SHOW 3 - Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, Massachusetts
October 5th

"Are you sure you're good?" Raf paced in front of me with his hands pressed together in front of him. "Because you can tell me if you're not."

I heaved out a breath as I shifted my weight on my feet. My initial instinct to be annoyed always seemed to shut itself off with Raf. He could disarm me with a specific look - a type of softened concern that crinkled the skin beside his dark eyes. Maybe because he was the only person in my life I saw it from.

"Yes," I nodded precariously, too aware of just how much it disarmed me. "I'm fine."

He stopped the pacing and took a moment to roll his shoulders back, tilting his head at me like he wasn't entirely convinced.

"Look, Evie's gonna do vocals for The Grey and..." I sucked in a tight breath, waving my hand around as if whatever words had escaped me were floating around in the air. "I'll figure it out, okay?"

"I think you should take Nowhere to Go and Concrete Jungle off the setlist." His tone carried an assuredness that I knew I did not. It wasn't that I didn't think he was right (I knew the songs with screaming vocals had to go), but admitting it and conceding was not something I was ready for. It meant I'd given up.  

"No, no way." I shook my head furiously. "We can't just cut two songs. I told you that I'd figure it out."

Raf took a step forward so he could put a calloused hand gently to my cheek, and I wish the singular feeling of someone else's touch didn't make me want to disintegrate. "I know you will, but you need to let this go. It's just one show. It's gonna be alright."

I wiggled myself out from his grasp and forced my response out past the knot that had grown in my throat. "I...o-okay...whatever, man."

Still reeling, I wandered away to go find Evie wherever she was lurking backstage and figure out how to mitigate the damage - damage I'd been responsible for...again.

She'd been preoccupied doing the outfit video thing with Sienna, spinning around on the heels of her Doc Martens as the chains on her jeans clanged and jangled. This time Gareth had joined in too, desperate to show off the bright orange construction vest he was wearing (without a shirt underneath) to all 100-something of our followers. I didn't even know where he got one, but I knew better than to ask. Asking Gareth to explain his lore usually ended up making you more confused than you were beforehand.

Sienna laughed as she filmed them, and I felt my heart clench in my chest. I'd done what I could to avoid her for most of the day after our encounter last night, mostly because I'd become hyper aware of how exposed I was now around her, like a nerve, writhing and searing under her gaze.

Of course, she was the first one to notice that I'd slunk closer to them, glancing over at me with wide, expectant eyes. I felt my composure wavering by the second. Yikes, yikes, yikes.

"You...you look nice." If I didn't know any better, I would have sworn her cheeks turned the faintest shade of pink as she forced a thin smile. "I like your shirt."

I wondered if she could see just how exposed I felt, and I tugged at the collar of said gray t-shirt. It was old and had holes in it, with a faded dragon slithering down the front of it. "Oh. It's, uh...Quiksilver. I got it at some vintage place in Brooklyn, and..." Her eyes went bright again, and I had to rip my gaze away, swallowing hard to force down that knot in my throat. "And no, you can't film me." 

This time her smile came more naturally, and she shrugged. "Worth a shot."

I turned fully to Evie, who stood with her arms folded and her mouth twisted into an amused smirk. "I need to talk to you," I blurted out, then looked at Gareth. "You too."

"Is my vest too bright for the lights?" he asked with a frown. "I don't really wanna change."

"No, your vest is fine. I mean, no, it's weird, but..." I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "We...I mean, Raf thinks we need to take Nowhere to Go and Concrete Jungle off the setlist."

"I agree," Evie chimed in without hesitation, and I shot her a seething look.

"You agree?" I echoed, feeling my voice twinge again.

I whipped around to Gareth, who gave me a guilty grin and a shrug. "I also agree, but...I should go find Clark."

He dashed away on his boots, and I reared back at Evie like an attack dog, but she was undeterred.

"You shouldn't be doing screaming vocals anymore. Like, at all." As I tried to reload with a biting response, she held up her hand to stop me. "You can sing. We all know you can sing. It doesn't change what kind of band we are. Just...stop being scared and own it."

"I'm not scared!" I blurted out, quickly clenching my fists and deflecting. "And what exactly should I be singing? I can't just replace the screaming vocals in the old songs with clean ones, it'll sound all fucked up."

She tightened her grip on her forearms, still folded over her lime green t-shirt. "You could add Just Pretend and Take Me First to the setlist."

"No." I groaned and lowered my voice. "No. I can't."

Evie let out an exasperated sigh and threw her hands up. "Then what? Devon, I'm so tired of arguing with you about this, so if you have a solution, please share it."

Yeah, so was I, but my pride grated down any sense I had into dust.

"If you need more songs, you could do a cover or two."

I'd almost forgotten she was still standing there, watching me damn near come apart at the seams.

"See? I told you she knows what she's doing." Evie pointed at Sienna, and she began to back away. "I'm gonna go corral Thing 1 and Thing 2, and we'll reconvene in the green room."

Suddenly we were alone, and when I glanced back at Evie, I almost wondered how intentional that was.

"I looked it up," Sienna perked up, prompting a look of confusion from me. "I mean, I really thought about what you and I talked about. Like, how I could do a better job of taking more interest in the band and this kind of music, and...you."

I swallowed hard at the very mention of her being interested. When would that stop? She could be interested in the music, but there was zero reason for her to be so fucking interested in me. 

"So I was curious about the kinds of classes someone majoring in musical performance would have taken at Juilliard," she continued. "And I read about Ear Training. It teaches and develops aural skills so as a musician you can identify and replicate all kinds of pitches, melodies, chords, rhythms..."

"Okay Wikipedia," I shot her a look. "Yes, I took Ear Training. So what?"

"Well, I remember how floored I was the first time I saw you guys perform." She pulled at the sleeves of her fuzzy white cardigan, and suddenly she seemed uncharacteristically hesitant.

"Please tell me that if you're making a point, you're going to arrive at it soon," I sighed wearily. I wanted out of this conversation, and out from under her gaze.

"Okay, well...the covers you did that night were kind of amazing," she admitted with a faint smile. "And I remember Raf telling me afterwards that you have an ear for music most mortals do not. Now it makes a lot of sense. I bet you could cover any song you wanted to, if you tried."

I scoffed, feeling heat prickle at the back of my neck. "Well, okay that's not true."

She shoved my bicep playfully, and that prickly heat shot down my spine and into my arms. "Are you at all capable of taking a compliment?"

"Not really, no," I grumbled out before I could stop myself. 

There was something about the way she looked at me, all wide-eyed and excited like she truly and genuinely believed I could do anything. She disarmed me in a similar way that Raf could, but it was more like that Smashing Pumpkins song - she disarmed me with a smile, and somehow that felt worse. It almost tricked me into thinking the same.

"Okay, suggestion maybe?" I asked with a resigned sigh.

"Something fun."

"That's not helpful."

She shrugged. "You know, like the kind of song you can't help but smile when you sing. A song everyone knows."

I waved my hand around, silently prompting her to continue on. "Still not really helpful."

"Okay..." She pinched her lips together as she rocked on the heels of her tall black boots. There was only a sliver of skin between the top of her boots and the bottom of her jean skirt, but it was more enticing than a sliver of skin had a right to be.

"What about like...Beyonce? Or not even Beyonce but like, Destiny's Child." Before I could even get a word in she stopped with a gasp, like the little glowing lightbulb in her sung with light. "What about No Scrubs by TLC? I know you know it, and don't try to deny it."

I groaned. "Yeah, I know it. That doesn't mean we should do it. Besides, I would have to listen to it a few times, and..."

We'd started walking back towards the green room, and she had her head down in her phone, furiously scrolling. "Already got it on my Spotify."

"Great," I grumbled. "You know, we still need to run it by the rest of the band."

She side-eyed me. "Since when are you interested in what the rest of the band thinks?"

"Since I can't clone myself three times to play the rest of the instruments," I deadpanned her, and when she laughed, it made my stomach roll.

Of course, Evie thought the cover idea was brilliant.

"You're a genius," she squealed as she squeezed Sienna's cheeks. "I love it, and I love you."

"Just...doing my job." Sienna slid me another coy, sideways glance, and my stomach rolled again. A real subtle fuck you between us, like a bad inside joke, which I did in fact deserve.

"I'll sing it with you, don't worry," Evie added, clasping onto my forearms in excitement. "We have great harmony."

"Do we?" I grimaced. "I mean, is this really what we're doing?"

"I'm down." Gareth raised his drumstick in the air. He sat cross-legged on the floor with his drum pad in his lap, still shirtless. Behind him on the couch, Clark also raised his hand, his head down in his book.

"Majority rules," Evie smirked at me. Her and Sienna squealed again as they held hands, and they blasted No Scrubs from Sienna's phone

I heaved out a sigh as I dropped into one of the cracked leather couches, rubbing the side of my temple with my fingers. "When did this band become a democracy?"

I was promptly ignored as everyone in the room began to sing along except me. 

Raf stood behind me and squeezed my shoulders. "I knew you'd figure it out."

"I didn't," I grumbled. "She did."

"I know," he chuckled. "I mean I knew you'd figure out that it's not so bad getting some help."

"No, it is." I threw my head back with a groan. "Like, it actually gives me pains in my chest."

Especially since it was her.

"You'll live, don't worry." He gave me a pedestrian pat on the shoulder and smiled a slick, knowing smile. 

So I begrudgingly spent the last few hours before showtime listening to No Scrubs (and a few covers) on nauseating repeat, strumming out chords and working out melodies while Sienna watched with an enthusiasm that seemed to shoot electricity through her. Eventually we went out to the stage when all our equipment was set up and played through it a few times. 

"I like the way Weezer does the chorus, but I want it a little faster," I told Gareth as he thumped away on the drums. "And less high hat."

"I think we need a second guitar," Clark added, standing with his hands on his hips as his glossy black Fender hung from his torso.

I groaned as I fussed with the microphone stand, sending a screech of feedback out into the empty venue. "That means me, doesn't it? I don't want to. I'm rusty."

"Majority votes, you're overruled again," Evie sing-songed with a grin.

"There wasn't even a vote," I scoffed, to which Evie just responded with a shrug.

Knowing I wasn't going to receive any backup, I slunk backstage to grab another guitar. Sienna came bopping up to me with the girliest, glitteriest shit-eating grin I'd ever seen. She must have reapplied her lip gloss just for this moment, and I did not need to be looking at her lips.

"Look at that - ear training at work."

I sighed and shook my head, readjusting Clark's extra guitar strap to fit my shoulders. "You're annoying and distracting. Please vacate the premises."

"I literally cannot." She kept grinning as she twirled a lock of blonde hair around her finger. "One, it's my job as we have established, and two, I think you actually like it."

I had to swallow my heart down. "One, I actually think you derive satisfaction from being annoying and two..." I aggressively strummed a fifth chord.

"Two what?" she winced.

"No, that was it." I strummed it again, and she covered her ears with her hands. 

"Are you done now?" she asked after lowering her hands, and I strummed the chord one more time for good measure. She groaned. "I am obviously not the only one who derives satisfaction from being annoying."

I shrugged in response, fiddling with the tuning pegs.

"Well, good luck, Devon."

As she backed away, her lips lifted into another glittering grin, and I wondered if she knew just how easily she could disarm me with that smile. Fuck.

⋆ ★

this chapter ended up being a bit shorter than i wanted it to be after i messed around with a few different ways to end it, but i decided to save them actually performing the song for sienna's pov for...reasons. so you'll just have to wait until next chapter *wink*