Westside Series Box Set

by Monica Alexander

  He sighed. “I just don’t want to lose you,” he repeated, and I heard how much that fear was weighing on him.

  I love you, I thought, wishing I could say the words. That’s why I’m not going anywhere. I love you too much to walk away, despite the past, despite your mistakes.

  But I couldn’t say that out loud. I’d never been able to say it out loud. I was scared of finding out that he didn’t feel the same way. I knew he cared about me. I could tell by the way he looked at me and talked to me and held me, but I didn’t know if it was love, and quite honestly, it was probably too soon for him to know that anyway.

  I had a feeling Van hadn’t ever been in love before, so it was a foreign emotion for him. Because of that, I wouldn’t be the first to put the words out there. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to say them back if he wasn’t ready. I’d wait for him to say them, and then I’d tell him how I felt.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Van said softly, and then he rose to his feet.

  A knock on the door sounded as he grabbed his wallet and his phone, turning to wink at me once before he was gone. I was left to wait for him, alone in the hotel room, wishing I could be by his side, wearing a beautiful dress, and smiling for the cameras. I wouldn’t be smiling because I was being photographed. I’d be smiling because of the guy I was with, because Van had proven ten times over that he was a different guy. He’d proven me wrong, and he’d shown me all the things I’d wanted to see when I’d dated him the first time. I think a part of me had always known he was that guy underneath, and I was glad I was finally getting to see it.

  I waited a few minutes, listening to the music from Van’s iPod, which had been playing since I’d come into the room, the Ed Sheeran song filling the silent void that had followed when he’d left. I let the song play out, and then I turned it down and reached for my phone.

  I dialed my sister’s number, just like I had every day for the past month, but just like all the other times, she let it go to voicemail, and I was left with an empty feeling in my chest, wondering when she might let me back in. I was desperate to know what she was thinking and if she was okay. That was what unsettled me more than anything.

  I had no way of really knowing, and even though I’d been stalking her social media accounts, she hadn’t posted anything since the day of the wedding when she’d shared a selfie of her and Troy. I kept waiting for a picture or a post, anything that would tell me she was alright, but her silence only served to unsettle me more. It wasn’t like her. No matter how busy she was with school, she’d never checked out like that before.

  Unfortunately my parents weren’t much help. They’d barely talked to Amy either, but they chalked it up to how busy she was with school and her volunteer work. My mom said she’d talked to her a few times, and she seemed fine. She was quieter than usual, but my mom said she assumed it was because we were fighting. Amy had apparently clammed up when my mom had asked her if we’d talked.

  I couldn’t understand why she was still mad at me. I hadn’t done anything wrong. That was what was bothering me more than anything. But I’d keep trying to reach out to her. She was my sister after all.

  With a heavy heart, I turned on the TV, hoping to zone out until I could order room service. I’d worked on the plane, so I didn’t even have that to distract me. Without thinking, I turned the channel to the pre-event coverage of the awards show. I knew it would probably be a while before Westside walked the red carpet, but I didn’t want to miss them. It would be the first time I’d seen Van on TV since we’d started dating again.

  I remembered how it used to feel, though. It wasn’t like when he was in the room next to me. Then he was just the goofy, sweet boy I loved. Even when he was on stage, he was real, there in person, and I could catch glimpses of the guy I knew in his stage persona. But when he performed on TV or was interviewed amidst other celebrities, it always hit me just how famous he really was. It made him seem almost untouchable in a way.

  It made me remember that girls across the world thought they were in love with him and would kill to be in my place. They were drawn in by his light blue eyes, dark lashes, full lips and chiseled jaw. He was so beautiful, but it was his charming, laid back, shy demeanor that made them fall in love. Although he wasn’t as gregarious as Dillon, as outrightly vocal as Phillip, or as funny as Cam, when Van spoke, you knew it was genuine. You knew he meant what he said.

  I loved that about him. He didn’t tend to say things he didn’t mean, and there was this part of him that was so vulnerable and pure that you couldn’t help but trust it. I’d overlooked that for a long time because of what he’d done and the fact that he’d been an immature guy who thought he wanted something when he didn’t. Two years earlier, he hadn’t been mature enough for a relationship, at least not the kind I knew I’d wanted. He was different now.

  But what happened still lingered between us, and until we talked about it, until we let it go – both of us, since I now knew it bothered Van, as well – we’d never fully be able to move on. And after a month with Van, I knew that was what I wanted. After the tour was over and for as long as it made sense, I wanted to be with him. I had a feeling, though, that the conversation was going to be one of the least fun things I’d ever do.

  I turned my attention back to the TV, and after thirty minutes of watching other celebrities arrive and be interviewed, Westside finally appeared. As soon as the cameras were on them, I found that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of my boyfriend. That word gave me the smallest of thrills, for there were only two people in the world who knew that Van was my boyfriend. Marshall and Keri knew we were together, because we had to tell them, but the fact that Van was officially my boyfriend, no one knew that but us.

  He was mine. In just a few hours, he’d be back, in my arms, and he’d be human once again, but for a few hours, he was that untouchable, flawless guy whose look of sultry passion had me feeling like a fangirl, just like I had the first time I’d seen him on stage, all those years ago.

  Just as Westside was wrapping up their brief interaction with the interviewer, the focus shifted to Phillip, and for the first time I noticed that his eyes looked hooded and almost out of focus. He had a lazy smile on his face and was leaning against Cam.

  “Yeah, we’re totally going to win,” he slurred. “We’re ten f***ing times better than any of those other bands.”

  My eyes got wide as they bleeped out the curse word he’d just spouted on live television, not believing he’d said that. I knew Brent was there with the guys and figured he was likely having a minor heart attack.

  “Uh, what he means to say,” Dillon interjected, “is that there are some really great bands in this category. The competition is massive, but we’re excited about our album, and if we win tonight, we know it’ll be a close victory.”

  “Yeah, right,” Phillip muttered. “Close my a**.”

  “Alright, we’ll see you later,” Cam said quickly, practically pushed Phillip out of the shot.

  “Thanks so much,” Dillon told the reporter when it was just him and Van left.

  “Is he okay?” the reporter asked.

  “He’s fine,” Van said tightly, looking like he was almost daring the reporter to ask additional questions.

  Thankfully, the girl didn’t say anything more. She just thanked the guys and turned it over to her counterpart who happened to be with Sydney.

  I felt instantly guilty that I’d sort of been avoiding her for the past month, keeping things strictly professional whenever we talked. She was one of my best friends, yet I couldn’t tell her about Van, so to avoid any slip-ups, I’d kept our calls brief and acted like I was busier than I was. It was weird. Weirder still was that she was in Vegas and I wouldn’t even get to see her, because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I missed our talks, and I wished I could tell her about Van. I just couldn’t risk it though. I’d tell her soon enough, but it would have to wait until after the tour.

  A few minutes later, my phone beeped, and I was su
rprised to see a text from Van.

  Did you see that? How bad was it?

  He was talking about Phillip. I wasn’t sure if I should lie or not.

  Brent just chewed our asses out, he texted before I could respond.

  Since I figured he already knew how bad it was, I decided me confirming the truth couldn’t hurt that much more.

  It wasn’t good. Is he okay?

  No. He’s drunk.

  Well, I sort of figured that.

  I’m sorry. Can I do anything?

  I knew I couldn’t do a thing to help the situation, but I knew asking would mean a lot to Van.

  No, you can’t, he replied. Brent went to get him coffee, and Damon is talking to him now. He should be fine by the time we have to perform . . .

  Even through the text I could hear the uncertainty in Van’s tone. And I knew what he and probably everyone else was thinking. Phillip knew better than to get drunk when he was going to be interviewed. It was one thing to have a few drinks at an after party or during times when there weren’t cameras in your face, but with all the time and energy Katherine and Brent put into making sure the guys showed at their best whenever they were before a captive audience of millions of people, it was really bad form on Phillip’s part to not only show up wasted but to go completely off-script. I had a feeling Damon was ripping him a new one.

  I’m sure he’ll be fine, I told Van. Good luck! I’ll be watching.

  He shot me back a smiley face, but he didn’t say anything else, so I settled in to watch the full show.

  * * *

  By the time Van got back to the hotel, it was past midnight, and he looked worn out. He’d texted me to let me know that they were having an emergency band meeting after the show, considering what an epic failure it had been. I felt the worst for Cam, Dillon and Van, because they’d had to deal with the fallout of Phillip being a selfish asshole.

  I wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. All I knew was that when the cameras panned to Westside during the first half of the show, Phillip had been there, looking bored and annoyed. Twitter was alive with comments about his red carpet blunder, and they only continued after the fans saw how disengaged he looked.

  Then things just got worse. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when it was time for Westside’s performance, and only three of them walked out onto the stage. Phillip wasn’t there, and no one was offering an explanation. Van and Dillon alternated singing his parts, and the guys acted like it wasn’t a huge deal, even though it was. I couldn’t even imagine what Van was thinking. Although he did an incredible job on-stage, I knew he couldn’t feel right about being out there without Phillip.

  I’d heard of a similar situation around Christmastime the year before when Phillip had been sick, but as far as I knew none of the other guys had ever missed a performance. They usually performed no matter what. It was weird to see three of them instead of four. It was also sad to see that they weren’t as strong as a group when they were missing someone. It was unfortunate, because their new single was awesome. It had layers of high and low notes that blended perfectly when the guys harmonized together, but it was fairly obvious that for as amazing as Van’s voice was, he couldn’t go as high as Phillip. The song almost lost something without him.

  I’d been waiting around since the show had ended to talk to Van, but he hadn’t answered my texts after telling me that they were having a band meeting and he’d be late. I knew he couldn’t be okay, but I wanted to hear his voice, to talk to him, to do anything I could to help, even though there probably wasn’t much that could be done. The world knew Phillip had been drunk on the red carpet, and it was fairly obvious that he’d been too out of it to perform. That wasn’t good. I had a feeling Westside was going to be the butt of a multitude of jokes in the coming weeks, and I was sure Brent and Katherine were scrambling to do damage control.

  Without thinking, I called Brent and left him a message. I told him I’d seen the show and let him know to call me if he needed me to do anything to help mitigate the fallout. It wasn’t my area of expertise, but I’d do what I could.

  As soon as he entered the room, Van dropped his jacket on the floor and looked over at me in defeat. He looked like he was ready to collapse and had dark circles under his eyes. I didn’t say a word. I just held out my arms as he came over to the bed and crawled in next to me, burying his head in the crook of my neck.

  “I’m exhausted,” he muttered.

  “I can imagine,” I told him as I ran my hand up and down his back, doing what I could to soothe him. “What exactly happened?”

  “He didn’t stop,” he said, turning his head so it was resting on my chest.

  “Drinking?”

  Van nodded. “Yeah. He was drunk when we all got in the limo. I knew it. I could smell it on his breath, and I didn’t want Damon and Brent to find out, so I gave him some gum. I didn’t realize how bad it was, though, and then he made that asinine comment to that reporter. I wanted to kill him, but by that point I wasn’t the only one. The other guys and Damon laid into him before the show started. I figured he’d stop, but he didn’t.”

  “No?”

  Van shook his head. “Nope. He could barely stand upright by the time we were supposed to go on-stage, and then he got sick. He was so wasted that he threw up backstage in front of dozens of people. Fucking amateur move.” Van sighed. “So, we went on without him. It was bad, wasn’t it?”

  I swallowed as Van looked up and met my gaze. I couldn’t lie to him when he was looking at me like that, but before I could say anything, he dropped his head back down onto my chest.

  “I knew it. I don’t even want to watch the performance. I know we sounded like shit.”

  “You guys weren’t that bad,” I told him, aiming for vague and a relative truth, because at the end of the day Van, Cam and Dillon all had amazing voices. They just sounded a little less whole when it was the three of them.

  “But we’ve sounded better – every other time we’ve ever performed, haven’t we?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” I agreed.

  He sighed. “This sucks, and I know it’s just going to get worse over the next few weeks. We’re a fucking laughingstock.”

  “You won Best Pop Album,” I reminded him. “You guys are still awesome.”

  “Like anyone’s going to remember that when one of us was too drunk to even come up on stage to accept the award. I swear, if we didn’t need him so bad, we’d probably be talking about kicking Phillip out of the band.”

  “Seriously?”

  “He compromised the integrity of our image. I love the guy. He’s my best friend, but I don’t think I’ve ever been this pissed at him before. The only reason I’m not beating his ass right now is that he agreed to stop drinking.”

  “Really? Is that necessary?”

  Van pulled away from me and sat up, a sour look on his face. “Considering he’s a recovering addict, yes.”

  Recovering addict? What?

  “Phillip’s an alcoholic?” I questioned, wondering how it was that I didn’t know that.

  “He’s a drug addict,” Van corrected. “But I guess you could put all addictive substances on the list of things he can’t seem to get enough of, so yes.”

  “Van, what are you talking about? Are you serious?”

  Van ran a hand back through his hair. For as perfectly coifed as it had been earlier, it seemed the stress had gotten to him, and it looked like he’d been running his hands through his hair for the past few hours.

  “Dead serious. Remember when I told you about my friend who overdosed in December?”

  “Yes,” I said warily, realizing where this conversation was headed.

  “Well, I lied when I said it was someone you didn’t know. It was Phillip. He almost died in my arms. Had Cam not gotten there in time, he probably would have. I had no idea how bad things were, but he’d been mixing shit for a while, and it caught up with him. He went to rehab for a month.”

  “I had no ide
a.”

  “Yeah, well, that was the point. Katherine and Damon covered it up. No one knows except them and the band. And now Brent.”

  “Um, so when did Phillip start using again?”

  “A few weeks into the tour he started drinking again. He stayed sober for a few months, but touring was always stressful for him. At first it was a few drinks here and there, but it’s gotten bad in the past month. He’s been drinking almost daily, and I’m not sure he would have stopped had tonight not happened.”

  “So, he’s really going to stop?” I questioned, wondering if it would be that simple.

  Van nodded. “We had a band meeting, and we talked about how we’d handle the fallout from tonight. Phillip wasn’t there. He was sleeping it off, but I went and saw him afterward. He’s in bad shape, and he needs help.”

  “Is he going back to rehab?” I questioned, wondering what that might mean for the rest of the tour. We weren’t even halfway through.

  Van shook his head. “No, he’s not. He says he can stop drinking.”

  “Do you honestly think he can?” I asked, seeing the skepticism in Van’s eyes.

  “I hope he can,” he said, avoiding my question. “While I was talking to him, Damon and Katherine came in to talk to him. It wasn’t pretty, and he swore to them nothing like tonight would ever happen again. He said he was done, and I want to believe him.”

  I wasn’t sure it was going to be that easy, but then again I didn’t know Phillip all that well. I also had no idea how severe the situation really was.

  “I hope you’re right,” I told Van. “Is there anything we can do for him?”

  He sighed. “Phillip needs to be around people right now. The worst thing would be for him to be alone.”

  “Does he have a sponsor?”

  “He does, but I don’t know how comfortable he is calling him. From what Phillip’s said, they haven’t ever really connected. I don’t think they talk much.”

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “He has us, though.”

  “Us?”

  Van nodded as he met my gaze. “Would you hate me if I told you I needed to be with my friends right now?”