Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
LUCA
I got fuck all sleep that night.
I spent the whole time replaying my argument with Ollie. Kai’s and Kevin’s words had wormed their way under my skin, making it all too easy to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Ollie and run with it.
By the time dawn broke, I questioned if I’d done the right thing. Sure, Ollie hadn’t admitted to wanting anything more with me…but he hadn’t been ending it either.
Fuck, I was such an idiot. Was I really going to let fear push him away?
I thought it over as I numbly went through my morning routine. It felt so odd to do it without Ollie at my side. It might’ve only been for a few weeks, but I’d got…used to having him here.
Now his absence haunted the room like a ghost.
It was no good. I couldn’t leave it like this. I would call him right now and ask him to come up here. No more bullshit. I was going to tell him exactly how I felt. Maybe that was stupid. Maybe he’d break my heart.
But it had to be better than this despair currently hollowing out my chest. At least then, I’d know there was no future rather than pushing Ollie away because of an assumption.
To my frustration, my phone was nowhere to be found. I was riffling through my jeans from the night before when there was a knock at my door.
Ollie.
I flew across the room and yanked the door open. My heart sank when I saw Kevin standing there, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Oh. It’s you.”
“As welcoming as ever,” Kevin muttered, pushing past me and striding into the room.
I peered into the hallway, praying I’d see Ollie’s familiar blond hair coming out of the lift. But there was only Jack. His eyes connected with mine, and he gave me a small sympathetic smile.
I bit back a groan as I returned his nod before shutting the door. Great. Of course he knew what’d happened last night. He’d probably heard every word through the door.
Kevin was sat at the table, his hands clasped in front of him. Alarm pinged the back of my mind. I warily took the seat opposite him. “Why are you here so early?”
“A lesser man than me might say it’s to tell you I told you so, but that seems rather mean.”
Seems rather mean, yet he’d essentially said it anyway. “What do you mean?”
“Ollie’s gone,” he said bluntly. “Came to me as soon as you kicked him out of your room last night and requested to be let go from the assignment early.”
“No.” I shoved back from the table, striding from the door. “No, he can’t leave.”
“Luca, he already has.” Kevin’s words had me freezing with my hand on the doorknob. “Steve dropped him at the airport at four a.m. He’s due to land in London any minute now.”
Numbness began to creep over me. What had I done?
I paced the room, my hands shoving into my hair. Think. Think. Think. “Okay, so we have a show tonight, then two days off. I’ll take the jet back to London to speak to him, and then I’ll be back in time for Warsaw.”
“Luca.” Kevin stood from his seat. “He doesn’t want to see you.”
I waved that off impatiently. “That’s because I was a dick. I just need to talk to him and then…”
“No, Luca, you don’t understand.” Kevin grabbed my arm, forcing me still. “Ollie was grateful you kicked him out. He told me he was going to end it anyway.”
“What?” My chest tightened, pins and needles pricking my fingertips.
Kevin’s brows knitted together. “Fucker admitted it was only ever going to be a fling. The second his job was at risk, he knew he needed to call it off. But you got there first.”
“No.” I shook my head, trying to force away the black spots creeping in at the edge of my vision. “No…it was just a fight. He didn’t want to leave. I made him.”
“He wanted to, Luca. You know what he said? He told me he was relieved. That he’d felt you getting too close and didn’t know how to break it off without you firing him.
But once it hit the press, his office told him to get his arse back to England.
He was going to break up with you…but you got there first.”
I remembered the way he’d been sitting when I’d entered the room. The baseless accusations he’d dropped at my feet. How he’d been looking for an argument.
“I’m sorry, Luca. I wish I didn’t have to say I told you so, but…”
“Get out.” I stalked across the room, yanking open the minibar. “Now.”
There was a beat of silence before Kevin spoke. “Seriously, don’t let yourself get down over this. He’s not worth it. He’s a piece of shit who was using you to get ahead, just like I told you.”
I wanted to put my hands over my ears. Wanted to do something, anything, to drown out Kevin’s hateful words. Somehow, hearing Ollie was done with me was so much more painful coming from him than it would’ve been from Ollie himself.
“Get out,” I repeated. “Now.”
Kevin sighed, and there was a soft thud as something landed on the bed. “Fine. There’s your phone, by the way. You left it in the dressing room last night.”
I ignored it, not even bothering to turn around until I heard the door close behind Kevin.
There was no point reaching out to Ollie now. There was one call I did need to make, though, one promise to follow through on.
Because no matter how Ollie had let me down, I wouldn’t do the same to him. At the end of the day, it wasn’t his fault I’d fallen in love with him.
He hadn’t promised me anything.
This was all on me.
I grabbed my phone, making the call fast and efficient. When I was certain my orders would be followed, I hung up and let my head hang between my shoulders.
Somehow I knew I should be grateful it’d ended like this. If Ollie never intended for us to last, then I’d been right last night. Better to call it quits now before I ended up getting more hurt.
Judging by the shards currently slicing through my chest, I wasn’t sure that was possible.
Walking out on stage that evening was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Only the thought of letting my fans down had me forcing down my heartbreak and stepping into the spotlight.
I tried my best, but each time I glanced at Jack in the pit, the reminder that Ollie had left would hit me like a sledgehammer. More than once, I stumbled over lyrics, my voice catching on notes and wavering through others.
Fortunately, my bandmates stepped up. I had no idea if they knew what had happened, but they put on a show like no other. Kai and Silas worked the crowd into a frenzy while Arlo played his heart out.
When “Tease” started, I froze. The spotlight was on me, the audience starting their chant.
All I could see was Ollie the first night I’d knelt before him. The heat in his eyes. How his tongue licked over his full pink lips.
Had that all been fake? Had he really played me?
Someone wrapped an arm around my chest and a guitar bounced against my back. Speaking into his microphone, Kai shouted. “How about we all tease tonight?”
Silas came around my front, his back to the crowd. He was shaking his arse, his fingers flying over the chords. It was so at odds with the concern on his face as he studied me. “Okay?”
I shook myself out of my stupor at his mouthed question. What the fuck was I doing? Thank God for the others. By grinding themselves up against me, Kai and Silas had managed to hide my spiral and keep the crowd entertained.
I couldn’t let them down.
Winking at Silas, I dropped my head back against Kai’s shoulder. I didn’t normally play with either of them on stage. That was their usual schtick.
But tonight, it was a good distraction. If it helped me get through the final hour on stage, I’d take it.
When the show finally ended, I stormed off stage before any of them could stop me. As grateful as I was, the last thing I wanted was to go over the whole situation. I needed time to process the fact Ollie had abandoned me without so much as a goodbye before I hashed it out with the others.
I had two days before the next show. I intended on using every minute to get my head screwed on right.
But as I crashed into my bed, a half-empty bottle of vodka clutched between my fingers, I realised the horrible truth.
Forty-eight hours wouldn’t be long enough for me to forget Ollie.
Something told me even a year wouldn’t be enough.