Braxton her third shot, Houston appeared, snatching the bottle from Loren and setting it back where it belonged. “Party pooper.” Houston didn’t respond, walking off with Xavier again while Loren remained unbothered, resting his elbow on the bar by Braxton. “Feel free to thank me for loosening you up.”
“I’d rather die first.”
Eyes moving around the makeshift studio, Braxton missed the way Loren admired her like she was gold at the end of a very long and bleak rainbow. When her gaze landed on me, I realized she’d caught me staring.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” she observed with a rare smile.
“Only when I have something worth saying.”
“Think you can teach your friend?” Throwing her thumb over her shoulder, she indicated Loren, who was preoccupied texting on his phone. I knew he had heard every word. He just didn’t care.
Laughing, I shook my head, making her pout. “I’m a drummer, not a miracle worker.”
Houston only returned when Ingrid was ready to go again. It didn’t take a genius to know that he was avoiding Braxton. If she noticed, she didn’t let on. It was even less likely that she cared. We were just all lucky we’d chosen to be rock stars and not porn stars.
This time when the camera snapped, she seemed less like a fish out of water. Braxton was a natural if her Instagram was anything to go by. Her problem had been our presence.
The next round of shots was us standing under the spotlight Ingrid’s team created with the decrepit bar as our backdrop and Braxton front and center. I admit I was a little eager to see the final shots when I’ve never cared before. Braxton added an element to Bound that we would never have considered if we hadn’t been forced. Whether the change would do some good remained to be seen.
After Braxton changed into black skintight leather pants and a corset, mercifully simple, the magazine took their final round of shots in the alley using a smoke machine to add mystery to an already enigmatic reality.
Whatever.
When I realized it was time for the interview, I knew the hardest part had yet to come. Back on the chaise again, Braxton sitting between Loren and me with Houston perched on the arm next to me, we all pretended we weren’t scared shitless as we waited for Holly, the reporter, to begin. It wouldn’t be the first time an interview had gone wrong.
Goddamn Loren.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Loren blew a bubble from the gum he was chewing before popping it obnoxiously.
Fuck.
“So,” Holly began with a bright and reassuring smile that only made me more eager to get this over with, “on behalf of Plugged magazine, we want to thank you for sitting down to talk to us. First, I want to say how terribly sorry I am for your loss. Calvin’s life and the legacy he left behind was precious to us all, but for you, it must have been like losing a brother.”
Holly paused, waiting for a response or even a proper reaction to the reminder that Calvin was dead. Clearing her throat when we simply waited for her to ask an actual question, she glanced down at her pad before stumbling on.
“W-while Calvin can never truly be replaced in our hearts, we’ve all been on pins and needles to see who Bound would deem worthy for this next era. Braxton, did you ever think it would be you?”
Braxton inhaled so subtly that if I hadn’t been sitting so close or so wrapped up in everything she did down to the flutter of her lashes, I would have missed it.
“I assumed I had a better chance sprouting wings,” our fallen angel answered with a nervous laugh. “Sometimes, I think Punk’d has been revived, and my life is the pilot episode.” I wanted to reach out and hold her hand when I caught her nails digging into her thigh, but that wasn’t the message we were here to send. “If someone asked me six weeks ago to list a million impossible things that could happen before I died, playing for Bound would have been one of them.”
Tilting her head to the side, Holly’s eyes brightened. “Well, you’re here,” she pointed out with a wave of her hands. “Surely, some part of you must have thought you had a chance.”
“Braxton was headhunted,” Houston interrupted before Braxton, who was tongue-tied and unsure of how much to reveal, could think of what to say. “She didn’t find us.