MY FAVORITE BAND, page 19
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” I mutter.
“What?” she yells over the music.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” I yell.
She looks like she’s about to talk some more, but I turn away and beeline for the fridge. I’m about to pull out a Miller Lite when I realize I need something a fuck of a lot stronger to get through this night.
I close the fridge and move to the pantry, where I pull down a fifth of Jack from the top shelf. I stride through the house and to the stairs then head up to my room. People try to stop me on my way, try to talk to me, but fuck it all. I don’t want them here. I realize being an ignorant asshole is probably projecting the fact that I lost, but I don’t give a fuck. It’ll air on Monday, just five short days away, and then everyone will know anyway.
I slam my door and collapse on my bed. I stare up at the ceiling for a few seconds, the music pounding beneath me and giving me a headache already. I finally sit up and settle against my pillow. I unscrew the cap from the bottle and take my first comforting sip. The whiskey burns going down, but the burn is a welcome relief from the anger pulsing through me.
I hear a knock and the door opens before I get the chance to swallow the whiskey in my mouth to tell whoever it is to go the fuck away.
“Sorry to just barge in,” Brody says. “I couldn’t hear you over the music.”
I glance at him and take another sip of whiskey without responding.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Fucking Fisher told the women I slept with Mel. I had final power and chose Eden, who came to my goddamn hotel last night to tell me she’d pick me if I picked her, and then she chose Danny.”
Brody sighs in disappointment he doesn’t try to hide. He shakes his head a little. “I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “It’s life. I just need a night to be angry. I wasn’t expecting all this shit when I got home.” I nod toward my door to indicate the party.
“We thought you had it in the bag. Well, we hoped.”
“I’m sorry I fucked it all up.” I take another swig from the bottle.
“You didn’t.” He settles into the chair in the corner of my room. “You went on the show to get our name out there, and you did that. Has Kane mentioned our sales figures to you?”
I shake my head as my brows furrow.
“They tripled when you first started on the show, and now they’ve fucking quadrupled over that in the last two weeks—ever since Poppy’s blowie. So despite losing the big payday, sex sells.” He shrugs. “Our numbers are solid proof of that.”
“They made me look like a douchebag.” I say the words quietly.
He laughs, and I feel slighted by the laughter, like it’s an insult when I just bared my vulnerability.
“When have you ever cared about that? You’ve been a douchebag since the day we met.”
His words elicit the first smile from me since Eden said Danny’s name.
“So now what?” I ask.
“We get through the finale, you film your reunion show, and then we’re going on tour with Vail. Fucking Vail.”
I nod, my mood lifting just a little at my best friend’s words. “You’re right. I just need a night to be pissed off, you know?”
He clears his throat. “Are you pissed because of the show or are you pissed that she’s not here?”
“Who?” I ask carefully. I take another sip from the bottle so he can’t read my expression.
“You know who.”
I clear my throat. “I’m not in the mood for games, Brody.”
“Neither am I, yet you’ve been keeping all these secrets and acting like somebody I don’t even know anymore. When are you finally going to confess how you feel about Kylie?”
“What?” I ask sharply—too sharply, I think, for him to really buy my confusion.
He rolls his eyes. “Dude, you’ve wanted her since the second her long legs stepped into the interview for managers. It’s why Kane made us take that oath. I’ve seen the way you look at her and I can’t figure out why you agreed to go on Take My Heart when someone has clearly already taken it.”
I study the bottle in my hands and take a bolstering sip before I answer. I wince at the burn and take a deep breath. “It was her idea. If she wanted me, she wouldn’t have pushed me into doing a reality show designed for me to fall in love with someone else.”
“So you do have feelings for her,” he says.
“I think I might be in love with her.” My confession is flat and quiet.
“Tell her.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. We’re going on tour, and she’s gonna be there, and she works for us...and the No Bang Oath. I just can’t.”
“Fuck the oath, man.” He pushes to his feet and stands in front of me. His voice is an impassioned plea. “If she’s what you want, if she’s the one who can snap you out of this shit and bring my best friend back to Earth, then fuck that goddamn oath and go get the girl.”
He gives me a meaningful look then disappears out my door with those words hovering between us.
I pull out my phone to text her. Maybe he’s right—maybe I need to make this confession. I try to envision it either way. If I don’t tell her, I have to agonize over living on a tour bus with her for the next two months, loving her and wanting her but not able to have her when she’s so close to my grasp.
But on the other hand, if I do tell her and she doesn’t reciprocate, I still have to go on tour with her, and then I have to face the heartbreak of being inches away from someone I can’t have. I’ll be risking not just our personal friendship, but my entire band’s professional relationship with her.
I’ve confessed to Kane, and I’ve confirmed it with Brody. Kane admitted Adam and Rascal already figured it out, too.
But ultimately, I fear it’s just too big a risk to take. We depend on her, all of us, and if I fuck this up because I have these sudden feelings for her, I’m not sure what MFB will do without her.
Yet I can’t help wanting to see her right now, even if it’s just to be a friendly ear to listen to how the night panned out.
Before I can stop myself—and with the bolstering effect of whiskey on my tongue and burning my chest—I send her a text.
Me: I’m back and stepped into an apparent afterparty at my own house. Why aren’t you here?
It takes her a while to reply, and by the time she does, I’m a third of the way into the bottle and probably not in the right place to see her.
Kylie: Out with a friend. On our way over.
I’m about to ask if it’s a female or male friend when I realize that would be a bad idea. Despite the whiskey, I have enough good sense left not to ask.
But if it’s a male friend—maybe even the same one who called her name the other night when we were on the phone...I’m just not sure I’m in the right frame of mind to handle another letdown right now.
With that thought in mind, I make the choice to stay in my room.
I’m surprised when I hear a knock on my door a half hour later. I’m still awake, and in fact I had just started sketching out some new t-shirt ideas in a little notebook when I hear the knock. “Yeah?” I yell.
Kylie peeks her head into my room, and she takes my breath away. Her cheeks are a little rosy—maybe she’s been drinking, too, and her hair cascades in loose waves around her shoulders like a halo. She’s wearing shorts. It’s early December, a little chilly for shorts, but it’s San Diego so she can get away with it. She wears a long-sleeve, low cut shirt that I want to rip off her body.
“What are you doing up here all by your lonesome?” she asks. She looks at my bed, where I’m sitting, and then over at the chair in the corner of my room, like she’s debating the best place to sit. She finally bounces onto the foot of my bed with a smile. I think she might be a little tipsy.
I clear my throat and focus on a spot on the wall just past her rather than on her even though she’s right in my line of sight. I stretch my feet out so they’re pressed against her thigh. “I’m not really in a party mood.”
“Brody told me,” she says softly.
“That I fucked everything up and lost?”
She shakes her head. “That Eden promised she’d pick you then went back on her word. That Danny stabbed you in the back.” She rests a friendly hand on my shin for a beat before she seems to think better of it and moves it. “I’m sorry, Dax.”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s my own fault.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she says. “You did what you went there to do.”
My brows draw in. “I went there to win. I didn’t win.”
“You went there to get MFB’s name out there. You did that. You went there to get America to fall in love with you. You did that.”
“I did?”
“You didn’t see how Twitter blew up after the episode with the boys aired?”
I shake my head and lean back to stare up at the ceiling. “I stayed off Twitter. I didn’t need to see people slamming every little detail from the way I cut my hair to the mistakes I made.”
“The mistakes show you’re human,” she says softly. I can’t help when I glance at her. Our eyes lock. “And I like your hair. I think it’s perfect.”
It takes literally every ounce of my self-control not to crawl down the bed to her.
She looks away first. “Did you fall for her?” she asks. Her voice is laced with a vulnerability I never expected.
I shake my head. “No,” I say. I couldn’t fall for her when my heart belongs to you.
She nods. “You two seemed like you’d be good together.”
I shrug. “Maybe we could have been. I don’t know, and I guess we’ll never know now.”
“What are you thinking about the reunion show?”
I chuckle. “I want to ask Danny when he became such a little bitch, for starters.”
“Okay, I may need to coach you a little on what’s okay to say.”
I laugh, and I realize it’s the first actual laugh I’ve had tonight. Brody got me to smile a little, but nothing could’ve lightened my mood the way Kylie has the potential to.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I concede.
“Next week’s going to be busy,” she muses.
I nod. “Between tour prep and heading up to LA to film the reunion...yeah, it’s gonna be crazy.”
“When do you need to go to LA?”
“Monday afternoon. It’ll air Thursday so I don’t know if we’ll get to watch it.”
“You need some coaching?”
“Come with me,” I say.
She glances at me, and then she shakes her head. “I can’t on Monday.”
“Why not?” I ask.
She clears her throat. “My friend that’s in town leaves Tuesday morning.”
“Who’s this friend?” I ask, raising a brow and trying to act like it’s not a big deal when my entire being feels like it hinges on her answer.
“Just a friend from college I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“Is she here?” I ask, relief coursing through me that it’s just a friend from college.
“Um...” She clears her throat again. “Yes, he is.”
“He?” I ask, the relief that just coursed through me freezing right there in my veins.
She nods. “His name is Archie. We met our freshman year and became inseparable, but he moved to England after graduation. He’s only here until Tuesday and I haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“Archie from England. Does he have an accent?” I go for a light tone, but it’s a horrendous failure as even I can hear the bitterness.
She giggles. “No. He’s American. But he has picked up some British-isms that I totally tease him about.”
I hate how light she is when she talks about him. I hate that I hate him and I don’t even know him. I hate that she doesn’t seem so light and airy when she’s talking to me. I want to inspire that same sort of reaction in her, but I fear everything I do creates the exact opposite effect.
I wonder if it’s because there’s something between them, but I’m not really in a position to ask considering the things she has seen me do on national television.
But it hurts to know she’s having such a great time with another man...a man who isn’t me. A man who makes her happy. Maybe even a man who calls her name at one in the morning when we’re on the phone.
And maybe they’re just friends...but maybe that’s a whole lot worse considering the way my last serious relationship ended—when the girl I fell for chose the best friend who was right in front of her the whole time over me. The whole reason I sleep with “anything that moves,” as Brody likes to say...not that he’s any better.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks, thankfully changing the subject before I say something stupid.
I nod. “Of course. Anything.” I don’t want to sound as desperate as I do.
“Are you doing okay?”
My brows draw in as I meet her eyes. “With the show?”
“With everything. I know it’s been a taxing couple weeks, and you’re just...not you. The fun-loving lady charmer has become this dark, brooding guy I hardly recognize. You’re sitting up in your room while there’s a party going on downstairs in your honor.”
I sigh. “When Eden picked Danny and not me, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t in love with her. It was the same goddamn heartbreak I felt when Vickie cheated on me and when Piper chose another man over me. It was the same thing all over again, the same hurt and the same disappointment. But it wasn’t just me who felt the disappointment this time. I let everyone down. Brody, Kane, Adam, Rascal...and especially you.” I sit up a little and reach for her hand. To my surprise, she lets me take it. I lace my fingers through hers. “I never want to disappoint you.”
She blinks and turns her gaze to our linked hands and then her eyes slowly move back up to mine.
Neither of us says anything for a few beats, and then she pulls her hand away, breaking the moment. “You didn’t disappoint me because you didn’t win, Dax. I pushed you into doing something you didn’t really want to do. I convinced you it would be good. I never wanted you to get hurt in the end, and I’m sorry that’s how it panned out.”
I want to tell her. I want to confess. I want to take her in my arms and make her forget about whoever the fuck this Archie guy is. “You know what hurts even worse?” I ask as I draw in a deep breath.
“What?” she asks softly.
Just as I open my mouth to tell her something along the lines of how much it hurts to be in love with someone who you’re not supposed to be in love with, someone who works for you and with you and pushes you into going on dating shows to find love with someone else, there’s a knock at my door.
And a voice…decidedly male.
“Kylie?”
A voice that sounds similar to the one I heard over the phone one night at one in the morning.
We stare at each other for a silent beat, but then the moment’s broken.
“Come on in,” she yells, her eyes still on mine. She doesn’t move them, in fact, until the door opens and some dude who looks like he works out too much steps into my room.
“You must be Dax,” he says.
I nod. “Archie, I assume?”
“Good guess. Kylie’s told me so much about you.”
I glance at Kylie, who appears to be glaring daggers at macho man Archie.
“Like what?” I ask.
“Okay, all right, that’s enough,” Kylie says, leaping off the bed and pushing Archie toward the door. “I’ll see you later, Dax,” she says, and I can’t help but wonder if she told Archie all about the best parts of me or the worst.
CHAPTER 26
The rest of the weekend is packed full with gigs, practice, and meetings as we finalize everything before we leave for the tour on Thursday. Kylie’s busy wearing the hat of our manager as she confirms every last detail of the tour, calling hotels for reservations and touching base with Vail’s manager to ensure there’s parking for our bus and our trucks of equipment.
The tour kicks off in Chicago, and we leave Thursday morning to bus it there. Our first gig as the openers for a chart-topping, world-renowned band is Saturday. Part of me is nervous as fuck about this tour—not to perform, because that’s something I love, but because of what it all means. This single tour could make or break our band. It could lead us to a record deal with Ashmark, or it could prove that we’re frauds who’ll never make it in the big leagues.
Despite the nerves, though, I’m looking forward to a change of scenery and a change of pace. I’m excited to travel the country with my four closest friends, but knowing Kylie will be there seems to be putting a damper on things.
I want to move forward and move on with my life. I can’t fall for my manager. It’s too goddamn complicated.
And every time I start to get close to her, she seems to pull back. Every time I open my mouth to confess that I’ve fallen in love with her, I realize how much I can’t.
If she loves me back, then what? We date, I fuck it up somehow like I always do, and she runs to some other guy? Then where does that leave the band?
And if she doesn’t love me back, then what? She knows how I feel and it isn’t reciprocated, so we have a strained relationship? Again, where does that leave the band?
When the fuck did life get so complicated with these fucking feelings I never wanted?
Monday night finds me in a dressing room with Shayna. Jarrod is nowhere to be seen, which is fine by me. I might hit that fucker in the jaw if I see him again.
I’m not excited to be here tonight filming the reunion show, but it’s my final obligation with this franchise for the season.
I’m ushered out of the dressing room and backstage. I hear Melanie introduce Jonathan Crosby and Anthony Ventura first, and I stand backstage with Shayna behind me as Mel talks with the two of them for a few minutes.
And then Danny saunters up beside me. “Hey, man,” he says.
