Page 107 of Forbidden Lyrics

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“Dude, have you checked Twitter?” Phoenix asks in the otherwise quiet RV a few hours later. I rub my eyes before peeking over the edge of the bed.

It’s Stoker’s turn to drive again, and Fender was catching some shut-eye on the bed beneath ours.

“No, why?” He yawns.

“Because we’re trending––”

“What?” Fender reaches for his phone. His jaw drops before he pulls up TikTok and YouTube. “Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Gibson croaks beside me, his voice still rusty from sleep.

“Sonny, the video’s trending.”

“What video?”

“Of you and Dove. The new song. It has over 300,000 views.”

“What?” I squeak.

“Yeah.” With his nose in his phone, Fender keeps refreshing the app in disbelief. “Seriously…this is insane. You should read the comments. They love it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They, uh,” he pauses. “They wanna know who the new faces of Broken Vows are.” His phone starts playing a Blink-182 song, his screen lighting up as Fender glances up at us before answering it.

“Yeah?”

Silence.

“Hey.”

Silence.

“You saw it?”

Silence.

“Yeah. They’re pretty good, huh?”

Silence.

“Oh. Yeah. She’s his…friend.” He grimaces as the word slips past his lips, and he refuses to look at me even though I know exactly who he’s talking about, but I don’t know who he’s talking to.

“Yeah, she’ll be there,” Fender continues, sitting up fully.

Silence.

“You want to…” He clears his throat. “You want to come?”

A stressed-out Fender runs his fingers through his hair as he listens to whatever the other person is saying on the line.

“I don’t know if he’d be okay with that,” he hedges.

I glance behind me to find Gibson stone-cold and close to fuming. Which means he knows who’s on the other end of Fender’s call. And he isn’t too pleased about it.

“Yeah, I know you want to show your support, but––”

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