Rise: The Interlude (Black Hearts Still Beat Book 2)

by L A Cotton

  “Yeah, come on, Country, we should give the fans what they want.” Levi hooked his finger into my belt loop and pulled me closer, the air whooshing from my lungs.

  “Yes!” Tobias gushed, letting out a little shriek of approval. “That’s perfect.” He took a bunch of shots before saying, “Eva, now drop the guitar in front of you and lean your hand on it.”

  I did as he instructed, wanting nothing more than for it to be over. “Perfect.” Another bunch of flashes later and we were finally done. “We’ve got plenty to work with here.”

  “Alistair will want full approval of the final images.” Riley marched over, her cell phone pressed to her ear.

  “We know the drill.” The two of them talked shop while I went to grab my things.

  “Travis is waiting with the car. We have an hour before we have to be at the Amway Center. I thought you could use some... pizza, after that.” Letty’s eyes flicked over to where the guys were laughing and joking. Except Rafe; he was still brooding, but he didn’t look at me.

  “Actually, that sounds perfect.”

  “I’ll just let Riley know our plans and we can go.” Letty wandered over to her.

  “Yo, Angel,” Levi called, “we’re going to get food. You in?”

  “Actually, me and Letty are goin’ to do our own thing.”

  Levi shrugged, his eyes darkening. “Fine, whatever,” he clipped out as if my rejection had genuinely offended him. He gave me his back and my instant reaction was to say we’d go with them. But the truth was, after the photoshoot, I needed space.

  “Okay, all set?” Letty came back.

  “Yep, let’s go.” I motioned for her to lead the way. The sooner we got out of here, the better.

  We said goodbye to everyone and slipped out into the hall where Travis was waiting. “Grayson is bringing the car around to the side entrance.” He waited for us to move ahead of him and the three of us walked toward the hotel entrance. There had only been a small group of fans gathered when we’d arrived, but I was in no hurry to face them or the press.

  “So are we going to talk about how tense things are between you and Rafe?” Letty whispered.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay then, how about how weird Levi is around you?”

  “Nope.”

  “So just to be clear, we’re ignoring the fact that Rafe couldn’t take his eyes off you... the same way Levi couldn’t?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good,” she chuckled. “I’m glad we cleared that up. Now we can eat pizza and pretend like everything is okay.”

  I lifted my eyes to hers and said, “Sounds good to me.”

  Five hours later, I came off stage higher than a kite. If I thought the crowd at Charlotte had welcomed me with open arms, it was nothing compared to the way Orlando greeted me.

  “Great, show, Eva.” Alistair came to check in with me. “Truly, you’ve surprised us all.”

  “Thanks.” I graciously accepted a bottle of water from someone and drank it down.

  “Hey,” Letty appeared. “You killed it out there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you need Eva to stick around?” she asked Alistair.

  “No, the night is yours.”

  “I’m not performin’ with the band tonight?” The words spilled out and I immediately wanted to take them back. No one had confirmed whether I would be invited on stage, but I’d assumed it would be a regular thing since everyone had responded so well and I’d heard Alistair tell Riley it was what the audience wanted to see.

  From the tight expression on his face though, I knew I’d assumed wrong. “Not tonight,” he said, “we want to keep the set fresh.”

  “Oh, okay.” Dejection bounced around my stomach.

  “Levi is... complicated, Eva. Don’t take it personally.”

  “Come on, let’s go raid the band’s dressing room. They always get the best snacks.” Letty found my hand and pulled me away. “Fucking Levi,” she mumbled.

  “I didn’t dream it, right? I did hear Alistair tell Riley I was goin’ on with them tonight?”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “You heard right.”

  “So Levi changed his mind?”

  “Levi is...”

  “Complicated, yeah so everyone keeps tellin’ me.”

  Letty pushed open the door to the bands dressing room and we slipped inside. She was right, they did get better snacks than me. There was a long table full of pizza and chips and dips and donuts and other sugary goods that looked too darn good to resist. I marched over to it and grabbed a Twinkie, stuffing it into my mouth.

  “What did that Twinkie ever do to you?” Letty fought a laugh.

  “Ugh, they’re givin’ me a serious case of whiplash, Letty, and it’s only been a few days.”

  Three.

  It had been three.

  “It’s because I turned him down when he asked me to go eat with them, isn’t it? This his way of gettin’ back at me?”

  “Look, real talk.” Letty dropped onto the couch while the opening notes of their set rambled overhead. I’d wanted to watch them perform, to see the magic Levi weaved on the stage. To watch Rafe as he came alive with the guitar in his hands. But it hurt knowing Levi had pulled a rock star sized tantrum and had me kicked off their set all because I needed space after the photoshoot.

  “Levi is like a child. He’s impulsive, reckless, and doesn’t realize how hurtful his behavior can be at times. He doesn’t let people in easily, Eva, and when he does, he’s always just waiting for them to disappoint him. For Levi, attack is the best form of defense.”

  “What happened to him, Letty? What made him this way?” I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t ask, but if I was going to survive this tour, I needed something to work with.

  “I don’t know the whole story, no one does. That shit is sealed tighter than a declassified CIA dossier.”

  My brow quirked up and she chuckled. “What? I watch a lot of documentaries. My point is, if you truly want to be a part of Levi’s life you have to be patient and you have to prove to him that you’re not going anywhere just because he lashes out. But you can’t let him walk all over you either.”

  “So you’re sayin’ I have to shower him with love and affection while being firm and fair? He really is like a child.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Whatever those brothers went through was bad, Eva, really bad. Just don’t write him off too soon, that’s all I’m saying.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that—which question to ask first. So I opted for silence. There were still months of touring ahead of us which meant I had to find a way of dealing with Levi’s tantrums.

  “Let’s go watch the band,” I said, licking the sugar off my lips.

  “Yeah?” Letty’s eyes glittered with respect.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, wondering just exactly what I’d gotten myself into with the Hunter brothers.

  Rafe

  We were a week into the tour when The Rock Report article landed.

  “If that doesn’t get people talking, I don’t know what will,” Hudson dropped the magazine on my lap and I fingered the glossy pages.

  “Rose between two thorns,” I laughed bitterly. They didn’t know the half of it.

  “Eva looks every bit the star, don’t you think?” Hudson was probing, trying to get a rise from me. But I kept my thoughts to myself, grumbling some half-assed reply.

  The truth was it hurt to look at her. She was damn beautiful, smiling at the camera. They’d gone with a shot of the five of us: me and Eva holding her guitar looking right at the reader. Hudson’s smirk was enough to catch panties on fire up and down the country. But it was Levi who would be the talking point. He wasn’t looking at the camera. His head was dropped slightly, his body turned into Eva, and he was looking at her. Longing and lust burning in his eyes.

  Jesus. He was falling for her. My brother, the most important person in the world to me, was falling for the girl who already owned me.

  And you let it ha
ppen.

  “You noticed that, huh?” Hudson was watching me quietly.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Looks like she’s about to go where no girl ever went.”

  “Hud...”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He wrapped his knuckles against the table before getting up. “Let’s do what we always do, right? Pretend everything is fine and hope the truth goes away. Because that always works out so fucking well for us.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. Hudson was as bad as the rest of us. Hiding behind his wicked smirk and easy charm.

  He let out an exasperated breath. “Look, man, I love you like a brother and I like Eva. I like her a lot. But you’re lying to yourself if you think this,”—he jammed his finger at the magazine—“isn’t a problem.”

  “Levi won’t go after Eva,” I said, hating how uncertain I sounded.

  “That’s your comeback? You know better than anyone that Levi does whatever the fuck he wants without consequence.”

  “Why is this so important to you?” I was clutching at straws now, picking a fight that I was bound to lose.

  Hudson was right—Eva was a problem.

  I’d walked away once because I didn’t want her to come between me and Levi, but that was when I was never going to see her again. When I could push her to the recesses of my mind and keep her in my dreams.

  But could I keep doing it?

  Especially after kissing her again.

  Fuck.

  Everything was so fucking screwed up.

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Hudson sneered. “The band is all I have, man, you know that. You, Levi, and Damon are my family, my brothers. You can’t blame me for wanting to protect that.”

  Guilt snaked through me. He was right. Of course he was fucking right. We were all each other had; a fact that had kept our heads above water more than once.

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “You’d better hurry the fuck up then before this thing goes sideways.” His anger melted away, replaced with a look of longing. “She’s just a girl, Rafe.”

  Eva wasn’t just a girl to me though.

  Just like I had a feeling Molly wasn’t just a girl to him.

  But neither of us were ready to own up to how we really felt.

  He stalked off, the walls of the bus closing in around me as I sat there, staring at the article. I usually avoided reading whatever rumor and gossip they printed about us, but I found myself greedily absorbing the words. The article painted Eva as a girl who had found herself plucked out of small-town life and thrown into the lion’s den. It even went as far as to suggest she might be the one to tame Levi’s wild ways. I scoffed at that—it had Alistair written all over it. He wanted to sell Eva as the band’s salvation. But the article walked a fine line between making her sound like a new friend while hinting at her becoming something more. Or maybe I was just crazy jealous every time her name and Levi’s came up in the same sentence.

  “Yo, Rafe,” Damon’s voice filtered down the bus. “We have a meeting.”

  “Meeting?” No one had said anything about a meeting.

  I dropped the magazine on the table and ran a hand through my hair. The last two days had been grueling. There had been back-to-back interviews yesterday and Alistair had arranged for us to visit a local youth center in Dallas the day before. That had been fun, rocking out with their band. Then we’d signed a bunch of merch and taken photos with the amped up kids. We always tried to build in at least a handful of visits to centers such as the Fannie C Harris Youth Center, like the one that brought us together when we were just kids.

  Eva and Letty hadn’t come with us. She had her own promotional stuff to do. Interviews. Appearances. The calls for Eva were coming in thick and fast, but she took it all in her stride. It had barely been a week since she joined us, but there was no denying fame looked good on her.

  We hadn’t talked about the kiss... in fact, we hadn’t talked much at all. But when I stepped off the bus to find everyone waiting for me, including Eva and Letty, I sensed my attempts at us avoiding each other were over.

  “What’s up?” I asked no one in particular.

  Levi wore a shit-eating grin while Hudson looked fit to burst. “Do you want to tell him or should I?” Levi looked at Alistair who also seemed unusually happy.

  “You can do the honors.” He gave my brother a nod.

  “They want us.” Levi looked so freaking happy it hurt.

  “They?” I frowned and he mumbled something under his breath before saying, “Masterpiece.”

  “You’re shitting me?”

  “I’m not.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s the dream, little brother.”

  “I...” My head whipped around to Alistair. “It’s true? They want us?”

  “It’s not a done deal yet, but yeah, it’s looking pretty solid. So if we’re not interrupting your little pity party for one,” his brow went up and Hudson snickered. “Dowager wants to meet today.”

  “Hell yeah,” I choked out.

  Masterpiece was the crème de la crème of sound equipment, and the sponsorship deal me and Levi had dreamed of ever since we signed with Razorsharp Records. Over the years, Masterpiece had endorsed some of rock’s biggest names: The Stones, Zeppelin, Ramones, and Pink Floyd but to name a few.

  And now they wanted us.

  My mind was officially blown. Until I realized Alistair wasn’t done.

  “What changed his mind?” I asked.

  Tim Dowager, their MD, had been dragging his feet on sealing a deal all because of concerns over our reputation—or more to the point, Levi’s instability. Alistair looked at Eva and I had my answer.

  We all did.

  “He only wants us if Eva’s part of the deal?” Hudson gawked at him.

  “We can discuss this later.”

  “That’s some bullshit right there, Ali, and you know it.”

  “Hud,” Damon interjected.

  “Nah, man, and no offense, Eva, but you’ve been here for two seconds and now Dowager wants to sign us? We’re not a package deal. People seem to be forgetting that Eva isn’t in the fucking band.”

  She winced at that but held her ground. “If it makes you feel any better, I had no idea this was going to happen until just now.” Her eyes burned into the side of Alistair’s face.

  “Dowager wants to talk. He’s likely to make an offer, an offer we can negotiate. Let’s at least go and see what he’s willing to put on the table.”

  “We’re doing it,” Levi said. “We’ve wanted Masterpiece since the beginning. It’s like the holy grail of endorsements, everyone knows that. Are you really going to dig in your heels because they might want Eva to use their stuff for the rest of the tour?”

  “Fine, whatever.” Hudson kicked the dirt with his boot. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

  “Glad we got that settled.” Alistair strolled toward the Mercedes Van and climbed upfront while Levi and Damon got in the back.

  “You agree with this?” Hudson asked me, his eyes flicking to where Eva and Letty stood, deep in hushed conversation.

  “I don’t know, but Levi has a point, it’s Masterpiece.” Everything we’d always wanted.

  “And if it ties us to her beyond the tour?”

  Hudson’s words gave me pause. I’d been so focused on what happened during the tour, I hadn’t really stopped to consider what happened when it ended. Eva wasn’t signed to the label. Once the tour was over so was her contract. That was unlikely to be the case though if Masterpiece wanted her too.

  “We’re still Black Hearts Still Beat, Hud, that’s never going to change.” But the second the words were out I felt the lie settle deep in my bones. Things were changing.

  Eva was changing us.

  And if we stayed on this road who only knew where we would end up.

  The ride to Masterpiece’s HQ in downtown LA was tense. Hudson sat beside me, his foot tapping the floor. Usually, I would have put
it down to his drummer’s mind, but today, I knew it was because he was agitated.

  “Relax,” I whispered, nudging his shoulder.

  “Easy for you to say.” His eyes flicked past me to where Eva sat on the other side of me. Letty had squeezed in beside Levi and Damon in the front row, giving me no choice but to sit in the back with Eva and Hudson.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked her, when really all I wanted to do was apologize. For the kiss. For avoiding the huge fucking elephant in the room that was my brother.

  For never calling her back.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s been a week, Rafe,” she kept her voice low. “And everythin’ is goin’ at a million-miles-an-hour and I’m just tryin’ to keep my head above water.” The words tumbled out, her chest heaving.

  Before I could stop myself, my hand slid against hers. Eva sucked in a shaky breath, keeping her eyes upfront. She wasn’t the only one affected though; her touch was like kryptonite making my knees weak and my heart stutter. Her fingers slid precariously between mine, and I risked peeking over at her. The corner of her mouth lifted in a secretive smile.

  Jesus, this girl.

  How the hell was I supposed to stop?

  Ever since kissing her, I’d dreamed of nothing else but doing it again. It was the reason I’d spent so much time avoiding her. I couldn’t be near her without imagining crowding her against the nearest wall and pushing my body up against hers. If the heated looks I’d caught her sending in my direction more than once over the last couple of days were any indication, she felt the same.

  We were a lit fuse racing toward its end, and only we could decide whether we exploded or flickered out to nothing.

  Eva shifted on her seat, her arm brushing mine, sending shivers rolling up my spine. I hadn’t even touched her, not properly, but I felt her everywhere. Could imagine her naked above me, the soft swell of her hips, the gentle curve of her waist, her perfect tits. I wanted to touch her and taste her and make her cry my name over and over.

  It was my turn to shift uncomfortably, fully aware that I was sporting a raging hard on. Eva covered her mouth with her hand, smothering a laugh. Letty glanced back, a deep frown pinching her face. My hand shot down over my lap as I tried to conceal the evidence that I had zero fucking self-control around Eva.