by Neve Wilder
The next photo was grainy, as if she’d zoomed in from a distance on her phone while standing in the doorway of Les’s bedroom in the cabin, but it was unmistakably me and Les in that bed. Unmistakably Les’s dark hair slicing at an angle over his cheekbone, unmistakably the small tattoo on my bicep visible where my arm wrapped around a pillow, and unmistakably Les’s arm draped low over my back. I didn’t remember that. At all. Granted, we’d been sleeping, and with Ella between us, but when I’d woken up, Les and I had migrated to opposite sides of the bed.
“I think they’re secretly together” was called out in a big block quote and given plenty of real estate next to the blown up shot of us in bed. My heart thudded in my chest as I read in mute, horrified silence. A lot of cruel words for Ella ran through my head before I got ahold of myself, tried to remind myself that she wasn’t at fault and technically hadn’t done anything wrong besides selling us out. But I couldn’t quell the sense of panic at having my privacy violated like that. I might have lived in the spotlight, but there was a part of me that would always resist my personal life being dragged out as fodder for gossip sites. After my last breakup, rumors had circled for weeks that I’d cheated on the girl with the singer for Flow. And that wasn’t the case. So, I was careful to make my love life seem as boring and ordinary as possible, and now that appeared to have backfired in the worst possible way and made them eager to pick up this story. I wondered how much they’d paid Ella. And I wondered why the hell she’d done it in the first place. She hadn’t seemed the type.
Without Ella to be mad at, that left Les, who was currently still in his self-induced coma coming down off his probable booze and sex orgy in Vegas—which only pissed me off more. I yanked the laptop from its power cord, then carried it with me down the hall to Les’s room and kicked the door wide.
The blackout curtains were drawn tight, and he stirred briefly with a groan when I entered, fumbled for a pillow, and pulled it over his head.
I flicked the overhead light on, crossed the room to drag the curtains back, then stalked toward the bed. Once at the edge, I reached down and tore the covers from him with more force than was needed. He shriveled back into the mattress like an unearthed bug, goose bumps erupting over his bare skin.
“What the fuck, Porter?” His grousing was muffled by the pillow that I promptly yanked from his face before opening the laptop on the mattress in front of him.
“This. Open your fucking eyes and look.”
Les made an exasperated noise but finally rolled over in my direction to squint at the screen. His eyes were bleary and shot with thin red threads. He needed more sleep, and he probably could have used about two gallons of water.
He rubbed a hand along his forehead, pinching the skin between his brows, then blinked at the photograph. “Shit. When did she take that?”
“Obviously while we were sleeping.”
Shockingly, Les grinned then. “We look very cozy.”
I stared at him, slack-jawed and uncomprehending of his complete lack of alarm. “You need to read it.”
“I am.” He reached out, lazily swiping the touchpad to scroll down, and flopped on his back as he pulled the laptop onto his bare chest to read the article. I continued to stare, feeling the heat behind my gaze magnified as I waited for the proper reaction, which was definitely not casual perusal.
“So?” He wet his lips and glanced over to the nightstand next to me, before ticking his chin to indicate the bottle of water sitting there. Unbelievable. I ignored him, my eyes widening with incredulity.
“So? So it’s not true. The blind items are annoying enough, but this is a straight-up lie. She’s saying that we’re a fucking couple.”
“Technically it’s not a lie, it’s supposition. She’s relating her experience as it happened and which, as far as I can read, is a perfect recounting, except she’s got it mixed up a little. I was the one—” He paused to check the screen before quoting, “—giving her ‘the greatest head of her life.’ Not you. Maybe I should call and ask them to correct that part. I deserve credit for that.” He huffed and leaned around me, grabbing the bottled water, then twisting the cap off and guzzling half of it.
My fists tightened at my sides, and I felt close to punching him. It wasn’t the first time. It was just like Les to blow this off. Something in my expression must have tipped him off to the hellfire blazing through me, because he sobered, capping the water, then rolling onto his side and pushing away the laptop. His gaze bored into me, patient if exhausted.
“Porter, this isn’t that big of a deal. Really. We just don’t do anything and it’ll die down. Anyone who knows us knows it isn’t true, trust me. And the fans… they know what a slut I am. They’ll never believe I’m in a relationship.” He let out a chuckle as if the mere concept was ridiculous.
“It’s not even about that. Bullshit like this overshadows the music. It’s why I don’t snort lines of coke off a girl’s tits or fuck a groupie with a mud shark, because I’m not in it for that. I’m in it to make good fucking music. Music that matters, not to be some flash-in-the-pan band more remembered for the stupid shit they do offstage than what they actually play.”
“Led Zeppelin is hardly flash-in-the-pan. And their music is legendary.” Les pushed up on his elbow, grinding the heel of his hand against one eye before raking dark strands of hair from his forehead and scrutinizing me. “I think you’re overreacting.”
“It’s calling attention to us for all the wrong reasons.”
“But it is calling attention to us. All publicity is good publicity and all that bullshit. And this isn’t even bad publicity. She says a lot of nice things about you, too.”
I gave up, dropping heavily to the edge of the bed and staring at the far wall, my heart racing as I tried to figure out what kind of impact this story might have on our fans and beyond that, our sales. It was clear Les and I weren’t going to see eye to eye on this, so the best I could do was hope it blew over quickly.
Les reached around me again for his phone on the bedside table. When he thumbed the screen to life, he grimaced. “God, I’m getting blown up. There’s, like, fifty unread messages here.”
“See?” I folded my arms over my chest, vindicated.
He grunted and began scrolling through the messages, which reminded me I was supposed to call Levi back.
“Levi wants to talk.” I told him and sprawled on my back in the bed as I pulled up Levi’s contact info and hit Send. Les adjusted his legs to make more room for me while his fingers flew over his phone’s keypad.
“You’ve both seen it?” Levi answered. “Les with you?”
“Yes and yes. Can you fucking call them and tell them to take the article down or something?”
Levi laughed. “You know as well as I do they’re not going to do that. And besides, it’s already gone viral. Is it true?”
I actually pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it in disbelief for a second before replying, “Are you fucking kidding me? No, it’s not true. I mean the threesome happened, but Les and I aren’t together for fuck’s sake.”
Les shot me a dark glare. “Watch it, asshole. It’s not like I’m the Antichrist.”
“That’s not a slight aimed at you. Jesus.” Between the two of them, I was on the verge of losing it. This trip was supposed to be about composing a brilliant album, something good enough to pull us out of the slump from our last one. Now I was fielding questions about a relationship that didn’t exist and trying not to mortally insult my hungover bandmate.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Levi continued on quickly. He sounded almost… excited? “But can you make it look true?”
“What? What the hell are you even talking about?” My blood pressure shot up quicker than mercury in July. I considered just hanging up, but Les leaned to pry the phone from my hand and put it on speaker as Levi continued: “…It’s not that hard, just play into it.”
Do you have a spirit animal?
Evan: What’s a sp
irit animal? Like a mascot or something?
Les: Porter’s spirit animal is Gollum. That’s all you need to know.
Chapter 15
“No.” The single word grated out of Evan’s mouth like it’d been wrenched with force from the infinitesimal spaces between his clenched teeth.
Silence followed. Painful, thick silence. If Evan’s anger was animated, it’d be something like a gryphon, a wide-jawed beast ready to swoop from its perch and attack me. A vein bulged threateningly in his forehead, and I was becoming seriously concerned for his health. If he stroked out, the nearest hospital was miles and miles away. “It’s bullshit for one, and it takes away from the music.”
More silence, and on the other end of the line, I imagined Levi was recalibrating, trying to figure out how to attack from a different angle.
After another beat, Levi spoke again. “Do you have your laptop nearby?”
“Yes,” I chimed in, sitting up in the bed. My head felt like a dam about to crack, but I pulled the computer back to me since Evan didn’t look like he was moving unless it was to reach through the phone and punch our publicist. And maybe me.
“Good, go log in to the back end of your website.”
I did as he asked, though Evan had to remind me of the password, which he grumbled, still seething. My hands trembled a little as I typed, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Evan. His gaze flickered up to me, not exactly condescending, but enough resignation in it that I felt about a foot tall. I needed hydration and food desperately. Vegas had sucked me dry. Or maybe it was the other way around. I probably looked like death.
“Look at your downloads and the hits.”
I wasn’t as savvy at web stuff and tracking as Evan was, but I found the graphs and went slack-jawed, turning the screen so Evan could see it. The frown stuck on his face like it’d been cemented there lessened by a couple of degrees as he looked over the data.
“I’m going to assume by the silence that you’re seeing the numbers like I am,” Levi said. “Guess what? It’s happening everywhere. On Spotify and iTunes, too. Everywhere.”
The download hits started spiking a half hour after the time stamp on the TMZ article and were steadily rising. It was similar to what happened on release days for us. In between albums, the hits would dwindle down and slow but shoot up again whenever we did an interview, posted a live show, or got picked up by the tabloids or something. But it was never anything like this.
I glanced over at Evan, trying to gauge his expression. Was he even a little impressed? It didn’t look like it. He bit the corner of his thumbnail and shook his head, looking like he wanted nothing more than to set the room on fire. I’d heard human combustion was possible but had always been a skeptic. Now I thought there might be something to it.
“It’s just a blip. It’ll pass and then come back again the next time we do an interview.”
“That’s the thing, Evan,” Levi said. “I’m looking at the spikes from all publicity over the last year and they’re declining.”
“But that’s also not unusual. Our fan base is still solid.”
“For now,” he agreed, although there was an ominous tinge to his voice. Then again, he was a publicist; exposure was his life.
“And once we put out the next album—”
“There’s no guarantee. If it’s like the last album, those numbers are going to drop further. And with it, possibly MGD’s interest in supporting you guys.”
Evan cocked his head. “That… is that a fucking threat?”
Levi exhaled a sigh. “No, it’s not a threat, it’s reality. I work for you, remember. So I’m telling it to you straight. Your numbers are going down. Your interviews are spacing further and further apart because there’s nothing to talk about. The last album is a dead horse, and no one’s even interested in picking up the stick anymore. You two have been profiled out the fucking wazoo, and there’s nothing else to say right now. But this? This is something to talk about. You’re not denying it happened, which means it’s not an outright lie, even if the part about the two of you being together is. But the response overall has been amazing in terms of sales. And overwhelmingly positive on other fronts, too. Look at your fan group on Facebook. Most of the response I’ve seen so far leads me to believe a majority love the idea that you’re together.”
While he paused for a breath, I opened a new tab on the browser bar and clicked onto our Facebook fan page, blinking at the buzz of activity happening there. Someone had posted the story into the group and people were going crazy. Levi was right: most of it was positive. Lots of excited squeeing and heart emojis. There were a few naysayers, though.
“Look,” Levi started up again, “I’m not saying you have to go live and talk about it. I’m suggesting you just coast on it. Do nothing to discourage the rumors, maybe a few things to support it for a while. It’s not forever.”
Evan didn’t look at all convinced. He looked, if anything, dejected. Dejected and pissed off. The overarching theme was definitely still pissed off. He drummed his fingers in a silent, desperate tempo over the tops of his thighs, restless with energy and anxiety the way he sometimes got before a show when he was all twisted up in his head and just waiting for the outlet of his guitar and microphone to unleash into.
“We’re not the Kardashians,” he snapped.
“You’re right. They’d milk this shit all the way to the bank and premiere their next show to even higher ratings,” I pointed out.
Levi wisely stayed silent.
Evan pushed off the bed, sweeping the laptop up with him. “It’s a fucking farce, and my answer is still no.” He stormed from the room, leaving me holding his phone.
“You still there, Les?”
“Yeah.” I mashed the button and took it off speaker, then flopped back onto the bed and tugged at the ends of my greasy hair. God, I needed a shower and caffeine at minimum. I’d have killed for one of Blink’s upper cocktails right about then.
“Good. You’re going to have to be the sensible one here.”
I chuckled, and it was a little bitter because I found his comment slightly insulting. I might fuck around some. Okay, a lot, but I’d put as much heart and soul into this band as Evan had. My methods were just different.
“The label is on board with this.”
I was on alert in an instant. “Did they say that?”
“It was implied.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes.
“I didn’t want to tell Evan because he seems to have taken that last album more personally than you, but you guys are on thinner ice than you might think, and a sales boost is going to go a long way to keeping doors open once you guys have met the terms of the original contract.”
“Yeah, if I tell Evan that right now, he’ll probably threaten to bail—”
“And I don’t need to remind you that you guys are under contract for another album. You can reassess after this next one, but it’s going to be a much smoother path, whichever way you choose to go, if it ends on an amicable note.”
Okay, so it wasn’t a threat, but a strongly worded reminder that the industry still had major pull with the media that helped send us soaring. I knew more than a couple of musicians who’d burned bridges and flamed out into nothing. I didn’t want that. And I knew Evan didn’t, either.
“I’m down with the idea, okay? And I think I can get Evan on board if you give me a little time.” A tranquilizer dart might’ve helped, too.
“Days or hours?”
“Hours. Maybe a day. Jesus, is it that critical?”
“Rina’s working on a press release right now. Timing, you know. It’s everything. We’re not going to confirm or deny anything, just fuel speculation with a general ‘no comment’ statement.”
I took a deep breath and tried to squash the fluttering in my stomach. Suddenly this felt much bigger than it had initially. Music itself was manipulation. It was playing with resonance, tapping into brain waves and the primacy of a heartbeat to provok
e feeling. I didn’t write my songs and sing them in a vacuum. I did it for the love of expression, because I wanted to share. I got high off knowing that we had a good fan base, one that seemed to believe in and trust in our music and our ability to create songs that moved them. So, I agreed with Evan that it shouldn’t matter who we were with, but people wanted narratives and stories, too. I got that. It added depth to the musical experience. And really, was faking a relationship with Evan even pure manipulation if, deep down, it was something I’d dreamed of? Because regardless of what else was true, I one hundred percent wanted Evan, and one hundred percent would be with him in a heartbeat. Music was the only thing tying Evan to me. If the music disappeared, so would Evan. And I couldn’t let that happen.
The enormity of what I was about to try and convince Evan to do washed over me and made me dizzy. I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath.
“I’ll keep you posted,” I told Levi.
“Do that.” I was about to end the call when he started up again. “You know what was funny, though? Her timing. Why’d she wait so long?”
“Who fucking knows?” I ended the call, then dragged myself out of bed and headed for the shower so at least I wouldn’t smell like a back alley after last call while trying to convince my angry bandmate he should fake a relationship with me.
Chapter 16
I needed something to do with my hands so I wouldn’t throttle Les, so after I rushed out of his room, I went straight to the basement. It was my favorite place in the cabin for obvious musical reasons, but there was a cozy comfort to it, too, a cocoon from the outside world. The couple we rented the place from used to be in the business. They were retired and closing in on their late seventies now. We’d met them once, the first time I set up the rental. She was a writer and singer, he a producer, and they called this cabin their love shack. What studio equipment they had was woefully out of date, but both Les and I liked an organic process anyway. It satisfied our basic needs, and that was just fine. We brought our own guitars, obviously, but there was an old drum kit in one corner and a slew of other random instruments, including a glockenspiel, of all things. There was the cowbell Les had tormented me with last time until I’d threatened to secure it to his throat with a zip tie and choke him with it. The foam on the walls was deteriorating, and we always found bits of it on the floor. In another corner was a turntable that was probably the height of chic in the eighties and next to it, six stacked plastic crates of records.