“Not to brag, but I’m really good at wooing.” This from Jaymeson.

“He knows wooing and sex are different, right?” I asked Demetri.

Jaymeson took another sip of soda and snapped his fingers. “Probably why Chelsey, Kelsey? Kendra? Whatever. It’s probably why she left so pissed last night.”

“Right, it had nothing to do with your inability to remember her name,” I pointed out.

“Not my fault I was too distracted by bedroom activities.”

Demetri sighed. “Hopeless romantic. P.S., I guarantee Nat will take a machete to your man parts if you listen to his advice.”

“I’m British, which makes me foreign, therefore, good at wooing and causing girls to swoon. It’s the accent.”

I laughed and set my soda down. “Fine, 007. What’s your plan?”

“Oh, I’ve got to hear this.” Demetri rolled his eyes. “Yes, British man-whore, what’s your plan to help our brother out?”

“Brother?”

“Guilty by association.” Demetri waved me off. “So, your plan?”

Jaymeson cleared his throat and thrust his hand into the air, asking for complete silence. “Action.”

I waited, thinking surely he was going to say more than that. But he nodded his head and took another sip of soda as if he’d just cured world hunger.

“Huh?” Demetri and I said in unison.

“Action,” Jaymseon said it slower this time.

“Dude, my hearing’s fine.” I scowled. “And I can spell so you don’t have to go into that much detail. I’m just trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Big gestures.” Jaymeson threw his hands up in the air. “Big gestures and actions, but little gestures too. You can’t tell her the words because you’ve been lying. When a liar uses words to convince someone to believe them it’s like trying to swim with weight wrapped around your legs. It won’t work. Eventually you’ll tire out and sink.”

“I hate that you just made sense right now,” I said.

Demetri sat there slack-jawed. I nudged him out of his stunned state.

“Told you.” Jaymeson snorted. “Brilliant.”

“Fine, Mr. Brilliant. How do I show her? I can’t buy her things, because then it seems like I’m buying her stuff to get back on her good side, and I sure as hell don’t want to stalk her.”

“Good call.” Demetri laughed. “I stalked a girl once. Didn’t end well.”

I groaned into my hands. “What do I do!”

“Silence, grasshopper.” Jaymeson patted my hand. “I have a plan.”

“Jaymeson and plan in the same sentence make me nervous.” Demetri shrugged “But…” He looked at me. “It’s worth a shot.”

I sighed. “Fine. I just… I guess I just don’t want to mess up what precious time we have.”

“Oh, you won’t. Not if you stick with me, kid.”

“Why do I get the feeling he is just quoting movies?” I asked Demetri.

Jaymeson shrugged and held out his hand. “You in or not?”

“I’m in.” I slapped my hand over his.

“Me too.” Demetri followed.

Jaymeson smirked. “Trust.”

Chapter Thirty-eight

Demetri

“This is love. Pure love. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Dear God, what have I done to deserve this?” I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants and put my guitar over my head.

“It will be fine.” Alec slapped my back. “It has to be fine.”

“Either she’s going to hate it or love it,” I said. “Alyssa said Nat’s going to cry happy tears. I, however, may need therapy after this concert is through.”

“You and me both,” Alec grumbled. “Now, remember we’re transitioning into the other song as soon as the bridge ends on the first one.”

“I think I’ve done this before.” I glared.

Alec cursed. “Sorry. I’m just so damn nervous.”

“You’re nervous?” I yelled. “This shit is going to be on Youtube! Do you even realize what this could do to our hard-earned rock star persona?”

“To be fair, we’ve been in the news for the past week straight because of all the drama that hit the Internet with April and then with David going to the press.”

“True,” I grumbled. “I’d rather be on the news for murder.”

Alec grinned and slapped me on the back. “Well, you better catch the fever fast, because we’ve got some screaming girls to please.”

“I’m so damn worried about how this is going to go that I can’t even give you a snappy sexual retort to girls screaming right now.”

Jaymeson ran around the corner. “You guys ready?”

“Let me at him!” I lunged for Jaymeson. Laughing, he backed up with his hands in the air. “Alright, I’ll go tell them you’re ready to go on stage.”

“Damn you, Justin Bieber,” I mumbled just as I turned the corner and ran up onto the small stage Jaymeson had set up on the main Seaside boardwalk. I heard Alec’s laugh behind me.

“Ladies and gentleman!” Jaymeson laughed into the microphone. “Allow me to present, AD2.”

“Well, here goes nothing.” I started the song and closed my eyes. Seriously, we were going to get death threats for doing this cover.

“If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go. I can take you places you ain’t never been before.” Kill me now, kill me now.

Alec joined in with his guitar and then the drummer went crazy and Alec continued the song. Much to the screams of adoring fans. Sweat pooled in my hands. I looked to Alyssa who was in the front with a smiling Nat. I shook my head and I could have sworn she just winked at me and mouthed, “I have the fever.”

Alec’s voice sounded identical to the Biebs. I had to give him credit. “So give me a chance cause you’re all I need girl. Spend a week with your boy I’ll be calling you my girlfriend. If I was your man, I’d never leave, girl. I promise to never leave you girl.” I hoped to God that Justin Bieber fans wouldn’t set fire to our beach house for changing the bridge.

Alec stopped singing and motioned for me to go into the next song. One down two more to go. I played the upbeat temp and started to get a feel for the crowd as they jumped up and down to the music.

Here went nothing. “You make my world, you make my world go round. You turn me up, you turn me upside-down. You make my world, you make my world go round. You get me off, you get me off the ground.”

I looked to Alec as he joined me. “You pick me up when I fall down. You pick me up when I fall down.” We alternated between the chorus, each of us singing. The crowd was loving it. I set my guitar down and started my little bridge. I was officially a white dude trying to rap and sing techno at the same time. God save us all from such a fate.

I went to the middle of the stage, and with as much enthusiasm as I could possess continued the song. Miley Cyrus’s chorus to be exact. “Girl, you like an elevator ‘cause you always pick me up. Girl, you like my doctor when I’m sick you always stitch me up. You could be my DJ, I’m your record. Come and mix me up, girl. Just be my lollipop.Llet me lick you up. Always on my membrane. I love you, so I give you up…” I looked to Alyssa. She winked and mouthed “sexy.” Okay, so maybe singing some Biebs and Wi-ll-i-am wasn’t going to make me less of a man. I jumped up and down with the crowd. Everyone was in perfect sync. Alec continued the chorus.

Nat and Alyssa were jumping in the crowd I could tell they were loving every second. Okay. Maybe I was having fun and it wasn’t so bad, and then the music changed as we planned, and we went right into OneDirection.

All of Nat’s favorites bands. Her current favorite songs. Songs that Alec had given her so much shit about.

And now the guy was so whipped he was doing covers of the songs for her. If singing OneDirection wasn’t love, I really didn’t know what was. We changed tempo and went right into the song Little Things. This was all Alec, because after this song, he was going into the song he’d written to Nat while she was in the hospital.

“Your hand fits into mine like it was made just for me…” He began, the crowd knew the words, so they joined in. Everyone except Nat. Tears streamed down her face as she watched Alec play.

Alec’s eyes closed. “I’m in love with you and all these little things.” His voice cracked with emotion during the chorus. And then the tempo changed again, we played directly into Alec’s song, Shatter.

“The best of it all is you’re still here, the sadness in my heart and earth-shaking fear — don’t leave. It’s as if a part of me is missing when you aren’t near, yet I hear, I hear your voice and I can’t keep myself from fading, fading into something I don’t recognize. How can you be both my poison and my savior? My lover and my rescuer?”

The song was haunting, not our normal style of music, but it had so much emotion behind it that I was finding it hard even singing background with Alyssa watching me. She wrapped her arms around Nat and swayed back and forth as Alec and I started the chorus.

“Shattered. I’m shattered without you. I can’t find the pieces, they’re broken and jagged and no longer have a reason to mend, but I want to know that you’ll try. I need to hear you say you’ll fix what’s been worn, put together what’s been torn. I may be shattered and scattered. I’m freaking bleeding and battered — torn, so torn. But if you’ll still have me. I’m yours.”

We finished the last verse without any instruments. Once the voices stopped, the crowd was deathly silent.

Crap. We were going to get booed off stage.

And then the clapping started — within seconds it was thunderous. Alec and I bowed, and Alec mouthed to Nat “I love you.” His plan wasn’t to put her in front of tons of people and get her to admit that they belonged together. His plan was to get her to remember why they were together in the first place.

Because they fit.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Alec

“How’s it going, Alec?” Mrs. Murray scribbled a few things on her notepad and looked up at me through her black-rimmed glasses.

Awful, horrible, miserable. “Great!”

“Don’t lie.”

“No, really. Everything’s—”

Mrs. Murray squinted and crossed her arms.

“Fine.” I swallowed. “I’m not sleeping. And frankly, I’m a little uncomfortable to be discussing such things with you, but since we’re all about honesty here in the trust room. I can’t freaking sleep without Nat in my arms. I wake up panicking, thinking something happened to her. Last night I fell off my bed because I was so freaked that she was passed out somewhere that I got tangled up in my own sheets and bruised my knee on the wood floor. Demetri asked if I was wrestling bears all night because I was so loud. Oh right, and there’s that, apparently I talk in my sleep.”