Playing For Keeps by Dani Weston Read Free Book Online Page A

wide and sparkling with moisture. “And it’s been really good. I think we’ve done a lot more than I ever thought we would. Hey, we’ve pretty much been able to drink for free our entire college career. How many people do you know who can say that?”
    That got me a little laugh from Bea. “Remember the first time we lied about our ages to play a show?”
    “We had to hunt down some fake IDs really fast,” Kaitlin said. “Man, we got some serious use out of those.”
    “I still have mine!” I pulled out my wallet, dug the ID from under a pile of punch cards, and held it up triumphantly. Then I examined the date. “Hey, my birthday was last week! I turned twenty-seven. Where was my party?”
    Snot flew from Bea’s nose as she laughed. The snot made Kaitlin and I burst into giggles, and Bea laughed harder. She wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. “Gross. And sorry about the party. If it makes you feel better, you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”
    I gasped. “How dare you!”
    “Don’t worry,” Bea said. “At least your boobs still look perky.”
    I nudged by best friend with my shoulder. “You are the end all, be all. Come one, I’ll buy you both dinner. I’m starving.”
    We searched for a cheap spot to eat without saying much, each of us lost in our thoughts. It wasn’t like I hadn’t expected something like this to happen. Getting our hopes up only to have them dashed. That was the business. Hardly anyone made it. I’d warned Bea. And now she was battling back more tears.
    “Bea, stop,” I said, after we’d ordered at a little falafel place and sat at a hard booth with our trays of food.
    “I know. I’m sorry. I’m not usually this emotional.”
    I shared a glance with Kaitlin. Yeah, Bea was usually this emotional. And if I was honest with myself, part of why I didn’t want to audition in the first place was to shelter Bea’s feelings. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing, though. She was an adult. Smart and mature. I knew she could handle disappointment, even if I also knew it would take longer for her to get over it.
    “I just…I guess we’re really broken up,” Bea said.
    “Only the band,” I reminded her. “Not us .”
    “That was a nice waste of my time,” Kaitlin added. “Sitting there all afternoon. I have so much composition to finish this week. And I could have picked up another shift at the coffee shop.”
    “Okay, look,” I said. “I’m not into this thing anyways. Never was. It’s definitely not worth getting us so down in the dumps. We are awesome. Always have been, always will be. So let’s forget about it. Chalk it up to experience and meeting someone famous and move on.”
    Bea bit her lip and twirled a french fry in her fingers. I knew how badly she had wanted to walk through those doors and come face to face with a glittering future, but now she was coming to terms with the hard reality. Her eyes softened. She took a deep breath and shrugged.
    “You’re right. Let’s eat. And talk about how gorgeous Jimmy Keats is in person.”
    I dropped my fork, choking briefly on my pita bread. Now didn’t feel like the right time to share my story. Maybe there never would be a right time. It was in the past. All of it.
    Bea’s mood improved exponentially as she went on for thirty minutes about how hot Jimmy Keats was, how he looked at her when she spoke, how nice he was, and did she mention how good looking? Her sauce congealed on her plate. By the time she changed the topic, I felt ill. Here was Bea, going on about her celeb crush and here was I, her best friend, thinking way too much about having slept with him.
    And how great it had been.
    And how he hadn’t called when he said he would.
    “Ladies in Waiting, though…we were good. They don’t know what they’re missing,” Bea said wistfully, picking up a tomato and dropping it again. “The songs you write, Court…” she shook her head. “It’s the music no one realizes they need until they