Page 189 of On The Rocks

I laughed.

They’d pushed the picnic tables back to make a big half circle for me. The speaker Griffin had set up for me pumped out “I’m Alive” from Shinedown. The song was just under four minutes and allowed me a slow start that showed off my tossing skills then the drums drove into an acrobatic routine that allowed me to show off every single technique I’d learned over the last ten years.

I was out of breath when I landed in a split and caught a bottle in the metal shaker with each hand as the song ended.

There was about a hundred people around me when I looked up.

In the middle was Griffin with a shit-eating grin. “That’s my future wife, everyone!”

Everyone whooped and cheered. Then Griffin hopped up on the picnic table and down to me, helping me off the ground.

“Damn, girl. How the hell am I supposed to go up there and play with this.” He whispered in my ear as he pulled me close. “That shirt never looked better.”

“I hear it might be your favorite.” I reached around to give his ass a good squeeze and the remaining people laughed.

“I gotta go and play, but I wasn’t missing this for the world. Gonna watch me?”

“Of course.”

He lowered his mouth and kissed me hard. “I’m reminding you one more time that you’re marrying me.”

“And I’m reminding you that you still haven’t asked.”

He just grinned and my heart damn near exploded.

I cleaned up my mess and drank another can of water before I slipped into the crowd just as the lights went low.

A spotlight flicked on as Marc rolled out on the most over-the-top throne I’d ever seen in my life. And I do meanrolled. It was motorized, for God’s sake.

The crowd lost their collective shit.

Especially when sparklers rose out of the chrome tailpipes that created the back of the chair. It was a velvet chair with gold flourishes and in the center, sat Marc with an oil-slicked chrome cane with a skull topper and a matching microphone in his other hand. “Are you fucking ready to rock?”

Griffin, Baron, and Bridger ran out behind him, all of them laughing their asses off.

They quickly got to their microphones and plugged in.

They started with one of their biggest songs and only took off from there. While I’d seen videos of Griffin in his element, andof course, him horsing around with the guys during rehearsals, there was nothing like him in-person.

I was jostled with the crowd around me. And for a minute, I had a flash to the elbow to the face from Irene, but there was no violence in this group. Everyone was just ecstatic to see Reversal of Fortune for the first time in years.

There were a few people who got too rowdy, but Landon quickly dragged them out of the pit of people, and we all resumed our enjoyment of the show.

Finally, it slowed down with Marc using his cane to haul himself out of the throne to sit on a stool with Griffin and Baron.

“We just wanted to thank you guys for showing us so much love. It reminded us just how much we missed playing for you. We’re going to slow it down for a minute.”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “This Old Tattoo.”

Marc laughed. “You have eyes on our setlist, out there?”

The woman beside me screamed so loud we all looked at her.

Everyone in the band laughed.

“First, we have a new song for you. This is the first time the three of us have written together since we went on hiatus. It’s called ‘Truth’.”

The acoustic guitars harmonized almost immediately.

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