Page 36 of Revived

“What the fuck, Janet? I’m literally on tour right now, earning the money that pays your bills.”

She jerked her shoulders up and down slowly, as if she didn’t care where the money came from. “It means nothing if you’re not there to share our lives with us.”

“I don’t want to share my life with you at all, Janet. You know that. You also know that I’d bring our daughter along for parts of my tour if you would allow it.”

“I’m not letting her come on one of your filthy tours with you. Besides, where would you house a teenage girl so that she’d be tucked safely away from the men here?”

“There’s a bus that’s full of only women,” he told her, exasperated as if this wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument.

“You mean your fuck buddy’s bus? You want to put our daughter on the same bus as your mistress? How dare you even suggest that!”

“She’s not a fuck buddy, and you know that.”

“Well, she better not be anything to you from this point forward, or else your daughter won’t be anywhere you can find her when you finally come off this tour.”

It took everything in me not to go slap the woman for making a threat like that to a father who actually seemed to care for his child. I remained still, riveted by Wen’s personal drama, while at the same time wishing I didn’t have to be a witness to it. To move now though, would guarantee that they knew I’d been listening in. I turned, slightly, catching a quick glimpse of Calista as she strutted her stuff across the stage, despite not feeling well just before she went on. Then, I remembered why she wasn’t feeling good. She was pregnant, with Wen’s baby, and his wife was threatening him. He would have to choose between Cal and his daughter, without knowing that she was having his baby.

“Janet, what the fuck are you on about this time? I told you that I wouldn’t put up with you doing this to us again. You can’t even fucking stand to be around me. Why? Why the fuck do you keep doing this?”

“Because you’re mine! We’re married! And I won’t have you make a mockery of that. It’s bad enough that Alyssa is old enough to see the tabloid shots of you and that whore together. She knows you’ve been choosing that bitch over us.”

“What the fuck did you just say?” Wen roared. I swear they heard him all the way on stage, because there was a stutter in the drum beat. There and then back on track again in an instant, but I caught it and noticed that Cal had slid over a bit on the stage, her eyes trained our way as she sang now. She couldn’t see me from where I stood, but there was no mistaking that she saw who Wen was fighting with. She never missed a note, but something changed in her voice. It faltered a bit, flattened out, lost some of the magic that held sway over the audience.

Wen noticed too, his eyes met Cal’s for a brief moment, the devastation clear for both of them. Jesus, he was going to do it. He was going to leave her again. I wondered if she would survive it, especially now, with the news of what their future was supposed to look like?

Janet and Wen continued their argument, and then Janet left. Her ultimatum hung heavily in the air around us as Wen turned and noticed me, finally. With a heavy sigh, he moved toward me. “She’s going to need a good friend until I can get this straightened out,” he told me. I shook my head.

“You’re making a mistake,” I whispered, but he heard my words, even above the din of the crowd roaring around us, begging for more from the band made of beautiful, ridiculously talented bombshells.

“No matter what I do, it’ll be a mistake to someone,” he told me, voice defeated as the women of Dusty Rose came off stage. Cal took one look at the man she was desperately in love with and shook her head.

“Not this time, Wen,” she told him.

“I have to. Alyssa,” he started, but Cal shook her head even more vehemently then. “No.” The single word was just a whisper, but that one quiet little syllable held the weight of the world.

“She’s given me no choice, Calli,” he told her.

Calista grabbed hold of my hand, squeezed tightly, then turned on her heels and started dragging me from the space where I’d been hiding out all night. As we moved, we passed Gabe.

“Mel?” He questioned. The movement of my head back and forth before he glanced down to see my hand held so tightly by Cal must have told him everything he needed to know. “Damn it, Wen,” he hissed and moved toward the stage instead.

“You can’t tell him, or anyone else,” Cal ordered me as we continued our fast-paced, angry march through the back halls of the amphitheater.

“I would never,” I tried explaining, but to be honest, I was slightly out of breath trying to keep pace with the speedy little thing leading me away from everyone. “Cal, I need you to slow down.”

She stopped dead in her tracks then. “Shit! I’m sorry, I just… I needed… Fuck! I can’t believe this is happening again, now. I thought since Alyssa was older now, this would come to an end. He promised it wouldn’t happen again. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know, but you have time to figure things out. I saw what went down between them, honey. He didn’t just roll over. You need to know that it was nasty and she made threats,” I was telling her when she stopped me.

“She always makes threats. Everyone has told him he needs to have her locked up or at the very least, declared unfit.”

“Why hasn’t he?”

“Because she’s always been a good mom, even if she is a shitty human being in every other way possible. That cunt dotes on that child.”

“I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with this.”

“Again,” Calista added. “I’m having to deal with this again. This is the last time though. I can’t do this anymore, Mel.” She burst into tears and I held onto her, knowing that her heart was breaking and to her, it probably felt like every piece of her was being torn apart with that one vital organ. I could still hear the music rumbling the building as Valhalla Rising played their set, as Calista cried her heart out, drenching the shoulder of my shirt as she did. “I know I pushed for it, but Mel, don’t get involved with any of them. This is the kind of devastation it leads to. There’s not a single good man out there in the rock star world.”

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