Page 19 of Fractured Frets

Yes. We did.

And I wouldn’t miss it.

Once Jade and Filipe left, I grabbed the pain-killers off the desk and walked into the bathroom. I grabbed a glass of water, opened the bottle, and stared at the meds. Memories of Phil filled my head. Him, doing lines of coke at breakfast. Popping pills before a show. Swallowing God-only-knew-what at parties. How skinny and sick he looked before he died. My breath shuddered through my chest. I didn’t want to end up like that. I wouldn’t. Not ever.

These pills were a temporary solution until I got home.

I had too much to live for—my music, my friends...my wife.

I tightened my grip around the bottle. I clenched my teeth and swore to never falter. I’d get this pain under control.

I just needed to dial it down a few notches on stage.

That was easier said than done. But I had to.

I will.

I took a sip of water and swallowed one pill.

Now I had to make it through dinner.

Chapter 7

SLIP

In the lobby restaurant, I took a seat at the bar and ordered an Asahi beer. As I took a long sip of the cold ale, camera flashes caught my eye. No such thing as peace! I looked up and my friends ambled across the foyer, security tailing them. Flint flicked back the curtain of long black hair that covered his face. His eyes glinted as he waved toward the group of giggling girls standing by the check-in counter with their cell phones pointed at him and the guys. Cole kept his pace set on cruise as he draped his leather jacket over his shoulder, and Lewis strode beside him with his hands tucked into the oversized pockets on his long woolen coat. Several young female guests at a nearby table whispered frantically and pointed in our direction as the guys joined me. Yep, we attracted attention wherever we went. Good. Bad. Never indifferent.

“Dude, you made it in one piece.” Cole slapped me on the back, clutched my shoulder, and gave me a gentle shake.

“Just.” I swiveled on my bar stool to face them.

“You and Mads sent the Internet into meltdown. Well done, buddy.” Humor skipped through Lewis’s tone as he leaned against the bar counter. “Party-loving rocker corrupts Hollywood actress. That sounds like someone else we know.” Lewis grinned as he tapped Flint’s ankle with his boot.

“Hey.” Flint flung his arm around Lewis and ruffled his hair. “I’m just showing him how it’s done.”

“So you’ve read the truth about Mads and me online.” I chuckled, but that didn’t stop a low blow from hitting my guts. Some days, no matter what the guys and I did, we couldn’t avoid the headlines. Maddy and I had been in this game long enough to know that venturing out in public often resulted in photos hitting the Internet. But our spontaneous wedding had generated a whole new level of frantic gossip and intrigue. Fuck, I was over that crap. Yes, we’d been out drinking, dancing, and laughing, but we hadn’t been stumbling down the streets or vomiting in the gutters or causing havoc in the casinos. We’d just been having fun—time out from our hectic lives. A moment to let our hair down and be ourselves...not the stars everyone wanted or expected us to be.

But the gossip we’d caused had been ludicrous.

Not one of the online stories had said we looked happy or in love, or were having a blast of a time. Instead, they’d focused on the bullshit, reporting lies and vicious rumors.

I rubbed the back of my neck and puffed air through my nose. “Did you see the articles saying we had a shotgun wedding because Mads is pregnant?”

“Yep . . . is she?” Cole raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No. You fuck.” Laughing, I jabbed him in the ribs. “We use birth control. Always have.” Maddy had adamantly taken the pill since she was seventeen, and we’d used condoms until a few months ago. “...Unlike some.” I jeered at him and then waved toward his three-year-old daughter, Charlotte as she ran out of the elevator ahead of Harper and stopped to smell the flowers in the foyer. Finding out he had a kid six months ago had been earth-shattering. Taking custody of Charlotte after her mother had died had been life changing. As it would be. But he’d stepped up and blown us all away by toning down his wild ways and becoming a doting dad. Ava, his ex-bodyguard-now-girlfriend, had a lot to do with that too.

“Ouch...but I didn’t marry someone on a drunken bender.” Cole chuckled, clipping me over the head.

“Okay.” I held up my hands. Damn, I loved these guys. “We’ve known each other way too long and could throw low blows at each other all night. You wanna keep going?”

“Nah.” Cole swung his arm around my shoulders and half-hugged me. “I’d much rather fucking celebrate.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“So, did you and Mads work everything out?” Lewis shrugged off his coat and placed it on a spare stool.

“Nope.” I shook my head. We were nowhere near sorting things out. We hadn’t had time for any in-depth conversations. After we’d woken late on Saturday morning, we’d had to deal with our publicists and our families, and then I’d had to leave. “We’re not as solid as I’d like, but she’s willing to give us a shot for at least the next twelve months. I just have to work on convincing her we’re a good thing and meant to be together forever.”

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