Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Hendrix · Now
Have Faith In Me – A Day To Remember
I linger at the back of the darkened room.
Heart in my stomach, my grip tightens around the beer in my hand as the excitable chatter from the crowd wraps around me.
Saint sending me a text to ask for one of mine and Cole’s unreleased songs the day after my alcohol-induced breakdown was a shock.
More surprising, though, I didn’t delete the message.
I ignored it for a day. Asked where he got my number on the second. Sent him a song on the third. Told him I couldn’t come to the show on the fourth. And when the sixth day rolled around, I got behind the wheel of my car anyway.
I sip my beer and glance over the heaving crowd. I’ve been to many concerts in my thirty years. There was a time I’d be squished into a crowd every weekend, screaming along to the music of my favourite bands.
But not a single one of those concerts comes even close to being at a Reckless Abandon show.
There’s something magnetic about those four men.
They’re not just a band. They’re a family.
They feed off one another. One moves, the others follow without thought. They bleed music and it shows.
Strobe lights dance off the walls, illuminating the stage.
My stomach knots when Cole comes into focus.
Dressed in all black, rippling inked arms on display, he commands his audience.
A minute passes, the crowd buzzing, the stage still.
Then Saint brings his arm down and a heady riff explodes through the speakers.
The room hushes, anticipation thick in the air. The realization that they’re hearing a never played song ripples through the awed crowd.
Every bone in my body tenses, the plastic in my hand crinkling beneath my death grip as my throat dries.
Cole doesn’t just sing.
He ascends.
In this moment, he’s nothing less than a God, staring down at the kingdom he created.
My breath quickens. He caresses the stand before him, palm drifting up and down so slowly, a stark contrast to the raw, heavy sound passing his lips. I wrap my fingers around my wrist, pushing my thumb under the white beaded bracelet sitting there.
Maybe I’m about to make the second biggest mistake of my life when it comes to him. Or maybe this is how it was always meant to be.
Because Cole Hayes is extraordinary.
I knew it then, just as I see it now.
And fuck if I’m not going to try and make sure he stays that way.
My fluffy black slippers wear a hole into the carpet .
Silver moonlight slants through my blinds. Incense burns on the windowsill, a perfect blend of crisp apple and dry sandalwood scenting my bedroom room.
My guitar lays discarded on the bed, an unplugged keyboard next to it.
Paper crinkles beneath my foot.
I tug off my headphones, throw them onto the dresser, and kick the balled-up sheet music away. There was a time I couldn’t sit still due to the unwritten composition running a loop in my mind. Now, I can’t sit still because of the silence.
Maybe it was na?ve of me to believe I could just pick right back up where I left off.
I spot my phone buried beneath the paper littering my floor and snatch it up.
Thumb swiping over the screen, I pull in a slow breath, trying to ease the tension in my body as I find Cole’s number.
He answers on the first ring, his voice gruff and croaky. “Rixie?”
My stomach flutters.
“Hey,” I say. “Sorry for calling late.”
He clears his throat, and I can only imagine him rubbing sleepy eyes. “Late? It’s four a.m. Pretty sure we’re encroaching on early at this point.”
“No, it’s—” My eyes widen as I spy the time on the corner of the screen. “Fuck. I didn’t realise the time. Last I checked it was before midnight.” I scrub a hand down my face. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you back later.”
“No!” He croaks. “Don’t go.”
I pause, my thumb hovering on the red button. Indecision curls inside me, but I hear his slow exhale and I know I won’t press it down.
“I’m up now,” he says. I hear what sounds like bed sheets rustling. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Dangerous pastime, indeed.” He chuckles, and my body hums at the lazy sound. “Care to elaborate?”
I chew my lip. “What’s the last song you wrote?”
“Not what I was expecting. Any particular reason you want to know?”
“Just wondering,” I say.
Time seems to slow as I hear his breaths caressing the speaker through the silence. I wonder if I’ve asked the wrong question. Music is so personal to artists. Getting a peek into somebody’s creative mindset is akin to peeling their skin back and staring deep into their soul.
But then, he sighs. “Properly?”
I hum an affirmative.
“Heart Torn,” he says.
My world shatters. “But that’s…”
“The last song we started together,” he says, his voice quiet, resigned.
“That makes no sense.” I shake my head.
Heart Torn wasn’t just our song. It was our ending.
What started as a tale of heartbreak became the reality of it. It was supposed to be just another song, but it turned into a ghost I’ve never been able to let go of.
“You’ve released three albums since then, ones I had no hand in.”
A dry laugh crackles through the speaker.
“Yeah. After the success of the first two albums, the label wanted to capitalise on that fact and brought in some industry bigwig to write with us. Didn’t trust our vision without you, I guess.
” He sighs, the sound hitting me like a sucker punch straight to my stomach.
“I added some bits to the music, but absolutely none of those songs are really mine, you know?”
I tug my tongue stud, his words twisting in my mind. “Why didn’t you leave the label?”
“We’d have owed them millions. Not to mention the fact they’d probably have blacklisted us.” I hear him move around, a water bottle uncapping, a swallow. “Remember how excited I was when we got the contract?”
I nod, though he can’t see me. “Hm.”
“Turns out, we were fucking stupid and too young to realise. We signed every bit of creative control over to them for ten years. Not sure we could even take a shit without their approval.”
I’ve never heard him sound so… lost. He was always so sure, so confident in who he was and who he was going to become. He had it all figured out.
My eyes sting. “I’m so sorry, Cole.”
“It is what it is. Too late to go back and change it now.”
Yeah, way too fucking late.
“So, what now?” I ask. “The contract is over, right?”
“Yep.” He clicks his tongue. “And unless I can figure out a way to revive the music inside of me, Reckless Abandon is over too.”
Pain lances my chest.
I scrub a palm over it as I stare down at the mess of discarded sheet music on the floor.
The thought of giving him hope, only to rip it away…
“Did you fall asleep on me?” he asks softly.
“No.” My lips lift. “Still here. Just lost in my own world.”
“Is it a good place to get lost?”
“Some days. Others, not so much.”
“What about today? Is it good today?”
“Maybe.” A tired laugh slips from my lips. “Ask me again later.”
“Okay.” He breathes, then silence fills the line.
I curl a hand into my bedding, the black cotton soft and warm, as the air thickens around me. “I want to help you.”
“Help, as in…”
I pull in a slow breath. “I want to write together. You and me. Like we used to.”
“Yeah?” I hear the soft smile in his voice, the hope buried beneath the guarded rock star. “You’ll really do this with me?”
My lip twitches, curling sadly.
I remember a time we had a conversation almost word-for-word like this one. Only, we were different people then, on different paths.
If only those two kids could see us now.
They’d be so disappointed.
“A world where Reckless Abandon doesn’t exist isn’t a good one,” I tell him, laying back and staring at the ceiling. “So yeah. I’ll do this with you.”
I don’t need to see him to know he’s grinning. I can feel it. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, dude.” I sigh. “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing anymore.”
I hear his slow breath, and I can imagine him brushing a thumb over his lip in thought.
“What’s the last song you wrote?” he asks. “Anything I’d know?”
I choke down the bitter laugh crawling up my throat.
I should tell him the truth—that my answer is the same as his.
But telling him that means admitting to him that he wasn’t the only thing I walked away from that day at the skatepark. And I’m not ready to do that.
I don’t know that I ever will be.
“No, nothing you’d know,” I tell him instead. I roll my head, gaze zeroing in on the sparkling moon. “You realise this is gonna be hard, right? I don’t know who you are anymore. I don’t know who Reckless Abandon is. How am I meant to write for strangers?”
He hums, the sound curling around me and buzzing through my veins, before his voice turns teasing. “Maybe it’s time for some re-introductions, then.”