“So why are your panties in a twist if it went so well?” she prods.
“Because I love her. Okay? I. Fucking. Love. Her. But she has moved on with Tyler, and she’s happy, and she reminded me that we can’t go back to what we had. Our lyrics reminded me of all that. Too much is different now.”
She presses her lips together and heaves out a breath. “I’m sorry,” she finally says, breaking the silence between us.
“It doesn’t matter. My feelings don’t matter, and what she does doesn’t matter. I’m here to win, and I refuse to let something as stupid and useless as emotions pull my focus from why I’m here. Not anymore.”
I have nothing further to say, even though she opens her mouth to ask more questions. I stand and walk out the door.
And this time, I don’t smooth down my shirt or attempt to straighten my hair.
I’m done pretending. Kat, Lexi, Tyler...they can all go fuck themselves. The only ones who matter are the men who make up MFB.
The men who I’ll call my bandmates by the time this competition is over.
I change into my swim trunks after dinner and head out to the patio. Decker’s busy working on his song with Tyler, and Blaze and John are off somewhere else. Lexi and I agreed we’d start fresh in the morning, so my options are hanging out with her in the family room, finding ways to avoid her, or going to bed early.
I opt for finding ways to avoid her, and this time it’s by swimming laps. We can’t venture too far from the house because then we’ll lose the cameras, so I’m sort of stuck here even though a run is what I’m really craving.
My arms slice through the water and I kick my legs as hard as I can. They propel me forward, and even though the water feels refreshing, the pool feels too small. I feel confined in this house. Six goddamn bedrooms and a huge family room and an office and a basement and a bunch of confessional rooms and a fucking food room in this place and it’s still not enough.
Because I can’t escape her. I have nowhere to turn.
My legs feel like jelly, but I power through. My lungs are burning, but I keep going. My arms start to slow, but I don’t stop.
I push myself to exhaustion, and that’s when I throw in the towel.
When I get out of the pool, Lexi sits on one of the lounge chairs like she was waiting there for me.
I eye her warily before I grab a towel and dry my face. I scrub my hair, and then I loop the towel around my waist and tuck it into itself. “Hey,” I say. I sit on the chair next to hers as I allow the towel to soak up the water from my swim trunks.
It’s dark out here now, but I still spot when her eyes fall to my abdomen before they flick back to mine. “Do you want to run through the bassline a few times?”
“We’ve got plenty of time tomorrow,” I mutter.
“Yeah, but since everyone else is practicing, I didn’t think it would hurt.”
I grab the beer I brought out and chug most of it in a few gulps. “Whatever. Let me get changed.”
“Meet me in the basement?”
I nod, and she stands. I finish my beer, and then I head inside, grab another, change into clothes, and head down to the basement.
I play the song once on the piano while she sings it, and then we both grab our bass guitars and fuck around with the strings a little until we settle on a rhythm that matches the song.
We’re ready.
I glance over at her, and she’s looking at me. I feel like she wants to say something, and I feel like I want to say something, too.
But neither of us do.
Instead, we play it through a few more times, and then my beer is empty. I’m tired from swimming, and I’m emotionally drained after having to work in close proximity with this girl who so thoroughly knows how to mindfuck me.
And so I call it a night.
We practice from breakfast until lunch even though we nailed it last night, and we’re ready for the challenge. No doubt in my mind.
As soon as we’re done with lunch, five men walk through the door.
Dax, Brody, Adam, Rascal...and Kane?
The six of us remaining line up in our usual spot where announcements take place in the family room.
“Good afternoon,” Dax says. “We have a special guest judge with us today. I’d like to introduce Mr. Kane Keller.”
The six of us clap, as do the guys in the band, and he holds up a hand and grins as if to say, stop, stop, this is all too much.
Brody leans over and says something to him, and he laughs.
Someday that’ll be me.
Brody will lean over to say something to the bassist of his band, and it will be me with that title. It’s so close I can practically smell it.
Rascal leans in front of Kane to say something to Brody, and all three of them laugh...which begs the question: Why, exactly, are we here?
These guys seem like brothers—all of them, including the one whose position we’re competing for.
Kane looks at the six of us once we stop clapping. “First, thank you to these assholes for having me here today.” He gestures toward the men standing beside him, and they all laugh. “One of the hardest decisions I ever made was choosing to walk away from MFB.”
Why’d you make that decision?
I want to ask the question. I know it’s on everybody’s mind. It has to be. But none of us say anything.
“Today we’re going to watch as you perform the songs you wrote, and the five of us will deliberate and decide which four of you we think have the potential to fill the empty space this guy left behind,” Dax says, nodding toward Kane.
I look over at Lexi. We’re a team in this challenge, and part of me wants to reach over and squeeze her hand and tell her how much I believe we’ve got this.
I wonder how different this would be if we hadn’t met in the hotel, if we hadn’t spent the weekend not just hooking up, but getting to know one another and finding something we weren’t expecting.
But that’s not how it shook out.
She doesn’t return my glance. She keeps her eyes focused on the men in front of us. Eye on the prize.
It’s just further motivation for what I need to be doing.
“By the time we’re done with the day, two of you will be heading home,” Dax says. “Let’s head down to the basement for the challenge.”
We follow the MFB guys downstairs.
“Decker and Tyler, you’re up first.”
I like their song. It’s about living life and having fun and it feels like a fun summer anthem. Tyler takes the lead on vocals, and Decker tosses in a few back-up bars. Decker can play bass, but Tyler definitely carries their team.
The judges don’t show any sort of emotion whatsoever on their faces. “Up next we have Blaze and John.”
They play their song next, another good one. This one’s about not missing out on opportunities and grabbing your chance when it’s in front of you—very appropriate given what we’re here doing.
And then it’s our turn.
Lexi looks at me as she sings the words she wrote for her verse. I look at her as I sing the ones I wrote apart from her—the ones that somehow mirror hers. We keep our eyes locked on the chorus that we sing together, and again on the bridge where we switch lines.
I pour all the emotion I feel for her into this performance. Just because we’re singing in the basement of some rented house in California doesn’t mean we aren’t performing on an enormous stage—certainly the most important one I’ve ever been on.