Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
jake
“Fuck. My head is killing,” I groan when I’m woken by the incessant buzzing of my phone and someone pounding on my tour bus door. “Go away!”
The banging doesn’t stop. If anything, it gets louder, intensifying the throbbing in my head. Making it clear that whoever is outside isn’t going away until I open the fucking door.
After stumbling out of bed, I pull an old T-shirt over my head and slowly make my way to the door. Ready to lose my shit on whichever asshole thinks it’s necessary to wake me up at this ungodly hour.
“It’s about damn time,” Jason barks, brushing past me on the bus. “Are you alone?”
I slam the door shut. “Yes. Why the fuck would you ask a question like that?”
“At least he’s alone,” Jason mutters, pacing in the small living space and pulling on the back of his neck. He’s stressed out, and he never gets this way. “You need to sit down.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m about to give you a goddamn lecture about your behavior. Do you have any idea the shitstorm you’ve caused overnight?”
What the fuck is he talking about?
I wince, rubbing my temples as I take a seat on the couch. “I just woke up. I have no idea about whatever bullshit you’re talking about.”
“That figures,” he mumbles, continuing to pace. “Did you go to bed alone?”
I glare at him. Fucking pissed he would dare ask a question like that. “Are you fucking kidding me? Of course I did. My girlfriend is in Chicago.”
Without a word, he takes out his phone and furiously sends a message.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” I ask, my tone laced with frustration and a volume almost reaching the status of yelling.
He stops pacing, stands in front of me, and shakes his head. “There are pictures of you on the internet.”
No shit, Sherlock. There are always pictures of me on the internet. Every single fucking day. More pop up after every concert. Why is he wasting my time telling me something I already know?
“With another woman,” he blurts out, clenching his jaw so tight he might crack a tooth.
“Pictures of you with your arm around her. There’s a fucking video of her sitting on your goddamn lap, Jake.
Pretty sure it was taken outside your bus at God-only-knows what time this morning.
Now do you see why I’m asking whether you had someone else in your bed last night? ”
Time stops.
Last night comes back to me in bits and pieces. The numerous beers I drank. The shots everyone encouraged me to have. The blonde who wouldn’t leave me alone all night.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I drop my head into my hands, urging myself not to throw up as the rising nausea is desperate for a place to go. Nothing happened. I was drunk, but I know I didn’t do anything with her. I would never do that to Kate.
Oh my God…
Kate.
I jump up, running back to the bedroom to grab my phone, immediately overwhelmed by the hundreds of missed calls and texts in my notifications.
I don’t care about any of them except for the ones from Kate.
I scroll through countless messages I didn’t respond to.
The missed calls. She must have reached out to me at least a dozen times yesterday and a few times this morning.
They all abruptly stopped a couple of hours ago.
That’s when I see the texts from Chelsi. I swallow hard before I tap on her name.
Chelsi
You better have a goddamn good reason why there are pictures of you with another woman all over the fucking internet.
Why haven’t you answered any of her calls or texts? I swear to God if you ghost her again, I’ll make it my life’s mission to destroy you.
And if you care, your girlfriend has been sobbing in my arms for hours since she saw the pictures and video. Completely devastated while trying to convince herself that there has to be another explanation because you’d never cheat on her. For both of your sakes, I hope she’s right.
Unimaginable pain forms in my chest, constricting my lungs and making it feel like I can’t breathe. My body trembles as I force myself to walk into the living area, where Jason has commandeered the kitchen table and has someone on speakerphone.
“He’s back, Anna,” Jason says sternly, irritated at me and probably Anna too, given their never-ending disdain for one another. “Do you want to get him up-to-speed on how we should mitigate this nightmare?”
“Give me a second,” I respond, placing a call to Kate that goes immediately to voicemail. I send a few texts in a row, asking her to call me, with no response. I take a seat across from Jason and hang my head in my hands.
“As I was telling Jason, I strongly discourage us from making any formal statement on this gossip. It sets a bad precedent. We don’t want to get in the habit of attempting to address every salacious piece of content that picks up steam on socials,” Anna explains smoothly as if my life isn’t a fucking dumpster fire.
Jason’s jaw muscles flex. “And as I already told Anna, I believe her approach isn’t aggressive enough.
You have a brand-new album coming out in a few months, one entirely based on your relationship with Kate.
This isn’t some run-of-the-mill nonsense we can ignore.
It could have serious implications for album sales,” Jason responds defiantly, running his hands through his surprisingly unstyled hair.
“I can only imagine how fucking pissed the label is going to be when they get a whiff of it. I’m surprised they haven’t been up my ass already. ”
“I’m not suggesting we do nothing. Instead of putting out a blanket statement, I believe organizing a few public outings with Kate and Jake over the next few days and leaking photos is our best option,” she says in her thick Southern drawl.
“If people see you and Kate are still in love, then it should calm the noise enough until someone else in the industry does something stupid and goes viral. It’s only a matter of days or a week before that happens. ”
My phone continues to buzz nonstop, but none of the incoming messages are from Kate. Maybe she hasn’t seen them…
Fuck.
She’s left me on read.
I groan, banging my head against the table as Jason and Anna bicker about what we should do next.
“Why do you always insist on tearing down my plans? I’m the PR expert, not you,” Anna says loudly.
“Because you always—”
“Can both of you shut the hell up?” I shout, raising my head and glaring at Jason. “I don’t give two shits about how you handle this situation. All I care about is that Kate is protected as much as possible and I can get the hell out of here on a plane to Chicago. Now.”
“That’s not happening.” Jason stares at me, clasping his hands together on top of the table. “You have to fly out in a few hours for the last Country Thunder concert.”
“I’m not fucking going,” I bark, gritting my teeth. No one is stopping me from getting to Kate. From fixing the mess I’ve created.
Anna sighs. “Jason’s right. You have to go to the concert.”
“Are you two not listening to me? Tell them I’m sick. Pay the goddamn cancellation fee in the contract. I don’t fucking care. I’m not going.”
“Can you think clearly for once, Jake? I’m not going to let you ruin your career over your feelings for a woman—”
“Whoa. We’re going to stop right there. Everyone needs to take a breath,” Anna says calmly, trying to reduce the extremely high tensions on the bus while she’s back in Nashville.
“Jake, as much as I know you want to get to Kate, you have to do this concert. Cancelling will feed oxygen to this fire, making it almost impossible to control. People will assume any deviations from your schedule are because the gossip is true. We need to pretend everything is normal.”
Fuck. I hate it when Anna’s right.
“I don’t like this one bit,” I reply tersely. “Someone better damn well make sure I can get on a plane to Chicago immediately after I step off the stage.”
Jason clears his throat. “You’re supposed to fly to Nashville with the band. One of the stipulations in the contract was providing you with a private plane to transport you to and from the concert.”
“Find me another plane.” Of course, this is the one weekend when Max didn’t travel with me because he was attending a wedding last night.
If he were here, this shit would already be handled.
I also probably wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with because he never would’ve let a woman get that close to me.
Confusion streaks across Jason’s face. “Why don’t we make other arrangements for the band, and you use the plane to go to Chicago?”
I glare at him. “Because I’m not a fucking asshole. The guys deserve to get home at the time we originally told them. I’m not going to make them spend another night on the road because I fucked up.”
“Max is on it,” Anna says softly.
“How are you able to get Max to respond that quickly?” Jason asks, annoyed.
“He’s sitting right next to me. I was his date to the wedding, and he stayed over,” she replies sweetly as if she didn’t insinuate that she’s hooking up with my assistant. Not going to deal with whatever that is today.
Jason glares at the phone, clenching his jaw even harder before he ends the call without any warning.
My phone dings with a notification from Max. He’s found me a private plane that can leave an hour after the concert ends, giving me enough time to take a quick shower and head to the airport once I’m off stage.
I’m going to make this right. Prove to Kate that nothing happened. That she can trust me.
I can’t lose her.
I won’t lose her. Not again.