Page 2 of Silver Sweet

“Best ideas,” he corrects.

“Exactly.” I wave a hand at him. “You think all my ideas are the best ideas. So what fucking gives?”

He threads his arms, his biceps bulging. He really needs to put down the weights. I’m starting to look scrawny next to him.

I hike my brows at his lingering silence. “What is it?”

“I’m just wondering what happened to your standards.”

My standards.I clench my jaw. “Bruised and battered, Eliot Alice.” I can’t even force a strained smile. This concerns him.

I see it in the creases of his eyes, but is it such a bad thing to lower my standards? I’ve been told they’re too high. I’ve been told I should “aspire for less” and this was coming from my own therapist.

And sure, Dr. Carlton didn’t phrase itexactlylike that, but I can read between the lines and I can take a hint. I just can’t follow them.Because I’m still aiming for stars in undiscovered galaxies when I should set my expectations on planet Earth.

I’m deeply aware I’ve set unrealistic goalposts, but what is the point of life if not chasing after the thing you want and love?

The downside is that I feel like I’m on my knees, clawing at the ground just to stand back up again, but boots keep slamming on my spine. Rooting me to the dirt when all I want to do is be in the sky.

It would be so much easier if I just accepted gravity and quit.

Quit my passions. Quit my pursuit of making rock music millions listen to when they’re having a shit day, when they need to feel a connection…when they want to feelheard.I got close. I could say The Carraways had a good run before Warner left the band in dramatic fashion.

Warner.

We’d formed The Carraways together back in private school, aspiring to be like the punk-rock greats—My Chemical Romance and Green Day—all while we belted out our feelings after the Dalton Academy bell rang.

Being rich and privileged means I’ve had a head start, and I’m grateful for the boost but I don’t want to be a joke. I thought if I labored over my music, put in the time, perfected every chorus, every guitar riff, everybeat, it’d show.

Instead, Warner snapped at me, “We aren’t Beethoven trying to write the next greatest symphony.”

“Maybe we could be,” I combatted. “Let’s just practice it again.”

“The second verse isfine.”

Fine never felt good enough. I couldn’t figure out how to settle with average when I knew if we pushed ourselves, we could be better than ordinary.

We never finished the album.

Now I’m the last remaining member of The Carraways, and the label already wasted funds promoting my band. Not tomention, they were constructing a national tour that’ll likely never happen.

So they gave me a timeline. I have until Monday morning to present a profitable solution. I need aviableband.

In two days.

Or else they’re dropping me for good.

Now I’m in Eliot’s bedroom with a pounding headache, trying to keep my dream alive. When really, I feel like I’m throwing chewing gum at the ceiling and seeing what’ll stick.

“It’s a band-aid,” I tell Eliot. “They don’t need to be the best musicians. They just need to hold a note long enough to show the label my band isn’t on life support.”

“Or…” Eliot outstretches his arms and walks backward toward his gothic, canopied bed. “We go with Plan A.”

Plan Awas Eliot’s first idea, and it was already shot down. By me. In two seconds. “I can’t go with Plan A.” I skate a hand through my shaggy hair, pushing strands out of my eyes, then I point at him as he takes out his phone. “You call your theatre friends to come pose as musicians, I’ll be telling them to go home.”

He rests his shoulder on the wooden bedpost. Not dialing anyone yet. “They’re professional actors. This is what they do.Act.”

Eliot is also a professional stage actor in New York, but this isn’t a situation that will be solved with that type of performance.