“Declan!” Trevor yelled through the door. “Let me in! I can hear you playing, so I know you’re in there. Open the damn door!” His pounding set Kitty on edge, and I could’ve sworn she sighed as she walked toward the door. I could tell she didn’t want to see what was on the other side any more than I did, but Trevor was just stubborn enough to stay out there all day.

“Relax, girl. I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can.” I patted her and then grabbed her collar before I opened the door, just in case she decided to run for it. “Shut up, man. You’re scaring my dog.” I left the door open and pulled her into the living room, hearing Trev close it behind himself.

“I lost my keys at some point last night.” Which also meant he’d lost the spare for my apartment. Great. “Can I grab yours?”

I let Kitty go and went over to the TV stand. The key was in a small drawer, mixed in with remotes, pens, and some other random shit no one ever needs and no one ever gets rid of.

Trevor flopped onto the baby-sized couch that came with the place and stretched out. His head rested on one end, and his feet hung off the other. I tossed his spare key to him, but his eyes were already closed, so it landed on his belly. He didn’t react.

I sat down in the chair opposite him. Kitty sat on one of my feet, still watching him suspiciously. It was probably the smell—he reeked of booze and sweat.

“Kitty thinks you should take a shower.”

“Kitty’s favorite scent is Ass du Jour, so forgive me if I’m not too worried about her opinion.”

“Fine, I think you should shower before your stench works its way into that couch. I’d like to get my security deposit back.” I reached out with a foot and nudged him in the leg.

“As soon as you get the apartment to stop spinning, I’m gone.”

“The apartment?” I sighed. “Yeah, sure.”

“You got something to kill the pain in my head? Make it ten somethings.”

If anyone else had made the comment, I would’ve let it go. But Trevor wasn’t allowed to. How did he not know that? I stared at him, dumbfounded, while he just lay there with his eyes still closed, acting as if he hadn’t made a horribly inappropriate joke.

“Don’t fucking say shit like that.” My hands gripped the arms of the chair, and I kicked him harder. I wanted to do it standing, to have my full leverage. How many times had I wanted to hit him, to hurt him for everything he’d put me through?

He twisted his head to look at me. “Oh, come on, Dec. That was years ago.” As if I didn’t know that. “Different times, man. Everything’s great now.”

“Everything’s great?” I snapped. “The only difference between then and now is that I’m the miserable one, and you’re killing yourself slowly instead of in one swift shot.”

He sat up, staring at me. “Why are you miserable? Is it Moguli giving us the whole we-love-you-but speech?” He scoffed. “Nah, it’s that girl giving you the love-you-but speech, isn’t it?”

That girl hadn’t said any of those words, actually. “Kinda.” Because, unfortunately, every thought I had was about that girl lately. But not this one. “She’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

I laughed, throwing up my hands, afraid to tell him the truth. Pissed that he chose to focus on that instead of his slow and steady death wish.

“What’s the other part, Dec?” Suddenly, he sounded sober, all blur of hangover gone.

“Never mind.”

“Fuck you. Tell me. Is it me? Am I making you miserable?”

I let out a deep breath.

“Wow.” He leaned back on the couch. “Okay, I’m making you miserable, and yet this is the very first time I’ve heard anything about it. Way to use those big balls of yours, Dec.”

“It’s not a big deal.” I grabbed my guitar and slipped the strap over my head. Not to play, though. My guitar had been a shield for as long as I could remember, some wood and strings I hid behind whenever I didn’t know how else to communicate all the shit going through my mind.

“If it weren’t a big deal, you would’ve said annoyed or pissed-off. But you didn’t. You said miserable. When someone like you uses a word like miserable to describe himself it automatically becomes it a big deal.”

“Someone like me?”

He shrugged. “Someone who has his shit together, who sees the bad but doesn’t give up looking until he finds the good.”

Was that who I was? “I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

“Thank God. Finally, some proof you’re human. Okay, then, spill. Or do you think I can’t handle it? Do you think I’m too delicate and weak to know? What the fuck do you want, Dec? You want me to read your mind?”

I shook my head. I’d been avoiding this conversation for years, putting up with all kinds of shit I didn’t like because I didn’t want to cause trouble. But I was sick of that, and Trevor was right—he was a grown man, despite how he acted. He deserved to know the truth, and I deserved to have the life I wanted. If I didn’t say something now, I’d be stuck in this for years. And those years would feel like an eternity.

“Fine, you want to know what I want? Or how ‘bout what I don’t want?” I twisted my body to look at him straight-on. “I don’t want to be in the band. I haven’t wanted to for a while now, but I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“Motherfucker.” His eyes narrowed. “You want to go solo? After everything we’ve done together to get where we are, you want to dump me on my fucking ass and go solo.”

“No, you shithead. I don’t want to go solo. I don’t want any of this.” I held on to my guitar as if it were the last life jacket on the Titanic. “I hate performing. I hate being told what to do. I hate being styled. Don’t you? Fuck, if one more person tries to tell me I should wear guyliner, I’m going to break a perfectly good guitar over their idiot head.”

The longer I ranted, the wider his eyes got. My guess—he probably couldn’t fathom why anyone wouldn’t want whatever fame we’d garnered. His mind couldn’t wrap around the idea that the thing he’d dreamed about for over a decade was the thing I hated most about my life.

I took a deep breath when I ran out of shit to say, shit I’d been holding back for at least the last few years, probably a lot longer.

“So…” he said after a minute. “I’m not sure I understand what you want.”

“Didn’t you hear anything I ju—?” I tossed up my arms up instead of strangling him. “Come on, man. Could you please just take something seriously for once?”

He was silent, staring at me and scratching the scruff on his chin. “What I meant was, do you want to quit because you hate the music or because you hate me?”

I didn’t even pause. “Neither. I love both of you, even though you piss me the fuck off almost constantly. I don’t want to quit our friendship, and I don’t want to quit music. I just don’t want everything to be about Self Defense. Remember when we used to talk about normal shit before the band became our entire lives? I want to keep writing and playing music. I just don’t want to do it for other people. I want to do it for myself. Does that make sense?”

If I were talking to anyone else, I wouldn’t have had to ask that question. But Trevor had been wearing blinders since the day our first agent came backstage and told us we had a real shot at going pro. Ever since then, the only thing Trev had cared about was reaching that goal. Well, that and all the perks that came with it.

He stood and came over to me, motioning for me to stand. When I did, slowly, he smiled. As soon as I set my guitar down next to me, he smacked me in the chest. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

I stiffened, suspicious. No way could someone recover that fast after hearing that their best friend wanted to kill their only goal in life. Could they? Had I misjudged him that badly? After all this time?

“Shit, man.” He shook my hand, then pulled me into a half hug, smacking my back a lot harder than my chest. “I can’t believe you’ve been holding all that crap in for so long. What’s your problem?”

“Too many to count,” I said, laughing, relieved and shocked as hell by his reaction but wanting it to be real.

My happiness fell a little as we parted, and I saw how forced his smile looked. His teeth were showing, but his lips were tight, and the smile didn’t even make it halfway to his eyes.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” I asked. “We could talk about it more. Maybe come up with a plan.”

“The plan’s already been made, dude. No more Defense. Done. It’s that easy. I’m not going to force my bestie to do something he hates doing.”

The words coming out of his mouth were great—exactly what I wanted to hear. But I couldn’t help wondering if I’d been right the first time. Nothing was this easy. Nothing came true just because somebody said it. That wasn’t how life worked. It wasn’t how people worked.

“Even if I’m not in the band anymore, you don’t have to break it up. I mean, you guys could still make it happen. I could still write the songs, and Pete could sing lead.”

He laughed. “No offense, Dec, but neither of us is as stupid as we look. Without a pretty face out front, our chances of going prime time get a whole lot worse.”

I could’ve named ten incredible bands off the top of my head whose lead singers weren’t easy on anyone’s eyes, but unfortunately, things were different now. With the advent of YouTube and constant cruelty of trolls and the media, the industry nowadays was more about celebrity than music. Sure, there were exceptions, but the more idiotic, immaterial boxes you could check off, the better your shot would be.

“Besides, I’ve been thinking something similar lately.”

I jerked back a step. “I thought the band was your everything.”

“It was…is. But I’m tired, man. Too much partying, not enough pussy.”

“You’re a pig, you know that?”

He busted up. “I told you—I’m not as stupid as I look. All this shit is just a lot more intense than I thought it would be, and I’m not good at moderation.”

“So, you’re really not pissed at me?”

He pinched both of my cheeks and forced my head side to side. “How could anyone be pissed at a face like this one?”

I swatted him away, but he’d already let go. “Ever the shithead.”

“A man’s gotta stay true to who he is.” He went back to the couch and grabbed his apartment key. “We’re still gonna jam, though, right? You come up with the tune and the lyrics, and I pretend like I’m helping?”

“Always, my brother.”

“Hey, have you taken that song into the studio already? The one you were playing when I got here.”

“It’s not even close to being ready.” I shook my head, wishing he hadn’t heard it through the door. Not only was the song not good enough to share yet, all the emotion I’d put into it was still a big mess in my head. “It needs a lot of work before I let anyone hear it.”

“Except me,” he said, smiling. “Play it again.”

“Now?” I asked, picking up my guitar without thinking. Part of me was proud that he’d liked what he’d heard enough to want to hear it again. The other part was terrified I’d break down halfway through if I actually played it for him.

“No, the next time I’m pounding on your door. Of course, now.”

“It’s not finished yet.”

“Then play what is finished.”

When I realized he’d never give up, I nodded slowly. “It’s still really rough. There are a couple lines I’m not crazy about, and—”

“Shut up and play, Dec.”

I sat down and set my guitar on my lap, taking my time and pretending the perfectly tuned strings needed adjusting.

“How ‘bout you play the damn song before I go bald and need a hearing aid?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll play.” I kept my head down because the song and the pain that had inspired it were too fresh to look anyone in the face. I fucked up the second verse a little, and my fingering wasn’t as fast as I wanted it to be in the chorus, but I got through the whole fucking thing without bawling like a little kid.

After the last note, neither of us said anything for a minute. When I finally looked up at him, his face reflected the kind of thoughtful calm I hadn’t seen since before all this started.

“Told you it wasn’t ready yet,” I mumbled.

“Are you kidding? That was some good shit, man. Really good shit. I could hear your heart in it. It’s been a while since you put your heart into something like that.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It has.”

“Send it to me. I don’t care if it’s a shit recording. I just want to listen to it again.”

“I can do that.” I glanced at my computer, thinking about how easy it was to record a track and email it to someone nowadays. “But it’s for your ears only.”

“Of course.” He slapped his hands together and smiled. “Now, I’m going home to catch up on the z’s I missed last night. Then I’ll talk to the guys and let them know Self Defense is splitting.”

“I think I should do it. Don’t you?”

He shook his head as he walked to the door. “It’ll be better coming from me. Plus, if they need someone to punch, we don’t want anything to mess up that pretty face of yours.”

I smiled. “I told you—just because I’m not in Self Defense, doesn’t mean you guys can’t keep it going.”

“Oh, dear, sweet little Declan,” he said, laughing. “That’s never going to happen. We can’t write, can’t sing, and I don’t think I could handle being the only gorgeous one left after you leave.”

“Don’t make that call yet, Trev. Let’s talk to the guys together.”

“Fine. Tomorrow night? They’ll both take it better if they have a couple beers in them.”

“One beer,” I said, shaking my head. “Telling them after more than one will only make things harder.”

“Good point. Especially with how weepy Sam gets when he drinks hard liquor.”

“Then maybe we can come back here after. Get all nostalgic and play some of our old tunes.”

“Double shit, no. We gotta go out to raise some hell before our fame disappears. Our last hurrah while we’re potentially famous could make us forever infamous!”

Nothing could sound less appealing than that, actually. “I’m still dealing with being dumped, so I might not be any fun.”

“All the more reason to go out, get shit-faced, and let a random long-legged beauty in stripper heels take advantage of you.”

“I’ll let you know.” We shook hands and bro-hugged again at the door. “So, we’re good?”

“Always, bro.”

“Thanks for understanding, Trev.”

“Thanks for coming clean. But next time, maybe do it a year or so earlier?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I’ll do that.”

“And send me that song before you forget.”

“I’ll do that, too.”

That had gone ten thousand times better than I’d imagined it would. Almost made me wonder if I was missing something. I knew how much the band meant to him, and knowing that my happiness meant more than that left me speechless.

I watched him walk to the elevator and press the button. It would be too fucking Hallmark or romantic comedy if I stayed in the open doorway, waiting and hoping he’d turn around to see me again and then reading something into it, so I shut the door and grabbed my laptop.

After I recorded the song and emailed the file to Trevor, I went into my bedroom and got under the covers with Kitty. We stayed there for the rest of the day—her snoring peacefully, and me wondering what would happen next. At least it couldn’t get any worse, right?