That had me frowning. “What?”

“Nothing.” He made his eyes all wide, like I wasn’t familiar with each and every one of his facial expressions and what they meant.

“Why are you making that face?”

“No reason, Flabs. I’m not allowed to smile?”

“No.” I stared at him a little longer, suspicious.

But my brother just shrugged and didn’t say another word.

I’d keep my eye on him. I knew he was up to something.

In no time, we were at the merch table where Gordo looked like a deer caught in the headlights. A small group of people surrounded him, half of them wanting to buy something and the other half wanting nothing more than to talk to the singer and guitar player of Ghost Orchid. A blind person could tell how uncomfortable Gordo was. The poor bastard had sweat running down his temples and he looked twitchy. As soon as he spotted his bandmate and then me hovering behind the overgrown human sausage, he visibly sighed in relief.

I’d never totally understood how Gordo managed to put up with my brother and Mason. He was the sane one. The thinker. Soft-spoken. He was the kind of guy who didn’t talk much or relish getting into trouble. He was usually the voice of reason, where the other two morons acted first and thought things through second—if ever. When we were younger, Gordo and I would usually sit back and watch the other two get into all kinds of shit while we shook our heads and judged them the entire time.

After a quick hug, an explanation of how to use their credit card swipey-thing, how much each shirt, poster, drink koozie, CD and tab book cost, I was left on my own to face a firing squad who wanted to buy something. Eliza and Gordo disappeared as quickly as they could to go warm up backstage. Even though I hadn’t sold merchandise—or merch, as it was shortened—for them in years, it was like riding a bike. You gave the fans what they wanted and they gave you money. It was that easy. Knowing that I’d get paid depending on how much merchandise was sold, I may have brushed the cobwebs off my best flirtatious smile and purposely not pulled my shirt the inch higher it could have gone. I wasn’t one to usually show off Lucy and Ethel because I was self-conscious of them, but money was money.

A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Plus, selling merch had gotten me my girls, so I wasn’t going to hate on the job that had given me so much.

As soon as the line dwindled down, I finally turned to look in the direction of the table next to mine. The set-up mirrored the one I was manning. A large, collapsible table was set up with a flat metal rack leaning against the wall behind it. On the rack were T-shirts and zip-up hoodies pinned to it. On the table were stickers, CDs and vinyl. Cluttering the floor and stashed below the table were boxes and containers filled with the products on display. The band name, The Cloud Collision, was printed on a large banner that was mounted above the rack.

I plopped down onto one of the large plastic bins where some of the T-shirts were stored, and took in the guy working behind the other band’s table. He was possibly a few years younger than my twenty-six. He was slim, with long straight hair in the front and a buzzcut from ear-to-ear in the back; he was busy at work with a line that was ten people deep.

The moment he got through with the line, just as the local opening band went on stage to start setting their instruments and gear up, he turned to look at me and gave me a shy smile—small and cute, highlighted by a hoop lip ring at the corner of his mouth. Worming his way through the maze of plastic bins and boxes that separated us, he thrust out a hand.

“I’m Carter,” he introduced himself. Now that he was up close, I realized he was possibly half a foot taller than me. He also had another piercing through his eyebrow, a black ball, that I hadn’t noticed initially. “You’re Eli’s sister?”