Page 12 of Accidental Baby For My Brother’s Best Friend

Gemma

Isleep like a rock on Saturday night, thank God, because if I’d gone another night without sleep, I might have fallen out in the elevator or something. My sleep was also blissfully dreamless that night.

I barely remember seeing Locke, but somehow, I remember the way his hand brushed mine, the way he stood close to me, shoulder to shoulder, in the elevator.

Locke isn’t the type to get so close physically. He’s not like Axel, who will drape his arm around my shoulders or slip it around my waist when he walks up next to me, or even like Samuel, who will rest his head on my shoulder affectionately. Locke barely ever touches me, even by accident, and while I consider Axel and Samuel friends, I don’t exactly feel the same way about Locke.

Most of our conversations are contentious and even the polite ones are strained at best, so Locke’s change in attitude confuses me. He’s different down to the smallest details, smiling at me when we meet up in the hotel lobby so that we can talk about the itinerary for the rest of the tour.

I smile back briefly and look for my brother, but he’s absent.

I look down at my phone and realize that I don’t have a text or a call from him, either, so I panic just slightly.

“Uh, has anyone heard from our lead singer? We can’t exactly head to Vegas without him.”

I attempt to keep my words light, not wanting to accuse anyone even though I know that Axel is the one who invited my brother out for drinks the last night.

Axel looks bleary-eyed but unconcerned. “He’ll be here in a minute,” he assures me, and I frown.

Sure enough, my brother comes through the front door of the hotel in a rush, his long blond hair sticking up everywhere, his clothes rumpled. He’s still wearing the white button-up and black leather pants with combat boots from the concert, and my frown deepens when the smell of liquor wafts off him.

My brother has always taken care of me, don’t get me wrong. He’s never done anything to make me feel unsafe or unstable. When it comes to me, Jackson is extremely level-headed and (over) protective. In his personal life, though? He’s not so down-to-earth.

Jackson has a particular weakness for both liquor and groupies, and instead of being a womanizer like Axel, he’s more of a serial monogamist. However, most of the girls who follow the Spades around aren’t usually the commitment type.

“Sorry,” Jackson mutters, and I want to be angry and scold him but I know it isn’t my place. Besides, he’s not stumbling or slurring his words, so at least he’s slept it off somewhere—likely in some groupie’s bed.

I don’t have anything against the fans of The Spades, of course. Hell, that’s how we’re able to go on this tour, how we are able to make a living. Jackson saved twenty grand for me to go to college, and he’d been furious when I refused to enroll—until I took a few classes at a technical college in marketing and business models and began to manage his band.

I took the savings that Jackson had given me from our parents’ estate and bought the best equipment, booked the hottest venues, paid for the right ads on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. Just managing the social media is a full-time job, really, but I don’t think we’re in a place yet that I can outsource and hire someone in marketing to do it.

The savings are dwindling, which is why I’ve saved up our cover charges over the past few months instead of dipping into them. Axel needs a new guitar as it is, and Locke could use a new pair of cymbals. Instruments and record booths for recording are expensive, not to mention the outfits I purchased for them to wear, the amps and other equipment, and the tour bus that I’d rented.

The hotels I reserved are Mariotts and Super 8s, not the Ritz Carlton, but nevertheless, expenses are adding up. Last year, we dropped a pretty penny on recording and producing a mini album, a little more than a demo but less than a full album.

We bought a ton of records, vinyl, because that’s what’s popular now—we’re popular on Soundcloud already and I’ve even been able to get us onto Spotify, but in terms of physical purchases, vintage is back: vinyl and band t-shirts. I have boxes of the shirts and albums that we hadn’t sold, and last night, I managed to sell a ton of them. I feel proud of how well we did and I can’t wait to tell everyone, so I keep my mouth shut about my brother, his drinking, and his potential groupie.

“All right, you bunch of hungover buzzkills,” I begin dryly, and Locke cracks a smile even when no one else does. “You guys haven’t even asked about sales. Wanna know how many tickets we sold last night?”

“The venue seemed sold out,” Samuel comments, and everyone else seems bored or sleepy, so I sigh.

“We did sell out. We only sold half online, so I was worried, but at the door, we ended up with standing room only, and the owners of the venue want us to call them first if we do another tour next year.”

Axel whoops and my brother puts two fingers in his mouth to whistle loudly while Samuel applauds me, and I blush slightly. Locke just keeps smiling at me, leaned forward with his elbows resting on his thighs.

“Hold your applause, you guys did all the hard work.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Axel pipes up. Locke raises his eyebrow, glancing over at Axel as if shocked by what he’s said. “You doallthe real work around here, princess.”

Locke shifts on the lobby couch, his shoulder stiff and seeming to almost widen as he turns toward Axel. I just watch, curiously at first, a blush heating up my cheeks.

One of my biggest weaknesses is praise, and Axel Jermaine seems to have picked up on that. It’s not the first time he’s complimented my work or my looks, and every time, my skin heats up and I hope that it doesn’t show on my face. Even if I’m not interested in Axel in that way, a handsome man telling me I did a good job makes me blush a little.

Today, it’s clear that my expression is obvious, since Axel smirks at me and Locke frowns in my direction.

Locke never likes it much when I receive compliments, I think, and it causes a pang of sadness in my gut. I shouldn’t care what Locke Kincaid, or any of the Spades, thinks other than my brother, but I do. Especially Locke, and I can’t quite figure out why his opinion matters to me more than the others’.

I suppose it must be because he always seems against me in some way, and honestly, that makes sense.

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