Beatless by Amber L. Johnson Read Free Book Online

baby. With your full stomach, not up there.” His lips were right next to my ear. “Lower your chest.”
    “Are you looking at my chest?”
    He exhaled and pulled me closer. “I don’t really have a choice at the moment.”
    His palms opened on my stomach and I squeezed my eyes shut to concentrate on what we were actually doing, and not on what my brain was wandering off about.
    “Remember the basics. Don’t lock your knees. Don’t force it. Find your center.”
    So I sang. I sang in front of him and he held me upright while I did. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t perfect or beautiful. But it was a start.
    After I’d finished the scale as far as I could go, he squeezed me a little from behind. “See? You’re still alive. It didn’t actually kill you.”
    I stepped away and looked around the room, trying not to make eye contact. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to do this on a stage or anything.”
    “Not yet.”
    There was a loud noise from upstairs and Tucker’s attention went to the basement door. “Eliza’s home. She usually needs some time to wind down after she’s been gone. We can leave out the back.” He grabbed his keys and headed for the side door and holding it open for me.
    As I inched past him, he held a finger against my hip bone. “We’re going to do this again and again until you get comfortable.”
    It didn’t even feel like a threat.
    ***
    Berkley was still skeptical about the entire thing, but once we were in her house to rehearse, she lost her edginess. “I just don’t want this to blow up in our faces. We have a reputation to maintain.”
    Sara pressed her fingers down on the keyboard creating a chaotic sound that made us all turn in her direction. “Just bringing this meeting to order.”
    Tucker handed out all the sheet music, making sure to keep mine just out of reach so I had to push upwards to snatch it from his hand. The other girls exchanged a look and I ducked my head to keep from smiling.
    “Until we have more of these perfected, we’re going to have to cut down on our set time. So I’d say we should have a goal of four songs in the next week that are good enough to do in front of an audience. Miller’s been telling people that he quit so there’s a lot riding on this if we want to prove that we don’t need him.”
    It took exactly one hour to figure out we weren’t ready.
    “We need something.” Sara’s fingers plinked across the keyboard again and she groaned.
    “What about loops?” Tucker moved across the room to Berkley’s laptop. “We could record parts on loop and then it would be easier to sing the harmonies. I don’t have an issue with what was suggested, I just think that it’s going to require more time than what we have right now. And it’s not cheating because it will still be our voices.” I watched as he hit a few keys on the computer and brought up what appeared to be an equalizer. “Mal, come here for a second.” Without even asking, he took hold of a silver microphone head on a stand.
    I crossed over to him and waited.
    “Can you just repeat after me?”
    With a quick glance around the room, my palms started to sweat. “Sure.” I copied him, my voice not coming out very sturdy at all. He gave me a pointed look and moved his hand in a circle like I should do it again. So I did.
    He nodded and leaned over the board, concentrating. “Marcus. I need a bass line.”
    The other boy stood and crossed over to stand in front of the computer and did as he was instructed. We knew there wouldn’t be an issue with him dropping a beat; he’d been doing it the entire time when he was rapping onstage. He was comfortable with it, so it seemed like an added bonus.
    For the next couple hours, each one of us was required to add a part. I thought about all of the videos I had seen on Youtube and movies about a cappella groups. I tried to envision all of us on that stage, giving our all. The recordings were only seconds worth but by the time