“You weren’t even together. You haven’t been since high school. I’ll get over Ari as soon as you’re over Sydney, all right?”
“Only one difference—I’m f**king other chicks, and you aren’t.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t Vin, and this wasn’t Sydney. This was Ari. I only had about two weeks left before I would see her, and I wasn’t going to f**k up between now and then.
Hollis walked up to us with a big smile and clapped his hands together. “You guys ready for the biggest performance you’ve ever experienced?”
“Fuck yeah!” Vin cried.
“Grant?” Hollis asked.
“Course I’m ready.”
“Hollis, bro, you need to convince Grant to get over his ex. He won’t listen to me anymore.”
I glared at Vin and crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn’t going to talk about this shit with Hollis.
“Ah, relationship trouble? This about the girl who walked in at the ski lodge?”
I ground my teeth and nodded.
“Not the first time I’ve seen that happen unfortunately. That’s just the life, the way it is. Girls don’t stick around long in this environment.”
“See, bro?” Vin said, slapping my arm. “Go f**k that girl.”
Hollis glanced over in the direction where Vin was pointing. “Ah, Jaci. I bet you’d like her, Grant. She floats around with the band.”
Groupie. Fucking groupie slut. That was all I could think. Suddenly, I was repulsed by the thought instead of encouraged like I always had been.
“That’s the kind of girl you should be hanging around with anyway. No real attachments. She understands the life, and when you guys become famous, she won’t make a scene,” Hollis said with a laugh.
Shit, he’s f**king serious.
“This is the shit I’ve been telling him,” Vin agreed as if what Hollis had said made perfect f**king sense.
“I’ll introduce you after the show. Come to think of it, you’d probably like her friend Jennifer, too. In the meantime, you guys are up.” Hollis gestured to a side door where Miller and McAvoy were already standing, waiting to go onstage.
I could tell they were a bit nervous by the look on Miller’s face and the habitual way McAvoy flipped his drumstick.
I didn’t even have time to tell Hollis I had no interest in Jaci or Jennifer whether or not they were friends who would probably let me take them home together.
We were ushered to the side of the stage. Someone announced us, and the crowd erupted into applause as we walked onstage. To my credit, I kept my emotions in check, but this was, without a doubt, the biggest venue we’d ever played. The pit was teeming with people on their feet, screaming our name.
Once I was onstage, there was nothing else in the world. This was where I belonged, where I’d always wanted to be. I grasped the microphone in my hand and took over. “Happy New Year, New York City!”
The screams were deafening, even without earpieces for the show.
“We’re ContraBand, coming to you from Princeton, New Jersey. While you might not know us yet, I’m sure you’re going to be screaming our name all night long.”
I launched into “Hemorrhage” at McAvoy’s lead, and I lost myself in the performance. Feeding off of the crowd’s energy, we played phenomenally.
I wished Aribel could be here to experience it, but she was in Boston, probably going to fancy parties and trying to forget about me.
But I was goddamn certain that no one at the venue was going to forget about us tonight. We blew through our set like it was the easiest thing we’d ever done. I tossed a guitar pick into the crowd, and girls screamed as they literally clawed at each other to get it. I expected this behavior for The Drift…but for us? We were nobody. But maybe…maybe we were becoming somebody tonight.
Then, we hit “Life Raft.” I’d insisted that we keep it on the set list. It tethered me to Ari, and even though I knew I was emotionally unstable, I’d wanted to sing it for her. I’d wanted to imagine her in the crowd and remind her of what she meant to me.
Except now that I was here, it was the last song I wanted to sing. The truth was…Ari wasn’t here. She couldn’t hear me sing to her. She wouldn’t get to listen to me reminding her how she had saved me.
Pain pierced my heart as Vin picked at the melody I’d been strumming all winter break.
“This next song is our latest.” I looked out across the thousands of people screaming for us, waiting expectantly. My breath caught in my throat, and then I envisioned Ari out there, listening. It made it easier to say, “This one is for every time you’ve ever fallen in love. We call it ‘Life Raft.’”
Chapter 44: Aribel
I gasped.
Straight-up gasped.
If everyone else around me wasn’t screaming at the top of their lungs, then someone other than Cheyenne might have noticed my shock. Did Grant McDermott just confess his love for me onstage in front of thousands of people?
I reached out and grabbed Cheyenne’s arm to steady myself. I couldn’t breathe. This was the most unreal moment of my life. I’d come here to make amends, and he’d gone and done that. Whatever I had been planning to say was sure to pale in comparison.
Love.
Well…fuck. That was all I had. He’d knocked me down to four-letter expletives.
“Are you going to be okay?” Cheyenne asked.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t know.”
Whatever Cheyenne said next was lost on me as Grant sang our song. Despite the gentle quality of his voice, I could tell he was struggling to get the words out.
You’re my life raft in an endless ocean.
They ate at him. They showed every single emotion that he’d been sending through those text messages over break. He missed me, and he was hurting.
You saved me from drowning.
You saved me from myself.
And everything about him in that moment showed me how much the words affected him. He was drowning, and I wasn’t there to pull him out of it. I felt my heart breaking all over again.
The song ended, and without another word, Grant stormed offstage. The other guys stared after him in shock. This clearly had not been part of their plan. Grant had just disappeared. I needed to get to him.
Miller recovered himself enough to grab the microphone and thank the crowd for coming out to see them. It cut their show off by at least three songs. They always closed with “Letting You.” Something was wrong.