32. Zak
Scott stayed behind to talk with Trevor—and presumably, to get fired as well—while security ushered Zak and her friends out of the building.
She lost track of how long they all stood outside waiting for him to return, since she was too busy sharing a cigarette with Dallas and wallowing in self-pity. She couldn’t help but laugh at the sky as she let loose a cloud of smoke. The best way to not focus on how bad it sucked was to focus on how funny it was.
Fired. Again. This time, from making her own fucking music.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Let it rip. You can tell me I was right about us getting canned, and then you can yell at me for being wrong about everything else. I know I made a mess of this.”
She braced herself for the worst, but no one raised their voice. Maybe giving people permission to tear her a new one sucked the enjoyment out of the experience.
“Don’t think I’m the right guy to judge anybody’s choices.” Dallas saluted her with the cigarette. “Wouldn’t ya say?”
“And I don’t need to yell at you,” Alex said, “‘Cause I know you. You’re not just a problem-starter. You’re a problem-solver, too.”
“Trevor’s a fucking thief, Zak,” Edge said. “You heard his whole speech. All the evidence he’s been stockpiling. He’s been wanting to steal this album and wash his hands of us from the beginning.”
“Chase and I gave him the ammunition,” she said.
Chase looked down at the sidewalk.
“He could have cut us loose earlier for failing to perform as agreed upon in the contract. On multiple counts.” For once, Edge bummed the cigarette off Dallas. “You and Chase bailed me and Dallas out. You two are the reason we’ve made it this big. This is all on Trevor. We were always going to get fired.”
Dallas raised a brow. “Trying to give yourself another seizure? I hate playing bass.”
“Never had one from a cigarette.” Edge blew out a cloud of smoke. “I don’t smoke ‘cause I don’t want cancer.”
“Me either. Pass it here.” Alex held out his hand for the cigarette and took a drag. “It wouldn’t be us if something didn’t go terribly wrong four months into our first record deal, would it?”
Dallas lit up another smoke and returned it to Zak, who offered it to Chase, knowing he wouldn’t.
Only, he did clamp the cigarette between two unbalanced fingers and take a long inhale. Way too long for his first.
He promptly broke into a coughing fit that ended with him spitting into the nearest trash can.
“Not everything’s a competition, Payton,” she said, a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Not doing that again.” His nose wrinkled. “Just thought if there ever was a time to try it, it would be now.”
“Aww.” Dallas grinned. A new cigarette between his teeth and his hand cupped to light it. “We popped your cig-cherry?”
“Between that comment, whatever curled up and died in that trash can, and all the shit that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, I may actually throw up now,” Chase said.
Zak had tried hugging him. Tried talking him out of the guilt last night when they shared a single bunk on the tour bus. Now, she was at a loss. So, she shoved him instead. “Stop blaming yourself. We fucked up together.”
It worked long enough to get a chuckle out of him. “Is that an order?”
“Nice to know you haven’t gone completely soft on the guy.” Edge gave Zak’s shoulder a squeeze. “There will be another contract. We’re not in the little leagues anymore.”
But there won’t be another first album.
Alex shrugged off his jacket. “I, for one, can’t wait to see what the next contract brings.”
“Less bullshit,” Dallas said, muffled by the smoke.
She doubted that. “Different bullshit, at least.”
“I’m going to figure something out,” Chase spoke up. “About the recordings. I’ll talk to Lisa and see what we can do.”
Zak believed that he would try, but no part of her believed it would actually happen. Trevor was too cunning to make a miscalculation as big as shredding their contract without just cause. She needed to focus on everything that would come rather than everything they’d lost. “There’ll be other music.”
Scott finally walked out the door. Frowning.
“You got fired, too?” she asked him.
She knew he’d be fine financially, but she hadn’t been trying to lose him his job either. Especially not when it was the one thing keeping him out of trouble and providing him with some sense of purpose. His was a cause she could empathize with. She’d been performing since she was sixteen and songwriting a few years longer, and she had no clue what she would do with herself if that part of her life was over.
“No.” Scott shook his head. “I quit.”
She appraised him. “I hope you’re not trying to defend my honor or anything. Because I’m pissed off, but I’m not broken up about not having to spend any more time around that fucker anymore. And I’m sure all these labels suck to work for. Every office job sucks.”
Scott’s frown tugged up as he huffed. “I’m not defending your honor. I’m sticking to my word. I got into this business to help the artists. Not the guys at the top. It’s a cutthroat industry, but Trevor didn’t even go for the jugular this time. He snuck up behind ya’ll and shot you in the back of the head.”
What a lovely way to put it.
Though she knew her father had his convictions and he didn’t entirely leave for her, somehow, that only made the act more meaningful. Having a parent was nice. Having a parent she could be proud to be tied to, not just genetically or emotionally, but now publicly, was something she never thought she would experience.
“What are you going to do, then?” she asked.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had a vacation. I think I’ll go to Raleigh. Maybe Nashville next, then Charleston. I’ve heard that new Centennial Park in Atlanta is pretty neat. And I’m always down for some bourbon in Louisville.”
Zak tried not to smile as wide as she did, but that was impossible when he smiled back at her.
“I’ve watched a lot of your shows from behind the curtain. Maybe it’s time I get myself front-row tickets to see my new favorite band.”
The second worst thing about getting dropped was having to carry on with the tour, pretending everything was okay as they arrived backstage to the disparaging stares and hushed gossip from the crew.
The whole world was talking about it. Why wouldn’t they?
Soon, news would break that Tribute had released Saint of Spades for unspecified contract violations, alongside carefully crafted public statements by Chase, Izzy, and Zak, about the cheating scandal, and Zak and her father, about how they were reunited.
It was a constant battle for Zak not to let her regrets about their album ownership, and the nuisance of her emerging hate-club, taint the remainder of their first tour. She was grateful to still be able to show up for their fans, but showing up for them was inextricably tied to showing up for the corporate cunts who had robbed her of her music.
She’d caught Chase and Scott comparing bank balances the previous evening, seeing if they could pool their fortunes to reach Trevor’s price. They were millions short, but Zak would never have allowed them to drop such an egregious amount of money on one record anyway. Not that it kept her from wondering… what if they had succeeded? What if there was a way?
Zak snapped out of it. She still had other issues to sort out.
She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Izzy about anything that had happened over the past forty-eight hours. Izzy may have been in the middle of the public’s warm embrace at the moment, but sympathetic comments weren’t the only ones she had to field.
While most of the outpouring was aimed at ripping Chase and Zak to shreds, no one was immune from negativity. For every person who couldn’t believe Chase would fuck Zak because she was too bitchy, too fat, and too arrogant, there was another who thought Izzy deserved to be cheated on for being too annoying, too skinny, and too weird.
People were entitled to have their awful opinions, Zak supposed. And they were also entitled to make an ass of themselves by publishing those opinions.
Zak and Chase waited until after Abstraction’s sound check to meet Izzy in her dressing room. A cloud of perfume and makeup dust kicked up as the door swung open.
“How dare you show your face around here, after breaking my heart in such a humiliating manner?” Izzy regarded them both with contrived melodramatics. “My dear friend. My boyfriend. I thought we were happy together. I thought we were forever, and then I have to see you two making out with each other on the cover of a magazine? I don’t know if I’ll ever recover. Everything I once believed about love is a lie.”
The three of them laughed. Izzy may have been known for her musicianship, but her ability to break tension was second to none.
“That was good, huh?” Izzy turned back to her mirror and the tiny rhinestones she was gluing on her face with a pair of tweezers. “You think I might have a future in acting when my band crumbles apart and leaves me alone—a crusty, washed-up, soon-to-be-thirty-year-old woman whose beauty and value have expired?”
“If it makes you feel any better, I think I’ve expired before hitting twenty-five,” Chase said. “The public is most definitely on your side.”
“Which is exactly why I hope you two didn’t come here to apologize to me,” Izzy responded. “I’m finally free to fuck someone who doesn’t have frosted tips or lie about meeting James Hetfield.”
Zak sat in the chair next to Izzy’s. “But why would you want to, when those are such appealing traits?”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “If anything, I should apologize to you. Those reactionary columnists are totally vicious. For your sake, I hope you’ve stayed far, far away from the newsstands.”
She hadn’t, and had ingested a fair helping of humility from it. If the celebrity rock star ego ever managed to inflate her head, at least now she had some sharp comments from gossip journalists to pop it with.
Not only were people drooling over the delicious details about Zak’s romantic relationship, but also her familial one. Scott’s departure from Tribute and photos of him with his long-lost daughter made for hot news grabs.
Zak never thought she’d see the day—and had never wanted to—where her name populated the media tenfold over Chase’s. But she supposed that would be the case when she was the child of a man who had to attend public events with security details, and the girlfriend of a man who had been on the cover of a granola bar wrapper before.
“I haven’t, but it’s alright. I’m used to people not liking me.” She gave Chase an apologetic look. “If anything, Chase is getting the worst of the hate. They may think I’m a homewrecker who looks like a cheap prostitute, but at least they don’t think I’m the two-faced asshole who cheats on his amazing girlfriend with a cheap prostitute.”
“It’s one way to get over being a people-pleaser.” Chase kicked back on the couch. “And you know that’s all bullshit. I couldn’t pry the guys off you back in Anaheim, so obviously I’m not the only one whothinks you’re the hottest woman alive.”
“Your boyfriend calling you hot is, like, the same thing as your mom calling you smart.” Izzy was surprisingly good at dividing her attention between swiping on mascara and continuing their conversation. “Sweet, but it doesn’t mean much.”
“Not like I’d know what that’s like either,” Zak said.
“Well, you’re smart and hot. And I’m not your mom or your boyfriend, so you can trust my opinion on the matter.” Izzy smacked Zak’s butt. “They should have cast you for the ‘Baby Got Back’ music video. I mean, look at you. I’d kill to have a rack and an ass like that.”
“Um…” Zak’s face was bright red. Had she ever stuttered like this before? “Thanks, I think? I’m good on the reassurance, Izzy, but I appreciate your enthusiasm.”
“Anytime! And seriously.” She set down the mascara tube and finally gave them her undivided attention. “Don’t sweat it. This is all going to blow over.”
“I don’t know about that.” Zak frowned. “Beat Magazine called us the Clinton and Lewinsky of rock music, Izzy.”
“Huh.” Izzy tilted her head in thought. “I mean, that’s kind of hot though, right? But whatever. Case in point, the Clinton-Lewinsky thing will blow over, too. This stuff always does. And with you two it’ll be extra easy. Tribute won’t let me come right out with a statement that it was a PR relationship, but nobody’s going to be around to keep me from making public appearances with the two of you at after-parties. Having a good time. Making sure to have my best this-was-all-a-dumb-sham smile on the entire time. You know?”
“I like to think I’m not as terrible as the world thinks I am,” Zak said. “But you really areas awesome as they think you are, Izzy.”
“Aw, shucks.” Izzy beamed. “But I haven’t even gotten to the good part. Because I have the perfect idea for how to fix this. Trevor might be a little upset with me about it, but you’re already fired and I’ve got no strikes. Plus, I read the fine print. It doesn’t technically violate anyone’s agreement.”
With the way Izzy wagged her brows at them, that felt like a rather intimidating proposition. But Zak had nothing left to lose. “Whatever it is, count me in.”