"Shut up, Oliver." Grady started to lose patience. "Or I'll throw this shoe at your pretty-boy face and make you cry a river."
Jimmy pushed his way between Grady and Oliver. "Hey, I think it's time to take a break."
"We just had a break," Oliver said, staring daggers at Grady.
"An hour ago," Jimmy said calmly. "And that was for ten stinking minutes."
"Who made you the boss anyway, baby brother?" Jesse asked as he pushed up to his feet. Wincing, he flexed his knee.
"You okay, Jesse?" Grady asked.
"Yeah, I guess," Jesse replied glumly.
"Oh, come on, walk it off." Oliver wiped sweat from his brow with the bottom of his T-shirt.
"Hey, I've had a bad knee ever since I fell off the stage that time in Dallas," Jesse said. "Ease up a little."
"How can I ease up?" Oliver rolled his eyes. "Not one of you remembers any of the routines. Somebody had to take over this mess, and it had to be me."
"But seriously, bro." Jimmy shook his head. "Do we really need to do all the old formation-change dance moves? I don't think anyone expects us to be teenagers again."
"Or to hit the high notes," Grady said, clearing his strained throat. He'd been babying his vocals with hot tea and honey, but he still struggled to reach the falsetto he'd been able to pull off a decade ago. "How in the hell does Justin Timberlake do it? We're going to have to key everything down." Grady walked over and picked up a bottle of water. He drained it in a few gulps.
"Well . . ." Oliver looked up at the ceiling and blew out a long sigh. "We've got less than three months to pull this thing off and you candy-asses are like the walking dead after a week of rehearsals. I don't know about you, but I don't want to get laughed off the damned stage."
"It's going to be in Sea Breeze, so slow your roll," Grady calmly reminded him. "It's for lupus research, not to revive Heartbeat." He didn't want Oliver to get his hopes up.
"I'm aware of that." Oliver nodded slowly. "Reviving Heartbeat would require a defibrillator," he said, drawing a laugh from Jesse.
"Hey, that was a good line." Jesse raised his palm for a high five, but Oliver ignored the gesture and failed to crack a smile. Jesse looked at his hand and then lowered it. "Okaaay . . ."
///
"I'm not joking. It's the sad-ass truth." Oliver tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder as if trying to relieve tension. "And we can't move the dates we've chosen. Devin is already all over the promotion. We've got to step it up or have some serious egg splattered on our faces."
Jesse pointed to the new Heartbeat poster propped up against the wall. "Well, at least we all still look pretty damned good." He crossed his arms and struck the same pose as in the poster. "At least I do. Just sayin'."
"Come on, Jesse," Oliver said. "Looking good won't cut it. We've got to sound amazing and pull off the choreography. I don't want to break Twitter being laughed at or be a skit on SNL. Can't you be serious for one moment in your life? Not everything is a joke."
"You're a joke," Jesse said, and Oliver flipped him off.
"All right, knock it off." Grady slipped his shoe back on and faced his brothers. "Look, this was supposed to bring us together, not tear us apart. And we're doing this for a damned good reason. Keep that in mind."
"Grady's got a point," Jimmy said. "Let's get our act together and stop the petty bullshit."
"I agree." Jesse walked over and put his hand on Oliver's shoulder. "But all joking aside, this should be fun, not a nightmare."
"I get that, but it's also hard work." Oliver sighed. "Look, I'm not trying to be a prick. But I can't stand in front of you guys, showing you the dance moves, when I need to be in line with you. It screws everything up."
Grady crunched the plastic bottle with his hand and tossed it into the trash with more force than needed. "I thought after watching the videos and singing the songs that the rest of it would all come flooding back like riding a bike, you know? I hoped that we would just be rusty."
"Oil me." Jesse moved stiffly around the room like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and, thank God, they all laughed, except Oliver.
"This will get easier," Grady said with more conviction than he felt. He looked at his sweaty brothers and felt a stab of guilt. "We need to give it some time."