Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Barret
Around midnight, almost everyone has disappeared upstairs, only Dexter and I remain.
Roderick was the first to vanish, mumbling something about Kit needing help with Arlo.
After that, people trickled out, leaving us in the dim hum of amplifiers cooling down and the faint echo of conversations already gone.
Dexter leans over the keys, glancing at the crumpled sheet music I’ve been nursing for hours. “So, what’s this for again?” His fingers drift across the piano like he’s not even trying, and it still sounds fucking perfect.
“My next album.” The admission slips out quieter than I intend. My shoulders roll back in a fake shrug. “Not sure when it’ll come out. Next year, next decade . . . who knows.”
He snorts, rolling his eyes. “You’re always working on something. Bet you’ve got enough material to feed half the industry.”
“I could,” I admit, though the shrug is more performance than truth.
In reality, I do produce albums for other artists.
Kit taught me how to redirect my talent—how to let go of the urge to hoard songs I no longer feel like performing and give them to others.
I get the spark, I write it, but once it’s born, I can’t make myself play it again. It lives, but it doesn’t satisfy.
So now I’m producing, shaping sound for others. Eddie keeps pushing me to start a label, turn everything into money, deals, contracts. That’s his high. Mine is just . . . creating. Existing in the music without strings attached.
Dex’s voice pulls me back. “If you ever do and need someone in your corner, I’m here.”
I lift a brow at him. “I thought you were playing with . . . what was that band?” The name slips from me mostly because he’s constantly changing.
“It was just a gig.” His shrug is too casual, too hollow. “Feels like I can’t land anywhere, you know? Everything, nothing. People expect me to top Dead Moth Parade, and it’s like—fuck—it’s impossible.”
My throat tightens. “We were good.” The words scrape out, quiet, almost reverent. My eyes close, just for a beat. “Until we weren’t. Grunge collapsed, or maybe it just shapeshifted. And Roderick—”
Dex cuts me off, voice dipped in regret. “We were all lost. We fired Connor, and then we didn’t know who the hell we were anymore. That’s the problem—we let him drive everything. Our careers, our sound, our fucking lives. Mistake after mistake.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Like your sex tape?”
His groan ricochets through the empty studio.
“Fuck, don’t remind me. This internet shit—it’s ruining people’s lives.
You think it’ll ever go out of style?” He shakes his head but then laughs, softer, self-deprecating.
“My new PR team’s keeping me on a short leash.
Image management, blah blah. They’ve got me patched together while I figure out my next move. ”
“You have a PR team?”
“Yeah.” He flashes a grin, cocky and boyish all at once.
“My person works for that company Eddie bought. I actually introduced him to the owner—some prick that was happy to cash out and leave everything to Edgar Reznor. In any case, my agent is building a saint out of the ashes. You should see the spin—’troubled artist,’ ‘bad boy misunderstood.’ They’ve got me fake-dating some baby-faced actress so I look like I’m redeeming myself. ”
Bad idea. Every instinct in me says it. Dex has this fucked-up brand of luck—disasters that somehow land him in a soft spot after a scare.
He’s a disaster with nine lives, always tumbling headfirst into fire.
And he stumbles into ruin and walks away singed, with gold dust stuck to his hands, and smiling.
That’s how we got him in the first place.
He wasn’t meant for Dead Moth Parade. He had his own band, one that imploded in a spectacular shitshow after their drummer torched a motel mattress and their bassist disappeared during a set.
Dex swore he’d never touch another group project, but somehow Eddie roped him into playing keys for us.
He hated us at first—called us children, said we were amateurs, destined to collapse.
He was only two years older, but he looked at us like he’d aged a decade in the trenches.
And still, he stayed. Even when he could’ve left. Even when we broke apart.
That’s Dexter. The lovable fuck-up, the broken boy who turns every disaster into a punchline, the one who pretends he doesn’t care while secretly needing the people who refuse to give up on him.
And whether he admits it or not, he’s still our brother. Eddie was right.
Dexter leans back on the bench, hands falling away from the keys. For a moment, the room is too quiet. No one breathing but us, no sound except the low hum of equipment cooling down.
“You ever think we peaked too soon?” he asks suddenly, staring at the ceiling like the question might be written there. “Like the best thing we’ll ever do is already behind us?”
I should brush it off, laugh, tell him he’s being dramatic. But his voice isn’t joking this time. It’s worn thin at the edges, like he’s let something slip he didn’t mean to.
I swallow, shifting on my stool. “Maybe. Or maybe the best shit just looks different now.”
His mouth curves, but it doesn’t quite make it to a smile. “Different feels like a downgrade.”
“Different could feel like survival sometimes,” I counter, because I know he won’t say it himself. “Others, it could be the best thing that falls into your lap. You just have to enjoy what’s happening in the moment.”
Dex drums his fingers on his knees, restless, like he wants to escape his skin. “PR says if I keep my head down six more months, I’ll be golden. Clean image, new opportunities, fresh start.” He laughs under his breath, no humor in it. “Funny, isn’t it? I fuck up and they call it brand potential.”
“Dex . . .” My throat works around the word, but I don’t know what to follow it with. Don’t self-destruct? Don’t vanish? Don’t leave me behind? None of it feels like something he’d listen to.
He glances at me then, and for the briefest second, all the bravado falls away. His eyes are bone-deep tired, a weariness no press release or shiny girlfriend could disguise. And it guts me, because I remember the first time I saw him smile, the real one, before the cameras and the lies.
He exhales slowly, like he’s been carrying something too long. Then the grin comes back, lazy and practiced. “Anyway, enough about my tragic rockstar saga. Play me something. Make me feel like music’s still worth it.”
I want to push. I want to drag the truth out of him and shake him until he admits what he needs. But this is Dex—we don’t force each other’s scars open. We sit with them. We wait.
So I nod, pull the guitar into my lap, and let the chords bleed into the silence. And even though he’s smiling, I can’t shake the thought: Dexter’s one wrong move away from falling apart.
And I don’t know if I’ll be able to catch him when he does.