His eyes burned into the side of my face as I watched her switch gears and play Zombie by The Cranberries in the arrangement I’d helped her with all those months ago. Fuck. That song was imprinted on my brain. I couldn’t listen to the original version without seeing her face, hearing her voice.
“Holy shit,” my friend breathed as she reached the bridge. “Your girl brought her A-game.”
I didn’t even correct his slip about Eva being my girl. I couldn’t. She’d pulled me into her performance; taken me hostage with her words.
Hudson was wrong though.
Eva wasn’t my girl, she never was.
And nothing I said or did was ever going to change that.
“Fuck, we sound good.” Levi grabbed his t-shirt and pulled it up to wipe the sweat from his face. We were an hour into sound check and we’d never sounded better. Levi was killing it on vocals; giving me, Damon, and Hudson the energy we needed to nail song after song, even the newer ones we’d added to the set.
“Charlotte won’t know what’s hit ‘em,” Hudson said, resting one of his sticks behind his ear.
“Sounding good,” Letty breezed up to the stage, Riley hot on her heels. “The new arrangement for Darker Days sounds freakin’ awesome.”
“Yeah?” I asked, still buzzing. We’d switched up a few things for the new set. Same songs from our debut album, but with some added twists here and there.
“I liked it,” Riley added. “It sounded very… hip.”
“Hip,” Hudson mumbled beneath his breath as me and Damon stifled a laugh.
“Oh yeah, Riles,” Levi stalked to the edge of the stage, crouching down. “Which part specifically did you like?”
Everyone stopped to watch their exchange; road crew, stagehands, even the cleaning staff watched the infamous Levi Hunter as he stared down at Riley like she was nothing more than dirt on his boot.
“Levi,” I hissed. She was our PA now. We needed her, even if my brother thought otherwise. Not to mention the fact she was most likely banging our manager.
“It’s only a question, Rafe, no need to get your panties in a bunch.” He shot me an amused look before pinning Riley with another hard stare. “I’m waiting.”
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Letty breathed, shooting me a look that said, ‘do something’. But he wouldn’t back down, not until he had an answer.
Rolling back her shoulders, Riley met my brother’s glare with a fierce one of her own. “I liked Deep Waters. It’s great on the album but this had a darker edge to it. Rafe’s solo really amped up the feeling of despair.” Her eyes slid to mine, flashing with something I couldn’t quite decipher.
Levi dragged his thumb across his bottom lip, twirling one of his piercings. “Interesting,” was his only reply as he stood up again and nodded at Hudson, “Let’s go over Tomorrow’s Just Another Day again. I want to nail that second verse. It felt... off.”
It wasn’t off. It had been note-perfect. But my brother was his own worst critic at times.
“How are we looking?” Alistair approached Riley and Letty as we got into position.
“Great,” Riley said, sounding a little smug. “They’re looking great.”
Clearly, she thought she’d won the war with my brother, but what she didn’t realize was, Levi didn’t quit. And he rarely lost.
“Everything okay?” Alistair’s eyes asked her the words he didn’t say. Riley offered him a small smile before folding her arms across her chest and waiting for us to start.
Hudson hit the opening beat and everything fell away to the music. I watched as my brother came alive. Eyes closed for most of the song, he sang the lyrics I had penned as if they were his own, as if they’d been forged on his very soul. I might have been able to hold a note or two, but Levi had the voice of an angel. A fact that both inspired and haunted him.
My eyes found Alistair and he nodded, approval etched into his serious expression. He saw it too. Levi was born to perform, to seduce an audience with nothing more than a microphone and lyrics and presence.
When the song ended, a moment of silence fell over us. My heart thudded, adrenaline coursing through my veins. It was nothing compared to how it would feel tomorrow with the cacophony of thousands of fans echoing throughout the arena. But there was something about performing to a small crowd that hit me right between the chest.
“Let’s take five,” the production manager yelled.
I slid the strap of my Zemaitis off and placed it in its stand before grabbing a bottle of water and chugging it down. “Right, I need to go take a leak,” I said, heading for the backstage area.
I figured Eva had returned to the bus. I didn’t expect to find her in the dimly lit hall with her head tipped back against the wall. Half-wondering if I should turn back around and find another bathroom, her voice caught me off guard. “You sounded good out there,” she said, her eyes sliding slowly to mine.
“You weren’t so bad yourself.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She gave me a wry smile. “I thought I was going to puke at one point.”
“Wait until tomorrow.”
The blood drained from her face and I found myself chuckling. “You’ll be okay.” Turning on my heel, I went to leave, but my name on her lips pierced the air.
“Rafe, wait.” Steeling myself, I turned around and met her weary gaze. “I just wanted to say, whatever happened between us... well, I’m not here because of that.”
Her words sliced through me, but I didn’t flinch. “Your point?”
“I get the impression you don’t want me here, and that’s fine.” Her eyes darted to the floor as if the words were hard to say. A sting of guilt shot through me, but this was our reality now.
“Look,” Eva looked at me again, sadness radiating from her. “I’m here and I’m not goin’ anywhere. I owe my parents that much at least. So I figured we should probably try to at least find a way to be around one another.”
Parents? What the fuck was she talking about?
“Eva, I’m not—”
“Yo, dude, hurry the fuck up.” Hudson burst into the hallway, sucking in a harsh breath when he realized Eva was standing right there. “Shit, my bad. I’ll just be—”
“It’s all good,” I said. “Eva was just leaving.”
The second the words left my lips I regretted them. She’d offered me a get out of jail free card. An olive branch toward peace. Yet here I was trampling all over her attempt at starting over. Because seeing her standing there reminded me too much of another time. A time when I’d been captivated by the girl with pain in her eyes.
Part of me wished things could be different, but when you’d grown up in a living nightmare, I knew better than to believe in fairy tales.
“It’s okay, if you two need to—”
“Rafe’s right,” Eva said coolly. “I was just leavin’.” She moved around Hudson.
“Okay,” he said the second she was out of earshot, “what the hell was all that about?”
“Nothing.”
“Rafe...”