“Mom,” I whispered, more hurt on her account than anything.
“I took the house—we needed it—and I had enough money saved so I didn’t have to work until you went to school. But none of the part time jobs that allowed me to be home with you after school could afford the tuition at Duncan, so I mortgaged the house. It was the only money I ever took from him.”
“Why push me at the contracts if you hated this life so much? Why not just leave me at Julliard?”
She looked away, her cheeks flushing. “Because I became selfish. The house was mortgaged, I wanted to return to managing, and you…. God, you have all his talent and none of his vices. After the Duncan showcase, Epic approached me, and the rest is history. I honestly thought I could keep you out of the bad stuff, steer you toward pop instead of rock, and for a while, it worked. But the phobia came on so strong, and you were breaking, and I didn’t know how to help you. And when Hawke came back around…”
“You saw history repeating itself.”
“Yes.”
She held onto my hands and we sat there in silence, simply absorbing the change in our relationship. We’d never been on the best terms, never close friends, or the kind of mothers and daughters you saw on commercials, but with everything aired, I felt connected to her in a way I never had before. I finally understood what drove her, and they were the very same things that drove me—love…and fear.
“Okay. It’s all okay,” I said to her. “I’m sorry that I took the gig without talking to you.”
“No, that was a good business decision. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Sabrina. But there’s something else—”
The door opened and Brad walked in, Hawke on his heels. He’d showered, his hair still wet, and at least he was wearing clothes. Oh there it was, the crippling pain that sliced into my heart like a serrated knife and then turned. At least I wasn’t in shock.
“Brie,” Hawke pled, putting his hand on the chair next to me.
“As if,” I snapped and gestured across the table.
His sigh was long and tortured, like he had the right to be hurt.
“Nothing happened,” he said as he took the chair across from mine. Crap, now he was in my line of sight.
“Right. She just happened to sleep in your shirt.”
“I asked Chad just to make sure my memories weren’t wrong. The girl puked all over herself, so I gave her my shirt.”
“And then you stayed at the party?”
“Kids, we have bigger problems,” Brad drawled like we were in Kindergarten.
“Shut up, Brad,” Hawke bit out. “Yes, I stayed. I was stupidly drinking with Oscar. I was stupid to have gone, but he wants Birds of Prey to open for the rest of his tour. I stupidly drank with him, and I stupidly stayed. But I didn’t touch any of those girls, I swear.”
“Was it about revenge? For me leaving you? You got what you wanted and left what…an hour later?” I threw back.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, you two,” Brad yelled and threw a manila folder in between us. “Like I said, we have bigger problems.”
Hawke grabbed the folder and hissed through his teeth as he removed a pile of eight by ten glossy prints. “What the hell is this about?”
He passed a few to me and I sucked in a breath. They were all pictures of us locked in passionate kisses, the first against the support beams of his deck and the next with me in his arms as we were on the stairs. They were intimate photos, the lines of desire clearly written in our faces, the way we held on to each other.
“You tell me,” Brad retorted. “We’ve spent hundreds of thousands branding you two, the irreverent rock god and America’s sweet little pop star. So imagine my concern when your next door neighbor goes to sell these to the National Enquirer. Thank God I have a college buddy who works there.”
“So what? Release them. I have no problem with the world knowing that I’m in love with Brie.”
“Because you’re not the one with anything to lose,” Mom snapped.
“That’s not fair. He’s just as in this as I am,” I said. “You know, if we’re actually still in this,” I muttered as an afterthought.
“Right. How long until you break up after these are public? When you keep your reputation as the bad boy of guitar and you’ve absolutely ruined Sabrina’s reputation? Her branding? But that’s not your problem is it? Not with an offer to tour with Oscar Oswald.”
Hawke flinched. “That’s not what this is about.”
“You’re right. This is about Sabrina, about the fact that we’ve already paid off the Enquirer once to keep her stay in the treatment facility last year quiet.”
“You what?” I shouted.
“We were protecting you. I wasn’t about to let that get out.”
“Protecting me from what? From people knowing that I have social phobia? That I have a condition that requires medication and therapy and focus? Or were you protecting yourself—” I looked up at Brad “—protecting the label?”
“That was your mother’s call. She didn’t want you to lose your contract.”
“You were going to pull my contract?” Now that hurt.
“If you weren’t capable of performing, we didn’t see another option. We figured you doing this collaboration with the Birds of Prey would show if you could get on the stage again.”
“It was a test.”
“It was.”
“That’s bullshit,” Hawke seethed.
“No, it’s not,” I countered. “I’m their investment, right? A million dollars to record that last album, and about one hundred thousand a pop on a video. They’re just protecting their asset.”
Brad cleared his throat. “Look. The label is willing to buy the pictures and protect your image, Sabrina, but you have to agree that this thing between you and Hawke is over.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then we’ll let them be published. There’s no point in us paying to hide something that’s going to come out the next time you guys go at it in public.”
My image, my career…that was all that mattered to them. I’d given up so many things for the label these last couple of years—little pieces of me handed over every time I’d let them force their songs down my throat, let them put me onto a stage before I was ready. But I wasn’t giving up Hawke. Not for them, or Mom, or my own insecurities. Never again.
“Then they get published.”
“Sabrina—” Mom cajoled.
“No. This is my life, and I’m not going to be dictated to on this. Brad, you want to fight me on writing my own stuff? Fine. You want to tell me that I can’t carry an acoustic set? Fine. You want to tell me that my next video has to be shot in East Berlin? Okay. But you get no say in who I love. None.”
“Get out for a second,” Hawke said.
“What?” Mom questioned.
Hawke looked at Brad and then Mom. “You two, get out. This is a decision between the two of us, and you’re not invited.”
“He’s right,” I agreed.
Mom and Brad muttered curses, but they left, no doubt putting a glass to the door soon after it was shut.
“They can publish the photos,” I said. “I don’t care about my image.”
“I do,” he said quietly, folding his hands in front of him on the table, locking his long, tapered fingers together—fingers that had he’d used to worship me last night.
“What are you saying?”
He pushed back from the table, and then headed my way, taking the seat next to me that I’d initially banned him from. Leaning forward, he braced his forehead in his hands. “Look, last night…”
“I believe you. Yeah, I’m pretty angry that you didn’t come back to the room, and drank like an idiot, but I don’t think you’d actually do anything to hurt me on purpose.”
“I wouldn’t. Not on purpose. But think about how easily there could have been photos last night? With that girl in my shirt and me half naked? Imagine se
eing that on tabloid stands, right next to a picture of you sobbing. Right next to speculation that you’re headed into another treatment facility. If we do this, someone is going to publish that story.”
“I don’t care. I’m stronger than that,” I whispered.
“I know, and the first time you’d get over it. But the third, and the sixth and the twentieth? When we’ve been separated by tours, and the parties are loud, and the groupies are everywhere? You saw what Oscar turned into. Jesus, the tabloids will rip us apart.”
“On paper,” I argued, the ache in my heart starting to rub my soul raw. “They couldn’t actually touch us.”
“Your career will never be the same. The way people look at you will change.”
“Okay, I’m okay with that,” I reached for his hands but he pulled away.
“Well, I’m not! It’s better this way,” he argued, his eyes going vacant as he nodded like he was convincing himself. “I’ll be on tour with Birds of Prey, you’ll be in L.A. recording your next album. It makes sense. Both of our careers stay intact, and you don’t have to deal with exposing your condition. Everyone wins.”
“Except us,” I whispered as the ache in my chest grew to an all-consuming pain. How could he do this? Walk away from us? How could he want his career more than he wanted me?
“Yeah.” He stood and tugged at his hair, rocking back and forth for a second before going completely still. “But it’s the only way.”
He walked past me, and I was on my feet before he could reach the door.
“Don’t do this! Please, Hawthorne, no,” I shamelessly begged, tears prickling at my eyes, burning my nose. “What we have…it’s worth fighting for.”
He cupped my face, brushing away twin streaks of wetness from my cheeks. “What we have is a dream. I’ve loved you since I was a kid, but we’re not kids anymore. There are very real repercussions as adults. Repercussions that I’m not willing to let you pay. Not for me.”
“Fight for it!” I yelled, my voice breaking. “Don’t you dare be a coward.”
“God, I love you, Brie.” He lowered his head and brushed his lips against mine.
A cry ripped from my throat. “Hawke,” I begged.
He pulled away, a single tear marring his beautiful face. “What a beautiful dream,” he whispered, and walked out.
I stood, numb, unable to move, watching the door like he’d walk back in.
“Do it. Buy the pictures.”
His words cracked what was left of my heart, and I slid down the wall behind me, my body crumbling the way my soul felt.
“Good. You’re making the right choice, Hawke,” Brad said.
“Fuck you, Brad.”
I listened for his footsteps until they didn’t exist anymore, and in my head was Mom’s voice…
Love the music. Never the man.
But the man was my music, and with one gone, the other suddenly felt meaningless.
What the hell was I doing here? I had zero business being within a mile of her. It had been four months and thirteen days since I walked out of the hotel in New York, and there was zero chance she was going to want to see me.
Then again, when I leaned back from the table at the Troubadour, I was hidden mostly in the shadows, so it’s not like she’d ever know I was here.
I just needed to see her, to hear her voice, even if it was the Sabrina version and not my Brie. The need I had to be in the same place she was, to breathe the same air, was overwhelming, and tonight I’d given in.
We finished the tour last week, but the minute we’d landed in L.A., I could have sworn I felt her pulling me, the sensation almost physical. I’d have to see her in a couple weeks for the new awards show MTV was putting on, where she’d be performing ‘Requiem’ with Chad, and maybe I just needed to get this moment out of the way so I didn’t lose my shit on cable TV.
“You could tell her that you’re here,” Chad suggested.
“Shut up and keep your hat on. The last thing she needs to know is that I’m here.”
“Right, because that might mean that you talk to her, that you fix what you fucked up and put all of us out of our general misery.”
I side-eyed him. “Please, tell me how my broken heart has made you miserable.”
He scoffed, rubbing the condensation of his drink. “Let’s see. You snap at everyone, you’re writing shit songs, won’t party or let us get you drunk to relax, and you’re a generally morose asshole. It makes a tour bus a magical place to be.”
“Sorry to be an inconvenience,” I muttered.
“You’re my best friend, Hawke. This shit is stupid.”
I shook my head, watching the stage like the predator I was named for, wishing for just a glimpse of her blonde hair, her smile. “You have no idea. None of you do. I did this for her, not to her. There’s shit she doesn’t want public, and if she’s with me, it’s coming out.”
His forehead puckered, but before he could ask me a single question, Brie stepped onto the small stage to the applause of the sold-out crowd. Getting tickets had been a bitch, especially trying to keep my attendance quiet. Since ‘Requiem’ hit number one on Billboard, she’d been the belle of the musical ball, but this was her first show back solo.
And it was the same venue where we’d broken up four years ago.
She waved for the crowd, her smile genuine, but shaky. I gripped the edge of the table to keep from calling out to her. Her hair was a little shorter, done in an array of curls that were both sexy and innocent in the same breath. I wanted to twirl one around my finger to see how soft it was, wanted to peel that baby blue sundress off her body and show her without words how much I missed her.
“Hi, guys,” she said into the stand mic. “Thank you for coming out to see me.”
The cheers nearly deafened me.
She took it all in stride, confident and unwavering. God, she looked good, strong.
“So I know this might be the strangest place to hold my first show since coming back, but it’s also pretty fitting. This was the very first venue I sold out when I was seventeen, right after I graduated high school. It’s also the first venue that…” she swallowed and took a second to compose herself.
My heart thundered, knowing she was thinking about me, about us.
“Sorry,” she said with a little headshake. “It was the first venue one of my closest friends sold out as well. Since I wanted to do something a little different, I found it pretty fitting to do the sneak peek of my new album here.”
Another cheer went up, and she held her hand out. “And if you’d all join me in welcoming Gregory Costa, he’s going to play guitar for me tonight.”
A medium-height guy walked onstage with an electric acoustic and the air stuttered in my lungs as I finally grasped what she was doing—an acoustic show. The one her label had told her she’d never be able to carry.
And she had the balls to preview her entire new album doing it.
I clapped loudly, letting out a whistle when the crowd did. I couldn’t ever remember being so proud of her as I was in that moment. She was radiant, practically glowing, and while that soothed the jagged pieces I’d broken of myself, it cut a little deeper.
She was doing great without me. I’d made the right choice, and she was flourishing, thriving as she stood on her own, making her own way in her career. She was better than fine, she was spectacular.
I was fucking falling apart.
They took their seats, the stage barren except for those two chairs and corresponding microphones. She gave a little nod to her guitarist, and the way they locked eyes, the small, knowing look that passed between them sent streaks of white hot jealousy through me, sickening my stomach.
“Do you think he’s fucking her?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Does it matter if he is?” Chad asked, then took a sip off his drink. “You walked out on her, man.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“You’re an idiot.”
The song started
, and I was soon lost to her voice, her lyrics about taking chances and spreading wings, breaking free of expectations. It was upbeat, but with a soul that I appreciated, a depth I admired.
It was fantastic.
So was the next, and the next, each song better than the last, revealing pieces of her soul, exposing the moments no one else saw.
Too many times I saw us, heard the pain in her voice, the joy of when we’d been together. She’d used every shattered piece of our pain to cut herself a little deeper and bleed out those songs, and in doing so created something infinitely more beautiful.
As the applause died down from another song, she nervously ran her tongue over her lip. I leaned forward, somehow knowing that what was coming meant the most to her.
“Well, since I have your attention, there’s something else I’d like to talk about. I’m actually going on MTV tomorrow for a little interview, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to use you as guinea pigs.”
The crowd clapped and she nodded appreciatively.
“So the truth is that I don’t like crowds. Funny, right? A pop star who hates large crowds. That’s like a preschool teacher who’s afraid of small children,” she joked and the crowd laughed lightly.
I was on the edge of my seat. “Holy shit. She’s going to do it,” I muttered.
“Do what?” Chad asked, but I ignored him.
“I have something called ‘social phobia.’ It means that while my brain knows that everything is cool, my body doesn’t quite get the message. I suffer from panic attacks when I can’t get my responses under control. That’s what sent me flying off the Chicago stage. That’s why I’ve been absent for so long.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears and continued. “I honestly didn’t know much about social phobia, or what came along with it, until I was diagnosed. It turns out that these panic attacks, they’re relatively common, and about ten percent of the population has them. They’re not all linked to social phobia, of course, but as women, we’re more likely to have them.
1984: Against All Odds (Love in the 80s #5) Page 10