Page 54 of Before You Fell

By the end of the week, I am ready to stab someone with my pen.

Damon, mainly. The man has a gift for getting under my skin and settling in for good. Every time he leans back in that expensive studio chair, folds his arms, and tells me the song doesn’t bleed enough, I want to throw my notebook at his perfectly styled head.

Fuck him. I bled when I wrote it. I bled when I dragged the words from places I try not to touch.

Six days of that shit is enough to send anyone insane. Six days trapped in a recording studio with four men, not enough sleep, and a manager who thinks emotional torture is a valid creative process.

By Saturday night, my patience is gone, my brain is static, and my heart feels like it has been used as an ashtray.

Two hours ago, I had no intention of leaving my apartment because I have a deep respect for my cozy pajamas.

Then Jax started.

Jax: Come out.

Jax: You need alcohol, loud music.

I ignored him, but he didn’t take the hint and sent another.

Jax: Willow Hart, I know you are fucking reading these.

Jax: Do not make me come over there.

Jax: Actually, make me. I need the exercise.

The voice messages arrived next because apparently text messages didn’t give him enough room to be a pain in my ass.

“Willow,” he said. “You have spent six days locked in a studio with Damon’s bullshit, Phoenix’s face, and enough misery to make a funeral director uncomfortable. You are coming out with us. You are having one drink. You are going to let the music do its thing.”

I stared at my phone for ten full seconds.

Not long after that, another voice message came in.

“And before you say no,” he said in the next message, “remember I have no shame and a very loud voice. I will stand outside your building and announce to the entire fucking street that Willow Hart is refusing joy, alcohol, and basic human interaction. Do not test me, Willow.”

Apparently, after all these years of friendship, he knows exactly how to wear me down.

Which is why I’m standing outside a private nightclub in boots I nearly didn’t bother to put on, wondering why I still answer his calls.

I grab my phone and text him.

Willow: I’m here.

I tuck it into my pocket and move forward. The guy at the rope glances at me and recognition flickers on his face before I even say Jax’s name. He unhooks the rope, giving me a polite nod as the black door behind him opens, spilling music and blue light onto the footpath.

Jax grins at me as though I have personally saved Christmas, rescued puppies, and agreed to fund his terrible life choices for the night.

“There she is.”

Jax slings an arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head.

“You look hot.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m adorable.”

“That’s debatable.”