Chapter Fifty-Two
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
BONNIE
“Hey, can she just come here?” Reed says the following morning over video chat. “This is kind of maddening.”
I chuckle and glance Gemma’s way. She’s standing with her arms over her chest on the other side of my kit while I chat with the guys about the album. My anxious feet come down on the double-bass pedals, and she steps around the kit so they can see her as she says, “You’re welcome to come here, but no. Bonnie is staying here for a couple of days.”
“I feel like you two just wanted a sexcapade— ow! ”
Andi smacks her brother on the arm and rolls her eyes. “We just miss you, Bon,” she says.
Mads eyes Gemma, and the way he’s staring at her, it makes me wonder if…
Ha.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he knows about her being my stalker. He notices everything.
“Is there something we should be worried about?” Zeb asks. “Like why she’s on house arrest?”
“Is it about the attack?” Mads asks.
He definitely knows.
“Yeah. It is about the attack,” Gemma says. “We have everything under control.”
She presses her hand to my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. I wish I understood the mechanics around why my heart feels like it’s fucking dissolving when she looks at me like that. All I can think about is our sunrise conversation, and the memory makes my stomach twist.
“Bondage, you’re good with?” she asks as we walk on the beach.
“Obviously,” I say. “You tied me up in my sleep the other week.”
“I still have to ask,” she argues. “Every base. So any kind of restraint? Ropes, chains, leather… Complete immobilization?”
“Oh god fucking yes,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to be eaten out while suspended from the ceiling.”
Gemma peers my way, and I can’t discern the look in her eyes.
“What’s that face?” I ask.
“I’m going to have to take another knotting class,” she answers.
“Another?”
“Another.”
“I’ll be in the other room, okay?” Gemma says, her voice bringing me out of the daze.
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.”
Gemma smirks, and I tug on her hoodie in response, bringing her down to my lips.
A collection of whistles and coos sounds from the group, and I shove my hand over the camera to shut them up, garnering more laughs and cheers from each of them.
She chuckles into my mouth at their happy praise. We part after a beat, and she kisses me shortly once more before flipping off the camera and leaving the room.
I twist back to the phone, unable to keep the stupidly pathetic and happy expression off my face, only to find everyone huddled around the couch—Andi and Wren included—beaming at me.
“Shut the fuck up,” I laugh. “Aren’t we supposed to be working?”
“Aw. I’m happy for you, Bon,” Andi says.
“I knew you two were going to get together this week,” Reed declares. “Zeb owes me money.”
“Why?” I look at Zeb. “What did you bet?”
“I was betting after RagnaRock,” he admits.
“Well… things escalated. Quickly ,” I tell them.
Zeb whistles, and I shake my head at him as I grab my water bottle off the floor to take a sip.
“So, is it good?” Andi asks.
I choke, and the others gawk at her.
“What— not the sex! Obviously the sex is good. Look at the two of them. No, I mean, like it isn’t terrifying,” Andi goes on. “I know you were worried about things.”
I scratch my neck with the end of my drumstick, heat filling my cheeks. “Yeah, no, I get what you mean. Everything is great, though. It’s… working. For once.”
And I actually mean it.
Because Gemma is everything I didn’t know I needed.
“How are you , Bed?” Mads asks.
I know he means after the attack. I know he means if I’m keeping out the invasive thoughts.
I sigh and slowly nod. “I’m… trying? I guess you could say. Just keeping my fucking mind off of it. The beach helps. We went surfing at sunrise. There were some killer waves, dude. You guys should come just to get out there.”
“I’m always game for the beach,” Zeb says. “And seeing your dad. I like your dad.”
“How are you doing otherwise?” Mads asks. “Like… do you need us?”
“I always need you guys,” I say, something about the question and the way they’re staring at me making my heart seem even more full than it’s ever been. “I wouldn’t be here without all of you… But to answer your question, I’m okay. Now.” My eyes move to Reed, and he holds up his pinky finger, to which I do the same.
“What the hell?” Zeb says. “When did I become your ex?”
“If there’s one thing Reed Matthews doesn’t do, it’s act like a bulldog when I tell him I have a problem,” I say pointedly to Zeb.
He settles back on the couch, mouth twisted into a sour pout. “Yeah, fine,” he says. “That’s fair.”
“At least you’re self-aware,” Andi teases him.
I sit back and hit the double-pedals again. “Hey, are we doing this?” I ask.
There’s a knock on the door from their side, and Andi stands up to answer it. She presses her hand to her stomach, her wince so mild that if I hadn’t been watching her, I wouldn’t have noticed. Mads catches her hand when she passes him, and the way he peers up at her… there’s a sparkle of something new in his gaze.
I stare at Mads, willing him to look my way so I can telepathically communicate my question to him because I could just be making shit up in my head. And when he catches my eye, I raise my brows, and he winks at me.
“Shut up,” I excitedly mouth to him.
Is she pregnant?
I want to ask outright; however, with the way they’ve been battling this, I don’t know that it would be a good idea, especially if they’re not ready to tell people.
Mads draws his fingers across his lips like he’s zipping his mouth closed, and I nod as Reed and Zeb finish settling their bet money.
“Okay, did we settle on the beginning?” I ask them.
“Oh, wait—sorry—” Andi comes in front of the screen again. “Hey, Bon. Kade has a moving truck with your things. Do you care if Wren and I set up your apartment?”
My brows narrow. “Oh. Um. Yeah, that’s fine,” I say.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
Obviously, my things were getting moved.
There was a dead body in my apartment, for fuck’s sake.
“What’s wrong?” Zeb asks.
“Ah, nothing. Nothing.” I straighten on my stool, sticks up. “Let’s go.”
By the time we wrap up, I’m sweaty and starving. We’re almost at a place to start recording before RagnaRock, and I can’t wait to hear it all come together. If we end up playing it at the festival, it’ll be the most epic fucking thing ever.
I’ve barely been off the phone ten minutes, still coming down from the creative high, when Gemma sticks her head in the door.
The sight of her immediately brings a smile to my lips.
“Hey, pretty,” I say, glancing at her from my phone. “Where did you go?”
She smiles and shuts the door behind her. “Errands,” she says. “Thought you were safe enough here for a couple of hours, especially on the phone with the band. Your dad just left to get more groceries now that I’m back.”
I eye the bag. “You got me a gift?” I ask, brows lifted.
Gemma’s smile widens, though she doesn’t answer. “Kade said they were already asking about coming here tomorrow,” she says.
“Yeah, I have a feeling they’ll be here in the morning,” I say. “Hey—he knows, doesn’t he?” I ask, remembering the way Mads was watching her. “Mads. He figured it out?”
Her gaze narrows on me. “How do you know that?”
“The way he stared at you. It was like he was trying to send you a telepathic threat.”
Her eyes linger on the floor, and she sighs. “Yeah. He figured it out. He saw me threaten Rad at Radio Eleven. So, that was fun.”
“Oh shit,” I say, face faltering. “He doesn’t know—”
“No,” she answers fast. “No, I didn’t tell him any of that. I told him he needed to ask you. It’s totally up to you whether you tell them anything. It’s always up to you.”
I nod and stare at the drumsticks in my hands for a minute, letting that news settle within me. The way Reed reacted when I told him warms my chest, and I know… I know each of them should hear it. They were there. They’re my best friends, my family.
They should know.
I take my phone out to text Mads and make sure he knows I’m okay with all of this.
Hey. I know about Gemma.
I know who she is.
Mads
Are you okay?
Yeah. We’re figuring it out.
Really. It’s a good thing.
I trust you.
Kade and Liam got your headboard and bed frame in, and some personal boxes and clothes, but he didn’t bring anything for the living room, your mattress, or any other furniture. I’m not sure why. Andi wants to know if you have a particular style you like.
I chuckle.
Is she decorating for me?
I think she just wants you to feel like you’re at home here.
Thanks.
Tell her to have fun with it. I’ll send her whatever money she needs.
Nah. Treat from your brothers.
We have you, Bed.
See you soon.
Waking up the next morning hits a little differently.
Because today, I get to write two hundred and fifty-nine on the mirror.
One more week, one day at a time…
I want to celebrate with my entire family. Without them, I’d be back at zero.
And that includes Gemma.
We hung out with my dad most of yesterday afternoon, then went to bed early—or, we tried to. It’s difficult falling asleep when I can’t seem to stop talking and sharing every thought that runs through my head with her while she smiles softly. And when she let me be the big spoon last night, I couldn’t stop grinning as I touched her.
There’s something about the early morning that makes me feel as if the night is hanging onto its time as much as I am. I’m curled in Gemma’s arms on my dad’s largest paddle board, the calm ocean rolling beneath us as we watch the sky turn from night to day. Laying against her chest, her hands raking up and down my bare thighs… This might be fucking paradise.
I take my phone out to click a selfie of us, and while she still has sleep in her eyes, they’re stunning against the golden morning glow.
“I don’t think someone is allowed to be as sexy as you,” I say before taking another photo of our view.
She kisses the top of my head, her calves dangling in the water. “I could say the same thing about you,” she says.
I tap over to one of my social media pages and start to post the picture of the sunrise, but Gemma pauses me.
“Wait, before you post, go to your followers’ list.”
My gaze narrows, and it takes me a second to realize why she’s telling me to do that. “We could be at any beach. Rad isn’t smart enough to figure out that.”
Her brows lift like she agrees, at least about the last part. “I did get rid of their IT guy,” she says.
I sit up and look back at her, taken aback by the nonchalant claim.
“Get rid of?” I ask.
“Ah…”
“Okay, we’re really going to have to talk about how many people you’ve ‘taken care of,’” I say, mildly bewildered by the fact that she talks about it so casually.
She scoffs. “I’m curious what you think I did while we were apart,” she says. “Where do you think Kade and I met, or how our company got such an astounding reputation that your people hired us?”
I push out of her arms just so I can turn around and see her face. “What, were you a hit team?”
She doesn’t respond other than to lick her lips and glance at the ocean. “Well… I mean, kind of? Not like you see in movies. That shit makes it look much more glamorous than it is—though, we were paid well,” she says.
“How did you get into doing that?” I ask, genuinely curious how she came about such a job.
“Kade and I met in college. We grew really close, really fast. I think we bonded over a mutual obsession for conspiracy theories—but ones about aliens… timeline shifts… Big Pharma—that one was huge.”
“Oh, I would love to hear the alien theories because Zeb and I have a few,” I say eagerly.
“That does not surprise me,” she says, beaming.
“So you and Kade decided one day to be a team? How does that work?” I ask.
“He figured out early on what I was doing in my spare time—stalking you. Actually caught me on a camera one day and sent it to me. I was so fucking embarrassed. I had that… Do you remember the half-mask I used to wear? The blue contacts and wig?”
“I still have dreams about you in that,” I admit.
She smiles. “Kade found those and threw them at me one day, telling me he knew what I was doing and that I needed to be more careful doing it. He had cleaned up the camera footage and everything without me asking that night, and I was completely caught off guard by the fact that someone could do that. After that, we kind of became partners. Kade had a reputation for being the person who could clear anything. A fixer. Sometimes those people needed more than computer wiping. I had skills. I had time. We weren’t necessarily mercenaries for hire. We were very crafty in our downtime, and that resulted in some jobs that required us not to ask questions. For a while, it worked out. We had money coming in. The jobs weren’t too difficult. One day, though, things fell apart. It was after I’d left you, after that Halloween. I started working more and more jobs on my own after that just to keep myself busy. Kade took a job without me, and it happened to be an FBI coverup.”
“Oh shit.”
“He went to jail for four years for that,” she tells me. “Once he went to jail, I stopped working in that industry and started concert security. It didn’t take me long to get a reputation there of being someone people didn’t mess with. Liam joined me. Then, when Kade got out of jail, we started our own security business.”
“Did James know…”
She laughs. “James knew exactly who Kade was when Death Tower approached us,” she says. “That was one of the reasons he approved us. He knew what we were capable of.”
I pick at the board for a moment, taking it all in. “So, Kade was the one texting me when we were together, then,” I say, remembering my confusion. “In the car those few times.”
She nods slowly. “He was, yeah.”
“And… he’s the one who cleared the videos that night?” I ask, remembering hearing that there was no evidence of who attacked the guy in the bathroom.
She continues nodding.
“And he set up the cameras in my apartment,” I go on.
She nods again.
“Are there any cameras in my new apartment I should know about?” I ask.
Gemma pauses, and I can see her genuinely thinking about the answer. “I didn’t ask him to put any in there, so apart from the ones in the halls he should have put up for general security, no.”
“Is there anything else I don’t know about?” I ask.
She stares at her hands for at least a minute, squinting as if trying to go through every memory for evidence of something we’re missing, something that might be our undoing. She takes so long that I nearly start to believe she’s told me everything, until she curses under her breath, and my stomach drops.
“What?” I ask.
“Fucking… Rad knows who I am,” she remembers.
I blink, confused. “What?”
She sighs and pushes her hair over to one side. “When you were attacked at Radio Eleven, I went out looking for the guy who did it. My assumption was that it was Rad, but I found him, and he was unscathed. Still… I roughed him up, and I let something slip that I…”
“ Gemma .”
“Anyway, he knows that I’m her,” she says. “He knows I’m the one who killed his friend, well, friends now, and that I’m your stalker.”
Well fuck.
“So… we have to be vigilant, right?” I ask, trying to keep a level head about it and not think too hard about the sound of Trevor’s neck snapping. “We have to… We just need to make sure he won’t be at RagnaRock. And once the festival is over, we what? Do we look for him? What is our plan?”
Her concern softens. She takes my hand into hers, and I don’t know why the gesture makes it harder to breathe.
“Once I know, I’ll tell you. I know you want to be a part of this, and while I don’t want you to get hurt, I know what this means to you. But I don’t want you to worry.”
“Gemma, I am worried,” I argue. “I worry about you taking all of this on your own. What if something happens?”
Her lips quirk at the corners. “You’re really cute when you’re concerned,” she says.
“I’m not joking,” I insist, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard myself sound like this before.
A quiet laugh leaves her. She leans over and kisses me, and at the feeling of her lips, I sigh into her, the fear in my head quieting—if only for the duration of the embrace.
“You don’t need to worry about this,” she says when we part, her thumb stroking my cheek. “I only want you to worry about the album and the festival in a couple of weeks. Let me take care of all the bullshit coming after us.”
I sink my forehead against hers and close my eyes.
“Tell me I don’t have to worry about losing you, too,” I say.
“You never have to worry about that,” she whispers. “Even if you decide you hate me, I’ll still be here. Always watching.”
“Creeper,” I tease.
“Says the one who loves the fact that I used to smell her in her sleep,” she drawls.
“Oh, hell yes,” I groan. “Tell me more.”
I shift and strap my legs over hers, our torsos aligning when she wraps her arm around my waist. Her lips meet my cheek again and again, the playfulness rising between us. “You want to know how I used to stuff your underwear in my mouth when I touched myself?”
“So you could taste me?” I ask eagerly.
“I was desperate for any taste I could get,” she says, her teeth dragging along my jaw.
“Did you ever drink my bathwater?” I ask.
“At every hotel.”
“God, you’re fucking disgusting,” I breathe, shoulders drawing up. “I love it. Tell me more.”
At the sound of a horn blowing, we both look to the house.
It’s an excited-sounding horn blow—as if a parade route is coming through—and I just start laughing.
“Wow. They’re earlier than I thought they would be,” I say.
“Same.” She kisses my cheek again as if she doesn’t want to move. “Will you tell them I’m the woman who withheld who she was at the Masked Mayhem just to fuck you on a bathroom sink?” she asks, biting my earlobe. “What will they think when they find out I fucked myself with your thong and sucked on the fabric after just to know how we would taste together?”
The hair on my neck rises. “I’ll just tell them to go home,” I say. “This…” A forced breath leaves me. “I can’t handle this kind of information before I’m supposed to work.”
Gemma chuckles and pulls back to kiss me, and I wrap my arms around her neck to hold her there for one more moment.
Elongated sighs leave us both as if we know once we paddle in, we’re no longer just us. There are things we have to face. Subjects we have to talk about with the band. The thought of it all pops the little bubble we’ve settled into, and I sigh as I pull back to look at her.
“Nothing changes because they’re here,” I say. “Even if they all find out who you are, it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. They can’t change my mind about being okay with who you are. This? You and me?” I chuckle, feeling the sardonic smile licking my lips, embracing the euphoric swell inside. “What we are is feral and sick and god, I fucking love it.”
Gemma’s eyes soften. She pulls me flush against her again, burying her head in my shoulder as we hug. The embrace does something to my body—it makes my muscles restless, brings an energy to them that I don’t know how to contain. I close my eyes and hold her tighter, wondering if I just surrender completely, will my soul feel complete?
“I love you,” she whispers into my hair.
Goosebumps rise over my arms when she says it. There’s no urge to run, no inkling of fear, not even a threat of nerves. I feel the words in my bones. They reach into the darkest corners of my mind and stroke the maddening itch, and suddenly, I’m entirely free.
The end of the Wonderland tunnel is within reach.
And while I can’t say those three words to her yet, I know they’re on the tip of my tongue. I won’t say it until I’m fully there. I won’t do that to her, not when I know she can see through me like she does.
I shift just so I can kiss her again, hoping to fuck she can feel it in my lips, my touch.
We part, and when our eyes meet, I stroke her cheek with my thumb, heart feeling like someone just lassoed a rope around it. My mouth opens, but Gemma shakes her head, a nervous smile on her lips.
“Don’t say anything,” she whispers. “This… you in my arms, giving me a chance to prove myself… That’s enough for me.”
She kisses my cheek, then my forehead, and before I can say anything, she stands to paddle us in.
Zeb is on the beach when we reach it.
“Look at this—you two take long walks on the beach now? That’s cute,” he teases us, his arms open.
I run across the sand and bound into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist as he hugs and spins us. His laughter mingles with mine. I hear the rest of the band inside, yet as Zeb sits me on the ground, he beams at me in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time.
“You look really fucking good, Bon,” he says, eyes narrowed. “Is this what happy looks like on you? Why does it feel like I’m looking at a different person?”
I shove him and shake my head. “It’s the beach, man,” I say. “All this sun makes a person glow.”
“I think something else is making you glow.” He glances past me to Gemma, who’s pulling in the board. “Hey, Amethyst.”
Gemma scoffs and wipes the sand off her hands. “One day, I’ll have to pull you and Reed out of a crowd by your ears, and on that day, you’ll call me Mommy. Not Amethyst,” she taunts.
Zeb whistles and grins, clapping his hands in front of him. “The beach is doing you good, too, huh?” he teases.
“You’re an ass.” I push him toward the stairs. “Get inside before she buries your dead body in the sand.”
“Terrible place for a body,” he argues.
I roll my eyes and nudge him forward.
“Hey—” Gemma says to me. “I’m going to go shower this sand off and catch up with Kade,” she says, nodding toward the balcony where he’s just appeared. Her lips press to my forehead. “I won’t be long.”
The only word I can manage is, “Okay.”
“There you are,” I hear another voice say.
Gemma grabs my ass as she pushes past me, and I jump in response, trying to play it off when I see Andi making her way toward me from inside.
“Me?” I say, lifting my brows. “There you are. Hey, gorgeous.”
Andi laughs and hugs me tightly, her embrace swaying us slightly.
There’s something about the extra grip in her hug that alerts my body, and when we part, I feel my brows narrow. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
However, she smiles and shakes her head. “We can talk later,” she says. “Mads is dying to talk to you about this record. It’s all he’s talked about for days.”
I sink my arm around her shoulders. “Let’s not keep him waiting, then—Oh shit, Zero!”
The bulldog mutt comes skipping across the room, bounding over couches, and when he reaches me, he jumps into my arms. I nearly fall backward with laughter when he uncontrollably licks my face.
“Zero!”
I laugh and crouch on the ground, giving the dog a good scruff.
“Zero, get off,” I hear Mads saying as he joins us. “You’ve slobbered the whole way here.”
“Oh, he just missed his Auntie Bon Bon,” I coo.
The way Mads looks at me makes me eye him. His hands are in his pockets, shoulders rounded forward like he’s ready to give me a tired, “what the hell,” Maddox scolding. And when I eventually straighten, I snicker and hug him.
“Hey, Bed,” he says into my hair.
“Hey, Mads.”
He hugs me a little tighter than his usual.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks softly.
“I’m good, Mads,” I say. “I promise.”
“Are you sure? I haven’t been locked up in a while. They might give me a get-out-of-jail-free card if I need one,” he replies, and I laugh as we part.
“Okay, big brother,” I taunt, meeting his eyes. “No. I’m good. Really. Like my head feels… clear. A lot clearer than it has in a while. I’m good with it.”
He nods like he gets my drift. “Okay.”
I know it isn’t the last time he’ll mention it, and he’s more than likely going to still chat with Gemma, but at least for now, we have an understanding.
“I have some shit I want you to hear that Zeb and I worked on after we got off the phone yesterday,” he says. “You’re going to kill it. I was working on lyrics this morning.”
“Can’t fucking wait,” I say as anticipation swarms through me. My gaze catches on Wren crossing the room next, her dog, Anita prancing at her side.
I grin her way. “Reed dragged you out here, too, huh?” I tease because I know she hates the sand.
Wren sighs and looks past me. “I was sold when he promised not to throw me in the ocean,” she says.
“Yeah, that’s a lie,” Andi laughs, straightening from petting Anita.
“I know it is, but he looked stupidly adorable when he was begging, so here I am,” Wren says.
I snort. “You love it,” I taunt.
“I really fucking hate sand,” she says, a flicker of a smile on her lips.
Anita licks my face, her butt wagging when I pet her, too. “Say, ‘That’s okay, Mom. There’s an outside shower you can make him look for every grain of sand on you in.’ ”
Andi puts her fingers in her ears. “La, la, la. Walking away.”
She turns on her heel, and I chuckle, then stand up to hold my arms open to Wren as an invite because I know she’s wary about hugs.
Even so, she gives me a rare smile and steps into my embrace, and I gladly take it.
Reed catches my eye over her shoulder. I point to his wife, mouth open in surprise.
“ I get a Wren hug! ” I mouth to him.
He holds two thumbs up in response and grins.
“Are you okay?” Wren asks into my hair.
I nod when we part. “Yeah. I am, actually,” I admit.
“And you and Gemma…”
I raise my brows at her. “Mrs. Matthews, are you asking for gossip? ” I joke.
She wrinkles her nose. “Ugh. Don’t tell anyone. Especially Reed,” she says. “But yeah, I am.”
I snicker. “It’s really great, actually.”