by Emma Vikes
“Hey, for the record, Julian made things clear and Amber knew what she was getting herself into. It’s her fault for wanting more than he could offer,” José interjected, looking down at the girl.
But I barely heard my friend saving me because all I could see was the angry fire in the girl’s brown eyes. Suddenly, I registered who she was. She was Amber’s best friend, Audrey, and from the very first time that we meant, she hated me although it was never clear to me why. And right now, her hatred toward me felt like a burning inferno ready to consume me whole. Right then, she pushed off the guy’s hands on her as she marched closer to me to size me up, despite how much I towered over her.
“I just want to know if she’s okay,” I spoke quietly, finally finding the voice to do so, repeating what I just said a few moments ago. Despite everything, I knew that the last thing I could do was retaliate her anger with my own, even though she was treating me as if I was a piece of crap undeserving of even knowing if Amber was okay.
The way she looked at me, I almost felt like I could melt under her fiery gaze. “You have no remorse when you broke her heart, Julian Hudson, and now you broke her even more. Amber wouldn’t have done something like this had you not ruined everything for her even more. All she wanted was for you to love her.”
“I-,”
“You’re a coward, Julian! And you’re afraid of what love could bring so you became ruthless when it came to breaking hearts and Amber was just another victim in your game,” the venom in her voice was so evident that it made me shiver in fear, “and if something happens to Amber, I swear to God, I will find some way to avenge her from the heartbreak that you cause.”
The guy that had restrained her came in between us and pushed her slightly back, looking at her with a concerned gaze and then he turned back to look at me. The unmistakeable flash of disgust in his eyes were clear but he kept his cool, compared to the girl. “I think it’s best if you leave, Julian.”
“Look, I’m not here to start something. I just really want to know if she’s okay-,” I could feel my own annoyance flaring up as well and slowly simmering into anger. I knew I made a mistake but I am not the heartless monster this woman was making me seem.
“You don’t have the right,” her voice was ice cold and I could feel the pinpricks of each syllable on my skin as she looked at me, her gaze harsh, “remember that you broke her, Julian Hudson. Remember that because of that, I will hate you until my last breath, even in my next lifetime.”
At that moment, I felt José pulling me away but I felt transfixed in my spot, staring at her and unable to comprehend the amount of anger she had towards me, the animosity. Shaking José’s hands off of me, I looked at Audrey straight in the eye, boiling with the same rage that matched hers. I had such a bad day, with another rejection and this news about Amber, and now she literally wanted to cap my day with this crap.
“And I hope that you will also remember everything you just said to me and pray that there will never come a day that you’ll need me.”
1
Julian
5 Years Later
My head was throbbing when I woke up and the ray of sun in the room only made it even worse when I opened my eyes. I groaned, finding the remote for the blinds in my room to shut them so I could go back to sleep peacefully blanketed by the dark but I couldn’t find it. And then I heard someone clear his throat and I sat up quickly, the pillows falling off the bed as I sat upright and my manager came into view.
Pete didn’t look happy. Pete never looked happy since he had been managing us for the past three years. But then again, it was understandable since we never really followed what he instructed us. Born from Ashes may be a popular band worldwide but just like other bands, it was hard to reign us in and make us follow what our label wanted us to since we all followed what we wanted to. Maybe it was part of being an artist.
“Julian,” Pete’s voice was icy cold and I could hear the irritation that seeped through it as I smiled at him sheepishly, “as I remember, you have a scheduled meeting with Mr. Wayland and Miss Ross at the WR Records Company at 11. It’s currently 10:30, you haven’t eaten breakfast or taken a bath and obviously suffer a massive hangover at the moment.”
He was trying to sound patient but failing miserably at it. His early morning annoyance towards me only triggered my own annoyance as I grabbed a pillow and chucked it at him. “Do me a favour and fuck off, please.”
When I opened my eyes, he had caught the pillow and was staring at me expressionless. “You’re not a fucking child, Julian. You’re a full-grown adult with responsibilities. Get your ass off of that bed and head to Wayland and Ross. They have something important to discuss with you. You have thirty minutes left. I’d appreciate it if you won’t come late.”
He threw a tiny medicine at me that was meant to relieve my headache but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. He sounded like Milo, my oldest brother, every time he woke me up for school when I was still in middle school. Milo had taken on the mantle of being the father-figure for his three younger brothers.
I swallowed the pill and then headed straight to shower to wake myself up with cold water. In ten minutes, I was out of the shower, dressed, but my hangover had barely subsided. I called around the house for my other bandmates but the house was deserted and I couldn’t find a single sole. It was odd, as we all lived here together and surely if it was a meeting with W&R Records Company, they would be there. Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket with a text from Pete telling me to get my sorry ass to the company, asap.
I made a face. I hated being nagged at and our manager nagged me just as much as my brother, Everett, did. With another last attempt of looking for at least one bandmate in the house to give me a ride, I finally decided to drive my own car to the records company despite the throbbing pain in my head and how the sunlight made me dizzy. The location wasn’t too far from the apartment we lived in which was in downtown LA but still, I didn’t exactly arrive on time for the meeting. I decided to stop by Starbucks to get some coffee but the drive-thru held me up for a couple of pictures, to which I happily obliged. I was ten minutes late to the company. And honestly, I just wanted to annoy Pete for not waiting up for me at home, even when he knew I had a hangover.
But much to my dismay, it took them another ten to finally arrive at the conference room where I had been waiting for them.
“Mr. Hudson, it’s nice to see that you’re on time for once,” Wayland greeted me as soon as he stepped foot in the conference room. I had been spinning myself on the chair for the past five minutes, waiting for them. I stood up, gave him a handshake. I wasn’t the biggest fan of our bosses but my mother raised me to be polite, even if it meant being polite to people who didn’t deserve it.
Five years ago, the band and I were at our wit’s end. We’d sent demos to various labels, hoping that we would get picked up to sign a record deal with one of them but we were always considered too mainstream. Even the songs that I’d written were mainstream for everyone. We weren’t ‘bankable’ enough, as they all had said. Although…
Once, there had been a label that wanted to sign me. Just me. Not the rest of the band. They wanted me to sign as a solo artist with them, and they told me that I would rise to fame given my looks and voice. But I rejected them. My dream was for the band to shoot to fame, not just me although admittedly, it was flattering and I almost wanted to say yes.
At our wit’s end and with no longer anything left to lose, we used YouTube as our platform until Pete Conwell found our channel and signed us up with W&R Records Company for a five-year contract. And the rest is history. We skyrocketed to fame, doing tours and concerts and having fans all over the world. It was insane, the height of fame that this company brought us which was why despite the fact that I wasn’t a fan of them, I was still grateful.
“Thought I’d surprise you guys for once,” I replied casually, sinking back into my seat, “although I’m surprised that I’m the first one here. The boys weren�
��t in the house when I woke up and I thought they beat me here already.”
Wayland and Ross glanced at each other as they took their respective seats cross from me. Ross cleared his throat and then brought his hands together on the table. He was a man nearing his sixties, short and stout with his hair almost disappearing and his beady eyes always reminded me of a pigeon.
“Ah, I see that Conwell hasn’t told you what this meeting was about.”
“If Pete did, I doubt that Julian would want to meet with us,” Wayland chipped in, smiling at me brightly. Wayland looked the opposite of Ross. He was tall and had kept his lean figure and a shocking mass of gray hair. His blue eyes were bright and friendly and he always looked so calm and collected that it was hard not to be in good terms with him. Although I knew that there was more to Wayland that met the eye.
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean? What’s this meeting about? Why am I the only one here?”
If the producers wanted to meet with our band, then I shouldn’t be the only one here facing them but then again, Wayland and Ross seemed to only want to talk to me which confused me. Come to think of it, Pete and I barely had a conversation earlier and I couldn’t even get the chance to ask him about the others. Maybe it was because of my hangover or because it was only the two of us. Pete and I sometimes couldn’t see eye to eye and on most occasions that we did, the rest of the band was there to referee us in case of any arguments. Our personalities clashed but because he couldn’t really let go of our band because we were his biggest client, he stuck with us.
I could drop Pete in a heartbeat to be honest, if only if it wasn’t for the rest of the boys who actually liked him.
Wayland looked at me with his bright blue eyes. “We think it’s about time you go solo, Julian.”
We think it’s about time you go solo, Julian.
If I had been holding onto anything, I swear I would’ve dropped it in surprise. Of all the things that they could discuss with me in this meeting, this was a statement that I didn’t expect to hear. “What did you just say?”
Wayland and Ross glanced at each other again and Ross replied to me, in a gruff voice. “We always knew you would make it big in the industry, Hudson. But your band…we didn’t have such hopes.”
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, unable to comprehend what they were telling me. “What does that mean? You had us sign with you.”
“Because you didn’t want to sign as a solo artist. We’ve seen your videos before on YouTube and we always knew you could make it on your own but Pete had explained to us you didn’t want to sign a label alone so we had struck a deal with him,”
All I could do was stare at them with my mouth set in a grim line. Pete had never mentioned this to me before but I remember him asking me once if I was willing to go solo. But just as I declined the other labels that had asked me to sign up with them before we launched the YouTube channel, I had rejected Pete’s offer too. It never occurred to me that he would strike a deal with Wayland and Ross behind my back.
And the minutes passed by in silence, and I knew they were both waiting for my response. This could go in two ways: either I could nod at them and agree, sign a brand-new solo contract and build a career of only my own that would lead me to greater heights. Or I could laugh at them right on their faces and tell them to fuck off.
I did the latter.
Letting out a hoot of laughter, I made a show of slapping my knee to make my point clear to them. Sobering up and then wiping away a fake tear from my eyes, I looked at Wayland and Ross who were staring back at me, both tight-lipped. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Wayland didn’t look like he was kidding. “We wouldn’t kid about something as serious as this, Julian.”
I scoffed, shaking my head at the two of them. “The deal you made was with Pete, not with me. While I’m sure flying solo would be a bigger adventure, people knew me as Born from Ashes’ frontman and I intend for them to know me in the way until we become irrelevant.”
Wayland sighed and then nodded his head. My eyes narrowed, knowing that he wouldn’t simply agree to me that easy. “We’ll give you time to reconsider our offer, Julian. But know that there won’t be another contract that your band will sign with our label. Do keep that in mind. “
I couldn’t help but scoff at the nerve he had to think that I would want to reconsider his offer and having the audacity to threaten me. “You really think that I’d buy that and think it over? If we lose this deal with you, there are a bunch of labels who would die to have us sign with them. Drop us if you want. It’s not our loss anyway.”
Ross tutted, shaking his head. “Ah, arrogance suits you, Julian Hudson, but careful when you use it.”
My eyebrows rose. “Pray tell, what do you mean by that?”
The chubby buffoon acted so smug, like he had something important dangling in his fingertips. “The rights to your music will be ours. There was a fine print that you were all unable to see.”
Ross was staring at me with a big smirk on his face and Wayland was just as smug and both of them looked like they had this shit already won because they thought ahead of me. What I could do to actually punch their faces to wipe off that smugness but somehow, I managed to control myself to avoid any scandal. Our music was written by me and these two assholes knew that which was why they were baiting it, dangling it in front of me and waiting for me to bite.
As if I would.
“You two have a lot of nerve to think that I would sign as a fucking solo artist to your damn company because of that,” my voice was so low and cold that it actually surprised them. I looked at them with narrowed eyes and shook my head, “so you know what? Keep our fucking music. I don’t give a fucking damn what you want to do with it.”
Wayland stared at me in disbelief. “Maybe you don’t get it, Julian. The rights to your music will be ours and you will not be allowed to play any of it. Not on any shows, documentaries, concerts and tours. Not even on a YouTube channel. It’ll be copyrighted as ours.”
“You’re an arrogant asshole since you rose to fame,” Ross mused, looking at me with his beady eyes, “but you’re aware that what you’re doing is just plain stupid.”
I stood up, shrugging so casually. “I guess I am if that’s going to make things clear with the both of you. I won’t be signing as your solo artist. I’ll be Julian Hudson, frontman of Born from Ashes, and I chose to continue being that.”
I was ready to leave their office but then since I was being reckless, an ass and a complete idiot- according to Ross anyway- I decided that I might as well thank them for all that they’ve done.
“Oh, and one more thing,” I said, turning around to face the two of them and raising both my hands to flip them off, “it’s been a good while with you both but good riddance to the both of you.”
I could hear both of them shouting at me to come back but I just casually left the building, trying to act chill and unbothered when in truth, I was seething. I’d always known it was too good to be true that a company wanted to sign our band so easily despite how quickly we’d risen to fame after the channel came out but how easy Pete pulled it all off without even having to discuss anything with us always made me a tad bit suspicious.
And now behold, he made a deal behind our back, behind my back. It felt like he was selling me off as if I was a slave or something. I’d always made it clear to him that I wouldn’t sign with anything if they didn’t want the whole package and he actually had the audacity to strike a deal like that with Wayland and Ross. He knew we were a little bit desperate but not that desperate. God, if I could see that scumbag, I’d beat him up and not care if he called the police on me.
In my haste and anger, I backed out of the parking space without even looking and a suddenly car whizzed passed me. Although we didn’t collide, I still felt the cars slightly bump into each other enough to earn a scratch.
And I had just got this car yesterday!
“Fuck!” I screamed
and then punched my steering wheel before getting out of the car and slamming the door so hard that it rattled the rest of the car. I immediately checked the bumper and cursed even more when I saw the scratch.
“Oh my god!” It was a woman’s voice and I could hear the annoyance in her tone when she said those three words. I pursed my lips in agitation at the fact that it was a woman that I’d bumped into. Despite how much of an ass I was to the ladies in terms of romance and dating, Mom still told me to respect women in the same manner I respected her. “Weren’t you watching if there was anyone behind you? Hell, I was even honking to make sure that people knew I was coming!”
She sounded so agitated and incredibly annoyed and the condescending tone in her voice irked me even more but I tried my best to remain calm. But when I looked up, it seemed as if the whole world suddenly came to a standstill and even the background noise of LA seemed to fade into silence.
I’d always known that LA was filled with beautiful women with makeup and knew how to put together a good outfit that accentuated their figure. But the woman in front of me looked beyond compare to any girl I’d seen around the area. Her brown hair was tied in a messy bun, loose strands falling and framing her heart-shaped face and under the sun’s brilliant golden glow, the color of her eyes were like a sun’s kiss brought down to give me warmth that spread all over, almost, almost, kissing off the burning rage inside of me.
“I-,” I was suddenly ready to apologize because her beauty made me want to.
“You weren’t watching where you were going, Julian Hudson,” she said, looking at me with so much disgust in her face that confused me. I wasn’t confused why she knew me, I was confused why she seemed to hate me, “and save that apology for someone who will fall for an empty sorry.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” I demanded, puzzled at the rage that was directed at me when all that ever happened between us was our cars colliding at a very slow rate, for that matter.