Dare stood and lifted good ol’ Genevieve off her pegs on the wall. He blew a puff of dust from her fretboard and sat down on the coffee table to tune her.
“You’re blocking the shot,” Toni whispered. “Do you want me to move the camera?”
Dare glanced over his shoulder at the video camera trained at his back. “I’ll move,” he said.
“But you usually sit in the middle of the room,” Max said.
“Then I’ll pull the camera over here,” Toni said. When she had a new shot lined up, she stared at them expectantly again. Logan was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one feeling awkward.
“Um,” Max said, “so I guess we should decide what kind of song to compose. I was thinking something acoustic. We haven’t done an acoustic track and since—”
“Fuck that,” Steve interrupted. “Why am I being excluded?”
“You aren’t being excluded,” Max said, raising a placating hand.
“Oh yeah?” Steve said. “How many drum tracks will you require to accompany your acoustic song?”
“Acoustic songs don’t have drum tracks,” Logan said.
“Exactly,” Steve said. “So that means I’mmmm . . . ?”
“Excluded?” Logan supplied.
Steve slapped his thigh. “Exactly.”
“We could add a drum line to an acoustic song,” Max said. “You could play snare.”
“Technically, drums are acoustic,” Dare said. “Acoustic just means without amplifiers.”
“Why are you defending him?” Steve said. “You hate playing acoustic guitar.”
“I wouldn’t say I hate it,” Dare said. “I just prefer electric.”
“So we’re scratching the acoustic idea,” Steve said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You just don’t want to do it because it was my idea.” Max was starting to shout already.
“No,” Steve yelled back. “I don’t want to do it because it’s a stupid idea!”
Logan would normally have chosen a side by now, but he didn’t want to escalate the problem. Toni was counting on them.
“Guys!” Reagan yelled over all of them. “Calm down.”
Max rose to his feet and waved an arm in Steve’s direction. “I’m not going to calm down until he admits that he’ll think any idea I have is stupid—”
“I freely admit any idea you have is stupid,” Steve said.
“I wasn’t finished,” Max said in a clipped tone. “He will think any idea I have is stupid because it wasn’t his idea.”
“I definitely admit that too,” Steve said. “We need a song with a huge drum solo. Currently all we have is guitar solo, guitar solo, guitar solo.”
“What about a bass solo?” Logan suggested.
“No one wants to hear a bass solo,” Steve said.
“No one wants to hear a fucking drum solo either!” Logan said.
“We have to have a guitar solo,” Dare said.
“Why?” Steve said. “Because we always have a guitar solo? You’re all so predictable. Why can’t we do something different for a change? It’s not like this song is going on an album. It’s just for this stupid book.”
Logan glanced at Toni. He wasn’t sure if her shell-shocked expression was due to Steve undermining her work or because, as usual, the arguing between them was already intensifying. He hit Steve to show his support for his woman. “Toni’s book is not stupid.”
“Guys, guys,” Reagan said. “Maybe we should start with lyrics and—”
“Start with lyrics?” Max asked. “We never start with lyrics.”
“How is she supposed to know that?” Dare snapped, shoving Max in the chest. “She’s never had the pleasure of being involved in this fucking bullshit.”
“Okay, not with lyrics then,” Reagan said calmly. “How do you usually start?”
“Exactly like this,” Logan said. He was sure Toni wasn’t getting what she expected for her book, but she was getting an authentic experience. “These assholes can’t agree on anything.”
“We can all agree that you contribute nothing, so you might as well leave,” Steve said.
“I contribute!” Logan shouted, anger making his skin hot and his heart race.
“What do you contribute? D chord, D chord, D chord, D chord,” Steve said, keeping the beat to his improvised bass line with shakes of his head.
“Shut up,” Logan growled. “I sometimes play E.”
“We usually start with a guitar riff,” Dare said to Reagan. He looked to their original rhythm guitarist. “Max?”
Max looked at the electric guitar he’d brought in and hooked to one of the practice amps. He swallowed hard, rubbing his wrist brace, and then switched his attention to the acoustic guitar in the corner. “I still think acoustic—”
“No,” Steve interrupted.
“Bull headed,” Max grumbled under his breath, but he rose from his spot on the sectional to yank his favorite blue guitar off its stand—it was the only guitar he hadn’t allowed Reagan to borrow when she’d joined the tour. He took his time adjusting the tuning while the rest of them twiddled their thumbs or exchanged glares.
Max took off his wrist brace and carefully laid it on the coffee table. He flexed his fingers several times and then shook blood into the underused hand. “This one has been keeping me awake at night,” he said. He played several notes of a raunchy riff, shook his head, slid his hand along his fret board to a lower octave and started over. Smiling, he nodded and bobbed his head slightly to the rhythm as he came to the end of the string of notes and returned to the beginning.
Logan sat up straighter, listening to the natural rhythm of the piece and mentally adding his lower bass tones to the midrange.
“Oh, I love it,” Reagan squeaked.
“So you hear this kind of stuff in your head?” Toni asked. She was staring at Max with the kind of awe she usually reserved for Logan.
“Only when it’s quiet and I’m trying to sleep,” Max said with a wry grin.
His smile turned into a grimace, and he jerked his hand off the fret board, cradling it against his chest with his right hand. He massaged his left wrist and shook it out before returning his fucked-up hand to his guitar and playing the riff again. Dare’s rapid string of notes blaring from his amplifier made everyone jump. He shook his head and tried a completely different string of notes, shrugged and started over, now alternating E-minor triplets with a four-note pattern.