Chapter Fifty-Four
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
BONNIE
I feel ten pounds lighter than I did an hour before.
This fucking family…
I love every single one of them.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I decided to tell them what happened to me. Definitely tears, maybe a little rage, at least one ‘why didn’t you tell us?’ However, the latter didn’t cross any of their minds. What I ever did to deserve this group of people in front of me, I’ll never know.
And glancing at Gemma, I know it’s all complete.
This is everything I’ve ever searched for.
And it’s going to last forever—or at least, as long as Stella doesn’t have a heart attack with what we’re asking her to accomplish right now.
“Okay, wait, hang on,” Stella says a few minutes later. “I need to… So, you want to fabricate a new set list, possibly new set elements, new intro, feature one of your new songs, and you want it—let me get this right—before RagnaRock?”
“Yeah.”
“That sounds right.”
“I just have one question for all of you,” she says. “ Have you lost your minds?! ”
“Whoa, Stella, easy,” Reed teases her.
“I… I don’t even have enough words—god, it’s too early. I need more coffee,” she mutters. “Who is going to read the intro?”
“We will,” Mads says. “We can record it in the studio. Each of us saying different lines.”
“Do like… heartbeat intro. Someone saying like ‘we’re not going to make it, should we say a prayer’ or something like that. And then, we go into a prayer to the rock gods about like… their past and what the beats mean to us and everything,” Reed goes on.
“Please tell me you have more concrete plans than that,” Stella says.
“By the time you make some calls, we will,” Mads promises.
Stella sighs. We can hear her clicking keys on her keyboard, and we wait patiently.
“So… that’s a yes?” I ask after a few seconds.
Stella curses under her breath, and we all grin at each other.
“Okay, let me make some calls—”
“Yes! Stella!”
The four of us jump up to celebrate, high-fives and cheers all around.
“Stella! Stella! Stella!”
“Okay, now, wait, wait—” she says quickly. “I can’t promise anything. You know Rock is going to hug you and kill you all at the same time. I need lists, specs, all the ideas—and not vague ones or half-ass thrown together ones. While your people will want to collaborate with their own spins, I still need you to be sure of things. It has to be firm, okay? I’m going to get in touch with Tag and Rock first and go ahead and get a meeting. Tag might call you this afternoon or just want you in person tomorrow, and he might tell you to fuck off. Which means, I’ll need you back in LA first thing in the morning to figure out all of this. Gemma?”
Gemma leans around me. “Yeah?”
“Are they good for travel?” Stella asks.
Gemma glances around the room, her gaze finally landing on me, and her concern softens.
I nod because I know she’s waiting for me to agree.
“Yeah. They’re good,” she sighs.
Reed punches the air.
“Hell yes!” he exclaims.
I stand up and jump into his arms, celebrating like we’ve just won the fucking lottery because it feels like we have.
Gemma says something, though I don’t hear it with the way Reed is spinning us around and jumping.
However, I do hear Mads’ reply.
“Oh, yeah. Twins. Separated at birth,” he says about Reed and me. “You get used to it.”
I see my dad pouring something into a bunch of glasses over at the kitchen island. He walked in midway through us chatting with Stella, and since then, he’s been putting away groceries.
I’m so glad he wasn’t here for my confession.
I don’t want to see him in any more pain.
“Celebratory sparkling raspberry juice, anyone?” my dad announces.
I jump down from Reed’s arms. We all crowd around the counter, grab a glass, and cheers high. The glasses clank, and as everyone else tips their drinks back, my eyes are on Gemma, watching her take a sip.
A similar sadness to the way she looked on the beach is in her eyes. A long exhale leaves me at the sight of it, and I wonder if it has to do with the fact that we’ll be going home tomorrow.
“Hey—” Andi nudges me in the side, breaking my trance, and I hug her from the side.
“Hey.”
She squeezes me back, then nods her head toward the bedroom. “Can we…”
“Yeah.” I set my drink down and slip out of the commotion with her as Zeb asks my dad to tell Reed and Wren some of the stories about how he and my mom used to follow an older jam band around the country in a van.
I don’t close the bedroom door when Andi and I enter, and it’s killing me not to blurt my question once we’re alone.
“So. The big news… Are you…” I eye her expectantly, and she blushes as if she knows what I’m asking.
“Mads said you might have figured it out yesterday,” she says.
I open my arms wide, mouth dropping. “That’s fucking awesome! Con—”
“No, wait,” she says, shaking her head and taking a step back. “I’m not. I mean, I was …”
Her eyes cascade to the floor, and guilt swarms my body, heart dropping. “Shit, Andi. When?”
“I… It started yesterday afternoon. I’m fine. Really. It’s just another setback, that’s it,” she says, and I can see her trying to hold it together.
“You guys didn’t have to come,” I tell her. “If you need to be at home or the fucking doctor—”
“Bonnie, I need to be here,” she insists. “I need to be where Maddox needs to be, and work is the only thing that’s going to keep him from losing his mind and dwelling, thinking that it’s somehow his fault. We’ve already spoken with my doctor. Already… cried… enough times that I don’t think I have any tears left in me. It’s just a setback. One more bump in the road, right? I just… I wanted to tell you, especially after Mads said you had figured it out.”
This fucking sucks.
If there are two people who deserve their dreams more than anything, it’s Mads and Andi.
“What can I do?” I ask her.
She gives me a grim smile and shakes her head. “Nothing,” she sighs. “Except, don’t make a big deal out of it. Really. This is the second time, so I kind of know what to expect… God, that sounds really shitty when I say it like that,” she says with a nervous laugh.
I squeeze her hand, and she takes a deep breath like she’s trying to shake it off.
“The beach is a good place to clear my head—doctor approved, in fact,” she goes on. “I can help your dad with cooking and cleaning up after all of you. I’m sure he’s having a ‘what the fuck’ moment in there. And besides, Zero is in love with the waves.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” she says. “Mads needs this. He needs you all together, making music and creating something new. If I need something, Wren has been on my ass, honestly. She’s awkward about the sentiment, but she really knows how to make you feel better otherwise. She even packed for me this morning because we were at the doctors first thing.”
I chuckle under my breath, then let out an exhale as I pull her into a deep hug. She squeezes me back, and I wish I could tell her that they’d get through this and it would all work out. But fuck, I’m the one living on borrowed time. I have no idea if everything will be okay.
Still, I really want it to be.
Mads quietly knocks on the door, and I slowly release Andi.
His jaw tenses as he peers at his wife. “Did you…”
Andi nods. “Yeah, I told her.”
He scratches the back of his head and then claps his hands together. “I fucking jinxed it,” he says when he looks at me.
I shake my head, on the verge of tears myself, just seeing the defeated look on his face. “Fuck that, man,” I say as I bring him into a hug. “You didn’t jinx anything. If anything, you told the universe it was going to happen. Watch out world, this kid is on its way, no matter what obstacles you throw. Get prepared.”
He huffs amusedly into my shoulder and sways us slightly. “Get fucking prepared,” he says, and I can hear him holding emotion back. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks me.
I pull back and slap him on the arm. “I’m great, Mads. Really. I need you to believe me on this.”
He nods. “Yeah, I do, Bon. You look…” His gaze moves over me, and I snicker.
“Sober?” I ask.
“Fucking happy, man,” he says, grinning crookedly.
Andi takes his outstretched hand. “Yeah, he’s right,” she agrees.
“If she fucks up, though, tell me,” he adds.
This time, I laugh. “Yeah, okay,” I say.
Gemma appears in the sliding door to the outside then, shoulder leaned against the frame, hands in her pockets. The corner of her lips lifts as if she knows I find that stance irresistible, and I push past Mads and Andi to go to her.
“I really hope that new apartment has lots of doorways,” I say when I reach her.
“Yeah? Why’s that?” she asks.
“Because if you’re going to look like this in every doorway you stand in, I’m going to need you to fuck me in each of them,” I answer.
Her smirk widens. “I can do that,” she says before our lips meet.
She tastes like freshly juiced pineapple and strawberries, and I almost groan at the taste.
“Go for a walk with me?” I ask her when we part.
“Okay.”
We exit down the balcony steps before anyone can interrupt us. Gemma gives me her hooded jacket to slip on when we’re halfway down, and I curl it around my arms like a safety blanket.
Shit, when I die, bury me in it. It’s oversized and cozy and smells just like her.
“Are you okay?” Gemma asks when we’re down the beach a little ways.
“Yeah, I just needed a minute,” I reply. “All the adrenaline and excitement, the new ideas swimming… I wanted a moment with you to calm my mind.”
She smiles as if the sentiment is surprising. “Do you need to talk it through?”
“Probably,” I say. “It’s all such a jumble right now that I don’t even know where to start. Anytime I think about what that intro might actually sound like, my brain skids like a broken record.”
Gemma chuckles. “Maybe after eating something, then. I don’t think I saw you eat earlier.”
“Someone usually has to shove it in my face on work days,” I say.
“Note taken. How are you feeling about going home?” Gemma asks.
“New place, right?” I say, kicking sand. “At least I won’t be far from the guys. What… um… what about your place?” I hesitantly ask.
“Ah…” She scratches her neck. “I’m not sure. I may crash with Kade and Liam until the festival is over.”
“Or…”
I don’t know why I’m nervous.
“Counter suggestion,” I go on. “You… could stay with me—I mean, if you want to. We just… you’ll be there anyway, right? It’s a big apartment. You could have your own room if you want. I get it if you want your own space.”
“I might want my own space for my computers and things, but I would never want my own bed or room away from you,” she says. “I don’t want to be your roommate.”
“Good because I don’t want you to be my roommate either,” I say. “I want you to be my girlfriend.”
Gemma’s tongue swipes over her lips as if she’s trying not to grin, though she doesn’t speak.
I squint at the ocean, my nerves shot. “That’s probably too much, too soon, right? Like you moving in, becoming my girlfriend… that’s a crazy idea, isn’t it?”
Gemma’s chuckle ceases my ramblings. “No. It isn’t crazy,” she says. “Are you sure you want me to move in?”
“Yeah,” I say, wrapping my arms around my chest. “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything, actually. Which is a weird sensation for me.”
“That’s a big step,” she agrees, and I can see her trying to keep herself from truly beaming at the notion.
“And the girlfriend question... we’re just going to ignore that? That’s cool,” I say, shrugging. “I don’t need an answer. I can be cool about this.”
She laughs. “We’re not ignoring it,” she says.
I wrap my arms around my chest, suddenly nervous and on the verge of spilling everything in my head. Seeing Mads and Andi together always brings up feelings about my own future, and for once, the thoughts aren’t only about how many hours it’s been since I woke up and how many drinks I could have had since then. Now, I have someone. And she’s someone who, thinking about a future with, seems within reach. So much less scary than it was just a couple of weeks ago.
“Do you want kids?” I blurt.
Gemma’s eyes narrow at me. “That’s a random question.”
I lift my brows, and Gemma seems to realize I’m serious.
“Oh. Um… No,” she says. “No, kids have never really been something on my life list. Why? Do you?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Nothing against kids. I love kids, but I also love sending them home at the end of the day.”
Gemma chuckles. “Yeah, that is a perk,” she says. “Why do you ask?”
“Ah, just… Andi and Mads are trying so fucking hard. I keep waiting on Reed to announce that he and Wren are expecting any time now. That’s always been part of their plan. I guess I just… I never really saw kids in my ‘happily ever after,’ and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”
She pauses mid-step and smirks at me, hands still in her pockets. “First, you’re asking me to move in, and now you’re planning our entire future? Are we getting a dog, too?”
“Oh, I’m sorry , have you not been planning this since you started stalking me ten years ago?” I tease her.
Gemma laughs. “Fair,” she says, walking again.
“So…”
She smiles, her face forward, and I swear her cheeks darken with a blush.
“Ah… yeah. Okay. We can try it,” she says.
I squint at her. “Tell me you were actually going to let me sleep all alone in my apartment,” I tease her.
“Yeah, fuck that, no, I wasn’t,” she admits.
“So, what’s wrong?” I ask.
She kicks sand, shoulders rounding forward. “I don’t… I mean, I guess I never even considered that you’d truly want me, let alone want to build a ‘happily ever after’ with me.”
I turn toward her with furrowed brows. “Why does that surprise you? I told you this morning I didn’t want to lose you. Now this surprises you? What’s the difference?”
For a few seconds, she doesn’t speak, and it takes me stepping closer for her to come back to reality.
“The difference is the happy part,” she says. “Maybe I just keep thinking I don’t deserve to be happy.”
“Everyone deserves to live happily,” I say.
“Hmm… do they, though?” she asks, eyeing me.
I snort. “Okay. Fair. But you do, Gemma. You deserve happiness after all of this.”
Her head hangs, hands shoving into her pockets again.
“Hey.” My fingers graze her cheek, and I tug her chin so that she looks at me. “What’s really going on?”
Because I’m confused as hell.
Her throat bobs, eyes searching my face. “Bonnie, I never thought you’d give me a chance, let alone a shot at a real relationship with you. After everything I’ve done… I thought we’d always be this cat-and-mouse game. I thought after you moved into your new apartment, you’d have a chance to truly think about this, and you’d push me away over time. I mean, this… the last couple days have been everything, but I… I’m hesitant because I don’t want you to run. I keep waiting for the moment when you realize… I lied to you. For weeks.”
I sigh as I take it in, as I try to perceive what she means, the shock of me talking about a future with her when she didn’t think I’d be open to it.
“You’re scared,” I realize.
“I’m not scared of loving you, Bonnie,” she says, shifting on her feet. “I’m scared one day, you’ll wake up and think ‘what the hell have I done? Why didn’t I run? How could I forgive her?’ And then, I’ll never be able to find you.”
Fuck, this hurts.
“Okay, where is the anxiety worm in your head because I would like to have a private word—” I lift up on my toes and tap her forehead. “Excuse me. No more doomsday scenarios.”
Gemma laughs and takes my hands down, and I cave at the sight of her beaming nervously.
I hate that she feels like this.
“Seriously, though, I don’t want us to be a game,” I say. “I want this. I want us. I want to build on what we have and see where it takes us. Last week, I was pushing you away because all I could think about was the fact that I wanted you to be the last person I ever kissed. I told you before that I knew we would be something real—”
“That was before you knew who I was,” she interjects.
“And finding out who you are only makes me want this more,” I tell her.
Her brow lifts, and I repeat back what I just said in my head.
“That sounds really fucked up, doesn’t it?” I ask, halfway joking.
“No more fucked up than anything I’ve ever said,” she says.
“God, that’s what I fucking love about us,” I tell her. “I love being able to be all of me and not worry about you judging me. I don’t have to hide anything. And I want that all the time . Gemma, I want to be your happiness. I want a future with you. I don’t just want a few weeks of sex and giggles. When I think of my new apartment—when I think of my future —I can see you in it, and that means something. Since you walked back into my life, that’s what’s been scaring the shit out of me. Because I knew we were never just a one-time fling. Yes, our beginning was every shade of fucked up. I don’t care. I told you, I wanted you to be my stalker. I fucking fantasized about it. There were times I looked at you, and I begged the universe for you to be the same person.”
“I didn’t think you believed in that kind of thing,” she says.
“I don’t. That’s what makes it even more crazy, because it actually came true,” I say.
Gemma huffs, and I give her a small smile.
“Gemma, we’re real. Nothing changes that.”
She covers my hand with hers and kisses the inside of my palm. Something akin to pain rests within those blown orbs, and my chest aches at the sight of it.
“You’re not scared of us anymore?” she asks, voice soft.
“I’ll never not be absolutely terrified of losing you,” I admit. “I’ll always be terrified that tomorrow I won’t be able to hold my shit together enough to bypass the liquor store. That’s the reality. Every day is a reset button. My sobriety is by the hour. That’s something I have to live with, and being with someone means they know that reality, too. I think you know me and that fact better than anyone, and that, as fucked up as it sounds, makes you so much more than just any other person in my life. Still, it isn’t just that, Gemma. I don’t just want you in my life because you’ve seen me at my literal worst. I want you in my life because of the way you make me feel and because you keep coming back no matter what. After all these years, all the shit we’ve been through, you’re still in front of me. You’re still here making me feel as if I’m the only person in your world, and that means so much more than anything else.”
I have to pause and shift on my feet, my words feeling as if they’re going to stick in my throat. Gemma squeezes my hand and brushes my hair back with her other, and I nearly melt into her touch.
“You’re the only thing that matters in my world,” she says quietly.
I wrap my hand around her cheek and bring her face closer to mine. I wish I could say it. I wish those three words would just slip off my tongue so that maybe she’d believe me.
“I can’t say it yet,” I whisper. “But I can say that I’ve never fallen for someone so quickly before, and no one has ever felt this right. Our combined bedlam is the safe, comforting space I want to be buried in. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Her tongue swipes over her lips, her throat bobbing like she’s getting ready to say something she’s never been more scared of saying. Yet, no words leave her mouth, and when she kisses me, I lose all sense of reality. That this has been within my reach for years, always a few steps behind me in the shadows…
I wish she’d stayed with me that night.
I wish she’d told me who she was.
Still, I know I wouldn’t be who I am today if she hadn’t left.
I know I would never have been able to get clean while also trying to love and forgive her.
And I know that this right here, in her arms, is where I was always meant to be. All the pain, the torture, the blackouts, and sleepless nights… It got me to her.
“Thank you,” I whisper into her hair.
“For what?”
“For never giving up on me.”
My phone rings in my pocket then, and at the sound of it, we both jump.
“Why is this thing even on loud?” I ask as I pull it from my pocket.
UNKNOWN is stretched across the screen.
It should send me into a panic.
It should make me want to hurl the phone into the ocean.
However, I’m fucking done.
Gemma’s gaze meets mine, the same rage in her eyes as I know is in mine.
“Are you ready for this?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
I tap the green button and put him on speaker.
“Hi, Rad .”
I’m fucking pissed. Spite and wrath restlessly swim through my veins.
If he were on this beach, he’d be dead already.
Because now, it’s really fucking personal.
There’s a scratching noise on the other side, though he doesn’t speak.
“Don’t be a fucking coward. I know it’s you,” I taunt him. “Speak. Take responsibility for once.”
“Little drummer girl, is that your best mean voice?”
There’s no voice changer covering his identity, and I’d know his sleazy voice anywhere.
“Is that your best comeback?” I ask.
“I came across some very disappointing news today,” he goes on.
“What’s that?” I ask, looking at Gemma.
“I went to visit you. And the building manager was in there doing an inspection. All your things were gone. What happened? You didn’t like your neighbors?”
“I mean, they were pretty loud,” I reply. “I’m also not a fan of living beside rapist pigs. They were so much more quiet yesterday, though… I wonder if something happened.”
A beat of silence passes, and I wish I could see the look on his stupid face.
“If you think moving is going to keep you any safer, you’re wrong,” he eventually says.
“I’m done running from you, Rad. If you want a real fight, you’ll stop hiding behind your little mask and face me. You can start by telling everyone how you drugged and raped me at a rave.”
I’m shaking as I say it out loud.
“And you can start by admitting you drugged me so you could take my job,” he snaps.
“Oh my fucking god, are you serious?! ”
I almost throw the phone into the ocean.
“Are you seriously equating overdosing and getting kicked out of a band you were already getting kicked out of to fucking gang-raping me?! ”
“I didn’t overdose. You did this. I know it was you—”
“ I know it was you! ” I almost shout. “God, Rad, you took something from me that I’ll never be able to get back.”
“Good. You deserved every fucking second. Tell me, Bonnie… Tell me you remember my dick inside you.”
I shudder, my hands threading into my hair. Breaths shorten. My chest heaves. I’m shaking to the point that my knees want to give out. Gemma tries to take the phone from me, yet I push her off.
“Oh, I hope you do. I hope you get nightmares about it—”
“And I hope you get nightmares about this , motherfucker,” I snap, my mouth on the speaker. “The next time I see you, I’m putting a bullet in your fucking head. I’ll be the last goddamn thing you see.”
“Funny, that’s what your girlfriend told me when she cornered me at Radio Eleven,” he says.
I grind my teeth. “If you think you’re such a big, tough guy, try it again. Except this time, don’t hide behind your little tricks. No drugs. No distractions. No masks. Stop being a fucking coward.”
“Is that what you told your stalker?”
“I’m right here, asshole,” Gemma says, taking the phone from my hand. “She’s done giving you these five seconds of attention that you jerk off to every few days. We are done. If you come near us, don’t think either of us will hesitate to put you where you belong.”
“And where’s that?”
“Pushing fucking daisies,” she sneers.
He laughs.
The noise curdles my blood, rage-filled tears lining my eyes.
“See you soon, ladies,” he taunts.
“You can fucking bet on it,” Gemma says.
The phone call ends, and as I start to crash, scream, and writhe, Gemma wraps her arms around me so tightly that every twist and jostle is stifled. She’s saying something, but the noise is distant in my ears. I feel sand beneath my knees. I sink my head into the crook of her neck, thinking I’m about to start sobbing from the anger in my bones; however, her arms and embrace help even out my breaths. She doesn’t let me go, doesn’t let up the pressure, and only when I can hear the ocean again do I notice her whispering in my ear, “ I have you. I have you,” over and over.
But now, I have her, too.
And nothing is going to jeopardize that.