Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Hendrix · Now
Memory – Sugarcult
Riley strolls into my bedroom as I try to cram my favourite black and white striped pyjamas into my already packed-to-the-brim holdall.
“Hey, I was just gonna ask if you want to go get Tony’s…” She trails off, her gaze flicking around the room. “What are you doing?”
I give up on the pyjamas and toss them onto the bed. Twisting the volume on my speaker, M Shadow’s voice becomes little more than a whisper caressing my ears. “Packing.”
“Your whole wardrobe?”
I glance between the pile of clothes littering the floor, the empty hangers in my wardrobe, and the bursting suitcase on my bed.
I grimace. “So it seems.”
“Why?” she asks.
Because what does one wear to go face their ex-boyfriend and his band?
I swipe up my glass of water and down half of it. “I’m going to London for the weekend.”
“Work?”
“Yes.” My nose crinkles. “No.” I twist a ring on my finger. “Maybe. I’m going to hang out with Cole and the band?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I don’t know,” I say, because I’m not actually sure what I’m doing.
It’s business, but there’s no work planned. It’s not business because we haven’t set any parameters and Cole floated the idea as new introductions rather than a professional meeting.
Can it be business with strangers you once shared your life with?
“Okay, then.” She hops up onto my dresser, her legs swinging back and forth. “Talk me through it, and we can figure it out together.”
“I agreed to write music with Cole. For him, maybe? I’m not a hundred percent sure what we really agreed on. It was like four o’clock in the morning, I was tired, he’d just woken up. It was like a tentative, let's maybe do something?"
She nods. “That’s a lot to unpack. Let’s start with the writing thing. You don’t write music.”
“Not anymore.” I chuckle, tipping my head back. “I used to. Cole and I wrote most of their first two albums together.”
“Okay. And you’re writing again?”
“Maybe. If I can figure it out.”
“Where does London fit into this?”
I exhale a shaky breath. “Writing for anyone is a collaboration. Even if they don’t have much input in the actual production.
Say for example, you’re writing for a pop princess.
You’re less likely to write a politically steeped song, because that wouldn’t fit her vibe.
Unless she’s more of a pop-punk princess. ”
Riles lips twist as her fingers wiggle in her lap.
“Am I making sense?” I ask her.
“I think so. Personality matters with music?”
I smile. “Exactly. You can tell who an artist is through their music. So, if I’m just given a brief, I could work with it, but the spark that makes it them is missing. Without that, the music is just that, it’s music. There’s no depth behind it, no emotion.”
“And you want emotion in music?”
“Yeah, at least most people do,” I tell her, waving my hands as if to really drive home my point.
“Music is the soundtrack of life. Every song you hear, whether conscious or subconscious, is triggering. A memory, an emotion, a moment in time. Like when I hear the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, it triggers the memory of when you and I went to see the stage show.”
Riley lips tilt as she stares just past my shoulder. “You’re really passionate about it.”
I was, once upon a time.
“I like it,” she says, her cheeks round with a grin. “It’s like seeing a corner of you I don’t know yet. You should talk about music more often. You shine when you do.”
Fire licks at my cheeks.
I busy myself with searching for a larger holdall.
Riley taps her fingers against the wooden dresser. “So as we were. London, the band, Cole. Why do you have to go there? Can’t they come up here?”
“Aside from the obvious?”
She gives me a blank look.
“They’re rock stars, Riles,” I chuckle. She knows of Reckless Abandon—everyone does—but my best friend is more of a line-dancer than head banging type girl. “Like legit, world-famous. Cole popping in for a quick visit is one thing. Bring all four back in one go? You’re asking for a riot.”
“And the other point?”
“Huh?”
“You said aside from the obvious. I’m assuming them being famous is the obvious point?”
“Oh, right.” I stumble back as a black holdall careens from the top shelf of my wardrobe. “Carter’s got some stuff going on, apparently. So, it’s just easier for me to go down there for a day or two than them trying to squeeze in a visit up here.”
“Are you staying with Cole?”
“God, no. I’ll book a hotel.” I shake my head with a laugh. “Talk about awkwardness. The man and I can barely string a sentence together without me feeling like I’m gonna explode from the tension.”
“Because you still love him?”
I jerk back, my gut swimming. “I do not still love him.”
“Okay.” She shrugs, accepting my answer without hesitation.
“It's just… things are strained between us, you know?” I try to explain, though it doesn’t feel quite right even to myself.
Yes, things are strained, but it’s more than that.
Things feel… unfinished.
“Every time we speak, it’s like there’s someone else in the room, just watching, waiting for us to crack and talk about the past.”
“And you don’t want to do that?”
Not in this lifetime. “I don’t see what good it will do. We can’t change things, so why bother reliving them.”
She nods, chewing her lip. “So, when do we leave?”
“We?” I blink. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m coming with you.”
My hand halts mid-air as I turn to her. “You are? Why?”
“Because I’m not about to let my best friend go hang out with four random men who hate her alone.”
I snort, resuming my packing. “They’re not completely random, Riles, and I’m sure they don’t hate me.”
“I mean, I would. If you abandoned me like you did them.”
I hiss, a sharp painful breath tearing my lungs at her words.
Then, I nod, because she’s right.
Cole wasn’t the only one I walked away from when we broke up.
It was easier to dismiss them all, than to hang around the others and act as if I wasn’t wasting away inside—even if I was the one who ended our relationship.
“Yeah, fair.” I plop on the bed and hug a pillow to my chest. My voice is quiet as I ask, “You’d really come with me?”
“Of course I would. You’re my favourite human in the world. I’m not going to let you do this on your own.”
“You hate London,” I mumble. “And meeting new people.”
“I do, but I love you more,” she says, warming in a way so few others can.
Tears spring to my lashes.
I blink them away as Riley jumps down and heads for the hallway.
“Right.” She claps her hands. “I’m going to pack.”
My door starts to swing shut.
“Hey, Riles,” I shout.
She pokes her head around the doorframe. “Yeah?”
“You’re my favourite human, too.”
She smiles. “I know.”
Rain drums against the windscreen as my car rolls to a stop.
I leave the engine idling and glance at the nondescript building across the road, before tugging my phone from the holster.
“Are you sure you put the right postcode in?” I frown.
Riley gaze flits between the window and my phone.
“Yeah. This is the place, apparently.” She shrugs, then goes right back to rolling the squishy ball in her hand. “You’d think famous people could afford something nicer.”
I snicker.
She’s not wrong.
From the outside, the building looks nothing more than a run-down warehouse that’s been left abandoned for years. But the Shoreditch location alone probably has the price tag on a place like this sitting somewhere in the millions.
Not to mention, the royalties I have squirrelled away in my business account from their songs is enough to live cushty for decades—if not the rest of my life—without working another day, and I only co-wrote two of their five best-selling albums.
So, I don’t think affordability is an issue for them.
“Maybe they like the anonymity a place like this offers,” I muse.
A roll of thunder ripples through the sky, the rain falling heavier now.
I slap clammy hands on my thighs, and inhale a short breath. “Right. Time to go.”
I kill the engine, shove my door open, and step out.
I tug my hood up to shield my freshly dyed hair from the downpour and pop the boot. Grabbing my hummingbird, I strap it over one shoulder, before slamming the door and locking my car.
Riley knocks my hand with hers, nudging me forward when I hesitate.
The hot chocolate in my stomach curdles.
Any faux bravado I was able to muster up on the drive slips from me as soon as we reach the steel double doors. I scan the frame, spying a black box screwed to the brick. A button with a bell on it taunts me.
I stare it down, my finger refusing to cooperate.
“You press it,” I tell Riley.
She laughs. “No.”
“Why not? It’s just a button.”
“Exactly,” she says, her feet bouncing. “It’s just a button, Hendrix. Press it.”
“They hate me.”
She frowns. “You said they didn’t hate you.”
“I was lying. They clearly hate me.”
A heavy weight settles on my chess as the wind whips around me, slapping against my cheeks.
I clench my fingers.
Riley makes a soft noise. “Are you spiralling?”
“Am I?” I close my eyes.
Cold air fills my lungs, but it does nothing to ease the fire burning inside me. Over the years, I’ve rarely let myself think about the choices I made and the people I left behind.
It’s too painful to stare down your own mistakes and spend your days wondering what if.
What if they really do hate me? Worse still, what if they’re indifferent? What if everything I thought we were was all just a teenage dream? What if they moved on with their lives and never again thought about little old Hendrix Moore?
What if…
“I think you are, yes,” Riley says, her voice anchoring me as she presses her pinkie finger against mine. “What can I do?”
I curl our fingers together, grateful for the lifeline she offers, and squeak, “Press the button?”
“Sorry, Hendrix.” She laughs, but still shakes her head when I turn to her. “I can’t do this for you.”
“Fat lot of good you are then.” I scowl, but the blank look on her face has my lips twitching.
“You can do it. I believe in you,” she says, so simply as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “And if you don’t want to, we can turn right around, get back in the car, and pretend this never happened.”
As if her words are all the permission I need, I stumble back a step.
My gaze darts between my car on the other side of the road and the little black box. Fight or flight. It’s a feeling I know all too well.
I draw in a raggedy breath and force myself to stay at the door.
“I can do this,” I whisper.
I have to do this.
A long time ago, I made a promise to four boys. Those boys may not exist now, but the promise still remains. As long as they ask, I’ll write music for them. And here they are, asking.