While she focused on making me look like a rock star, I focused on calming the anxiety building in my chest that had nothing to do with the gig and everything to do with what I’d read in my notebook.
“Have you seen Matt, Tan? I really need to talk to him.” I leaned into the room, finding Tanner with Emmy, who looked very much like someone who’d just been fucked hard against the wall. Her cheeks were flushed, and she avoided my eyes, looking up nervously at Tanner.
She twitched her head towards the door. “I’ll see you in a bit, rock star. Thomas is waiting for me outside.”
“Okay, but promise you’ll stay with him. Please, Angel, I can’t have anything bad happen to you again.”
“I promise.” He pressed a kiss to her lips, and I looked away, not wanting to intrude on their moment.
“I love you,” Tanner whispered, making Emmy’s blush deepen and then he smacked her hard on the ass as she left, squeezing my hand briefly when she passed.
“He’s off beingRamboand keeping stalkers and crazy people away from us. You okay little sis?”
“Yeah. No. I don’t know. I just need to talk to him.”
“You wanna tell me?”
I crossed the room toward him and handed over my notebook, open to the page I’d found earlier. Tanner just nodded.
“Yeap, you need to talk to him, Frankie. and please, for the love of God, let him speak. You talk a lot, little sis.”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Put that somewhere safe, because no one else needs to find his secrets until he wants them to.”
“But he wanted me to see them? He wrote this for me?”
“Yes, he did.”
I’d been thinking about this a lot since I’d found those words. Did he want me to find them? I mean, he wrote them inmynotebook, which was inmyroom. Surely that wasn’t a coincidence, but if he meant for me to find them, why didn’t he just explain?
“Why didn’t he just tell me?” I asked Tanner, who’d obviously known about this for a while.
“How do you bring that sort of thing up, Frankie? It’s not a post-sex conversation or even something you bring up in passing while you’re watching a movie.”
“Did I fuck up, Tan? Have I ruined this?” I asked my big brother, desperate for someone to reassure me that this was fixable. I still hadn’t heard a word from Matt after I’d messaged him and the longer his silence stretched between us, the less hope I had that I could make this better.
“You both fucked up, but if Emmy and I are anything to go by, everything—even the worst things—are fixable.”
A tear slipped from my eye, and Tan wiped it away quickly. “Hey, you don’t get to do that tonight. No feeling sad. This is our biggest gig ever and we’re singing some ofyoursongs. You and Matt will sort things out afterward, but for now, I need you on your A-game little sis, because we can’t play without you. You okay?”
“I need a hug.”
“A hug I can do. Come here.” I sank into Tanner’s arms.
“It’s time,” one of the crew yelled outside the door. Tanner pulled away, holding my hand as we walked, flanked by a ridiculous number of bodyguards, to the stage.
“Right guys, you ready for this?” Mav asked as he and Gray appeared next to us.
“Hell, yeah. I am. Frankie?” Tanner asked, looking concerned.
One of the crew handed me my drumsticks as someone introduced us to the stage and I sucked in a deep breath, determined to enjoy the night. “I am. Let’s go make history, boys.”
“That was amazing! We just played your songs to people all over the world, sis.”
“It still doesn’t feel real,” I laughed, shaking my head at the idea that the songs we’d just sung were the ones I’d written in secret, thinking no one would ever want to hear them.
“Come on, let’s grab a water and wait for the others.”