14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Shining Beneath the Lights

This was it. Their first live show as a band. No matter how many times he'd performed in the past, Aaron still felt the flutter of nerves in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't just the music he was concerned about, though how well it went over would give them an early indication of how it might be received by a larger audience, like the Rocktoberfest one. It was if he could do what he'd done back in their music room, when he was standing in front of a live crowd.

He still felt like he was balancing on a tightrope, teetering with every step and never being able to fully get his balance despite how hard he tried to take a new step forward every day. It was getting easier to interact when they were playing, but the downtime still left him feeling nervous and worried about saying the wrong thing around Declan, so he showed up five minutes before a session was scheduled to start and left the moment it was over with, rarely eating with them when they took breaks, though in all fairness it was more before he was teaching himself to cook and lay off the takeout so he'd be able to help Hawk make meals for the kids or handle supper on his own if Hawk was busy helping once of them with something.

He'd cut down on the smoking, though he'd increased his edibles intake to keep his anxiety at bay and hit the pool every night after practice. Not only did it finish exhausting him, but he'd found himself coming up with ideas that had nothing to do with music, like the cloud capturer he'd been working on for Liam, who was curious about how they formed and loved to draw them. Still the nervous energy hit the moment he was awake, and he was losing weight, despite eating three proper meals a day. Hell, he'd even gotten the hang of getting his groceries delivered, but only after carefully selecting all the ingredients. His jeans were riding low, and the scratches on the backs of his fingers were a sure sign that his stim toys weren't holding his attention anymore, which meant it was time to do a bit of surfing so he could order a new batch.

"You okay?"

Aaron glanced up to see Micah watching him, his finger tracing a path along the chain he wore.

"Looks like I should be asking you the same thing."

Micah closed his eyes, blew out a breath, and sighed. "Just don't wanna fuck this up."

Aaron settled a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "First times always the worse."

"But it does get easier, right?"

"Oh yeah. I swear. You'll find your rhythm, your rituals and your coping mechanisms. Once those are in place, there won't be anything to stand in your way," Aaron insisted, hoping to sound more confident than he felt, considering the situation. They were still just four individuals trying to play music together, they weren't a real band, even if Kelly refused to acknowledge that fact and kept pressing forward, hoping they'd be able to decide whether they'd be capable of playing Rocktoberfest.

Hawk had insisted it would come and had even reminded him of their first few disastrous performances back when they'd been young and rushing to make a name for themselves. It should have been easier now. They'd seen so much in the past decade, performed all over the world, and yet here he was with a severe case of butterflies, while Kelly paced and jangled the metal puzzle Aaron had ordered him when he'd ordered his own box of fidget toys.

Okay, so maybe they weren't all for him. He fully intended to share with Hawk and the kids.

"Looks like Declan's already found his zen," Micah said, drawing his attention to the forth member of their band.

Micah had a point there. Declan had backed his chair into the far corner of the room and sat twirling a drumstick, looking completely at ease and ready for them to go on.

With his arms crossed, Aaron leaned against the wall closest to the door, wanting to get up there before self-doubt could kick in and the inner monologue started and completely convinced him that he was making the biggest mistake in his professional career.

"Do you have the set list memorized?" Kelly asked as he paced past, the jangle the kind of rattling rhythm that made for awesome white noise.

"You know I do." Aaron said. "I just wanna get this over with."

"Wow," Declan grumbled. "You make it sound like torture, or at the very least, a colonoscopy. That's not very comforting or flattering to the rest of us."

"Yeah, well, none of the rest of you have to go out there and try to do something you've never done before!" Aaron snapped, shoving away from the wall to start pacing opposite of Kelly. "I'm not a front man! I've never even filled in for Hawk in front of a crowd. We always brought someone else in, or rescheduled if he couldn't perform."

"Because you refused," Kelly reminded him.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just sayin' that I want this done so I know what it feels like. I'm tired of worrying about the unknown."

"Yeah, I get that," Micah replied. "I wish we were up there already too."

"You guys go out there scared and all you're gonna do is sabotage yourselves, and the rest of us in the process," Declan said, shooting dark looks at both of them, "so pull it together, please."

Whirling, Aaron turned to face him, because the guy had been sniping at him an awful lot lately and occasionally Micah too, which wasn't cool when the guy was working his ass off, the same as Aaron was. Hell, he'd even joined Aaron down in his apartment a few times, sharing a meal and working on their guitar parts where they could focus without interruptions or suggestions from anyone else clouding what they were attempting to do.

"I'm sorry that I can't fake a level of confidence that I don't feel yet. A part of me wishes I'd have stayed in Wyoming with the kids and sent Hawk back here to perform with you guys. At least then you'd have a real frontman and not a fuckin' pretender," Aaron declared, chucking his squishy gray stress ball at the wall.

"I think that is the most honest thing you've said since I met you," Declan said, sighing heavily. "If it's any consolation, I'm feeling pretty nervous too."

"Doesn't seem that way," Aaron grumbled.

"Then maybe you should look harder," Declan snapped. "Hell, maybe you should look at me while we're playing like you do everyone else so I'm not sitting up there feeling like the house drummer. Oh wait, him you actually want to play with. There's an awesome video going around. I don't know if you've seen it yet, not that you need to since you lived it, but it's you, playing just to the left of Kazzy, the two of you staring one another down, making funny faces and trying to get the other to laugh and fuck up a little in the middle of a song and you know what? It's awesome. Maybe if you explained to me why his ripped off flourishes don't distract you, I could work out my improvised ones, so you won't complain about me throwing everything off."

"We didn't need improvising when we were trying to polish a song," Aaron said, not arguing, just doing as Declan had asked and trying to explain the difference. "Kazzy wasn't creating anything, he was literally playing the exact version of the drumlines from a live show we'd both attended. It didn't throw me off because I'd expected it to be there."

"And you don't expect Kazzy to create," Declan said, filling in what Aaron hadn't wanted to say about his friend. "You already know going in that he's going to play someone else's version, and chances are you've heard it, and more than once, too."

"Pretty much," Aaron admitted, ceasing his pacing so he could stand several feet in front of their drummer. "You're improv is awesome, but you can't play up here when everyone else is still trying to master the art of standing."

He'd raised his hand damn near to the ceiling when he said it, hoping Declan got the point and didn't take it personal because it wasn't. The man was phenomenal on those skins, but you couldn't play balls to the wall when you were creating, everything just felt rushed then, like you were shooting paintballs at a canvas and hoping someone would call it art.

"Why couldn't you just say that directly to me?" Declan asked. "Why did I have to hear that I was fucking things up from Kelly, and then wait all these sessions later to learn way? Did you think I wouldn't get it if you just said it that way? I would have and I wouldn't have wasted a ton of time trying to work out understated ones."

"Yeah, say something and have Kelly take my head off ‘cause I wasn't tactful enough, no thanks! I piss him off enough as it is. I don't need to open my mouth and go adding more to it!" Aaron snapped, grateful when the door opened, and the club's stage manager popped his head in to tell them it was time.

In the past, he and Kelly would have shared a hug, in fact, the whole band would have been in on it. With arms around one another they'd have pressed their heads together, huddling in a little circle and just breathing in each other's energy. Tonight, Kelly just looked outraged, like he had something he wanted to say to Aaron but couldn't out of fear that Aaron would head out the backdoor instead of up onto the stage.

It was whatever. If he was gonna deny that he'd have been pissed if Aaron had unintentionally upset Declan by trying to get him to bring it down a notch, he could keep that bullshit to himself. Aaron knew where he stood.

He followed the manager out the door and up on the stage to plug his guitar in.

A quick soundcheck, and then Declan tapped out an intro to the first song and Aaron decided to take all of the unsettled feelings churning in his gut and pour them into the song. Fuck being scared. If they hated it then Kelly would have his answer as to whether Aaron could front a band or not, only…holy shit…phones were coming out, Kazzy stood near the front, mouth half hanging open, even Cade had a stunned look on his face, and he'd been there in the music room when they'd played for everyone.

Either this was epically awful to the point where the dirt rags' servers were gonna crash with all the video and emails the fans sent in trashing him….

Or they actually thought he was good.

Something in Aaron's brain kicked into overdrive and everything he said to Declan about not playing balls to the wall while the band was still struggling to find its footing, evaporated in the face of those people vibing with the music and with him up there in Hawk's spot. He turned to Micah, saw the traces of panic lingering in his eyes, grinned, banged his head, then slid to his knees, playing while looking up at him and flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth until Micah laughed, nudged his thigh with his toe, and really started to shed.

There were tears in Kelly's eyes when Aaron sauntered around him with his guitar, playing the way they always had, then he smiled and it just made Aaron fly higher to have earned that from his best friend.

Every note, every chord, he played them like he was playing for a hundred thousand people, pouring his soul in and purging something from it too, especially when they hit the forth song and he realized that the place was even more packed then it had been before. Holy shit, where they gonna shut down Shenanigans with an over capacity charge? Something about that amused him, or maybe it was just the rush of euphoria that had hit the moment he realized how into it all people were getting.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mosh pit break out and a table get turned over, drinks flying. That was the wrong vibe. He caught Kelly's eye in the middle of a guitar solo and mouthed the name of their new ballad, got a desperate nod from him and relayed the information to Micah before the solos end.

Blowing out a breath between songs, all Aaron heard for a moment was his heart hammering in his ears as everything went a little spotty for a second. Yeah, okay, even his body was saying slow down a little and don't forget to breathe. The moshing stopped the moment the slow guitar intro hit and there were rippling murmurs through the crowd that Aaron refused to think too much about for fear of tripping himself into the wrong headspace. He wished Hawk was here, so he could sing it to him again. Since he wasn't, Aaron settled on Cade, since singing to Kazzy had the potential to send mixed messages in light of the relationship they'd had. With the way Cade was always around and had even helped them set up today, he was becoming a safe space, an unofficial member of their crew and someone Aaron didn't have to worry would take it wrong since he'd already heard it.

Cade seemed to sense that he needed a focal point too and smiled, giving him a little nod of encouragement, much like Hawk had done back in the music room. It settled the nerves that had started to creep in during the intro, because it was one thing to belt out an energetic anthem, it was another to open yourself to the vulnerability that came from laying yourself bare in a ballad.

Aaron sang it to Cade the way he would have sung it to Hawk, only vaguely aware that someone was standing behind Cade with a camera pointed at Aaron's face. When he'd finished and the last note was still clinging to the rafters, echoing a little, there was this collective intake of breath, then the crowd exploded. It was so sudden and unexpected that Aaron staggered back a step and probably would have tripped over something if Micah's hand on the back of his shoulder hadn't steadied him. For a moment they just stood that way, soaking it all in before bowing to the fans and heading backstage for a break between sets.

His shirt was soaked with sweat and backstage was cold as fuck with the AC cranked up in the dressing room, so he peeled it off and tossed it beside his guitar case before rummaging around in his backpack for a bottle of water. He guzzled that shit while Micah snagged the notebook sticking out of his bag and furiously started scribbling. When Micah glanced over his shoulder and saw Aaron watching him, he motioned him over.

"Can I get your thoughts on something?" Micah asked.

"Hell yeah."

When Micah turned the notebook towards the chair Aaron pulled up, he could see that Micah was working on some modification to their playlist.

"That last set was just a steady build of energy and when it peaked, people damn near lost their minds," Micah said. "What if we repositioned these three songs to create waves?"

Studying it, Aaron could see what he was going for. "Could I see your pen?"

When Micah passed it over, Aaron rewrote the list, flipping the placement of two of the songs Micah had moved.

"This way we don't have two people suck songs back-to-back."

"Ohh, good point."

"What's going on?" Kelly asked as he stepped up beside them and pressed an ice cold drink to the back of Aaron's neck.

"Yipe! Fuck! Oh my god, cold, cold, cold," Aaron groaned, sighing when the shock faded and the chilly plastic started to feel really good.

"How's your throat?"

"I'm gonna eat a few spoons full of honey before we go back out there," Aaron said, grateful for Hawk's suggestion to carry a bottle in his stage kit.

"Good idea," Kelly said. "You sounded amazing, beyond amazing, amazing is too soft a word for the way you sounded tonight. There's a buzz out there and it's all positive. I've got three cards in my pocket from people who want us to contact them about booking, and one of them was for a gig at Lodi's."

"Oh fuck yeah!" Aaron declared as Cade and Declan finally joined them too.

"What are we fuck yeahing about?" Declan asked as he rolled over.

Aaron flinched, but for the first time, he didn't scoot or scurry as far away from him as he could, despite the thundercloud of emotions darkening his face.

"Lodi's wants to book us," Micah declared, never looking away from the page as he memorized the new order, then passed it to Kelly.

"Nice!" Cade said, but surprisingly, Declan said nothing, leaving Aaron to wonder if he was unsatisfied with Aaron's performance, despite him having given it his all.

"We made some notes and a few changes after the first set," Micah explained. "I thought maybe a wave in terms of the tone and pacing of the song lineup, would be better than running uphill then launching ourselves into the stratosphere."

"Yeah, definitely, this is good, let me just commit it to memory," Kelly replied as he studied it, then passed it to Declan before turning to look at Aaron.

"That was a good switch you made, with going to the ballad instead of saving it until the end and I love that you guys put Twisted Melodies as the finale in its place, since it's got a mix of low and haunting and fast and utterly chilling. If we figure out which two songs to cut, I'd say we already have our lineup for Rocktoberfest unless someone comes up with something that blows one of these away."

"Let's table that for once we've decided if we're going to play the show or not," Micah said.

"We should," Aaron said, startling himself when the words came tumbling out.

"What, table it?" Kelly asked as Aaron pressed the cold water to his forehead, rolled it over his cheek and neck, then cracked it open to guzzle it.

Everyone was staring at him when he was done, even Cade.

"What?"

"Did you mean that we should table it, or that we should play Rocktoberfest?" Micah asked when no one else said anything.

Aaron found himself smiling, the nerves of earlier completely gone, and without him having to scarf any of the edibles he'd packed just in case he needed a bit of help to get through the evening.

"It's an amazing outdoor venue and the energy, man those people, they make it feel like we're gods when we're up there. Last year's show was easily one of our top ten and the fact that they're letting us come back without an audition when we're not even the same band, that's something I don't think we can afford to throw away, even with the few things we've still got to work out," Aaron said. "So, yeah, I'm saying we should do it, if the rest of you still want to."

"Fuck yeah!" Kelly yelled, so close Aaron stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around, ‘cause damn.

"Oh man, you just made my night!" Micah said, snatching his phone from his bag and tapping away at the screen. "Rebecka is gonna flip! We get comp tickets for family and friends, right?"

"Every band member gets two," Aaron said.

"If you don't have someone you want to invite, you can gift them to fans," Kelly explained. "Last year Aaron gave his to a couple who were getting their engagement photos taken at the aquarium."

"Hey, those guys were fans, man, one of them had the lyrics to Another Day tattooed around his wrist," Aaron protested.

"Relax," Kelly said as he draped an arm over his shoulder and lightly tugged, then stroked his hair. "I wasn't giving you shit, just making a point about what could be done with the tickets if someone couldn't use them."

Relaxing into his touch, Aaron glanced at the clock and realized that they only had a few more minutes before they had to get back up on the stage. Declan noticed too and started for the door, Cade behind him, while Aaron let Kelly pet his hair for another minute before heading for the honey.

"Don't forget to have some tea tonight when you get home."

"I won't, or I could just have some at your place while we burn off the excess energy with Call of Duty?"

"Bet."

Out of reflex he checked his phone, and saw the rock on gif Hawk had sent, along with a still someone had clearly captured from the show. That it was circulating the internet already was awesome, but the name and number below it stopped Aaron cold.

"You need to come home immediately. Do not ignore us this time, this is serious, Aaron you need to get here as soon as you possibly can! No excuses!"

"Shit."

"What, what's going on?" Kelly asked as he came over to stand beside him.

Aaron turned the phone so he could see it and watched Kelly's face pale a little. "Are there any other messages explaining what the hell that's all about?"

Gliding his fingertip over the screen, Aaron made it scroll back to the last message, almost two years before, berating him for not showing up to a church function honoring his grandfather's contributions as a deacon.

"No, just that."

"What are you gonna do?" Kelly asked as the stage manger poked his head in and let them know it was time to go on again.

"I guess I'm heading to the airport after the show, but I'll be back as soon as I find out what the hell this is all about," Aaron promised, hating the flash of disappointment that crossed Kelly's face.

"No, we'll go together, that way if it's some bullshit, we can blow off steam at my sister's place and catch a plane back tomorrow."

"Naa dude, if it's some bullshit, I don't want you walking into that viper's nest with me," Aaron explained, still desperate to keep his best friend from seeing the full level of shittiness his grandparents and aunt aspired to.

"Are you sure?" Kelly said. "Because I've got no problem getting on that plane with you."

"I know, and I appreciate it. Now let's go blow them away again!"

He headed for his guitar without another word, anxious anger making the opening words come out growled when they launched into their first song. At least it gave him an emotion to play with. Judging by the response from the crowd, they could relate.