Page 48 of Pretty Little Rocker

“Hayat, you’re acting weird. But okay. We’ll talk later.” Switching her focus from Hayat to me quickly, Maddie waved me in. “Ky, come sit here. This first part is going to be focused on you anyway. Front men are always the spotlight person, and that is something we are going to really have to force down the fans’ throats. Otherwise, Hayat’s popularity might risk the rest of Autumn’s Slumber’s fanbase.”

All around me, I felt like the air was filling with a flammable gas. One wrong move, one tiny spark, and the place was going to erupt into flames.

“Strongly disagree,” Hayat snapped, facing off with her friend, suddenly forgetting about taking Jamie to introduce him to her uncle. “Autumn’s Slumber has a strong fanbase already. You should be focusing on the band as a whole. Don’t pull any Yoko Ono on them, Maddie. What makes this band so amazing is how they interact together. Each of these guys has a talent only a few people in the world could understand.”

“That’s not my intention.” Maddie defended herself. “I’m simply saying that front men are the face of a band. We want people to see Ky and immediately think of Autumn’s Slumber.”

I didn’t agree with that even a little bit. For one, I didn’t want any of our fans to know who I really was. Their attention should be on our music, not me specifically. Or any of the rest of us individually when it came to Autumn’s Slumber. From the tension I could feel rolling off Sparks and Jamie behind me, I could imagine they were feeling the same way.

Hayat sighed heavily. “Maybe you aren’t the right social media content creator to be working on Autumn’s Slumber if you’re going to be dividing everyone up. And then there is this whole thing about throwing my own notoriety in their face? Yeah, no. We’re not doing that.”

Maddie’s eyes widened in shock. “That wasn’t what I was doing. If you would sit down and look at the plan I have mapped out, you would understand.”

“Telling them that my popularity as Hayat Cutter or Havoc would mess with their fanbase isn’t playing us against one another?”

“Babe,” I murmured, rubbing my hand down her back. She flinched, moving away from me. A dagger felt like it was being stabbed straight into the center of my heart, slicing it open, but I tried to keep the peace between the two girls. “Take it easy. We can at least listen to what she has to say.”

Jamie and Sparks both made noises that I should have realized were warning signals, but I was only trying to de-escalate the growing tension filling the room.

Hayat turned her head, hitting me with an expression that was full of hurt, but also resignation. As if she’d just been waiting for me to say or do something to strip away the frayed threads that I’d felt like I was clinging to in order to keep us linked together.

“Why are you acting like this?” Maddie demanded. “Are you mad at me? Because I don’t know what I’ve done to piss you off.”

Blinking a few times, Hayat schooled her face so it was completely neutral, not giving away a single thing she was thinking. And fuck if that didn’t hurt like a sonofabitch.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Hayat

I could see steam coming out of Maddie’s ears, but that was nothing to the flames I could feel burning my face from my own anger. I loved this girl. She was one of my closest friends, my stepcousin. We were family. I had her back. And I’d thought she had mine.

Finding out Ky was Kyrie Renchford had sent me spiraling for a little while. Terrified I would hurt her. That she would fall into that empty space where she’d wanted to end her own life. I’d tried to set my own feelings aside to protect her, when in reality, there was no need. Ky had made peace with Maddie and her entire immediate family. Possibly even Pop-Pop and Nana. Which also meant that she and the others had known that Kyrie was now Ky Carver. That was a private matter, I understood that, but it would have been nice to have known while I was tripping over my own heartstrings because I’d let Ky fuck me.

But this was something else entirely. Her social media plan was to exclude me and, from the looks of it, Jamie and Sparks as much as possible to focus solely on Ky.

I couldn’t help wondering if she’d made that plan to get closer to Ky.

Then there was that bigger pile of shit she’d thrown right in my face. Whether she was joking about my messing with Autumn’s Slumber’s popularity, I wasn’t sure. Her tone would have sounded teasing to an outsider, but I knew her too well. She was being a total bitch about it.

Switching my gaze to Sparks, then Jamie, and finally Ky, I smiled, but it felt strained, almost brittle. Like I might break at any moment. And, in all honesty, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t. “I’m going to see Uncle Shane. Alone. Jamie, you stay here and listen to Maddie’s amazing plans for all of you. I’ll introduce you to my uncle later. Right now, I need a moment to clear my head. When I get back, someone other than Maddie will be handling Autumn’s Slumber’s social media accounts.”

Jamie grasped my hand, his eyes turning into those earnest, sweet, puppy-dog eyes that I loved. “No, baby. I’ll come with you.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him in a voice that was tight with so many suppressed emotions, it physically hurt to speak. “I just need a little breather. I’m okay. Really.”

“Hayat, you’re being ridiculous. I’ve got everything already mapped out. You just need to sit down and listen.” Maddie huffed dramatically. “Look, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings just now. But you know Havoc has caused a stir. And that’s going to become an issue for the rest of the band. If we aren’t careful, it could do some real damage. All the attention will be on you and not the talents of the others, especially Ky.”

Funny how that wasn’t something anyone else had mentioned to me since I’d won the audition. If I was going to be so much trouble for a band Emmie Armstrong was representing, wouldn’t she have already informed me and been on top of that craziness? She would have been all over my ass to get it worked out, do an interview for one of Aunt Harper’s magazines. Make me go live on TikTok to address it. Something. But not wait for Maddie, who was only starting to get her feet wet in the business, to tell me how much trouble I would cause a band that had so much potential.

Instead, Aunt Emmie had emailed me, saying we needed to use this new turn of events with Havoc being unveiled to our advantage to promote the band.

“Sparks, do you think Havoc will cause issues with Autumn’s Slumber?” I asked, not looking at him.

“No, goddess.” His words caressed me, trying to soothe, but my heart hurt too badly for it to heal.

“What about you, Jamie? Will my being the band’s drummer cause problems for you? Do you think I’m going to overshadow anyone? That I’ll harm Autumn’s Slumber in any way?”

“Fuck no, Hellion. After your audition, I can’t see us being whole without you with us now.”

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