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.