4. Wesley
Wesley
I wake up on top of the sheets I never bothered to crawl under, my clothes wrinkled and stale from last night. A hangover hammers through my skull. I try to scrub the sleep from my eyes, but grunt in pain as I press into the raw skin of my bruise.
The sobering shock of pain causes the events of last night to flood my mind.
Avery.
I force myself to my feet and stumble into the living room to check that it actually happened and wasn’t a nightmare I’d woken up from. Sure enough, the papers waiting for me, untouched, on the coffee table make me wish it was a dream.
Avery was here to tell me she wants a damn divorce.
My phone lights up from where I abandoned it last night on a side table. I grab it, desperate for a distraction, to find a series of missed texts from my manager.
Derek
Get your ass to my office. Now.
Derek
I don’t care if you’re hungover. Put on some sunglasses and get up.
Derek
I have spent the morning working with your PR team and I swear to god if I have to see one more edit of you with your busted lip synced to a sad horny song I will quit.
Wes
I do trend well with bisexuals.
The phone thuds as I toss it onto the table. It lands next to the stack of papers, sending the top pages fluttering to the side.
I run my hand over the silver chain around my neck, making sure the ring is still there.
I can deal with her hating me, cursing my name. If there’s something worth fighting about, she cares. But now, it’s like I’m trying to flick a lighter on, but it keeps sputtering out on its last fumes.
There’s still fuel left, even if it’s almost out. I’m not going to waste it, this final chance. I sign these papers, and she’ll be done with me. I grab them from the table and the papers crinkle under the force of my grip as I stand and toss them exactly where they belong.
In the trash.
My phone lights up again.
Derek
There’s a car waiting outside. If you’re not down in fifteen minutes someone is coming up to get you.
Resigned, I shove my feet into shoes and loop my keyring onto my finger. Stepping through the door, I nearly trip over the blue electrolyte drink resting directly outside with a note stuck to it.
Rehydrate, idiot. It reads in Garrett’s precise handwriting.
A love note for me? He shouldn’t have.
I twist the cap off and down half the contents by the time I make it to the lobby. Out on the sidewalk the usual crowd waits for me, cameras at the ready.
“Hey, Marcus. How’s your daughter liking her first semester of college?
” I ask, slowing my pace. I’ve been doing this long enough that some of the paparazzi feel like neighbors.
Like I’m in suburbia, running into them as I shuffle to my porch in slippers and a robe to retrieve a paper, then look over to find them doing the same.
“Textbooks are expensive, and she hates chemistry but is otherwise good.” He shrugs.
I lower my sunglasses to reveal my battered face, flinching as I adjust to the rays of sun stabbing my eyes. “I’m guessing you’re needing a shot of my ugly mug to help out?”
The air fills with the clicks of camera shutters. “I’d tell you to take better care of yourself, but how else would I pay the bills?”
“True enough.”
“Is it true Avery Sloane was spotted here last night?” The questions burst from someone I don’t recognize. “How do you feel about her engagement?”
“Is he new?” I ask Marcus.
“Yeah, fresh in from LA.”
I push my sunglasses back on and step closer to the new guy. “I don’t mind you camping out here. You’ve got your bills, I’ve got mine. One rule. Avery Sloane is off-limits.” My voice goes cold and quiet as I bare my teeth in a smile. “Got it?”
He swallows, eyes wide. “Yeah.”
“Great!” I beam, clapping him on the shoulder. The new guy steps back, seemingly shocked by my sudden warmth. “Sounds like you’ll fit in.” I wave and blow a kiss before ducking into the blissful darkness of the waiting car.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, here I was hoping to nap on the drive. This is what I get for being in high demand. On the screen, Mom’s smiling contact stares up at me, her brown hair streaked with silver.
“That dress? Come on, it’s not her style.
But you have to admit, in that lowlight, she looked like a flickering candle,” she says as soon as I answer, her voice drawling with her Tennessee accent.
My own accent returns when I’m home, but over time it’s softened like a stone tossed in a river.
From the light thunk-swish on her end of the line, I can tell she’s chopping vegetables.
“Glowing. But she’s always been like that, well, until—”
“Can we talk about anything else? I’m serious. Anything would be better.” It’s like I’m being reminded from every possible angle: Avery’s not mine.
And who’s fault is that? a voice in the back of my mind questions.
It’s what I had to do. I didn’t have a choice that night. Not if I wanted to give her a chance at happiness, I snap back.
“How’s your eye from that fight you lost?”
“What the hell! You think I lost? Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”
“Don’t be mad at me. You’re the one who wanted to change the subject!” she sing-songs. “And you’ve never been the tallest one in any room. You’ve got a dancer’s build. I’m being realistic.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“Then don’t get into fights!”
“He said something about Avery.”
She pauses and when she speaks her voice is low. “Okay, then you should have figured out how to win. Don’t you know how to throw a punch? Maybe you should sign up for a self-defense class. I doubt you could take it at the Y. Is there some overpriced equivalent?”
“I’ll look into it.”
We talk the rest of the drive to Derek’s office, saying our goodbyes when the car parks out front of the glass building. The security guard at the desk waves me through, and I take an elevator to the tenth floor.
“Debra!” I beam as I stride toward his assistant’s desk. “Is that a new shade of mauve? I always love it when you show off for me.”
Debra, a woman in her sixties, doesn’t bother to look up and just keeps tapping away at her computer. “I’ve been wearing this shade since before you were born. But I can give you some concealer for that eye of yours. Purple isn’t your color.”
“What did I do to deserve you?” I lean, resting my arms on the edge of her desk.
“Stop stalling. He can see you.” Her eyes cut up to me. “And get some ice on that. You don’t have much going for you besides your pretty face.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
“I think your looks are part of the reason I look forward to a generous bonus every year.” She adores me, but I respect her attempts to practice restraint and stay professional.
With a parting wink, I head to Derek’s office. The room is illuminated by a wall of windows, a stark contrast to the stormy glower Derek’s giving his computer. As the door clicks shut behind me, he looks up and sighs.
“I thought the bar was in Hell, and then I realized we’re in a bit of a Divine Comedy situation, and I had yet to see the depths of your stupidity,” Derek says.
The buttons of his shirt are done wrong.
No doubt because of an early morning, thanks to yours truly.
We’ve worked together for a decade and he’s in his mid- forties now, whispers of gray peppering the brown hair around his temples.
“Ten points for using your liberal arts minor!” I cheer and take a seat across from him.
“Wesley. This is serious. You’re starting fights with strangers in dive bars. This isn’t talking back to a reporter who disrespected you. Or fucking around with an executive’s daughter.”
“But you have a plan to make everyone forget and fall in love with me again. Because you’re a genius.” I lean forward and snatch the globe-shaped stress ball from his desk. Tossing it high in the air, I just barely miss the ceiling tiles.
“It’s hard to take your compliments seriously after you give me shit.
But you’re right, there is a plan. We want to have a big name on your North American tour next year.
Not just as an opener, but someone to collaborate with.
The label sent over some prospects for us to discuss.
They want a decision soon to start the press rollout. ”
“Classic redirect, waving something shiny to catch their attention.” I toss the stress ball to him. “Catch.”
He doesn’t, but the ball lands in his lap before he puts it in a drawer. “In the meantime, stay out of trouble and focus on the reunion. You need to practice, especially after you forgot the lyrics the last time you performed a Fool’s Gambit song.”
The reunion. Marking ten years since we broke up and parted ways. It sold out in minutes.
Now it’s only a few months away.
“I didn’t forget the lyrics.” It was the opposite.
I remembered them so clearly, how they used to feel when I was singing them with the guys, how they felt incomplete when I sang them alone.
I have no idea how the reunion will go. The only one of the guys who speaks to me is Garrett, and I can’t blame them for wanting nothing to do with me.
I was the one who told them it was over.
It’s my fault Luca was injured during our final performance.
But I had to do it. It was the only way to keep them safe.
Still, breaking through my anxiety, there’s a part of me holding out hope for one last memory to cling on to. “I just didn’t sing them.”
“Remember them out loud next time. Moving on, here are the names the label sent. Dierdre Ray is up there, great vocalist, could be fun to have the two of you integrate her R&B sound into your songs,” Derek dives in, taking her glossy picture from next to his computer.
“I thought she was in talks with a Broadway show?” I ask. “It’s just a rumor, but worth considering.”
“I’ll mark her as a maybe.” Keys clatter as Derek takes notes. “Wilson Merle?”
“Sure, sounds great, if you’re looking for someone who yells at crew members.” I lean back, tipping myself so the front legs of my chair lift off the ground. “Unless your game plan is to use that to deflect from my bullshit and make someone else look bad, though he deserves it.”
“Great.” He grimaces.
We go back and forth on five more prospects, excuses easily flying from my lips.
“Ransom Wren.” He pauses, raising a brow expectantly.
“What are you waiting for? What are his selling points?”
“Just saving my breath since you seem to have an issue with everyone at the label.”
I inspect the picture. Bright eyes. Easy smile. Hungry. “He’s so young.”
“That’s your issue? You started when you were younger than him.”
Yeah, young enough to believe people when they said they wanted to help me.
I have Derek now, and by some miracle he’s stuck with me, but I haven’t always been so lucky.
And the last thing I want to do is spend months around some kid who reminds me that at some point I took a path that stripped away my innocence.
“Would you rather I say I don’t want to work with any of these people? It’s not like it matters. By the time the tour comes around, no one will care what I’ve done.”
That’s the cycle, after all. I screw up. There’s a day when I think maybe, just maybe, someone will care enough to say something. To ask why the fuck I keep pressing the self-destruct button.
But they never do, as long as I keep giving more of myself to them, temporarily satiating their appetites.
Sometimes I’m surprised when I look down at myself that there aren’t chunks of flesh missing, because I feel it, each bite they take.
One day they’ll swallow up the last bits of me, ivory bones picked clean.
And even the vultures will want nothing to do with me.
“Is there anyone you’d consider? Just give me a name I can send their way.”
“Any name?”
“Sure, why not?”
My lips curl. There’s only one person I want to go on tour with. The one person who will tell me exactly what she thinks about me and my silly little mistakes.
“Avery Sloane.”