28. Callie
28
CALLIE
PRESENT DAY
Back in my hotel room, I fling open the closet door and tug out my duffle bag.
I throw the duffle on the bed, then head back to the closet with the intention of packing my shit, but when I glance at the hangers, I groan.
Nothing here is mine. None of it. Torren gave it all to me, and it feels like bribery now.
I take the duffle into the bathroom and start throwing my makeup and toiletries into it. I find the few articles of clothing I brought from home and shove those into the duffle as well.
The whole time I do, Torren’s words bounce around in my skull like pinballs. They repeat over and over, giving me a headache and a twisting feeling in my stomach.
Since Glendale.
I remember everything.
All of it.
And then that kiss.
God, that messes with me more than anything else, and I angrily swipe a tear away when it escapes my lashes. Why did he have to go and kiss me now, after fucking everything? Not once in the desert did he kiss me. Not once. But now...
I remember everything .
All of it.
Firebird .
That’s the problem. I remember all of it, too.
Fuck Torren King.
I feel so damn foolish. Cheated. Lied to. Vulnerable and exposed.
Worst of all, I feel embarrassed.
I knew this was coming. Part of me was longing for it. But now that I’ve been slapped in the face with it, a whole slew of formerly suppressed emotions has resurfaced, and I can’t handle it all. I can’t make sense of it. I need to get out of here.
Glory said Mom is doing better. She’ll forgive me. I’ve already received the first two checks. We don’t need the rest. We will be fine.
Fuck .
I sit back on the bed, setting the duffle beside me, then drop my head into my hands.
Why couldn’t he have gone on pretending?
My phone buzzing interrupts my thoughts. A text message. I pick it up, expecting to see a text from Torren, but instead it’s Ezra’s name in the notification.
All the text says is Sorry, Cal, followed by a link from a gossip blog.
When I click the link, my stomach falls to my feet. Photos of me and Torren with the guys in the bathroom hallway at the club are already uploaded. They’re dark, but they’re in focus, and it’s very obviously us. The blog post correctly identifies Becket, Ezra, and Rocky, then goes on to mention our band, Caveat Lover. The blogger says the band used to be signed but then was unsigned without explanation, and they promise to update later with more information about that potentially juicy scandal .
None of that bothers me, though. I had been waiting for news about the band to come out anyway. I’m surprised it took this long, to be honest. It’s the rest of the blog article that has my heart thudding with anxiety in my chest.
The blogger claims Torren and I are in a PR relationship to help relaunch my music career. They go even further as to say how curiously convenient it is that the bad press surrounding Sav and Torren has died down, too. Luckily, there are no photos of me leaving the club without him or of our argument in the hallway... yet ...but this is bad enough on its own .
Is our cover blown? Did I fuck it up?
“Goddamn it.” I toss my phone on the bed and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Goddamn it!”
“Open the door, Callie.”
Torren’s muffled voice on the other side of my bedroom door has me groaning.
“Fuck you!”
“Callie, open this door before I open it myself.”
“Fuck. You. I don’t wa?—”
The door swings wide open and Torren marches through it before slamming it behind him. I jump up from the bed, put my hands on my hips, and stare him down.
“You asshole.”
“Get used to it.”
When he’s three feet in front of me, eyes locked on mine, he folds his arms over his chest.
“We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Fine, then you can listen.” His attention falls to my duffle on the bed and his eyebrows furrow. “You think you’re going somewhere? We don’t get on the bus until after tomorrow’s show.”
“I’m not getting on the bus. I’m going home.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“Yes, I fucking am. You said I could leave whenever I want, and I want to leave now.”
“You’re not fucking leaving over this.” He takes another few steps toward me. “Not until we figure this out. I need you here.”
I bark out a laugh. “ Figure this out ? Figure what out? You said you remember everything!”
“I do, Callie, and that’s why I’m so fucking confused. You’ve been holding a grudge, and I want to know why, because I’ve been spending weeks trying to figure it out. I need to know what happened for you to hate me so much.”
“What’s there to be confused about? You fucked me like a groupie then went back to your ex-girlfriend.”
“I didn’t fuck you like a groupie.”
“The hell you didn’t! You think taking my virginity and then screwing Sav against your tour bus the next night is how you treat someone who isn’t a groupie?”
His face pales. “You were a virgin?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I was a virgin, you asshole. Though I suppose you were too high to notice. And my first time is unfortunately seared into my brain, yet it was just another groupie fuck for you.”
“You weren’t just a groupie.”
“Oh, shut up. It doesn’t even matter now.”
“You had a boyfriend, Callie. A boyfriend .”
I jerk my head back. “What?”
Torren takes another step toward me.
“I saw you with Becket before your set the next day. I saw you kiss him. You lied to me all week, came to me that night so we could hook up, and then turned around and kissed him before your fucking set. That’s when I decided what happened between us was just a festival fling. You weren’t just a groupie to me, but I was just a famous fuck to you.”
My head spins for a moment at the revelation. First, that he came to the stage like I’d asked, and second, that he saw me kiss Beck. It did happen. I remember it clearly, but had Torren taken the time to fucking talk to me, he would have known that I also told Beck off after our set. If I was important enough to warrant a conversation...god, what a fucking mess.
“You weren’t just a famous fuck,” I defend. “I lost my virginity to you.”
Torren lets out a sinister laugh. “Yeah. What a story, too, right? How many people did you dazzle with that story? Losing your virginity to the Torren King.”
My blood boils. “Oh, get the fuck over yourself. That’s not what it was for me, and you know it.”
“Do I? Do I know it, Firebird?”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Tell me he wasn’t your boyfriend. Tell me you didn’t lie.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Right.” He laughs. “And you didn’t lie about your age, either?”
My jaw drops. He’s got me there, and he knows it. I shake my head. I’m speechless .
“You’re twenty-three, Callie. I might only have a high school education, but I can do basic math. You were nineteen at ArtFusion, but you told me you were old enough to drink. You’re going to hold a grudge and be pissed at me when everything you did was to get close to me. You lied about your age. Your boyfriend?—”
“He wasn’t my fucking boyfriend!”
“Whatever the fuck he was, then. It doesn’t change the fact that you kissed him after we hooked up. He was more than just a friend to you. I liked you, but when I saw you kissing Becket Walker, I accepted it for what it was. For what you made it. You don’t get to change the facts to make me the bad guy now.”
For a moment, I start to spiral. I start to feel bad. I’ve never denied my part in our ArtFusion tryst, and I almost want to forgive and forget...but I can’t. Not yet. I’m swept up in the argument. My anger is driving my actions, and my stubborn need to win is riding shotgun.
Torren King is a dick.
He’s selfish, and I’m a solution to a problem. Nothing more. I won’t let him shove my mistakes in my face while he refuses to acknowledge his own.
“You’re not going to get me to feel sorry for you, Torren,” I say, my anger still simmering at the surface despite all he’s confessed. “I won’t apologize. You act like you did nothing wrong here, but you looked right at me. Right at me! You fucked her against that tour bus one night after taking my virginity, and you were looking at me when you came inside her.”
He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “Fuck...”
I scoff. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember that.”
“I don’t. I don’t remember it. I swear. I’m sorry, Callie.” He rakes his fingers through his hair and looks back at me with glittering green eyes full of sorrow. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t do that on purpose. I didn’t know you were there. Had I known you’d come to me, I never would have done it. I just...Fuck, Calla Lily I am so goddamn sorry.”
I grit my teeth against the urge to fold.
“Bullshit,” I force out. “Let’s just cut our losses, King, and call it what it was. A big fucking mistake.”
Torren’s nostrils flare, and then he pulls out his phone. He breaks eye contact to scroll for a moment, then tosses the phone to me. I catch it, but before I can look at the screen, he’s unbuckling his belt.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?”
“Look at the phone screen.”
When he undoes his button, I spin around and give him my back. I close my eyes, and then he repeats himself.
“Look at the phone, Callie. Now.”
I hear the sound of his zipper, followed by his pants being shoved down his legs. Because I need something to think about besides the fact that he’s stripping behind me, I look at the phone, and then my jaw drops.
On the phone screen is the picture he took of me at ArtFusion.
The one he texted to himself after decorating my body with latex paint.
I deleted this photo the morning after I caught Torren with Sav. I’d all but forgotten about it. But seeing it now, the memory of it seems as clear and as crisp as if it were yesterday.
In the photo, I’m looking down and to the side, my face mostly in shadow due to the dim lighting in the tent that night. My hair looks more brown than red, and the features of my face are hidden, but the body paint is just as gorgeous as I remember it. Torren turned me into a living, breathing flame.
Emotions start to unfurl in my stomach. My heart starts to race. Then I clamp my eyes shut, severing the connection between myself and that na?ve girl in the photo.
“So what? This doesn’t mean anything.”
“Turn around.”
I don’t know why I obey as quickly as I do, but I open my eyes and turn around without question. I make eye contact with him, slanting my eyebrows harshly as I glare, hoping my forced attitude hides my surging nerves. I hold the phone out to him, and he takes it, and I can tell from the edges of my vision that he’s not wearing pants. My plan is to avoid looking down, but then he gestures to his left leg.
“Look.”
I arch a brow.
“Look, Callie.”
I blow out a harsh breath and look down, my eyes falling to his upper thigh. It takes a moment for what I’m seeing to register in my brain. At first, it’s just a splotch of reds, oranges, and yellows, but then I blink, and like magic, it comes into focus. A viewfinder revealing an image that knocks the wind out of me. I gasp.
The splotch of colors on Torren’s thigh is a tattoo of a faceless woman.
A woman standing among flames.
And the longer I look, the more I realize that the tattoo looks just like the ArtFusion photo. Instead of standing awkwardly, the faceless woman in the tattoo almost appears to be dancing, the flames resembling phoenix wings behind her.
As I stare at it, dragging my eyes over every detail, my heart starts to pound faster and faster, thudding loudly in my head.
The woman is me .
I shake my head. It doesn’t make sense.
“When did you get that?” I ask, my voice almost a whisper. The ink is slightly faded. Hair lightly dusts his muscular thigh. I can tell it’s not a new tattoo, but I need to know.
“Six months after the festival.”
I finally tear my eyes away from the tattoo and look back at Torren. “Why?”
His lips twitch at the corners. I don’t know if he’s fighting a smile or a frown. Either option would piss me off.
“Because I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
I scoff. “Yeah, sure. Yet when I literally slammed into you at the pier, it took you weeks to remember who I was. I was playing your devoted fake girlfriend for an entire week before it clicked.”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you.” He lets out a low, almost self-deprecating laugh. “It’s hard to explain being an addict to someone who’s never walked that path. When you’re high—and I was almost always high—the specifics are hazy. Chunks of time are black holes. Not every memory is readily available. Not everything sticks. But you? You stuck . The idea of you. Abstract images of you. Fleeting fractions of memories. When I found the picture in my phone, I latched onto it. I’d stare at it for hours, trying to memorize your outline. Trying like hell to fill in the missing details. But then I’d get high and have to start all over again, and time tends to erode anything that remains. ”
He laughs again, this one louder. “I actually got that tattoo while fucked up, too. I don’t regret it, though. Never have.”
His words pierce through my armor. They make my chest ache and my eyes sting. My years-long desire for him bubbles up. My past hero worship. My envy.
“I’m sorry, Callie. I’m so fucking sorry. Please believe that you were more to me. I fucked up, but you were more. You are more. This is real. This is real, for me. It always has been.”
I start to crumble. To give in, but then I stand taller.
I shake my head once more. I got swept up in the argument—in the emotions and insignificant details—and I remind myself of the real reason I’ve been hating him all these years. Not because I caught him screwing Sav the night after he fucked me. Yeah, that sucked, but it didn’t derail me. Having sex with him at ArtFusion was a stupid decision, and I made peace with it a long time ago.
But he’s right about one thing. I don’t get to change the facts, and neither does he.
“None of this changes anything, Torren.”
His face falls, brows slanting in a defeated, confused expression that makes my throat feel tight. I sigh and close my eyes so I don’t have to look at him.
“You still fucked up my band. You can apologize all you want about what happened at the music festival, but you still took Caveat Lover away from me, and that hurts worse than everything else. Watching you fuck Sav the night after you fucked me was a punch to the gut, but losing my band was debilitating, and I can’t forgive you for that.”
I drag a hand down my face and tilt my head to the ceiling, my throat cracking more and more with each word.
“Jesus, you have no idea how hard it’s been for me to be here knowing how you all operate. I just kept telling myself it was okay...that you owed me that money based on what you did to Caveat Lover alone. But fuck, I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t. That tattoo, your story—they don’t change any of it.”
When I look back at him, his face is twisted with confusion. It fans the flames of my grudge. When he speaks, I want to punch him again.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I thought you left the band to take care of your mom. ”
“No. My mom was after.”
When his confused expression doesn’t lighten, I scoff in disbelief.
The lengths he’ll go to use me...
My eyes start to sting with tears. I don’t want to cry, but this hurts. Uncovering it all. Remembering it. Forcing myself to reckon with the fact that the man I’ve been spending time with for the last few weeks, the man who has been slowly charming away my pent-up anger, is still the man who fucked me over.
Tattoo or not, he’s still Torren King.
“You have to be kidding me,” I rasp, peering at him through watery eyes. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that any of it happened without your knowledge.”
He takes a step closer to me, reaches for me, but I back away.
“Any of what ? Explain. Please, Callie. Explain.”
I suck in a slow, shaky breath through my teeth, then blow it out. I glare at him, searching his face for a lie, but there’s nothing but genuine confusion.
“ Your label threatened to sue my band and the label that signed us. You accused us of stealing music and branding. You claimed we were guilty of copyright infringement.”
His face pales and his mouth gapes, but he says nothing.
“We didn’t steal anything. Our manager said that we could probably fight you in court and win, but we didn’t have the money to pay for all the legal fees, and our label didn’t want to try to go up against yours. I found out after that you were rumored to do this to smaller bands to kill any kind of competition, but our label was small, and they just couldn’t risk a fight with you... So they fucking dropped us. They dropped us, Torren, because of The Hometown Heartless, and then no one else would touch us. We tried. We kept trying, but we were pariahs. Then my mom got sick and...” I shrug. “And we just had to admit defeat. Heartless attacked and won. You all got what you wanted. One more band out of the way.”
Silence envelops us as Torren stares at me with shock, and I watch as his expression morphs quickly into rage. He clenches his jaw, grinding his teeth as he dials someone on his phone. They must answer quickly, because he barks out an order .
“Band meeting in the girls’ suite. Now.” He hangs up and looks at me. “You too.”
Then he turns and walks out.
I take ten deep inhales and exhales before I follow, and when I step into the suite, Mabel, Sav, and Levi are already there. When I glance around the room, I find the security details on the perimeter.
“You guys can leave,” Torren says to the security, but Sav interrupts.
“Red stays.”
Torren nods. As all the security guards except Sav’s file into the hall, Hammond walks into the room with Jonah in tow.
“This better be fucking good,” Jonah grumbles as he throws himself into a recliner. “I was busy.”
I catch Sav as she rolls her eyes, and Mabel tosses a small throw pillow at Jonah’s head. It hits him and falls to the floor, and he never even flinches. Then Torren cuts to the chase, his voice shaking with barely restrained anger.
“Ham. Did our label threaten to sue Callie’s band?”
I flick my eyes from Torren’s murderous expression to Hammond’s blank one. He studies Torren before speaking.
“Probably.”
Mabel and Sav both shout, shock evident in their tones.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Torren remains silent, nostrils flaring, glare still stuck on Hammond. “What the fuck does probably mean?”
“I don’t know the specifics. I only discovered it when I renegotiated the contract last year, but they had done it more than once. If Callie claims her band was one of them, I believe her. I demanded they stop, and as far as I know, it hasn’t happened since.”
Sav shoots to her feet, fury emanating from her. Her body practically quakes with it.
“Why the fuck are we just now hearing about this?”
Hammond looks at Sav, face still placid. His tone never rises. He never sounds anything more than matter-of-fact. Not apologetic. Not defensive. Not even angry. A consummate, unshakable businessman. I both hate and respect him for it.
“Because you only had a couple of years left on your contract. We’d gotten the terms we’d wanted, and at the end of the contract, we’d walk. There was nothing I could do about the past. I ensured the foreseeable future would be ethical. I didn’t want to add anything else to the band’s already overflowing plate.”
“Bullshit,” Sav says. “This is something we should have known.”
Hammond’s eyebrow lifts just slightly. “We were dealing with Jonah’s rehab visit. With the fallout from the engagement. From the mental and emotional impact of the fire. Of your mother’s hospitalization. Of Levi’s and your relationship going public. Savannah, I will not apologize for keeping this from you. I would do it again. I’d fixed the problem. It was no longer an issue. Everything else took precedence.”
Sav stares him down, obviously warring with her feelings. Hell, even I understand where he’s coming from, but I can tell she’s not ready to forgive it.
“How many bands?” Her voice is still shaking with anger when she asks, and Hammond sighs.
“I don’t know the exact number, but I’d wager it was close to twenty.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mabel mumbles, dropping her head to the back of the couch. “This is so fucked up.”
“We’re out, Ham,” Sav says, and I see Torren nod in my peripheral. “I don’t care what you have to do. I want us out of the contract.”
“Done.”
“And I want the names of every band our label fucked over.”
“That will be harder.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
“I know you don’t.”
“So you’ll get them, then?”
“Yes.”
In the silence that follows, I start to feel lightheaded. The tidal wave of information hits me hard, and I feel the color drain from my face. My extremities feel cold. My stomach roils. Slowly, I walk backward until my legs hit a couch, and then I sit.
As soon as I hit the cushion, familiar tattooed hands cup my face.
“Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“No. ”
“No, you’re not okay, or no, you don’t need anything?”
I want to roll my eyes at Torren’s question, but I don’t want to risk overexerting myself.
“I’m fine.”
His lips press to my forehead and his fingers slide to the back of my neck.
“I’m going to fix this,” he whispers. “You’ll see.”