Surge

Quinn handed me my drink, and Tae brought his over for a cheers.

“So how was Seattle?” he asked.

Really? We weren’t going to talk about the case?

“Yeah, I mean, Mom is great.”

Quinn took a seat and sipped her cocktail.

My heart beat quickly; this must be what it felt like to be nervous. Something I’d rarely experienced in life and mostly as a kid. I figured I better mention the elephant in the room. Ride it or get squashed by it. “Guys, much as I wanted to catch up on personal stuff, I just want to get the Fry case out in the open… I’m not one to bury my head in the sand. I fall on the sword and I’m really so sor…”

Tae leaned in and put a hand on my shoulder, cutting me off. “Dude. Don’t worry about it. This shit happens.”

Quinn got up from her seat to sit next to me on the couch. I was sandwiched between the two now.

“Drake, seriously, we aren’t having an intervention. Honestly, this stuff does happen all the time, and one of two things’ll go down. A settlement will happen and we can keep playing the songs. Or, a settlement will happen and we write some more. Either way, the tough part is over. Getting a fan base was the hard bit. Graphic Temple will be fine. Maybe it will even give us more—”

“Exposure,” Tae interrupted, his words slow with alcohol. “Starting over is easier than getting that motor to turn over the first time. We don’t need as much gas now. It’s all good, bro. Plus a couple of our bangers were written here. You wrote Afterglow and Distance in LA right? So those would have been officially copyrighted. We’d just have to hit the studio and crack out some more. Angst is a good inspiration, too, for musicians. So I’m not discounting being pissed off. Just use it to your advantage.”

“And breakups are also plat du jour,” Quinn added. “Songs like that are hot right now. A ‘fuck you’ song would be trendy.”

I lifted a brow. “What? Between seeing you last and now you’ve been and done with some guy?”

“No. Your breakup. Maeve was a fool.”

My body went stiff and hot. “Not having it.”

“Not having what? Me saying what an idiot she was for breaking it off?”

“Maeve is anything but an idiot.”

“Sorry.” She put a hand up, waving it as if to waft away my annoyance. “Just trying to have your back.” She flashed a smile, totally unbothered by what had happened, even though I seethed.

Tae changed the subject. “Anyway, it’s not a problem is the point we’re making. We’re musicians, and life will go on. It’s not like they take away our right to create. Just some cash. That we can replace.”

He sat back and polished off the last swig of his Negroni, making a sour face. Tae liked his liquor like his girls. Sweet.

Sitting in this environment, having this conversation with my bandmates, so casually accepting we might lose every last dime we’d earned, I didn’t belong.

Firstly, if I had to pay out my earnings, I was essentially homeless. Meanwhile, Quinn could move back into her suite here at Daddy’s, and Tae’s parents were just as loaded. Nothing in their lives would change. Their families would give them sympathy credit cards with five figure limits, and they’d still be buying their shoes on Rodeo Drive.

That wasn’t the case for me. But more than that, they didn’t know this was more to me than money. The memories of the good ol’ days with Jay, and his family, still vibrated under my skin like they happened yesterday.

When I’d first gone viral, everyone in his family had contacted me. They’d been so proud and all apologized for Jay not being there for me. With me. They were good people, the Frys. And underneath Jay’s addiction, I knew he was a good guy, too.

It was a total headfuck when Jules told me about the case. Part of me was pissed. Part was worried. And another part of me thought Jason was just being a puppet, strings pulled by a shady producer. I probably shouldn’t have given him the benefit of the doubt, given he’d already profited from some of my past songs when he’d first run off to New York, but that’s the weird thing about caring for someone with addiction. A nurturing connection became some invisible umbilical cord. You never stopped feeling like you could have done something to make it better even though your head told you being apart was the right thing.

I knew in my heart that the Frys would have contacted me and supported me through the lawsuit, too. But they’d probably been advised by Jay’s lawyer not to.

This was why, although it hurt like a bitch when Maeve broke up with me, I got it. Hell, she was connected to her mom by two umbilical cords—she was born by her and at the same time her keeper now. If I’d never really been able to disconnect from Jay, Maeve had had no chance. And why should she? Her mom never screwed her over.

But I wasn’t about to go through all this with these guys. The last thing I could do was defend Jay or explain to them that this war was more about blood for me than the hoard Right now, I just had to keep my mouth shut and be thankful I hadn’t lost it all. That I still had the band with me. And at the end of the day, they were right. The music didn’t have to stop no matter what the outcome.

I took a sip of my Negroni and coughed.

Quinn let out a light laugh. “Out of practice?”

It wasn’t the alcohol. I was suddenly short of breath. “Nah.” I took another sip, but my heart fluttered, and not in the good way.