Page 6 of Ticket to the Stars: Part One

Deacon was Pope’s brother, younger than him by a year and older than me by about the same. He and Priest were both twenty-one. Age didn’t mean a thing when you were in a band, though.

Deacon’s green eyes fell to his lap as he pulled out his phone. He said not a word to either of us as he started to scroll. We were allowed to have social media profiles under our real names, but anything we posted on it had to be approved of by Ramona. It was in our contracts.Needless to say, we didn’t post much at all for that specific reason.

“Well,” Priest deadpanned, “I see you’re in a good mood tonight.”

All Deacon did was glare at him for a moment, and then return his eyes to his phone.

Honestly, Deacon had become a bit of an asshole since his brother had been kicked out of the band. The few times we’d gotten together to play, to see what we could do without Pope, it’d been miserable. So miserable, in fact, thoughts I never thought I’d ever have had crept up in my mind.

Doubt. The question of:why are we still doing this?

“You know, Deacon, you are a bright ray of sunshine I just can’t get enough of,” Priest rattled off. “You’re the literal light of my life. I don’t know where I’d be without you. Probably lost in an alley somewhere—”

“Shut the fuck up, Priest,” Deacon hissed out as he shot a glare his way.

I could sense an imminent fight, so I tried to change the subject by asking, “Deacon, do you know why Ramona called us here? She wouldn’t tell me anything, and she didn’t tell Priest anything, either.”

The glare turned icy, and that was my answer.

Okay, shutting up now.

An awkward, uneasy silence settled upon us. Take one look at us now, and you’d never know we used to be best friends. You’d never know we’d dubbed each other brothers. Everything had fallen apart when Pope fucked up.

Was there any hope of salvaging this, or did Ramona want to meet us here to tell us that Black Sacrament was officially a dead band?

Forty minutes passed before Ramona strolled in through the door, huffing and puffing as she talked on the phone—something she always did. That woman always had something going on. It’s what made her such a good manager.

She looked tired, and her long black hair seemed extra frizzy, like she’d had a long day. She told whoever she was talking to goodbye before ending the call, and then she grabbed the remote from the coffee table and shut the TV off. Standing before us, she folded her arms over her chest and surveyed us three on the couch.

Ramona was never impressed by us, and her dark black eyes never gave anything away. Whenever she dealt with us, she wore a stern expression, and tonight was no different.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the three of you in the same room together,” she said. “That’s going to change. I want you three moved in here by the end of the week.”

I leaned forward, eager to hear more. If she wanted us here together, that meant…

Priest put it together: “Are we back?”

“Not yet,” Ramona told us, “but you will be.” Priest whooped, clapped, and bumped shoulders with me. He tried to do the same to Deacon, but Deacon only flipped him off. “Now before you go celebrating, there is a condition.”

I exchanged looks with Priest. Why did I have the feeling this wasn’t good?

“I ran a little… grassroots operation to find a new member for Black Sacrament.”

Priest’s good moon fouled a little, and he shook his head and said, “No fucking way. We ain’t taking in any wannabe. Black Sacrament was always the four of us—”

“There’s only three now,” Deacon pointed out with a frown. I said nothing, because who knew? Maybe new blood would get us back to where we were before. I was willing to try.

“Precisely why I didn’t tell any of you about this competition. Me and my team combed through thousands of videos sent in to us by fans—the whole point of this, besides making a comeback, is to show that Black Sacrament is and will always be a family. A brotherhood that welcomes men and women of all ages.”

That… sounded suspicious, like Ramona was going to drop a bomb on us. Black Sacrament was a family—before, but I wouldn’t call it one now. Adding a random guy to our ranks wouldn’t bring us back to the way things were, even if we pretended it did.

Priest groaned. “All right, all right. Lay it on us. Who’s the new guy you and your secret team picked? What kind of weirdo do we have to put up with?” To me, he whispered, “We can always turn him to the dark side after Ramona’s gone.”

“Ramona heard that,” she said pointedly. “And, actually, we decided to go in a new direction.”

The three of us on the couch were quiet, and my head was spinning. A new direction? What the hell did that mean? I couldn’t think. Was she inviting more than one new guy into the band? Were we going to rebrand Black Sacrament or something?

Because no. I wouldn’t do it, and I knew for a fact Priest and Deacon wouldn’t do it, either.

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