Santiago
Five Years Ago
Mo paced the garage, looking stressed and anxious out of his mind.
“Just tell us,” Murray pleaded.
“Not until Diego gets here.” Mo took out his phone, checking the time for the tenth time. “Where the hell is he?”
“He’s coming.”
I wouldn’t tell them he was here, just out in the backyard, talking to Maeve. He and I had gotten here at the same time, and he went searching for her the second he got out of my truck. It hadn’t taken him long to spot her by the pool in her red bathing suit, Yael lying beside her.
All summer, while I’d been meeting up with Maeve every morning to play music, Diego had been stealing moments to talk to her whenever she was around in the afternoon. I watched it play out. Watched her for signs of interest, both in the morning and the afternoon.
Maeve smiled, joked, touched. She blushed, hair-tucked, fluttered. It was who she was—a southern belle raised by a woman who’d be proud of how profoundly feminine and sweet her daughter was. As much as I liked that side of her, I got this itchy feeling under my skin when I thought about being one of the only people who knew the other side of her: the rebel rocker who couldn’t give a fuck about manners and being ladylike.
She did all the fluttery, blushing, light touches she did with everyone else. I knew why Diego thought she was into him just as much as he was into her. And maybe she was. Hell if I could read women, especially not one like her, who’d only left girlhood five minutes ago, but had wrapped her womanhood around her and given it an entirely new, blooming shape.
She’d spilled her secrets during our mornings in the garage. Told me how her mom had signed her up for violin lessons at a music shop back in Georgia, but Maeve had bribed the manager to switch her to drum lessons. When she’d moved to Baltimore, it had been more difficult, but the drum instructor had been a college guy who’d thought she was pretty, so he’d given in.
She’d given in to him too, losing her virginity at fifteen to a twenty-one-year old. When she told me that, I nearly got violent. Not with her, but with the walls and the bricks and the world. I would’ve hunted him down if she hadn’t told me he’d moved to Colorado after he graduated.
That was the moment I doubled down on my vow to never touch this girl. I’d be friends with her, share music and conversation, but we’d never go beyond that.
Diego opened the door, striding into the garage with his head down. “Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled. He took his seat behind his kit, rubbing his sticks together. “I’m ready.”
“Before we start, I need to talk to everyone,” Mo said.
Diego’s head jerked up, his face red, and I could’ve sworn his eyes were glassy. “What’s up?”
Mo pulled up a folding chair, sitting down on it backwards and resting his arms on the back. “My parents are cutting me off unless I go back to school this fall. No more house, no more car, no more garage, no more food, nothing.”
My stomach swooped. I’d been down this road countless times. Been in bands that broke up without warning. I should’ve been used to it, and for the most part, I was. This one was a gut punch. I’d gotten comfortable, settled in with these guys. I wasn’t ready to walk away. But it looked like I wouldn’t have a choice.
“Damn.” Murray shoved his shaggy hair away from his face. “They serious?”
Mo squeezed his eyes shut and nodded once. “Yeah. Dead serious. When I dropped out of school last fall, they gave me a year to pursue music or find myself or whatever. My time’s up, and they’re calling it in. I gotta decide.”
“Decide what?” Diego asked.
Mo looked at all of us. Really looked. Met each of our eyes. Studied us. He took a deep breath, and dove in. “I need to know if you’re all in. Even though I’m going to be couch surfing and we’ll have to find a new rehearsal space, I want this—Ineedit. I’m prepared to get gritty and do what I need to do. I’m talkin’ going on the road, playing every gig we land, making this our full time job.” He scanned each of us again. “What do you say?”
Murray was the first to speak. “I’m here for it. I have some money from my grandfather, I could probably bankroll us for the first few months. Maybe buy us a shitty van to take on the road.”
Diego had been nodding along the whole time. “I gotta get out of this town. I’m all the way in, ready to travel, get some miles beneath my feet.”
All eyes landed on me. I was the oldest, the one with the apartment, the day job, the most to lose if all this went belly up. Then again, what the hell was I doing? If I stayed, didn’t try, I’d turn into my old man. Not that that was a bad thing, but I wanted to at least be able to say I’d attempted something more.
“I’m in.”
Mo clapped his hands so loud, the sound echoed around the garage. “Thank Dave Grohl, my lord and savior. I thought for sure you were out.”
I shook my head, letting the idea settle over me. “Nope. I believe in our music and what we’re doing here.”
“We need a better name,” Murray declared. “Can’t be Acoustic Garage without our garage.”
Diego lifted a hand. “Since we’re talking names, I always questioned it. We’re not acoustic, so…”