My mother wanted to call the police. Carrie wanted me to call Sander. I didn’t know what to do. Sander had dropped another bomb, and once again, I was caught in the devastation. In less than three months, I’d gone from a nobody, to a somebody. Now I was infamous. The girl who whored her way to the top and lost it all. I was a walking, talking contradiction of emotions—one moment crying, and the next wanting to hunt him down and give him a piece of my mind. My insides were twisted in knots, my thoughts filled with self-deprecating, crippling doubt. I oscillated between wanting to address the media and wanting to deactivate my social media accounts altogether. How I longed for the world to know what Ferris had done, but to tell them would only hurt Sander. Sander, who I missed beyond words even though he’d broken me. One thing was for sure, I hated being left in the dark. I hated not knowing why he’d left the show. I hated . . . the silence. I wanted to unblock him, just to hear his voice, but then what?
“Life suuuucks,” I groaned. My dog, Apollo, who was passed out on the foot of the bed, snorfled in his sleep. In a frustrated huff, I collapsed back onto my pillow. Talk about pathetic. I was in my late twenties, jobless, and living with my mother and stepfather. Shit, I was . . . a loser. A loud thump from across the room caught my attention and I noticed Sander’s guitar case lying on the floor. Stretched out beside it was my cat, Sid.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” I asked with a glare. Sid answered with a loud meow, as if to say, “Look what I found.” I gazed longingly at the beat-up case, trying not to think about its contents. The night of my homecoming, I’d parked it in the corner of my room, and for weeks it had sat there taunting me. Now, it lay on my floor, as if begging for me to open it.
One minute I was on the bed and the next I was kneeling beside it. Sid rubbed against my back as I flipped open the clasps, my mouth curving into a smile as I lifted it from the case.
“Hey, pretty,” I whispered. Sander called his guitar an extension of himself. To me, it was more like a long-lost friend. The knots in my stomach slowly began to loosen, and for the first time in weeks, I felt as if I could breathe again. Apollo gave me a look as I made my way back to the bed. “You know you love it,” I teased.
Carefully, I settled with my back against the headboard. My fingers found purchase on the frets and a feeling of rightness stole over me. This had always been the case. From my fifth birthday, when I held my very first guitar, to now, I’d had an almost magical connection with music. I thought I’d lost it. Stupid girl. Music was an integral part of me. Like eating, sleeping, or breathing, it just . . . was.
I started with a practice warmup. God, how I’d missed this. Tingles of excitement bubbled inside me as I began to play the very first song I ever wrote. I was fourteen years old and angry about my parents’ divorce. I titled it “Bitterness”, and it took me two years to finish writing it. It was loud and angry, and I never got tired of playing it. If I got the contract with Happenstance, I could finally record it. Then again, if I got the contract with Happenstance, I could record all of my songs. Even the one I’d written for Sander.
My mind wandered to the night of the finale. As I slowly picked over the opening notes of the song, I wondered if Sander even realized it was for him? Did he like it? Did I care? If anything, I cared too much. With the chorus came a barrage of memories. Memories of him. Memories of us—the first time he played for me. The way in which his fingers danced across the strings, as if nothing else mattered but the music. All I had to do was close my eyes and I was back there again. On the airplane. In his house. The heated looks, the naughty things he said, the multitude of ways in which he took me, and the fact that I would do it all over again if given the chance, only confirmed that I was certifiable. The thought that I would feel this way, this lost, until the end of time was beyond infuriating. In a fit of frustration, I sped through the end of the song, and ended it with a shout of disgust. Apollo responded with a bark, while Sid just glowered at me from his spot on the floor.
For a long moment, the three of us sat in silent contemplation. “Okay, so getting over Sander is clearly going to take a little more time than I thought,” I told them, then laughed at the fact that I was discussing my love life with my animals. Certifiable may be too weak of a word to describe my state of mind. As much as I hated to admit it, my mother was right. I needed to take back control. I was so tired of feeling helpless, which meant that it was time to face the music. If I was laughed at or booed off the stage on Saturday night, so be it. If Olivia didn’t offer me the contract, so be it. It wasn’t as if Happenstance was the only fish in the sea. I had four other labels interested in me. So what if I didn’t have an agent? So what if I had no flipping clue what I was doing? I would learn. I needed to stop living in the past and start planning for the future. I needed to call Olivia and confirm the meeting with Happenstance. I needed to forget about Sander and Million Dollar Musician. I needed to get my life back, once and for all.
***
Saturday afternoon, not even six hours before I was due to play at Percussion, Sander struck again. Carrie had just arrived with lunch, when Walter suddenly strolled into the kitchen and flipped on the news.
“Million Dollar Musician is back in the spotlight tonight. It appears that Sander James has finally broken his silence. He did this, of all places, on his Twitter feed.” A clip of Sander’s tweet appeared on the screen. “Last night, he tweeted this: It was my choice to leave Million Dollar Musician. The nation voted and Wynne Benfield won by a landslide. XtBS made their decision without conducting a formal investigation. I refuse to support the network’s decision to stand behind Ferris Leon’s fraudulent accusations. You shouldn’t either. He followed it with hashtags #standupforwynne and #speakoutforwynne. Sander’s tweet has gone viral and the nation is calling for action. Our very own Terry Oakland reached out to XtBS, but the network refused to respond.”
Carrie held up her phone. “Holy shit, look at this!” The four of us crowded around the screen.
“What exactly are we looking at?” Walter asked. My stomach lurched.
“See the heart at the bottom of his tweet? The number next to it tells how many people liked it. See the square with the arrows next to that? That’s how many people responded and this shows how many times it has been retweeted.”
“There are over three million,” Mom whispered.
“What is he doing?” Carrie asked.
Walter scowled. “You need to quit with the games and talk to that boy.”
“Walter!” Mom scolded.
His words felt like a slap. “I haven’t been playing games.”
His brow shot to his hairline. “No? I’m sorry, I thought you blocked all communication with him on account of the conversation not going your way.”
“That’s not what happened at all,” I defensively sputtered. “I blocked him because he knew what Ferris was up to and didn’t tell me. He let me walk up on that stage and get humiliated in front of the world. He could have stopped it, but he didn’t. He let Jayne interrogate me and then he let me leave. He doesn’t care about me. This,” I pointed at the tweet, “is all for show.”
Walter leveled his gaze on my mother. “Tell her.” All eyes shot to Mom. The look on her face made me tense.
“Tell me what?” If looks could kill, Walter would be a very dead man.
“Sander called yesterday.” It took a moment for her words to penetrate.
“What? Why? And why didn’t you tell me?” I glanced at Carrie and she shrugged.
Mom’s expression slid from anger to concern. “I told him you weren’t here.”
“Tell her the rest, Alice,” Walter growled.
“You are not helping,” she hissed.
“I’m not helping? What do you think you’re doing?” he argued.
“I’m protecting her!”
“Stop, both of you!” I shouted. Staring down my mother, I said, “Tell me.”
“Fine! He called. I told him you weren’t here. He wanted
me to know that he was sorry and that he was going to fix things. I told him to let it go, but he said that he couldn’t. Then you walked in and I hung up on him.”
“Mom!” I gasped, and raced from the room.
Within seconds, I had his number unblocked. He called my mother, I thought as I pulled up his number and hit send. The call rang straight through to voicemail and I hung up. Shit! I bet he was getting hammered with calls. I flipped to our text thread and typed: Mom told me you called. I saw the tweet. What are you doing?
He immediately replied. At the moment I’m eating a sandwich.
Rolling my eyes, I responded: I’m talking about XtBS! Have you lost your mind? Stop challenging them, Sander! You can’t win. I wanted to tell him about Jayne, but it would take too long in a text. I needed to stop avoiding him. Biting my lip, I typed: I need to tell you about Jayne. Call me.
It took a minute for him to respond. As thrilled as I am that you finally decided to unblock me, I’m busy right now and can’t talk. What does he mean he can’t talk?
I blocked you because you lied to me, I shot back.
I didn’t lie. I simply withheld information that I thought wasn’t important. I was wrong. My mistake hurt you. I’m deeply sorry for that. I told you I was going to make it right, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.
My fingers flew across the screen. Leave it alone!!!
You know I can’t. I have to go. Good luck tonight. Don’t forget to make eye contact with the audience. A loud gasp of surprise burst from my mouth. How did he know about tonight?
“You okay?” Carrie asked from the doorway. Dread and excitement pulsed through my veins.
“He’s going after them Carrie, and get this, he knows I’m playing at Percussion tonight . . . .”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
“SUCK MY KISS”
Sander
Of course, Wynne would have to call when I didn’t have time to talk. Fuck it. I should skip this meeting and call her. As I reread her texts for the third time, I considered doing just that. I had to admit, I was surprised. After stonewalling me on the phone yesterday, her mother actually told her I’d called. I didn’t blame her for wanting to protect her daughter. Wynne needed protection, just not from me. When I tried to convey this to her, she hung up on me. As much as I wanted to talk to Wynne, and I really did want to talk to her, this meeting had to happen.
Noise from the hallway caught my attention. I quickly silenced my phone and shoved it inside my pocket. A moment passed and the voices faded behind closed doors. Where in the hell was Alex? He should have been here by now. Leaning back in the chair, I kicked my feet up onto his desk. After strategically lowering them onto what appeared to be an important pile of papers, I studied the various degrees on the wall and thought about my next step. Yesterday’s tweet had gone better than expected. By calling Ferris and XtBS out, I’d drawn a line in the sand. I knew I’d get support, but never dreamed that the entire nation would rally behind me. The sound of shoes clacking against the tile floor announced that someone was coming my way. I could tell by the strike rhythm that it was a man. Hopefully, it was Alex. Within seconds, the door swung open, and in he walked.
“Sorry I’m late. Fucking court held me over,” he grumbled, his eyes immediately zeroing in on his desk. They dangerously narrowed at the precarious positioning of my feet. “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable.” Alex and I met years ago in college. After graduation, we kept in touch, and when Gio and I formed Indigo Road, we hired him as our attorney. He’d been with me ever since.
He took five steps before tossing his briefcase onto the floor. As he dropped onto his chair, he pierced me with a scathing look. “How many times do we have to have this chat, Sander?”
“Which chat is that?” I asked. “There have been so many.” Alex scratched his nose with his middle finger, and I laughed.
“The next time you decide to make a statement on social media, talk to me first, dickhead.” Poor Alex. One day he was going to tell me to fuck off for good.
In an attempt to appease him, I replied, “In my defense, I didn’t think it would go quite as far as it has.”
Lips pursed in irritation, he replied, “You’ve started a fucking movement, Sander. Everyone wants to save Wynne now.”
“Good. Maybe something will actually come of it.”
“Not good,” he retorted. “There’s no way that XtBS will let this stand.”
Shifting my feet from his desk to the floor, I leaned in and asked, “What can they do? I never signed the contract for season two. They can come after me all they want, but they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.”
“Maybe not, but we both know there are other ways they can get back at you.”
“There are, which is exactly why I’m here. I want you to prepare to file a lawsuit for me.”
Without so much as a blink, he asked, “Who exactly are we suing?” And this is why he was one of my very best friends. He didn’t say who are you suing. He said who are we.
I smiled. “We are going after that punk-ass poser, Ferris Leon.”
Alex sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and took in a deep breath. Slowly, he let it out. “Are you sure you want to do that? Thanks to your tweet he’s already getting annihilated on social media.”
“Fuck yeah, I do. He started this. Now I’m going to end it. Can we get him on taping me without my consent?”
“No. As long as one participant in a conversation consents to the recording, it’s considered legal.” Damn. That’s too bad. On the other hand, this meant that Jayne couldn’t sue me when I released our recorded conversation.
“How about defamation of character?” I asked.
“Hmmm, I could work with that. We could claim that his decision to release the taped conversation during the finale of Million Dollar Musician, in addition to the false accusations of manipulating the outcome, not only damaged your reputation, but inevitably cost you your job. Because of this, we are suing for defamation of character. How much do you want him to pay?” More than the fucker can afford, I thought.
“I want him to pay back the million dollars he stole from Wynne. He doesn’t deserve a fucking penny of that money.” I thought about it for a second, and asked, “Can we get him on extortion?”
“Based on the little we have right now, I don’t think it will stand up in a courtroom.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t make it that far.”
“What exactly are you up to?” He knew me so well.
“Do you really want to know?”
He thought about it for a second before answering. “It depends, is it illegal? Will knowing cost me my law license?”
“No.”
“Then by all means, do tell.”
“It’s really not that complicated. First, I’m going to ruin Ferris. Then I’m going after Jayne. I would take on XtBS, but I’d be satisfied with the cancellation of the show.”
Alex flared his nose, as if he smelled something bad. “And you’re doing all of this because of a woman?” He acted as if the thought was unconscionable.
“I’m doing this because Wynne won. She should be going on tour right now instead of hiding in her parents’ house, afraid of being accosted by fucking reporters and paparazzi. I’m the one who called Ferris’s bluff, but she’s the one paying for it. I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Sounds like guilt to me.”
“That’s part of it.”
His eyebrow quirked. “And the other part?”
“Why does it matter?”
Concern morphed into shock as he exclaimed, “Fucking hell, Sander, you actually care for her!”
“No, I’m simply concerned for her well-being,” I defensively stated, even though we both knew that it was way more than her well-being I was concerned about. Was I in love with her? Possibly, although, I wasn’t sure I knew what love was. What I did know was that she was under my skin. Rooted deep. I thought
about her, dreamed about her. Hell, I’d even jacked off a few times while looking at the photo album she’d given me for Christmas. There was a word for this, but I wasn’t sure it was love.
“How the mighty do fall,” the asshole crowed.
“Yeah, yeah, are you going to help me or not?”
Still smiling like the cat who ate an entire flock of canaries, he replied, “When do you want it delivered?”
“Lawsuits are served, correct?”
“They are,” he confirmed. We both smiled.
“How public can you make it?” I asked.
“How public do you want it?”
“I want it to hurt.”
“You got it.”
I told him to go ahead and draft it and that I would let him know when I wanted it filed. We discussed a few more details before I moved on to topic number two.
“I’ve been thinking. As much as I hated Million Dollar Musician as a whole, there were parts that weren’t so bad.”
This got his attention. “Such as?”
“For one, I enjoyed mentoring the contestants.” A look of doubt appeared on his face. “I know, it surprised me too. It was cool as shit to stand on that stage and direct them. To tell them where to stand, how to arrange the music, or whether to play an instrument or just stand there and sing. Aside from all of the other bullshit, I actually enjoyed the hands-on interaction and watching the contestants grow from week to week.”
“Apparently they weren’t the only thing that was growing each week,” he muttered.
“Ha-fucking-ha. I’m being serious, dickface. I’d like to do something with this.”
Laughing, he replied, “Such as?” Reaching down beside me, I retrieved my backpack from the floor and pulled out the contract that Olivia had emailed earlier this morning. “I want you to look over this contract for me.”
“Who is it from and what exactly am I looking for?”
“It’s from Happenstance, and I’ll warn you before you look at it, the terms are non-negotiable.”
Rock Star Romance Ultimate: Volume 1 Page 78