Page 128 of Before You Fell

Two fucking words that almost made me throw my phone through the window because they were so useless. Was she sleeping? Was she writing? Did she still hate me? Did she say my name or had they already taught her how to cut it out of her mouth?

I reach for the bottle and take a drink. The whiskey burns all the way down, with the kind of warmth that used to pass for comfort before comfort took Willow’s name and a pair of brown eyes.

I grab the blunt, take a deep drag, and hold the smoke until my lungs start to protest.

Good. Fucking let them. Every organ I own has been getting very fucking opinionated since Willow walked into rehab and left me standing outside with nothing but a promise I didn’t know how to keep.

You don’t know how to stay.

Then I’ll fucking learn.

Easy thing to say when she is standing in front of me with tears she is too proud to let fall.

The harder thing to do when staying looks like sitting alone in another city, not touching women who are begging to be touched, not drowning in the space she left behind, and not blowing up the entire tour just because my chest feels hollow enough to echo.

The label is losing patience with me which would be tragic if I gave a single fuck.

Apparently, walking out of the green room early after every show has become a concern. I am contractually obligated to stay, they tell me. Smile for the cameras. Shake the right hands. Sign whatever gets shoved in front of me. Flirt with the right women. Keep the machine fed with my face, reputation, and the carefully manufactured illusion that Phoenix Stone is having the time of his fucking life.

Damon has sent me six messages regarding everything.

Then he called four times.

I answered on the fourth because I was starting to enjoy imagining his blood pressure readings.

“You can’t keep disappearing,” he said.

I took another drink. “You can disappear my cock down your throat if you need to feel involved.”

He hung up.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to give a fuck.

I understand what they want.

Hell, I built the asshole they keep buying tickets for.

The crowd wants the bad boy. The frontman with the filthy mouth. The women want the version of me that signs their tits, winks at their friends, and fucks them in a bathroom stall, and by the time he tucks his cock back into his jeans, he has already forgotten their names before the door even swings shut.

I spent years making sure that guy never disappointed. Thought enough willing women could drown out anything. Loneliness. Pressure. Fear. Turns out they only made the room louder. Because no pair of tits, no pretty mouth, and no easy fuck has ever come close to the one who understood the distinction between who I am and the bullshit I hid behind it.

I set the blunt back in the ashtray and drag my fingers across the strings once more.

The same four chords.

They sound better this time or maybe I’m drunk enough to stop arguing with them. I hum under my breath, chasing a line that doesn’t sound like shit.

My fingers pause on the strings as my phone rings.

Unknown number.

I glare at my phone vibrating on the coffee table, already annoyed enough to blame the caller on the other end for interrupting the four chords that were finally starting to sound less shit.

Probably another label executive calling to remind me I’m not playing the game. As if I have ever played anything I didn’t intend to win.

The phone keeps ringing.

I pluck one string, then another, pretending the noise is not scraping across my last nerve.