Page 48 of Midnight Stage

Times have changed, even over the last two years, and the marketing plan the label put in place at the very start of the tour, before Axel passed, was incredible, but now that he’s gone and everything is different, following that current plan would be a mistake.

Lenny gave me the day to put a plan together, and after spending the morning arguing with him about his cheap-ass budget and getting it boosted to a level the boys are worthy of, I was finally able to start putting my proposal in place. Sure, the tour starts tomorrow, but assuming Lenny approves what I come to him with, we can start implementing these changes over the coming weeks.

Exhaustion ripples through me as I make my way up to my incredible room, and while I can’t wait to get to Europe and finally discover what I’ve been missing all these years, a part of me never wants to leave this hotel. If I could live here with a bar downstairs, room service, and a pool, I’d be happy every day of my life.

Reaching my door, I swipe my access card against the scanner and make my way into my room. My brain is fried, but as long as I can keep my eyes open, I’ll keep working.

The suite is dark with nothing but the city lights pouring through the window, and as I make my way in, I pause, finding a familiar silhouette staring out at the beautiful view.

I suck in a gasp. I can’t deal with this right now.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I murmur, my heart racing a million miles an hour. It’s the first time we’ve truly been alone in over eight years, and the way my body sings with electricity is too much for me to handle. I can deal with seeing him in the studio and being stuck on a private jet with him for hours at a time, but a dark hotel room with just the two of us? It’s too much.

Ezra doesn’t move or turn to face me.

“No, Rae. You shouldn’t be here,” he says in that deep tone that’s spent so many nights haunting my dreams.

His words are like a knife right through the chest, but I know he’s been thinking them. His little performance of “Cold Hearted Bitch” was a message, and despite hearing his meaning loud and clear, I know he doesn’t really want me to leave.

Creeping through the luxury suite, I slide the laptop onto the edge of the table before continuing toward him, not stopping until I stand right at his back, barely a breath between us. My heart thunders in my chest, the same way I know his must be, and I can’t help but reach out, allowing my fingers to slip up the back of his loose tank. The moment my fingertips brush against his warm skin, I’m physically burned, but I can’t pull away. Instead, I continue sliding my hand up his strong back, feeling the familiar curves of his spine.

He sucks in a breath, his body tightening, but he doesn’t dare pull away, and as the tension boils between us, I close my eyes, having needed his touch more than I’ve needed air.

“Rae,” he breathes, a deep pain in his tone.

“I’m not leaving,” I tell him, my voice threatening to break over the lump in my throat. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You need to go home,” he rumbles without an ounce of conviction in his tone. “It’s better that way. Easier.”

I scoff. If only he knew the hell I endured at that house after they left me, he would never suggest such a thing. “Easier for who?” I ask. “Easier for you? My life has not been easy. It’s been one heartbreak after another that I’ve barely survived, but that place I’m supposed to call home . . . That’s the worst of it all. I will never go back there.”

Ezra turns, his confused gaze locking onto mine in an instant as my hand now hovers at his chest. I go to drop it away, but he catches it, refusing to release me. My fingers flatten against his skin, feeling the rapid beat of a heart I used to call my own. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he demands as I get lost in a sea of darkness. “Your home . . . Michigan. That’s the only home we’ve ever had.”

I shake my head, not daring to tell him the real reason why I’ve run as far from that place as humanly possible. “Not to me. Not after you left.”

His hand tightens around mine as the fabric of his shirt tangles between his fingers, pulling it aside just enough for me to see the familiar tattoo branded across his chest. Now, he’s covered in them, head to toe, just as Axel was, but I always assumed that his very first one would have eventually been covered up.

“You still have it,” I whisper, my gaze reading over the words Hypothetically Yours as everything crumbles inside of me. “I thought you would have had it covered by now.”

There’s a desperation in his eyes, and with every passing second, it grows more out of control. He’s dying inside, and it has everything to do with me being here in his world, but he has no choice but to find peace with it because I’m not going anywhere.

Ezra clenches his jaw, a hardness creeping into his eyes as he releases my hand, only in doing so, he pushes mine away, and it drops carelessly back to my side as my palm stings from the electricity burning between us. “You never listened to our songs,” he says, the words hitting me like a devastating accusation.

A scoff tears from the back of my throat, and I back up a step as I fix him with a hard glare. “That’s what your little performance was about today?” I demand. “You did that all because the guys told you I’ve never listened to your songs?”

His gaze narrows, refusing to admit that I’m right, but something tells me his reasoning isn’t what’s important here. “Why?” he pushes, stepping closer and eating up the distance I’d only just created. “Why the fuck not? Every one of those songs, they’re—”

“For me?” I question, cutting him off. “That’s the whole point, Ezra. I know you. I know you on a level that I don’t think you’ve ever allowed anyone else to know you, not even Ax, but those words in those songs . . . I didn’t listen to them because I knew exactly what they were going to say, and I knew just how much it would destroy me to hear them.”

He simply stares at me, waiting for more of an explanation, and I let out a heavy breath, more than ready to get real with him. “Back in Michigan, before everything went to hell, every song you ever wrote was for me in one way or another. Whether it was a direct message or just something you were feeling at the time, no matter what, it always came back to you and me. And after you left, I couldn’t bear it. And when that first album came out, it made me sick thinking of the words that would have been in there. I knew you were hurting just as much as I was, and I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it because I knew what it would do to me, but as the years passed, I feared the day they stopped being about me, and I’d be forced to listen as you fell in love with someone else. I couldn’t do it to myself.”

A heavy silence fills the air as my words sink in, and taking a breath, I take a hesitant step, closing the distance and feeling the warmth radiating off his body. “You’d already hurt me enough, Ezra,” I whisper as my fingers latch onto the bottom of his shirt. “I wasn’t going to allow you to do it again.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

My hand immediately releases his shirt, falling back down. “Don’t I?” He clenches his jaw again, trying to find just a shred of control, but I push him further. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me those songs aren’t written about any other woman, and I’ll spend all fucking night listening to them.”

He just stares, but the anger in his eyes tells me I’m right. “I knew it,” I say with a scoff, shaking my head as I turn and walk away, only he grabs my wrist and pulls me back to him before pressing me against the wall.

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