Page 69 of Before You Fell

My stomach turns.

He has treated me with the kind of cool distance reserved for work colleagues who accidentally fucked in a supply closet and are now pretending that silence counts as maturity.

And still, some stupid, exhausted part of me has been waiting. Waiting for him to corner me in a hallway. To look at me and say he panicked. That he got scared and did what Phoenix always does when something matters too much, which is to act as if it doesn’t matter at all.

I can survive his cruelty. Fuck, I have had years of practice. But it’s the hope that keeps cutting me open.

The launch party drags on in flashes. Promotional photos. A quick interview where Jax carries half the charm and Cruz throws in dry, dirty one-liners. Phoenix stands at the center of it all, giving perfect frontman answers about the album, the sound, and the upcoming tour they’re not supposed to announce for another month.

By late afternoon, the event’s bright shine begins to fade. The press thins out. The label people loosen their ties and drink more. Photographers pack up their equipment, and the room starts to appear less glamorous and more exhausted.

I place my drink on a high table and gaze across the room.

Phoenix is gone.

For one second, relief hits. Then anger follows hard on its heels.

No. Fuck that.

I am not doing this anymore. He doesn’t get to fuck me, freeze me out, and then smile for cameras. I’m done avoiding him.

I pass Jax near the bar, where he is talking to a journalist, one hand wrapped around a drink. His gaze flicks toward me as I walk past.

The event space has a side corridor that leads to a smaller lounge reserved for the band.

My anger keeps me walking. Underneath it, buried deep enough to shame me, lies one fragile, pathetic little hope. Maybe Phoenix is afraid this will end our friendship. Perhaps if I compel him to face me, he’ll say something real.

It’s a stupid hope. I know that. Hope has been making an idiot of me for years when it comes to Phoenix.

But I cannot keep going on like this. We need to sort out what the fuck happened that night.

I find him at the end of the corridor, tucked into a private corner, half-hidden behind a tall arrangement of white flowers.

Phoenix is sitting in a chair with his legs spread, his head tipped back slightly, eyes half-closed.

For a second, I think he is alone.

My heart moves before I can stop it, stupid enough to reach for him before I can drag it back.

I take a few steps closer. Then it all comes into view.

I stop because my body understands before my brain can protect me.

Phoenix is sitting back with his legs spread, head tipped back, eyes half-closed, his hand buried in a woman’s hair. The woman from Voltage magazine.

She is kneeling between his legs, half-hidden by the tall white flowers and the angle of his body, but it’s still not enough to block it out.

I see her glossy hair. Her hand braced on his thigh. His fingers flexing near the back of her head. His cock in her mouth.

I know I need to get the fuck out before he opens his eyes and sees me standing here with my heart in my throat and my dignity bleeding all over the floor. But the hurt hits first and the world narrows to that hand in her hair.

Those fingers. The same fingers that dug into my hips. The same touch that made me believe, for one stupid, filthy, devastating minute, I was not just another body he could use to run from himself.

Phoenix’s mouth parts. A low moan leaves him, rough and close to the edge, and it goes through me harder than any shout ever could. Because I know that sound now, I know the way his breath breaks around it.

“Oh my God,” I whisper and his eyes open.

At first, he looks dazed, still caught in the selfish, lazy haze of pleasure. Mouth parted. Head tipped back. Body loose in that awful way that makes my skin remember him before my heart can properly hate him.