by K. A. Linde
“Split up?” Cheyenne suggested.
“Sure.”
Not knowing where to start, I turned to the right went in search of Grant. I figured he’d be surrounded by people, but there was the possibility that he was off somewhere alone. I was also looking for the other guys, hoping to catch a glimpse of them coming offstage, but I had no such luck.
I was thinking about circling back to the entrance to find Cheyenne when I nearly ran into a guy. He looked like he was in a hurry and pissed.
I squeaked and got out of his way. “Sorry.”
His gaze fell on me, and his anger disappeared. It was replaced with curiosity, and then he smiled. “No problem at all. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“No harm, no foul,” I said.
“Can I help you with anything?”
“I’m just looking for Grant McDermott,” I said with a sigh.
I always felt like I was looking for him at these kinds of things. They needed to make the backstage smaller.
“Oh, Grant? Yeah, sure. I just saw him walk out.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Where did he go?”
The guy shot me an amused look, and my stomach dropped.
“I think he had a girl with him, so I can only imagine.”
No. I wouldn’t believe what he was telling me. That just didn’t make any sense.
“Um…are you sure? I mean…he looked pretty upset when he got offstage.”
“He was pretty upset. I don’t know if we’ve met, but I’m Hollis Tift. I manage The Drift. I’ve been working pretty closely with Grant since Halloween. I have a feeling you’re this Ari who everyone keeps talking about.”
I blushed. “Um…yeah, I am.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, Ari, but this is just how it is. This is the life.” He spread his arms wide, indicating all the groupies. “I’m sure he liked you. But why would he wait around? He realized his mistake, and he’s reconciling that problem.”
My mouth hung open, and for once, I was rendered completely speechless. I couldn’t listen to this. I couldn’t believe this. This wasn’t Grant. This wasn’t the man I’d fallen for.
But when we had started talking, he hadn’t been in this position. I hadn’t been worried about the groupies before, but these girls were professionals.
I opened my mouth to contradict him, but he cut me off. “It’s a hard lesson to learn. You seem like a nice girl. If you want my advice, it would be to turn around and get out of here. Find a nice guy who will take care of that pretty face and not break your heart. Grant…he’s in a league of his own. He’s going places. You’re just going to hold him back.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said as strong as I could muster.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe me or not,” Hollis said with shrug.
I pushed away my fears. I didn’t need all of this clouding my mind. I just…I couldn’t believe what he was saying. If Grant cared about me, if he loved me, we could make it work.
“Whatever. Grant has been messaging me all break. He wrote that song for me. I just need to talk to him. So, if you don’t know where he is, I’ll keep looking.”
“Feel free to keep looking, but he’s already gone. He left with Jaci ten minutes ago.”
I shook my head and stumbled away from Hollis. I had to find Grant. He couldn’t have left with another woman. He wouldn’t do that to me. Sure, we were on a break, but we weren’t broken up. I knew that I hadn’t responded to his messages. I knew that things were kind of fucked-up. I just couldn’t fathom that they were over.
When I finally found the back exit, I pushed it open and gazed out at the small parking lot. I didn’t see Grant’s truck, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have parked somewhere else. I felt like I was grasping at straws, but I just couldn’t let any of those things be true.
I heard a commotion behind me, and I slowly turned in hopes that Grant was still inside. But it was just Donovan fending off a group of girls. I rolled my eyes and looked away.
“Ari, good to see you,” he called out when he saw me. “Jesus, it’s freezing. Let’s close that door.”
With a sigh, I let him shut it behind me. It wasn’t like staring out in the cold was going to bring Grant back. I just couldn’t believe that he was with a girl. I’d meant to surprise him by showing up, but maybe I should have just given in and texted him.
“Everything all right?” Donovan asked.
My heart beat in my chest as I looked up at Donovan. I didn’t want to ask him what I was about to ask. I couldn’t have him confirm it, but I just had to know. Maybe Donovan wouldn’t even know.
“Have you seen Grant?”
Donovan looked uncomfortable for a minute. “Uh…yeah, I saw him.”
“Do you know where he is?” Hope sparked in me.
“I’m sorry, Ari.”
And he did look sorry. Shit.
“What are you sorry about?”
“I saw him leave.”
“Oh,” I whispered. “Are you sure?”
“When I was out with him last night, he told me that you guys broke up.”
“We…wait, he said that?”
I was not going to get upset about this again. I’d thought that we were just on a break, but he must have assumed it was an official breakup…that we’d talk about getting back together when I came home. I’d never given him any indication otherwise.
“Yeah, he did.” Donovan’s hand dropped onto my shoulder, and he looked at me sympathetically. “Just so you know…I think he’s crazy.” His other hand came up and pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “If I had a girl as beautiful as you, I’d never let you out of my sight, seventeenth-century antiquated ideals or not.”
I stepped away from his touch, and my back hit the door. “Thanks for your concern. I’m sure you have hundreds of girls much more beautiful than me throwing themselves at you.”
“None as beautiful as you who are turning me down.”
“I bet you don’t have any others doing that.”
Donovan shrugged. He knew that I was right. “Why don’t you forget McDermott tonight? Stay for my show. Haven’t you ever wanted to see a Drift show from the side of the stage? We could hang out after. We’d have a good time.”
For some reason, I had a feeling that his definition of a good time and my definition of a good time weren’t the same thing. And the only person I wanted to be with was Grant. Even if he was off with someone else tonight, I still wanted him.
“Appreciate the offer, but—”
My words were cut off when Donovan bent down and brushed his lips against mine. Fire alarms went off in my mind. This was wrong. This wasn’t Grant. Even if Grant was with someone else, I didn’t want to kiss someone that he knew. I didn’t want to be around people who were associated with Grant. I needed to get out and get out now.
I pushed against the door I was leaning on and opened it into the cold. Donovan stumbled through it with me, breaking our kiss. His green eyes were fierce.
“I appreciate the offer, but no, I’m not interested,” I said, my voice hard.
“You’re wasting your time on Grant.”
“If I’m wasting it on a man who loves me, then I’d obviously be wasting my time with someone who doesn’t.”
And with that, I shoved past him, back inside, back through the crowd of girls, and out into the arena. I texted Cheyenne to let her know that I was getting a cab back to the airport. She seemed frantic, but there was nothing else she could do at this point. I just wanted to be back in Boston.
The clock chimed midnight soon after the plane touched down. I waited anxiously for a text message from Grant, like I’d gotten over Christmas, but it never came. I hadn’t wanted to believe he was with someone else, but somehow, his silence convinced me more than anything else ever could. When I got home, I crawled into bed, determined to forget Grant McDermott.
I typed out ten messages to Ari but deleted them all.
She didn’t want to hear from me on New Year’s. She hadn’t wanted to hear from me on Christmas. She hadn’t wanted to hear from me every day before that. I should just give up and let her move on with her life, but I couldn’t.
I’d been onstage, singing the song I’d written for her, when it just hit me how fucked-up all of this was. I was in love with her. I’d said as much onstage, but the lyrics had just driven it home. I was in love with Aribel Graham, and she wanted nothing to do with me.
After I’d finished the song, I’d stormed offstage, unable to continue. I was over it. I’d just wanted to be alone.
But no, even then, I couldn’t get what I’d wanted. Hollis had stopped me at the exit, wondering what the fuck I was doing. We weren’t signed with Pacific, and I was ruining my chances of ever getting picked up with them.
That was fine with me. If we got picked up, who knew when I’d get to see Ari anyway? Didn’t seem like a fair trade to me.
Hollis obviously hadn’t seen it that way. He couldn’t understand how I felt about Ari. He never would. He talked about girls the way I had before Ari. I might be a total fucking asshole, but Ari came first. If by some fucking miracle I could salvage this with her, then I was going to do everything I could to make sure that was a possibility.
I’d had it out with Hollis backstage, and then I’d gotten into my truck and driven straight home. The drive had taken fucking forever since everyone and their mother was out in New York City for New Year’s, but I hadn’t cared. I’d just needed to get out of there. I’d needed to think, and I couldn’t do it surrounded by thousands of people.
Being all alone, holed up in my house, didn’t seem to help much either. I just wanted Ari here with me. I wanted to get a New Year’s kiss I’d remember. But if Ari didn’t want me around, I wasn’t sure how much more of my antics would change her mind. If it came down to that, I’d have to resign myself to move on.
Hollis hadn’t been the only one pissed that I’d walked out of the show. The guys had returned from the city early afternoon on New Year’s Day, and they had promptly gone about ignoring my existence every time I tried to talk to them. I’d fucking wanted to be alone to think, and now, they were giving me all the space I needed.
I wandered into the garage, and everyone seemed to have calmed down by the time regular band rehearsal was supposed to start. They were seated on the couches. McAvoy had his laptop open. He was the tech-savvy one of the bunch, and we generally just left him alone when he got in the zone. Miller looked up when I walked in, but Vin didn’t even spare me a glance. He must really be pissed.
I took a seat next to McAvoy. I decided to take a direct approach. “Sorry about last night.”
“What the fuck happened?” Vin asked. He looked like he’d doped up on steroids this morning, and he was even more of a loose cannon. “You just fucking left us out there. We had three more songs to go, and you ditched us! What the fucking fuck kind of band member ditches his band onstage with no motherfucking warning?”
“I know. I should have told you guys.”
“You fucking think? You humiliated us out there!”
“I didn’t humiliate you,” I argued. “We played the majority of our set. No one even knew the difference.”
“Hollis knew the difference,” Miller cut in. “He was pretty pissed.”
“Fuck Hollis,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m so tired of these label people thinking they can mold us into these perfect shapes. They can’t define us by dangling a contract in front of our eyes.”
Vin cursed under his breath, but Miller was the one who spoke up, “Hollis isn’t trying to fit us into a certain mold. He’s been pretty lenient as far as I’m concerned, and I like him. Now, after that performance and your argument, we might not get signed.”
“Good. I don’t want to get signed,” I said without thinking.
The silence in the room was deafening. Even McAvoy stopped clicking away at his computer to look up at me. All of the guys stared at me with a range of shocked expressions. I’d never voiced that thought out loud to anyone before. I hadn’t even really thought about it much until recently. After the Frank Boseley incident, I’d been feeling more and more constrained by the pressure of fitting into a traditional record mold. Then, with the added fear of losing Ari, it had only amped up that feeling.
“You what?” Miller asked.
“I don’t want to get signed.”
“Since when?”
“This whole experience is ruining me for wanting to sign with anyone.”
“Is this about Ari?” Miller asked, just laying it out there.
“Oh, come on, man. Just forget that girl,” Vin complained.
“I’m not forgetting about her!” I yelled back at Vin. “Can we just drop the subject?”
“You just dropped a bomb on us, and you want to just walk away from that?” Miller asked in disbelief.
“Guys,” McAvoy said, speaking up, “you might want to shut the fuck up and look at this.”
“At what?” I asked. I leaned over his computer and tried to make out what I was looking at. It just looked like a spreadsheet with random words and numbers on it.
“Well, we sold about ten-thousand more copies of our ‘Life Raft’ demo than we’ve sold of every other song combined.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since…today,” McAvoy said.
I looked at him, stunned. “How is that possible?”
“I can only assume it’s because of the show last night.”
My mind ran away with me. Ten-thousand more copies. Of course it had to be that fucking song. It had to be that one. I didn’t ever want to sing that song again at this point, but it was the one that over ten-thousand people had purchased within twenty-four hours. Fuck!
Aaron finally coaxed me out of bed a couple of days later. He insisted I come out with him. The last thing I wanted to do was party.
I’d been sulking around the house exactly like the lovesick puppy I was. My mother had seemed concerned and tried to get me to see a doctor, but I wasn’t sick. I’d just shooed her away and closed the door. She’d never seen behavior like this from me before, so she was rightfully worried. There wasn’t much she could do at this point though.
Even if I didn’t want to go out with Aaron, I was kind of ready to get out of the house. Sitting around in my room all day meant that I thought about Grant all day. I figured it might be good to get him off my mind.
Around ten o’clock, we arrived at Le Petit Parlor, a ritzy French bar that catered to an elite crowd. I’d been here a couple of times before but mostly with high school friends, who I preferred not to see tonight. The room was extremely dark with red velvet booths that were dimly lit and a small dance floor in an adjoining room. Unlike the Princeton crowd I was used to, the people here were drinking scotch rather than beer and Grey Goose or champagne rather than hunch punch. I’d dressed the part in a fitted knee-length dress, matching my eyes, and pumps.
Aaron didn’t hesitate when we entered, and he walked us right over to a booth where six of his friends sat around a bottle of scotch. He wrapped an arm around a girl sitting with them. She was clearly not Sarah, the girlfriend he’d brought with him to the Christmas party. I frowned, unsure what to make of that.
The guys were all smoking cigars, and my nose crinkled at the smell. Aaron made no introductions as I’d known everyone, aside from the girl, since grade school.
“I’m going to get a drink,” I said after a minute.
They already had scotch, but I wasn’t going to drink that. I wouldn’t get carded here anyway.
“All right,” Aaron said with a nod.
I made my way to the bar. The bartender smiled at me and passed over a flute of champagne without me asking for it. I had wanted something stronger, but this would do. Maybe if I had four or five more, they would numb the pain or something. I handed him my credit card and told him to leave it open.
“Let me get that,” so
meone said, coming up next to me.
“Oh, that’s not necessary.” I turned toward the person who was trying to buy my drink and froze.
Henry smiled at my stunned look and switched out our cards with the bartender. “Good to see you again, Aribel.”
“I thought you were in Paris, not just a French-themed bar.”
He chuckled. “I was, but I came back on New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh, right,” I said, snippets of our conversation coming back to me.
“How have you been?”
He gestured for me to walk with him, and I complied.
“Fine.” Hardly, but he didn’t need to know that. “How was Paris?”
“Enchanting. Have you been?”
“Mmm…yes. Lots of museums.”
I noticed he was walking me away from where Aaron was seated, but at this point, it didn’t really matter. Henry was handsome and intelligent, and he’d just bought me a drink. I wasn’t going to think about anything else right now.
“Ah, you’ve only seen a tourist’s view. I can show you a side of Paris the tourists never see,” he said with a charming smile.
We took a seat at a small empty booth in the back of the room. He started chatting some more about his Paris trip just as a waiter came to our table. To my surprise, he dropped off a bottle of champagne. I hadn’t even realized that Henry had ordered the bottle.
Our conversation moved from Paris to his time at Harvard to the work that he did for my father. I drank one glass after another, finding myself enjoying the conversation more and more, as the night went on. My head felt as light as the bubbles. The room was suddenly so loud that I had to lean in to listen to him talk.
And God, he had a nice mouth with perfectly straight white teeth and full lips. I bet he was a great kisser. Something was nagging at me, telling me that I shouldn’t even be thinking about that, but I pushed that thought away. I’d been so sad for so long, and I just wanted to be…carefree. Not a word I’d ever use to describe myself, but I could be that tonight, right?