Midnight Stage

1. Raleigh

Raleigh

1

How the hell does one sibling shoot out of the uterus fanny pack and turn into a literal rockstar with millions of screaming fans, while the next kid sludges out of the hoo-ha of life and turns out like me?

Someone make it make sense, ’cause the math ain’t mathing. Like, please? I’m not above begging. Just give me some kind of explanation as to how my brother was awarded all the good DNA, and I was left with the scraps. Like, come on! There are a good three years between us, so surely the incubator chamber had plenty of time to cook up some of that good DNA, and yet, it decided to pop out a dud instead.

My brother, Axel Stone—the best friend I’ve ever had—is quite literally one of the biggest rockstars in the world. He and his best friend—He Who Shall Not Be Named—started a band as teenagers, and now Demon’s Curse is the number one reason for panties dropping all over the globe.

Axel is out dominating the world with the devil spawn and their bandmates while I’m out here failing every college class I signed up for. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. I’m not failing all of them, but the dean has one hell of a good excuse to kick my ass out of here if the mood strikes, but she won’t because her phone wallpaper is a photograph of my brother in his tighty-whities for his big Calvin Klein campaign. Don’t ask me how I know that. It was an awkward encounter for both of us. I’m just glad she didn’t come at me with a printout and ask me to get it signed like my high school biology teacher did.

On the other hand, I don’t have a single talented bone in my body. That was obvious the day Axel handed me his guitar with the grand idea to turn me into a little rockette. Or rock chick. Or . . . Wait. What do they call a girl version of a rockstar? You know what? Who fucking cares? All that matters is that Axel isn’t a quitter. He pushes himself until his every dream is in the palm of his hand. That much is clear by his successful career, and yet, the asshole took one look at me scrambling to hold his guitar and gave up within two minutes. He’s only a quitter when it comes to me.

Okay, that’s not fair. I suppose I’m a little sour. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jealous of my brother, I really couldn’t be prouder of him. He has everything he’s ever wanted, and he worked his ass off. Me, Axel, and Devil Spawn sat around our tiny little coffee table back home in Michigan and hand made flyers for their very first gig, and now those stupid little flyers are billboards in Times Square that lead to sold-out arenas across the globe.

It’s insane.

I just wish he took me with him.

Fuck, I miss that asshole.

Life back home . . . Well, there’s a reason I worked my ass off to get into the farthest college from my hometown. Being away from that place was the only dream I’ve ever had, and now that I’ve achieved that, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with myself.

The grand plan is to make it to New York or Los Angeles and go from there. I want to be in the music industry, working behind the scenes on tour prep. I always loved that when I was helping the boys. I excelled at it, and even though I was three years younger than them, I was the one running the show. That’s where I was in my element, and while I know Axel will pull all the strings in the world to make it happen, it’d be cool if I could somehow do it on my own. I want to know that I earned it, and I wasn’t just handed success as a favor to my big brother.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I push back from the table and tear my gaze away from my laptop screen. I can’t look at my shitty grade for another moment. My communications class was my strongest class last semester, and in the space of a few months, I’ve crashed and burned.

It’s depressing. What big label is going to want to hire me on my own merit like this? I’ll be the laughingstock of the music industry. Just what I wanted!

“How’d you do?” my best friend Madds asks as we spend our Thursday afternoon sprawled across our cramped apartment.

“I did just about as well as you did on your business exam last week.”

“Shit,” she says, sucking in a breath and cringing. “That bad, huh?”

An unladylike groan rumbles through my chest, and I drop my forehead to the hard table, instantly regretting it as pain shoots through my brain. “I’m a mess,” I tell her, talking directly into the table, my lips smooshed against the wood.

“You’re not a mess,” she tells me. “You just need a little retail therapy.”

I lift my head and stare at Madds as I resist rolling my eyes. By retail therapy, she means candles. She always means candles. It’s a sick obsession. They’re everywhere and take up every available surface, but there’s no denying our home smells like a fortress of magical wonder. But after tripping over a box of them for three months, I had to put my foot down, and now she tries—and fails—to keep them within the confines of her bedroom, but who am I to tell her she can’t live her best life?

Getting up from the table, I go to find my bag, knowing that once retail therapy has been mentioned, there’s simply no avoiding it. “And to think, I could be on a world tour right now.”

Madds scoffs. “Stop trying to kid yourself,” she says. “You and I both know you were never going on that tour.”

This time there’s no resisting the eye roll. She has a very valid point.

Demon’s Curse is currently making their way around the globe for their third world tour, and as long as He Who Shall Not Be Named is the front man, I’ve made a point to stay away. Hell, I know Axel is hurt by the fact I won’t listen to their music anymore, but he understands why and forces himself to be okay with it.

Their first tour was huge. They were already experiencing international stardom once their first album dropped, but by the time they wrapped the first tour, they were household names. I was only sixteen and there was no way Axel was going to let me drop out of high school just to go on tour with them, but by the time the tour had wrapped, it didn’t matter anyway because everything had already changed.

Ezra Knight. The lead singer of Demon’s Curse, A.K.A. Devil Spawn, and Axel’s best friend. Also often referred to as He Who Shall Not Be Named, but I suppose I ruined that now. Maybe it should be He Who Shall Not Be Named Out Loud.

He may or may not be the man I’ve been desperately in love with since I was thirteen years old, the one I still can’t seem to shake all these years later. He was sixteen when he first came around, and every time I looked at him, I knew that he would be someone special.

He was everything to me—the other half of my soul. We were the sweetest symphony, so perfectly in sync, but we were too young. I was too young.

Ezra is the textbook definition of right man, wrong time.

By the time I was sixteen, we were inseparable. He captured me in a way that would ruin me forever, but he was always careful not to completely cross that line. He kept the distance I needed to be respectful of my age, and while sometimes I hated it, I’m grateful for that now. We knew there would come a time when those limitations didn’t seem so bad, and I held on to that hope tighter than I’ve ever held on to anything in my life.

Everybody knew it. We were soul mates. The perfect couple that nobody else could even attempt to compare to. I was so lucky to have him, to have experienced him in his rawest form. To know him and to be the woman . . . or the girl he loved.

Not knowing him anymore hurts.

Hearing the songs I know are about me . . . hurts.

But knowing that the epic, all-consuming love we once had will never exist again in this lifetime . . . Well, that fucking kills me.

Maybe I was wrong to assume that Axel is the only lucky one in the family. Maybe we’re all allotted a certain amount of luck in a lifetime, and while Axel is out there using his in the best way possible, I used up all of mine on a man who would disappear in the blink of an eye.

That first tour should have been the best moment of our lives, but the second they packed their bags and walked out the door, the woman I could have been disappeared with them.

Everything changed, and almost in an instant, Ezra Knight became a stranger. He was no longer mine. He was theirs.

The boys were gone, and I was left alone . . . with him. Every day was a fight to survive, and I’ll never forgive them for leaving me behind. It wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t have known what was going to happen, nor did I ever whisper a word about it. I know it’s irrational to blame them for leaving me behind to endure that, but I still do.

If they never left . . . Fuck.

After their first tour, they made LA their home and got straight to work on their second album. Axel came home to check on me every now and then, but Devil Spawn never did. It’s been six years since I’ve seen him in the flesh. But when it comes to Ezra Knight, there is no avoiding him. He’s everywhere I go. Every time I turn on the radio. In my Spotify recommendations. News articles. Magazine covers. There’s no escaping the magnitude of Ezra Knight.

He was like a ghost that had whisked through my life and then left me in shambles. Maybe I was a stupid kid for assuming he’d come home to me after experiencing the crazy whirlwind of a tour. All the fans. The drugs. The parties. I’m sure all the guys were screwing their way across the globe, and yet I held out hope that he might have still been mine.

God, I was a fool for giving him my heart. He didn’t even have the decency to give it back. He just collected it like another one of his many guitars—something to be played with but never cherished.

“Your car or mine?” Madds asks, pulling me out of my internal spiral. She knows what mentioning the tour does to me.

“Uhhh, you drove last time. Let’s take mine.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” she says with a heavy sigh. “Mine’s on empty, and I really don’t have the cash this week for gas.”

I can’t help but laugh. “But you have cash for retail therapy?”

“Candles are a necessity. They’re a way of life,” she throws back at me, having the audacity to appear offended. “Gas isn’t.”

“You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”

“That may be true, but I’m an idiot with amazing candles.”

Ten minutes later, we’re flying down the road with the windows down and the music blasting from the speakers. My long, auburn hair whips around my face as we scream the lyrics, and a sense of peace settles in my chest. Thoughts of stupid rockstars and failed exams fall from my mind. Instead, I focus on our retail therapy.

I’m not exactly swimming in money. Don’t get me wrong, Axel has given me a credit card and insists that I use it for whatever I want or need, but I don’t. Using the money he worked hard to earn doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t like the thought of taking advantage of his success, so instead, I work for everything I’ve got. Mostly.

Okay, fine. When Axel insisted he pay for my college tuition and rent, I couldn’t resist. And not just because it sounded like every girl’s dream, but because the thought of getting out of my hometown was simply too good to refuse. Staying there wasn’t an option, and if he’d offered to pay for me to live in a cardboard box on the street, I would have accepted that too, assuming the cardboard box was anywhere but my hometown. The day I go back there will be a cold day in hell.

We creep closer to the mall, and as the music fades and a new song begins, the familiar chords played by my brother have my back stiffening. My heart begins to race as an immediate sweat begins taking over my body.

Oh no.

I have all of three seconds before his sweet words blare through my speakers—lyrics he wrote while sitting at the foot of my bed after dreaming about the life we could have had together. I was only fifteen, but the memory is etched into the fabric of my soul and will live there until my dying days.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Madds rushes out in a panic, wildly slamming her hand against the skip button on my dash, only to slip and smash her fists against the button for the hazard lights. “Oh fuck.”

The song skips to the next, and as another Demon’s Curse song fills the air, the panic becomes a fucking mockery. “Shit. I’m sorry,” Madds says, her brain short-circuiting as her hand dances between the skip button and the hazard lights, not sure which situation to fix first.

I go to help, reaching for the hazards, but our hands bump together, prolonging the whole situation, and as my panic turns into blind terror, I prepare myself for what I know is coming in three . . . two . . .

A call cuts through my Bluetooth, and I have no choice but to pull over and give myself just a moment to ease my racing heart. “Holy fuck,” I breathe, trying to get myself back on track, only to notice the call is from Axel.

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore my brother. He’s my best friend and the greatest person I’ve ever known, but when I’m around Madds, I go to extraordinary lengths to try and avoid him. While she is incredible in every possible way, her only downfall is her inability to mask her super-fan tendencies.

Demon’s Curse is her go-to for everything. She loves them, just like every other soul on the planet, and I really can’t fault her for it. They’re that good, fucking excellent actually. But I love her for trying to downplay her obsession while she's around me.

Not entirely recovered, I let the call ring out and wait a few moments to feel somewhat human again. I’m not always thrown off course when their music smacks me in the face, but every now and then, I’m caught off guard, and on a day like today, my fragile little heart simply can’t take it.

“You know,” she muses as I finally pull back out onto the road. “You really shouldn’t leave Axel hanging like that. He worries about you. You should definitely call him back.”

I give her a blank stare, knowing there are so many things on the tip of her tongue. “Really? That’s what you want to say right now?”

Her eyes all but bulge out of her head. “Hell no,” she blurts. “That song, ‘Hypothetically Yours’ is about you, but you know that, right? Like that’s insane! I wish I had some sex god who wrote songs like that about me. So fucking dreamy. And to think he was only eighteen when he wrote it.”

Madds lets out a heavy sigh and melts back into her seat. “Okay,” she says after a moment. “I think I got it out of my system.”

I eye her warily. I’ve been fooled by that one before, only to end up listening to her Demon’s Curse word vomit for three hours straight. “You sure?” I ask, arching a brow.

“Positive.”

I nod in relief and focus on the road. ‘Hypothetically Yours’ is strictly a song I don’t talk about because it’s so much more than just a song. It’s my whole heart in words—words forged out of a soul-crushing, intense kind of love that only comes around once every few lifetimes. I’ve never told her about the day he wrote it, never even whispered a word about it because, while the song is out there for the world to scream at the top of their lungs, the story behind it belongs exclusively to me and Ezra.

“So, you’re really just going to leave your brother hanging like that?” Madds asks a moment later. “You know how Axel worries.”

I side-eye her again, knowing she’s right, but like I said, I specifically go out of my way to avoid Axel while in her presence. I cringe, weighing up my options. “Can you be cool?”

Her mouth pops open, feigning offense. “Say what?! Me? Of course I can.”

“Really? Because last time you admitted to stealing clothes out of his suitcase and sleeping in them for three weeks straight after he visited me.”

“Can you blame me? It’s Axel freaking Stone.”

“No, it’s not. It’s my brother.”

“Yeah, who is also Axel Stone.”

I groan and press his name on my car screen before I get a chance to regret it. The call barely gets a chance to ring a whole time when Axel’s deep tone rumbles through my car speakers. “Sup turd.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m twenty-two. You can’t call me that anymore.”

“You’re my sister. I’ll be calling you a turd until the day I die.”

I roll my eyes and can’t help but notice the way Madds practically shakes with excitement beside me. “Just so you know, you’re on speakerphone so don’t say anything incriminating.”

“Let me guess,” he says, instantly turning on the rockstar charm. “Madds?”

Her eyes light up like Christmas morning. “How’d you know?” she gushes, her cheeks turning beet red.

“I can always tell when there’s a beautiful woman around,” he says, making me want to gag. “Call it a gift.”

“Oh my god! You’re so funny,” she says. “How’s the tour going? Wait. Where are you? Australia?”

“Nah. Australia is up next. We just wrapped our last show in Singapore.”

“Wait, like . . . just now?” she asks, getting all ditzy.

“Few hours ago.”

My brows furrow, and I glance down at the time. It’s already late afternoon here, so that must mean . . . “Shit, Axel. What time is it over there?” I demand. “Your shows always end around midnight, and if it’s been a few hours . . . Why aren’t you back in your hotel room sleeping?”

An amused laugh sounds through the car speakers. “I’ll give you one guess.”

My face falls, realizing he’s been spending his night indulging in the rockstar lifestyle. Alcohol, drugs, and easy women. And if that’s how he spent his night, then I can guarantee that He Who Shall Not Be Named Out Loud has too. Wonderful.

“Gross,” I mutter, hoping we can get this call back on track. “Why are you calling me so late then? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s sweet,” he says. “I was just checking up on you. You said you were getting your exam results back today. How’d that go?”

“We’re almost at the mall,” Madds offers.

“Ahhh, fuck. It didn’t go well? Retail therapy?”

“Yup,” I say, popping the p.

“Candles?”

“You know it,” Madds sings.

Axel sucks in a breath, the sound hissing between his teeth, and I can imagine the way he would have awkwardly grasped the back of his neck. “Shit. Okay, umm . . . You wanna talk about it?”

“Nah, I’m good—”

I hear a noise in the background, something kind of like a door opening. “Shit. Didn’t realize you were in here,” a familiar voice says, penetrating right through my soul. There’s a slight pause, giving me just a second to remind myself to breathe before it comes again. “Fuck . . . that her?”

Axel lets out a heavy sigh. “Shit. Yeah, man. Just . . . just give me a minute, alright?”

I hear the door close, and while it’s a subtle thud that fills the car, to me, it feels like a bullet right through the chest. “I’m sorry,” Axel says. “You good?”

I plaster a fake smile across my face as the heaviness weighs me down. “Yeah, I’m good,” I lie as Madds reaches across the center console and grabs my hand, giving it a tight squeeze. She’s capable of reading me so easily.

“Sure?”

“Yeah, listen, we’re just pulling into the mall parking complex,” I say, lying right through my teeth again. “The call will probably drop, but I’ll check in with you tomorrow before your flight to Australia.”

“Okay, yeah,” he says, his tone shifting with a shallow heaviness, making it clear he knows I’m lying but not being able to do anything about it. “I’ll talk to you later. Be safe, okay? And Madds?”

“Yeah?” she says, perking up.

“Look after my sister.”

“You know it!”

Ending the call before it somehow gets harder, I let out a heavy breath. “You really okay?” Madds asks, a deep skepticism in her tone as my eyes begin filling with tears.

“No,” I admit, needing to pull over again. “Just need a second.”

“Okay. Take your time.”

I blow out a heavy breath, my cheeks inflating like balloons, and in a flash, I hit the gas and whip the car back around. “Woah,” Madds says, gripping the door. “Where are we going?”

“Home.”

“But . . . but candles.”

“Fuck the candles, Madds,” I say, pressing a little harder on the gas. “We’re getting drunk.”