Page 3 of Electric Touch

“Then why are you here?” Her head tilts as she tries to figure me out.

My throat closes and I struggle to get my breath, though I think I hide it well enough. I’m already resigned to this opportunity being lost, I don’t have the time to dwell on it.

“To prove I can do something I’ve never had the courage to do before,” I tell her. She doesn’t need to know the truth. “And to enjoy it for what it was.”

The woman beside me scoffs and receives a scowl from the producer. Instead of being bitter, I wish them luck and head out after the other discarded girls. Nash is watching, our eyes meet and hold for a few seconds, but he looks away. Any hopes he’d ask me to stay are dashed.

With my head held high, I leave the audition behind.

Chapter Two

I mess up for the third time and it takes effort not to throw the girl off my lap. I glare at the wall where the least amount of people are. I need to get my shit together, but it’s hard. Too fucking hard to act like a professional musician when my heart is split wide open. This is the second day of the video shoot. We’re almost done, but for whatever reason, I keep screwing up on this one scene. It’s supposed to be a fantasy sequence with my lover in my lap. But the picture in my mind’s eye takes me out of this make-believe world, and into a reality that no longer belongs to me.

“Take five.” The director yells.

Everyone groans. Ciro curses as I push up off the bed. Declan approaches me. I don’t want to take my shit out on the guy, he’s been through enough over the last twelve months. He doesn’t need to deal with my ornery ass. But he comes over anyway, even knowing I’ll be a dick. All around us, people move away from the set while we take a break.

The auditions for the video were a couple of weeks ago. I have no interest in who stars in it, interacting with them is all an act, despite my unnecessary involvement in getting the blonde a part. Fuck, I don’t even care what she looks like, or who she is. I wanted to fling back a little of the hurt, and that was my stupid way of doing it.

She’d tried to sidle up to me a few times during the shoot. Thank fuck she isn’t the one who’d sat in my lap for the last two hours. Obviously, she thought my comment meant something. I’d brushed her off, not too kindly either. I will never be interested in groupies. Hell, why would I be when I’ve got the girl of my dreams by my side?

Notanymore, I don’t. That part of my life is over.

“Wanna grab a smoke?”

“Since when do you smoke?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It’s medicinal.”

Declan is in pain often, he fought hard to get himself better after his accident. Shit, I’m being such a melodramatic fucker. Which is why he approaches me, not someone else from the band. Dec will make me feel guilty. I follow him as we step beyond the cameras and out a side door, which leads into the bright sunshine of an August day in New York City.

Sometimes, I pinch myself when I take stock of where we are. It has always been a dream to succeed in this industry, even if it took a while to get here. It hasn’t been easy, in fact, sometimes it has been downright fucking unbearable.

Here we are, our third single about to be released to serious anticipation. From the fans and the industry. We’ve finally made it. Now, everything I’ve done over the last couple of months is putting it in jeopardy.

It’s been kept out of the press. I’m not sure how long that will last because Riley isn’t being discreet. Well, around me, she at least has the decency not to throw it in my face. I’m hyper aware of it because she is fucking some other asshole. Not only that, she has moved into his fucking condo. He is the one she turns to, the one who celebrates the band’s milestones with her. Is he the one she loves?

Shit.

I don’t know how it happened, there wasn’t anything wrong between us. Yeah, I’ve focused on getting the band to where it is. Riley knows why I do that. For a while, after she dumped me, I thought the band would break up. The others blame her and why wouldn’t they? She is the one who cheated and fucked everything up.

She told me we’re friends and can work together.

I’m the dumb asshole for agreeing to it. How can you let go of someone you’ve loved for more than half your life? And be around them every day?

It sure as shit comes easy for Riley.

Dylan told me to let her go, to walk away from the relationship and go screw other women. Riley was the only girl I’ve had sex with, until a few weeks ago. I gave in, got drunk and fucked not one, but two groupies.

I hated myself the morning after. The hurt on her face when she realised what I did made me feel better. But then I was damn angry about letting the breakup change me into someone I don’t want to be. She has no right to be hurt. She did this to us, walking out on me. Riley did the one thing we both agreed we would never do to each other.

“Do you want her out of the band?”

“What?” I turn to Declan.

He rests his cane against the wall, sitting and stretching his bad leg out in front of him and taking a joint from his pocket.

“What would that solve?”

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