Maybe if we do get a label up and running we could get Keyton back into the scene. Shithead or not, he’s fucking talented as hell and his pipes are better than any of ours. Depending on who you ask, anyway.
Taking in all the ways this place hasn’t changed, I can’t help but grin when I hear the opening bass line ofYahtzee, Motherfucker!start filtering through the speakers.
That was our first hit single, the second song we released from our first album,The Tomb You Crave.
Then I start to giggle when I think about how unrelated that title really is.
Mark wrote that song about his high school girlfriend who cheated on him, broke his fucking heart into a million pieces and didn’t show any remorse. It’s emotional and deep, it’s angry as fuck, and it has nothing to do with Yahtzee.
That was the name of Granny Vee’s chihuahua who regularly peed on Mark’s clothes and shit in his tuba case back in the day.Yahtzee, you motherfuckerwas something he shouted thousands of times and that dog was still alive when I met the boys, still ruining everything that belonged to Markus, and somehow that wound up the title of our biggest song to date. We even put a picture of Yahtzee in the album sleeve after it went platinum.
“You still with the guys?” Key asks as he comes out of the back holding a case and something else.
I nod. “They’re down the street.” Probably losing their minds because I’ve been gone longer than twenty minutes and am not pacing in front of the hardware store like I said I’d be.
“Wasn’t sure. Saw your name in the news again but nothing about the band. Except how Luck was the one?—”
“Leonor Allan!”
My shoulders scrunch all the way to my ears as we both slowly turn to see the man himself march through the doors and plow through the recording equipment, nearly taking out two mixing boards as the boys chase after him.
“I swear to God you’re trying to give me a fucking heart attack,” Lucky growls seconds before he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder. “We’re getting the hell out of here and when we do, I’m tying your ass down somewhere and not letting you up until I buy a goddamn leash. Did you already… Keyton?”
I roll my eyes that are level with his ass as my boyfriends all exchangeholy shitsandhow the fuck are youswith Key, the blood rushing to my head while I dangle from Lucky like a rag doll.
“Put her down, baby,” Pete says as his boots come into my line of sight. “Don’t need her passing out.”
With a sigh, Lucius does what Pete says and as soon as I’m upright, Key sticks out his hand. The one holding a picture frame.
“Pop took this down after shit hit the fan.”God, he has no tact. I do appreciate his honesty, though. “Thought it wasn’t right to leave it up for people to gawk at.”
Grinning like an idiot, I wipe off the layer of dust as the boys crowd around me to get a look at what I’m holding; the photo of the five of us with Mikey on Lucky’s very last day as employee here, decked out in the stupid khakis and polo he had to wear with the store’s logo on it.
We look so young, sohappy, and we look pretty fucking untouchable.
It’s crazy to think those five fresh faced idiots are us. We might not be wiser but we’ve definitely aged, and holding this photo in my hands has that fact glaring up at me.
I don’t know what I thought would happen when I walked in here but it wasn’t anything that’s taken place.
Getting hit with so much fucking nostalgia, seeing Keyton and hearing about some of what I missed while I was buried in my pit. Buying a goddamn ukulele.
Hastings isn’t here, he’s never coming back, and whether he’s been reincarnated or not, I know what I need to do to keep these feelings alive.
It’s time to make some beautiful fucking music with my boys and not a goddamn thing is going to stop me.
But first things first, we’re getting fucking promo photos because I have a very loud personal statement to make.
35
MARK
Impatiently drumming my fingers against the top of the desk, I repeat the beat of the song we’ve been working on, humming here and there while I bounce my knee and visualize each of our separate parts.
The heavy bass line, how it bounces off of Luck’s bass drum and the way he punishes the double pedals and drills the toms, how they accentuate each other and fill out the beginning of the song almost ominously. I can see Pete’s rhythm, I can feel how the notes are thick and weighted, the eerie and lovely vibe emanating from those strings until Norm starts to join in, the guitars practically singing to each other while slowly building to this chaotic and beautiful explosion that smacks you right in the face. It’s like a long fuse with a tiny blue flame, one that grows and builds, sparking into something white hot and fierce until that bomb immediately drops into one of the dirtiest breakdowns we’ve ever written with some of the most guttural sounds I’ve ever heard come from our girl, powering over the top of all of that to bring it together.
With a small smile, I close my eyes and picture her, how alive Leonor looked while we worked out the pieces we’d alreadywritten and stitched them together with what we wrote on the fly. It’s always so goddamn magical when we play together, how we justknowwhat’s supposed to happen without having to explain it but when Leo is in the space she’s been in lately, the shit that we end up creating is downright otherworldly.
She sounded so fucking good.
