He holds up his hands. “All right, all right, gotcha. Thought it might be fun….” He trails off and stares at me for a second in a way that makes my skin prickle, then shakes his head. “Okay. Never mind. Sorry to interrupt.” He backs out of the room and shuts the door.

Guilt swirls in my stomach after he leaves. I’m tempted to run after him and apologize, but then I think about all the afternoons he’s stayed in his room with the door shut tight, all the times he’s left everything up to me—Gwen, cooking, the fucking spray paint on our garage—and I don’t feel so bad.

—

“Have a drink. Relax.”

Conor stands on the other side of the tiny room where the band is hanging out backstage before their show, holding out a red plastic cup to me. And by “the band,” I mean Conor: the only one here so far.

We’re somewhere in downtown LA at a club, although I couldn’t tell you where if my life depended on it. Conor managed to steal his dad’s old rattling truck for the night, and once we got off the freeway, he drove us through the city streets like a complete madman, his equipment secured in its open bed by a couple of buoy ropes, while I held on to the dashboard for dear life. Los Angeles traffic is a nightmare, especially once you get into the city proper, and Conor really embraces it whenever he drives. Left turns through lights that have already gone red, weaving back and forth between lanes on the freeway to get three car lengths ahead of where we would be otherwise. It’s like being on a roller coaster, except less safe.

“Dude, I’m too nauseous from your driving to put anything into my stomach.” But I take the cup from him anyway, and sniff it. “Yo. Is this beer? Where’d you get it?”

He smirks at me. “Chill. You sound beyond lame right now.” He motions around the room. “I mean, we’re in a club, you know. When in Rome.”

“I thought this was an alcohol-free club….Why else would they let you guys play here?”

“Oh, little Zachy. Don’t you know by now, I have my ways?”

God, he’s so pompous sometimes. He settles on a speaker with his legs crossed, like he’s the king of the world.

I’m about to take a sip from my cup when the door swings open. The cocky expression falls off Conor’s face, fast as lightning. He waves over to me, but I ignore him. He drops his cup behind the speaker and then bolts to the door and jams his shoe under it. He stage-whispers at me, “Hide the beer!”

So much for the arrogant bastard act.