Page 41 of Madden

“I still think you should give him a chance,” my dad says, shoving his phone into his pocket.

Madden clears his throat, and my father stiffens, my eyes going wide. This isn’t at all how I expected this to go.

“Hello, sir,” Madden says, holding his hand out to my father.

Even wearing yesterday’s clothes, his shirt being wrinkled and his hair disheveled, he looks as confident as he did the day we first met.

My father looks at Madden and then over at me, his face stoic and unreadable. I do my best to maintain my composure, my face softening, and I lift my mouth into a smile.

“Hello,” he drags out. There’s a question there, but he skips past it. “My name is Clint Granite. Forgive me, who are you?”

Madden’s eyes flick from him over to me, no doubt picking up on the change in my last name, before returning to my father.

“Madden, Madden Cole, sir.”

He shakes his hand, and my father turns to me.

“You’ll have to forgive me. Brielle hadn’t told me about you or that she had a guest.”

“Oh, uh, well, actually, she did, sir. I’m Brielle’s friend,” Madden emphasizes. “The friend she met with the other night at Granite for dinner.”

“The rock star.” He nods, his eyes trailing over Madden as if inspecting him to see if he measures up to his expectations. “Right, right.”

“Madden and I were introduced through a friend a few weeks back,” I lie. I can feel his eyes on me.

Madden opened this can of worms by cutting in and introducing himself. He’ll have to go along with it until I have a chance to explain.

“He’s in town on business, and we met up for dinner. Isn’t that right, Madden?”

He nods. “Correct, sir.”

“Speaking of being in town visiting, Madden will be flying out in a few hours to head back home, and I promised to give him a ride. I’m sorry to cut you off, Daddy, but we have to get going. Can I call you later when I get home?”

“Sure.” He nods, stepping away from the two of us. “How about you stop by tomorrow afternoon? Your mother was just saying how much she misses you. I’m sure she’d love to have you home for lunch. Your brothers will be by too. It’ll be nice to have all of us together again.”

I force a smile and nod. “Sounds wonderful.”

His face warms for the first time since he got here, and he hugs me, kissing me on the side of my head.

“It was nice to meet you, sir,” Madden says as he passes by.

He nods, flicking his gaze over to Madden like he somehow forgot he was there.

“Yes, thank you.”

He turns and holds his hand up in a wave before disappearing down the hall. Madden turns his attention back to me, but we both remain silent until we hear the familiar sound of the elevator ding and the door shut.

As soon as he’s gone, I squeeze my eyes shut and sigh. The tension in the air shifts. I don’t even know how to begin to explain this to Madden, so I turn to where I left my coffee cup waiting on the counter.

I pull out the carafe and pour myself a cup. Normally, I would add creamer and sugar to sweeten it up, but not today. I don’t even bother waiting before taking a drink and wince when it burns my tongue.

“The guys and I started playing together when we were about twelve years old. It was not long after my parents bought me drums for Christmas. It was supposed to be a hobby. At the time, I think my father thought it would help me take out a little aggression, maybe tire me out. I was a bit wound up back then.”

I set the mug down on the counter and turn to face him, leaning against the counter to listen.

“Tysin had been working for months, doing odd jobs around the neighborhood like mowing, landscaping, that sort of thing. He saved for a few months to earn enough money to buy his guitar. We both started playing together and came up with the idea to start the band. Brix was always the one taking charge, at least when it came to our music, although he doesn’t have a responsible bone in his body, so everything else fell onto me.

“The more we practiced, the more we started to take it seriously. We knew we wanted to find a way to take A Rebels Havoc all the way. The sky wasn’t even a limit for us. My father was okay with us playing in the garage for a while until he got sick of listening to us and kicked us out one day. We played at Brix’s house for a while before, eventually, Tysin moved out and was living on his own, so we started practicing there. By that point, things started to pick up. We played some shows around Carolina Beach and other local towns. Whiskey Barrel was the first place to add us to their regular lineup. We’d play there two to three weekends a month.

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