The knocking sound hit my ears a few seconds after I saw Bennett in the doorway and grinned thinking about lightning storms and counting the seconds until the thunderclap.

"What are you smiling at?" our manager wanted to know. Jovially. Like my best friend. I knew he wasn't my friend, I'm not that naive, but it was still nice to feel like I had someone in my corner.

"Light travels faster than sound," I told him. My voice was slurring a lot more than it should have. I hadn't even had much to drink.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, though he clearly already knew the answer.

The answer was that I was drunk. I'd snuck off to calm myself down and somehow slipped right past happy and into falling down drunk. This was happening more and more lately, but I didn't really mind. "Nothing," I told him, because if I pretended that there wasn't a problem, then he could go on pretending he wasn't responsible for giving me my first sip of bourbon at the age of fourteen.

His eyes slid over me. I was slumping. I tried to straighten up. "Why'd you drink so much?" he asked. "Are you nervous or something?"

I laughed. At least it was an attempt at laughter, though I sort of lost interest in amusement halfway through the sound. "Why would I be nervous?" I demanded, sliding back down into a slump. "I've been doing this my whole life. Nothing to be nervous about."

We were the most valuable stars in Bennett's stable of pop idols. He needed the King Brothers way more than we needed him and he knew it too.

Which is why he didn't say anything more about how drunk I was right now. He just reached into his pocket. "Here," he said, walking over and slapping the pills down on the makeup table. "Something to help."

I nodded and scooped them up, washing them down with another shot of whiskey.

That was ten minutes ago. Now I was propped up on an interview couch. Quite literally propped up, with Jonah's shoulder on one side and Beau's on the other, like a pair of bookends to keep me from falling over.

"And how do you feel about Jonah?" the interviewer was asking me right at that moment.

I pasted an 'aw shucks' grin on my face. I'd answered this question seventy billion different ways over the past ten years, but one more wasn't going to kill me. "Huh!" I said, glancing very obviously over at my brother who, true to form, was pretending to be frightened of my answer. "No, Jonah's great," I said, looking back at the interviewer so I didn't have to see Jonah puff up with the compliment. "He's the heart and soul of this band, I think."

Right on cue, Finn called, "hey!" I lifted my hand to deflect his half-hearted punch, while the interviewer, Kitty? Katie? Whatever her name was, giggled appreciatively as Beau tried to play peacemaker.

What's her face, the interviewer, was talking to Beau about something that was making him blush and look down. We all played the part of bashful lover from time to time, but for Beau it seemed real as anything. I twisted on my stool to catch him shaking his head. "It's hard," he was saying. "But I try to put my family first, you know?

"Would you be adverse to dating a fan?" the interviewer pressed.

Beau's eyes went wide for a second, his usual panicked tell. Finn, with that twin connection that moved on a faster level than all of us, jumped in. "Course not," he said, moving into Beau's light to give him time to compose himself. "We love our fans the most."

"Now I just love the story of how you all got started in the business," KittyKatie cooed. "Tell me about that?"

Jonah nodded, taking the lead. "Well we started singing together at festivals around our town. Summer time in Upstate New York there's a festival like every weekend."

"Because summer is so short," Finn deadpanned, to laughter.

"And our parents were there," Beau added. "Contrary to popular belief, they were there and supervising - ."

"From far away," I finished. My voice sounded slurred to me and I saw Jonah's head twitch. I resolved to keep quiet the rest of the interview.

"It was fun." Jonah finished. "We made money to get comics and buy candy, and it was a blast. Our parents were there, watching the whole time, but like at a safe distance, you know? They knew not to interfere." He grinned. "We wouldn't have let them.

KittyKate was nodding along like she knew this all by heart. She wasn't any older than Jonah. I wondered if she grew up with our posters on her wall. If she'd been part of the Princess Sisters, the official King Brothers fan club. "Your sister played with you back then, right?"

Finn leaned forward and steepled his fingers. "Yeah. Claire is a great singer." He paused. "Better than Jonah."

Jonah cleared his throat as KittyKate laughed. "We started playing in the basement, but it wasn't long before our father kicked us out to the garage."

"Which wasn't a garage so much as an extra house on the property," Beau added.

Jonah nodded. "Our family's lived there for a while, and we're a pretty big family so we have to keep building houses."

"Our Uncle Gid actually lives in that space now," Finn said. He grinned. "He made it actually livable. Somehow."

"It's not close, like it's down the way back in the property," I piped up. My voice sounded better now, at least to my ears. "So we could be loud as we wanted. No one to bother except the squirrels."

We were all talking faster now, getting caught up in the story. "If mom wanted us to come home for dinner she'd call the phone," Jonah said.

"But if we don't come right away - " Beau started.

"She'd cut the power," Finn finished.

"Yeah. Mom always insisted we eat together," Jonah added.

"We kind of still do?" I pointed out.

"Yeah," Jonah shot me a grateful look and I could tell he appreciated that I was making this easy. "Family dinners were a thing on the Kings of the World tour."

"Because when you're touring together you're all a family," I finished. Hot guilt was there in my stomach again, and I wished I had a drink to cool it.

"What would you do if you weren't in music?" KittyKate asked.

"Hmm. I don't know," Jonah said, looking at us. "Something in radio maybe?"

"Yeah," said Finn. "Where you could talk a lot."

KittyKate laughed like this was the funniest thing she'd ever heard and now I was wondering if those posters on her wall were all of Finn. "Will you ever break up, you think?"

The hot guilt in my belly sloshed around, making me feel nauseous, but Jonah was quick to laugh. "Well we're brothers. So, it's kind of hard."

"But when it feels like we're not doing well any more, maybe?" Beau added.

KittyKate nodded. "Like when the thrill is gone?"

I blinked. Outside I kept my face perfectly neutral, but her words clanged in my head like a bell "Yeah," was all I managed to say.

KittyKate didn't notice the effect her words had on me, because she was still prattling on. "You're the most successful boy band in history - ."

"See," I interrupted, trying to sit up straighter. "That's not right."

"What's that?

"Everyone calls us a boy band, you know? But we're a band." I could see her face falling and struggled to keep things light. "Just, I mean we're all boys. I mean, sometimes we're not sure about Jonah." He smiled instead of punching me, though I could tell it was a struggle. "So in that sense I guess yeah, we're a boy band. But we play our own instruments."

KittyKate picked up on that. "Gabe, I hear you have been working on your solos?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Right. Next album we're going to rock the fuck out."

KittyKate's eyes went wide. Everyone sort of stiffened and she looked at the camera person and sliced across her neck, and Jonah growled and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

I looked around at the sudden panic, confused. "What?"

"Dude," Beau murmured. "You swore."

"We have to dump out of delay," Katie - yeah her name was definitely Katie, I was paying attention now but it was too late - was all icy business. "In five, four, three." She pasted her smile back on again. "Sorry for the issue there," she said into the camera with a laugh. "Live TV and all. We're back with the King Brothers..."

I shook my head. "I didn't swear."

"Shut up," Jonah hissed. "Just... don't talk."

"You want me here, but you don't want me to talk, huh?" I seethed. I looked around for Noelle even though I knew she wasn't anywhere on set. Then I started looking for an escape even though I was trapped here.

No I wasn't. I already knew my escape. I just had to make it.

"I'm done," I announced, standing up. I smiled to the camera. "Have to get to a store before it closes."

"It's ten in the morning!" Katie cried.

But I was already ripping my mic off my chest and shoving it at Jonah. "You handle it," I told my brother. "You're much better at it than I am."