CHAPTER 36

JARED

Dom inspected his drum kit as diligently as a man about to blow his entire savings on a used vehicle. If the kit had tires, I had no doubt he would have kicked them. Apparently satisfied, he gave a curt nod and lifted his grey eyes to mine. "You ready for this?"

"Born ready." Not the most original of answers, but it was true. Nervous energy, the good kind that kept you on your toes, thrummed through me. I was ready to kick this interview's ass.

Crew members swarmed around us, loud in their organized chaos. I'd learned over the years that these setups could get noisy, hectic, and generally seem like no one knew what either they or the person next to them were doing.

What was really happening, though, was sort of like what I imagined happened in a beehive. Everyone knew exactly which part was theirs to play, and it all came together seamlessly in the end.

We were at the studio where the interview was taking place, about to perform our sound check for the song we would be doing after it was over. A multicolored kilim carpet was rolled out across a part of the interviewer's studio and would be our stage for the day.

Dom's kit was set up at the back with Matt next to him. Caleb and Nick were set up to flank me, center stage and a few steps ahead of them.

While they messed around with their instruments, tuning and checking their babies were okay after the trip out here, I saw Alicia walking up to me. Wearing a killer skirt that hugged her hips and thighs like it had been stitched onto her and skimmed the tops of her knees with a formal jacket, she looked every bit the cool professional she was.

Her hair was pinned up and her makeup minimal. The look screamed, “you can look, but you can never touch.”

Except I could touch her, and I honestly couldn't wait to be the one to watch her shed her business layers later, until she was writhing underneath me and begging for more. I smirked as she approached, giving her a long once-over Caleb definitely wouldn't have approved of.

Luckily, my dear worry wart of a brother was too immersed in his guitar to pay attention to any inappropriate places my eyes were lingering. Alicia's eyes darted from one of my bandmates to the next, silently checking up on each one. She came to a stop next to me and flashed me a tight smile.

"Everything okay here?"

"We're good. Ready to rock this joint. They’re not going to know what hit them." The song we'd chosen to play today was one of our new ones, and it was the first time we'd be putting it out there into the world.

One of the more recent ones I'd written, it was about losing your childhood home but was open to interpretation. No doubt a lot of people would speculate that it was about losing your first love. That was the thing about music, it could be about and mean different things to different people, and that was okay with me.

Alicia's lips curled into an encouraging smile, her expression softer now. "Good to hear. You're going to be great, I know it. Just be yourself, well, a toned-down version of yourself, but yourself nonetheless."

I couldn't stop my mouth from curving upward as I hiked an eyebrow. "A toned-down version of myself, huh?"

Pursing her lips, I could see she was trying her best not to laugh. "Exactly, like the Emperor in standard definition instead of HD. A little less sharp around the edges."

"I'm all me, all the time." I winked, holding back a chuckle.

"That's what I'm worried about," Alicia told me, sounding like she was only half joking.

Putting my hand on her shoulder, I squeezed lightly. "Don't worry. I know what needs to be done."

"Break a leg," she told me. Gerry called her name from somewhere in the throng of people around us, and she hurried away.

Our sound check went off without a hitch, a good sign for the day as far as I was concerned. Before I knew it, we were prepped and ready, and the interview was underway.

The interviewers were two young guys with spiked hair, casually dressed in jeans and band shirts. Mike and Andy, the supposedly dynamic duo who hosted Entertainment Talk Today, were laughing with us and looked like they were getting a kick out of hearing our tamer stories from the last tour.

I was damn proud of us so far. The interview was going well, and if we could keep it up, we actually just might get through this one unscathed. Hell, if we kept it up, the show could have Alicia's intended consequence of amping up the hype around the new album even more.

Nick, Dom, and I were grouped together on one couch too small to fit all three of us while Caleb and Matt were on another.

The show was set up to look like a bunch of people talking in a living room. If your living room had bright, hot lights, a studio audience of one hundred of your closest friends, and cameras recording your every move.

We stuck to the safer topics Alicia outlined for us, but I couldn't relax despite how smoothly things were going. Mike and Andy took turns questioning us, making sure they got answers from all of us.

“So gentlemen, we like to play a little game on this show called Quickfire. We ask questions our viewers submitted, and you have to answer with the first thing that comes to mind. No discussing it or thinking.”

Alicia had prepared us for this game. Apparently designed to elicit a few laughs, set the interview subjects at ease, and give fans a chance to feel involved cause it was their questions being asked, I knew it usually preceded the heavier questions from the interviewers.

Mike tapped on the screen on the tablet he was holding, smirked, and asked the first question. “Who is the most difficult when you’re recording?”

“Dom,” Nick, Matt, and I said immediately.

I elbowed him, and Dom gave a sly smile. “I’ll take it, but personally, I would’ve said it was Jared.”

Caleb lifted his fist for a bump, and Dom indulged him. Laughter came from the audience as Andy took the next question. “Who’s usually the neatest person on your tour bus?”

None of us had an answer to that. With all five of us in a space that small for extended periods of time, shit got messy quickly. Matt finally raised his hand. “I’ve been known to wash a mug or two.”

Caleb rolled his eyes. “It was one time.”

More laughter from the audience.

The game continued, as did our banter and newfound easygoing ways in an interview. As soon as the game ended, I braced myself. If their usual pattern stuck, the next few questions would be the ones that would threaten to derail us.

The first curveball came when Mike, the blond interviewer, leaned forward and checked something on the tablet he was holding.

"I must say, you guys have surprised me so far."

Matt frowned, sitting back and folding his arms. "How is that?"

"You guys have a bit of a reputation as troublemakers, but so far, I'm not seeing that. Unless one of you put a whoopee cushion somewhere I've yet to see it." He laughed, but it didn't lighten the mood in the room suddenly.

I could feel every one of my bandmates tense. Not because we were ashamed of our past or because we were into being known for getting into trouble, but because this was what Alicia and Gerry warned us about.

Keep your cool, guys, I urged silently.

"No whoopee cushions today," Dom assured the interviewer, his jaw clenching.

Andy, the other interviewer, sat forward with a smile that didn't seem as friendly to me as before. "But seriously, guys, you've gotten into some bad spots. Arrests, fights with journalists and other celebs, rumors of parties so out of control you've been kicked out of even the hotels best equipped for famous clientele."

"Is there a question in there?" Nick bit out from beside me. I'd known the guy a long time, and while he and I were the last ones who ever apologized for our ways, I knew he was getting riled up from Andy's condescending tone.

The interviewer shrugged, exchanging a glance with his copresenter. "Sure. Drama has always followed you around, but these days there's been nothing but good press and clear skies. Can we expect your old antics to return when you get back on the road?"

Nick bristled, opening his mouth to give some kind of snappy retort. Reigning in my own frustration with the interviewers, I jammed my toes into his heel and spoke over him before he could say something that could ruin this for us.

"We're turning over a new leaf. Music is what is and always will be important to us. That's what we're focusing on right now." Would we change our ways? Fuck, no, but I was doing my job and answering the question in a way that couldn't be perceived as wrong.

Alicia would be proud.

"We're looking forward to seeing and hearing what that focus brings," Mike said sincerely and then grinned into a camera. "Speaking of which, the boys from Destitute visiting us here on Entertainment Talk Today have agreed to play us a song off their highly anticipated new album. Stay tuned for this exclusive sneak peek."

The interview mellowed out again, and a couple of minutes later, it was time for us to play. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief as I took my place behind the microphone, I gave myself a mental pat on the back for disrupting Nick's explosion and got ready to do what I did best.

Caleb led us in with a guitar intro he'd fine-tuned to an art and made the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand at attention. I fell in exactly on cue, and the rest of the band joined in.

Throughout our performance, I couldn't stop myself from looking at Alicia from time to time. She stood in the wings right across the stage from me, her relief clear in her wide blue eyes even from this distance.

Swaying along to the song, she didn't take her eyes off me once while I sang. For some reason, her attention energized me, spurred me on, and made me deliver the song with more feeling than I'd ever been able to muster.

When the last notes of the song faded, there was silence in the audience for a minute before they broke out in loud applause and whistling. Mike and Andy appeared by my side, as enthusiastic as anyone in the crowd. "That was fantastic!"

"Absolutely incredible," Mike agreed, smiling into another camera. "You heard it here first. Great song, great guys, and I'm sure you'll all be with me when I wish them the very best of luck for their upcoming album."

The audience was still cheering when Andy spoke into a camera. "Let's all thank the guys from Destitute for being here today and remember to tune in next week."

Someone yelled, "We're out," and easy as that, we'd rocked our first live interview for this album. I couldn't lie. It felt fucking good.