A Light in the Dark

  BECKY DOUGHTY

  THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  A Light in the Dark

  Copyright ©2015 Becky Doughty

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-63422-178-8

  Cover Design by: Marya Heiman

  Typography by: Courtney Nuckels

  Editing by: Kelly Risser

  ~Smashwords Edition~

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  To every girl who dreams of being a rockstar… there’s a star in the sky with your name on it.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  I hated Sebastian almost the first moment I saw him.

  But then I started to love him while I still hated him, which made things a little complicated.

  Him and that guitar.

  When he played, I think I could actually feel his fingers caressing the strings, almost as though those strings were attached directly to my heart. He didn’t play gently, but I wasn’t looking for gentle. He didn’t have the finest setup, either; just a doctored-up Fender Mexican Strat in an old-school maple sunburst. But oh, how he made that baby sing under his touch.

  And my heart thrummed with a jealousy so intense I thought my head might explode. I was looking for a rhythm guitarist, someone to back me up, not someone who owned the instrument like it was an extension of his body, his soul.

  I was front man. Woman. My band. My songs. My way.

  But when he let the last chord linger in the air between us, all I could hear were my songs… his way.

  It didn’t help that he had those tortured artist eyes. Brendan Urie meets Kellin Quinn kind of tortured. Robert Pattinson in all his glittery-skinned, golden-eyed, smoldering glory days. Like the music coming out of him was a sacrificial offering of severed nerve endings, and he was feeling every single one of them. Desperate for me to feel them, too, and quietly raging at me for making him care what I thought.

  My band. My songs. My way.

  But as much as I hated him, I knew that I needed him. And that guitar. And I also knew if I was going to have him, it would be our band, our songs, our way. Maybe not at first. Deep in my heart, though, I knew it was inevitable. Bring him on and my world would change.

  Our worlds would change.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Tom told me he’d been offered a job in Seattle, my first thought, I readily admit, was Nirvana. I knew Seattle was no longer a hotbed of break-out garage bands, but I immediately considered the possibility of us bringing back the trend.

  When Tom added that he was going to actually take that job in Seattle, working as a Data Analyst for his uncle’s investment firm, I suddenly realized exactly what he was telling me. He was leaving the band. And not like last year when he went up north to intern for said uncle just for the summer. The absolute worst time of year to leave your band in the lurch, by the way.

  But I’d grudgingly forgiven Tom last summer, mainly because I hadn’t really thought he would consider moving permanently. I thought he was just beefing up his resume. So after I got over being ticked, we posted an audition notice and found a temporary fill-in, a guy named Roger from one of my classes, who could play Tom’s parts well enough, even though he couldn’t sing. I made Jon sing Tom’s harmonies instead, even though he threatened to throw his sticks at the back of my head every time I yelled at him for being pitchy. It helped that I bribed him with a briefcase of peanut butter cups stacked like gold bars inside, and we got through our busy summer line-up on a wing and a prayer, mainly because of some faithful and forgiving fans. Our first show after Tom’s return was amazing, making it clear to all that he was an irreplaceable part of Marauders. We’d thanked Roger with a wad of cash, sent him on his way, and I’d made Tom swear he’d never leave us again.

  At least I thought I did. Looking back, though, I couldn’t actually recall Tom ever making any promises of the sort. But he smiled a lot, obviously glad to be home and back with the group, and I made sure he knew how much we’d missed him.

  So did his fangirls.

  Tom was one of those guys who was just a little bit ugly, but in that boy-next-door-want-to-marry-him-and-have-his-babies kind of ugly. He had a broad forehead and deep-set eyes that hinted at Neanderthal roots, a nose that seemed a little too long, and a wide, piano-key smile that took up the lower half of his face when he laughed. He was also naturally endowed with a physique that rivaled the cartoon Hercules, and the girls couldn’t resist him. Tom had a hard time resisting them, too, which is why I’d made myself the designated resister in our relationship.

  “You can’t go.” And I could be very resistant when I put my mind to it.

  “Tish.”

  “Nope. Not happening. You’re not going.” We were lying on our backs on the bleachers in the dark auditorium, me one bench higher up than him. The last of the crowd had cleared out almost an hour ago and it was just the two of us, alone in the post-show glow. Tom and I often ended up this way after a gig, not quite ready to accept that it was over and go home. Sometimes Jon and Cornelius lingered, too, but they usually came up with some excuse to bail before too long. And Sly had a kid to go home to, so he never stayed. His baby mama took off shortly after convincing Sly that he was a dad, but to everyone’s surprise, he’d
taken to fatherhood like a fish to water. He loved his son even more than he loved his Music Man StingRay, and that was saying a lot. He also had the help of some pretty rock-solid parents, with whom he still lived. They were almost as awesome as my parents.

  “It was such a good show,” I continued, not wanting to hear what he was trying to tell me. “Why go and ruin it all for me?” But Tom, although much more laid back than I, was probably just as stubborn. If not more so. If he felt compelled to tell me his news tonight, then I’d be hearing it tonight. “Why tell me this now?” I hedged.

  “I just got the final word yesterday, and I thought you should know.”

  I turned my head on the bench to look at him, this guy I kinda loved like a brother. He was, in fact, the best friend of Jordan, the youngest of my four brothers, until he and I hooked up. And by hooked up, I mean, we hooked up our equipment to the same sound system in my parents’ garage-turned-recording studio and started making music together.

  He was now pretty much my best friend. Technically, Ani Tomlin was my best friend, but ever since she’d returned from Italy last fall, I’d felt her divided loyalties. She’d met “the one” in Lucca, where she’d gone to run away from her broken heart, courtesy of one lying, cheating, bilge rat named Professor Jerkob—okay, Jacob—Franklin. I met her guy, Paulo, over the holidays when he came out to spend time with Ani, and I had to admit, he certainly knew how to treat the woman he loved. But it didn’t change the fact that my best friend had a new best friend in him, and as much as I felt the slowly-growing divergence of our worlds, as much as I wanted to reach out and pull her back to my side, I wasn’t about to stand in the way of true love.

  Tom and I were the original Marauders. No, we weren’t into Harry Potter back then, at least not openly. By the time we started the band, he was seventeen, I was fifteen, and we were both too old to believe our Hogwarts letters had gotten lost in the mail. But I was totally into pirates and maybe a little Steampunk, and even though I knew Tom didn’t share my affinity toward either, he gave his approval of the name after only a few moments’ hesitation. Granted, that was after two weeks of not getting any playing in because we spent all our jam sessions arguing about my girlie name suggestions—Flatline Angels, Buccaneer Moon, Trypt Up—and his punk Emo name suggestions: Dancing with Demons, Syren Slayers, Republic of Death Stalins.

  And we flat out ignored my mom’s suggestion: “Tom and Titia? TNT! It’s perfect! And so cute!” Nice try, Mom, but no.

  I still thought Tom only agreed to Marauders because he wanted to be done arguing with me and get back to making music.

  “So why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” I reached over and poked him in the cheek, trying to get him to look at me. He was staring up into the steel girders high over our heads, our quiet conversation echoing and reverberating around the empty auditorium.

  “Because of this. Tonight,” he said, waving one hand in a sweeping gesture toward the stage where we’d just performed for an official University event.

  We’d done other gigs at Midtown University over the last couple of years, but the Music and Literature Festival was top billing for bands like ours, and Mid-U actually paid us to perform, not the other way around. Best of all, we had headlined! Three performances, practically back-to-back, and we were exhausted, but the money we made in six hours was more than we made off the whole last month of shows combined. And we got a lot of interest in future gigs, thanks to Cornelius. He filled in on keys when a song needed it, but he was officially our band manager and PR guy. Corny knew how to work a crowd. I didn’t think we’d be here on these benches tonight if it wasn’t for that man’s negotiation skills.

  “I didn’t want to put a damper on tonight.” Tom did turn to look at me then, his head moving slowly as he brought his hands together on his chest. The only light in the room came from the red exit signs at all the doors and from some security light left on backstage, but my vision had adjusted to the darkness enough that I knew he was watching me.

  “Does Corny know? I bet he’s ticked.”

  “You’re the first, Tish. You know better than to ask.”

  “So why didn’t you wait until tomorrow to tell me? Couldn’t you let me revel in this high for a few more hours?” But I already knew the answer to that question. Tom couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. It had probably all but killed him to hold it in for the last twenty-four hours. He’d waited until we were done here so we could have our big moment in the spotlight, but he wasn’t going to let one more minute go by with secrets between us. We’d made a promise years ago that we’d always be honest with each other. About everything, but especially anything that had to do with Marauders.

  We’d also made a pact that we wouldn’t date each other while we were in the same band.

  “I couldn’t—”

  “I know.” I cut him off, hating the fact that we were growing up, and it was suddenly happening too quickly for me. I turned away from his gaze, and the sound of my hair scrunching against the metal bench under my head was loud to my ears. I was glad it was dark; it seemed there was nothing I could do to stop the traitorous tears that slipped from the corners of my eyes to make wet tracks over my temples and into my ears.

  Tom knew I loathed it when he caught me crying. Over the years we’d been friends, he’d learned to pretend not to notice, and even though I always knew he knew, I appreciated his averted eyes and tuneless humming. Tonight, though, he stretched out an arm toward me and gently palmed the top of my head. When he didn’t remove his hand right away, I reached up and pulled it down, lacing my fingers with his, letting our clasped hands hang between us. I didn’t really like having the top of my head touched—well, patted. It was something my brothers still did to me every once in a while, simply to antagonize me, to remind me how much smaller I was than they were. They also called me Squeak, short for Pipsqueak. Tom knew better than to go that far.

  We didn’t say anything for several minutes.

  “Can I ask you something?” he finally spoke into the taut stillness of the auditorium. There were still crowds milling about on the expansive lawns out front where all the booths were set up, but the sounds were muffled in here, making them seem like they came from a million miles away. Like Tom and I were in our own little Never Never Land bubble, trying to figure out together what to do with this pin the grown up world had suddenly handed us.

  He never requested my permission to ask me things, and the fact that he did so now scared me. With my free hand, I swiped at my tears in an effort to turn my fear into belligerence. Because that was an emotion I was good at. “No.”

  “Is there—” he began softly, hesitantly, ignoring my retort. “Can you give me any reason, other than Marauders, why I should turn down this job… and stay?”

  I might have been okay if his voice hadn’t snagged on those last words. Another tear dribbled down the side of my face and into my ear. I knew what he was really asking me. “Marauders can’t be reason enough for you?” It was an unfair question, and to his credit, he didn’t respond.

  The thing was, I didn’t really know how I felt about Tom. I couldn’t begin to imagine my days without him in them. But that’s because I couldn’t imagine Marauders without him. If we took the band out of the picture of us, if it was just him and me, what was left between us? Marauders brought us together, and a part of me was secretly afraid Marauders was the glue that kept us together.

  I pretty much knew how Tom felt about me, and that unlike me, he was quite certain of those feelings. For my twenty-first birthday last September, shortly after Tom returned from his summer job in Seattle, the guys threw me a kegger at Tom’s apartment. Yep. Even though they knew I rarely drank. I knew it for what it was—an excuse to take a night off with friends in a safe environment. Tom, even though he’d been legal for nearly two years, also rarely drank, at least not when he hung around me. That night, however, he drank. And hung around me. All night. Beside me. Behind me. On me. All over me. The problem with alco
hol and small parties is that people tend to talk. Openly. And usually a little too honestly. And even though Tom started out just telling me in a whisper that wasn’t a whisper, by the end of the night, pretty much the whole band, the couch cushions in his apartment, the lamp in the corner, the Tom in the bathroom mirror and the Tom in the bedroom mirror and the picture of Tom and me on his nightstand—the one of us up on top of the cab of Tom’s truck, posing in a rock stance with our guitars—all knew that Tom loved me. That he wanted to buy me puppies and diamond rings, and Nicholas Cage’s private island, among other things.

  I don’t know what happened over the next few days that followed, because I’d gotten crazy-sick with some kind of flu, but by the time I’d recovered from my stomach bug, Tom seemed to have recovered from his love bug. No one in the band ever said a word about him baring his heart, and Tom acted like nothing had changed between us. So I sucked it up and played along. That had been almost seven months ago, right after the school year started.

  The thought struck me like a blow to the gut. “You’ll miss my next birthday.”

  I felt him flinch, and I thought he might be thinking about my last birthday, too. “Lucky you,” he murmured. Yep, he was.

  “Tom,” I began, reminding myself that the whole honesty thing went both ways. “I love you. I just—” My voice, usually strong and sure, the voice of a singer accustomed to cranking it for long hours at a time, had gone weak and unsteady, and I cleared my throat in frustration. “But I can’t be the one to tell you to stay.”

  Was that the chicken way to go? Because I actually could tell him to stay and I knew he would. I could give him just enough of the answer he wanted and he’d call up his uncle and turn down the job he’d studied the last four years to qualify for, just like that. I wouldn’t have to make any promises, any commitments. All I had to give him was a little hope.