Men in Control: Special pack: The Smith Brothers Series

by Brenda Ford

  “Hey, that was good.” Angelo gets me before I can fully escape. “You are awesome out there.”

  I smile and nod, but I can’t quite drag my eyes upwards to meet his. Much as he has forgiven me and moved on, I can’t forgive myself and I can’t see him watching me. It’s too hard.

  “Before you race off, because I know how busy you are…” He doesn’t need to hint that I’m going to a bar, we both know. “Can we just have a little chat? We won’t be around for too long, so I don’t want to miss out on the chance to actually talk to you… if you don’t mind, that is. I don’t want to get in the way.”

  I sigh hard and nod. Mostly because I can’t think of a decent excuse not to talk to Angelo. Perhaps if I hadn’t sunk all of that vodka before we went up on stage – in secret, of course – then maybe I would be able to.

  “Good. Now, I would suggest going for a walk. But that’s probably not for the best, is it? Not with all of these fans around wanting to mob you. And I don’t think that the hotel bar is a good idea…”

  “Why not?” I snap, unable to even begin to disguise my irritation. “I can have a beer.”

  “I… I don’t know if I want a beer, that’s all. Not with all the traveling I have to do.”

  “So, we can have a soft drink then. What the hell is wrong with you, Angelo? Why are you acting like I can’t control myself? I know that I haven’t exactly been the best person, but I’m really trying…”

  “Alright, alright.” He holds up his hands in a surrendering gesture. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to upset you or anything. I just want to have a bit of a brotherly talk. You know, like we used to.”

  Urgh, now that’s something else for me to hate myself over. The fact that I am neglecting Angelo because I can’t stand to think about what I have done. Perfect, well now there isn’t a chance in hell that I won’t be having an alcoholic drink tonight. Angelo can just keep his bullshit opinions about my drinking to himself.

  “Right, whatever, come on let’s go to the hotel bar then. Have a talk.”

  I feel like I’m doing the fucking walk of shame as we leave the back stage area of the gig. Or perhaps some kind of red carpet event where everyone is staring at me, slack jawed. I can only assume that all of my brothers have been talking about me and now this is some kind of intervention. Fucking perfect. I roll my eyes and shake my head, trying to block all of them out as I head towards my favorite place ever. The goddamn bar.

  As soon as we reach the hotel bar, I order myself a beer and Angelo a soft drink, mostly out of spite because I know this isn’t what he intended to happen. But if he is going to ambush me, then why the hell not? I smirk as I join Angelo at a table, and I slide his drink over to him. He parts his lips, ready to argue with me, but as I sink half of the beer in front of him leaving him with very little to say, he snaps it shut once more.

  “What’s going on then?” I demand with a shrug. “Huh? What did you want to talk about?”

  I kind of know that he’s going to say about my drinking and I brace myself for it. My spine stiffens and my muscles all tense up, there isn’t anything that I can do to stop the eruption that will happen…

  “So, Freya…” These words knock all of the wind out of my sails. Now, that isn’t what I was expecting him to say at all. Freya? Why is he mentioning her? Does he even know her? Did she say something to him?

  “Freya?” I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “What do you want to know about her?”

  “She’s nice, isn’t she? She seems like a really good person…”

  “You are joking, right? I don’t need to bring up Rachel to you…”

  “I’m not thinking her for myself!” he laughs like this idea is ridiculous. “I mean for you.”

  My blood runs ice cold. Vomit swirling in my stomach. It’s about the only thing moving inside me as he says this. Is this some kind of joke? He wants to set me up with the pop princess now? That’s crazy. I’m clearly not ready. Unless he’s trying to keep me away from going back to Mandy again because he still doesn’t trust me. And why would he? Just because he has forgiven me, it doesn’t mean I can rebuild his trust. That might never come. I could spend the rest of my life fighting for him to come fully back to me, to have things the way that they were before, and it might not ever happen. I could be lost like this forever…

  “I don’t want to talk about girls,” I snap. “I don’t think that is a safe subject at all.”

  “Why not?” Angelo tries to reach out to me, and I immediately snatch away. “Why can’t we?”

  “Because it’s weird, isn’t it? We can’t talk about women. I don’t want to anyway. Certainly not about Freya. I don’t even know her. She’s just some annoying pop chick that is on this tour. I don’t like her at all.”

  “I see.” Angelo nods and recoils in on himself as I shoot him down. I do feel bad about it, but I’m not going to pretend that I want to be with this Freya bitch just to please him. It will take time. “Sorry, I…”

  “You just want to interfere!” I growl back. “All of you, all the time. No one wants to leave me alone to just get on with my life as I see fit. Right now, I’m just trying to get my head together. This tour is all about the music, my career, and that’s what I want to focus on. It’s the only thing that I haven’t messed up yet.”

  “You haven’t messed up as much as you think, Alex. Your family is still here for you…”

  “But I don’t need you to be.” Fucking hell, if he doesn’t stop it then I am going to lose my mind and cry like crazy. I seriously can’t let that happen. I can’t crack that much because if the flood gates open then I won’t be able to shut them. “I don’t need anyone to be. I just need to sort my life out by myself.”

  “But that isn’t something that you need to do alone, Alex, please…”

  Again, Angelo wants to reach out to me, but I just can’t allow that to happen. I can’t. I’m not ready to accept his love and forgiveness. I just want him and the rest of my brothers to go now.

  “I’m fine,” I practically yell. “I am. You just need to accept it. All of you. I will be fine once I am actually given some time and space to figure my shit out. Things don’t just… go back to normal right away.”

  Angelo remains silent as I break off from my rant and he stares at me sadly. “You really have been affected by all of this, haven’t you? That isn’t what I want to happen. You don’t deserve this. I don’t want this for you. No one does. I wish you would stop punishing yourself because honestly you don’t deserve to be unhappy.”

  “Yes, I do.” I scrap back my chair noisily and leap up from my seat. “Yes, I do deserve this. All of it. I deserve everything bad that’s going to happen to me. Everything bad that has already been happening to me. Don’t you get it? I have been a shit, I have done some terrible things, and this pain is just a punishment for that.”

  “Alex, stop it,” Angelo begs. “Stop acting this way, it doesn’t need to be like this. Just stay here and talk to me. Let’s hash this out at last. Really talk this through. It can be just me and you, or if that doesn’t make you comfortable then one of our other brothers. Or perhaps all of us. We can sort this together…”

  Almost as if he has conjured them up just by talking about them, the rest of our brothers appear in the hotel bar, but not alone. With Gary, Hank, Rachel, and Freya as well. I think there might even be some of the other crew members as well. They are all here to join in with this bullshit intervention which I refuse to be a part of. I am not going to be pushed against a wall while they all give me exactly what I haven’t asked for. Why is time and space too much to ask? It isn’t right. I just want to be left alone.

  I shoot a panicked look at Angelo who makes an effort to look surprised, like he wasn’t expecting this to happen which is ridiculous. This was the plan all along. Why would he bring me to a bar otherwise?

  “Fuck you,” I groan. “Fuck all of you. I am done. I’m going to my room.”

  I back away from everyone and head out t
o the elevator, as if I am actually going to work, which isn’t my plan at all. As soon as I can see a break in the crowd, I am out of here. I will be in the nearest bar before anyone knows it. Then I can have a damn drink in peace, without all of this. I just need one or two to block this night out, then I can get some sleep before the vicious cycle starts over again.

  “No, wait!” Angelo calls after me. “Please, just stay. Please just let us talk about this…”

  But I won’t. I refuse. I am not getting sucked into anything that he has to say. Not anymore. It will be a shame for me to leave my brothers like this on a bad note, but if they had come to just see me rather than to check on me, then things would have been different. If things were anything like normal, then I would be able to behave the same way myself. But nothing is normal, it’s a giant mess and that isn’t getting better any time soon.

  Mandy did this. Mandy and me. She clearly isn’t being punished for her part in this because she’s down the same path once more, but I am. As I pull my cell phone out of my pocket to check up on her social media account again, just to add to the torture, I can’t even ask myself if this is fair. It’s just the way that it is.

  I don’t understand how the hell Angelo can ask me about Freya when it’s so obvious that I am not over the one person who I will ever love in my life. He must have lost his mind. I wonder when the time will come for him to accept that I’m never going to love again. No matter what happens.

  Chapter 9 - Freya

  I watch in horror as Alex backs away, almost like he’s running from everyone. I don’t know what has happened, but it seems to me like Angelo has forced him to talk about something that he doesn’t want to and now he feels like he has been backed into a corner with all of us coming.

  I turn to see Angelo making eye contact with Brad, who is a very obvious patriarch of the family, and he basically indicates for him to let his brother go. I don’t like that. Not when Alex doesn’t seem in the right frame of mind to be left alone. Someone should be with him, and I’m sure that someone here must agree with me. I glance around the group, but am dismayed to see that everyone looks distracted, like they aren’t really thinking about Alex at all. I suppose they might be used to this, but I am definitely not.

  “Would you like a drink?” Oliver asks me as he heads towards the bar. “I’m getting a round in…”

  “No, I’m good thank you.” I smile thinly at him. “I think I might be headed to bed.”

  I back away and walk in the same direction that Alex just went with my heart pounding wildly against my rib cage as I do. I don’t know if I’m making the right decision by walking away from this crowd right now, I could probably have some fun with them if I wanted to stay, but I can’t let go of the fear that something will happen to Alex. He might not want me to ‘baby sit’ him as he calls it, but I can’t stop caring. It’s just the sadness in his eyes, the way that he is calling out with his body language, the way that he wants to be helped deep down.

  I head to the elevator and immediately jump inside, cursing myself for being so crazy. If everyone else seems to think that he is okay, then that should be enough for me, but it isn’t, and I don’t know why. I certainly don’t need Linda’s voice in my ear reminding me that Alex is hot enough for anyone to fall in love with. Because that definitely is not what is happening here. I don’t even think that she would still feel the same way if she could see him now. He’s not the rock god who makes women swoon at his feet; he’s broken over another woman.

  Nerves zig zag through me as I step towards Alex’s bedroom door, but I don’t let them stop me. I keep walking until I’m close enough to knock on the door… which I do right away so I can’t talk myself out of it. I bang a few times, getting increasingly harder when he doesn’t open the door right away…

  “Will you stop it?” A woman in a bath robe wrapped tightly around herself leaves the room next door to yell at me. “There isn’t anyone in that room. There hasn’t been all night long. Give it up.”

  “But he just came up here…” I argue. “I saw him leave and come up to bed…”

  “Look, honey, I don’t know what your boyfriend told you, but it was a lie. He ain’t here. I have been in all evening long and I hear all of the comings and goings around here. No one is here apart from you hammering on the door like you are trying to break it through which I would like to beg you not to do.”

  I feel silly and embarrassed as I step away. Of course Alex hasn’t come up here. Of course he hasn’t come where he said that he was going because he doesn’t want anyone to find him. Seeing that look on his face as he backed away from all of us has me assuming that he’s only gone to one place. Another bar.

  I barely even notice that this stranger called Alex my boyfriend and she thinks that I’m a crazy girlfriend who doesn’t know where her man is. It really doesn’t matter what she thinks about me. I head straight back to the elevator and leave the hotel as quickly as I can, continuing to leave everyone else behind. All I can think about is Alex and my need not for him to be alone. Everything else pales into insignificance.

  I head from bar to bar, pushing through crowds of people to scour every inch of the place to check that he isn’t here. Unfortunately, this hotel and music venue is on a street of bars and all of them are pretty much full. But every single time a single sense of hopelessness creeps through me, I push it back down again because this isn’t about me and I can’t give up. If I was in the same state as Alex, I would hope that someone would be kind enough to help me as well. Even if I seemed like a lost cause and I didn’t really want the help.

  “Hey!” As soon as I step into the dive bar on the corner, almost taking me to a new block away from the hotel, someone spots me and yells out to me. “Oh my God, you’re here, aren’t you? You’re Freya?”

  Shit. I haven’t made any attempt to hide my appearance. I’m even still in the same outfit that I wore on stage. Much as I’m not in the mood for anyone right now, I don’t want to stop my search for Alex, fans are so important, and I really don’t want to ruin all of my hard work by being rude and having that all over the Internet.

  “Hey, yes, I am.” I grin and revert to professional mode with my hand out stretched. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I’m Bonzo and this is Jon.” Both guys shake my hand. “Have a drink with us, will you?”

  “Oh, I would absolutely love to. But unfortunately, I am just in the middle of looking for someone.”

  “Don’t be like that.” Bonzo refuses to take his arm off my shoulder. “Stay with us and have a drink. It isn’t often that we get to see someone that we love. We’re your new fans as well. We didn’t even know that you existed until you started to support Blood Red Masters. So, that makes it even more exciting for us.”

  I don’t stop smiling as much as I want to, and I allow this man to lead me towards the bar because I have a feeling that he’s the forceful type who won’t take no for an answer. I will tolerate this for just a couple of moments, just because they are new fans and I don’t want to them to get upset, but that’s it.

  “Take a picture with us,” Jon begs. “So, we can show people that we met you.”

  I pose for a while and even end up taking a drink from Bonzo, but I don’t take a sip from it. I’m still trying to back away a little so I can escape these guys to continue searching for Alex.

  “Finish your drink.” Bonzo hands the glass to me again. “Let’s hang out. Get to know each other.”

  I have had affection before from fans. I have even had too much affection from fans before, but it hasn’t even felt like this before. This is actually pretty damn scary. I’m a little intimidated by them. These men haven’t said anything to make me anxious, but there’s something freaking me out regardless.

  “Thank you, I do appreciate all of this, but I have to go. Like I said before, I need to find someone…”

  “No, you don’t.” Bonzo grabs me hard. “You need to stay here with us.”

  A manic panic swi
rls through me as I consider screaming at the top of my lungs. I don’t want to make an unnecessary scene, but I don’t know if it will be unnecessary. I don’t want to be quiet and let something happen.

  “Hey…” Before I can make any kind of decision, an all too familiar voice grabs my focus. “Freya.”

  “Oh my God, Alex.” I grab him before Bonzo can drag me once more. “You’re here.”

  Now these are like two issues sorted out in one go. Now, I won’t be stuck with these guys anymore, and I have found Alex too. I can’t tell what sort of state he is in right now, but that’s okay. We can sort this out whenever the time comes.

  “Hey, you’re the singer from the band!” Bonzo instantly turns his affection from me towards Alex. “Sorry, man, I didn’t know that Freya was your girl. I wasn’t bothering her, just trying to get to know her.”

  “Yeah, well don’t. She doesn’t look like she wants to get to know you.”

  “It’s fine.” I cling to Alex and try to pull him away before it gets too much. The last thing I want is for this to end up in a fight when it really doesn’t need to go that way. “It’s fine, come on, let’s go. Your family are waiting for you and we need to get out of here.” I try to give Alex a warning look, but I don’t know if he gets it. So, I cling on to his face and make him look at me. “Please, can we leave. I need to get out of here.”

  Finally, he seems to sense that I am serious, so he nods and agrees with me. Thankfully, he comes along with me all the way outside the bar and he allows me to walk him towards the hotel.

  “Sorry about that,” he finally says. “I just don’t like it when people get a bit handsy. They seem to think that just because they have seen you up on stage, they know you and can touch you.”

  “I know what you mean,” I reply with a small smile. “It’s part of the career, isn’t it?”