Chapter 5
5
REMI
Now…
I have less than an hour until the car arrives, but I’m standing in the middle of my torn-apart bedroom, scanning for my red skirt like I haven’t had the past four weeks to pack for a four-month tour.
My eyes dart to the sound of my phone, buried under a pile of rejected outfits. I shove them off the bed and swipe to answer before even lifting the phone off the mattress.
“I’m drowning,” I say. “Send the Coast Guard.”
A deep sigh comes over the line. “You’re not even out of the kiddie pool, Sinner. Stand the fuck up.”
I lower onto the bed beside my suitcase. “Is this where you tell me you’ve taught me everything you can, and it’s time to make my way in the world?”
Heath huffs out a breath, the closest he gets to a laugh. “You know half of what I do, and I’ll be surprised if you make it through the first two weeks without calling me, crying, and begging me to bail you out.”
My mentor, ever the nurturer.
I grab a top from beside me and play with the label, distracting myself from the sudden tug in my chest. The same one as every other time I’ve thought about the documentary over the past several weeks. It starts with a second of bliss, realizing how close I am to what I’ve wanted for so long. Then it stings when I remember Foster’s hands gripping my waist, his calloused fingers dragging over my skin. The way he looked at me before walking away as Adams North.
The rest isn’t far behind, and I blink a few times, running my fingernail along the stitches of the tag.
“You’ll be fine, Sinner,” Heath says when my silence drags out. “If you’re not, I’ll make sure this tour is the last one of their careers.”
“You’re lying,” I tell him with half a smile.
He flicks his lighter on the other end, and I hear the crackle of burning paper as he lights a cigarette. “Of course I am. I’ve told you from the beginning I don’t do the coddling shit. You either grow a pair and rule the fucking world or get on your knees for those of us who already do.”
I blow out a breath and fold the top, laying it aside. “Well, thank you for the attempt. I truly appreciate it.”
Spotting red fabric, I go to the dresser, moving the jeans from on top of my lost skirt. I tuck it in with the rest of my clothes and then flip the lid shut before jerking the zipper across.
“You don’t need me spouting bullshit at you, Sinner. You know how to get your shots, and you have better vision than anyone I know—other than me. Just do what you do and don’t let anyone give you shit about it, got it?”
“And if they spend the entire tour hating me?” I ask. But they is Foster. His parting words have started to sound like a threat the more I’ve replayed them in my mind. I thought enough time had passed that he would have forgiven me.
I guess I was wrong.
“Who the fuck cares if a bunch of musicians hate you or love you?” Heath pauses to take a long drag. Then he gives me a, “You good?”
I inhale and toss my last bag with the other two beside my door. “The best.”
“Now we’re both liars,” he mumbles.
The world’s full of liars and the oblivious.
“Send me footage every few days,” Heath tells me. “Stay the fuck out of their hotel rooms, and I’ll see you in four months.”
He ends the call, and I sigh, letting the phone slip from my ear.
It took a lot of time to learn to sift through for the praise buried deep in talks with Heath. The takeaway from this little convo is he thinks I’m the person least likely to fuck this up. And it shockingly helps more than anything else anyone could have said.
* * *
Forty minutes later, I’ve got my suitcases by the door, and I’m fidgeting on the couch.
I’m digging through my messenger bag for the stack of index cards I have all of my notes for the documentary on when the bedroom door across the hall from mine opens. I look up at the bare back slipping through. Xander spins and walks down the hall, dragging a hand through his pink hair. He disappears toward the bathroom, but then he backs up and stops at the open archway to the living room. His eyebrows rise in surprise, and I give him a little wave.
“Hey,” he says before glancing back at his closed door. He braces in the archway for a second and then steps into the living room, rubbing a red mark on his shoulder. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”
He drops onto the cushion beside me, and I pull my feet up between us.
“They called last night and changed my pickup time to this morning.”
“That’s why you disappeared early last night?” His lips pull tight, and he groans, scrubbing his hands over his face. “You should have told me, Rem. I thought you left with someone.” His amber eyes set on me, his long lashes brushing his cheeks. “I would have come with you.”
I shrug as he slides his hand onto my knee. “No point in ruining both our nights.”
He glances at the door again, but his gaze darts right back to me. He drops his voice to keep it between us. “Definitely wouldn’t have ruined it.”
His fingers drag across the back of my hand until the door to his room opens, and I pull away. A girl steps into the hall in nothing but the shirt he wore out last night. She gives an awkward smile when she spots us on the couch together. Xander keeps looking at me, though, so after a second of being ignored, she scurries into the bathroom.
I push him in the chest once she disappears. “Dick.”
He chuckles and tips his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. “She knew that’s all she was signing up for.”
One eye peeks open at me, and I try to fight off a smile but fail.
“You’re terrible,” I tell him.
I swipe my bag off the floor and leave him and his hangover on the couch. He lifts his head so his heated gaze can trail me across the room, reminding me why I left early last night without telling him.
When we moved in together last year, our relationship was far less blurred lines. I’d needed a new place; he had a steady girlfriend. Since he’d taken over as Heath’s TA after I started interning, we already knew we got along. Then his relationship ended, and we realized we got along in other, naked ways.
It usually happens when we’re drunk and neither of us has brought someone home. A backup body when another falls through. But last night his eyes stayed on me, his hand sinking low on my back and pulling my body against his at the bar.
I was the girl he wanted to take home, the toy he wanted because soon he wasn’t going to be able to have me. Isn’t that part of the human condition? Wanting what we can’t touch.
“Hey.” Xander follows me to the door and tugs me against his hot chest. “I’m going to miss you.”
I sigh, allowing myself to relax into him. “Just keep the girls out of my bed.”
“Not a promise I would ever make.”
He cracks a grin as I push him away, everything seeming to shift back to the way it should be between us as he gathers up my bags. This is the Xander I signed up for—no strings, no emotions.
I hold the door open for him, and he bounces down the stairs with me right behind him. I’m pulling my messenger bag off his shoulder when a black van pulls to the curb.
The door swings open, and a familiar smile appears. Colton gets out in a short-sleeve black tee, his biceps more intimidating than I remembered. His black hair glistens in the morning sun, and he leaves his sunglasses on and strides over to us, bending for my luggage on the sidewalk.
“Lioness,” he says. He slips his shades down to wink at me over the top of them before pushing them back up and grabbing the strap out of my hand.
“I want that one,” I tell him.
Rather than answer, he hands the messenger bag off to Christian, who’s climbing out of the back seat. He loads the others while the band’s manager hooks the button of his jacket. His gaze completes what I’m sure is going to be a habitual scan of my legs.
Ignoring the return of borderline inappropriate Christian, I turn to Xander. “Keep Heath alive for me?”
Even after the hell of being Heath’s TA, he agreed to fill in when needed while I’m away. If he thought it was bad before, he has no idea what’s waiting for him as an assistant.
Xander nods. “You got it.” Then he surprises me and wraps his arms around me again. His lips press to the top of my head, a hand in my hair. “Go be great, okay?”
I ease away from him, and when I turn around, Christian has an entertained look to him. He sweeps his arm across his body, gesturing for me to climb in.
“Sinner,” he says, his voice low as I pass him.
It sounds more like approval of my outfit than a greeting. I take my bag back from him, and he smirks. He grips my elbow to help me into the van, but I hesitate when my eyes lock with an icy blue stare. Foster’s in the seat on the other side. I blink a few times, still in partial disbelief it could really be him.
Everything I wanted and couldn’t touch at one time. Then it all became a memory I hated to even be reminded of. Because memories are like a web, tugging at other ones and bringing moments to the front of our minds that threaten to break us.
He looks away first. His gaze falls and then moves out the window. My eyes shift to the two guys in the third row of seats. Dev and Felix are both zoned out, neither offering more than a nod. I slide into the seat in front of Dev, pulling my bag with me onto my lap.
The band’s been back in LA to rehearse the past few weeks. The shows on this leg have some changes from the previous two, accommodating for larger venues. They happened to be in New York for an interview today, so the label set it up for me to fly back with them. I just wasn’t expecting all of them to show up to my apartment building.
Christian’s already on his phone, sliding into the seat in front of me, and Colton slams the door shut on his way by. He hops in the front, and then we’re pulling away from the curb. I twist around enough to watch Xander and my tiny little life slowly disappear. It feels freeing to see it all fade away.
“Boyfriend or wannabe?” Christian asks.
I rotate around, my back touching the cool leather. “Roommate.”
“So, wannabe,” Christian says.
Foster shifts, and I catch his reflection in the window. Since he walked out of the bathroom in Prague, I’ve scoured the internet for pictures of Adams North. I’ve seen him on stage, grabbing coffee, signing autographs, serenading a crowd with his eyes closed, hand on the mic like he’s untouchable.
The images have merged with my memories, and even though I don’t know the tortured eyes and hard-set jaw of the musician a few feet away, it feels like I should. Like I have this sliver of my soul that suddenly feels foreign inside me. The memories of who he was not lining up with who he is.
When I look up, his gaze meets mine in the tinted glass. Then it happens. The buzz of excitement gives way to the tug. A tug that drags me under and into the words and hurt lurking beneath the surface between us. Foster holds me hostage there, and something tells me he plans to keep me under the entire tour.