by Lisa Suzanne
The A and R rep is the artist and repertoire representative at a record label—typically the one who works one-on-one with musicians. It’s rare for a CEO to be as involved as Mark is, but the men of MFB agree that’s what makes Ashmark—and therefore, at least to some degree, MFB—so successful.
I allow a small chuckle, and he continues.
“Like you, I was apologetic, but I didn’t really allow it to change my behavior. My label didn’t care, but let me assure you, yours does.”
“I understand,” I say meekly.
“You’re a funny one. You’re called Rascal and you don’t seem to give a fuck about anything. I can’t quite figure you out.”
He pauses, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say something here. I don’t.
“I see so much talent in you. So much potential. Have you ever considered playing guitar?”
My brows dip. “Guitar is my passion, Mr. Ashton.”
“Stop with the Mr. Ashton shit, Rascowicz.” He rolls his eyes.
“Sorry. Mark.”
“Better,” he says. He glances away from me like someone else is in his office, and he says something to whoever it is that I don’t hear. He shuffles some papers and hands them off. “So why are you on keys if your passion is guitar?”
“Because MFB had two guitarists when I joined.”
“So? All right, we’ll get you on guitar on your next album.” He glances down and I can tell he’s writing something even though I can’t actually see it.
“Seriously?” My jaw slackens at that. Is he kidding me? He just snaps his fingers and boom, suddenly I play guitar?
“Look, I get it. You’re young. Twenty-eight, right?” he asks.
“Twenty-nine.”
“You’re bored, so you got drunk and broke a window. Not a big deal, but I don’t want that to be the gateway. Understand what I’m saying?”
I get it, I guess. I’m not exactly bored, but I think he can see underneath it all that I’m bored with the keyboards and that could have the potential to lead to much bigger issues if we don’t nip that burnout I’m feeling now.
“I understand. I’ve been feeling a little burned out lately.”
“On keys or on music?” He says something to another person in his office before he turns his attention back to me, and I can see how busy he is.
“Keys.”
“Right.” He scribbles something else down. “The more you feel it, the more the crowd will sense it, and that’s not something we can have.”
“I agree. And I’m planning a trip to help me reset a bit.”
“Great idea. Write some songs, figure out how to get yourself on some guitar riffs, and I’ll bring it up at the next band meeting. You going solo?”
My ears burn and I’m sure he can sense my shift to discomfort. “My girlfriend is going with.”
He raises his brows. “You have a girl?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Adam Wilson’s sister.”
He whistles. “Wow. Scandalous.”
I laugh. “Less scandalous and more right place at the right time, just the way it should have been for as long as I can remember.”
“I like that. Take care of her, especially if her brother’s one of your crew. You can’t have in-fighting because of personal shit, you know?”
I nod because I do know, and it’s something that’s pressed on me since the day she walked into our hotel room and I could no longer resist her.
“But that’s not what I mean when I asked if you’re going solo,” he continues. “I didn’t mean your trip. I meant you. Musically.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “I never really thought about it.”
“All right. Think about it. Think about other options, especially since MFB is taking time off. I need to go, but if there’s anything I can do to help you, just say the word, man. I’m not just the owner of your label. I’m a guy in your corner. I want to see you soar to success, and you’re already there, but I want to push you to something greater. Your whole band, but also each of you as individuals.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I’m about to add more when he interrupts.
“You’re welcome. Have your manager schedule a band meeting after your break so we can get the next record in development,” he says, and then he cuts the call.
I sit in the chair in my dad’s office, processing his words as I can’t help but wonder what it means for each of us to soar as individuals.
It’s just not something that’s ever come up for us.
We’re a band first and foremost, and we have been for nearly a decade.
But Adam’s married now, and he’s on his honeymoon.
Dax is getting married in a month.
Brody’s planning his wedding.
Kane and Sierra have been together for years and years.
I’m getting serious with Amber.
And when we all start to have lives outside each other, what happens to MFB?
CHAPTER 13: AMBER
“What are you doing here, Cookie?” Will asks when he opens the door. He swings it wider to let me in, and he tries to stop me for a kiss but I storm past him.
He looks rough. Like he got arrested last night rough. His eyes have big circles beneath them and he looks a little pale—paler than normal, anyway. His hair looks like it could use some shampoo and his scruff is a little more unruly than usual—and a little more red. His hair looks so much darker since he cut it, but the longer scruff makes him look like a redhead again, something I didn’t notice because he’s been keeping it groomed.
“We need to talk,” I say, setting my hands on my hips.
I’ve gone around and around this all day in my mind, and there’s only one conclusion I keep coming to.
There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, a lot of reasons why this doesn’t feel right anymore, but the arrest last night and text that came just before it were the final pieces that told me what I needed to do.
Ian may have broken my heart because I wasn’t a priority to him, but at least he never got arrested for breaking a window. At least he wasn’t featured on TMZ in handcuffs in the back of a police car. At least he never had the gossips at the ER spreading rumors about me and how something he did might affect my job performance.
You know what he did do, though? Text me with booty calls.
I can’t do this again. I expected to fall down on the list of Will’s priorities when he’s on tour or when the band’s making new music or when it has something to do with MFB, but to learn about personal things from an entertainment site rather than from his mouth first after a one AM booty call?
It hurts.
Maybe Ian damaged me more than I realized, but I can’t get serious with someone who doesn’t bother to call me when he’s in trouble but does manage to shoot me a text to try to get me into his bed the same night.
“About what?” he asks, shutting the door. When he looks at me, a dart of alarm crosses through his eyes.
“About us, Will.”
He presses his lips together. “All right. Let’s go upstairs.”
I follow him up to his room, and when we enter, I take a good look around at what should have been a series of red flags but are all things I swept under the rug because I liked him and didn’t care.
But now that I’ve made my decision, these red flags suddenly glow brightly at me.
It’s a little messy in here, almost like I’d expect a teenaged boy’s room to look with random clothes and shoes strewn about, a guitar in one corner with a sweatshirt hanging over it, and a keyboard taking up the majority of the top of his dresser. A table sits between two recliners pointed at an enormous entertainment center. The table has six or so different drinks scattered on it in various stages of empty and a bowl with a little milk in the bottom. I can’t help but wonder how long the milk’s been sitting there. Is it fresh, or did he eat cereal up here a few days ago?
I can’t ask. I don’t want to know.
A video game is paused on the tel
evision screen.
At least he stopped playing long enough to answer my text when I let him know I was outside.
Before last night happened—or, really, before I found out about last night—these are things I might’ve noticed but wouldn’t have really cared about. But now, all I see is the man child I described to Janine, and all I can think of is her question about whether this is what I want long term.
No, this is not what I want. It doesn’t matter how he makes me feel. It doesn’t matter that the sex is mind-blowing.
All that matters is that I need someone who respects me, someone who prioritizes our relationship, someone who thinks about the future and wants a family, and I just don’t see any of that long-term with Will.
“What’s up?” he asks casually, grabbing an old sweatshirt off one of the chairs so I can sit. He slides into the other one.
I blow out a breath and wait for him to look at me. I watch as his eyes survey the drinks on the table between us, and then dart to the television, and look over at the window before they finally land on me.
“I can’t do this.” I shake my head, and I will the tears away. I’m not going to cry over this. We’ve barely gotten off the ground, and this is for the best.
I don’t even know why I feel that sting of heat back there, anyway.
“Can’t do what?” he asks.
Is he really that dense?
I motion between the two of us. “This.”
His brows dart down like he really just isn’t understanding what I’m saying.
“I’m breaking up with you,” I finally say, spelling it out for him.
“What?” he asks, his voice an octave higher than I’m used to.
“It’s over,” I say. “We’re done.”
“Are you...but—um...what?” he stutters. “Why?”
“Because you scared the hell out of me at one in the morning with a drunk text when I’m in the middle of my three twelve-hour shifts but it was just a booty call. And then this morning I got a notification on my break at work from an entertainment site that the guy I’ve been dating for two months was arrested last night, which basically tells me that if I would’ve just said fuck work like you told me to, I would’ve been there to see my boyfriend get arrested. Hell, maybe I would’ve been arrested, too. Wouldn’t that have been fun?”
“You’re breaking up with me because of TMZ?” he asks.
I hold back a snort. “No. I’m breaking up with you because this isn’t working. I’ve got coworkers spreading shit about me because my boyfriend was arrested last night. They’ve already got eyes on me because of what happened in Vegas. But it’s not just that your behavior is affecting my job.”
He looks nervous. I continue before he has a chance to interject.
“I want someone who doesn’t panic when we talk about kids. I want someone who I won’t have to mother because he can run a load of his own laundry which is really just a symbol for everything else I’ll have to do for him. I want someone who doesn’t drunk text me for a booty call at one in the morning when he knows I have to be up early for work.” I cross my arms over my chest. “You can’t say this is more than sex and then act like it isn’t.”
“It wasn’t a booty call,” he says weakly.
The fact that the booty call thing is what he latches onto speaks volumes to me. I stand, and my stomach heaves with a violent cramp, as if my body is trying to warn me that this is the wrong thing to do. I ignore it as I walk toward the door because I know this is for the best.
“You don’t get to just leave,” he protests.
“I have work tomorrow,” I say.
My hand is on the doorknob when his voice stops me. “I hardly think this is a reason to break up with someone. You want to know what I think?”
“What’s that?” I ask, turning and narrowing my eyes at him.
“I think you’re running scared. I think this got serious between the two of us and you weren’t expecting it and you don’t know how to handle it. I think you were looking for a way out. You’re ending it first so you don’t get hurt.”
Deep down, something nags at my gut. Maybe he’s right. But I’m not about to admit that to him, and just because he’s right doesn’t change anything.
Besides, he got one thing wrong. He said I’m ending it first so I don’t get hurt.
Well, I’m not even out of his bedroom yet and I can definitely say that this hurts like hell.
I turn the knob and leave with my parting shot. “We’re over, and you can forget about the road trip, too.”
I don’t worry right now about the letter and the potential sister and the answers I need to find. I’ll figure out some way to get my answers that doesn’t involve Will.
And I manage to hold myself together all the way until I get to my car, where the tears tip over my lids and I break down...something I never expected over the man child I never meant to fall for.
CHAPTER 14: WILL
What the fuck just happened?
I stare at the back of my closed door a full minute before it hits me that Amber just broke up with me.
Because I had a little run-in with the law last night.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Clearly this wasn’t meant to last. She was looking for an out, and she got a big, fat one when I fucked up last night. But you know what? I’ll get over it. I’ll get over her.
I’m just glad her brother left for his honeymoon this morning so I don’t have to deal with his shit on top of all this. By the time he gets back, I’ll be over her and maybe someone else will be under me and I’ll be back to my old self again.
I hate that I allowed her to start changing the way I think about things. I hate that I started thinking about the future because of her.
Fuck her.
Fuck all that.
Fuck relationships and commitment and the future.
I head downstairs to grab a beer and Kylie’s sitting at the table.
“Why’d Amber run out of here?” she asks as I stick my head in the fridge to check our stock.
I grab a bottle, flick off the cap, and slide into the chair across from Kylie. “She fucking dumped me.”
She lets out a little gasp. “She what?”
“She. Fucking. Dumped. Me.” I drain half the beer after declaring it for the second time. “And she told me she’s out. She’s not doing the road trip.”
Kylie raises a brow. “Excuse me?”
“The trip’s off.”
She laughs a little, but it’s more maniacal than happy. She flicks off her mic pack, and I realize I forgot to put mine on. We’re supposed to wear them any time we’re in the main areas of our house, and I often forget there are cameras perched in every corner capturing our every move as they hope to capture something interesting for our audience.
There’s nothing interesting happening here.
Except the fact that I just got dumped.
“Cute, and sorry for what you’re going through, but the trip’s not off.” Kylie shoots me a fake smile and rests her hand on her swollen stomach the way pregnant women do.
“Uh, yeah it is. She broke up with me.”
She rolls her eyes. “This is why you read contracts before you sign them, you moron.”
“I didn’t think I had to. Why, what does it say?”
“There’s a clause that clearly spells out that in the event you break up, you’re still taking the trip and you’re acting like a couple because you being together is part of this season’s story.” She flips through some papers and pulls out a copy of the contract we signed yesterday morning before she hands it over to me, pointing to the clause.
Section 2: Availability and Details.
You agree:
A. To provide clearance and availability during all car travel time.
B. To provide your own film footage for public use of stops at hotels, restaurants, attractions, and/or additional stops.
C. To remain a couple for the duration of the ro
ad trip.
D. To take the trip as planned with a minimum of ten nights and a maximum of thirty-three nights.
E. That unforeseen MFB responsibilities and major illness of yourself or an immediate family member shall constitute the only legal cancelation. Ending the relationship and/or changing one’s mind will not constitute legal cancelation. See appendix A for acceptable causes and penalties.
F. That in the event of a termination of your relationship, you will continue to act as a couple on camera.
Fuck.
“It’s not a fucking story, Kylie. It’s my life.” I try not to sound whiney when I say the words. I fail.
“And this is business. I’m sorry, Rascal, but you both signed a contract. And unless Amber wants MFB to sue her, she’s going to need to suck it up and pretend she’s in love with you.”
I blow out a breath.
This trip has taken a sudden turn from a dream I’ve had forever into a fucking nightmare.
I snap a picture of the clause Kylie just showed me—Amber’s version with her initials next to the specific clauses that say we have to take this trip and we have to be a couple.
I attach the photo to a text to Amber and don’t otherwise comment.
She receives the text as it shows delivered on my end, but I don’t get a reply.
And then I drink until I pass out.
I head to my parents’ house the next morning with a basket of dirty laundry and another hangover.
I never really thought I was smothered by my mom until Amber pointed out that it’s not normal that my mother still does my laundry. I never thought twice about it because I never really had to.
I greet my mom with a kiss on the cheek, and she moves to take the basket from me. I shake my head and hold onto the basket. “Will you show me?”
Her brows dip in confusion and she runs a hand along her red hair—the same exact shade of my own, much less noticeable now that mine’s short and I cut off the longer, brighter red locks. “Show you?”
I nod. “How to do the laundry.”
“You want to learn?”