Page 33 of Shattered Chords

“Have you tried giving her money?”

“What?”

“Offer her money. Trust me. Works like a charm.” He turned his head to look at me and grinned.

Trent tossed up his drumstick and a collective whisper came from the audience. Ally was in the shadows, her guitar and makeup glittering beneath a stray streak of dancing stage light. I felt immense pride. My breath caught in my chest and my pulse roared.

I saw Harper in my peripheral.

“I’ve been looking for you all over, sweets!” unsteady, he shouted. His words slurred against a backdrop of anticipatory noise.

With a clumsy smile, I grabbed his hand and drew him closer. He was drunk, and under different circumstances, I would have been fine with that since he was still in denial over what had happened with Lucas, but the place was filled with teenagers and this wasn’t the best way to set an example.

“You okay?” I mouthed.

A gummy grin spread across Harper’s face. He flicked his gaze to Dante and whipped out his hand.

“Hi there! Big fan! My ex-boyfriend loves your solo work.”

Uh-oh. This can’t be good.

“This is Harper,” I explained, trying to steer the conversation away from the topic of cheating asshole Lucas Bail. “Ally’s godfather.”And my best friend who’d apparently had one too many drinks and was about to start embarrassing himself.

“Hi.” Dante shook his hand. “Very nice to meet you.”

“Ally adores the new guitar,” Harper said in a wistful voice. “Thank you for your g-generosity.”

“That guitar deserves a player like Ally. I think they’ll do a lot of great things together.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, Trent hit the drums and the stage came alive. There was no warning and no prelude. They jumped right into it, unleashing the madness onto the unprepared audience. I’d forgotten all about my phone and that I was supposed to record the set for Ally’s YouTube channel. Watching my fifteen-year-old daughter playing in front of other people filled me with unimaginable delight. She was a strange bubble of dark light and she put her heart and soul into every single note. I didn’t need a degree in Fine Arts to know she wasn’t just good. She was great. All those hours and hours of enduring her practice at home were finally paying off.

It took me a few moments to regain my composure, and by the time I remembered to turn on the camera, the song had passed the midpoint.

Harper clapped and bobbed his head to the beat and the audience was finally warming up to Pauline’s screams. She straddled the microphone stand and continued to work the shock factor angle.

I felt warm fingers slipping across my back, and Dante nudged me in the direction of a small walkway that led down to the main floor. We pushed our way through a group of cheering parents gathered in the corner and made our way to the center of the room.

Dante was right. The band sounded much better from here. To me, it was still just a bundle of noise, and I could hardly make out the lyrics, but I could hear the instruments now in their full force.

The song ended and a round of applause rolled through the club.

“Hey, all!” Pauline roared on stage. “We’re Systematic.” She went on to introduce the rest of the band while her father continued to snap photos. The camera flashed nonstop and I prayed to whoever was overseeing things upstairs that our kids didn’t go blind by the end of the set.

“They look great together, don’t they?” Dante said, leaning closer.

“They’ve been rehearsing for months,” I explained, turning to look at him.

“I meant Ally and her new guitar.” A smirk tilted his mouth.

“Oh.” I bit back my smile and gave him a nod. “They do, actually.”

He didn’t respond, but his dark eyes roamed my face.

“Do you do this a lot?” I asked.

“What exactly?”

“Check out high school bands?”

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