Page 68 of Before You Fell

I chase it with more water until there is nothing left but the cool slide down my chest and the waiting. That small, pathetic part of me listens for the moment my skin stops being too tight, when the room loses its teeth and my heart finally shuts the fuck up.

Phoenix storms out of the room. “Go fuck yourself, Cruz.”

The door slams behind him, hard enough to crack through the studio.

Cruz looks at the door.

Jax looks at his drums.

Jett looks at nothing.

And I sit back down, anticipating the chemical stimulus to diminish my sense of feeling that I don’t want to have anymore.

One week later and the album’s first single launches.

I’ve stayed away from the studio since that fight in the recording booth. Not because I wanted to. I stayed away because I couldn’t stand being the reason the guys were looking at each other with clenched jaws and trailing off mid-sentence. The album is due in a month. Tracks need to be finished. Vocals need to be cleaned up. The machine doesn’t stop grinding just because Phoenix Stone fucked me in a storage room and then decided eye contact was too intimate.

So I gave them space.

A few texts came through during the week. Jax and Cruz sent memes and shitty jokes, dressed up as check-ins. Jett asked if I was okay and somehow I could feel the worry beneath his words.

Phoenix gave me nothing. Not even the bare minimum of checking whether I was still alive. No half-drunk apology at two in the morning. Not even a stupid dot-dot-dot that vanished before he could turn it into another excuse.

Then Damon texted me, telling me I had to be here tonight.

Not asked. Fucking told. Because the new single hits radio tomorrow and lands on streaming sites, and apparently that means I need to stand in a room full of strangers while everyone applauds.

The label has hired a private event space. Photographers crowd around the backdrop. Executives drift through the room, wearing expensive watches and speaking in voices trained to make bullshit sound important. Music journalists hold recorders to their chests, assistants move with clipboards, and trays of champagne slide between bodies.

The new single plays overhead for the tenth time in an hour.

My words. Phoenix’s voice, so polished that people can now clap for it.

Everyone keeps congratulating the band. They clap Damon on the shoulder and tell him the single has a darker, sexier tone and represents a true progression in the band’s music. Phoenix stands near the media wall with Jax on one side and Cruz and Jett on the other. All four of them lit by camera flashes.

Jax looks every inch the trouble he is, with messy hair, an open jacket, and a grin that should probably come with a warning label.

Jett stands beside him in darker clothes, wearing the same lethal mouth with half the effort, which somehow makes it more dangerous because he doesn’t need the room to know it.

Cruz has the guitar-hero brooding down to a science. All hard jaw, dark eyes, and rolled sleeves.

They look obscene together. Every girl’s fantasy lined up against a media wall. All pretty mouths, ruined edges, and camera-ready smiles.

And then there is Phoenix. His black shirt clings to him in all the right places, sleeves shoved up, tattoos visible, lip ring glinting with every camera flash. Beautiful. Arrogant. Untouchable. A bad idea with cheekbones.

He laughs at a question from a reporter, tips his head back, and the whole cluster around him leans in as if he has gravity built into his bones.

“What was the inspiration behind the single?” someone asks.

Phoenix’s eyes cut across the room. For a dangerous second, they lock onto me. My body goes still. Then his gaze slides away and he smiles for the camera.

“Bad decisions,” he says. “They usually make the best songs.”

The room laughs.

I take a sip of champagne and let the bubbles linger on my tongue.

Across the room, Phoenix shifts for another photo. A woman from Voltage magazine touches his arm and laughs at something he says, leaving her fingers there a second longer than needed. He gives her that look, the one that is mostly performance, all lazy mouth and manufactured badboy vibe, polished enough to make her special for three fucking seconds.