Silent Verity, page 30
Silent Verity
MM Friends to Lovers Rockstar Romance
Razor Monkees
Book 2
West Greene
Copyright ©June 2025 by West Greene
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Formatting: Tiff Writes Romance
Cover Design: Tiff Writes Romance
Editing: Tiff Writes Romance
Proofreading: Kimberly Peterson
For Riley, my reason for everything I do.
* * *
For readers who love angsty rockstars and their equally as angsty romance. <3
Contents
Books in the Series
Note from the Author:
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Follow West Greene
About the Author
Books in the Series
Silent Truths
Silent Verity
Silent Fidelity (coming July 2026)
Note from the Author:
Please note that there are elements and situations in this book that not all readers may find enjoyable. These include: drug abuse (weed), use of alcohol (liquor), child neglect, child abuse, abusive mother, depression, anxiety, and parental death.
If any of the above are triggering for you, this book may not be for you. And that’s okay. <3
If you have any questions before diving in, please do not hesitate to reach out to me via authorwestgreene@gmail.com, Instagram, or Facebook.
If you decide to continue from here, happy reading! I hope you fall in love with Dalton and Jesse as deeply as I did!
Prologue
Dalton
I stared up at the massive home looming in front of the six of us. We’d finally decided to move out of the tiny three-bedroom house the six of us had been renting in a rougher part of the city, deciding it was time for the six of us to put money together and buy a bigger place. I didn’t think any of us truly cared about the tight living quarters, but Kalin, Spike, Jesse, and I had enough of listening to Tor and Salem fucking like rabbits.
But now that we were all standing there in front of our new home with our keys in our hands, my chest ached. Because moving into this massive mansion meant I would no longer share a room with Jesse, my best friend. My fucking rock. He would no longer be in my space. I’d no longer catch him randomly wearing my shirts and pants because he was too lazy to wash his own clothes. I’d no longer get to smell my body wash and shampoo on him because he’d showered using my things because he didn’t want to go out and get more of his own when he ran out.
We were moving up in the world, which was good, I guessed, but at what cost?
“Well, I guess now everyone can have their own rooms,” Tor said, leaning into Salem’s side.
Salem snorted. “You’re never having your own space, babe. Don’t even think about it.”
Kalin, the keyboard player in our band, grimaced at them. “I’m just happy I won’t be woken up by you two fucking at all hours of the night. You’ll be way on the other side of the house in your own wing.”
I laughed, thankful it sounded normal. Inside, I felt like I was being strangled. Jesse wasn’t saying anything, just smiling. There was nothing showing on his face except contentment. How was he okay with this?
Oh, right. He didn’t feel anything like that for me. It was just me who was madly, stupidly fucking in love with him.
“Well, let’s not stand out here with our thumbs stuck up our asses,” Jesse said, moving forward to unlock the front door. “I’m ready to unpack so I can veg out on pizza and then pass out in bed.”
Once we were inside, I was thankful to see that the movers my mom had hired for us had already placed all the furniture in their respective places, so that was one less thing we all had to worry about. And a glimpse into the kitchen showed that all of our utensils, pots, and pans had been unpacked and put away as well.
Tugging my phone from my pocket, I shot a text off to my mom. Didn’t matter that I was a grown man and a multi-millionaire. I would never not need my mom, nor would I ever not be grateful for her always working to make my life easier.
Dalton:
Thank you for the movers. They did most of the hard work for us.
Mom:
Good. They were paid extra for it, so I would hope so. Enjoy your new home, honey. And congrats again.
I smiled before pocketing my phone. Unlike my friends, who’d been raised in various stages of poverty and in broken homes, I’d grown up in a middle-class home with great, attentive parents. I never went without anything. I knew my friends hadn’t been so lucky, which made me even more grateful for my parents. I had no idea how I’d ended up being friends with lot of them when I was so different from them, but they’d welcomed me into their fold regardless. And now, we were our own little family, and my parents loved all five of them like they were their own.
Looking up, I was surprised to find I was the only one left in the middle of the entrance. Everyone else had already dispersed. Sighing, I toed off my shoes by the front door. One of the rules my mom had always had was there were no shoes in the house, and old habits died hard. Even if we now had cleaners and I knew my friends would never remember to take their shoes off—as shown by my shoes being the only ones by the front door—I would never walk through the house in my shoes.
On my way to my room, I passed by Jesse’s. His door was shut, and I could vaguely hear music from his room. I paused outside his room, raising my fist to knock. To see if he wanted company or help unpacking. He was disorganized at best and chaotic at his worst. But then, I noticed the “DO NOT DISTURB” door hanger, and I lowered my hand, feeling sick to my stomach.
Since when did Jesse block me from his room? Since when did he shut me out?
Feeling nauseous, I finished the walk to the end of the hall where my room was. Once I was inside, I shut my door and bypassed all my boxes to collapse face first onto my bare mattress. I had no idea how I was supposed to cope without Jesse asleep on just the other side of the room. Hell, most nights, he’d always slept in my bed with me. We’d put on a movie and fall asleep wrapped around each other.
That had always been us. Even before I moved out of my parents’ place and into that tiny fucking house so we could all be close. We’d always had each other.
Now there was a hallway and two closed doors between us, but they may as well have been the fucking Pacific Ocean with how much distance I felt was between us.
I suddenly regretted ever agreeing to move out of that rundown house and buy this one. Because if I hadn’t agreed, I would still be sharing a room with Jesse. He’d still be smiling at me and not blocking me out of his room.
But he was now clearly putting distance between us, and fuck me for being a gentleman. For being the good guy. Because I knew I wouldn’t push him.
If this was how he wanted things now… Well, I’d let him have it.
Even if it damn near killed me inside.
1
Jesse
A FEW MONTHS LATER
I wasn’t doing well.
Hell, saying I wasn’t doing well was a fucking understatement.
I was spiraling. And I’d been doing so damn good at keeping it hidden so Dalton wouldn’t notice, but every day, it was getting harder and harder to keep that mask on my face. To keep plastering a smile onto my lips and hang around the guys and pretend nothing was wrong while what I wanted was so fucking far away, yet so goddamn close.
For two years, Dalton and I had shared a room. And for longer than that, I’d slept over at his place, and we’d shared a bed, and he’d cuddled me because having him wrapped around me helped to keep my head silent and to keep my anxiety and depression from being so fucking loud in my brain.
Now that the six of us had thrown our money into a pot and bought this huge fucking house, there was no longer any reason for Dalton and me to share a room. There wasn’t any reason for us to share a bed and cuddle anymore.
I hadn’t had a good night’s rest since we moved in. I tossed and turned more often than not, and when I did manage to sleep, I just had nightmares about my mother and her random fits of rage when she was sober and how neglectful she was when she was happy and high.
I’d discreetly—so discreetly even my best friends didn’t know—gone to see a doctor for my sleeplessness. I’d been put on sleeping pills, but after a few nights of using them, I grew terrified I’d become addicted to them since drug abuse ran in my family, and I’d stopped taking them. Addiction was hereditary, and I wasn’t chancing that shit.
Sighing, I adjusted myself on the pool float and lifted my blunt to my lips. Smoking was the only crutch I allowed myself. Sometimes, I drank occasionally, but I never felt the burning need to smoke, and if I started smoking too much, I usually caught myself and left it alone for a while, even if it left me miserable and constantly in a mental low.
I was a c
ontradiction. I knew that. Smoking but not allowing myself to take sleeping pills? Didn’t make a lot of sense, but a lot of shit I did now didn’t make sense to me when Dalton had slipped through my fingers and put a wall up between us.
The clouds moved from in front of the sun, no longer blocking the rays, and warmth bled into my skin as the sun shone down on me. It almost felt like it was mocking my shit mood, but life tended to do that enough to me as it was, so I was pretty used to being mocked. There was nothing quite like having a shitty mom who didn’t give two fucks about me and spending most of my time at my best friend’s house in high school, where he had loving parents who adored him and gave him everything in the fucking world.
But I wouldn’t wish on Dalton what the fuck me and our friends had gone through. Salem never talked about his family, but I knew they were the shittiest out of all of our parents. Tor’s wasn’t much better. Kalin’s mom had passed away when he was a toddler in a car crash, and his dad lost himself in the bottom of a bottle, never to surface again. Spike had spent his entire childhood in foster care after his mom lost him to the state and never cared enough to get clean and get him back.
The back door opened, and Spike stepped outside, a cigarette between his lips. His hand was already cupping the cigarette, and he was lifting the lighter up when he spotted me, jerking in surprise. I lifted a hand and waved at him.
“You scared the shit out of me,” he said, shutting the back door and making his way to the pool. He sat on the edge and let his legs dangle into the water. Then, he lit his cigarette before setting his Zippo lighter aside. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Smoking,” I deadpanned, holding my blunt up for him to see. “Same as you.”
He sighed. “You’re smoking a lot lately, man. Everything okay?”
I shrugged, brushing his concerns off. “Everything’s chill. Just want to relax.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and it took everything in me to not squirm uncomfortably. Spike had always been intuitive, and it was like if he looked hard enough, he could see right through me to all the internal bleeding happening. Physically, I was fine. Emotionally, all of my organs were rupturing. And my heart was in the worst condition of all.
My brain wasn’t far behind.
“Liar,” he finally said.
I scoffed. “Why are you smoking more?” I hit back. Spike rarely smoked cigarettes, but lately, I’d noticed he picked up more on the habit, too. When he just grunted, I snorted. “That’s what I fucking thought.”
“We ready for the upcoming tour?” Spike asked, changing the subject. He didn’t even bother to do it subtly, but that wasn’t his style. Spike was blunt, and he didn’t bother to hide anything he did. And if he didn’t want to talk about something, he damn well wouldn’t.
I was aching for the tour. At least on the tour bus, I’d be in close quarters with everyone, and Dalton and I might be forced to share a bunk again like we used to. And even if we didn’t, at least he’d still be closer than he was currently. Right now, several feet separated our rooms, and there were always two doors between us. And while it was only a few feet between our rooms, it felt like an entire ocean.
It was wrong.
“Yeah,” I grunted, hoping I was hiding the longing in my voice well enough. “I’m ready to be back on the stage.” Besides, being on tour meant we were always busy. Hopefully, staying busy would mean that by the time I got back on the bus, showered, and got into bed, I would be too tired for my brain to run rampant like it did all the time now.
Spike eyed me again, but this time, he didn’t pry. He just nodded and lifted his cigarette back to his lips. Silence settled between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
Hell, maybe both of us needed the company instead of being alone. Because Dalton and I weren’t the only ones who’d separated rooms. Kalin and Spike had, too. I wondered if, like me, Spike was struggling to cope, too. If having Kalin in another room from him felt as wrong as having Dalton away from me did.
But I didn’t ask any of that. I never would. Because the last thing I wanted was my feelings getting back to Dalton, and he pull away completely. At least, right now, I still had him as my best friend, even if there was distance between us.
I didn’t want to lose more of him than I already had.
2
Jesse
My phone began vibrating on the kitchen counter just as I took my cup of noodles out of the microwave. Sighing in annoyance at the sight of Delia’s name on the screen, I set my noodles down, then picked up my phone. For a moment, I contemplated ignoring it and letting her harass one of the other guys because I just wasn’t in the mood for her oh-so-pleasant personality. If she was calling, it was for one of two reasons.
One, she needed us to work, or two, we’d done something to piss her off. Usually, she called because we’d somehow pissed her off.
Delia was a major bitch. A damn good manager, but a bitch, nonetheless. I practically hated her fucking guts.
Deciding to ignore her call, I set my phone back down. When the call ended, she called right back.
Mother fuck.
Growling, I snatched up the device again and swiped to answer her call, lifting the device to my ear. “What?” I muttered, tucking my phone between my ear and shoulder so I could grab my noodles and soda and head to the island in the middle of the kitchen.
“You six are the most rude, ungrateful children I have ever worked with,” she muttered, completely disregarding that all of us were at least twenty now. Dalton was twenty-one and the oldest out of all of us. Tor’s birthday would be coming up soon though, making him twenty-one as well.
“What do you want, Delia?” I sighed, sliding onto the bar stool after setting my noodles and soda down.
“You and Dalton need to be at a photoshoot tomorrow,” she told me. My gut tightened, and I stared at my noodles just as my appetite slowly began to diminish. “Fans are beginning to ship the two of you together, and after some discussion with Giselle and Richard, we believe we should play on that.”
My chest fucking split wide the fuck open.
This couldn’t be happening.
“I’m not comfortable with that,” I told her, hating how strangled my voice sounded. But Delia was so out-of-touch with emotions, I didn’t think she even picked up on how distraught I sounded.
“I don’t care what you’re comfortable with, Jesse,” she snapped at me. My heart was racing in my chest, and I was sure I was going to be sick. “This is your job. You agreed when you signed that damn contract, kid. You’ll do as I tell you. I expect both you and Dalton at the address I’m sending you now at nine sharp in the morning. Do not make a fool of me by showing up late, do I make myself clear?”
With that, she hung up. I dropped my phone to the countertop and sighed, not even hungry anymore. But I knew I needed to eat. I hadn’t eaten since sometime the day before, and the lack of food was making me feel like shit. More so than I usually did, anyway.
I was halfway through with my noodles when Dalton appeared in the kitchen. My heart flipped in my chest, and my belly swooped at the sight of him. His hair—one side platinum blonde and the other side pitch-black—was messy on his head like he’d run his fingers through it numerous times. Dark eyes found mine, and a small smile tilted his full lips. Dressed in a netted crop top that left his abs revealed and dark, low-slung jeans, he had my mouth fucking watering.
Christ. It wasn’t fair that he was so fucking hot.
