More Than Music (5 page)

“I only play when I’m alone, and not seriously or anything,” I said. “I used to play more, but my mom… She didn’t approve. Told me to focus on piano, on violin and clarinet. ‘Real instruments,’ she called them. Probably because she used to play the guitar and that’s how she met my dad…” I trailed off, but Kyle nodded. I’d told him all about my family before. “When I was a kid, she caught me playing her old guitar and nearly smashed the thing. She was drinking, of course. It scared the crap out of me, and after that, it was easier to keep that part of myself hidden. But I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s all right. I get it.” He sighed again. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“No, I’m terrified.” I choked out a little laugh. “But I also want to help you.”

His face softened a little. “I appreciate that. I really do. But I don’t think that’s the only reason you’re here.”

“Of course it is.” I tried to keep my face blank. Was my attraction to Jared so obvious that even Kyle could see it? I didn’t plan to act on it or anything.

“Is it really? Because we can’t have another Becca situation.”

“What happened with her anyway?”

“She and Jared hooked up about a month ago.” He scowled at his brother, still in the garage. “They both admitted it was a mistake the next day, but it was never the same after that. Becca started drinking more, and she got crazy jealous any time he was with another girl. They’d fight, and then I would smooth things over and then it would happen again. We all hoped she’d get over it, but then she started showing up to rehearsals drunk—if she showed up at all—and well…you saw what happened last night. I don’t think Jared actually expected her to quit the band, but none of us really want her back either.”

“Nothing like that is going to happen with me. Trust me.” Becca’s situation hit a little too close to home, and I was definitely not following in her—or my mother’s—footsteps.

“I know, but…I just don’t want you to get hurt. I love my brother, but he doesn’t do relationships. Promise me you won’t get involved with him, okay?”

“I won’t, I promise.” I gave him a smile that was more confident than I was. “And I’ll only be in the band for one day anyway.”

“True…” He gave a reluctant nod, and we went back inside.

“Everything okay?” Jared asked.

“We’re good,” Kyle said. “Let’s hear her play.”

They all looked at me, and I froze. “What? No.”

“Great, a guitar player who won’t play guitar,” Hector muttered.

“Don’t be an ass,” Jared said, hitting a button that lowered the garage door, locking me in with them. “Of course she’ll play.”

The time had come. They were all waiting, and if I was going to be their guitarist tomorrow, I had to show them I could actually do it. There was nowhere for me to run now. I flexed my fingers and placed them on the guitar. They hadn’t told me what to play, and I felt too self-conscious to perform one of their own songs for them, but nothing else came to mind either.

I remembered Carla and Julie’s suggestion earlier, to pretend I was playing for them if I got nervous. If we were sitting on our couch right now, what would they want to hear? Something mellow. Something fun. Something they liked to sing along to. My decision made, I tapped out a beat and started Incubus’s “Wish You Were Here.” It was a perfect choice because right now I did wish they were here with me.

The song was off at first, every chord sounding like it was being ripped from my hands instead of flowing smoothly. Turns out, playing for three hot musicians in their garage-turned-studio was nothing like playing in my apartment for my two best friends. But once I got into it and stopped thinking so much about how they were watching me, my fingers knew what to do. The music poured out of me as it always did, from my body into the guitar, out the amp, and then back to my ears again in a perfect cycle. I never felt this way when I played the violin or clarinet or even the piano. With those instruments, I was precise and controlled and didn’t get lost in the music. Those were work, but this—this was like breathing.

When I got to the chorus, Jared sang the lyrics, more to himself than anyone else, and I caught the other guys nodding along, too. Eventually I’d played enough, and Hector raised a hand to stop me.

“Okay, that wasn’t bad,” he admitted. “But do you actually know
our
songs?”

Not bad? I’d take it. Kyle gave me a reassuring smile, too, so he must not have thought I was horrible either.

“I know them,” I said.

“Told you she could play,” Jared said, moving in front of the mic. “We’re doing ‘Behind the Mask’ for the audition. Let’s run through it and see how it goes.”

I nodded, relieved. Jared had already heard me playing that song and must have approved, or he wouldn’t have asked me to join them. All bands performed one of their original songs during the audition, even though the bands used cover songs during the actual show. “Behind the Mask” was a good choice because it demonstrated the band’s sound, plus it showed off Jared’s impressive vocals and had a catchy beat.

Hector started us off, but I was too slow jumping in and then had to miss a few notes to get back on track. Things started getting better, but once Jared started singing, I missed a chord again. As the song progressed, I found it hard to keep time with them. I’d never played guitar with anyone else before, and I was always just ahead or behind the guys. That made me even more stressed out, and then I missed more notes and so it continued. My only consolation was that Jared wasn’t doing so hot on bass either. The song ended, and the garage dropped into silence. I knew what we were all thinking—we were terrible. Less than an hour with the band and I’d ruined them.

“Well, that was a disaster,” Hector finally said. “She may know the song but that doesn’t mean she can play it.”

“It wasn’t
that
bad,” Kyle said.

“Give her a break,” Jared said. “Maddie’s never rehearsed with us before.”

My heart beat a little faster hearing him defend me, and I had to remind myself that he needed me for the audition and that was it. Once it was over, I’d probably never hear from him again. But still, it was nice to know he didn’t think I was a complete failure.

“Sorry,” I apologized to all of them. “I’m just nervous. I’ll get it right this time.”

“Anyway, the real problem was me,” Jared said, his forehead creased as he checked the tuning on his bass again. “I’m so out of practice with this thing, there’s no way I’ll be in shape for tomorrow.”

“You’ll be fine,” Kyle said. “You wrote the bass line in this song. You know it better than anyone.”

“Yeah, but that was a long time ago.” He rubbed his face, wiping away the frustration. “Let’s try it again. If we have to rehearse all night to get it right, then that’s what we’ll do.”

We practiced the song for hours. Any time I lost my place, I focused on Hector’s drumming and got back on track, and when I wanted to throw my guitar pick in the trash, Kyle’s encouragement kept me going. Playing with them wasn’t as scary as I’d thought it would be in the end. And standing beside Jared while he sang was even better than listening to his voice in my headphones or through my computer, even better than seeing him perform live. Because this time, I was playing
with
him.

“All right,” Jared finally said. “That was good. I think if we go any longer, we’ll have nothing left for tomorrow’s audition.”

“Thank god,” Kyle said. “I was about to pass out here.”

Hector stood up, twirling a drumstick in one hand. “You were right, Kyle, Maddie does pick things up quickly.”

“Told you. It’s freaky, right?”

I bowed my head, but couldn’t hide the small grin on my face. My arms trembled with exhaustion, my fingertips throbbed, and my hands had cramped up, but I felt whole, like I’d been missing a piece of myself all my life and finally had it glued back on. And I never wanted to lose it again.

T
he guys picked me up bright and early in their van, their gear already packed inside. I squeezed my way into the backseat next to Kyle, who wore a faded black T-shirt and a studded belt. He gave me a quick once-over as I got inside. “Perfect.”

I said a silent thanks to my two best friends. Julie had picked out a black babydoll dress with a hint of lace and loaned me some ropey chain jewelry and knee-high boots. Carla had given me smoky eyes, dark red lips, and a hint of curl to my usually limp brown hair. Somehow they’d made me look fierce, but still like myself, too. Even my black-rimmed glasses looked more ironic than nerdy now.

Hector gave me a nod, too, which I supposed meant he approved. He was dressed similarly to Kyle, except with his usual baseball cap with the Villain Complex logo.

Jared turned from the driver’s seat and looked me up and down. It might have been my imagination, but his eyes seemed to linger a little longer than the other two guys’ had.

“You look great,” he finally said, making my heart skip a beat. “We don’t have much time, so let’s go.”

The van’s door slid shut with a
thunk,
and we were off, driving along the sleepy Saturday morning streets of Los Angeles toward downtown. I picked at the hem of my dress, the whole situation surreal. I was in a car with three guys in a rock band, going to audition for a TV show I’d watched for years. It was hard to believe this wasn’t all a dream.

The guys didn’t talk much, and the closer we got, the more nervous I felt. This was really happening now. I couldn’t back out. Well, I could, but I’d completely screw the guys over and I would never do that. Kyle was my friend, and Jared had taken a chance on me. Yes, it was only because he needed me for the audition, but I still appreciated his faith in my skills.

We soon reached LA Live, a giant plaza with restaurants, movie theaters, and clubs, plus the Staples Center, where basketball games were held, and the Nokia Theatre, where
The Sound
was filmed. The auditions were taking place across the street, at the LA Convention Center, and a huge crowd was already lined up along the sidewalk to be in the audience. We parked the van, and some guy with a headset and a clipboard checked us off and had us unload and tag our gear. He gave us a card with a 93 on it and said they’d call our number when they were ready for us.

“Are there really ninety-two bands before us?” Jared asked him.

“Nah, we hand the numbers out randomly,” the guy said, before waving us into a huge room with a bunch of other people.

Judging from the wild assortment of clothes and hairstyles and the way everyone stood in groups and eyed each other with a mix of thinly veiled curiosity and contempt, these must be the other bands waiting to audition. I took in the vast crowd, and my stomach did summersaults. From the guys with long hair and motorcycle jackets, to the punk rockers with mohawks, to the country princesses who looked like Taylor Swift clones, all of them belonged here much more than I did.

“I need coffee,” Kyle said. He took our orders—coffee for me and Hector, tea with honey for Jared (for his voice, he said)—and then joined the very long line at the coffee stand. All the tables and chairs were already taken, so we found a spot by the wall and leaned against it. There was nothing to do now but wait.

While Hector sat on the floor and drew in a sketchbook, Jared surveyed the room with a line of worry across his forehead. He wore a black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off his inked arms. His face had the perfect amount of stubble brushing his chin and framing his mouth, and even in this crowd, I couldn’t help but be drawn to him.

“You okay?” I asked, after he sighed for the fifth time.

Jared ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up more. It made him look even better somehow. “I didn’t think there would be so many people here, you know?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t mention that there were probably dozens more on their way or auditioning on other days because I understood how he felt. This was his chance to follow his dream, to make it big with his band, and now it seemed impossible in the face of all this competition. Villain Complex was good, but we’d only spent one night practicing together, and there were so many bands here, and oh god, the more I thought about it the more I might throw up.

“How about you?” he asked.

I pressed my hands to my stomach, willing it to be calm. “Honestly? No, I’m not okay.”

He laughed and sang my words to the tune of “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance. He continued with the next lines in the song for a minute, and some of the other people around us turned to watch him serenading me. It should have been embarrassing, but instead it made me smile and some of the tension in my shoulders relaxed. It wasn’t every day a hot guy sang to me, after all.

He finished with an exaggerated bow, and I laughed. “Yes, that song popped into my head, too,” I said. “Unintentional song reference, I promise.”

“It got you to laugh, so my work here is done,” he said, and I melted even more.

Kyle returned and shoved coffee cups at us. “Rumor is, none of the mentors have filled up their teams yet. Sounds like we still have a shot.”