Chapter 4
Four
XANDER
Present
Sweat rolls down my temples as my feet pound the treadmill.
Hans, my behemoth of a bodyguard, runs beside me, barely breathing hard.
He’s been with me for five years, and the only sport I’ve bested him at is surfing.
A fact that doesn’t make me feel any better about myself as I turn the treadmill on to a cool down cycle.
“Already?” he asks with accented English. “Surely you can do another mile or two.”
“Fuck off,” I wheeze. Even with my stamina back up from the first half of the tour, I’ll never run more than five miles at a time.
He laughs in Scandinavian superiority and increases his incline.
I move over to the free weights, which thankfully this hotel has a good selection of.
Keeping an eye on the mirror to make sure my movements are precise gives me the added advantage of seeing who walks past in the hall.
I know I’ll never run into Jade inside a hotel gym when her preference is to do group pole dancing classes, but damn if I wouldn’t love to catch a glimpse of her in a workout set.
Tobias and Darren greet us as they walk into the gym.
Tobias has dark rings around his eyes, and his skin has a yellow tint to it.
I don’t know what’s going on with him, but I’m starting to get worried.
I’ve brought it up to Stone, but he’s always hesitant to say anything, thinking it could be perceived as projection on his part.
My opinion, though, is that we need to push Toby toward sobriety. I see so many of the same things happening to him that we both witnessed Stone struggle with up close and personal. Darren spends almost all his time keeping him from self-imploding.
“Does the sun ever shine here?” Darren grumbles as he looks out the wall of windows to the gray, drizzly sky.
He’s rarely out of a suit, so even after years of working together, it still catches me off guard to see his tattoos.
Both arms are covered in sleeves of stark black ink, a serpent coiled around his left and multiple designs on his right.
“Apparently not.” I set my weights back on the rack. “But at least we’ll be in California this time tomorrow. I can’t wait to get on my board again.”
“Hell yeah, brother.”
“Hell yeah, what?” Stone asks as he walks into the room.
“We’re just excited to go out surfing later this week,” I tell him. “I’m surprised you aren’t out there running in your favorite weather.”
He smirks. “I got a good couple of rounds of cardio in earlier. I’m just here for the weights now.”
I’m not jealous that he has Hazel, but I am jealous that he has his person. I know who mine is. I know where she is. I see her nearly every day. But I can’t have her, in fact, I don’t deserve her. So now every day just feels like more punishment than the last.
“What’s Hazel up to today?” I ask Stone as he comes beside me and grabs a couple free weights of his own.
“Writing. She’s trying to finish this draft of her manuscript before we get down to LA.” He starts doing a set of curls. “I hope she can, that way I can show her around the city some before we have to move on.”
We’re getting a mini break for our three LA shows and the two down in San Diego.
The drive between the cities is a bitch, but nothing beats sleeping in our beds, so we’re sleeping at home instead of hotels.
Stone definitely needs it since he wasn’t able to relax much on our break between legs of the North American tour.
He spent most of his time with Hazel in New York helping her and her mom get her grandma’s estate settled.
“Which place are you staying at?” I ask.
“Probably the beach house.” He trades one set of weights for another. “Which of yours are you going to be at?”
“I was actually thinking Malibu, too.” He and I live a few houses away from each other, which was just a coincidence.
Right after we changed labels, he bought his home, and then shortly afterward my dad gifted me his when he tried to retire and failed for the second time.
The homes just happened to be close to each other.
The biggest reason for Malibu, though, is to be close to Jade. She scrimped and saved all her money for nearly ten years to buy her cozy beach cottage. It’s several miles from our beach houses, but she has a great view and the garden she always dreamed of.
She stayed close to my dad after the divorce, and he’s really become the male figure in her life.
He put her through college and, as a graduation gift, gave her a condo in downtown LA, which she still has and uses as rental property for passive income.
For the years when she wouldn’t speak to me, I was always glad to know she had him.
Jade deserves the world. She always has. If I can’t be the one to give it to her, at least I can watch from the sidelines, cheering her on in silence.