Love to Hate You

Chapter Four

“That’s…a really hard song to sing,” I groan, shifting under the weight of his arm.

“I know,” he says lucidly and goes back to pick up some stacks of sheet music off the table. He begins handing them out, the boys groan as well when they see the head banging, crazy, up-to-interpretation music in front of them.

Alex immediately tosses his sheet music aside and leans forward so that Justin will pay attention to him.

“That’s barely anything. I’ll have to make half of it up myself.”

Justin runs a hand through his gelled hair and grins at him. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“I won’t even know what I’m doing. I’ll have to listen to the song a hundred times just to get the rhythm down.”

“Well then, that’s what you’re going to have to do. I really want to do this song and get the crowd fired up. We’ve got a larger audience to please, don’t we.” Justin says smoothly as he continues to hand out music to everyone but Sean.

“Where’s my music?” Sean asks, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“Oh, I thought we could do this song without keyboard.”

“But the keyboard is the biggest part in that song,” Sean argues, his hands clenching the sides of his keyboard so hard that his knuckles turn white.

“Well, we aren’t mimicking the song, we’re going to improvise. I thought maybe you’d like to sing,” Justin says, his voice challenging and the heat is evident when their eyes meet on the word “sing”.

“Sing?” Sean scoffs, “We both know I rarely ever sing in this band unless it’s back-up. You heard Reese, this song is hard vocally.”

“I’m giving you a chance to sing, Sean. Take it or leave it,” Justin says quickly, his gaze hard.

Sean’s looks away from Justin to look at me. I shrug helplessly. I don’t know what’s going on. What is going on with Justin? Why is he close to pressuring Sean into singing with me? Sean looks back at Justin and nods. “Fine, I’ll sing.”

“Great,” Justin practically hisses with a snake-like grin.

Sean leaves his keyboard and comes to join Justin and me in the front of the other boys. Austin is motioning to me, trying to get my attention. I ignore him. I can’t answer his questions. I don’t even know what to expect.

“What are you doing, then?” Sean asks Justin suspiciously as he takes Justin’s mic from him.

“Watching and directing,” Justin smirks and then grabs my wrist firmly and pulls me over, pushing me at Sean.

“What’s the point of this?” I ask, slightly terrified of what Justin’s big plan is.

“This is just experimentation. I’m sure Laney won’t mind. You two are over, right?” Justin asks Sean, who nods slowly in reply, “Perfect,”

“What do you mean “Laney won’t mind?” I ask, taking a step back from Sean.

“I told you, we’re putting on a show,” Justin repeats.

“What does that even—“

“Hold her,” Justin yells over the top of mine and Sean’s question.

“What?” Sean asks in surprise, his forehead crinkling in question.

“Hold her. Put your hands around her waist. Go on,” Justin says again, pushing me at Sean once more, “C’mon, she doesn’t bite. She’s about as intimidating as a butterfly.”