Forever Wicked by Piper Lawson

Author:Piper Lawson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Piper Lawson

12

Nothing feels like being on stage. As I make my way to our crew, it’s still thrumming in my veins—the power, the creation. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way, and the adrenaline is addictive.

Nina hollers, “Boys, you’ve still got it.”

I stop in front of Haley. Her face tips up to me, her lips full and eyes big.

Jerry’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “You were all right, but the—”

“Bass was too loud,” Mace and I echo.

Brick throws up his hands.

I grin, still looking at my fiancée. “Well?”

She steps closer, breathless. Her fingers trace my arms. “Not bad considering you’re retired.”

With a groan, I claim her with a kiss that’s one part love for her attitude and one part punishment for it.

I get a high from the show, from the music, from the crowd worshipping us. But since her, hers is the opinion that matters.

She’s the one I want saying my name. The one that makes it all worthwhile.

“Break it up. That’s what the honeymoon is for,” Serena teases, but I take my time before stepping back.

Then the group of us sits and drinks and talks. We catch up, hearing about Lita’s drive from Philly with Jerry, and the tension that’s been hanging over the week eases a few degrees.

Eventually we pile into the bus to drive home.

Inside, Mace starts toward the studio in the back, but I grab his shirt. “Everyone stays up here. My bus, my rules.”

Catcalls go up, and Haley flushes as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

But she shrugs with a smile. “Sorry, boys. It is Jax’s bus.”

The fact that she agrees with me, even on such a small thing, sends a surge of satisfaction through me.

The crew drops onto the couches up front as I grab Haley’s hand and tug her toward the back—the studio where my bedroom used to be when this was my tour bus.

We shut the glass door that separates the studio, then I pull the curtain over it. It’s silent back here, and the only sensory stimulus seeping in is the cushioned gliding of the bus moving over the streets.

Haley looks around the studio. “You built all this from scratch?”

“Me and the guys. Jerry weighed in on the tech.” I follow her gaze to the soundboard, the amps and mics and soundproof walls we installed with our bare hands. “Been awhile since I was in here.”

“Getting denied that funding for Big Leap hit you hard.”

My chest twinges, but I shrug as I run a hand over a panel of wall filled with Sharpie signatures—one from every kid who spent time here. There are close to fifty, but I want hundreds. “Like you said, it’s nothing personal. A bunch of bureaucrats pushing papers. They don’t know music. They don’t know what we do, why it matters.”

But her gaze works over mine. “Don’t give up on it. Not on those kids and not on you. Just because things don’t happen the way we expect doesn’t mean they won’t happen.

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