Untamed Page 4

  I shrugged. They talked about a lot of shit that I didn’t pay any attention to. I was usually too busy planning my moment of awesomeness. A moment that I was going to bring up today. It was time. As soon as we were all together, I was going to demand the spotlight I deserved.

  With closed eyes, Kellan shook his head. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then he shut it again like he’d changed his mind. Whatever. I didn’t need another lecture anyway.

  Kellan led the way to the studio, and Matt and I followed him. Matt smacked my back as we walked through the living room. He was smiling, so I figured I’d amused him somehow. That was how we worked. Snarky, rude, belittling comments mixed with a touch of humor. We pissed on each other then laughed about it later. It was our thing. I clapped him on the back as well. No harm, no foul.

  Kellan opened the slider to the backyard and waved us through like he was our butler. The image of Kellan waiting on me hand and foot, always at the ready with a tray of beer-a-ritas and pork rinds, snapped into my head. Ha! That would be fucking awesome. I snorted as I walked by him, but he didn’t ask what was funny. He knew better than to ask.

  The studio was on the far side of the pool. The cool water looked refreshing, and I considered shoving Matt in as we walked past it. I didn’t though, which made me appreciate myself even more. The guys should really give me more credit for all the shit I didn’t do. If they only knew how many awesome ideas I passed on, they’d be truly impressed by my self-control.

  Jenny and Rachel were exiting the studio as we approached it. Rachel had her laptop under her arm, and Jenny was beaming, pleased as punch about something. Evan’s fiancée had been a staple at our favorite bar since almost the beginning. I knew her as well as I knew the bar menu. Speaking of…Pete should really update his menu. He didn’t even have tongue tacos on there. What respectable bar doesn’t serve tongue? If it were my bar, I’d serve tongue with everything. My tongue. To chicks.

  “Hey, Jenny. Bagettes, huh?” I said as she walked by me.

  The perky blonde turned to point her breasts in my direction. “Yeah…I was going to call it D-Bagettes, but I thought that might turn some customers away, so I shortened it.” She tilted her head, like a confused puppy. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

  Giving her a wicked smile, I tapped my skull. “I remember everything. My mind is a steel trap—nothing gets out.”

  Matt elbowed me in the ribs. “Nothing gets in either.”

  I gave him a glare. His ass might get shoved into the pool by the end of the day anyway, and he’d only have himself to blame. I could only be good for so long, after all. “You’re lucky you look like me,” I told him. “Otherwise I’d have to wipe the floor with you.” Matt looked horrified that I’d just pointed out our similarities. While his face morphed through various stages of disgust, I matter-of-factly stated, “I have too much respect for the genes to kick your ass.”

  Kellan and Jenny laughed at my comment. Rachel frowned, and for a minute she looked just like my cousin. As disbelief washed over his face, Matt held up a finger. “Wait a minute…let me get this straight. The reason you haven’t ‘kicked my ass’ yet…is…‘respect’?” He made air quotes with his fingers as he said it.

  With a smile, I nodded. “Yep.”

  “It has nothing to do with the fact that you couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag? No…a wet newspaper. A lying-on-the-ground, completely flat newspaper,” he said with an I’m so clever smirk on his lips.

  A guffaw escaped me. “What are you talking about? I’m a badass. Remember that time I whooped that guy in L.A.?”

  “He was blind.”

  I lifted my finger in defense. “I didn’t know that at the time. And honestly, he was talking shit. Shit-talking overrides the handicap home base, so he was fair game.”

  Matt’s mouth dropped open. “Handicap home base?” Still looking stunned, he shook his head. “Every day, it still surprises me that we’re related.” He looked over at Rachel. “I don’t think I’ll ever truly accept my reality.”

  Smacking his chest, I laughed. “Yeah, I know. It’s hard to be related to a godlike creature such as myself. I’d feel the same if I were you…but thank God—otherwise known as me—I’m not you.”

  Matt looked about to speak, but Rachel beat him to it. “We’re going to work in the house, babe.”

  Looking grateful for the distraction, Matt turned his full attention to her. “Okay. I’ll come find you afterwards.”

  Matt gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek while Kellan opened the door to the studio. It had been silent before, but now the sound of drums filtered out to us. Evan was working on a beat for one of Kellan’s new songs. I wasn’t sure how Kellan kept dreaming up stuff, but he was always approaching us with new lyrics. And Matt and Evan went gaga for anything he showed them. But whenever I showed them anything, they turned their noses up. We can’t sing about belching, Griffin…The chorus can’t be about telling people to buy extra copies of our album…You can’t put your actual phone number in a song, dumbass. Prissy bitches. Their sense of awesome was skewed.

  I waved at Evan once I made my way to the “pit,” where the instruments were. He spun a stick in his hand and nodded his head up in greeting. With tattooed sleeves on both arms, Evan had the most body art of all of us. He won the most piercings title too, with a brow bar, gauges, and both nipples done. He didn’t have a penis piercing though. I was the only D-Bag with the balls to claim that prize.

  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.”

  The entire room went so silent I could hear everyone’s breaths. Well. Make one remark about impregnating his girlfriend and Matt got all kinds of bent out of shape. Guess she was off-limits. Fine. Tell me that to my face, don’t body-slam me to the floor in front of everybody.

  Kellan walked over to Matt. He put a hand on his shoulder and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Matt seemed to calm down after hearing it though. I glanced back at Evan, but he was studying a speck of dirt on his drumstick like it was suddenly the most important thing on earth.

  Since no one was stepping up to defend me against Matt’s outrageous accusations, I decided to defend myself. “That’s not true, cuz. I contribute. Or I try to, at least, but you guys shoot down every idea I come up with. Kind of makes me not want to share my ideas, since I know you’re just gonna say no. Sometimes before you even hear me out.” I lifted my guitar like it was a gun and fired a couple of shots into the air, destroying my thought-children before they even had a chance to grow and flourish. Dream killers.

  Matt and Kellan exchanged a look, then glanced back at Evan. He shrugged, then nodded. Still looking like he was struggling to rein in his bad mood, Matt locked eyes with me. “Okay…you may have a point.” He pressed his lips together like just admitting that caused him pain. “So…do you have an idea you’d like to share? We’re all ears.” He cringed, but closed his mouth.

  My heart started thudding harder as I looked around the room. This was it; I had their complete and total attention, and there was no way they could say no this time. They couldn’t deny me anymore, not after I’d just pointed out that they never listen to me. I deserved this, and unlike all the times I’d asked them for a shot before, this time, they were going to give me the opportunity I’d wanted since day one. I could feel it. Today was my day.

  Trying to look like it didn’t matter much to me, I casually tossed out, “Yeah, I think I should take the lead on ‘Stalker’ on the tour. It’s time you guys threw me a bone.” That song had a killer solo in the middle. Matt got screams for days after he shredded it, not that he noticed. He rarely looked up from his instrument to see the frenzy going on around him. Damn waste.

  Matt considered my request for exactly point five seconds. “No.”

  Heat rushed up my spine, encircled my head, and pounded on my brain. I knew they wouldn’t hear me out. Well, fuck that. I deserved a chance. “Okay, how about a different song then? You can pick it.”

  Matt crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”

  My cheeks felt like someone was holding a flame over them. “No? Just no. You still won’t even fucking consider it? Why the fuck not? We both started playing guitar as leads, Matt, and you know I’m great at it. The only reason I’ve been stuck on bass is because I somehow drew the short straw when the band formed. I got fucked, but it was never supposed to be permanent and you know that.” Matt narrowed his eyes but didn’t respond to my valid points, so I looked over at Evan and Kellan for support. “You guys got an opinion about this? Or is Matt the sole leader of the band now? Should we rename ourselves Matt-Bags? Or how about Door Matts?”

  Kellan appeared to not know what to say. He looked over at Evan with What should we do? written all over his face. Evan cleared his throat, then pointed at Matt with his drumstick. “It’s his instrument, man. It’s his call. If he says no…that’s his right.”

  “And what about my rights? I’ve wanted lead guitar from the first day we all hooked up, but I was outnumbered then and I’m outnumbered now. You jackasses won’t ever give me a chance!” My voice was loud and gruff, powerful and pissed.

  Matt’s voice, however, was calm when he answered me. “You don’t respect the art form, Griffin. You don’t take this seriously enough; you never have. I can’t give you that much responsibility when I know you can’t handle it. You’ll drop the ball, and this band means too much to me to let that happen.” After a moment of silence he added, “I’m sorry. I know how much you want it, but you are never going to play lead, understand? My answer will always be no. You should just accept that and let it go so we can move past this.”

  The sound of my heart pounding reverberated through my ears. I couldn’t believe the fuckers were saying no again…and for good this time. Never? They would never let me play the one instrument I’d always wanted? What the hell? “One song? You won’t even trust me with one fucking song? Have I ever dropped the ball on bass? No. I kill it every single night, and every single rehearsal. I may joke around, but I get the fucking job done, and you know it.”

  Matt’s lips pressed into a firm line and his cheeks turned a deeper shade of red, but he shook his head. “My answer is still no. It’s not ever gonna happen. Sorry. I wish I could tell you in a gentler way, but I feel like, at this point, it’s best to be blunt…so you’ll stop asking. We have a system that works; we’re
not going to change it just so you can live out your look-at-me fantasy. It’s time for you to grow up, Griffin.”

  Grow up? Fuck that. If anything, it was time for me to act like an immature asshole, since that was what they were doing. Opening my palm, I let my guitar fall to the floor. It fell with a thud, and I swear, something cracked. “Thanks for the fucking bone…fucker. If your answer is always gonna be no, then there’s no point in me being here, pretending to be a part of this band. Clearly, I’m not actually a member.”

  Not able to stand his face for another second, I stormed from the room. From behind me I heard Matt yell, “I have to think of the band first, Griffin. It’s not personal!”

  Muttering, “Neither is that, asshole,” I flipped him off as I walked out the door. I heard someone call out for me to wait before the door slammed shut and all sound cut off, but I ignored whoever had shouted it. I was done.

  Stomping past the pool, I paused to throw a chair in. The splash was satisfying, so I tossed in another chair. And a table. Fish that out, fucker. Indulging in my temper tantrum gave Kellan time to catch up to me. Emerging from the rehearsal room, he spotted me and strode over. Just when I was about to reach for another chair to throw in his pool, he grabbed my arm. Irritated, I jerked away from him. “Let go, Kell. I got nothing to say to you.”

  His brows bunched together until they were almost one fuzzy line of concern—One brow to rule them all…“What was all that about? And what did you mean at the end there? You are a part of this band, Griffin. You always have been, and you always will be.”

  Pushing him back a step, I snapped, “It’s a little late for the pep talk, bro. If you think I’m so valuable, you could have stood up for me in there.” I lifted my arms for emphasis. “It gave me the warm and fuzzies how you let him walk all over me.”