Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
The next day, I’m fixing my hair when my phone rings.
It’s Harmony … again. She called several times yesterday and left a slew of texts.
I was too zonked to call her back, and I wasn’t ready to talk to her.
She won’t be happy when she learns that Axel and I are an item.
She certainly won’t be happy when I change the direction of my column.
Thanks to me, Harmony is now heavily invested in digging up all the dirt she can on Axel Cox.
I might as well answer, or she’ll keep calling. “Hello,” I say briskly.
She jumps in with a breathy, “Why haven’t you been answering my calls or texts?”
“Sorry, it’s been crazy.”
“What’s going on?” Her annoyance reaches through the phone and prickles the hair on my arms.
“Axel’s dad is in the hospital. He had a car accident that resulted in a brain injury. He was rushed into surgery, and now he’s being sedated until the pressure in his brain subsides.”
“That’s awful.” She sounds quelled for going on the attack.
“It is.”
“Did Axel go back to Mt. Pleasant?”
“He did.” I swallow, knowing this next part won’t sit well. “I’m here with him. We drove.”
“What?” she shrieks. “What about the party tomorrow night?”
“I’m not sure what’ll happen about that.”
“I haven’t heard a word from you or Bianca, so I had no way of knowing what was going on,” she sulks.
Harmony can be quite good at playing the victim when it suits her.
“When did the accident happen?”
“Yesterday evening.”
Her irritation returns. “Why didn’t you call and tell me?”
I don’t have to be a mind reader to gauge her thoughts. As far as she’s concerned, I’m not only falling down on the job, but I’m also letting her down personally. “Everything happened so fast that there wasn’t time. We drove through the night. I slept for several hours yesterday to catch up.”
“Okay,” she says in a pragmatic way that lets me know she’s pivoting to a new plan. “Are you at your parents’ house?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where are you?”
“At Axel’s house.”
“What?” she exclaims. “You drove all night with him, and now you’re staying at his house?”
“Technically, it’s his parents’ house, but yes, I’m staying with Axel.”
“What’s going on here, London?”
I take in another breath. “Axel and I are together.”
“What?” she screeches.
My eardrum buzzes from the noise. I hold the phone slightly away from my ear, wincing.
“Have you lost your mind?”
I grunt out a brittle laugh. “I’m starting to think so.”
Her voice is rolled in a hissy disbelief. “Does he know who you are?”
“No, but I ran into his little sister, Cassie, at the hospital. We were good friends growing up. She recognized me.”
“I’m sure that went over well,” she says sarcastically.
“She’s going to give me some time to tell Axel the truth … about everything. I’m going to do it after we perform at the benefit.”
“No,” she snaps. “You can’t do that. Your identity must remain anonymous—that’s a condition of your contract. No one—and especially not Axel—must ever know that you’re Jovie Chord.”
“Really,” I smirk. “Maybe you should take your own advice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You told Bianca that I’m Jovie.”
“That’s different. I had to tell her, so she’d let you into Axel’s house.”
“Well, I don’t trust Bianca, and you shouldn’t either. Have you forgotten the part where she threatened to tell Axel the truth about me?”
“She was just mouthing off. Bianca knows better than to cross me.”
A chill runs down my spine. I’m no dummy. This is Harmony’s way of giving me a veiled threat. “Look, as it turns out, I was wrong about Axel. He’s not the heartless playboy I made him out to be.” Emotion clogs my throat. “He’s a great guy who cares about people.”
“You’re in love with him,” Harmony says in dismay. “How could you be so irresponsible? I thought you were a professional.”
My eyes go moist. “I made a terrible mistake, and it’s coming back to bite me. All that stuff I wrote—I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t wrong about Axel,” she counters.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“The reason why I’ve been trying to get in touch with you was to tell you that Rachel finally called me back.”
My breath catches. “Really? What did she say?”
“She told me why Axel split from the band.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“According to Max, the band was working on some top-secret material for a new album. Axel went behind their backs and sold the lyrics and music of their best song to Rebel Deeds.”
“No,” I gasp, “that can’t be true.” My head spins. “Axel wouldn’t do that.”
“Rachel said Max is devastated that his best friend and longtime band member would stoop so low as to sell proprietary material to a competitor band.”
My blood runs cold. “I don’t believe it,” I say flatly. “Rachel’s lying.”
“She sounded convinced of her words to me. And trust me, I know human behavior.”
“Then Max is lying to his girlfriend,” I insist. “Cassie said yesterday that someone close to Axel hurt him. Maybe it was Max. You’re getting the wrong information.”
Harmony chuckles humorlessly. “No, it’s you who’s getting the wrong information.
You’ve let your feelings get in the way of the story.
” She spits out her words in hard thrusts.
“Get your head out of the sand and do your job! I emailed you the transcript of my interview with Rachel. I’ll expect to have the story by the end of the day. ”
Panic races through my veins. “You don’t understand.”
She raises her voice. “I understand perfectly. You have a crush on a country music star. It happens. Get over it.”
“This is no crush. This is—”
“How does Zoe Reynolds feel about you taking her boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t know yet,” I croak.
“Great,” Harmony mutters, “more crap to shovel. When Bianca realizes that I put you into that house where you could steal Zoe’s boyfriend … it’s not gonna end well for any of us.”
“Look, I don’t know what type of hold you have over Bianca, but I’m telling you that you can’t trust her.”
Her voice goes shrill. “I don’t have a hold over her. I got her the Keith Anthony job, and she owed me a favor. There’s no hold,” she repeats. “She was repaying a favor. This is going to get ugly,” she frets.
“I thought you said she knew better than to cross you,” I snip.
She yells into the phone. “You need to break things off with Axel pronto … before Zoe gets wind of any of this. Now that Bianca knows who you are … she could do a lot of damage to get back at you. And it won’t help to have a powerful enemy like Zoe Reynolds.”
Invisible needles jab my skin from every direction. “One would almost think you care about what happens to me.”
“I do care,” she fumes. “Too bad you don’t care enough about your career, this magazine, and me to do the right thing. Get me the story by the end of the day!”
She clicks off.
Tears bubble in my eyes and drip down my cheeks as I put down my phone and stare at my reflection in the mirror.
I don’t want to wreck my career, but there’s no way I’m writing another smear article about Axel—especially one that’s a crock. He would never sell out his own band.
Would he?
After pulling myself together, I go into the kitchen to find Cassie at the stove, working the spatula to flip pancakes. She glances over her shoulder. “You hungry?”
“Starving.” Some people can’t eat when they’re stressed. I’m the opposite.
“You always could eat me and everyone else under the table,” she laughs.
“Nothing wrong with a healthy appetite.” I look around. “Where’s everybody?”
“By everybody, do you mean Seth?”
“Yep.”
“He’s outside on the front porch. Mom’s at the hospital.”
My first inclination is to go outside to talk to Axel, but courtesy dictates that I ask, “Can I help with anything?”
“Nah, I’ve got it.” She throws me a cheeky grin. “Go on outside and find your man. I know you want to.” Her voice is rolled with amusement. “By the way, I heard y’all laughing and talking on the couch last night, and when I ventured out to get a drink of water, y’all were sucking face.”
My cheeks blaze. “You’re enjoying razzing me, aren’t you?”
“Immensely,” she chirps.
“I didn’t realize you were serving up a helping of snark with the pancakes.”
She snorts. “Good one.”
I perch a hand on my hip. “What about you? Do you have anyone special in your life?”
She smirks. “Like I have time for romance with my work schedule.”
“I could always fix you up with Bryce. He’s not dating anyone right now.” I can’t even say the words without grinning. When Cassie and I were younger, Bryce pestered us to death … to the point where Cassie dubbed him The Little Menace.
She spins around, eyebrow lifting. “Seems like I’m not the only one serving up snark.”
“Come on, Cas, we’re all adults now. Lots of girls are into Bryce—now that he’s a kick-butt engineer.
And he’s not half-bad looking … at least to hear the girls tell it.
” Truth be known, Bryce is a good-looking guy, but he’s my brother, so I’m not about to sing his praises too loudly.
If he heard me, his head would swell up like The Goodyear Blimp.
Bryce already has way too high an opinion of himself as it is.
“I don’t date younger men,” she sniffs.
“You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” I tease.
She waves her hand. “Go on outside. I’ll call y’all when it’s ready.”
“Thanks,” I chime as I sashay out.
Axel’s on the phone. The rigid set of his shoulders and thinning of his mouth let me know that it’s a tense conversation. I go over and sit down beside him on the swing.
“Why are you acting like this?” His voice goes hard. “It’s a stupid party that I didn’t even want to have to begin with.” He balls his fist. “My dad’s in the hospital in critical condition, and all you can think about is yourself. I guess some things never change.”
He goes silent, the muscle in his jaw flicking. I can only imagine what Zoe must be saying on the other end. He looks at me. “Yes, she came with me. In fact, I drove her SUV.”