Broken Strings

Chapter Eleven

The Faults boys sit there wide eyed. I don't blame them for being in shock. When Hayden suggested the idea I was surprised as well. Dad however took to the idea immediately. He started ringing everyone he could. Everything was sorted. The Faults agreeing to it was the last piece of the puzzle.

"What songs are we going to play?" Fletcher asks.

I hadn't even thought of that. From the look on Dad's face neither had he.

"We could do a couple covers. Sing some of each other's songs as well." Josh nods is head. "We have until nine tonight to sort out songs."

"It could be an acoustic show." Luke pipes in. "Josh and Jayden play guitar, Fletcher on the cajon, Esther and I can sing."

Luke looks at me seeing if I'm up for it. I nod at him and he smiles.

"I've already tweeted for people to send us questions." Jayden holds up his phone as evidence.

The Faults start buzzing around the room. Luke is looking up songs on his laptop. Jayden is tweeting away. Fletcher and Josh are ringing people telling them about tonight and what needs to be done.

I turn to Dad anad Hayden. Dad wraps an arm around each of us.

"I'm going to leave you guys to rehearse." Dad kisses me on the cheek.

Hayden pats his own cheek and Dad just shoves him away. I laugh at them. Hayden turns to me and gives me a sad smile. He picks up his iPad and starts typing. I shuffle on my feet and look around the room. Luke is printing out lyrics to songs. Hayden taps my shoulder and holds the iPad up to me.

'Friends?'

Hayden raises an eyebrow at me and I smile. He wraps his arms around me crushing the iPad against my chest.

"Glad to see you guys have made up." Luke interrupts our moment. "I need to steal kitty."

Hayden lets go of me and Luke grabs my elbow. I wave to the boys as Luke drags me out of the room.

"We need to pick songs."

Luke explains to me as he searches for a room that isn't filled with people. When he finds one he drags me inside. There's a couch and a telly. That's pretty much it. It looks like a room for people to just hang out on their break.

"Shouldn't the guys have some say in the songs?" I ask Luke who is flicking through pages of lyrics.

"I've only picked songs they know how to play." He replies without even looking at me.

He has set the sheets of papers into three piles. Looking through them I quickly figure out which piles which. One for The Faults songs, covers and Broken Strings songs.

"We did a couple of covers of your guys songs that's how we know these ones."

"I know I saw them." I nod at him.

"What?" Luke asks smiling. Looking at him I realise the cat's out of the bag.

"I may or may not have googled you guys." I shrug trying to ignore the red in my cheeks.

"Like what you saw kitty?" Luke wiggles his eyebrows at me. "You know other than the guy that bats for the other team." He bites his lip and I punch him

"Shut up Luke. Let's just do this." I sigh playing with the end of my ponytail.

"Should we do love songs?" Luke asks.

"Why Lucas? Did you see something you like?" I tease him. I pick up a page with lyrics and look at it.

"Maybe." Luke mumbles. I look at him to see him holding up one of our songs. "This one maybe?"

I thought he meant something else. Was it just me that thought that? Ok cool I'm not going crazy.

"Tattoo.Yeah that seems cool. How many songs do you think we should do?" I cough trying to cover up my little mess up a minute ago.

"Eight should be cool. But seriously do you think it's ok for us to do love songs? It won't look bad will it?" Luke looks me at me seriously.

The dimples are gone and his blue eyes looked worried. His hair is perfectly in place as always. Thinking about it now I don't think I've ever seen his hair messy. Even this morning when he woke up.

"No Luke it will be fine." I smile at him.

"Great so let's do this."

"You take your medicine?" I ask Hayden.

The two of us are standing in the lighting booth. Yes the two of us. Hayden decided to tag along. There was no point of him getting into his zone when he wouldn't even be talking tonight. Hayden nods at me.

"This is a new song. We're doing a lot of writing on this tour and we're kind of using you guys to test it out. So let us know what you think."

When Luke says this I look down at him. The guys had told me that they were going to try out new material on tour. I just didn't think it would be so soon.

She's dropping out of school 'cause she don't need the grades,

The colors in her hair don't seem to fade,

I get dressed up when I go out, but she gets dressed down

She's 17 I've told her I'm 20,

I couldn't take her out 'cause Mum's got no money,

It's stuff like this that makes me wish that I could change somehow

Sitting here at home, it's obvious

She's so out of reach, and I'm finding it hard

'Cause she makes me feel, makes me feel,

Like I try, like I try, like I'm trying too hard,

'Cause I'm not being me, and it's getting me down

That she makes me think, makes me think,

That I try, that I try, that I'm trying too hard again

She's got a rose tattoo but she keeps it covered,

I play guitar but she's into drummers,

She's seen my face around but she doesn't even know my name

I storm out of the booth before they can even finish. I was going to kill Luke once I got my hands on him. He is so lucky that we need him for tonight or I would have castrated him the minute he stepped off stage.

Cheers sound from the audience and that's our queue. Hayden and I walk over to one of the stage hands. He sets me up with a mic and hands Hayden the iPad. He goes on to explain how what ever Hayden writes on the iPad will come up on a screen behind us. We nod to his words.

The Faults walk off stage giving the crew time to set up the stage for our little chat show. Luke walks straight over to me with a big smile on his face. What I wouldn't give to slap him.

"Did you like the song I wrote for you?" Luke asks me.

"Song? You wrote me one line Lucas." I shove him off when he tries to hug me.

"I'll try harder next time Kitty." Luke teases.

A stage hand nods at me and I walk out onto stage. This should be interesting.