by N. N. Britt
One Last Verse
The Encore Book Two
N.N. BRITT
Copyright © 2020 by N. N. Britt
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication/use of these trademarks is not associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Cover Design by N.N. Britt
Edited by Shannan Saunders
Copyedited by R.C. Craig
Due to strong language and other adult content, this book is intended for mature audience only.
Created with Vellum
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by N. N. Britt
Chapter One
Malibu was famous for its glimmering, breathtaking sunsets. Never for its sunrises. Especially not the kind that came with bloodshot eyes and three cups of espresso.
I sat on the terrace and stared at the sun bleeding into the dark spread of the Pacific below. My head was a pounding vortex of endless questions and scenarios. My phone lay on my lap. Screen down. Sound off. I knew sooner or later, I’d have to look at it, but I was putting that moment off as much as my sanity would allow.
The world was raging after last night’s show. Hall Affinity’s first reunion concert marked the shortest set in the history of sets. And the unhappy fans and internet trolls were having a field day on social media.
Brooklyn was on the phone in the living room. The terrace door was cracked open and I could hear her throaty voice bouncing off the walls of the house like an unruly soccer ball. I caught bits and pieces of her conversation. Mostly agitated words that sounded serious but made little sense to me.
I had no doubt that being Frank’s assistant right now wasn’t the most wanted job.
The first rays of light licked the trembling water and danced along the curve of the tide. It was a beautiful sight—the one I loved the most. It reminded me of that first time Frank brought me to this house. The first time we were intimate and the first time we had breakfast together. That was the morning we jumped into a relationship that I could no longer separate from myself. Just like I could no longer separate myself from the man whose name half the planet was trashing online right now.
And it terrified me—the sudden bone-chilling dependency on another person.
After Frank fainted in the shower last night, the nurse set up an IV in his bedroom. The medication put him to sleep almost immediately while I tossed and turned next to him in the bed. My mind refused to shut up. I kept replaying the events of the entire evening in my head, trying to understand what had caused him to faint.
At first, I questioned if it had been his fear of not meeting the fans’ expectations. But the nurse explained, His blood pressure dropped again, and that opened up additional questions.
As I lay there beside him, my gaze drifted to the IV drip and I wondered if Frank felt the tube. Or if he felt anything at all. I wondered what was going to happen when he woke up. There were two more shows to play and he was dead set on going through with them.
I watched him breathe for what seemed like the entire night, until my eyes couldn’t remain open anymore. Then, at some point, exhaustion knocked me out and I fell into a strange state of temporary lethargy.
It was anxiety that roused me a few hours later.
“TMZ got a hold of it?” Brooklyn’s voice moved toward the door, snapping me out of my thoughts. A pause. “Okay. Good.” Another pause. “No. We’ll wait for Corey. I’m not authorized to make that decision.” Her heels clacked against the floor as she walked away. Did this woman ever sleep or wear sandals? People surrounding Frank seemed to favor official, well-put-together attire. Even Hannah. Since she was in charge of managing the household, she was a bit more relaxed when it came to clothes, but she loved looking photoshoot-ready. Makeup and hair always on point.
I pulled my legs up on the couch and rested my chin on my knees, fighting the urge to check my phone. The air was still crisp and dewy, but the morning fog had already vanished and the day promised to be hot. Figuratively and literally.
My heart raced from coffee overload when I finally mustered the guts to open my Facebook app. The feed was full of Hall Affinity videos and links to articles that were cheap, sloppy attempts to get more clicks. I knew this trick. Levi had taught me all of them. In today’s world of digital reign, traffic was everything. Traffic meant money and fame. The quality of the content was secondary.
Another set of footsteps, light and unsure, neared the door. It was Janet. She had a plate of freshly baked madeleines and a large mug of coffee.
“Good morning,” I said, straightening up on the couch.
“Good morning, child.”
“Did you get any sleep at all?” Janet put the food on the table and when she sat next to me, her flowery scent reached my nose.
“Yes, I did.”
“You should get some more.”
“In a bit.” I inhaled deeply and dropped my legs to the floor.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Janet sipped her coffee. I checked my Twitter.
“Last summer, when he confessed he wanted to tour again, I told him he wasn’t fit for this lifestyle anymore,” Janet said with a sigh.
I felt a lump pushing against my throat.
“It’s in his blood. The showmanship and the need to entertain,” she went on. The breeze whipped her silver strands against her thin shoulders. “He was born to perform. He didn’t even know he had a voice to go with his charisma until he turned twelve, but he was always hungry for attention and to make people smile.”
“He’s got an amazing sense of humor,” I agreed. “I’ve laughed with him more than I have my entire life.”
“That’s my boy.” Janet nodded.
Just like Frank, she was full of light. Lots of it. Bright and warm.
“Will you tell me about him?” I asked. “What was he like when he was a kid?”
“Sweet. Radiant. Different.” Her breath caught and she took another sip of coffee.
I waited.
Frank had a habit of dropping very personal things on me at the most random times, as if he didn’t have any memories of those events and felt compelled to share them as soon as they resurfaced in his mind in case they disappeared again.
The picture of him in my head still missed a few pieces, and I wanted to find them. I wanted to see him whole. I wanted to see who he was beyond his years and scars.
“Billy and I couldn’t have kids,” Janet began. “We tried to conceive for so long, but the medicine wasn’t as advanced in our day.” A sad smile twisted her lips. “At some point, we gave up on the idea and decided to foster a child to see if it was something that could become a long-term arrangement. You’re not always sure if it’s going to work when you plan on taking a stranger in. I wasn’t exactly
young or fit to care for a baby anymore, so we thought it would be best to find someone a little older. Preschool age. The moment I saw Frankie, I knew he was the one. The way he looked at me made me want to hug him and never let go. Please love me, his eyes had said. We didn’t look back after we brought him home with us. He was such a good, loving boy, and he made us extremely happy.”
My chest expanded from the onslaught of emotions. The world was strange. How could this woman love someone else’s child so selflessly while a man like my father couldn’t care to stick around to watch his own kids grow? A whimper gathered in my lungs and I had to bite my lip to prevent it from breaking through.
“Billy was still touring then.” Janet lowered the mug to her lap and stared at the stretch of ocean in front of us. “Sometimes he brought Frank along to help out. They developed this strange bond that occasionally made me a little jealous.” She laughed softly.
“When Frank was eighteen, he went with us to Los Angeles, where Billy’s band played a show on Sunset Strip. That’s where he met Dante, whose band was on the bill along with my husband’s. They were all green and very bad. I don’t think any of them ever made it in the music business except for Dante. That boy didn’t fit in with those guys. Even back then, he was impressive. He played like he’d been possessed by the devil himself. It’s the kind of talent that comes around once every few decades if we’re lucky. A couple of months later, after we returned to Arizona, Frank approached me and said, Mom, I want to move to Los Angeles and play music.”
Janet stopped and her gaze swept over to me. “So I gave him five hundred dollars and I let him go. The rest is history.” When she finished, there was a smile on her face. Covert but real. A smile of love and adoration that I could feel wrap around my thundering heart and whisper a soft lullaby.
“My son is very lucky,” Janet said. “With everything that happened to him after the accident…” Her voice faltered. “Not everyone has the guts to do what he’s done. Pick himself up and move on with his life. Not after the kind of pain and suffering he’s been through.”
I held the oxygen in my lungs because I was scared my breath would disturb the fine balance between us.
“The only things he never had luck with were women and dating.” She shook her head. “My Frankie never knew how to choose them. I always told him to find a nice girl and he always went for the most scandalous and most unavailable. Imagine my shock when he told me he’d met someone who wasn’t another celebrity.”
A flutter filled my stomach.
“I’m aware of your arrangement with my son”—Janet moved closer—“and I appreciate you honoring his condition. He can’t go through another round of public relationships after everything that happened between him and his ex-wife.”
At that moment, I wondered if Janet knew about Dante, but my tongue remained idle. I didn’t want to open Pandora’s box by bringing it up.
“He looks so happy when he’s with you,” she whispered. “There’s a calmness in you, child. You balance him out. That’s exactly what he needs.”
Blush hit my cheeks. “Thank you.”
We chatted for a little while longer, until another wave of exhaustion finally swept me under. I returned to the bedroom and curled up next to Frank. With my eyes closed, I listened to him breathe. I listened to every inhale and exhale carefully. I waited for a sound that would tell me he wasn’t okay, but it never came. The stress lines on his face were gone and pink colored his cheeks.
“I know you can’t hear me right now,” I mouthed as my gaze followed a stray ray of light dancing across his forehead. “But I love you.”
I wasn’t sure why I said it, but I was sure I felt it.
I’d loved him even before I knew him. I’d fallen in love with his voice and his music years ago. I hadn’t stopped loving him since.
It was the soft rustle of the sheets and a hushed voice coming from the bathroom that woke me up. The voice belonged to Frank. I cracked my eyes open and scanned the room. The IV still loomed over the bed, but the bag was empty and it didn’t look as if the nurse had visited while I was asleep.
My phone sat on the nightstand and force of habit made me grab it. It was almost noon. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram raged. BuzzFeed’s front page had a photo of Frank from last night’s performance at the Forum.
“Hall Affinity’s First Post-Hiatus Show: Can Frankie Blade Pull It Off Or Should He Go Back To Being History?”
Resentment boiled in my chest. I knew there was no way around bad publicity. Not for a person like Frank, but emotions still swelled. Mad at the entire world, I tossed the phone aside and sat up.
“I suggest you don’t go online today if you want to stay sane.” Frank’s distorted voice drifted at me from the bathroom.
My eyes shot up to where he stood in the doorway. Shirtless. His broad chest and defined abs on display. A toothbrush stuck out from the corner of his mouth. There was a small splotch of blue and purple on his right side from yesterday’s fall.
“I know. It’s a stupid habit,” I confessed as he resumed brushing his teeth. “Were you talking to yourself?” I slid from the bed and walked over to the bathroom. There, on the counter, sat his phone.
“Yeah.” He laughed a little. “I was giving myself a pep talk.”
“I can give you one.” I inched closer and positioned myself behind him. My fingers skimmed over his bruise as I wrapped my arms around his body.
“I’m listening.” He pulled the toothbrush out and spit in the sink.
“You’re going to do great tonight,” I whispered against his back as he went on with rinsing. “You look good. Rested.”
“We’re making a few adjustments to the set. The guys are going to be here soon. I should get ready.” He patted my hand locked on his stomach.
“Were you really giving yourself a pep talk?” I asked as we returned to the bedroom. My mind couldn’t conjure an image of Frank standing in front of the mirror and talking himself up.
“No.” He shook his head and moved to the closet. “It was my lawyer.”
There was something ominous about that statement. I couldn’t think of a reason for him to need a lawyer after last night, and I didn’t press for more. He had a busy day ahead of him and I didn’t want to be in the way.
Frank must have felt my anxiety. “Doll”—he turned to me and his features softened—“I’m not ignoring you. I just need to get through today and tomorrow.”
“Of course. Pretend I’m not here for the next two days.”
“That, I can’t do.” He marched over to me and dipped his head to grab a kiss. “I need you here. Things are going to be very messy for the next forty-eight hours, and if I do or say something out of left field, don’t hold it against me, okay?”
His hands slid to my waist and he drew me closer. Chest to chest, our bodies connected and then his mouth was on mine again. An incredible rush of adrenaline washed over me, and my blood thickened from the blend of desire and other emotions.
We checked out for a long moment. It was a perfect kiss, an explosive mix of tender and wild. A volcano of sensations. And it wasn’t enough. I wanted this—the feel of his lips against mine and the sound of his moans swallowing my breaths—to go on until the end of days. Until we both turned to dust and floated together in the cool California wind. Ashes to ashes.
Dante, Carter, and Johnny showed up right after breakfast. Or at least, it was breakfast for us. Rock stars and their girlfriends didn’t follow the typical nine-to-five routine. Late nights always resulted in missed mornings.
Brooklyn and Corey were in the office on a conference call with Jay Brodie PR. Billy and Janet kept their distance while Frank took care of business. I was left in the kitchen alone. My phone sat next to me, and the itch to go online was too strong. I had to. I wanted to know what Shayne had written about last night’s show. I couldn’t define the feeling within me very well as I read through her review on Rewired. Not until I hit the middle of the article anyway. Jea
lousy. That’s what it was. She was good at weaving her words. The recap was a compelling read, with a bit of a personal touch that wasn’t overdone. In some instances, I was certain she’d mimicked my style and it actually pleased me that someone had found my writing worth imitating.
I skimmed through the text until the end, and that’s when the article took a sharp turn. I reread the last paragraph a few times to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and the tone was exactly what Shayne had intended it to be…speculative.
Then I called Levi.
Frank was in the studio and couldn’t possibly hear me raging over the phone, which was precisely what I was about to do.
The line rang several times. Finally, I heard a groan. “What’s up?”
I went straight in for the kill. “Did you even read Shayne’s article before you posted it?”
“I did.” No explanation. Had Levi been secretly taking lessons from Frank?
“Are you shitting me right now?”
“I’m not. I read it. She’s fucking good. I don’t understand why you don’t like her.”
“I never said I didn’t like her.”
“Oh yeah? Well, right now, you’re doing that thing again, Cass.”
“What thing? What, are we in sixth grade? Why is she even talking about the length of the set?”
“Because it was a short fucking set and you wouldn’t tell me what the hell happened.” Levi paused to catch his breath. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Something went wrong, didn’t it?
I contemplated revealing the truth but decided against it. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
That’s when it happened. The crack between us. I heard it loud and clear. We were on opposite sides of the barricade now. I was the person with secrets and Levi was the person who wanted those secrets. Only, they weren’t my secrets to divulge. They were Frank’s.