All Strings Attached

28. Zak

Their dress rehearsal went fine. It had been pleasant, even, which gave Zak hope that none of the guys were bothered by the scene they’d walked into.

She had always been the most stringent enforcer of her own laws, so it was difficult to know what to expect when she had never crossed a line before. As far as self-destructive activities went, she was among the safest in their group. She stayed sober when alone. Smoked only when nothing else could calm her down. She had never let feelings for a guy, or anyof her feelings, impede their work… until now.

And damn, she hated that she had done it today.

Maybe the others didn’t, though. Maybe this was no big deal to them, and it would all blow over.

But that optimistic thinking only carried her two blocks from the studio that evening, on her way back to the hotel, before Edge, Alex, and Dallas caught up to her by the intersection.

Edge leaned against the crosswalk button. “We need to talk about the Chase thing.”

“I’m a little busy if you hadn’t noticed,” she said. “Can you tell me what an idiot I am later?”

“Hard to do that when you’re always with him,” he pointed out.

Which explained why they’d cornered her while Chase was busy filming his one-on-one for the week.

There was a bite to Edge’s voice. One she had never heard directed at her before. Interpersonal affairs were half of what it meant to be in a band, the other half being the music, so Zak knew she was going to have to come clean at some point. She just hadn’t expected it to be a flogging when she did.

The crosswalk sign turned white and began counting down, but she stayed in place. She faced Edge, her jaw set. “Do you have a problem?”

“Plenty. I didn’t know you’d be the one creating them for me, though.”

“Hey, chill,” Alex said, more warning than suggestion. “It’s a talk, not an interrogation.”

Dallas got involved next. “Yeah, man, you’re her friend, not her dad. Loosen up.”

“Says problem number one.” Edge’s laugh was tired and bitter. His eyes drifted to the building behind Zak, like he was appreciating the window box filled with daisies that had begun to wilt from the oncoming fall weather. “See, I knew I’d be babysitting a drunk when we got here. Didn’t realize I’d also have to babysit the guitar and vocals to make sure they don’t screw up a good thing by screwing each other.”

“Back off,” Dallas interjected before she could get a word in. “You don’t have the first fucking clue what it’s taken for me to be here. Just because you can’t drink, that doesn’t mean you get to be a self-righteous dick when I do it. You might be able to forget about him and move on. Good for you. I never will.”

Alex scowled. “He’s not a self-righteous prick. He’s sick of handling your bullshit because you’re too emotionally stunted to handle your own bullshit.”

“My best friend is dead.”

Alex stared him down, and Zak swore she could see his past in the many multi-colored flecks of his hazel pupils. Ghosts and demons. And fuming, unadulterated rage. “So. Fucking. What?”

Dallas took a step forward, and Edge shoved him back.

It had been a long time since the four of them had been at each other’s throats like this. Probably a long time coming, after all they had been through. Zak stepped between the two of them, Alex on standby.

“This has nothing to do with Link,” Edge spat. “I haven’t forgotten Link. I haven’t forgotten the way he laughed it off every time one of us told him he’d gone too far. How he disappeared after shows and sometimes didn’t come back home for days. Youhave him on this untouchable pedestal because you miss him. Because you remember the good times, you remember the kid you grew up with, but I remember the end. I remember all the bad days, the fights, the close calls. Riding with Zak to pick him up at the police station.”

“And guess what?” Alex added. “You shouldn’t miss him too much, because you’re turning into him. A sorry, pathetic drunk.”

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Dallas shouted. “Does everyone here have a fucking problem with me? ‘Cause I’m gonna be real honest, I don’t care. I have enough problems of my own, and a real fucking friend would stick it through with me. Link would have stuck it through with me.”

“Alex is being a friend,” Zak said. “He’s being the friend you need, not the friend you want. The friend we tried to be to Link. Are you going to tell us to shut the fuck up, too, like he did? Because Link’s last words to me were, ‘Don’t you worry about me, Z, I’ll be just fine,’ and I think we all know how that ended.”

She had forgotten, momentarily, that they were standing outside at the crest of a beautiful evening. The sun was setting, the sky was sherbet orange. People were headed home after a relaxing weekend away from work. In the streets, horns honked. Bass thumped from car speakers and pulsed through the concrete.

On the sidewalk, people passed around where Zak and her friends stood like water flowing around boulders, paying no mind to the group of four hashing out their unresolved history outside a vacant bank.

It was an ordinary afternoon, by all standards, but the biting words and piling resentment were completely foreign to their band.

“Good thing you felt the need to lecture me about my issues, considering how great things are going otherwise,” she said. “You’re right. Me making out with Chase a couple of times is what’s going to kill the band.”

“I never said it was the only problem,” Edge said. “You think I haven’t been on Dallas’s ass, too? You think I haven’t had to handle my own shit before I end up back in the hospital?”

It finally sank in that he wasn’t angry. He had pushed past his breaking point, thinking he needed to keep everyone else in line. What an exhausting job. One that no one had signed him up for, and no one required.

“It must be really hard, being Mr. Perfect all the time,” she said. “So how about you quit trying? I’ll take care of me, like I always have, and you just worry about yourself.”

Edge took a deep breath and let the heat simmer off his tone. “I don’t blame you for wanting something more. A relationship, a connection. But why did it have to be him? I thought you had more self-control than that, Zak. I thought you wanted to be here. I never thought you would risk it all for some guy.”

Rage came to a boil in her blood, but only in part because of her best friend’s attitude. She was also mad at herself for letting it happen, for knowing she would let it happen again and again as long as Chase made her feel appreciated, understood, and desired in a way only he knew how. He was the first person she wanted to confide in now, even though it would only make things worse.

She shook her head. “That’s not fair, Edge.”

Sure, it would have been nice to turn off everything but logic and keep a detached, buttoned-up relationship with Chase. But her relationship with any of them was far from detached and buttoned-up. How could it be when they didn’t clock in and clock out every day from one another? When songwriting and music, by nature, required them to bare the best, the worst, and the realest parts of themselves.

“I’ve been here every step of the way. I’ve worked my ass off to make this show happen for us after Link died. Sure, I wasn’t sold on it at first, but I helped Dallas with the auditions, didn’t I? I scouted Chase out and convinced him to join. I put together all the practices. I spent all summer helping him learn how to be a musician.”

“But was it for the show? Or was it all for him?”

“It was for all of us.” Her cheeks stung. The sensation had her questioning whether he had physically slapped her in the face, or if his words alone had been enough to shoot razor-sharp splinters down her spine. “Everything I ever do is for us, for this band. Where the fuck is this coming from with you?”

“Do you have any idea how draining it is to be the only one who treats this like a job? It’s not a party, it’s not a hobby, and it’s sure as hell not a dating service.” He looked back at her like she had stabbed him in the back and twisted the knife around in circles. “I know you care, Zak. I know all of you care. But it’s been years and nothing, going nowhere, until now. This is our chance.” He glared at Dallas. “And still you can’t put down the bottle.” Then Zak, who glared right back. “And you can’t keep your legs shut.”

She knotted her hands in her hair, pacing backward before she lashed out because she didn’t know what to do next. Didn’t know what to say to him. All she saw was red.

“I don’t treat it as a job because it’s not. It’s my life. This is everything to me, and you all are my family.” A sudden onslaught of tears burned her eyes. “I just never thought you would treat me like they did.”

Her vision was hot and blurry, but she felt Dallas and Alex stand beside her, their grievances with each other placed on pause. And in front of her was Edge, shocked into stillness by his own terrible words.

“You should call it a night,” Alex told Edge firmly. “Before you say something you can’t take back.”

But he already had, and based on the look of horror on his face, he had realized it five seconds too late.

“Shit,” Edge cursed. “I’m sorry.” Then said it again, and again.

He pulled her into a hug that she rebuffed. Though she knew he meant the apology, some part of him had meant the insult as well.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” he told her, his voice smoothing in the way of sandpaper. Grinding and scraping its way to forgiveness. “I hate fighting with you. I hate that I said that.”

“I hate that you did too.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It doesn’t matter to me who you sleep with, or if you sleep with every guy you ever meet. I don’t care and I would never think less of you. You’re family to me, too. The sister I never had.” Edge held his hands out in surrender, wielding that endearment like a window into the past when they first became friends. Before either of them had thrown any stones.

She stared vacantly. “Well, you said it like that.”

“I know I did.” His voice softened once more. “All I meant to say was, I hope you talked it out with him. I hope you know what you’re getting into. Because that man has got it badfor you. He has from the very beginning. It doesn’t seem like he’s here for the band. It seems like he’s here for you. And nothing good could possibly come from him being hung up on the one woman he can’t have.”

It felt dangerously like Chase could have her, though. Like he already did.

“He’s here for the band,” she said, feeling guilty even if she didn’t owe Edge an explanation. Feeling uncertain in her conviction, as well. She hoped neither of those emotions were apparent.

“Are you sure about that?” Edge pulled a folded sheet of newspaper out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “Because I found this while we were out last night.”

While Chase and I were too drunk to notice.

It was ripped at the side, torn from one of the tabloids at the stands scattered throughout the city streets. Sports Underground, yesterday’s issue. A black and white photo of a smiling, middle-aged man in a polo shirt and hat graced the top of the page. A brief skim through the text told her that he was the owner of the Atlanta Raptors, a hockey team, and that Chase was in the running for their open assistant coaching position.

“Did he tell you anything about this?” Edge asked. Rather, he tested her.

If Chase told you something, would you tell us?

“No.” She tucked the paper away. “He didn’t.”

She thought the secrets had been dissolved between all of them, but it turned out Chase still had some of his own.