anything more than make music with them.

They’re too important for me mess up with.

If relationships have taught me one thing, it’s that romance isn’t permanent. It doesn’t last. Music, though, that’s forever. It’s the realest relationship in my life. I won’t screw it up with romantic feelings.

It’s not just these guys. They’re simply the only people I spend any time around.

If I had other friends, other relationships of any sort, I’d hold the same line with them.

Nothing romantic. Nothing more than friendship.

It’s the only way to be sure no one will betray me ever again.

Playing music can drown out my father’s doubts about my career, but nothing takes the sting out of him calling my sexuality a phase as well.

When he found out that first boyfriend cheated on me with a woman, he declared it my fault for faking my sexuality to “be edgy.” I know it’s not true, logically, but that’s never quite managed to silence the bastard lurking in the back of my mind.

I pour all those years of hurt into the music, letting it come out through my fingers.

My guitar wails as I shred my way through my solos.

I almost don’t want to cede the space back to Jacob like I’m supposed to, but instinct and better sense take over every time the music threatens to sweep me away.

The final song shivers off my guitar. For a couple heartbeats, the whole bar hangs in a breathless silence.

I rush back to myself. It’s like snapping out of a trance.

I rediscover my own body, the sweat on my back, the tremble in my fingertips, the ringing in my ears.

I take a breath, and a quiver runs through me as the world rushes in like cold air invading a hot shower.

The crowd screams. For the first time all night, I look up at them. I’ve kept my head down, my eyes and mind on my guitar. It’s the only way I can get myself onstage most times. I need the adrenaline and exhaustion that hits at the end of a show to drag my gaze upward.

He’s here.

My eyes pass over the heads of the people nearest the stage. They’re screaming and clapping, a couple of them actually jumping. But my attention glances past them, going straight to the back of the bar and the man standing at the edge of the crowd.

He doesn’t jump. He doesn’t scream. He isn’t even clapping. He stands still and quiet at the fringes of the throng, staring directly into my eyes.

It’s like I’m the only person on that stage. The way he stares at me, even Jacob might as well not exist. For a moment, the only people in this whole bar are me and him.

I know him. Not his name or age or anything personal, but I know his face.

I know that look in his wide green eyes.

I know the soft parting of his lips as he gazes at me with utter awe.

This isn’t the first time our eyes have locked this way at the end of a show.

Hell, it isn’t the tenth. He’s at nearly every show, no matter how far we travel, no matter how small the bar, no matter how many times he’s heard us play the same songs.

If we have one superfan, it’s the small guy at the back of the crowd, a dude who would be completely unremarkable aside from those bright eyes of his.

His face is ordinary, his layered brown hair fashionable but average.

It’s only the way he looks at me that stands out among all the commotion in this bar.

Jacob’s arm lands around my shoulders, knocking me out of a daze. I stumble, nearly taking both of us to the stage. Luckily, I keep my feet, and Jacob’s exuberance jolts me back to my senses.

If I won’t trust the four men I make music with, why the hell would I trust some groupie? If my past has me running scared from my best friends, why would I ever look at a stranger as anything but a threat?

All the more reason to go for it, a voice in the back of my head says. You can’t get betrayed by someone you know for a single night.

I shake that off. We aren’t big enough to have groupies we’re messing around with, and I’d be totally insane to do something like that even if we did.

I’ve never been the type of person who goes for easy flings, and while that’s been part of my problem in the past, I’m certainly not going to change it now.

I’m twenty-four, but already too old for that kind of shit.

The guy at the back of the crowd is probably nuts, anyway.

Who goes to every single show for some no-name band? Only crazy people.

I let Jacob drag me off the stage, though I’m holding onto him as much as he’s holding onto me as we stumble into the hallway we’re using as a greenroom.

The rest of the band piles in after us, shouting and celebrating.

We’ll have to pack out our stuff soon, including Keannen’s drum kit, but first we get a few minutes to enjoy the high of the show.

It’s a brief taste of a bigger dream, a thin sip of the fantasy we’re chasing.

“We’re staying for drinks, right, guys?” Keannen says.

“Hell yeah,” Jacob says.

Me, Levi and Dan are less sold on the idea, but as the quieter end of the band, none of us are going to push against Jacob’s irresistible energy. Besides, I know I could go for a drink.

Maybe he’ll be out there, that voice at the back of my head says again.

It’s the high of the show, I tell myself.

Since the last betrayal, I’ve stuck to a harsh set of personal guidelines.

No more letting someone in. No more letting someone close enough to hurt me.

That means there’s nothing for me tonight but a couple beers with my bandmates.

With how badly I’ve screwed up every single relationship in my life, I don’t even trust myself with a one-night stand.

So while I nod at Keannen’s suggestion, I know I’ll be holding back. I’m always holding back.

Before we can squeeze out of the hall to pack up our stuff and get those beers, however, someone intercepts us.

It isn’t the bartender, and it isn’t our mysterious groupie.

A tall, thin whip of a man strides toward us with such determined purpose that even Jacob freezes.

He extends his hand to Jacob, who looks like he shakes it more on reflex than anything else.

“My name is Emmett,” the man says, “and you were incredible.”

We’re still blinking as he presents us with a business card and rattles off the types of words that have remained in the realm of pure fantasy for the entire time we’ve been playing music.

We don’t know it at the time, but this is the moment when our lives change forever.