Page 62 of Broken Chorus

It was whatever. If he was gonna deny that he’d have been pissed if Aaron had unintentionally upset Declan by trying to get him to bring it down a notch, he could keep that bullshit to himself. Aaron knew where he stood.

He followed the manager out the door and up on the stage to plug his guitar in.

A quick soundcheck, and then Declan tapped out an intro to the first song and Aaron decided to take all of the unsettled feelings churning in his gut and pour them into the song. Fuckbeing scared. If they hated it then Kelly would have his answer as to whether Aaron could front a band or not, only…holy shit…phones were coming out, Kazzy stood near the front, mouth half hanging open, even Cade had a stunned look on his face, and he’d been there in the music room when they’d played for everyone.

Either this was epically awful to the point where the dirt rags’ servers were gonna crash with all the video and emails the fans sent in trashing him….

Or they actually thought he was good.

Something in Aaron’s brain kicked into overdrive and everything he said to Declan about not playing balls to the wall while the band was still struggling to find its footing, evaporated in the face of those people vibing with the music and with him up there in Hawk’s spot. He turned to Micah, saw the traces of panic lingering in his eyes, grinned, banged his head, then slid to his knees, playing while looking up at him and flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth until Micah laughed, nudged his thigh with his toe, and really started to shed.

There were tears in Kelly’s eyes when Aaron sauntered around him with his guitar, playing the way they always had, then he smiled and it just made Aaron fly higher to have earned that from his best friend.

Every note, every chord, he played them like he was playing for a hundred thousand people, pouring his soul in and purging something from it too, especially when they hit the forth song and he realized that the place was even more packed then it had been before. Holy shit, where they gonna shut down Shenanigans with an over capacity charge? Something about that amused him, or maybe it was just the rush of euphoria that had hit the moment he realized how into it all people were getting.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mosh pit break out and a table get turned over, drinks flying. That was the wrong vibe. He caught Kelly’s eye in the middle of a guitar solo and mouthed the name of their new ballad, got a desperate nod from him and relayed the information to Micah before the solos end.

Blowing out a breath between songs, all Aaron heard for a moment was his heart hammering in his ears as everything went a little spotty for a second. Yeah, okay, even his body was saying slow down a little and don’t forget to breathe. The moshing stopped the moment the slow guitar intro hit and there were rippling murmurs through the crowd that Aaron refused to think too much about for fear of tripping himself into the wrong headspace. He wished Hawk was here, so he could sing it to him again. Since he wasn’t, Aaron settled on Cade, since singing to Kazzy had the potential to send mixed messages in light of the relationship they’d had. With the way Cade was always around and had even helped them set up today, he was becoming a safe space, an unofficial member of their crew and someone Aaron didn’t have to worry would take it wrong since he’d already heard it.

Cade seemed to sense that he needed a focal point too and smiled, giving him a little nod of encouragement, much like Hawk had done back in the music room. It settled the nerves that had started to creep in during the intro, because it was one thing to belt out an energetic anthem, it was another to open yourself to the vulnerability that came from laying yourself bare in a ballad.

Aaron sang it to Cade the way he would have sung it to Hawk, only vaguely aware that someone was standing behind Cade with a camera pointed at Aaron’s face. When he’d finished and the last note was still clinging to the rafters, echoing a little, there was this collective intake of breath, then the crowd exploded. It was so sudden and unexpected that Aaron staggered back astep and probably would have tripped over something if Micah’s hand on the back of his shoulder hadn’t steadied him. For a moment they just stood that way, soaking it all in before bowing to the fans and heading backstage for a break between sets.

His shirt was soaked with sweat and backstage was cold as fuck with the AC cranked up in the dressing room, so he peeled it off and tossed it beside his guitar case before rummaging around in his backpack for a bottle of water. He guzzled that shit while Micah snagged the notebook sticking out of his bag and furiously started scribbling. When Micah glanced over his shoulder and saw Aaron watching him, he motioned him over.

“Can I get your thoughts on something?” Micah asked.

“Hell yeah.”

When Micah turned the notebook towards the chair Aaron pulled up, he could see that Micah was working on some modification to their playlist.

“That last set was just a steady build of energy and when it peaked, people damn near lost their minds,” Micah said. “What if we repositioned these three songs to create waves?”

Studying it, Aaron could see what he was going for. “Could I see your pen?”

When Micah passed it over, Aaron rewrote the list, flipping the placement of two of the songs Micah had moved.

“This way we don’t have twopeople sucksongs back-to-back.”

“Ohh, good point.”

“What’s going on?” Kelly asked as he stepped up beside them and pressed an ice cold drink to the back of Aaron’s neck.

“Yipe! Fuck! Oh my god, cold, cold, cold,” Aaron groaned, sighing when the shock faded and the chilly plastic started to feel really good.

“How’s your throat?”

“I’m gonna eat a few spoons full of honey before we go back out there,” Aaron said, grateful for Hawk’s suggestion to carry a bottle in his stage kit.

“Good idea,” Kelly said. “You sounded amazing, beyond amazing, amazing is too soft a word for the way you sounded tonight. There’s a buzz out there and it’s all positive. I’ve got three cards in my pocket from people who want us to contact them about booking, and one of them was for a gig at Lodi’s.”

“Oh fuck yeah!” Aaron declared as Cade and Declan finally joined them too.

“What are we fuck yeahing about?” Declan asked as he rolled over.

Aaron flinched, but for the first time, he didn’t scoot or scurry as far away from him as he could, despite the thundercloud of emotions darkening his face.

“Lodi’s wants to book us,” Micah declared, never looking away from the page as he memorized the new order, then passed it to Kelly.

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