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“I know Vik and Scarlett would certainly love that, as would I. However, with this apparent ‘close source,’” Arun says, making quotation marks with his fingers, “confirming items in the article but also adding fuel to the fire, I’m not sure it’s going away so easily.”
My brows shoot low on my forehead and I sit forward in my chair, resting my elbows on the table. “Do you know who it is? Question the crew?”
Arun holds his hands out, at a loss. “I’m not sure and neither is Vik. Neither of us have heard any chatter and everyone was well vetted and signed contracts when they were hired. No one would be stupid enough to break them.”
“Well, you need to find them,” I demand, knowing logically that Arun is doing the best he can but emotionally, I feel sick thinking about someone trying to further smear Scar’s image and being close to her.
“No need,” Reid says, folding his hands across the table cool as can be. “It was me.”
My head slowly turns in his direction, the room so quiet you can almost hear my muscles creaking. “What did you say?” I ask, even though I heard him loud and clear the first time.
He stares me down and as I look at him, I wonder if I’ve ever known him at all. He doesn’t bother answering me, knowing I heard him too.
Rage rushes over me, pumping gasoline through my veins and Reid is dancing around with an open flame.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Nikolai’s mouth is agape, staring at Reid as if he’s a stranger. Hayden shifts his body, putting himself between me and Reid, preparing to stop a fight, even though we have a giant, wooden table between us.
“Why?” I ask, the word coming out quietly and I hate the way my voice cracks at the end.
“I told you, you’ll always be second to her. Do you not think I’ve seen the way you’ve been distracted ever since you met her? No one else wanted to bring it up earlier but she’s part of our problem. Your head isn’t in it like it used to be and it’s thanks to her. And judging by her past, she’ll self-destruct again, and I don’t want you, or this band’s name, anywhere near the carnage. So the quicker she fails and is out of the picture, the better.”
A bitter laugh bubbles and spills out of me before I can stop it. “You sick, fucking asshole. You’re mad because I’ve finally found someone I’m happy with, and you decide to aid in trying to tank her name and career?”
“She did that on her own. I just confirmed it.”
“But you didn’t even know what you were confirming as truth! You added in shit that never even happened. She’s never once drank when we’ve been out.” I stand, tipping my chair over and sending it crashing into the wall.
He remains seated, refusing to match my anger. “Doesn’t matter if it hasn’t happened yet. It will, and one day, you’ll realize I was just trying to help you.”
I shake my head, wanting to clear my vision like an etch-a-sketch, wishing to wipe away the Reid in front of me and bring back the Reid that has been one of my closest friends for years.
But he’s not here.
And I’m not going to stick around and try to find him, or let him hurt the woman I love.
“We do the summer shows,” I say, walking toward the door at the front of the conference room and grabbing the knob so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t fall off. “But after that, we’re done.” With that, I open the door and let it slam shut behind me, not looking back.
34
SCAR
I still remember the feeling I got when I first heard “Levels” by Avicii. It felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest when the bass dropped, pure bliss tickling every inch of my skin as goosebumps rose. It was the first time I really felt moved by music, even though I’d been singing all my life.
I was on YouTube, having snuck into the family office to use the computer. Growing up, Beth and I weren’t allowed to use it unless we were supervised. But I would wait until my parents went to bed and would tiptoe across the house to the office and sit in there for hours until my eyes drooped and the sun was starting to rise.
I stumbled upon the music video accidentally, but the entire course of my life was changed from that point on. I went down a rabbit hole, discovering every subgenre of dance music and finding which ones I liked best. It’s from there that I started writing lyrics to songs that just had beats on them, before saving up enough money from my landscaping job at the church to buy a laptop of my own and began producing my own music. Up until that point, I had only listened to hymns and worship music, as it’s the only music my parents allowed to be played in our household.
I was tired of singing the same hymns in church over and over again, and instead started writing music that felt true to what I was feeling. It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
When I told my parents I wanted to drop out of our church choir, they couldn’t understand why I would want to waste the gift that God had given me. And when I told them I wanted to start writing my own music, outside of any religious influence, they wished I’d keep my gift locked up and forgotten about.
Clearly, that didn’t happen.
And as I sit here, head swaying back and forth to the beat of the song, hand shaking out in front of me in time with the building crescendo and eventual drop of the newest track I’ve been working on, I feel that same sense of euphoria.
Boone and I sit in the makeshift studio he built in the back of his and Naomi’s bus. I came over here as soon as I woke up this morning and found my own bus empty, Walker and the guys nowhere in sight.
It was actually a relief to wake up alone this morning, the bus free of the tense energy it was stifling with last night. Reid and Walker weren’t speaking to each other and Hayden and Nikolai didn’t bother trying to lighten the mood. Instead, after the show was done, we all filed on the bus, took turns showering, and went to sleep.
