Chapter 6
Ciro
I can’t wait for this flight to be over.
It takes an age for all the excitement and shrieking to die down. I offered my congratulations. I’m not a complete asshole, but I didn’t get drawn in. Nash didn’t either, choosing to take his seat again as soon as he’d hugged Jenna and shook Adam’s hand.
Adrestia is a lot more reserved, too. She gets on with the other women but she’s not like them. Not to say the other women on board aren’t intelligent, but Adrestia is next level smart.
If I didn’t know any better, I would say she’s on the spectrum. She has a very analytical mind. She approaches problems most people would never consider.
Despite that side of her, there is another, and that is why she fits in with the group. She’s happy, cheerful is a better word. And thoughtful, she likes to make sure other people are comfortable and cared for where she is able. It is a product of what happened to her sister last year.
I looked at Nash differently when I learned about her sister’s illness. Adrestia confided it to me one night when we found ourselves together at the end of a party. She’d had a little too much to drink, but I never forced her into talking. We were just in the same space, comfortable enough that we didn’t need to fill the silence with empty words.
Then she brought up her sister, and it intrigued me to know what it was that made Nash run from her, only to figure out their misunderstanding and realize she was a much better fit for him than Riley ever was.
My fists clench at thoughts of that psycho bitch. Most people I meet piss me off, which is why I don’t have close friends. Riley is a special kind of twat.
I don’t rate her. I admit, the keyboards added to our sound, but I’m not saddened to see her gone and I believe our music can stand up without her.
No one listens to me, though. Declan arranged auditions for replacements. So far, we haven’t been able to agree on anyone.
I heard all about Riley’s plan to stab us in the back. I don’t know what Declan intends to do. If Nash gets his way, it will be sweet fuck all. It irritates me. He will allow her to walk all over him. Again.
I’d been all for kicking her out when she dumped Nash and flaunted that rich asshole in front of him. The same rich asshole who dumped her months down the line once he got bored, and likely once he saw what a vapid bitch she is.
Nash could do so much better than her. I respect him more for taking up with Adrestia. She has substance where Riley is vacant. Intelligence where Riley is a dim-witted fuck. So yeah, not Riley’s biggest fan.
Plus, on a physical level, Riley is the quintessential ideal. Blond-haired, thin as a rail, but with a huge chest, pouty lips and big blue eyes. To me, she isn’t a patch on Adrestia.
And it's not that I'm attracted to Adrestia. It’s more about hating Riley so much I’d point out her flaws against other people’s attributes any day of the week.
No, my interests lie elsewhere, but I already know it’s pointless caring. I took my shot, and it didn’t work out. Our schedules didn’t allow for us to meet up regularly and she slipped through my fingers.
She’s happy now. I see it, but it doesn’t mean I’m happy or eager to make friends with the guy she’s dating.
My eyes flit over to Brooke as she laughs and toasts her friend’s pregnancy, making a point of telling Jenna she will do all the drinking for the next seven months.
Archer is not hovering like most of these other morons do with their girlfriends, but I’m not stupid. The asshole knows how lucky he is and I’m so fucking jealous it sickens me.
He catches my eye for a moment, but I lower my eyes back to the book I’m reading, acting disinterested. I don’t know if he is aware I hooked up with Brooke, more than once. If he does, he’s never let on and I certainly haven’t discussed it with anyone.
I’m pretty sure Jenna knows I took Brooke home after the night of their engagement. I’m certain Brooke never told her we’d had a brief but intense few months, meeting up in various places to fuck.
I’m not the guy into hearts and flowers. Romance isn’t my thing, but part of me still wishes I’d taken steps with Brooke. Beyond the hotel rooms, bathrooms at bars, or her office late at night.
My more practical side screamed it would never work between us. We’re too different.
We are compatible in bed, explosive even, I had some of the best sex of my life with her. Rationally, the jealousy I feel is about losing that, not about losing the potential of a relationship with Brooke.
My lip twitches at the thought of Archer finding out I’d eaten her out on her office desk so thoroughly she’d cried at the ecstasy of it.
“Did you just smile?” Dylan drops into the seat opposite me.
“No.”
“Right, it was probably gas.”
I give him a look I’m sure shows my disgust. “Don’t you have a girlfriend to go bother?”
“She’s sleeping,” he says, peering at the cover of my book, before picking up a bag of chips and tearing them open. He offers me one, but I decline. I didn’t notice him appearing from the back bedroom, but the noise must have woken him.
Dylan, Alessa, and Nash are a lot closer to BreakNeck than Jack or me. They hang out with them a lot, which is fine. They are a good group of people, solid guys and tolerable women.
Didn’t mean I had to change the habit of a lifetime and become sociable. Even with my band members.
I intend to throttle Alessa when we get wherever the hell we’re going.
We spoke this morning. All I’ve heard since we got on the plane is how neither Jordan nor she answered their calls.
They’ll lose their shit if they know I spoke to her. She knows me too well, knows if I’m not reassured this isn’t a waste of my time, then I won’t get on the plane.
She gave nothing away, just that she wants me there and will break six of my fingers if I don’t show up. Two on one hand and four on the other, an extremely specific and typical Alessa threat.
I hear the speculation about the reason behind this being a wedding. I’d even heard their arguments for and against the idea. All valid. But the beauty of Alessa is her total unpredictability. And the fact you never know if she is serious or not.
I’d delighted many a time in seeing her, sometimes unintentionally, tear shreds off people. She’s misunderstood at times but at the heart of her, Alessa is a good woman, a great friend and her relationship with Jordan goes beyond the bullshit they’ve both been spouting about getting married.
I begged her to tell me we aren’t heading for Vegas, which she confirmed isn’t the case. So at least I know that. But not much more.
Adrestia slips past us to go to the bathroom and Nash comes over and joins us, making me sigh. I put my book down and look at the brothers opposite me.
The BreakNeck crew are still celebrating. There is an unmistakable light on Adam’s face. It beams out of him when he looks at Jenna.
Sickening.
“Ci, can you talk some sense into him,” Dylan says, hooking a thumb in Nash’s direction. “He won’t do anything about this bullshit with Riley. You know about what she’s doing, right?”
I nod. “I read about it,” I look at Nash. “And I’m not in the least bit surprised by anything that bitch does.”
He rolls his eyes, but checks Adrestia is not on her way back. I don’t blame him. It may hurt her to know this is affecting him more than he’s letting on.
I observe. I’ve always been that way since childhood, barely talking to anyone where I grew up in Hermosillo, Mexico.
My family paid little attention to me as a child. I don’t have much contact with anyone back home after making the border crossing as a young teen. So it’s not difficult for me to see what this is doing to Nash.
Despite my harsh and standoffish demeanor, and what people think about me, I do consider my band mates to be my friends. I could have cheerfully strangled Nash for the way he let Riley walk all over him. All because he believed he loved her.
She thinks she is entitled to more than what she has in life. She only saw it when it was too late.
"What happened to her big record deal with Dearborn?" I ask.
Nash shrugs and Dylan scoffs. Yeah, another one of Riley's stupid fucking mistakes. Someone dangled a lot of cash in front of her, told her she was better than the rest of us, and the band was holding her back.
She doesn't see the bigger picture, she never has. It must be fucking tedious going through life being so self-obsessed.
“We need to put a gag on her before she causes us even more shit," Dylan grumbles.
“I don’t think so,” I take a sip of my tea. Dylan frowns at me, irritated I’m not agreeing with him.
“What the hell? Not you too.”
Fuck him if he thinks I’m anything like Nash. There is no point showing how annoyed that makes me.
“She’ll hang herself,” I tell him. Nash twists his head to look at me. It’s true. “She can’t help herself. She’ll say the wrong thing, pull the wrong face and people will see she’s full of shit. No take backs if it’s live either.”
“If it was one of these guys,” Dylan swings his hand in the direction of the band behind him. “But we’re not at their level.”
“It has nothing to do with fame or exposure,” I point out. “She’s an idiot. She will say something stupid, and it will be picked apart. That is when we retaliate.”
“You make it sound like a fucking war,” Nash growls.
“No, I make it sound like the perfect plan. How can we fight when we don’t know what she will say? Once we know, once she’s spewed her venom into the world, we can contradict her, prove she’s lying. It’s called a counter argument, but we will do it in a much more civilized and unemotional manner.”
“You’ve been around Brooke too much,” Dylan jokes.
“I don’t need a lawyer to teach me common sense,” I say. I don’t like the insinuation I’ve spent time with Brooke, either.
“The label will want to keep her quiet,” Nash mutters.
I give him a disapproving frown. Burying his head is also not the way to deal with it.
“She is going to some second-rate gossip show to tell them how we made it so she couldn’t stay in the band. She made a mistake she’ll regret for the rest of her life. She will tell them all about your life together. Growing up and falling in love. Spin some bullshit about how she lost her way and made a mistake. But she still loves you and would do anything to win you back.
“But you’re the one preventing that, and we sided with you and that makes us the bad guys too, because we didn’t forgive and support her. That makes it everyone else’s fault if the band falls apart, and she is the one who has been wronged.
“Because that is what she wants. She doesn’t want to see you succeed. In that sense,” I look at Nash. “Give her enough rope and she will hang herself, while we do better now she is gone. That is what we should be doing. Focusing on being better in our music and our performances, getting into the charts, reaching more fans. Hit back with our success without her. Make her irrelevant.”
“That is the most I have heard you say in one go, Ciro. And I agree with you.”
We all turn to look at Tia who has appeared behind the brothers without us seeing her.
“I have no say in what you do. It is your band and your decision how to act, but I’m not wrong in saying perhaps I have a vested interest in the situation.”
“Tia, you have a hell of a way of saying Nash is yours, Riley can go fuck herself and this is how we’re gonna do it,” Dylan laughs.
Nash reaches up his hand and puts it around Tia’s waist, pulling her closer to him. It’s a silent show he appreciates her words.
“Until we speak to Declan, I don’t know how the label wants to take this.”
“Declan is a good friend and an excellent manager,” Tia says. “He’ll listen to your suggestions because you know her better than he does. My only experience with Riley is not a good one,” Tia frowns.
“You can call her a bitch,” Dylan says.
Nash punches his arm, making Dylan scowl and grab it, rubbing it like a child.
“Dude, she tried to break you guys up. She said some horrible shit about Tia.”
“I know.” Nash scrubs a hand over his face. He doesn’t let go of Adrestia. “So, Ci’s way is the best way?”
“It’s the most professional way,” she hedges. “And would appeal to the record label.”
“Whatever happened to the best defense is an offense?”
“This isn’t a football game.” I hold out a hand like Dylan’s an idiot. “In fact, while we’re discussing it, I wanted to talk about her replacement.”
“You know someone?” Nash asks.
“No. I don’t think we should.”
They look at each other, then back at me. “It will change our sound,” Nash points out.
“Not necessarily,” I state. “I was in the studio last night. I got the keyboards removed from half a dozen of our tracks. It still works.”
Everyone is quiet, letting that sink in.
“Isn’t that playing into her hands?” Adrestia asks. “Wiping her out like she was never there?”
“Not if we don’t change the original music,” I tell her. “We’re going to get a studio musician to play those songs on this tour. The new album we should re-record, without keyboards.”
Nash looks troubled. Dylan has put his sensible head on. "We can't do that," he says. "No matter how much I want to."
“Perhaps this is a conversation you should have as a band,” Adrestia rises.
She looks around to seek Jack. He’s sitting with BreakNeck drinking champagne straight from the bottle. Pulling out of Nash’s grasp, she leaves us without a word and goes over to Jack. He greets her with a huge grin, listening and then glances to where we’re all sitting.
I didn’t intend to have this conversation without Alessa, but it might be good to lay some groundwork. We will have to discuss it more fully. I’ll show them what I mean about the keyboards not being a big enough part of our sound to remain once we’re back in New York.
I already know Dylan will be on board. Jack, despite being half drunk and exhausted, will take the conversation seriously. Alessa, I’m not sure about. She was good friends with Riley, though as far as I’m aware, they’ve not spoken since Riley walked out.
Riley was waiting for Alessa to run after her, to convince us we should take her back. It never happened.
The band will consider the idea.
Nash will be the one to convince.