CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NASH

It’s been two days since we decided to do the benefit concert. It’s also been two days since I told Ainsley I’d like to take her on a real date. And it’s been two days since she shot me down cold. I would like to say I’ve been delving into my work focused on making sure this show goes off without a hitch, but that would be a complete and total lie. My phone buzzes next to me on the sofa. I still hope each notification will be her. They aren’t. New message in band chat from Travis…

At first, I’m outraged; then I look down. Damn it. I wipe away the stray orange crumbs from the red plaid flannel shirt I’ve been wearing for almost three days now.

---

I have to hand it to our team; they did an amazing job putting this show together at breakneck speed. The stage looks even more impressive than the one we used on our last world tour. Our logo is a little larger than normal, I assume that’s to ensure it translates better live. When we performed before, we had to be conscious of how our movements and setup would translate on video and keep everything in ratio with frame size.

See what I mean? Everything in this business is a gimmick, even the way we position ourselves on stage. This one though, it’s more authentic and feels like we’re getting back to our roots. Carly’s set everything up, so it’ll stream on our socials with a donation link attached to the video, but no makeup. No filters. No theatrics. Just us and the music. I take a deep breath; it’s been a long time since I’ve been this excited to pick up my axe and play for a crowd.

“Are you guys ready?” Travis asks, flinging one arm around my neck and the other around Griffin’s. “It’s been for-ev-er, since we’ve been on a real stage.”

I can’t help but laugh. The energy is high tonight, and it feels good, even if there is still a weight in my heart that I can’t shake. There’s also a buzz in the air you can’t duplicate anywhere else. This energy can only be found at a live show. “Even if that real stage is in front of a parking lot full of parked cars instead of live bodies?”

Travis shrugs. “There’ll be live bodies inside the cars.” He does a little hop dance and spins on one heel like he’s Michael Jackson. “I’m kind of excited about it. It might be something we could add into our future tours as a little throwback to when the world started turning the lights back on.”

“I like that…” Griffin purses his lips together, nodding his head. “It would be a great way to remind everyone of the power of community.”

“Especially the Amaryllis community,” Devon’s voice adds from just behind us.

“Dude!” Travis gives him a high-five.

“Bro!” Griffin offers his fist for a bump. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, we’ve been hunkered down; but I was thrilled to find out we were going back to work.” He flexes his biceps in an Ironman style pose. “I’ve been working on these things to make sure I can keep the mobs from swarming the stage with a limited team on my hands.”

Griffin grits his teeth. “Yeah, sorry about that. We have to social distance you all and that means we have to rotate you guys.”

“No worries.” He kisses his right bicep. “We’ve got this.”

“You’re a weird guy,” Carly snorts out as she walks up beside Adair, planting a kiss on his cheek. It’s bittersweet seeing them together. As his older brother, I’m grateful they have each other. I’m also thrilled Adair finally pulled his head out of his ass and admitted his feelings for Carly but seeing their love and the happiness it brings them tugs at something inside of me. I want that in my life too.

From my position to the side of the stage, I watch as Ainsley takes her place at the microphone. Since the hospital is co-sponsoring this event, they asked her to be the emcee for it. The way her fingers wrap around the mic stand makes every nerve in my body stand up and take notice. I shake my head and turn away. She’s made it very clear I need to redirect my focus. She’s not interested, and that has to be okay. Maybe later things could change, but for right now I have to accept it. I make my way to the holding pen behind the stage, telling myself it’s so I can check in on the pre-show setup, but it’s mostly so I’m not standing there staring at Ainsley wishing things could be different.

“Hey,” Travis says. “I need to talk to you.”

“What’s up?” I ask. He sounds uncharacteristically serious, which puts me on high alert.

He rubs the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. “I’ve been doing some things that I haven’t let the rest of you in on.”

I narrow one eye at him, feeling my eyebrow raise in the process. “Like what?”

“I’ve been working with some indie talent to produce their records.”

“That’s not a big deal, dude. You’ve got your own studio.”

He shrugs. “I know, but that’s not exactly the issue.”

“Then what is? We’re about to go on.”

“I thought I would do it for just a payment up front, you know. Earning some extra money to stay afloat until the new album took off, and we were back at the top.”

“Okay.”

“But I’m thinking more and more that some of these artists are incredibly talented. Most of them, actually. I think we should look at signing them to the label, instead of just focusing on our own music.”

“So, you want to add more irons into the Amaryllis fire?”

“Not exactly.” He nods toward Adair, who is standing at the side of the stage bugging Carly, who is trying to set up the live stream for our channel. “He’s working on the side as a manager. She’s working as the marketing genius and PR consultant. Griffin opened the label. Why aren’t we putting all those pieces together and making Amaryllis stand for what it’s supposed to stand for in the first place?”

“Change.”

He nods. “We left The Machine because we hated the grind. We bitch and moan that we hate the industry, but what are we doing to change it? Nothing.”

He’s right. “Griffin said he didn’t want to add anything into the mix until we had more experience with running the label. We get that experience through releasing more of our own music and all the nuts and bolts that go with that.”

“I know,” he admits, hanging his head just slightly. “But the whole damn world changed in the blink of an eye. If there’s ever going to be a time in our lives where we need to step up and do what we set out to do—this is it.” The conviction in his eyes is enough to convince me. He might be a goofball most of the time, but he has a brilliant business mind and since he was the youngest of all of us, he’s grown up in this business while the rest of us were already pretty set in our ways. He might understand it better than any of us.

“Okay,” I finally say.

“Okay?”

“Yep.” I nod and slap him on the back. “You did good, little bro. I’ll talk to Griffin about it for you if you want me to. The world needs hope right now and if we can bring that to even one fan, we’d be irresponsible not to.”

“Hi,” a soft voice says just behind me. I turn and find Ainsley standing there, staring at me. It’s everything I can do to not get lost in her eyes. “I just wanted to tell you I think it’s really incredible you all agreed to do this.”

I clear my throat trying to rid myself of the obnoxious tickle in the back of my throat that just suddenly decided to make itself known. “It was Carly and Mira’s idea.”

“Well, you all still agreed to do it.”

“We had to go along with it,” Travis interjects. “It was beautiful. Speaking of beautiful…” His eyes follow a blonde who just hopped out of the passenger side of a souped-up muscle car. “If you’ll excuse me…”

“Don’t forget to social distance, bro,” I yell at him as he goes to hop the fence. “Can you imagine what a social distance flirting Travis is like?” I shudder, forgetting for a brief second there’s an awkward tension building between her and I.

“That’s a terrible… and hilarious mental image.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other as she chews on her bottom lip. “I was hoping I’d get to talk to you tonight.”

Does she not understand how hard it is for me to be in her presence and not rip my heart out of my chest and just hand it to her? “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.” She sucks in a nervous breath.

“What’d you want to talk about?” I ask as pointedly as possible.

“The other day—”

I hold one hand up to stop her. I can’t deal with her rejecting me again. Least of all, right before I’m supposed to be on stage. “Listen, I get it. I have to be on stage in like three minutes, so now isn’t the best time.”

She nods and whispers something under her breath, which I can’t hear and make zero effort to try to understand. I have to stay as far away from her as I can tonight. “Carly,” I yell. She’s the first person I see, so she’s the one who’s going to have to help me dodge this bullet. “Did you need help to get everything set up?”

Her eyes dart back and forth between me and Ainsley. The fact they’re close friends isn’t helping me right now. “Uh, Adair just helped me set everything up.”

“Right.” I completely over-exaggerate my reaction, hoping Ainsley will think we’re in a very serious conversation.

Carly snickers as she stands up and wraps one arm around my shoulder, leading me back toward the stairs at the side of the stage. “I think it’s almost time for the circle.”

“Yeah.”

“You should also try just a little harder,” she says with a knowing smile on her face.

Harder?

“Do you remember how hard Adair had to work to convince me he had changed?”

“Yes, but Adair is a pain in the ass, and we thought you should make him work even more than you did.”

She lets out a laugh that echoes in the backstage area. Adair glares at me from where he’s talking to Devon, at the security booth.

“I don’t know how to try harder, Carly.” Sigh. “I mean, I guess I could cut myself open and bleed out on the floor in front of her.” I throw my hands to the side.

“Nash, we do not need a man-fit right now. Adair has thrown enough of those today to last me a lifetime.”

I roll my eyes back in my head so hard it hurts, but she’s right. “I’ve already told her all my secrets, and she closed up on me as soon as I did. I don’t know what else to do.”

“We all have our baggage, Nash.” She gives me a sisterly hug and pats me on the back of my shoulder. “Sometimes we’re just not sure if someone else can handle the extra on top of everything they’re already carrying.”

Extra baggage… “Are you telling me she’s afraid her baggage is too much for me to deal with?”

“She’s afraid of hurting you.”

I scoff and kick at an imaginary rock in front of my foot. “Yeah, she seems really concerned with not hurting me.”

“Don’t you get it? She’s afraid she’ll put you in a position that will jeopardize everything you’ve worked to accomplish.” And with that, she turns to go back to her station and monitor the feed.

I growl while staying completely locked into place at the side of the stage. Seriously? I was hurt before, but now I’m just pissed. I’m not just some weed blowing in the wind. It was a conscious decision to get sober, a decision I make every damn day. “C’mon, Amaryllis! Attention!” I yell through cupped hands, knowing damn well I need to refocus, and the circle is the best way for me to do that. Familiar faces gather round. My brothers, London, Carly, Vic, Devon, and the rest of our Amaryllis team comes from their stations to join our pre-show circle and throw their hands into the center. I add mine to the mix; one on top, one on the bottom, with theirs held firmly between mine. It’s our routine to help calm nerves, symbolize family, and make sure the energy is right when we hit the stage. “Our stage family is smaller tonight than it has been in the past.”

They nod in agreement.

“That’s because so many of our Amaryllis family members are still at home; but we’ll get a chance to see their faces soon. Let’s wish them safety and health to get through this mess.”

They all whisper their affirmations.

“Tonight, we’re here to lift the spirits of everyone in that parking lot, and everyone who tunes in at home. The world is a dark place right now, but we can shine a light for everyone who tunes in. So, let’s hold that damn light as high up as we can. Make sure they see it. One person, one family, one love can change the world,” I say, lowering my hands and letting all of theirs sink right along with me. “Let’s show them what it means to be…” I push up to break the circle as every single of our voices responds in unison, “Am-uh-real-us!”

The lights over the stage go out as the spotlight over Travis’s drum set flicks on. He’s right on cue as he bounces on to the stage, holding one hand in the air, as he kicks out a steady beat. Adair runs on stage from the side opposite of where I’m standing and lets his bass ring out as the light over his head comes on. The next one’s mine. I grab my guitar from the stand beside me and barrel out onto the stage. I’m still full of the negative energy and just need to let it out, so I improvise on the riff I’m supposed to play. It felt good. I think it sounded good too. The crowd is still cheering as Griffin’s light comes on and he grabs the mic in front of him, launching us into the song. I’m playing better than I have in ages, but I still don’t feel like I’ve let enough of it out. As we make our way out of the bridge, I lean over Griffin’s shoulder and belt out the chorus with him. The crowd loves it. Even though they’re all still in their cars, I can hear the cheers and applause as headlights across the parking lot flash on and off, signaling their approval.

It’s a rush.

I love it.

As we fall back into the melody to wrap the song up, I catch Ainsley watching me from the security booth. Devon’s standing beside her, scanning the crowd, and doing his job. Her eyes lock onto mine and the longing in them feels like it matches mine. Maybe there’s something else behind her walls that I don’t understand yet. For the first time in days, hope rises through my chest.