Chapter 20
twenty
. . .
Harry had seen the writing on the wall from the moment he’d stepped into the party.
It was the same story he’d had read to him every time he showed up for a music industry event in the last decade.
The sneers and the smirks were all messages that he didn’t belong there, that he’d been shut out and he’d never be allowed back in.
He took a step back when Albion turned the spotlight on Nikky.
This was Nikky’s moment to shine, or at least to get the boost he’d need so that he’d never have to worry about the music side of his career ever again.
Nikky could have everything that he himself had once wanted but that had been taken from him.
As long as he backed away.
Resignation had already started to pull Harry back to the familiar, bitter place he’d curled up in over the last ten years. At least he was familiar with the sour loneliness of being a failure.
Then everything changed as Nikky stepped forward.
“What do you mean you’re done?” Albion asked, snorting like he was trying to brush the whole thing off as a joke. His entire body had gone tense, though, and a flush crept its way up his neck to his face. “We have a contract. I’m going to make you a star.”
“I’m already a star,” Nikky said, reflecting what someone else had murmured just a moment before.
Albion’s uneasy smile grew, though it looked more and more like a sneer with every passing second. “Nikky,” he said, holding out his hand in appeal. “We’ve discussed this. I know what’s best for your career.” His words were underlined with menace, and the flash in his eyes was a clear threat.
But Nikky held his ground. “Working with you has been a valuable experience,” he said. “I’m sure we can find a way to part amicably. I’ll have my lawyer talk to your team about dissolving our contract.”
“You can’t back away from our contract,” Albion said, his smile completely gone.
“Actually, he can.” Charlotte stepped forward gingerly. “All of Nikky’s contracts come with an escape clause. Glen insists on it.”
Harry’s brow inched up in surprise. Nikky seemed surprised as well.
Getting out of an industry contract was notoriously impossible, but if Nikky’s agent had insisted on writing an escape hatch into everything he did, then maybe they weren’t all a pack of incompetent sharks intent on using Nikky to make millions after all.
Of course, there was another angle entirely to Albion’s insistence. “I don’t think you really want to part ways with me,” he said, lowering his voice and taking a step toward Nikky, like he would turn the disagreement from a public show into a private discussion. “I think you know why.”
“I do know why.” Nikky stood a little taller and glanced around, like he was checking to make sure everyone was still listening.
He didn’t have to worry about that. The party had come to a standstill, and every guest in the room was riveted by the strange scene playing out in front of them.
“I know why, and I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement about that, too. ”
Albion laughed uneasily. He glanced to Holberg like the man was a weapon he was waiting to draw. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk about this in private,” he said.
Nikky shook his head. “There isn’t anything to talk about,” he said, “and I have nothing to hide from anyone here. I’m excited about the prospect of recording an album with Harry. The two of us make amazing music together.”
Harry wasn’t expecting it, but Nikky pivoted to face him with the widest, most affectionate smile he’d ever seen.
It bowled him over and made him feel like the only man in the room, despite the nosy crowd of party guests.
None of them mattered. They’d never mattered.
The only person whose opinion mattered to him was Nikky’s, and Nikky hadn’t once treated him like a punchline or a relic.
“We are pretty awesome together,” he said, reaching for Nikky’s hand, his smile growing.
“So you two are officially a couple?” one of the guests asked.
Harry glanced at Nikky. The ball was already in his court, so it was his call whether to come forward with their relationship or not.
Nikky grinned from ear to ear, morphing from the stalwart man who had just stood up for himself against an industry giant to the sweet young man who had made him smile after years of resentment. “We are a—”
“Oh, they’re far more than just a couple,” Albion cut off the tender moment with a wolfish smile. “Much more. And I have the video to prove it.”
A few people gasped. The tension in the room tightened to the point where Harry couldn’t breathe. He glared at Albion, horrified that the man was actually going to play his trump card and hurt Nikky.
“Don’t you dare,” he seethed, stepping toward Albion with murderous intent.
His career was already over, so it wouldn’t matter if he punched the smarmy bastard in the nose.
The worst that would happen to him is that he’d land in jail for assault.
It would be worth it to stop Nikky from being embarrassed in front of his peers.
Before he could do more than lean forward, though, Nikky tightened his grip on Harry’s hand to hold him back. “It’s okay,” he said, calm as a glassy lake. “Albion doesn’t scare me.”
Harry turned back to him. In the process, he noted the dazed and captivated expressions of the party guests around them.
They were getting the show of their lives for free.
Most seemed to be loving it, although Drew and Lee were visibly beside themselves and made their way through the stunned guests to be closer to Nikky’s side.
Albion huffed. “If you aren’t scared of me, you’re even more of an idiot than I thought you were.”
The tension in the room ratcheted up another notch, and a few people gasped.
Nikky, on the other hand, seemed to grow calmer.
He nodded once at Albion, then took a breath and turned to address the guests as if they were the audience and he was the lead in some Shakespearian drama.
“Albion has a sex tape that Harry and I made,” he said loud and clear.
“He’s using it to blackmail me into taking my career in a direction I don’t want it to go. ”
Harry’s jaw dropped. His wasn’t the only one.
The shock in the room was palpable, but shock wasn’t the only reaction people had. A lot of people didn’t look half as surprised Albion would hold someone’s career for ransom as they could have.
“Are you certain you want to discuss this so openly?” Albion asked, his face bright red now. He shot a scathing look at Harry, as if Harry had put Nikky up to speaking out. “I don’t think you realize how much harm you’re causing right now.”
“I’m sure,” Nikky said simply. “I know what I want, and it’s about time I fought for it, fought for myself, instead of letting the industry push me around.”
The burst of pride that exploded in Harry with those words was so unexpectedly strong that puffed out what could have been a laugh, or maybe just a sound of pure joy. He would fight for Nikky and defend him to the death, but he didn’t have to. He and Nikky could fight together.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” Albion said, lowering his voice even more. “You have no idea how powerful I am.”
“Powerful enough to blacklist someone and end her career because she wouldn’t sleep with you?
” a thirty-something woman in a glittery dress who Harry didn’t recognize asked from just a few feet away.
Harry supposed the fact that he didn’t recognize her was the point.
She stood with her arms crossed and one of her eyebrows raised condemningly.
“I know this whole song and dance,” a guy in his twenties stepped forward to speak as well. Harry did recognize him. Ollie Sandbourne was the hot young star that no one could stop talking about five years before. Then he’d faded just as quickly as he’d made it big. Harry guessed he knew why now.
The whole room knew why.
“So what?” Albion shrugged, though the gesture was sharp and jerky. “I make people and I break them. It’s what I do. I’m always right about who should be famous and who just isn’t worth it.” He looked directly at Harry as he finished.
The rest of the room wasn’t impressed with his arrogance.
“You shut me out and stopped every other record company from working with me,” the woman who still had her arms crossed and her eyebrow raised said. “I recorded and released my music independently, and my first album just went gold.”
“So?” Albion snapped at her.
“So maybe you aren’t the star-maker and breaker that you think you are,” she went on. “Maybe you’re just an industry cliché who can be taken down the way you’ve brought others down in the past.”
Harry wasn’t sure who the woman was, but he could have kissed her. Which was saying something, since he’d never been interested in kissing women before.
“You think you’re something special because you sold a few copies of second-rate songs?” Albion smirked at the woman. He glanced past her to Ollie. “Your career was over before it started because you’re a drunk.”
“Were a drunk,” Ollie said, head held high. “I’m four years sober now. And who was it who made certain I always had a drink in hand back then?”
Harry couldn’t help but smirk. Karma was a bitch, and she always had the last laugh. He and Nikky didn’t have to fight the fight alone. Albion was his own worst enemy.
“I was clear from the start that my acting career was as important to me as my music career,” he told Albion.
“And yes, I was running from some parts of it because I didn’t know how to handle them.
But now I do.” He turned to Harry and smiled, lighting up like the sun.
“I know what I want now, and I’m not going to let anything stand in the way of me getting it. ”
Harry burst into a ridiculous smile. Partially because he wanted to reward Nikky with “Good boy.” That would be a fun game that the two of them would likely play a lot in the future, but the bigger reality of the moment was the strength they’d found together.