Chapter 18 #2
“You say that now,” she mumbles before getting progressively louder with each sentence.
“You guys are quite literally rockstars. The most famous musicians as of late. And I’m a nobody from Oklahoma that you knew in high school.
You guys are just toying with me, back and forth, back and forth.
You can’t put all your social media marketing in my hands and hope for the best. I know you probably have a team, if not four teams doing all that.
What is the game here?” She cries, and my heart breaks.
She’s spiraling. I can see it, I can feel it. I’ve lived it.
Melody tries to pull away from me, tries to get out of my grip, but that shit’s not happening. Not now.
I hold onto her tighter as she tries to push against my hold. Tears fall down her face and wild sobs leave her lips, all while I hold her steady and wish I could take all her pain away. I’d do it. In a goddamn heartbeat.
“Fuck off, Kai!” She grunts, trying to pull back, but I’m not letting that happen. She smacks my chest in anger.
With each pound of her fists, I feel a little less guilty for all the shit that we’ve put her through. I know that’s not the reason why she’s hitting me, but I let her do it. I’ll let her hit over and over me if it makes her feel better.
Call it penance.
“Melody, Melody, come on,” I do my best to speak softly to her while her eyes stay filled with tears. Her light fists keep hitting my chest, but she’s losing steam. Her hits are even lighter with each random blow. “Baby, please.”
“Kai,” she moans, crying softly as she collapses against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, and tuck her face into my chest as I try to completely shield her from anything and everything. I can feel the wetness of her tears seep through my shirt and into my skin.
Her sadness is my sadness.
“I’ve got you, I’m right here. I’ve got you, I’m right here,” I whisper repetitively into her ear, holding her head gently against my chest as we slip down to the floor.
Fucking Reis.
Mel fell asleep sometime after the fiftieth whispered, “It’s okay, baby. I’m here.”
Her head rests heavily against my chest as I breathe in her scent, holding her tightly to my chest. After her sobs had started to soften, I’d positioned us so that her legs were resting over my lap and my back was against the bed.
It’s been a few hours and my ass is completely asleep and numb, but I’m not moving. Not an inch.
She fell asleep on me. She fell asleep on me . There has to be a certain level of subconscious trust involved for someone to fall asleep in your presence. Right?
Even if there isn’t, I don’t want to know because it’s what I believe. And I intend not to break her trust in any way.
What am I going to do to fix this? I thought telling her I love her would make any of the doubts disappear, but the trauma we’ve caused runs so deep. My heart breaks for her, for us, and I’m so fucking angry because Reis keeps doing shit that makes her think we’re just manipulating her.
Are we always one thing away from being ripped apart?
No. I refuse to believe that.
A soft knock at the door makes me tighten my grip on her protectively. Whoever’s there can fuck off.
“Melody?” I hear Adam call softly through the door. “Echo, can I come in?”
I don’t answer, I don’t want me speaking to wake her up. Maybe he’ll leave us alone.
Wishful thinking on my part though, because after a few moments of silence he opens the door that I should’ve fucking locked behind me.
“What are you doing in here?” he asks me accusingly.
“Holding her. Protecting her like I promised I would.” Adam looks like he’s about to argue with me, but I cut him off. “Like you’re not doing the same fucking thing,” I whisper. Adam sighs and shrugs, stepping inside before shutting the door quietly behind him.
“Is she okay?” His footsteps are soft as he comes to sit beside us.
“No, I don’t think she is.” I sigh. “I thought… I thought when we told her how we all felt that she’d trust us again.”
“That’s not how it works.” Adam shakes his head, leaning in, and pressing a kiss to her head. “I figured that she’d be skeptical of us for a long time. We fucked up, and didn’t do a thing to remedy it for years. We’re damn lucky that she even talked to us again, nevermind giving us another chance.”
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“Was she upset?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I sigh, hugging her to me tighter. “She thinks we’re just toying with her. She said she doesn’t know how to trust that we mean what we say when Reis makes decisions and we all agree without any discussion. I get it, I understand where she’s coming from.”
“Did you at least tell her that we didn’t know about it either?”
“No, she started hitting me and crying so hard she fell asleep.”
Adam pushes a breath out angrily as he grinds his teeth. “Fucking Reis.”
“Fucking Reis,” I agree.
“Can you at least curse me out to my face?” Reis snaps, peeking his head around the door. Fuck, I didn’t even hear the door open.
He looks worried as he locks eyes on the woman in my arms automatically. “I heard her crying,” he says, biting the inside of his lip. He comes to where the three of us are seated, squatting down, and taking one of Mel’s hands in his. It’s a sweet gesture, but one I’m not sure she’d welcome.
I’m not even going to talk about the way Adam and I seethe at him touching her.
“And you didn’t come in sooner?” I scoff. “This decision you made fucking traumatized her. You didn’t even fucking ask her or us. You just decided, and we went along with it. She cried herself to sleep on my chest because she doesn’t know if we’re just fucking with her or not.”
“Can you believe that?” Adam snaps, shooting daggers at Reis.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry.” Reis hangs his head and runs his hand down his face. The guy seems more stressed in the last two days than I’ve seen him over the course of the last six years. He used to be a rock. Nothing and no one phased him.
We had an eviction notice on our apartment? Not an issue.
We were dropped by our first manager without warning? Fuck ‘em.
The song we poured our hearts into didn’t even crack the top 500? Next one will be it.
But Melody being mad at him? It turns Reis inside out.
“When she wakes up, I’ll apologize, I’ll explain. I promise. I’ll fix this, guys.”
“You better. Because if she leaves, I’ll leave with her,” I say strongly, not mincing my words in the slightest. The room seems to hold its breath. The weight of what I said wraps around us as they stare at me, but I stare at her .
There’s no choice. Not anymore.
“Me too,” Adam agrees.
“You both seem to think that I don’t love her just as much as you guys do,” he scoffs. “I’ve made mistakes. But she’s…my world. If she leaves, I’ll leave right along with her. Have no doubt about that.” Reis stands, shaking his finger at me, eyes blazing with fire.
That’s fine, he can be aggressive towards me all he wants. In fact, with how I’m feeling right now, I’d welcome a fight.
“Now, give her to me,” he says, holding his hands out and I scoff.
“That’s not happening.”
“Seriously, come on, Kai. I want to be here when she wakes up to explain.”
“So sit on the fucking floor with us, and stop acting like a brat,” Adam snaps.
“I like this new Adam,” I say with a chuckle and a nod.
Reis huffs, not used to being the one who has to follow orders instead of give them, and plops down on the other side of the room with his back against the wall.
“While we wait, I do have one thing I want to float by you guys,” Reis says tentatively, messing with the rings on his fingers. At least he’s fucking communicating instead of just telling us what we’re doing. Progress. Maybe.
A little fucking late, but maybe it shows that he’s learned from his mistakes.
“Oh god.” Adam rolls his eyes.
“Louis wants us to go out on tour next month. He’s got a few gigs around the UK that we’ve been invited to. Everything’s already set up, we just need to agree. What do you think?” Reis asks, but never looks at us directly.
“You guys have to do it, obviously,” Melody grumbles and all our attention turns to her.
“Baby, are you okay?” I ask softly. She nods, curling into my chest, but doesn’t look up.
“Mel, we’re not going to decide anything right now,” Adam speaks softly, leaning in to kiss her shoulder. “We have time.”
“There’s nothing to think about, Adam. If I wasn’t here, you guys would go. It’s good for your brand and your business, right?”
“I guess,” I mutter. “But, to be honest, none of us really care about that right now.”
“Melody,” Reis says softly, and she tenses in my arms.
“Reis,” she mumbles against my chest, her voice muffled by my shirt. I rest my chin against her head, showing her with my presence that I’ve got her.
“Can we talk? Please?” Reis asks gently. I know I should let them talk, but my hold on her tightens. I don’t want to let her go.
Nothing bad can happen to her if she’s in my arms.
“I guess we should get this over with, huh?” She mumbles quietly, and I nod. Melody sighs, unfortunately for me, untangling herself from my hold and standing up. Adam and I follow.
There are big red marks on her legs and arms from sleeping so hard on me. I really… I like it. I can see the imprint of my pant seam on her thigh. On her cheek, there’s a red spot and imprint of where my shirt was creased right where she laid against my chest.
I really like it.
But I’d like to leave some better marks, if she’ll let me. Melody leans in, and kisses me.
“Thank you for holding me. And letting me vent,” she says softly before putting her hands on my chest. “I’m so sorry for touching you in any way but kindly.”
I cover my hands with hers, bringing them to my lips.
“I understand, and it’s okay. I love you, baby.”
“I love you too,” she returns my love with a small smile. I kiss her lips and nod. Melody nods back, understanding that I’m okay, and steps into Adam’s arms.
“Thank you for being here when I woke up, for checking on me.” She threads their fingers together, and kisses him gratefully.
“Of course,” he says, cupping her cheek with his free hand and looking down at her with a look so full of love, I almost want to tease him.
I don’t though. Instead, I just let them have their moment.
“Come on, man. We better let them talk before Reis gets sick from anxiety.” I smack Adam on the shoulder and reluctantly, we leave.
But not before I give Reis a threatening look. A glare that says, ‘She might give you more chances, but we’re not. So get it together and get it right.’