Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Years ago, he had Seek tattooed over his right eye and Destroy over his left, and he uses the words as a sort of Magic 8 Ball insight to his thoughts. When he told me to get the fuck out of town and get my shit straight, I’d waited for his left brow to rise, thinking he was telling me that we were done in a roundabout way. I should’ve known better. Sean doesn’t do subtle. He’s as direct as a missile, with zero regard to the blast radius. But when he’d lifted his right brow, telling me to “seek” something, it’d felt like approval, like permission to take the time I need to fix my brain.
“Might change my mind later, but it feels wrong to fight you when my dick’s still hard from Hope. I don’t love you like that, asshole.”
He squints at me, reading between the lines of what I said. “Don’t love you like that either, fucker.”
Yeah, I love him. He loves me. We’re fucked in the head, but we’re brothers.
Brothers who’ve had their every dream come true, only to find out that the gold bars are spray-painted bricks and the fame comes with contract addendums you didn’t read that control every breath you take.
“Hope, huh?” Sean guffaws. “You’re supposed to be out here getting your head straight, so of course you find the closest pussy and let yourself get sidetracked.”
“She’s not pussy. She’s—” I freeze, not sure if I should tell him the truth.
Sean leans forward, his boots hitting the floor and his elbows resting on his knees. Pinning me with a black look that has nothing to do with the contacts he wears onstage but rather his current mood, he demands, “She’s what?”
I swallow hard and don’t back down, meeting his eyes with steel of my own. “Everything.”
Sean blinks, and at first, it feels like I won the staring contest, but then he laughs loud and hard. I didn’t win anything. He’s laughing at me. “Bullshit. She’s a distraction that’ll run its course, which I can understand. She’s hot as fuck. But you’re gonna have to sit with the AMM stuff and make your peace eventually.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I growl, ignoring the music stuff that put us at odds in the first place.
“Or what?” he snaps, the laughter gone in an instant.
Back to fighting. It’s where we always end up, and I don’t know why. We never used to argue like this. Back when we had nothing but each other, we never fought unless it was at each other’s sides. I sigh, not wanting to fight any more.
“What happened to us, man?” I wonder aloud. The simple question is harder to ask than it should be.
“Just living the life,” he retorts snidely, throwing his hands wide as he relaxes back into the couch. “I mean, didn’t you dream of traveling to small towns, staying in shitty trailers with penis fungi all around while some local girl looks at you like you’re worth something?” He lifts his left brow, letting me know he’s coming for blood. Mine. “Right, no. We dreamed of getting the hell out of the ’hood, making music, making money, not having to worry about where we were gonna sleep or when we were gonna eat. Remember that, Benjamin? Or is that all distant history that you’re too good to own up to now?”
I do remember. I remember it vividly. And it’s why we work so hard. I never want to go back to that life. Neither does Sean.
“I’m not too good for anything,” I reply, my voice rising with anger and passion with each tortured syllable. “Hell, I’m poisonous to most things. You, especially. I know I’m ruining everything, and I’m sorry! But I can’t live like this, not for them!”
It’s a deep, heavy confession that’s been slowly growing in my gut for a while, but I haven’t had the courage to give it air. Until Hope.
AMM Records signed Sean and me when we were hungry—literally and figuratively, couch surfing from one shitty place to another and angry at the world for beating us over the head with the short end of the stick we were dealt. They used all that against us, and we were too stupid and too desperate to see it.
No, that’s not true.
We knew it was a sweet deal for them, but we were in no position to negotiate. We wanted the moon, they offered a paper-plate cutout of it, and like idiots, we signed our lives away in trade.
And now that we could actually have the moon, they want us to still be happy with that paper plate while they reap the rewards, controlling everything and taking every penny. Pennies we’ve earned with our own blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice.
Sean doesn’t care. To him, a million is better than nothing, and it’s a million we never imagined we’d have. But it pisses me off that while we’re splitting a tiny portion of profits three ways, AMM is raking it in. On our hard work. We do the lyrics, the music, the shows, the tours, the marketing, the merch design . . . all of it. Mostly because we want that creative control. But the end result is, they get everything for nothing.