Some of us grew up fine despite all odds. Others, like me, were still fucked up from the whole ordeal.
Now, at twenty-four, I can barely take a piss without the paparazzi following me in. Privacy is nonexistent for me, and the more I want to create music I love and believe in, the more the people who pretend they own me push back.
Take my current shitty situation for example. I know, and they know, that I managed to sell out my first world tour—a stadium tour—without fucking dancers. I don’t need them, clearly, and fuck if I know why they’re so hell bent on having them this time. But I’ll be damned if I stand up there and sing songs I know are complete shit while girls—and probably guys—parade around me, half-naked and twirling and shit.
Fuck. That.
A rough hand squeezes my neck, and I look up to find Poe standing next to me. “You ready?” he asks, stepping back and running his hands through the mop of hair on his head.
I nod, forgetting about the dancers and putting my head where it should be—with the music. “Let’s start with Love Me Like You,” I instruct.
Everyone takes their spot in the studio, preparing their instruments and looking to me for confirmation.
I count us in with, “One…two…one, two, three—”
As I get lost in the song, everything else fades away around me. We run through good chunk of the setlist before calling a break for lunch.
Wiping the sweat from my neck, I look to my band. “Meet back here in an hour.”
They nod before filing out of the room, leaving me and Poe in the studio alone.
“How do you think it went?” I ask him, unscrewing the cap to my water bottle while following him to a couch.
Poe sighs, plopping down onto the brown leather. He runs a hand over the stubble growing around his mouth, avoiding my eyes for a moment.
Unease builds in my chest. “Spit it out, Poe.”
“Nash…” he begins, his hands falling tiredly next to him, slapping against the stiff leather. “The band is doing everything they need to, but it still feels off.”
“Then the band isn’t doing everything they need to,” I counter, shaking my head to move the long piece of hair blocking my sight.
He rolls his eyes at me. “No, man. It’s you. You aren’t in it anymore. Not like you used to be. It seems like you don’t even want to be here. I see it, the band sees it, and quite frankly, I think everyone sees it but you.”
I tap my hands against the counter in front of me, anger bubbling inside me. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Look, I’ve known you since you were a teeny bopper dancing in sync with your adolescent friends. You’re like a younger brother to me.”
All I can do is let out an irritated sigh. Poe isn’t much older than me, but I let him have his moment as he rattles on.
“That’s why I’m going to be real with you when I say you need to get your head back into the music. Hell, your heart needs to be in it, too. Because there’ll be tens of thousands of fans cheering you on at this tour, and they deserve someone giving their all to it. Someone who gives a fuck about what they’re doing.”
Annoyed by his words, I roll my eyes. I’m sick and tired of everyone telling me this bullshit. “What’s up with everyone being on my ass about my heart not being in the music anymore?”
Poe shrugs, pulling at the label on his water bottle. “You seem like you don’t want to be here.”
I let out a resigned sigh, because he’s right. I’m exhausted by the life I live. I don’t exactly want to be here. I don’t know where the fuck I want to be. Nothing matters to me more than the fans and the music, but right now it doesn’t feel like my life revolves around either anymore.
I’m controlled by numbers and corporate assholes who wouldn’t know how to write a bridge if it slapped them in the fucking face. When I went solo, I left the group because I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted it to be me who had the final say in things.
To get where I am now, I had to cut ties with three of my best friends. I left them high and dry when I sold the front-page story on how I, Nash Pierce, was leaving Anticipation Rising.
The only way I could live with myself after doing that to my friends was knowing I had to do it if I wanted to control my music. Because I wanted to be in control of me. Now, as I let out a half-hearted laugh, I can’t help but think twenty-year-old me was incredibly naïve.
Here I am, four years later, hating myself and my job at times because I’m doing the exact opposite of what I’d set out to do. I can barely take a piss without someone telling me when, where, and how to do it.
My mind tracks back to my last tour. Things were so much simpler then. I was allowed to perform a setlist completely written by me. Songs I was proud of. Not the cookie cutter shit I perform now that are written with one purpose only: to top charts.
“Do you?” Poe’s voice breaks through my thoughts.
I look up confused, forgetting what he said. “Do I what?”
He gives me a dejected look. “Do you even want to be here?”
I snicker. “Well, I mean, I wouldn’t mind cutting to the part where I’m underneath someone tonight.”
Poe straightens on the couch, resting his elbows on his thighs, and the leather underneath him groans with the quick movement. “Cut the shit. Your whoring-around bullshit isn’t going to hide the truth.”
It’s my turn to get angry with him. I’m annoyed he’s not taking the fucking hint to drop it.
“Yes,” I lie, “I want to be here.” I stretch my arms above my head. “Now, I’m going to go eat before I continue to work my ass off for the fans paying to see this tour.”
I push past one of my best friends, not bothering to look back at him. I don’t want him to see the lies written all over my face.
Nothing feels more like home to me than a stage in front of thousands of fans. Nowhere else could ever compete with that.
I’m just bitter that when I stand up there this tour, I’ll be standing up there as a washed-up version of myself that I can barely tolerate to look at in the mirror anymore.
It doesn’t feel like I’m performing for myself or even my fans at this point. It feels a whole lot like I’m performing for my label and the people trying to run my life.
And I fucking despise it.
“Excuse me, what?” Riley shrieks, her voice screeching through my car’s speakers.
“Jeez, Riley,” I say, reaching for my dashboard to turn the volume for the Bluetooth down. “You just about busted my eardrum!”
A car honks behind me before it whips over into the next lane and speeds right past me. People in LA traffic are so friendly.
“I’m sorry, Nora, but you can’t expect me to be silent when you tell me you’re going on tour with Nash freaking Pierce!”
“Well believe it,” I tell her. “I have to go to auditions, but it seemed like kind of a done deal.”
“Remember us common people on your road to fame,” she jokes, muttering something quietly to someone on her end of the line.
“By the way, I had to give Nash’s manager all of your info,” I add nonchalantly, hoping she doesn’t freak out.
“What?” she screeches, clearly freaking out.
“I know, I know. But you were listed as my agent and when she said she’d get in contact with my agent, I panicked.”
“What happens when she finds out it’s a total fake?”
I shrug, forgetting she can’t see me. “We won’t let that happen.”
She sighs. “It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine, because again, my best friend is going on tour!”
I laugh, still trying to process that fact myself. “We’ll talk more about it at home,” I say, merging into the right lane.
“Hell yeah, we will. I want all the dirty deets! You have to tell me how wonderful this will be for you before I have to start processing the fact that you’ll be leaving me.”
I swallow, trying to figure out if I plan o
n telling my best friend the real reason I’ll be going on this tour.
“Okay, tell me everything,” Riley says, speaking through a mouthful of food. She’s sitting across from me on our living room floor, her legs crossed in front of her.
Finishing my own bite of food, I hold up my finger. After swallowing, I give her a shrug, unsure of where I should even begin. Today was totally unexpected and I still don’t know how to properly put into words what Monica is asking me to do. “Well, you know how I was shocked to hear from Monica.”
When we first moved out here, Riley and I decided to put her down as my “agent” in my bio, thinking it made me sound like I was already a somebody, even if it was just an act. Then again, nearly everyone in LA is putting on some act or another.
Riley didn’t check it very often, as the inbox was pretty consistently empty aside from spam. That is, until a few days ago—when Riley received an inquiry from Nash Pierce’s manager.
We thought that was spam too at first. Who wouldn’t? But it goes without saying we found out it was very real. A little too real, I’m realizing, the more I think about it.
Riley nods, loudly slurping a noodle into her mouth in the process.
I recount to Riley everything Monica and I talked about before she dropped the bomb on me.
Riley wipes her mouth with a napkin at the same moment her brown eyes pop wide open. She throws down the napkin and shoots up from where she’d been sitting. “I’ve got an idea!” she yells as she disappears into her bedroom.
After Riley gets out a whiteboard and insists on making a pros and cons list, I look at her solemnly.
“I just don’t want to be a shitty person by agreeing to this. I don’t want to be anything like them,” I admit.
Brief flashes from high school come to mind. I try to not think of the person—the people—that made the end of my senior year hell for me and those I love.
My past is something I rarely talk about anymore. I tried to leave every tragic thing that happened in high school back in Ohio. But that doesn’t mean I ever want to do something where I have to question my own morals. And getting close to someone to intentionally hurt them is a great way to have me questioning everything.
“I’m dead serious. You deserve to chase your dream, Nora. You’ve been through a lot. You risked a lot to be in the position you are now, and this is literally your dream we’re talking about. You can’t pass up the opportunity.”
“Follow my dream, while agreeing to try and break somebody else’s heart, what a great opportunity,” I say sarcastically.
Riley plops down next to me with a sigh. She leans her head on my shoulder, the both of us looking forward. “You said it yourself; you don’t think you’ll even get the chance to break his heart.”
“That’s true,” I tell her, thinking her point through. I highly doubt he’d be interested in me. In reality, I most likely won’t even have the chance or opportunity to break his heart. He’s Nash Pierce. He won’t spare me a second glance.
Every magazine makes Nash seem like a raging douchebag. A playboy. Someone not looking for anything remotely serious. From personal experience, though, I know the labels others can push on you without knowing your true character at all. I know how wrong they can be. And part of me wonders if Nash Pierce is really the kind of guy everyone makes him out to be. Riley gives me a serious look, her hands dangling in front of her. “If you do, then we’ll figure it out then. There’s no part in worrying about it right now.”
Lingering in the silence for a few moments, staring at the list in front of me, I come to my final decision. “I’m going to do it.” The words come out way more confident than I feel.
Riley jumps up, a beaming smile on her face. “My bestie is going to be famous!”
Meanwhile, I just hope this tour will end with me not hating myself for the things I’ve done.
I groan as I pull sunglasses over my eyes, a headache wreaking havoc on my brain. Looking to my right, I find a mass of people waiting outside the building where auditions are being held. The location we chose was supposed to be secure. Only the people auditioning were supposed to know where they were taking place. But here we are, with a hundred screaming fans outside the door I’m supposed to be walking in.
I rub my temples, hiding behind the tinted glass for a few seconds longer. I know I’m late, but I woke up this morning with a raging hangover and no desire to come here at all.
The screams outside the SUV window do nothing to help ease the tension in my head. I’m two seconds away from telling my driver to take me back home, to let Monica and anyone else decide which dancers to hire for the tour.
But I’m already here. And if I’m going to have other people sharing my fucking stage, I might as well have a say in who it’ll be.
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I look over at Sebastian, one of my security guards. “I’m ready.”
He wastes no time opening his door, the roar of the fans drowning out any other sounds around me. My eyes track his movements as he rounds the front of the car and then stands like a brick wall in front of my door.
I stare at the dark hair on the back of his head for a few moments, giving myself one last chance to bow out of this shit show. I take a deep breath in before I knock my knuckles against the window three times, letting him know I’m ready to exit the car.
Sebastian swiftly turns around, opening my door and ushering me safely out of the car. The fans go crazy, their screams meshing together in one ear-piercing sound. I fall in step with Sebastian, walking one beat behind him as he directs us toward the door.
“Nash!”
“Can I have your autograph?”
“Oh my god, it’s him!”
The fans are excruciatingly loud. I try to aim a smile in the direction of the noise but cameras flash in my face, so I stare at my feet, trying to hide behind my sunglasses and hat.
“Please stop, Nash!”
I used to stop and sign something for every single one of my fans. Now, that is nowhere near possible for me. Every place I go is leaked to the press and in no time there’s a swarm of people—half paparazzi, half fans. If I stood outside and signed something for each and every one of them, smiled for every photo op, I’d never release another album let alone go on tour.
I just don’t have the damn time.
But in the press, they call me cold and callous for no longer interacting with my fans the way I used to. The fame has gone to my head in their eyes.
What they don’t seem to understand, is with more fame comes more responsibility.
If people want me to do the things they love me for, like write songs, I can’t spend all my time appeasing them.
But I tell a fan not to grope me, and I’m the asshole.
If I don’t smile because I’m late and have shit to do? I don’t care about the people who support my career.
I’ve learned the hard way there’s no way for me to win in these situations.
“Step back,” Sebastian orders, scolding a fan that’s slipped through the barricade.
My face is plastered all over her T-shirt. The photo is of me stripped down to my underwear for a popular brand’s new line of underwear. The shirt makes me cringe.
“Move!” Sebastian yells, no longer a warning tone.
The girl begins to cry. “Nash, I love you so much.”
She somehow manages to further press her body against the door. There’s a good chance she’s going to have to be peeled from the glass at this point.
When she adjusts her hand, she leaves behind a sweaty palm print on the door. Tears stream down her face as she begins to sob a few feet away from me.
There are still screams echoing behind me as Matt, another one of my bodyguards, walks up to her and asks her to move one last time. The crying fan doesn’t move, which causes Matt to have to escort her out of the way.
As he leads her back to the barrier between me and the other fans, she looks over her shoulder and makes direct eye contact with me.
“I just wanted you to see me!”
The words sit deeper in my gut than I’d care to admit. It’s not that I don’t care about my fans or don’t want to get to know them, the problem is I can’t spend all my time doing it.
Her words are still ringing in my ears as we shuffle through the entrance to the studio, the sounds of the fans outside fading as the doors shut.
“You’re late.”
I don’t have to look up to know who it is. I’ve heard that exact phrase fall from Monica’s lips many times before. She’s lectured me so many times in my life that I’m nearly desensitized to it by now.
As I pull the hat from my head and tuck it into the back pocket of my jeans, I step closer to her. “I’m fucking here. What more do you want from me?”
Monica swivels on her heels and starts walking down the hallway. “I want you to give a damn about your own tour, Nash. That’s what I want.” Her words bounce against the walls of the empty hallway.
Sebastian clears his throat behind me. Not bothering to look at him, I follow in Monica’s footsteps.
“Who said I didn’t care about this tour? Because it sure as hell wasn’t me.”
She stops in her tracks, her thin shoulders moving with a deep breath. I wasn’t expecting her to turn around and retreat in my direction, but in no time, she’s standing directly in front of me, a wrinkle forming on her forehead. A wrinkle no amount of Botox could get rid of when she’s pissed.
Her voice gets incredibly low when she says, “You didn’t have to say the words. Your indifference to every single thing with this tour says enough. You used to be involved in tour planning. Now I don’t think you can even tell me what your stage setup will be, can you?”
My teeth grind together as I flex my jaw. I let my staff design most of this tour because they’re the experts on it. I was busy trying to write decent fucking songs to perform on tour, but that doesn’t seem to register with Monica and probably others. They want me to be this damn circus animal that does everything.
Monica smiles at my silence. “Take some time to get your shit together before you walk into auditions. We need these dancers, and I can’t have this indifferent asshole of a popstar walking in, solidifying their probably already shitty perception of you. When you walk through those doors,” she points to two metal doors down the hallway on her left, “you better have a smile on your face. Understood?”
Founded on Goodbye: A Rockstar Romance Page 2