Chapter nine
Carter
“Can you turn the mic down? I might as well be singing a cappella here,” I say into it, squinting out across the empty stadium toward the sound booth.
One of the sound techs throws me a thumbs-up.
“Testing, one, two, three,” I try again. The echo is still loud, but it doesn’t override the music anymore. “Better. Thanks, man.”
Kai claps his sticks together, counts us in, and we slam into “Closer.” We save this for the encore, the last song before the lights come on, the one that sends the stadium wild the second the opening beat hits the air.
My voice carries out into all that space, filling row after row of plastic chairs.
I sing the words I’ve sung too many times to count; they got sanded down to sound and lost all meaning a long time ago.
When I wrote this at twenty-one, hunched over a notebook with a shitty pen in a shitty apartment, every line split my chest open.
Somewhere along the way, it turned into just another song on the set list.
Knowing Violet is somewhere nearby stitches it back together, thread by thread. The words take shape and start to mean something again, sliding under my skin instead of just out of my mouth.
My hand shakes a little as I shift my grip on the microphone, a small tremor I feel more than see. I flex my fingers around the metal, drop my arm, and give my wrist a sharp shake like it’s just an overdose of caffeine, instead of what I know it is.
About thirty seconds in, I spot her. Off to the side of the stage, the camera covering her face. She’s braced wide for balance, already hunting angles for tonight.
I gesture with my hand for the guys to cut. Kai kills the beat mid-bar, the others let their chords ring out, and the stadium falls into a cavernous quiet.
“We’re good,” I tell them, giving a quick chin-lift.
Then I jump off the edge of the stage.
The drop is higher than I clocked, concrete rushing up faster than I expected. My ankle twinges when I land, but I ride it out and keep moving, crossing straight toward her.
Violet’s eyes are wide when she lowers the camera.
“Jesus,” she hisses. “Why did you jump? You could have broken your ankle from that height.”
I shrug, breath puffing a little harder than I’d like from such a short burst of energy. “Wanted to talk to you,” I say. “And I realized I don’t have your number.”
I pull my phone from my back pocket, unlock it and hold it out.
She doesn’t take it. Instead, her gaze slides past me, a quick, wary flick over my shoulder.
“Later.”
I frown and glance back.
Mika is standing a few paces behind us, camera up, red light on.
“Fuck me,” I mutter under my breath, shoving the phone away. “Later then.” My hands sink into the front pockets of my jeans.
I don’t want this awkward air between us, not when we’re only at the beginning of the tour. I fucked things up on the plane and I want to make it right. I’ve been chewing on it since the wheels skidded across the Singapore runway.
“Are we good?” I ask. “You know . . . after yesterday.”
“We’re good, Carter. Relax.” Her tone is flat, bored even. She lifts her camera again and fires off a close-up of my face.
“Can you not do that for, like, a second?” I reach out and nudge the lens down.
She sighs, long and tired. “We’re good, Carter, alright? Don’t worry about it. For both our sakes, let’s try to get along. We’ve got ten months together. No need to make it weird.” Her mouth quirks. “Or weirder than it already is.”
I blow out a deep breath. “Okay. Good.”
“Good,” she echoes.
Silence opens between us, a gap too wide to be filled with small talk.
She glances past my shoulder again. “I’ll catch you later, okay?” And then she’s walking away, already scanning for her next shot.
I cross my arms and turn on Mika. “You guys going to follow me around everywhere?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” he says, not even pretending to be sorry.
I tip my head back and close my eyes. “Fucking fantastic.”
I start walking and he trots behind me, hot on my tail, documenting every step.
***
I take one last drag, blow the smoke toward the ceiling, and crush the cigarette in the ashtray on the table.
We’re laying around my suite, killing the dead hour the way we always do, that stretch right before a show when the adrenaline hasn’t kicked in yet.
Kai is half asleep on the couch with a bag of chips balanced on his chest, hand digging in on autopilot.
Theo is wearing a path into the rug, clutching a protein shake and ranting about how the hotel gym’s treadmill is “lying” about his pace.
Xander is arguing with him for no reason other than the fact he’s bored.
Chris has claimed a chair in the corner, laptop open, headset on, going over run sheets and transport, and Liam is sitting opposite him, scrolling through his phone, pretending he’s not listening to the idiots argue about whether a treadmill can gaslight someone.
Dave is filming from a distance, capturing it in that fly-on-the-wall way I’m getting used to. Somewhere behind him, Vi moves quietly through the room. Her shutter clicks now and then, the soft mechanical whirr lacing through the noise.
Every time I glance her way, a body or a camera drifts into my line of sight, or Liam asks her something. Between him and the documentary crew, I haven’t had a single unobserved second with Violet. Right now, trying to get a private word with her feels like sprinting through traffic.
Theo grabs the bag of chips from Kai’s chest and snatches a handful. “I’m telling you, if I ran on an outdoor track, I’d be faster,” he declares.
Xander groans. “You ran for four minutes, mate. Four. And you could barely take a breath by the end.”
“It was on incline seven.”
“No, it wasn’t. I watched you. You set it on two,” Xander says, not even looking up from his phone. “You shouldn’t be that sweaty after four minutes.”
Kai licks salt off his fingers. “He sweats at zero incline.”
Theo flips them both off and crams the chips into his mouth. “You assholes are just jealous of my raw athleticism.”
“Yeah,” X quips dryly. “Your raw athleticism that nearly killed you.”
“You’re eating chips with a protein shake,” I add.
The room breaks into scattered laughter. It’s stupid, pointless, exactly what this lull is for.
Liam’s phone rings. He looks at the screen, then answers too fast. “Hey, babe . . . What? Wait . . . Are you serious? Now? You’re sure?” His voice jumps an octave on the last word. All the color in his face drains at once.
Every head turns. Even Vi lowers her camera, lens dangling against her chest.
“Holy shit,” he breathes. “I’m coming. I’m coming right now.”
He hangs up, both hands flying to the top of his head.
“Anne?” I ask, already knowing.
“She’s in labor.” The words come out on a half-laugh, half-choke. He’s beaming and panicking at the same time. “It’s happening.”
The suite erupts. Everyone starts talking at once, congratulations and whoops and filthy jokes about push presents flying in every direction.
Theo smacks him on the back hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Kai grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him like a can of soda.
Xander gives him a chest slap he could have done without.
I step in and pull him into a proper hug, arms tight around him. “Go,” I say into his shoulder. “Get the hell out of here and be with your woman. We’re good.”
He laughs, a little shaky. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Fuck. I can’t believe it.”
Vi steps up and wraps her arms around him, too. Her face softens in a way I haven’t seen yet, the hard edges smoothing out. I watch it greedily, memorizing it. She murmurs something in his ear, too quiet for me to catch. Whatever it is, he releases a breathy laugh and nods.
“Text us when she’s here,” she says, giving his arm a squeeze.
“Will do,” he promises, already backing toward the door.
Chris snaps his laptop shut and follows him out, phone at his ear, barking into it about transport and ticket changes.
The door closes behind them, and the suite falls quiet.
Underneath it, there’s a subtle tilt in the room, a shift, a piece sliding out of the way.
Liam has been orbiting Vi for the past two days. I don’t know if he was doing it on purpose or if his big-brother instincts are permanently on high alert, but he kept himself neatly between us, a walking reminder of every line I shouldn’t cross.
I love the guy. He’s my brother in every way that counts. He pulled me out of some dark places, and I would take a punch for him without blinking.
But him being here has also made every conversation with Vi that much harder.
Now, he’s on his way to the other side of the world, headed toward a hospital and a tiny human who’s about to rip his whole life open in the best possible way.
And I’m already thinking about the space he left behind.
It makes me feel like shit that there’s a hint of relief wrapped up in the real happiness I have for him.
All I want to do is close the distance between me and his sister, to finally finish a conversation we started years ago and never got right.
I screwed everything up with her. I ran when I should have stayed. It cost me more than I let myself admit for a long time.
But I’m not making that mistake again.