Page 50 of Fame & Rhythm

The walls will tremble, shudder, and break.

’Cause no one can handle the sound of Staked.

One, two, three…

Staked!

We shout the last word together and throw our fists into the air.

The whole room laughs, but we don’t care. It brings us together, settles our nerves, reminds us who we are. Caleb and I wrote it years ago, and we’ve done it ever since.

We break apart and move to our positions.

Dad comes over to me, smiling.

“Thanks for this, Dad. I know you organized it.”

“I might have given him your demo,” he says. “But you made the music. This is your hard work paying off.” Then he fixes me with a look. “Just one thing.”

I roll my eyes, already bracing for whatever lecture is coming. “Go on, then.”

“Play what you’re supposed to play. Don’t disappear off into one of your little tangents and throw everyone else out. Especially your sister.”

I nod, even though I’m already over it. “Sure, Dad.” The flatness in my voice says exactly how boring I find the warning. This is my band, not his. He needs to trust me to do my thing.

He just smiles. “Good girl. Now go kill it.” He leans in and kisses my forehead, and I swat at him immediately, trying to shove him away before Rob comes back in and sees it. Dad only laughs and heads over to the desk to sit down.

As I tune my guitar, I can feel Aston watching me. I glance over and smile, letting him know I’m all in, that whatever weirdness is still hanging between us gets put aside right now.

He smiles back, and instantly, my knees go weak. The sight of those white teeth, those stupidly gorgeous lips, sends a flutter through my chest that I absolutely do not need right now. I look away before I do something insane, like run over and launch myself at him.

At this point, I’m so keyed up I probably would.

So I grip my guitar instead and force myself to focus.

Rob walks back in and claps his hands together, drawing all eyes to him. “Right, Staked,” he says. “Let’s hear you rock this shit.”

A grin spreads across my face before I can stop it. Energy is already surging through me, hot and electric, and knowing this performance could change everything only makes it stronger. I can feel it pulsing in my veins, filling every part of me, as if music itself is alive inside my body, fighting to get out. I glance down at my hand on the neck of the guitar and swear I can feel every beat of my pulse in my fingertips.

Music has always lived inside me.

It runs through my veins, pumps through my heart, fills every space with something bigger than myself. It’s the one thing that has never let me down, the one thing that has always made sense, no matter how messy everything else gets.

Music is life.

It’s hope.

It’s love.

It’s the thing that makes me feel most alive.

And right now, standing here with my family, my friends, my band, and the future hanging in the air in front of us…

Life has never felt more real.

Chapter Ten

Annie