CHAPTER 51

JARED

Something somewhere was banging. Loudly. I sat up groggily in bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

"What the fuck?" I muttered when I heard what sounded like voices filtering up to my bedroom from downstairs.

Jumping out of bed, I was this close to running downstairs naked before I realized confronting an intruder with my dick hanging out sounded like a terrible idea. Too many things provided too many obvious targets.

My heart was pounding, and adrenaline rushed through me. I shot over to my walk-in closet and grabbed a pair of drawstring pants, pulling them on as my eyes darted to my alarm control panel on the wall.

All my alarm zones lights blinked red, meaning the alarm was still activated in those zones. All except one. A single green light shone on the control panel to show the alarm had been deactivated there.

I distinctly remember arming the alarm after I got home from dinner the night before, and I hadn't accidentally left one zone out. That, combined with the muted banging noises and voices I was now sure weren't only in my head, meant there was someone in my house.

More specifically, there was someone in my garage.

I wasn't necessarily sentimental about my cars or anything, but it still pissed me off that there was someone in my house. When I’d bought the place, Gerry and everyone else had warned about its lack of security. I was starting to regret not listening to him far more regularly than I was used to.

Maybe it really was time to look into calling my real estate broker and buying a new place. I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but this wasn’t going to end well for whoever it was in my home.

Calling the police crossed my mind, but I didn't want to do that yet. I would see if I could deal with this myself first. A call to the police would only draw attention when people drove by and saw the cruisers. Before I knew it, my entire street would be packed with paparazzi speculating and reporting on what was happening at my house.

I didn't want to risk it. It would be like sending up the bat signal to every reporter in town.

I grabbed my phone anyway and punched in 911 just in case, my thumb hovering over the call button as I jogged down the stairs and burst into my garage. I froze in the doorway at the scene playing out in front of me.

Of everything I thought I might have foung, what I saw hadn't even been on my radar of things to expect. There were no strangers, no fans, and no threat.

It was my band. All of them, plus Alicia, in the middle of setting up their instruments.

They stopped what they were doing as soon as they saw me, all eyes snapping to mine. I blinked, halfway convinced I was still dreaming. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Caleb stepped forward, opening his arms. "We're going back to the beginning. This look familiar to you?"

It did, actually.

I looked on as my friends, brothers, set up their equipment in the same way I'd seen them do a million times. To be fair, I hadn't seen a scene like this in years, not since we made it big and people started doing all the shit for us.

But before then? In the early days? We did this every other day. Only two things were majorly different. The first was that my garage was a hell of a lot bigger, cleaner, and fancier than the dingy one we used to practice in, and the second was the blond helping Dom set up his drums. There never used to be any girls like Alicia helping us set up back then.

"Why are you doing this?" They had to be working an angle, but I didn't know what it was. I was still too groggy and confused from having just been jerked from my restless sleep.

Everyone but Caleb ignored me, carrying on with their setup as if I wasn't even there. "Alicia called us this morning. She came up with the idea of us starting over. Going back to our roots, as it were."

I narrowed my eyes when I began to put her plan together and scoffed. "Yeah, we're not doing this."

I was about to launch into a speech about how jamming in my garage wasn't going to make me change my mind about getting the band back together when I saw Dom move in behind his kit. Without so much as looking at me, he started playing.

The song was familiar, as was Dom not giving a fuck about what was going on around him and simply wanting to play. He'd done that often during the early days. We'd be arguing about something, and he would just start playing over our voices, almost like his way of saying he didn't care about politics or whatever we were arguing about and wanted to get on with the business of making music.

I nearly snorted out loud. I'd forgotten how he used to do that. Oh, how the times had changed. These days, he was usually the one arguing about politics while I was the one telling everyone to chill.

Nick joined in next, falling in with Dom in a song I loved but hadn't heard or sung in way, way too long. It was one of the first ones I'd written for Destitute and, while it had never been a single or even a massively popular song with the fans, it meant a lot to us because it was one of the ones that had gotten us noticed.

Matt's eyes were closed in concentration as he waited for his cue and fell in seamlessly right along with Caleb as if they’d last played the song together yesterday. I could only stand and stare, watching each of them play with more passion and raw commitment than I could remember seeing from any of them in a long time.

Dom was always on our asses about how things had to be perfect, and though we often thought we had it that way, listening to them now, I knew we'd been wrong. This was perfect. What they were doing right now. This was our sound, us.

Someone had set up my microphone right in the center of the garage. They must have moved my cars out earlier because except for the band, the garage was empty. We used to love it this way.

There wasn't really a light shining on my microphone. For the first time in years, there were no lights in here that could be aimed at anyone, but the way my vision narrowed and the way the microphone was all I could see, I could have sworn the brightest stage light was beckoning me to my spot.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was standing right behind the microphone, my fingers wrapped around its grip. Having it right there in my hand felt so comforting and familiar, it felt like coming home or getting a hug from someone you didn't even realize you were missing so much, your soul was split apart from having been away from them.

Just like my feet had carried me to the stand of their own accord, and my hands had wrapped around the microphone without my brain giving the conscious command to do so, my voice joined the traitorous body brigade next. When the guys reached the chorus, I suddenly heard my voice join in. I didn't fight it, didn't want to.

Being here, doing this, felt right. It felt natural in a way I'd been missing for longer than just the last two weeks since I'd last been on stage with them.

One song flowed into the next and then the next.

Some of them were our songs. Some of them weren't, but they all came as naturally as the first one. The music lulled me into a trancelike state, and when it finally faded away, I blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what the hell just happened.

Around me, all the guys looked as reverent and at peace as I was feeling. Alicia was beaming at us from where she was standing off to one side, her eyes misty with tears. She clapped and cried out, "That was incredible!"

Then, as if she realized we were all in some kind of stunned haze, she quieted down and turned away, trying to give us some privacy. Nick shook the trance off first and looked at me, a huge smile spreading on his lips. "How’d that feel?"

"I don't know about you," Matt said, his smile rivaling Nick's in size. "But that fucking rocked."

"Yeah, it did." That from Caleb, who raised his fist for Nick to bump.

Dom didn't rave like the others. Instead, he was as quiet as I was, his gaze drilling into mine. I could see the question in his eyes, along with the promises he was making. His gray eyes didn't release mine while he waited for my answer. The thing was, there really was only one answer I could give them.

"I'd forgotten how much fun it was just being in the garage making music." It was crazy how there were so many bands out there dying to get out of their garages, and here I was, after busting my ass to get out of ours, dying to get back into it.

"This is what it's all about, isn't it?" Caleb said. "The music, us. It was never about any of that other shit."

Truth be told, I'd known for a long time Caleb wasn't comfortable with the level of fame we'd reached and that he longed for these days we were reliving right here. He felt we'd let everything get away from us and that the only outcome of the uncontrolled boom he saw in Destitute was the inevitable crash-landing we would have to endure sooner or later.

We'd argued over it so many times, with me telling him to just relax and have fun with it. Ironic how I was now the one who felt we'd let the lifestyle get the best of us and had pulled so far back on the throttle in my attempts to overcorrect that Destitute was now dead in the water.

Only, it was my hand on the throttle. If I wanted, all I had to do was push it forward just a little, and we'd be back in business. We didn't have to push it all the way back down to full speed.

We could take it slower. Not an option I'd considered before because I couldn't be sure how long it would last, but I knew it now. I understood now that they would stand by us, by Caleb, and that they'd be willing to tone it down if need be.

I knew it because of all the things they could have done to get me back in the band, of all the things they'd said, of all the stages they could have tricked me onto, of all the fans they could have had singing my songs back at me, this was the one thing that really caught my attention. Alicia's idea, yes, and I would be sure to get to her later. But the guys had gone along with it. It was them playing beside me and them choosing the songs, so what else could I say?

"If you guys are game, do you think we could get back into our recording studio tomorrow?"

Silence followed my question. My heart stammered. Was it possible I'd misinterpreted what they were trying to do here?

The guys exchanged a glance and then broke out in a chorus of "hell, yeah's!" They slapped each other's palms, smiling so damn widely, you'd have sworn they'd won the lottery.

Dom came over to me, lifting one hand to grip my shoulder. "I knew you'd come around. Welcome back, brother."

Matt was next, smirking as he punched my arm. "Don't do that to us again, man. You really scared me. And don't worry, you're not the only one who's learned your lesson."

He didn't have to say what lesson he was referring to. We'd known each other for long enough, I knew it was his way of saying they were on board with doing things my way, keeping an eye on each other to make sure no one fucked out again.

"Thanks," I told him. It went without saying, but I needed him to know how much that meant to me.

He nodded once and went to join Dom, who jabbed at the button to open the garage door and sauntered out. Caleb was speaking in low tones to Alicia, still watching everything unfold from the sidelines.

That left me and Nick.

I walked up to him, finding an apologetic smile that would have to do the trick because I wasn't saying sorry. Did I regret hitting him that morning in New York after he’d told me the news? Sometimes. But I'd been pissed, and apologizing about it now wouldn't change the fact that it happened. We would either put it behind us or we wouldn't, but there was no taking it back.

He gently set his guitar in its stand and rubbed his jaw where I'd hit him, watching my approach with cautious eyes. "Round two?"

I chuckled, shaking my head. "Not unless you've done something I should know about."

"Nothing but conspire behind your back to get the band back together." He arched an eyebrow, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he tried to hold back a grin.

"This time, I'll let it go. Consider yourself forgiven." I joked, but the words were laden with meaning.

Nick nodded, gave me a quick pat on the back and walked off to Dom and Matt. Caleb and Alicia, having finished their whispered conversation, broke apart. He smiled at me, saluted and called out, "Give me a shout later."

"Will do," I called after his retreating back, my attention already shifted to Alicia.

Her eyes were wide as she watched me, apprehension in everything from the way she was looking at me to her rigid posture. "You okay?"

"Thanks to you," I answered honestly. Closing the distance between us, I cupped her face gently in my hand. "I mean it. You gave me back the one thing that has always made sense in my life."

She smiled softly and lifted her arms to wind them around my neck. "I couldn't give it back to you, because you never lost it. I only made you see it was still there."

"Agree to disagree?" There were no words to express how much what she'd done meant to me. I might never have lost the band or the music, but I'd been willing and in the process of throwing it away with both hands.

If it hadn't been for what she'd done, I might never have realized it. At least not in time to salvage the situation.

"Okay." She half turned her head toward the guys, still standing in a loose circle outside the garage doors talking. "I should get going too. I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were going to do today and see you tomorrow?"

"You got anything urgent to get done?"

She shrugged, her mouth lifting into a teasing smile. "Nah. The band I work for has been taking something of a hiatus. We're jumping back in tomorrow apparently."

"In that case, it seems we've both got the rest of the day free. Wanna spend it together?"

She gazed up into my eyes and sighed before nodding. "Depends. What did you have in mind? It's going to have to top movies and ice cream if you have a chance at beating what I already had planned."

Lowering my lips down to hers, I brushed a tender kiss onto them and whispered in her ear. "I'm sure I can do better than that."