20. Chapter Twenty #2
My body knows this job better than anything else. My voice knows exactly where to crack. My hands know when to drag down the mic stand, when to point into the crowd, and when to grip the microphone like the whole fucking stadium belongs to me.
I’m brilliant at it.
Inside, though… I’m still looking for the woman who wrote the words coming out of my mouth.
The next song starts. It’s the kind that always sounds better live because the crowd turns the bridge into a wound.
I sing it and the words taste different now.
They used to feel like mine because my voice carried them.
That was my favorite trick. Take what Willow wrote, bleed it through my throat, and let the world call me brilliant.
Now every line is evidence that she gave me the best parts of herself and I wore them onstage like leather.
Even as the crowd screams for me, it doesn’t feed me the same way. Not when every lyric bears her fingerprints and every cheer sounds like they are thanking me for something I stole.
The rest of the set burns through sweat, lights, and muscle memory. I grin. I flirt. By the time we hit the last song, my shirt is stuck to my back, my throat is raw, and the crowd is screaming loud enough.
I give them one last filthy smile. One last chorus before the lights cut out, the stadium erupts, and we all walk offstage, exhausted.
The green room is exactly what it always is. Loud. Hot. Full of alcohol, expensive perfume, bad decisions, and people who pretend backstage access is the same as knowing us.
Some blonde chick is laughing far too hard near the drinks table, doing everything short of setting herself on fire to get our attention.
Jax already has a woman on each side of him.
Cruz is leaning against the counter while some brunette whispers in his ear, his beer in one hand, the other resting low on her waist, as if they have known each other longer than the last three fucking minutes.
Jett is the only one not playing the game. He’s backed against the wall, a marker in his hand, signing whatever shit gets shoved at him. Shirts. Programs. Arms. Tits.
He catches my eye across the room and gives me a slight nod.
Come here or save me. With Jett, it is usually both.
I shove through the crowd, already having a marker shoved into my hand before I even reach him.
“About fucking time,” Jett mutters.
I laugh and start signing whatever comes in front of me. Programs. Shirts. A phone case. A woman’s thigh. Tits.
My hand moves on instinct, my signature coming out the same every time, while women laugh, flirt, press closer, and try to catch my attention.
Two weeks ago, I would have been eating all this shit up. Tonight though, it is just ink.
I still flirt, then act bored enough to make them try harder, because this shit is muscle memory and my muscles are excellent little whores when fame tells them to dance.
A brunette with tits that deserve their own management team steps into my space and pulls the front of her tiny top down far enough to make her intentions impossible to misinterpret.
“Sign here,” she says, tapping the curve of her chest.
Old me would have had three dirty comments ready and one hand already checking the return policy on her underwear.
Current me still notices. I am not dead, for fuck’s sake. My cock recognizes a willing woman with her tits out. It has always been a professional in that department. After the miles I have put on the bastard, I expect it to clock in when there are obvious knocks.
It does. My cock stands at attention, ready for some action.
I take the marker and lean in with my usual grin. “You sure, sweetheart? Ink stains. I’d hate to ruin something that looks that good.”
She laughs, breathy and pleased, as if this were foreplay.
I sign my name across her skin, black and bold, exactly where the old me would have put his mouth next.
She looks up at me through her lashes. “You want to see what else I’ll let you sign?”
There it is. Easy. Obvious. A door wide open, with no feelings standing in the way. No history under the floorboards and no woman with hospital eyes telling me I let her down.
I cap the marker and hand it back to the person behind me.
“Not tonight.”
Her smile falters. “Seriously?”
I give her a slow once-over. “Trust me, sweetheart. I’m doing you a favor.”
She laughs because she thinks I am joking.
I push off the wall.
Jett notices. “Where are you going?”
“I just need a minute.”
He looks at me for half a second longer than necessary.
I leave the green room before someone shoves another drink, another body, or another pair of tits my way and expects me to behave like the trained animal everyone paid to see.
The backstage corridors stretch ahead. I pass two security guards, a stack of road cases, and a half-open door where someone is definitely doing something that will require hand sanitizer afterward.
Usually, I would stop and make a comment. Maybe join in if I felt like it. Tonight, even my worst instincts seem weary.
The loading dock is cooler. Quieter. For the first time all night, no one is screaming my name.
I pull out my phone and open Graham’s number.
It has been a week. Seven fucking days with no word about Willow. I have called the rehab center more than once, but they won’t tell me shit because privacy laws don’t care that I’m losing my mind in designer boots.
Still, it makes me want to punch something.
My thumb hovers over Graham’s name as I stare at the screen, wondering whether her parents have been able to talk to her.
I press call before I talk myself out of it.
He answers on the fifth ring. “What do you want, Phoenix?”
I almost smile. No hello or polite bullshit. Just Graham Hart, still making it very fucking clear that if murder were legal, I would already be a cautionary tale.
I stare out into the dark beyond the loading dock. “I’m calling to ask how she is.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Graham, I just need to know whether she’s okay,” I say.
More fucking silence.
I pull the phone away from my ear to see if he has ended the call. The seconds tick by as my pulse races in my throat.
Then Graham says, “Elise received an update from the center today.”
My grip shifts around the phone.
“We weren’t able to speak to Willow directly. They don’t allow it yet. But she’s doing okay. As okay as she can be I suppose.”
I close my eyes. The relief hits so sharp it hurts. She is going to be okay. Okay is more than I had when I was sitting beside her hospital bed, counting every fucking breath.
“Good,” I say, my voice rough. “That’s good.”
“She’s eating. Attending what they ask her to attend. Resting.” A pause. “And she’s back to writing. Elise cried when they told her.”
I press my free hand against the concrete wall beside me. “That’s...” My throat tightens. I try again. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, it is.”
The silence stretches between us.
I swallow. “I’m sorry, Graham, for all of it. I’m not saying this to make myself feel better. I know I hurt her.”
He lets out a breath. “I can see you’re aware you weren’t there for her when it mattered. But knowing it doesn’t mean a damn thing if that’s where it stops. You want to be different, Phoenix, then follow through. Not for me. For her.”
I close my eyes again.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
“You better.”
Then the line goes dead.
I lower the phone slowly.
For a long time, I stand on the loading dock with the phone in my hand and the tour thundering behind me. Somewhere down the hall, someone laughs. A door opens. Music spills out. The green room waits with all the same old bullshit I used to call a good night.
For the first time in my life, I don’t want to go back in there. I don’t want to lose myself to some groupie with her hands on my belt and my name on her lips.
Hell, that is what I lived for. But now all I can think about is Willow, sitting somewhere without me, trying to put herself back together, while I stand here with a stadium behind me and nothing in it that is worthy of my attention.
So I shove my phone in my pocket and head to the hotel.