Fortunate Son by Jay Crownover

Bowe

“HE IS SO tall… and big… and handsome.” I gave my bubbly keyboardist a hard look as she nudged me with her elbow. Her gaze was locked firmly on where Ry was quietly leaning against a wall at the back of our small, crowded practice space. The room was packed with instruments and amplifiers. There was an old couch you couldn’t pay me to sit on against one wall and some hand-me-down recording equipment along the other. It was already a tight fit with just the four band members. Adding Ry to the mix made the space seem suffocatingly tight. It felt like I couldn’t move without feeling his gaze on me or his overwhelming presence in the air. “How could you keep a childhood friend who looks like that from me? I thought we were besties.”

I gave Joey another look as I adjusted the strap of my guitar over my shoulder. She and I were good friends. We went to high school together, and she was one of the few people I kept in touch with after I decided to quit college and pursue music full time. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call her my bestie. That position was reserved for another Archer. The one who was the wildest and hardest to pin down.

I loved Remy Archer with my whole heart. She was everything I wanted to be and one of the people I looked up to most in the world. She was a couple years older than me, but she never seemed to mind the way I followed her around and bugged her constantly when I was younger. I loved that she lived by her own rules and gave zero fucks about what anyone else thought about her. She was infectiously positive and bright, and her unique way of looking at the world around her always made hanging out with her an interesting experience. When I decided to stop visiting Colorado, she was the one person who almost tempted me to change my mind about heading right back. She was the one and only person who had supported me fully when I decided to leave college. We talked on the phone at least once a week, no matter where she happened to be. And I’d gotten used to her showing up in Austin unannounced whenever it suited her. My folks even started keeping a spare room in our house for her when I was still living at home. She was the only person I didn’t keep any secrets from.

She was the only person who knew Ry and I had a history that went beyond our complicated childhood friendship.

“He plays football. He’s gotta be big and tall,” I snorted. “And he knows exactly how handsome he is. Someone tells him he’s gorgeous at least once a day, and he’s never surprised. I’m pretty sure the word ‘humble’ isn’t in his vocabulary.”

Joey hummed and shifted her gaze between me and Ry with open curiosity. “And you’re sure the two of you are just friends? Nyle said it looked like a little more than friendship when he dropped by your house the other day.”

I tugged my hair out from under the strap and strummed my fingers across the strings before I bent down to plug the guitar into the amp. “No offense, but your brother is kind of clueless. He seems oblivious to the fact that I’m not interested in anything more than friendship and being bandmates. I don’t think I’d rely on his judgment for much of anything.”

Joey nudged me with her elbow again and lowered her voice. Her brother’s head suddenly lifted as if he was aware that he was the current subject of our conversation. “Cut him some slack. He really likes you. He’s used to girls chasing after him. He’s super awkward and overly aggressive when he’s the one who has to put in the work. I don’t think he meant to overstep.”

I blew out a frustrated breath and motioned for her to take her place at her keyboard. “I’m just concerned about how something like that might affect the band. You need to tell him I’m really not interested and that I have no plans to date anyone I work with.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll try and get it through his thick skull.” She pointed a brightly painted fingernail to where Ry watched the exchange with a very bored expression on his too-pretty face. “Of course, having someone who looks like that stay at your place and come along to practice will probably do more to persuade Nyle to back down than anything I say.”

I glanced at Ry with a frown while I turned her words over in my mind.

Really, was it necessary for Ry to be blessed with everything?

He was smart.

He was nice and considerate.

He was a team player.

He had a great body.

He had a nearly perfect face.

He worked hard.

His personality was the one area he had room for improvement, but he seemed to save the prickly, difficult parts for me and me alone, so obviously no one else would consider it a fault.

Honestly, it would be pretty impossible for anyone else to compare to him. However, I would rather die than let him know I thought that. It made it nearly impossible to explain to anyone else why I wasn’t as infatuated with him as the rest of the population seemed to be.

After a few minutes of tuning and making sure the sound levels were correct, I asked if everyone was ready to launch into the first few songs of our planned set. Joey and Nyle nodded, and our drummer, a guy who went by Driver, pointed the end of one of his drumsticks at me before loudly counting down to the first beat.

At first, everything sounded great. The song was seamless and smooth. It sounded the way we practiced it a thousand times before. My voice filled the space with lyrics about love and loss as Nyle came in behind with backup vocals. Usually, our voices blended well together and we harmonized without an issue. Today, he sounded flat, and he came in early on the chorus and late on the bridge. We barely made it to the end of the song, and when we did, I was almost embarrassed to look at Ry.

I brought him here to give me his honest opinion, but I didn’t need it to know we sounded like garbage right now. I cleared my throat, and the sound echoed into the microphone. I saw Ry lift a dark eyebrow and shift his weight. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. I could see a hundred different thoughts race through his mind as we stared at each other.

“Umm… let’s call that a warm-up and take it again from the beginning. Okay?” I looked over my shoulder and saw that Nyle was also staring at Ry while the rest of the band was staring at Nyle. “Everyone needs to focus. We don’t have much time before the show. I know it’s only an opening act, but it can lead to bigger and better things. Plus, you never know who will be in the audience.” That was my subtle reminder that my dad was more than likely going to show up to see me play my first real, paying gig. Not that I expected him to sign us to his label or use his connections to promote us, but I refused to do anything on stage that would embarrass him or let him down. And maybe, just maybe, if I was good enough, my mom would finally believe in me and support my dreams.

I gave Driver a nod. “Count it down again.”

He frowned a little and this time pointed his drumstick at Nyle. “Don’t fuck it up this time, bro.”

Nyle looked down at the floor and angrily plucked at the strings on his bass. He gave a reluctant nod as Driver started the song over.

This time we made it through the first song and the second with little incident. The song was fine, but it didn’t sound as good as it usually did when we practiced. I could tell something was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. We weren’t off beat at all, and no one missed their part, but the song sounded dull and kind of hollow.

When we rolled into the third song, a slower, more emotional ballad about a couple who just wasn’t meant to be no matter how hard they tried to make things work, my gaze caught Ry’s, and suddenly all the emotion and feeling that was absent from the first two songs was packed into the words coming out of my mouth… times one hundred. I’d never heard one of my songs sound so good. So rich. So full of life.

I’d never had someone to sing to like this before.

I’d never had the person who inspired the lyrics in the same room when I sang them.

It was a whole new experience, and it struck me to my very core.

Ry pushed off the wall and took a step closer to the band. The expression that crossed his face was one I had never seen before, but it was intense; it made me miss the next chord I was supposed to play. This time I was the one who was late on the bridge and sent the whole song spiraling out of control. I grabbed the fretboard, and my guitar wailed in protest. I used the toe of my boot to turn down the amp in front of me and gave my head a shake.

“Sorry. That was my bad. Let’s take a quick break. I think we all need a minute.” I slipped the guitar strap over my head and moved toward Ry.

I only made it one step before Nyle caught my wrist was in a tight grip. I looked at him and immediately gave my hand a tug to let him know I wanted him to let me go.

“Let’s get something to drink. I want to talk to you about the bridge on the last song. I think there’s a way we can make it stand out more.” His fingers tightened their hold, which made me have to forcibly reach out with my other hand to pry him off of me.

“We can talk later.” I rubbed my wrist with a scowl as I gave him a dirty look. “Don’t grab me like that ever again. I don’t like it.”

Nyle held his hands up in a sign of surrender and glared at Ry as he stepped closer. Ry reached for the wrist I was still rubbing. He gave Nyle a look that was filled with both frost and angry heat as his thumb brushed across the noticeably red skin. “You play an instrument. Don’t you know better than to be so rough with someone else’s hands?”

I could feel the tension build between them. It was thick enough to choke on. If I didn’t get Ry out of the rehearsal space, it was clear things would get ugly. It was obvious our practice time was going to go to shit if he didn’t leave. We didn’t have time to waste if we were going to be ready for our gig, so I needed him gone, which of course, was going to be easier said than done now that Nyle decided to get all handsy and possessive.

I turned my hand around in Ry’s and grasped his fingers in mine. I pulled until he obediently followed me out of the room and into the parking lot. The rehearsal space was part of a building my dad used for storage. He converted several of the empty rooms in the building into practice areas for the different bands that worked with his label, or ones that just wanted to rent out a spot where they knew they wouldn’t get noise complaints. It was in a mostly industrial part of town just outside of downtown Austin, so the parking lot was pretty much deserted when I dragged Ry over to his truck.

I’d agreed to ride with him, assuming he’d stay for the whole practice or leave when he got bored, and I could just catch a ride home with Joey. It didn’t occur to me he would be such a big distraction I was going to have to kick him out. I forgot how impressive he was to others and how he seemed to fill up whatever space he was in, even if he was doing his best to be inconspicuous.

“You need to leave. This practice is a total mess.” I lifted my hand and pushed it through the front of my hair, hissing when I moved my wrist the wrong way. “I don’t have time for boys and their nonsense. If we sound that bad when we open this show, I’ll never be able to look my dad in the eye again.”

Ry grunted and once again caught my marked hand. “I wouldn’t worry about you. You sound fine. I’d worry about the rest of the band. It’s pretty obvious they need you way more than you need them.”

His touch felt like fire where his finger brushed lightly against the inside of my wrist. I felt my eyes pop wide when he lifted my hand toward his face, his lips hovering just above the surface of my skin. My heart started to pound wildly out of control, and I was sure he could feel my pulse leaping to life where he touched.

“Why don’t you perform on your own? You wrote the songs and music. You could easily be a solo act.”

I froze when he dropped a barely there kiss right where my pulse was racing before he dropped my hand and stepped back, almost as if he needed to put space between us just as much as I needed it.

I rubbed my wrist against my chest, where my heart felt like it was trying to escape. I was tingling from head to toe and wanted to kick him in the shin for making me react so easily. I’d spent years away from him, telling myself I was immune to his charm and pretty face. When he was a thousand miles away, it was much easier to believe those lies. When he was standing right in front of me, I felt like a big ol’ fake.

“I told you, my dad is in a band. I always looked up to him and thought it was super cool he had this whole other support system in his life. He traveled the world with those guys. They shared a common vision. I want that same kind of feeling. I want to share what I love with people who get it… who get me.”

Plus, I was scared. When you were a solo act, all eyes were on you and you alone. If you screwed up, if you bombed, if people hated your music, there was no one to share the blame. If you failed, there was no one there to lift you up and put you back on your feet. I loved being on stage and performing, but I wasn’t sure I had what takes to command enough attention all on my own.

Ry gave me a hard look and shifted to lean against the front bumper of his truck. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and stared at me long enough that I started to wiggle uneasily.

“You don’t have to follow your dad’s exact path. You can walk your own, and I bet he’ll be just as proud of you.”

I fiddled with my hair and quickly changed the subject. “I asked you here so you could tell me what you thought of the music, not my life choices. I know it was a little rough, but overall, what did you think?”

He was quiet for a long moment. I knew he would be brutally honest, but I didn’t expect him to pick his words so carefully when he finally spoke.

“The songs are great. I think the lyrics are relatable, and your voice is amazing. I’m surprised you have so many songs about love for being a girl who’s never had a broken heart. But,” he paused and tilted his head to one side while looking out into the dark and empty parking lot. “They all sound similar. The tempo. The beat. The rhythm. I feel like you made them easy to play for the rest of the band, and that’s why they all sound kind of generic.”

I couldn’t stop the small gasp that burst out of my mouth. “I’ve had other friends listen to us play, and no one else has said that.” Now my heart was racing for a different reason entirely.

Ry lifted a shoulder and let it fall. He shrugged as if he hadn’t just torched my confidence to the ground. “You wanted my honest opinion. The songs are fine on their own, but when you play them together…” he trailed off and shrugged again. “I think you could do better. I don’t know if the rest of your band can, but I know for sure you can.”

I fell back a step and pointed at his truck. “Go home, Ry.” I barked the words. “I don’t mean back to my house. I mean, go back to Denver. I shouldn’t have asked for your help.”

His dark eyebrows lifted. “But you did.”

I blew out an angry breath and tried to keep my frantically rising temper and equally growing panic in check. “What do you know about music anyway?”

He pushed off the truck and bent down a little so we were nearly eye to eye. “Not much. Which is why I can only tell you what I hear. If you trust the opinions of your other friends more than mine, that’s cool. I won’t be offended. But don’t pretend like I’m saying whatever just to hurt your feelings. I know how important your music is to you. I wouldn’t fuck around like that.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them in the air before he caught them in his palm. “You aren’t going to run me off just because I told you the truth. I’ll leave you alone to practice, but I’ll be back to pick you up in a couple hours. This place is sketchy as hell.”

“No. I’ll get a ride home with Joey. I don’t really want to see you right now.”

He grinned at me before reaching out and flicking the end of my nose with his finger. “Too bad. The last time you told me you didn’t want to see me when you were mad, you disappeared for two years and pretended like I ceased to exist. I’ll be back.”

I glared at his broad back while he walked around to the driver’s side of the truck.

It was impossible to win an argument with him.

It was also really, really hard for me to admit he was probably right about the songs.

They were similar and simple. They didn’t sound anything like they did when I played them by myself. I thought I adjusted them for the other instruments, but maybe he was right, and I’d dumbed them down so they were easy to play. They lacked depth and intensity.

Maybe that was the reason why he didn’t seem to know each and every one of them was about him.