While I opened the cooler for a tasty beverage, I heard Matt say, “I’m starting to feel sick, guys.”
Finding a beer amid the pop, I straightened up. “Right before tour? That sucks. Hopefully you’re done blowing chunks before we head out.”
Matt shook his head. “Not sick-sick, nervous sick.”
I felt lost at sea again. I knew Matt didn’t like being center stage, but we’d done this a gazillion times. He shouldn’t be freaking out about it. “Why the hell are you nervous? We’ve been doing this shit for years.”
Matt gave me a dumbfounded look, like I was missing something obvious. I hated that look. It made me feel stupid, and I wasn’t. I had smarts. Smarts, skills, and looks. I was the whole package—a triple threat of awesomeness.
“Because of Rachel…” he slowly said. “And that thing I’m going to ask her before we go on tour. You know what I’m talking about?”
Nope. No clue. “You’re going to ask her to…join the band? I don’t know, man, I like Rachel and all, but I don’t think she can handle the limelight. I think she’d run off the stage screaming…which would actually be kind of entertaining, so, yeah, let’s ask her.”
I looked around, all smiles, but nobody was smiling with me. Did they object to Rachel being a part of the band? Wow…harsh.
Matt sighed. “No, dumbass, I’m going to ask her to marry me.” He held his stomach. “I’m gonna throw up.”
With a laugh, Kellan patted his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. It’s easy. Four little words, that’s it.”
I started counting them on my fingers, then stopped when Kellan shifted his grin to me. Disbelieving that my cousin was willingly going to jump into the marriage pool when he really didn’t need to, I did the nicest thing possible. I attempted to talk him out of it. “Why on earth would you do that? Stay boyfriend and girlfriend. It works the same, and it’s super-easy to end it if things go south. You just never call her again.”
All three guys stared at me with looks I knew well—someone was going to start scolding me. What did I say? Temperamental assholes. I held my hands up to deflect the verbal blows I felt coming. “No offense or anything. I mean, Rachel is superhot, so I totally get why you’d want to nail her for life, but why go through all that marriage crap if you don’t have to? You’ve already got the best part.” I chugged my beer, then crushed the can and tossed it into the garbage. Swish. And the crowd goes wild!
Matt opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again. After another second of silence, he turned to Kellan. “Once again, I have no clue how to respond to that.”
Kellan shrugged, then turned to me. “If you object to marriage so much, why did you get married?”
So no other fucker would try to take what was mine. I shrugged. “I knocked her up. It was the right thing to do.” I snapped my head to Matt. “Holy shit! Is Rachel pregnant? Is that why you’re all gung ho to walk down the aisle? When’s she due?”
Matt let out a sigh of losing-his-patience irritation. “She’s not pregnant. That’s not why I want to marry her.”
Seeing an opportunity to mess with him, I curled my lips into an impossibly sexy devil-grin. “You sure about that? I did lean over her the other day when she was working on our website. And…it’s a well-documented fact that I’m incredibly virile. I may have accidentally impregnated her. If I did, you have my deepest apologies.”
Matt’s eyes widened in fear. “Do not even joke about that.” He shuddered, like he’d just witnessed his worst nightmare come to life right before his eyes.
I felt the laughter coming, but I held it in. I wasn’t done tormenting him yet. “Yeah, sad thing is, we look so much alike…how will you ever really know the kid isn’t mine?”
Matt’s face turned a rosy shade of pink that kind of reminded me of the sun setting. How beautiful. His words weren’t nearly as pretty. “I really fucking hate you.”
The laugh I’d been holding in finally escaped me. Smacking his arm, I shook my head. “You’ve been saying that for years. I don’t believe you anymore.”
Matt sighed again, shook his head, then walked away to grab his instrument. Kellan jabbed me in the shoulder while Evan shook his head. What? It was funny. And true. And Matt would get over it. He’d make some jab about me that was ten times worse, but would he get reproachful glares for it? No, he would get laughs. It was totally cool to smack me down, but if I did the same thing, whoa…everybody got their panties in a wad. Whatever.
Kellan and Matt took their places and I trudged over to mine. God, we knew these songs backward and forward. Was practicing them still necessary? It’s not like we were going to forget them if we took the next couple weeks off. As I picked up my bass, I tried explaining my thought to the guys. “Yo, dudes, why are we still doing this? We’re going to be playing the same shit every night for weeks on end. Can’t we take a break? A calm before the storm, so to speak?”
Matt scoffed at me. Was he still hacked off? He usually bounced back quicker. “One day you’re going to have to take this job seriously, Griffin. It’s not all fun and games; you have to put in a little effort.”
I turned to face him across from me. “I put in effort. I showed up, didn’t I?”
Obviously still mad, Matt dropped his guitar back onto its stand. “It’s not just about showing up and playing the songs we hand you, jackass. You’re the only member of the group who doesn’t contribute to the process. You don’t help with new songs, you don’t help with the schedule, you don’t help with marketing.” He threw his hands up into the air. “For the life of me, I can’t think of one thing that you actually do for the band. Besides run your mouth, of course.”