Page 21 of Bonding the Band

I pressed my lips together.

“Meadow Marie Reed. You tell me who your baby daddy is right now if you know.”

“Um…” I sucked in a slow breath. “It might be a band member?”

“Awhat?!” Clover shrieked. “You slept with someone from Hard Knot Life? When? How? Who? I need every illicit detail you can scrounge out of that beautiful head of yours.”

“I didn’tknowit was a band member when we met. I never bothered to look them up before we went ’cause it’syourthing, not mine. He was just really cute and smelledamaaazing. It was a weak moment, nothing more.”

Realization dawned in Clover’s eyes. “Oh my god. Apollo dipped out of the VIP early. MEADOW! IS APOLLO YOUR BABY DADDY?!”

I grimaced. “Unfortunately.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh. My. God. I think I might faint.” Clover snatched up one of our couch pillows and screamed into it. “My best friend is having a rock star’s baby! Holy shit. Meads, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was mostly trying to live in blissful ignorance.”

“Girl, you’ve been hurling your guts out. This is the opposite of bliss. You have to tell him.”

“I tried. Management said I could reach out and ask for a paternity test once the baby is born, but otherwise, they’re not letting me contact him.”

“Those absolute fuckers. Do they know that you’re bonded?”

I shook my head. “It already felt vulnerable enough telling them I was pregnant.”

Clover got up to pace the room. “Okay. Their Salt Lake show is already sold out, but I bet you we can get some tickets from scalpers. Let me snoop.” She hauled her laptop out of her bag and got to work searching for tickets while I lay on the cool tile.

“What if he doesn’t want me?”

“Then Hard Knot Life is going to be down a lead singer.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, despite my misery. I would never ask her to, but it was sweet that Clover’s first response was to threaten homicide on my behalf.

“These assholes are trying to sell tickets for twelve hundred bucks. That’s obscene.”

“I can’t ask you to pay that. I can go by myself.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not letting you drive to Salt Lake City by yourself in this condition. We’re going on a besties road trip. I’ll use my emergency credit card.”

“And what about when your parents ask what it was for? They’re not going to think a concert is an emergency.”

“Don’t worry about them. My parents are my problem.”

Within the next fifteen minutes, Clover had negotiated purchasing tickets. No one was selling backstage passes right now, but if I could at least get into the building with them, maybe someone would take pity on me.

Hopefully I survived until then.

Chapter 9

Arlo

June, Los Angeles

“Gary won’t go for it,” I said, lounging back on the couch, an unopened can of beer in hand.

“I don’t give two fucks about what that dickhead wants,” Beckett growled as he angrily tapped at his phone. “Henny needs a doctor who can prescribe actual medicine, not Gary’s special pills.”

Hendrix was still doing terribly. It had been weeks of him vomiting, nearly keeling over during practices, and looking like a lightly animated corpse. Yet, right before we got on stage, Gary would give him something, and he would inexplicably perk up and be able to do the entire show with no issues.

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