Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Rhys
Ibarely make it to my car before a couple of girls bolt out of the coffee shop, phones up, ready to snap photos.
I gun it out of the back car park, keeping my head low and hidden behind the sun visor as I pull onto the main road.
I’m in such a mad rush, I cut off the car behind me.
I’d give a quick wave to say sorry, but I’m too worried the driver’ll recognize me and want a photo too.
This has to stop. Not only the constant hassling from people who seem desperate to catch me out, but the fear that anyone I make eye contact with could be a former fan-turned online troll.
Or worse—someone hoping to go viral with a dodgy candid of me looking wrecked.
I don’t even know what the endgame is there.
Do they want the same fame they reckon has turned me into a massive arse?
If they do, good luck to them. They’ll find out soon enough that fame’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Still, I’ve got more respect for them than for the vultures flogging photos of me for cash.
My blowup at Lumen Field was so out of character that half the online mags are running “Find the Real Rhys” campaigns. They reckon they’re going to expose who I truly am. Not sure how they think they’ll manage that when I haven’t even figured it out myself.
Maybe I am the bloke who skips around on stage, smiling like life’s perfect while I sing songs about sunshine and happy endings. Maybe I’m just in a slump, like Danny keeps telling me. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I’m not the guy who lost it and refused to sing the song that made him famous.
That’s not me. I don’t lose my temper like that.
I don’t even know what came over me that night.
Everything suddenly hit at once: the pressure, the pretending, the worry about who I’ll be if it all disappears.
But I don’t want to think about that now.
I’d rather think about how Stella’s big cardigan kept slipping off her shoulder this morning, showing that tiny dimple in her collarbone I couldn’t stop staring at.
What kind of bloke obsesses over a collarbone?
Apparently, the kind who’s seen Stella Sparks in a top with straps thin enough to make that little hollow between her neck and shoulder impossible to ignore.
I reckon every woman’s got the same hollow, but on Stella, it’s something else.
And despite what an idiot I made of myself this morning, thinking about her makes me smile.
My smile grows when, as I turn onto the Pacific Coast Highway, my phone rings, and Stella’s name flashes on the screen. I didn’t think I’d hear from her again this soon, so I do my best to sound casual when I answer.
“Hi. Couldn’t wait to talk again?”
I wince the second the words are out of my mouth.
Brilliant, mate. Whoever ends up uncovering the “real Rhys” should know he’s absolute rubbish at talking to Stella Sparks.
I don’t know why my brain completely loses connection with my mouth the moment I try to say something halfway clever to her.
Or at least, something that doesn’t make me sound like an idiot.
At least on the phone, I can get actual words out, even if I regret them seconds later. In person, I’m hopeless. My mind just blanks, and I can barely string two syllables together. Kind of ironic, considering words are supposed to be my job.
Stella humors me with a small laugh. “Hey, I’ve been thinking about it, and you need to be in this meeting with Danny. I’m not going unless you do.”
My pulse kicks up, not only because I’m talking to her. “He didn’t ask me to be in that meeting. I can’t just show up.”
“Why not?” she asks. “We’re talking about you. Your life. Your story. You should be there. I’m not taking any arguments. You want me to manage your socials? I’ll see you at VibeHouse at three.”
She hangs up before I can even think of an argument. Probably for the best.
I doubt I would’ve managed to get a word out anyway. I’m so thrown, I nearly rear-end the car in front of me. I slam on the brakes, then laugh under my breath. Stella hasn’t left me much of a choice. Guess I’m going to a meeting at three.
Not keen on seeing Danny, but very keen on seeing Stella again.
At two-thirty, I’m sitting in my car in the concrete parking garage outside VibeHouse, kicking myself.
I didn’t mean to get here before Stella, but I left home too early.
Typical. Danny and I have been on rocky terms since the blow-up at Lumen Field, and I’d rather not face him alone.
He’s more polite when there’s an audience.
At the very least, he won’t start shouting.
I scroll through TikTok for a bit, but after the third “Rhys James meltdown” clip pops up, I close the app. When the urge to Google my name starts creeping in, I toss my phone onto the passenger seat and reach for the book Mum gave me.
After the Seattle disaster, I’d spent days holed up in bed, refusing to do anything but watch trash TV and sleep.
One morning, I woke up and saw a brown-wrapped package sitting on my bedside table.
I knew straightaway it was from Mum. Music isn’t the only thing she’s shared with me.
I figured it was another self-help read, so I ignored it for a few days before curiosity finally got the better of me.
Instead of some version of How to Get Your Arse Out of Bed When You Don’t Want To, the book was a signed copy of the first in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series, The Way of Kings—something I didn’t even know existed until that moment.
On the inside cover, Mum had written: Take a break from the real world with something that will inspire you to step back into it.
The page count intimidated me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually read a book, but once I started reading, I got sucked in.
Couldn’t put it down. As soon as I finished, I went straight to the second, then the third.
I’m on the fourth now, trying to pace myself because the next one isn’t out yet, but it’s torture every time I have to set it aside.
I’m properly nerding out, following online forums, reading fan fiction, diving into debates about the characters.
Everyone’s obsessed with Kaladin, but for me, it’s Shallan.
The way she hides behind different identities—how they’re both her trauma and her strength—gets under my skin.
Her story feels like my own. Mum was right about the series being the perfect escape from the real world.
I’m still waiting, though, for the books to inspire me to step back into it.
Truth is, this meeting with Danny and Stella is the first time I’ve dipped my toes back into real life since Seattle, and I’m not sure I’m ready.
So I spend the next twenty minutes in Roshar instead, losing myself in descriptions of stormlight and surgebinding until it’s two minutes to three.
I glance at my watch, swear softly, and toss the book onto the passenger seat before half-jogging out of the concrete car park toward the glass doors and marble foyer of VibeHouse Records.
In the elevator, my reflection looks back at me—hat shoved on, hair a mess, shirt rumpled.
I look more like I’m heading to the beach than a meeting that could decide my career.
When the doors open on the twelfth floor, I step into a hallway lined with gold records…
including mine. It should feel like an accomplishment. It doesn’t.
I nod to the receptionist and head straight for Danny’s corner office. I’m five minutes late. Stella’s already there, chatting with Danny like they’ve known each other for years.
I’m not surprised to see Stella laughing and smiling—that’s just who she is.
But Danny? Seeing him grinning like that is a shock. Usually, the only thing that makes him smile is a dollar sign followed by six or seven zeroes.
He hasn’t smiled at me in at least two years, not since my sales started slipping.
“There he is!” Danny exclaims, grabbing my hand like he’s about to shake it but dragging me into a bro hug instead. “You were right,” he whispers, slapping my back a little too hard. “She’s perfect. Don’t junk this up!”
I step out of his grip with a smile. He’s said Don’t junk this up—or something like it—so often that smiling’s a reflex now. Not a genuine smile, though. It’s a costume, same as I wear on stage.
“I told you she was amazing,” I say in the voice I reserve for Danny—my cheerful, this-is-a-great-relationship voice. My, I’m-so-glad-you’re-the-boss voice. My just-tell-me-what-you-want voice.
“So you two already know each other?” Danny says, glancing between us.
“My mate Dex is married to her cousin Britta.” My cheeks ache from keeping the smile in place.
“We’re practically family,” Stella adds. “That’s why I can show people who the real Rhys is and get his image back on track. Fans will be swooning over him again in no time.”
My head jerks toward her. The real Rhys? That’s not what we talked about this morning.
“The real Rhys?” Danny laughs, but there’s nothing friendly to it.
“Rhys showed them that in Seattle. Nobody wants that. They want to see the Rhys who dances and jumps rope during his shows without missing a beat. The Rhys who pulls girls on stage to serenade them. The Rhys who’s shirtless under a green and red sequin vest singing ‘Fa-La La-La Land’ at the top of his lungs with a smile on his face.
That’s the Rhys they want. That’s the Rhys we’re going to give them. ”
I tune him out and fix my eyes on the city skyline through the window. Skyscrapers block the view of the ocean, but I picture the waves anyway, rolling in slow and steady, each one a little different from the one before.
I don’t look at Stella, even though I can feel her eyes on me. Maybe she’s waiting for me to argue. Maybe she’s wondering if I will, now that she knows how I feel about “Fa-La La-La Land” and the version of me the label created when I was sixteen.