And if he was in my room, it meant he'd brought news I probably didn't want to hear.
"What do you want, Noah?" I growled.
He lifted a single eyebrow and shook his head. "Feeling cranky this morning, I see," he said. His eyes roved around the room again and when he looked at me once more, his eyes were full of disappointment. "Get some clothes on, Rivers. We've got a meeting with Taylor this morning. And she's not happy."
Taylor. Our agent. Terrific.
"What the fuck does she want?"
"To discuss the state of the band. The state of the tour. And the fact that you can't seem to keep your attitude in check for a single day, I'm guessing. We're already in trouble with the hotel, and Olivia and Connor are considering dropping us from the tour entirely. Mostly because of you."
Well that was fucking rich. I'd known Noah most of my life and we both knew he was just as bad as I was.
He was just sneakier about it.
"That's fucking rich, coming from you," I spat.
He got to me faster than I expected and grabbed me by the front of my shirt, yanking me toward him. "I'm not the one who's been trashing his rooms every night for the past week," he said quietly. "That would be you, Rivers. And Taylor's had it. The label is talking about bringing a different band on tour and they're inviting bands to come out and audition while we're onthe road. To replace us. Now get dressed. Wash your face and for God's sake, brush your teeth. Put it together long enough to do this meeting with Taylor. After that, you can crawl back into bed and cry the rest of the day away."
He was gone before I could think of a response, and I watched the door slam behind him, my mind reeling. Kicked off the tour. A different band taking our place.
Auditions from bands while we were on the road.
Terrific. That was just what I fucking needed. Bad enough if my agent and the label were mad at me. Even worse if Olivia and Connor–the headliners–were thinking of cutting me off.
Now I was going to have to deal with a bunch of groupies thinking they could become rock stars, too,
Though only if we were lucky enough to stay on the tour.
1
LILA
“You’re fucking kidding me right now.”
I blew a breath out, tightened my hands on the steering wheel, and very pointedlydidn’tlook at my best friend as she proceeded to tell the person on the phone exactly why they had to be kidding. That they couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about, and further, that they might actually be high as a kite.
The sad thing was, I didn’t think they were high as a kite. I also didn’t think they were wrong, and I was positive they knew exactly what they were talking about. Because “they” were my other best friend and our stand-in manager. And she pretty much always knew what she was talking about.
The problem was, Anna didn’t like what she was saying right now. And Anna’s answer to not liking something was to pretend that it was some sort of mistake. She’d been that way since we were kids, and getting into the music business—or at leasttryingto get into the music business—hadn’t changed that particular quirk.
I had a sudden memory of her lecturing our second-grade teacher about why, exactly, recess should be longer than half an hour long, and felt my lips twitch.
Then she slammed her phone back into her lap, and my smile died.
“Bad news?” I asked, reaching for a light tone.
“The same news it always is,” she muttered. “They like us. They love our look. They’re into the idea of two girls forming a band together and not needing anyone else. Think we’resotalented. But they just don’t see a market for singers like us out there in the wide world. And you know how it goes; if there’s no market?—”
“There’s no second audition,” I finished for her, my hands tightening on the steering wheel.
God,I was tired of this. Anna and I had been playing music since we were old enough to figure out that a piano was for more than just random banging, and we’d formed our first band, if you could call it that, when we were fourteen. We’d been refining our sound ever since, getting stronger every year and playing in every bar and on every street corner that would have us. We were the only band I knew of that featured a piano—well, a keyboard—and guitar, and we were fucking good.
No one we’d auditioned for seemed to agree with that assessment, though.
Or rather, they thought we were good. They just didn’t think we were marketable. Whatever that meant.
“Is it because we don’t have any guys in the band? Because we can add a guy. Maybe we could add drums. Or bass.”
