“You’re all fucking late,” he yelled. “I don’t want to hear a word until we’re finished.”
On a normal day, I’d tell him to stuff it and stop being an asshole, but I was too stunned to do so now. How could a perfect day take such a sharp turn so quickly?
Ezra grabbed my elbow and pulled me aside. “What the fuck happened?”
“I have no idea. I messaged him when we were about to leave last night, but he didn’t respond. We need to talk to him before he freaks Adeline out. I think she was ready to say yes this morning.”
Ezra let out a heavy sigh. “Let’s give it an hour and see if he calms down. I don’t want to escalate it with a confrontation just yet.”
I nodded in agreement. I could deal with Abel being a dick to us, but if he said some bullshit to Adeline, we’d shut that shit down quick.
“Silas, you’re first,” the dictator said, not looking at any of us. “We need to work on the melody for ‘Hoarse.’”
As Silas played, Adeline came up to us, her brows pulled tight. “I feel terrible for not going after him last night. Should I talk to him one-on-one?”
I looked over her shoulder, trying to see if Abel was watching us talk. No. He had the headphones on and was glaring at Silas through the glass.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I reassured her. Ezra lifted his hand to rub her arm. “Did anything happen before you left him? Anything that might have set him off?”
She pursed her lips, her beautiful eyes swimming with guilt. “We kinda had a moment. He was protecting me from the crowd, and he wrapped his arms around me. We didn’t kiss, but it got a little heated. I thought he was enjoying it, though.”
I felt a little smug at the news that Abel was indeed caving to his real feelings for her, but at the same time, if this is how he reacted…
No. It made no sense. Abel could be a loose cannon, but even he wouldn’t freak out after a bit of overdue flirting. “I doubt that’s what triggered him. Maybe something happened after you left.”
“Should we just ask?”
“Are you still drunk?” Abel’s tight voice made our heads snap up. He was talking to Silas through the microphone. “You sound like a high school band player. Let’s go again, and this time, try not to suck so bad.”
Silas glowered at him from the studio. They could see his mouth moving, but the glass blocked his undoubtedly creative swearing.
Ezra winced but shook his head. “Let’s give him a bit more time.”
We didn’t even make it to lunch before all hell broke loose.
Abel seemed to calm down after finishing with Silas, so we decided to not intervene. I still felt uneasy, but I guess I was riding the residual optimism last night and this morning had implanted in me.
“Adeline, you’re next,” Abel said in a calm but cold voice, not even casting her a single glance.
She padded into the studio, her head not as high as usual, as if she were hiding herself from the unknown threat.
“We need to have a serious chat with him,” I said to Silas and Ezra. “This is not going to fly when she’s in the band.”
Silas’s expression was grim. “Fuck no.”
Adeline was all set up and waiting for Abel’s instructions.
“Play the chorus for ‘Jumpsuit from Hell,’” Abel instructed her before sitting back in his chair.
I could see the tension in her face and hands. It was a tough song, but she knew it well by now. I caught her gaze and gave her my best encouraging smile.
Unfortunately, what I didn’t realize was just how much her mental state affected her playing. She was nervous, and the tricky rhythm on the chords was throwing her off in a way that it hadn’t before. Even from ten feet away, I could see the sweat building on her forehead.
Abel stood up, his expression furious, making all of us jump to our feet.
“What the fuck was this?” he barked into the mic. “Did they screw your head off last night and forget to put it back on straight?”
I crossed the room in three steps and jerked him to me by his arm. I could hear Ezra telling the sound engineer to leave.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Adeline came into the control room, her expression bewildered.
“What’s wrong with me?” Abel hissed, his breath on my face. “I’m just starting to realize that we made a big mistake. We asked an amateur to join us, and she can’t even play a song we’ve practiced properly.”
I couldn’t help but look at Adeline at his words. Her face collapsed into a blank expression that scared the shit out of me.
“You’re being a goddamn terror and freaking her out. She’s nervous,” I said, trying to control the anger that was fighting to get out.
“And that’s a good excuse in your opinion? How’s she going to feel playing in front of tens of thousands of people? Are we gonna tell our fans our new guitar player is just nervous when they boo us off the stage?”
“What the hell happened with you?” Silas cut in. “You were fine until you left the show last night.”
Abel whipped to look at him with a cruel expression on his face. “I simply realized that we can’t replace Charlie with the first small-town player we happen to come across. Not even one who lets all of you fuck her.”
My fist met his face with a crunch that told me I’d probably broken his perfect little nose. I could hear some commotion behind me and Ezra shouting Adeline’s name, but I was too fucking angry to move from my position standing over Abel.
“You idiot,” I spit, as Silas held me back from doing further damage. “You better pray you didn’t just ruin the best thing that has ever happened to the three of us. The best thing that could have ever happened to you if you’d fucking let it.”
ADELINE
I wished I could say I was surprised. That this wasn’t the outcome I had predicted. That I had faith the wrongs would still right themselves.
But I couldn’t. Because I may be an idiot, but I wasn’t delusional.
My phone started blowing up within minutes of my hasty departure from the studio, but I’d ignored the calls and messages. I was lucky enough to get an Uber right as I ran out of the building, desperate to get away from the meltdown that was happening in the control room. Ezra tried to chase after me, but I ignored his pleas and got into the car without saying a word.
As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot, I burst into tears.
The driver looked at me in the rearview window. He was a wiry guy my age with a shaved head, and his face twisted in nervous concern. “Are you okay, miss?”
“Fine,” I said, wiping my face like a maniac in an attempt to regain some dignity. “I’m sorry. I’m fine.”
“No need to apologize.” He dug under the passenger seat for a moment before handing me a crumpled tissue box.
I sniffed and grabbed the box from him, mumbling a thank-you.
“You still going to Harrows Street?”
“Yeah,” I responded. I wanted to crawl into my bed and not wake up for a week or two. Maybe sleep would stop my brain from replaying Abel’s words over and over.
It was hard for me to reconcile what had just happened with the fact that just this morning I’d been ready to join their band. It felt like emotional whiplash.
Really, it was a blessing that Abel had spoken up when he did. He hadn’t said anything that was untrue, which is why it hurt so fucking bad. It was like he’d X-rayed my head and pulled out the deepest fears I kept inside. From my inexperience, to my tightly controlled nervousness onstage, to the relationship that I was still only getting comfortable with… He’d covered all the bases and landed a home run.
I bid the driver goodbye, opened the car, and trudged into my empty house. The air smelled stale, like nobody had been there in a while, even though I had aired it out before I left yesterday morning. It was like the house was trying to tell me that it needed more than one person taking up its space.
The thought and the accompanying
loneliness led me to collapse onto my unmade bed. I reached for my phone to send one concise message to Ezra, refusing to read what they’d already sent.
“Don’t come to see me at my house. Please.”
I didn’t want to talk about what had happened or hear their inevitable excuses for Abel’s words. I’d made the mistake I had promised myself I’d never make again. I’d allowed myself to believe in something that was never meant to come true.
When I woke up, it was four am on Saturday. It wasn’t the week-long rest I had hoped for, but even fifteen hours of sleep could still do wonders for the soul.
I made coffee and got dressed for the gym, which opened at five am. There was no point in moping. My lucrative contract with Bleeding Moonlight was officially over, and I had to get back to my original plan of looking for a job that would allow me to support Molly and I.
The front-desk attendant saw me park through the glass doors and got up to let me inside.
“Haven’t seen you as often in these past few weeks,” he noted. “Staying busy?”
I plastered on a smile. “I was. But I’ll be around a lot more going forward.”
Just like I used to before Bleeding Moonlight barreled into my life and messed with my head.
My lifts weren’t as good as before, but I pushed myself hard for an hour and a half before doing a quick fifteen-minute stretch and driving back home. The post workout endorphins made ignoring my occasionally buzzing phone a little easier.
Turning into my neighborhood, my heart sped up at the sight of a Jeep, but it drove through the intersection before I could make out the driver. I tightened my hands on the wheel, angry at myself for thinking of Ezra, and even more frustrated with how my heart leapt when I thought it might be him.
When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a dark silhouette by the door. I’d realized it was my guitar as I came closer. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d left it at the studio in my desperate rush to leave.
Had Ezra really come here at half past six in the morning? Maybe this was his way of honoring my request for not coming to see me, while at the same time trying to reach out.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. Abel was right. I wasn’t good enough to join the band. And I couldn’t tag along like a groupie after having experienced the magic of making music with them. Abel was done with me, and the rest would move on soon enough.
It was seven am sharp when our home phone rang. I rushed to pick it up, since no one ever called here, and my first thought was that something might have happened to Molly at college. My relief was palpable when it was my sister’s own voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey! I’m just calling to make sure you’re still alive. Thanks for ignoring my messages.”
I sat down on the couch. “I’m fine. You scared the shit out of me calling here. I thought something had happened.”
“Yes, I had to resort to antiquated technology. That’s what happens when you ignore five calls and ten messages,” she retorted.
I sighed, rubbing my face. “I’m sorry. It’s just…something happened, and I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”
“Oh, I know all about your disastrous last session.”
My eyes widened. “What? How?”
“The guys called and told me about what happened with Abel. And they told me they asked you to join the band. Congrats, by the way. They wanted me to try and talk some sense into you.”
I scoffed. “No need to worry about that. Actually, everything is finally making a ton of sense.”
I could practically feel her eye roll.
“Ade, don’t be a fool.”
“I won’t be going forward, although I’ll admit I have been one for the past four weeks. I let myself get sucked into a pipe dream, as Liam so aptly called it, and now I’m paying the price. Mol, they nearly convinced me to agree to their insane request. Can you believe what an idiot I’ve been? I really thought I could be Bleeding Moonlight’s new guitarist. As if that kind of stuff could ever happen to someone like me.” My voice was breaking.
“You’re not an idiot for believing in yourself, for Christ’s sake,” Molly exclaimed. “You’re an idiot for not giving it a proper shot. Although Abel’s little episode was downright dickish, you can’t just walk away without talking to them again. They still desperately want you to join them, and I think it’s the best goddamn idea I’ve ever heard.”
“I could never agree to play with them.” I hoped my tone conveyed the finality of that statement.
“Liar. This is everything you’ve ever wanted. Everything you’ve been afraid of. The best things in life are hard. They don’t come served on a silver platter. We fight for them with blood, sweat, and tears, and that effort is what makes them mean so much. We can fight for what we want, Ade. Don’t you want to set that example for me as an older sister?”
Tears were streaming down my face, and I sucked in a hoarse breath, no longer caring to hide my emotions from her.
“Oh, love…” Molly sniffed. “I’m crying too, if that makes you feel any better.”
I bawled into the phone, heavy sobs racking through me, and my sister joined me in solidarity. How had she turned out so well? I didn’t think I could love her any more than I did right then.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled once I managed to calm down. “All of it just means so much. It means so much that I don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. I wish I could excise the last month from my brain and go back to not knowing what I could have. Now that I’ve gotten so close to it, the loss is fucking crushing.”
“You haven’t lost anything yet. Talk to them,” she pleaded.
I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready, but I didn’t want to worry her any more. If she got even more concerned about me, I wouldn’t put it past her to take Mason’s car and drive back here so she could drag me to go see Bleeding Moonlight.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
She started to protest.
“I promise, Mol. I just need some more time.”
Her loud sigh rattled through the phone on my end. “Fine. No more ignoring my calls and messages, okay? I’ll be checking in with you every day.”
“Okay, deal.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I hung up and splayed out on the couch. I had no idea what I was going to do.
EZRA
“We need to give her space,” I said for what must have been the tenth time in the past twenty-four hours.
That’s exactly how long it had been since Adeline stormed out of the studio and Abel brought down the future we were trying to build. Turned out it was a house of cards, and one rogue joker was enough to send it crumbling.
“Where the fuck is he?” Cole bit out, dialing Abel’s phone once again. We sat in my living room. None of us had caught more than an hour of sleep through the night.
Abel had left after Cole punched him, and we’d let him, thinking it was a good idea for everyone to cool off. We hadn’t anticipated him disappearing, his phone off, and his house empty.
“The longer we wait, the further she’ll drift in the wrong direction,” Silas argued.
“That’s why we talked to Molly. I trust she’ll be able to smooth things out a bit,” Cole said.
“We need to talk to Abel and figure out what the hell is going on.” For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine what had set Abel off like that, given his earlier agreement to our plan.
“If we can’t reach him in the next hour, I’m calling the police,” I added. “We’ve waited long enough.”
As if hearing me, the front door opened, revealing a ragged-looking Abel on its threshold. His nose was taped up, and shades of purple were visible from under the bandages.
Cole jumped up, his expression a mix of anger and relief. “Where the hell have you been?”
Abel walked in and shut the door behind him. I didn’t know if his silence was a good or bad thing. He collapsed on t
he couch, lying on his back and rubbing at his eyes.
“I went to the hospital. Then I just drove around.”
I motioned for Cole to sit back down, and the bassist complied, his gaze bouncing between Abel and me.
“You wanna tell us what the hell is going on?” I asked, keeping my own temper in check.
The lead singer sighed and sat back up, his hands clasped together on his knees. Then, he told us about the fan. He repeated every cruel thing she uttered while his eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
“When I got home after the show, I spent all night thinking about what she said. How can we just replace him like that? He was our bandmate, our brother, my—”
He looked up at me for a brief second before he slammed his eyes shut.
“Your what?” Silas asked gently.
Abel shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try us,” I urged him, sensing he was holding back something big. Why else would he take the words of an insane fan to heart like this?
“I loved him,” Abel said, as if that changed anything.
“We all loved him,” I said.
“No. I loved him.”
Comprehension spread across Silas’s face. Cole tented his hands in front of his lips, shocked.
“You were together?” Silas asked, his voice careful.
“Sometimes,” Abel admitted. The air in the room was still. For the first time in as long as I could remember, none of us knew what to say. I leaned back into the couch and let out a breath. How did we not know this?
Our lead singer studied us, tense. “Charlie knew me better than anyone,” he began. “We both came from fucked-up families, abandoned as kids, jaded as adults, and pissed at the whole goddamn world. We were the same. I thought, who else could better understand me than a guy who was just like me? He knew the dirty, ugly things I’ve survived, and instead of recoiling, he dived right in. Somewhere along the lines, I developed feelings for him.”
My heart ached for Abel as my mind travelled back in time to sort through various memories that were suddenly colored in a different light. There’d been clues to how he felt, but we’d always been comfortable with each other, affectionate even. The looks and touches between him and Charlie had never stood out. I thought of the lyrics to the song he’d written with Adeline—another clue we hadn’t picked up on.
Taut Strings: A Rock Star Romance (River Valley Rebels) Page 31