Julian #2
“The Last Rebels already have an audience,” he continues. “They’ve got name recognition, a sound that still matters, and enough instability that another label would either exploit them or bury them. Here, we could give them room to make the record they should be making.”
“Assuming they don’t implode first.”
“That risk exists anywhere.”
“Yeah, but it’s not Xander’s brother anywhere.”
This is the problem with Gabe. He never makes it easy to be purely angry with him because underneath all the clinical language, there’s usually a real argument buried in there. An intelligent one. One that would make sense in almost any other situation.
Almost.
But Xander and Dylan are not almost anything. They’re a live wire and an old wound and a fistfight everyone keeps pretending turned into silence on purpose.
I lean against the edge of the bookshelf and look back at him. “What does Dylan want?”
Gabe’s answer comes quicker this time. “A way back in.”
That surprises me more than it should. “To the label?”
“To Xander,” he says. Then, after a beat, “He may not admit that. But yes.”
I study him, because that changes the shape of it, whether I want it to or not.
Dylan wanting the label, I understand. That’s easy. Career move. Lifeboat. Ambition dressed up as reunion.
Dylan wanting Xander back…
That’s messier.
More dangerous, too, because hope always is.
“And Xander?” I ask.
Gabe’s mouth flattens. “Xander wants not to be touched by any of it.”
“Right.”
There’s a long quiet after that.
The kind that usually means the truth has entered the room and nobody’s thrilled about hosting it.
I push off the shelf and walk to the window, looking down over the drive and the tree line beyond. “I get why you’re thinking about it,” I say finally.
Behind me, I hear the tiny shift of Gabe moving his weight. Waiting.
“That’s not approval,” I add.
“I know.”
I turn back to him. “I’m serious, Gabe. This could crack him open.”
His gaze doesn’t waver. “He’s already cracked.”
Xander’s been functioning. Leading. Building. Even laughing, on rare occasions. But none of that means he’s healed. It just means he’s good at carrying damage and calling it purpose.
Gabe sees that, too.
Maybe more clearly than the rest of us, because Gabe’s built to locate structural weakness before anyone else admits a foundation’s shifting.
Still…
Understanding something doesn’t mean you get to push on it.
“That doesn’t give you the right to decide when he faces it,” I say.
“I’m not trying to decide for him,” he says. “I’m trying to make sure that when the moment comes, it isn’t wasted.”
That slows me down.
Because I believe him.
Damn it.
I believe he thinks he’s doing this for the right reasons. Not just for the label. For Xander, too, in whatever complicated, emotionally stunted way Gabe allows himself to care about people.
The problem is, caring and being right are not the same thing.
I cross my arms. “So, what, exactly, is the plan?”
Gabe leans back against the desk, mirroring me without realizing it. “There isn’t one yet.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
I laugh once under my breath. “At least you’re honest about being terrifying.”
Gabe leans back against the desk, arms folded. “I’m assessing options.”
“That’s Gabe-speak for ‘already built three contingency plans and a spreadsheet.’”
“Four,” he says.
I stare at him. “See? This is why people want to throw your phone into lakes.”
A flicker of amusement crosses his face and disappears. “You still came up here.”
“Yeah, because somebody in this house has to have impulse control, and it’s obviously not you or Xander.”
That gets the smallest possible twitch out of his mouth.
Progress.
I straighten a little. “You can’t blindside him.”
“I’m aware.”
“No, I mean it. None of this can come crashing through the front door because you decided the timing made sense.”
“I know.”
I narrow my eyes. “You sound suspiciously sure.”
“Because I was clear about that.”
Dylan’s already pushed, or hinted, or tested the boundary enough for Gabe to shut it down, which means this is further along than I thought.
I rub a hand over my face. “Jeez.”
“An understandable reaction.”
“Don’t get smug. You’re still wrong.”
He folds his arms. “I may be early. That’s not the same as wrong.”
I point at him. “That sentence is exactly why people fantasize about throwing your phone into lakes.”
“People?”
“Me. I’m people.”
He inclines his head, accepting that with irritating composure. I let the silence sit for a few seconds before I say the part that actually matters.
“If you do this,” I say, “if you push this forward and it blows up in his face, I’m not helping you clean it up.”
Gabe’s expression turns very still. “You wouldn’t have to.”
A part of me sees the path he’s seeing. The label. The band. The possibility of dragging The Last Rebels into Redemption Records and forcing the whole industry to take us seriously overnight.
It would work.
That’s the worst part.
It would work beautifully, right up until the human beings involved remembered they weren’t assets and started bleeding all over the floor.
I push away from the window. “You need to tell him.”
Gabe looks at me. “Not yet.”
“Soon.”
“Yes.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
We hold each other’s gaze, the whole room balanced on that ugly little truth. There’s no good version of what comes next. Just less catastrophic ones.
I head for the door, then stop with my hand on the handle. “One more thing.” Gabe waits. “If Dylan’s feeding you the version of himself he thinks will get him through the door, don’t buy it just because the demos are good.”
“I won’t,” he says.
I hope he’s telling the truth.