CHAPTER ONE
ADAIR

“Guys!” Travis barrels through the doors of Amaryllis Records, causing a rush of fresh paint smell to flood my nostrils. The loud screech of his overly excited voice causes me to jump. My chair makes a thud as it hits the ground right in front of me.

“C’mon, Travis!” I growl over the collective snorts and chuckles of my brothers—and Carly Thompson—just what I needed tonight. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t love Carly, but that hasn’t done me a lot of good since I’ve spent the last twelve years pushing everyone I love away. Especially, Carly. “Don’t even start with me,” I narrow my eyes at all of them, but mostly Griffin since his laugh boomed the loudest, as I stand the chair back up on its legs. “All five of you screamed. Your faces totally distorted. I saw it all.”

“Right before you dumped your sorry butt out onto the floor?” The look Carly gives me makes me cringe inside, but I can’t show her that. I just shrug and smack Travis on the back of the head as he bounces by still consumed with whatever idea he’s about to unleash on us.

“Dudes!” Travis tucks his head and curtsies to Carly. Yes, he actually curtsied. I don’t even know what’s wrong with him at this point. “And dudette,” he says as he stands back upright.

Carly shakes her head holding one paint-covered hand up. “Travis, I do not have the energy for you tonight.”

“Energy? For me?” He wiggles his eyebrows at her.

“Why are you being so overdramatic, tonight?” Griffin asks through a laugh.

Carly giggles. “Is overdramatic really anything new for him?”

Travis just shrugs. “I feel like Dare might need a wake-up call, so he’ll stop being such a pain in the—”

That’s it. I jab him in the shoulder, which Travis rubs over-dramatically to make me look like the class bully. He sticks out his tongue and makes a face I would expect a five-year-old to make. “Speaking of wake-up calls,” he says before I can even respond.

Groan.

“Dare, why won’t you just admit you love her?” He jabs his thumb toward Carly, which I think she might break off if he doesn’t pull it back… immediately.

“I asked you to stop calling me that in high school.” I reply ignoring his question entirely. I am not going to explain myself to any of them, least of all to Travis. Pfft.

He scrunches his face up somewhere between a scowl and thorough confusion. “I thought that was just because of the drug campaign and you didn’t want your standards to be confused with actually being a decent human.” He waves his hand dramatically over his head. “Whatever. Moving on.”

“You really don’t know when to stop, do you?” I take two steps toward him to remind him who’s the older brother here, but Nash steps between us and shakes his head. He’s got me by more than a few years… “Ugh, fine.”

Carly lets out a high-pitched laugh that echoes through the studio. It’s the sweetest sound I’ve heard all night.

Travis holds his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t actually come here to annoy all of you.”

“Are you sure?” Carly asks, still laughing and picking at the dark purple paint on her hands.

“Positive.” He pumps both fists in the air like an idiot bouncing to a beat none of us can hear. “I just put the finishing touches on our dance.”

“What dance?” I had been just fine staying out of this conversation, but he got me.

“The groomsmen’s dance for Griff’s wedding.” His smile widens as he tries to connect his phone to the studio equipment. “Dude, what’s the pairing code?”

Griffin snorts and shakes his head. “I’m not telling you.”

“You were my favorite brother, too.” He pauses and cuts a glare at him from over his shoulder. “Were.” He wraps an arm around me, pulling me in for a hug. Not his brightest idea ever. “Guess I’ll have to finally admit my love for Adair.” He gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“I’m going to punch you in the nuts, man.” I shake him off and back up against the studio wall, keeping my eyes focused on him. “I’m not entirely sure you’re mentally stable anymore, bro.”

Carly giggles. “Was he ever?”

“Just give me a minute…” Travis taps his screen and swipes a few times. “Ah-ha! Griff, you’re so predictable,” he chuckles as the lights flicker on.

“Great,” Griffin growls over the gentle hum of the studio equipment powering up.

“L-0-n-d-0-n probably wasn’t the most difficult password in the world. You really need to up your security level if you’re going to be running a multi-million-dollar studio here,” Travis teases as he takes a spot in the middle of the recording area, folding his arms across his chest. He tucks his head down and I already know this is going to be terrible.

“Don’t you dar—” an upbeat pop melody cuts Griffin off mid-sentence. Travis immediately responds to the music by breaking out into the most ridiculous dance I’ve ever seen in my life.

Griffin clicks his phone on and holds it up in front of our idiot brother.

“Are you getting this?” I ask.

“Of course,” he snorts. “Blackmail is a brotherly right, after all,” he chuckles as he taps the record button.

“Hello?” A very familiar voice calls out from the speaker. He flips the phone around to see London, his fiancé, staring back at us with confusion and humor written all over her face. “I must’ve called at a bad time. Also… what is wrong with Travis?”

Griffin shrugs. “We think he fell out of the second story window when he was a baby, but we have no proof.”

“Except that…” I point to where our youngest brother is spinning wildly across the studio floor as Griffin flips his phone back around so London can see. Her giggle tells me that she got a view of his idiocy in full effect.

“He really pops on the beat. I’m impressed, honestly.” Carly laughs, taking a spot beside me. She peeks around the front of Griffin’s phone and waves to London. The soft vanilla honey scent of her perfume hits me square in the chest. I breathe in deep, wallowing in the instant memories of how things were before the accident. We were just kids, but things were so much easier then…

The music comes to an abrupt stop as Travis wraps up his final spin, ending at exactly the right moment with the music. “I’m not related to you,” I scoff. “There had to be a mix-up.”

Nash drags his hands down his face. “I’m not doing that dance.”

“It’s for Griffin’s wedding!” Travis holds his arms out wide. “We have to do it. It would be an injustice to the honor of our brother’s love if we don’t do this dance.”

“I really don’t think that’s how any of this works,” Nash says still shaking his head.

“Nope,” I grumble. “I’m not doing it. Their love can be cursed if it means I have to dance.” I glance out of the corner of my eye to see London scowling on Griffin’s screen. He’s just chuckling quietly to himself. “Sorry, London,” I mouth to the phone.

“Griff—” Travis starts, but I cut him off.

“No.”

London clears her throat on the phone.

Crap. “Don’t do it, Griff. Stay strong.”

“Hi, London!” Travis waves and brightens as soon as he sees her. She’s been like a big sister to him since she joined Amaryllis and especially after she and Griffin got engaged.

“Hi, Trav,” she says with a smile. “Griffin, I haven’t really asked for anything specific for this wedding you know…” He flips the phone around to see her face. This is not going to end well for us. He’s a sucker for her. Carly moves just slightly to brush a stray strand of hair out of her face and it catches my attention. If Griffin sells us all out, I get it. Women. Ugh.

“London… I… Uh…” He gestures between himself and the floor where Travis is smirking like he knows something we don’t. Recognition smacks me so hard I think I might fall over.

“Did you two come up with this?” I screech, waving my finger between London on the phone and Carly standing beside me.

“Maybe.” Carly and London giggle as Travis lets a smirk spread across his smug face.

I suck in a mouthful of air, feeling my chest puff up in the process. “No way,” I say, shaking my head back and forth.

Their unanimous laughter fills the studio.

“Were you all in on it?” My voice goes up at least an octave before it cracks as I whirl around to face Griffin.

Carly pats me on the back. “Looks like someone is going to be dancing for the next seven days.”

Ugh! “At least it’s only seven days.” I make a gag face. “After that Griffin and London will be off on their honeymoon and this nightmare will be over.”

“Isn’t the video shoot next week?” Travis pipes up. “Nigel sent me a reminder about it today, but I wasn’t thinking. That’s going to be cutting it kind of close isn’t it?”

“You? Not thinking?” I give an over-exaggerated laugh. “Never.”

Griffin just shrugs and nods toward the phone where London’s face is still occupying the screen. “We’re going to stick close to home until after the contract is fulfilled then we’ll figure it out from there.”

Travis wrinkles his nose. “That’s… kind of lame, dude.”

Carly smacks him on the back of the head this time, so I don’t have to. “Shut. Up.”

“What?” he squeaks, rubbing the back of his head.

Griffin’s jaw tenses and he waves his fist in the air at Travis, but out of the camera angle so London can’t see.

“And,” Travis continues, completely oblivious to the tension he’s stirring up. “what are you going to do after next week, Carly? The end of the Amaryllis contract with The Machine means you’ll be out of a job too, doesn’t it?”

She nods and goes back to picking the paint off her fingernails. “I’m not completely sure. I guess we’ll see when next week gets here.”

Travis shakes his head and goes back to practicing his dance moves.

I hadn’t even thought about that. Our leaving The Machine means everyone who has been in our camp is going to be scrambling looking for work. I don’t like that. I especially don’t like thinking we’ve done that to Carly. Griffin shoots me a look that says we’ll talk about it later though, so I let it go for now.

“I do have to ask,” London motions to Travis through the screen. “You’re the drummer for the best-selling rock band of the last decade—not a dancer. Where did you come up with those moves?”

Travis shrugs flicking the brim of his ballcap. It pops off his head doing flips in the air as he spins on his toes and reaches out to catch it all in one movement. “I always wanted to be a Backstreet Boy,” he says, sliding the cap back on his head.

Carly’s laughing so hard she snorts.

“Are you picturing us all dancing?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Mostly just picturing you dancing.” The smile she gives me is worth every bit of humiliation this is going to cause when the media picks it up.

“I’m going to get even with all of you.” I wag my finger at Griffin who is solely responsible for my impending humiliation. “Especially you.” I catch Carly still giggling under her breath before turning my attention back to the village idiot currently playing his leg like a guitar across the studio. “In the meantime, I have to go crush our youngest brother.” I make it across the floor in two big leaps with Travis squealing like a little girl as he takes off running toward the exit door.